With the economy in a slump, there are more and more households that are in need of a cleaning service. This is because parents have to find more ways to augment their incomes since it cannot cover the rising expenditures. Also, commercial office spaces and stores have recently realized the savings they could acquire in hiring outside cleaning service.

If you are trying to start a business that will not require a big capital, or even long working hours, then the cleaning business is probably right for you.

Here are the steps you could follow to start your own commercial or residential cleaning service.

1. Decide what type of cleaning service you would like to put up. Take a look around your neighborhood or around the commercial center in your area. Try to determine which would be a better and more profitable option for you. If you find out for example that there is a lack of cleaning services in your neighborhood, you could consider opening a maid service.

2. Take a look at the cleaning equipment you have inside the house. Most cleaning services start with a vacuum. You can do that too. If you want to start a janitorial service, you may want to invest in a more powerful vacuum, and carpet cleaning equipment too. If you still do not have the money for this, ask your local grocery store owners or cleaning shop owners if they rent out some of the equipment you might need.

3. Find out how you can reach out to the market. You will need some form of advertisement of course. For the maid services, this could just be flyers slipped into mailboxes or under the door. For janitorial services, you may need to print out business cards plus brochures on your fees and services offered. You will have to come up to office managers and sell your service. For commercial cleaning services, there are other clientele that can be found in schools, churches, warehouses, and retail stores.

4. Think about the possibility of hiring one or two employees. This is not a must especially at the very beginning of your business. Start ups would normally just require one person to clean (you) since you are just establishing your reputation and still looking for steady clients. However, if you already have more customers and cleaning jobs than you can handle, you might want to have at least one person to help you out. S/he will need to train under you and you have to make sure that s/he doesn’t tarnish your image in anyway.

5. Consider insurance. In the cleaning business, it is highly possible that at some point, you might cause damage to things and places that you clean. There also might be untoward accidents that can involve you, your employees, or your clients. It would be best to look into getting insurance as a protection in instances such as the ones mentioned.

More info: How to start a cleaning service