I started a home cleaning business 3 years ago and it’s not profitable. It’s an easy entry business so there is too much competition and it’s difficult to differentiate in this type of business. Everyone claims they provide a quality service. The worst part is that most competitors are using low prices to compete-so a race to the bottom. Looking for advice on how to salvage this?

  • MoneyGrinch@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    There are 7 levers you can pull to make your business more profitable and increase your cash flow.

    Here they are.

    1. Increase your price. Less customers higher rates is way better then low rates lots of customers. This was the single greatest lever i pulled. Got rid of the deadwood customers and it goes straight to the bottom line.
    2. Increase your sales volume ie more jobs
    3. Decrease you cost of goods. By cheaper cleaning products.
    4. Decrease your overheads. I.e negotiate cheaper rent or if you’re paying a loan for van negotiate cheaper rates.
    5. Decrease the time it takes to collect money.
    6. Decrease the amount of inventory you have on hand. Ie less cleaning product untill you need it
    7. Increase the average time to pay supliers. Ie if you could negotiate 30 to 60 day terms where you buy your cleaning products.

    If you can move each of these up or down 1% you would not recognise your business in 1 year…

  • tmblast1@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Check out local falcon (SEO tool) to see how well you rank for your cleaning keywords around your business location. You might not be ranking well, which could hindering the number of leads you get monthly

  • Anon-Because@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    If you compete on price you will lose. It’s true in almost every industry.

    I would focus only on upper middle class people. They will pay well for good service, which means show up when you are scheduled, clean everything, don’t break anything, leave them alone.

    And while they have money, many are still looking to save where they can. So offer them one free cleaning for each client they refer, but make it a caveat it has to be someone in their neighborhood. That way it will be a pricier job and be someone in a similar payrange.

    Competing on price is the worst thing you can do, so never do it.

  • RamsinJacobRealty@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Contact every single real estate agent in your area. You’ll save time by going to brokerage offices. Call them. Ask the broker if you can have 5 mins to speak at their weekly meeting (if they have one). Agent information is very easy to find online.

    Agents will need cleaners a lot of times for their listings.

  • Herronrock@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Who is your ideal client? How are you currently marketing? How many slots are vacant on your weekly calendar?

  • PickTheBroom@alien.topOPBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Thanks. I’ll find out where to market to upper middle class homes and focus on that. You are the third person suggesting it

  • Fit_Opinion2465@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Can I ask why you’re not profitable? You’re losing money on every job? Or overspending on marketing?

    • PickTheBroom@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      Few clients so not much money left over for marketing. Scared of putting in lots of money in marketing coz what if it doesn’t work out and I have salaries to pay? It becomes an endless cycle. Also not making much money from the few jobs coz we are being pushed to compete on price. But the biggest problem from people’s suggestions here seems to be that I’m not marketing enough

  • naripan@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    In marketing there are three categories that you need to align with the competitors and choose one to excel more than them:

    1. Product - this is about what you use to clean and whether there are advantage to this over what your competitors use
    2. Operational - this is about how you do it. It’s whether you can do it faster, you can cut the cost higher, or you have a better after sales service
    3. Relationship - this is about you and your customer, how close you are to them. The closer you are, the less likely they will choose others despite of difference in price and service
  • HumbleBurritoo@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    How have you been marketing yourself? Do you have a website? Social media? Handing out panflets? Start a cleaning blog to gather emails for email marketing?

    I’m a Social media manager - happy to discuss the best ways to hit your target clients!

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    1·
    10 months ago

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  • finx25@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    1. Hire more sdr’s (cold calling)

    2. I bet that most of those cleaning companies aren’t active on TikTok/LinkedIn - so you could use chat gpt got to generate content ideas + scripts and then post content on these platforms to build a brand