My Wife Is Starting An End Of Tenancy Cleaning Business.

[Chatter Gear]

Hello All,

As per the title my wife is starting an end of tenancy cleaning business in our local area but our immediate thought is how to generate customers?

I wondered if anyone had any experience in this area or anyone has any ideas?

Leaflet drops - Wont be highly targeted at all as we wont know who are landlords or tenants let alone who would want our service.

Social Media - A lot of effort for little return.

Newspaper Ads - Very hit and miss and not really something that someone would search for in a news paper IMO.

????????????? A little lost any ideas???

Thanks - Scott.

 

[Food From Cyprus]

Website?

 

[Ste Hughes]

The internet will be a great start!

Keywords such as "cleaning in *your town*" are unlikely to be competitive terms to rank for. A quick blast with some web 2.0's and you will probably be ranking pretty soon.

Another route will be social media, set up an auto responder for people mentioning they are looking for cleaners.

I'd also get out there with some business cards and introduce yourself to some estate agents and people who deal with this sort of business. Explain who you are, what you do and just say your available if they ever need you.

Another decent route to take may be shop windows. Stick up a card or poster (with their permission of course)

 

[Chatter Gear]

The internet will be a great start!

Keywords such as "cleaning in *your town*" are unlikely to be competitive terms to rank for. A quick blast with some web 2.0's and you will probably be ranking pretty soon.

Another route will be social media, set up an auto responder for people mentioning they are looking for cleaners.

I'd also get out there with some business cards and introduce yourself to some estate agents and people who deal with this sort of business. Explain who you are, what you do and just say your available if they ever need you.

Another decent route to take may be shop windows. Stick up a card or poster (with their permission of course)

Thanks Ste....

I like the idea of cards in windows cant be too expensive I guess!

I think, although I don't know for a fact - estate agents probably use a large commercial contractor on very cheap hourly rates with foreigner staff from Europe etc.

Maybe small independent estate agents might be worth a try....

 

[FirstClassVirtualOffice]

Social media would be good as you can connect with landlords and letting agents who are advertising properties in the various groups on Facebook, etc.

You need to get in touch with with letting agencies who mostly sort out the end of tenancy cleaning. Also, try emailing or calling them direct. No harm in asking as cleaners have a high churn rate due to reliability, etc, with it usually being a NMW job.

 

[Chatter Gear]

Thanks All some great ideas here and defo a few ideas for us to try!

 

[Alan]

Landlords would first ask their letting agent for recommended companies.

If they don't use a letting agent, they would ask google.

So

Step 1: Get to know all the letting agents locally, visit them personally, buy them coffee and cake, leave them your cards

Step 2: get your Google + Business local page set up http://www.google.com/+/business/

Step 3: get a website and optimise it for a few local keywords relating to end of tenancy cleaning

 

[Magsite]

Defo approach local estate agents, also if you live near a military garrison check there as when married military are posted elsewhere they have to hand back their military quarters in a clean state

 

[SamStones]

Can I ask why she is specifically targeting the end of tenancy market without any particular inside track to gaining customers in this niche?

Finding customers is going to be extremely difficult for such a niche market and will likely eat up a lot of your time.

As others have said, your local estate agents seem to be the best bet as they have an instant database of potential clients. I like the coffee and cake idea, and I'd also consider offering them a commission on any work they put your way. This way they will do your advertising for you.

From what you've said so far I would certainly re evaluate your reasons for restricting yourself to such a niche. Sure you can target a niche like this as part of a wider business plan but there's no need to restrict yourself to this.

 

[KeithP]

Interesting thread as my Wife started her own cleaning business a few months ago so we did a LOT of research into the market. Rather than boring you with all the things we discovered, most of that research was put into place when we build the website - Blitzable

We found social media works very well (paid and free) IF you've got a good website as you really want to use social media to drive people to your website where (hopefully) it will convert them into a customer. We used Facebook ads with some eye-catching adverts and they worked incredibly well.

The major takeaway would be to invest in a decent website (I know I'm biased) as in our area, the biggest failing of most of our competitors was their shoddy website and weak marketing (why use your services over any other cleaning company?). What you'll find is that whatever marketing you do, most potential customers will check you out via your website first so if it's not fit for purpose, all your other marketing efforts will be undermined.

We've had so much positive feedback, and more importantly, we're about 300% over our business plan projection so if you can afford it, spend as much as you can on getting a professional website built and use it as the focus for all your online and offline marketing efforts

Hope that helps and best of luck.

 

[FirstClassVirtualOffice]

Wow, need to go get my sunglasses first KeithP!

Edited to say your video is quite clever.

 

[KeithP]

Wow, need to go get my sunglasses first KeithP!

Edited to say your video is quite clever.

LOL - I can't take any credit/criticism for the colour scheme - the Clients knows best apparently (more so when the Client is your Wife).

 

[ThePublisher]

One of my customers who is a cleaner who does end of tenant cleans amongst other things. He approached estate agents and they called him when they'd been let down by somebody else. Over time theyv'e got to know he does a good job. However don't forget with estate agents you're unlikely to be paid very quickly for individual jobs.

 

[14Steve14]

Not that it will get you any work, but why not contact the people that in many cases do the end of tenancy property inspection. They may recommend you, Just thinking out of the box a bit. Failing that, why not see if they will put a link on their site back to yours..

 

[SwindonSteve]

Not that it will get you any work, but why not contact the people that in many cases do the end of tenancy property inspection. They may recommend you, Just thinking out of the box a bit. Failing that, why not see if they will put a link on their site back to yours..

Just what I was going to say. Most agents sub the inventory checks out so a bit of teamwork with them or maybe an introduction to an agent or two might help.

 

[Talay]

End of tenancy is trying to cherry pick and the market is too niche to make it a worthwhile proposition outside a one girl band with a sidekick helper. By all means have a EOT price list and a special one for agents (as they'll want to mark it up and get a kick back) but if you're looking at a real business with staff doing the cleaning, you'll need to cast a much wider net than EOT cleaning.

Also, don't think that you can work for a pittance and then extrapolate that out to X hundred homes to make fifty grand a week. You can't. Pricing is a race to the bottom and one reason we sold out at the end of last year.

Any Tom, Dick or Harry can open a cleaning company and pay peanuts. To quote Blitzable's (the poster above) website, paying 15% over minimum wage is a whole 95p an hour more. This is more than some but less than most to be honest. Finding decent people to work legitimately for sub £8 an hour is hard; finding crap people at any price is easy.

Pricing per hour or per job is your first conundrum outside fixed price work. If you price per job, customers will always come back to what it is per hour and if, like Molly Maid, you're quoting X hours and then only doing half X each time, whilst still claiming the same set fee, you'll be in trouble. However, go in too optimistic and with rates which are not truly thought out and you'll get loads of jobs and make no money.

Remember, driving to a job or back from one is lost time and you need to think all your costs through right down to depreciation of your vehicles in years ahead to work out whether you are truly pricing correctly.

First question is what cloths are you using ? Microfibre obviously but e-cloths ? cheapo versions ? bulk or not ? Then which cleaning liquids ? Ease and quality is the key. Drop me a line if you want as we used to do this in the UK and overseas for hundreds of properties.

 

[bsummers]

For local marketing, I would suggest flyers and networking. I think that will work best. Try to interact with the community more. A website does not hurt either since almost everyone turn to the internet for research. Social media is a good way to advertise however it may take time. Just remember to use the right keywords like cleaning in your profiles.

 

[michaelmc]

If I was you I would continually browse local flats to let in your area online and start pulling together a database that you can send mail shots out to periodically - that's in addition to a good website.

 

[Chatter Gear]

Hi All,

What a great response here thanks so much. Going back to my original point and to touch on a couple of questions;

We don't want to do cleaning in general as its minimum wage, we also don't want to grow rapidly and outsource everything. We want to remain small but busy and only focus on end of tenancy cleaning as there are very good profits if you can remain busy and keep a tight local radius.

Estate agents have been mentioned many times but any estate agent that has more than 3 locations will outsource to a large company at a very low rate - we will never be able to compete with this. Ever.

Social media, for our market and radius is a huge amount of effort to try and find local people needing end of tenancy cleans - this is a problem.

I think a good website with an Ad Word campaign will be the only way to go by the sounds of it.

!?

 

[Chatter Gear]

End of tenancy is trying to cherry pick and the market is too niche to make it a worthwhile proposition outside a one girl band with a sidekick helper. By all means have a EOT price list and a special one for agents (as they'll want to mark it up and get a kick back) but if you're looking at a real business with staff doing the cleaning, you'll need to cast a much wider net than EOT cleaning.

Also, don't think that you can work for a pittance and then extrapolate that out to X hundred homes to make fifty grand a week. You can't. Pricing is a race to the bottom and one reason we sold out at the end of last year.

Any Tom, Dick or Harry can open a cleaning company and pay peanuts. To quote Blitzable's (the poster above) website, paying 15% over minimum wage is a whole 95p an hour more. This is more than some but less than most to be honest. Finding decent people to work legitimately for sub £8 an hour is hard; finding crap people at any price is easy.

Pricing per hour or per job is your first conundrum outside fixed price work. If you price per job, customers will always come back to what it is per hour and if, like Molly Maid, you're quoting X hours and then only doing half X each time, whilst still claiming the same set fee, you'll be in trouble. However, go in too optimistic and with rates which are not truly thought out and you'll get loads of jobs and make no money.

Remember, driving to a job or back from one is lost time and you need to think all your costs through right down to depreciation of your vehicles in years ahead to work out whether you are truly pricing correctly.

First question is what cloths are you using ? Microfibre obviously but e-cloths ? cheapo versions ? bulk or not ? Then which cleaning liquids ? Ease and quality is the key. Drop me a line if you want as we used to do this in the UK and overseas for hundreds of properties.

There is only money in EOT cleaning, everything else is low margin. If you can remain busy in a fairly small radius there are huge profits in this for one man/woman bands.

But, its a catch 22 because of the business being niche.

 

[dingbat]

There's money in all cleaning in my book. Loads of lazy rich people and professionals willing to hand over money to get their home cleaned up...which would take them all of 30 minutes to do.

I like the Blitzable site btw. Colours are cool.

 

[Ben987]

I've worked for some of the largest estate agent groups in the UK and can assure you that these are going to be your best bet when it comes to finding business.

None of the national companies used large established cleaning businesses. Everything is all about margin, and it is far cheaper for them to use small in dependant cleaners who don't have to mark up work as they do the cleans themselves. It's actually the smaller agents who are more likely to use the large cleaning companies. Target the big boys, do a good job, you'll get business back quickly!

 

[jemtcox]

Word of mouth is always the best way!

 

[iconic]

There is only money in EOT cleaning, everything else is low margin.

Ignorance is bliss

 

[cautiouscapy]

I think, although I don't know for a fact - estate agents probably use a large commercial contractor on very cheap hourly rates with foreigner staff from Europe etc.

Maybe small independent estate agents might be worth a try....

Why don't you make up reasons why it's not worth bothering without even asking ;-)

Maybe the letting agent your wife visits has JUST given up on their large commercial contractor...maybe they will fire them next week because they're tired of the shoddy work and have just met an honest, reliable-seeming small business (your wife's).

The lady that used to clean my house got a lot of work from letting agents.
She was reliable, and if staff let her down, she'd get on and do the job herself.

Word of mouth made her very , very busy.

Some landlords have many properties, and know other landlords. Your wife just has to get in with one and do a good job, ask to be recommended to others.

 

[Talay]

There is only money in EOT cleaning, everything else is low margin. If you can remain busy in a fairly small radius there are huge profits in this for one man/woman bands.

But, its a catch 22 because of the business being niche.

Nonsense. One man bands cannot generate "huge profits" and EOT is not the only place where the money is.

However, since 2008, every man, woman and dog is trying their own hand at business rather than working for minimum wage and if you couple this with half a gazillion immigrants willing to work for less than the legal minimum wage (and agents employing them as such and customers turning a blind eye), you have a shrinking customer base that is never coming back.

This is the real problem. Folk still need cleaning but there has been a seismic shift in attitudes and even an upturn in the economy is not (and I suspect never will) make people as free with their money as they once were. Few have been unaffected by the recession and people are sh*t scared of another.

 

[dpasssupportservices]

You could visit facebook social media sites to find potential clients or customers, your partner may be able to gain experience through hands on however please be aware that research is vital in any business

 

[Chatter Gear]

Ignorance is bliss

Its true, give me one example of high margin domestic house cleaning other than EOT?????????

 

[Chatter Gear]

Nonsense. One man bands cannot generate "huge profits" and EOT is not the only place where the money is.

However, since 2008, every man, woman and dog is trying their own hand at business rather than working for minimum wage and if you couple this with half a gazillion immigrants willing to work for less than the legal minimum wage (and agents employing them as such and customers turning a blind eye), you have a shrinking customer base that is never coming back.

This is the real problem. Folk still need cleaning but there has been a seismic shift in attitudes and even an upturn in the economy is not (and I suspect never will) make people as free with their money as they once were. Few have been unaffected by the recession and people are sh*t scared of another.

In terms of the domestic cleaning industry EOT cleaning is the only route to high margins.... I am not saying business in general I just mean the domestic cleaning industry....

Give me one other example???

 

[iconic]

In terms of the domestic cleaning industry EOT cleaning is the only route to high margins.... I am not saying business in general I just mean the domestic cleaning industry....

Give me one other example???

Window Cleaning

 

[Blue Steel]

Might be worth spending some time on sites landlords hang out on such as Landlord Zone Forum you will find landlords on here with single and multiple properties who should shed some light on how they locate and choose cleaning companies.

And add yourself to the long list of cleaning services text ads I doubt it will generate much / anything but it is free

Might be wise to try the old yellow pages trick from back in the day ABC123 Cleaning type name

 

[NickGrogan]

In terms of the domestic cleaning industry EOT cleaning is the only route to high margins.... I am not saying business in general I just mean the domestic cleaning industry....

Give me one other example???

Why do you think EOT cleaning is high margin? Not sure why it would be, not that much different from normal cleaning and landlords/agents are not known for throwing money around.

Forensic cleaning is high price & high margin and a steady demand.

 

[hcscheshire]

all being honest EOT now people are charging an hourly rate. You will get better money from estate agents and so on but you will possibly find that they already have companies they use

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/forums/ - Such places might be the best way to promote your business.