Starting a Cleaning Business – Read This First
Starting a cleaning business is a popular work from home opportunity. It offers many avenues for business, from house cleaning services to office cleaning contracts. But you need to think carefully before starting a cleaning business. There are many factors to consider. Obviously, the profitability and return on investment is a major consideration.
There are many websites that suggest that starting a cleaning business requires $10,000 in capital and $10,000 as a reserve. Initially, this may seem encouraging – especially when compared to the cost of a cleaning business franchise which could set you back anywhere between $25,000 – $100,000. However, when you research the cleaning industry more thoroughly, you will find there are much more profitable avenues for business.
Making your own cleaning products is not only a great stand alone venture, it substantially minimizes your start-up and ongoing costs in a cleaning business. The cost of starting a cleaning product and chemical manufacturing business is substantially lower than starting a cleaning business. It can be operated from your home or a workshop, and you can get started for less than $2500 – manufacturing dozens of different products.
Starting a cleaning business requires a considerable investment, not only in terms of capital but also time and energy. Cleaning is a labour-intensive task and physically demanding. Finding good staff and training them will not necessarily be easy.
In comparison, cleaning product and chemical manufacturing is surprisingly fast and easy – you can make hundreds of liters in less than an hour, without expensive equipment. By following common sense, basic safety procedures, it is extremely safe and anyone can do it. Despite what most people think, you don’t need special qualifications – if you can understand grade five maths, you can easily make cleaning and chemical formulas.
By starting a cleaning business you will be entering a highly competitive industry, and consequently you will need to keep your pricing at a comparable level. It may take some time to see a reasonable return.
The chemical manufacturing industry, however, has little competition when you compare the number of manufacturers to the billions of everyday consumers worldwide. It is mostly monopolized by a handful of large multi-national corporations. Previously, it was extremely difficult for anyone to break into this industry, because the formulations were closely guarded. Consequently, these companies have been able to dictate prices and work on profit margins of up to 1000 % – in some cases, even more.
Compared to starting a cleaning business, manufacturing cleaning and chemical formulas offers an extremely low start up cost and exceptionally high profit margins. You can make a bottle of disinfectant for less than 50 cents, and sell it for $5 – this kind of return cannot be achieved in many other industries, especially for such a low capital investment.
If you have your heart set on starting a cleaning business, manufacturing your own products not only gives you great cost savings, but it allows you to sell your products to many others – your customers, retailers and maybe even your competitors.