A squeaky clean franchise

The number of double income families seems to be rising considerably. High powered careers come with high demands and expectations, restricting the amount of leisure time available. Recent articles in The Age and the Herald Sun highlighted how individuals with such demanding careers would rather spend quality time with family and friends than doing household chores. They have the financial capability of paying for such services and would much rather such things were done by experts. This enables cleaning service businesses to gain considerably from such a growing demand in the market.

What does the industry involve?

First of all there are 2 different groups that cater to different target audiences: 

• Commercial
• Consumer

The commercial area includes janitorial services whereas the consumer area could include services from residential maid services, carpet cleaning services and window cleaning services. Car cleaning services are also more consumer oriented.

Various areas that can be looked at inlcude:

• Janitorial Service 
• Carpet and upholstery cleaning service 
• Car Cleaning

Janitorial services would include residential maid services for individual consumers and cleaning services for companies. Franchisees can choose to specialise solely in carpet and upholstery cleaning services or combine that with the residential maid services. Car cleaning services is the third area to specialise in. A car cleaning service can be mobile, where you go to the door step of your consumer, or there is a facility where consumers can bring their car in to get it serviced. Taking the business to the consumer’s door step could help to save in maintenance costs of managing the cleaning facility.

Residential maid services may incur only the cost of training employees, however with carpet and upholstery cleaning services and car cleaning services there may be special equipment that needs to be invested in. Additionally, people may need to be trained in operating such equipment which could carry a cost.

What is to be gained?

First of all understand that this is a profitable business where revenue stands to be generated quickly. This business can be run on a part time or full time basis with the option of running it from a commercial location or home. The business model is extremely flexible and this is where its appeal lies.

Various areas can be specialised in and various ways depending on preferences and skills. If you are the kind of person who likes to work by yourself you can choose to keep your operation small whereas if you good administration skills you can choose to co-ordinate and manage various cleaning teams.

How do I get started?

There are 2 options here. You can either choose to start and independent operation or become a franchisee of an already established cleaning service.

Starting an independent business can be a big gamble as there is not an established system in place to guide the business, the only way to learn is though the process of trial and error. This means that in the situation that an error is made, it could mean big losses for the business.

However, buying into a franchising system that is already established provides you with guidelines that enable you to make the right decision for your business. A number of cleaning service organisations provide training and support that make it easy to get started. They tend to also provide advertising and marketing support.

Using the example of dial a concierge, the franchise company provides the following services to its franchisees:

• Initial and ongoing training and support 
• Group training and business coaching 
• Effective advertising and sales promotion 
• Massive 10 + 10 year franchise term 
• Strong cashflow 
• Flat rate management fee 
• Work guarantee 
• Large client demand in a niche market 
• Fantastic return on investment 
• Low overheads 
• Dial a concierge Website

This all comes with the added benefit of having an established brand name and reputation to work under. Reputation stands to be the key in such an industry, a reputation of honesty that is. Honesty is the most important aspect of this business. When people let you into their homes or companies they need to be able to trust you. Creating such a reputation with a newly established business can prove to be quite the formidable challenge.

What would you need to get you started?

Once you have decided what you area you would like to get into and how to plan to get yourself started, you will need certain basic resources to get you started.

• Commercial location

This depends on if you have chosen to work from home or rent out or buy a certain location. Just be aware that with a commercial location and maintenance costs you might need to charge a higher fee in order for the business to make profit. 

• Employees

This is the most crucial resources that enables running of this business.

• Vehicles

After employees this is the second most important resource you will need. Depending on what equipment you need to run the business buy a vehicle that accommodates that equipment. 

This article appears courtesy of franchise consultants, Franchise Central .