A well-kept secret among window cleaners is how profitable the business can really be. It is not at all uncommon to complete two houses in a single seven hour day and get paid 0 in cash for each house. Here’s how it is done:

The first step – and this is the hardest part for those who have just started a window cleaning business – is to find those two customers. After being in business for a while, much of the work will come from existing customers. They typically have their windows cleaned every three months – Spring, Summer and Fall. Most successful window cleaners say flyers work well for finding new customers. Be sure to target the better neighborhoods though, as the more affluent homeowners are much more likely to hire a pro than clean their own windows.

Free House Cleaning Flyers

Once you’ve found the customers, the next step is to get to work. One of the big advantages of starting a window cleaning business is the low cost of “tooling up”. Even buying the Pro grade equipment, a basic window cleaning tool kit should set you back less than 0. Make sure to add extension poles to your tool kit, as this will allow you to reach most second story windows from the ground, allowing you to work faster and safer.

Can You Really Make 0 a Day Cleaning Windows?

To be as productive as possible, and complete two homes in a day, most window cleaners plan a work path around the house carefully. Second story windows and difficult windows first, then the easier ground floor windows last. This prevents any drips or dirt from the upper windows from getting on clean windows below. Screens are usually dry-brushed or wiped with a rag.

Get your customers to help you complete your job faster by asking – when you schedule their job – that they trim back any landscaping plants that block access to exterior windows. Also ask them to remove anything that blocks access to interior windows, such as knick-knacks on windowsills. Another trick to speed up your window cleaning is to use one of the new dripless holsters that hold almost a pint of water. This will allow you to clean several interior or exterior windows without moving your bucket from window to window.

By paying attention to becoming an efficient window cleaner, you should easily be able to complete two homes in a day. Nationally, the average cost for window cleaning a home is just over 0, so the goal of 0 a day is a reasonable one. It is not uncommon to wrap up three in a long day either. In addition, when you have a window cleaning business, there are so many add-on businesses that are equally profitable.

Gutter cleaning, for example, is a natural add-on service. While you are cleaning the windows, it’s easy to check the gutters to see if they need maintenance as well. The average gutter cleaning job costs 5, and takes around 90 minutes. That’s an hour – even better than cleaning windows!

Quite a few folks start a window cleaning service in their spare time, working just on weekends, and then grow their business to full time. Just by working four Saturdays a month, it’s possible to bring in an extra income of ,400 to ,800.

1. Look for low-cost or free magazines and newspaper advertising. Cities of every size produce magazines and newspapers focused on the local community. These magazines often have lower advertising rates than the largest news publications in your area and can provide a more target customer base. Be careful because not all of these magazines and newspapers are beneficial. Look for the right advertisement to place in the publication. If the newspaper is mostly read by college students then this publication most likely wouldn’t fit your ideal target demographic.

Free House Cleaning Flyers

2. Look for opportunities to post advertisements with associations and businesses. Businesses large and small are always looking for discounts for their employees and provide a fantastic opportunity to post your services at a low-cost or even free. Consult locally owned businesses, even locally owned chains, and see if they would allow you to post a cleaning service flyer for their employees. Most business are willing if you offer some discount or package to their employees such as a 3rd or 5th free housecleaning for everyone who works at a particular business if they sign up with you. You might even be able to post a flyer at local schools and school boards run by parents.

3. Try Craigslist. Craigslist is a largely free internet service focused on providing services and services wanted in local areas. Searching through Craigslist can provide you a pretty good idea about the feasibility of posting an advertisement for your company. You can post advertisements in the “services offered” section, or even in the “free” section if you are offering a one-time free cleaning. If you decide Craigslist is going to be a valid option for you, be sure to carefully write your advertisement to include your contact number, email, and name.

4. Look for undercapitalized opportunities to advertise your housecleaning business. If you don’t want to pay for ad space in your local paper or yellow pages, look for yet unclaimed spaces where you can reach a target audience. Taxi’s are a great option for smaller cities, while public city buses are a good option to reach the general public if you want to do individual homes. Some companies have advertising in their restrooms, grocery shopping carts, back of grocery receipts and movie ads.

5. Try using direct mail to advertise your housecleaning business. We’ve all gotten pieces of mail that we’ve thrown away before we even think about what is inside the envelope. Ever wonder why companies continue to send you those pieces of mail? The comparatively cheap cost of stamps is an easy decision when compared to hundreds of dollars for a radio advertisement. You can use your local voter registration office to get a listing of addresses and names of people. If you decide to use mailings, make sure you have something on the outside of the envelope that will make people want to open your envelope instead of throw it in the trash.

6. Use an online ad system like Google AdWords. Although you might not think about the internet as a way to advertise, an online advertising system like Google AdWords can provide you with the ability to target people in your area who might be looking for a housecleaning service. Google will even make sure you don’t go over budget while telling you how many people saw your ad per day. Using an online system is a very efficient way to get customers and efficiency means less money wasted.

7. Use your current customer base to advertise your housecleaning business. What’s better than free advertising? Not much and your all of your existing customers is an opportunity for free advertising. Pass out coupons, business cards, flyers, and anything else you can think of to your existing customers so they will pass it to their friends and family. One of the most effective ways to encourage your customers to tell their friends about you is by setting up a referral system. You might tell your current customers that for every new customer they refer to you, you will give them one free cleaning a year. The better the deal, the more likely they are to give a referral.

8. Take extra time to self promote. You are your own biggest fan and you should be able to talk to anyone at anytime about your business. If you’re shy talking about yourself in front of people, try putting together flyers about what you do and carry them with you at all times and pass them out when you meet someone new.

Internet Television is gaining ground. The newest rage of the world wide web is video and a lot of people are wondering about the options. A major consideration is how to create a TV show for the Internet. Here are some tips.

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1.) Start in your own back yard. News shows and shows about local life will let you use ‘guerilla marketing’ techniques to promote your show. This will also allow you to harvest local sponsors to generate revenue.

2.) Combine a list of the following:

A.) local high schools and colleges and their

a.) drama departments

b.) Creative Writing departments

c.) Computer Sciences departments

d.) Audio Visual Departments

3.) Design a ‘press release, flyer, or announcent” to for the list above.

*Auditions, Contests, etc. for YOUR NEW SHOW.

4.) Distribute this ‘announcement’ to the schools.

5.) Build your team…

* If you don’t have an idea for a show, let the ‘creative writing’ departments submit ideas and choose the one you like best.

Choose a host, a video camera crew, a writer, a director. Put together the team that you think you need.

6.) Get SET!

If your doing something like a “Sites of Wyoming site,” you’ll need to pick your locations in advance, set up a production schedule, and use the site as your set, but if you’re doing a sit-com type show, you’ll need to design a set. There are several places you can do this. You can build a set anywhere, in your house, in your garage, at a warehouse, in a hotel room, or in a public place like a park.

7.) Start filming…

Depending on whether or not you have a ‘scripted show’ you can just film away and edit later, or you can have rehearsal, learn lines, film and edit later. That will depend on the show you are choosing to create.

8.) The Editing process…

There are quite a few video editing software applications available. Research them all and find what suits you best.

9.) The Final Cut…

Get your video ready. You have your show, you’ve edited it, now, upload to your computer, but do not publish it just yet….

10.) Get Sponsors-

Use the “guerilla marketing techniques” to bring sponsors to your show.

Once you have your sponsors, now you can upload to the web. There are many sites where you can upload your show. Myspace, Youtube, and Metacafe are three of them. Read the terms of service. They may not allow you to sell commercials, use affiliate links, or promote product, and the limitations on disk space may prevent you from entering an entire show in one clip. You may have to break it up into several clips. This could have it’s good points and it’s bad points. Your viewers will have to look at each clip individually, but that will allow far more advertising opportunity.

The best solution to this is to use those free sites to host ‘clips’ of your show, in order to generate interest from other parts of the web, referencing your very own video site where you are not limited on time, space, or methods of promotion.

When was the last time a business sent you a great big “thank you for your business?” If you can’t remember, then it wasn’t very memorable. As much as we don’t want to think of our maid service doing actual house cleaning marketing when they say thank you, that’s exactly what it is. Let’s face it, as a business you want to retain as many long-term clients as possible, otherwise you’re constantly building new relationships.

The Christmas holiday season is the traditional time of the year when we reach out to family, friends and associates to acknowledge their presence in our life. So it’s the perfect time for businesses to tell their customers how much they are appreciated. But don’t just plan to address your current customers; pull out your entire list of past, present and “maybe” customers. Your “maybe” customers are those prospects who asked for an estimate, but never scheduled a service.

Free House Cleaning Flyers

You may be wondering why you should address the “maybe” customers. Well – if you’re planning to use the traditional methods of thanking your customers for their business, this might not be a good idea. That’s because most traditional marketing uses wording such as:

• House Cleaning Marketing to Say Thank You for Your Business
• Thank you for letting us service your residence
•  Thank you for trusting us to serve you
• Thank you for your continued loyalty

That’s fine for your current customers, but your investment in house cleaning marketing should include a way to increase your business reach. What if you could send out a marketing thank you that went further than just your current mailing list? What if it was so “user friendly” that it attracted more than you expected?

Think past the usual marketing and surprise your past, present and future customers with something they will appreciate, something they can use and something they want to send to their friends and family. The usual house cleaning marketing used to say “thank you for your business” is what most customers expect:

• Small Gifts
• A Personal Thank You Note
• A Greeting Card
• Referral Rewards
• A Gift Basket

As you can see, the usual “thank you for your business” is not something that can be shared to take your marketing dollars further. With a large number of house cleaning businesses using their website to capture eMail addresses, you can get creative and think of ways to use eMail. After all, there’s no additional expense to send your eMail and if your budget doesn’t allow you to invest in printed marketing material, this could be the way to go.

Once you decide to use eMail to send your house cleaning marketing message, you’ll need to give some thought to eMail filters that are filtering out messages you thought were being delivered. You can easily get around this by letting your past, current and future customers know they have a special message waiting in their eMail inbox! Now sit back and wait for the referrals to come in after your mailing is shared with others!

Do you enjoy cleaning? Are you interested in starting your own house cleaning business, but you are not sure how to start? The good news is, starting your own house cleaning business is easier than you may think. All it takes is a little focus and hard work in order to get up and running. Once you have a good start, you business can basically run itself.

Before you start, you must consider your strengths and weaknesses. Are you in good physical condition? If not, perhaps cleaning houses is not for you because you will have to do physical labor all day. Are you not good with money? If you do not understand finances, perhaps you should have a family member or friend keep the books for you.

Free House Cleaning Flyers

You will also need to do a little research. What is the average cost for cleaning services in your area? This is important because you do not want to charge more than the average cleaner. Pricing can make or break your house cleaning business. If you live in a larger area, you may want to research where there is a demand for house cleaning services. After all, you do not want to spend all your advertising money in Suburb X when Suburb Y has a shortage of house cleaners. Know your market before you open for business.

How to Start a Housecleaning Business

Finding the first few customers may be your biggest challenge. Most homes now are two income families, so house cleaning may be low on the list of priorities. People are also leery of allowing strangers into their home. Start with your friends. Do they know someone who could use a person to clean their home? People would feel safer knowing that a friend of theirs feels safe allowing this person in their home. Once you have a few customers, these customers will tell their friends about their wonderful cleaner, and your phone may be soon ringing off the hook.

If the customers do not start rolling in, this is where your research will become invaluable. You can place flyers in local libraries, grocery stores, and coffee shops in areas where there is a demand for house cleaning services. You can also have door hangers printed up in a local print shop. Find a neighborhood where you would like to work and take an afternoon to put door hangers on the homes. If you have a child who is old enough, enlist their help. Have them run up and place the hanger on the door.

Starting your own house cleaning business is an excellent opportunity for people who want to set their own schedules. Once you get your business started, you will find that you can make plenty of money on your own terms.

In planning the layout of your restaurant, one good place to start is with any franchise restaurant. These establishments spend a lot of time, and a money, and resources determining the most profitable ways to set up and run their restaurants. Using their layout suggestions in your sample restaurant floor plans is an excellent place to start. There are certain ways that the restaurant floor plan can be most optimized for drive through and for dine in traffic, and ways that the kitchen area floor plan can be used to maximum benefit.

Some restaurants benefit from having their dine in areas strictly controlled, by using crowd control lines and the like, to restrict access by customers to the order and pick up areas. These are the kinds of restaurants that usually have at least one set of doors on each side, and a solid store front. These places are able to have many different kinds of seating configurations, benches, tables, and booths.

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Other restaurants are able to encourage customer interaction with the staff by having an easily accessible counter where customers can approach at will. Such restaurant will have sample floor plans with open spaces that are used at will by both customers and employees. Your sample restaurant floor plans should take these possibilities into consideration.

Sample Restaurant Floor Plans – Find the Right Set Up For Your Restaurant

One floor plan that should be avoided at all costs is the store that is configured with an exit door that opens directly onto a drive through lane. This is a situation that is just a liability waiting for an excuse to happen. Either the oblivious customer on foot , chatting away on their cell phone who doesn’t notice the oncoming car, or the drive through diner in a hurry to get back to work who doesn’t notice the pedestrian directly in front of them, there is just no way that something isn’t going to eventually happen. Find another location for your door, do not place it where pedestrian and vehicle traffic mix in any way.

In American society today, it is also vital not to have only seating spaces that can accomodate people of average size. Especially in restaurants, it is of absolute importance to have seats on which persons of size can both make themselves comfortable and not do damage to the seats. Keeping in mind that people come in all sizes, and that having your seating be able to accomodate all those sizes is an important part of sample restaurant floor plans. Allow for larger size seating; you may have less total available seats, but you will have more comfortable and accessible seats.

Restaurant floor plans should also take into consideration the cleaning needs. Tables that cannot easily be moved for cleaning, sweeping, mopping and vacuuming will cause employee non-compliance with proper cleaning procedures, and lead to both customer dissatisfaction and possible food borne illness if cleaning is not up to standards. In addition, forms of floor covering that are difficult to clean or maintain should be avoided in the sample restaurant floor plans. It should be easy to completely and adequately clean around the furniture and keep the floor of a restaurant in good condition. When the final restaurant is conceived and built, it will be more easily maintained and much more profitable in the end.

Carpets are very expensive to buy and require a lot of attention because of their delicate nature. They are prone to spills, wear and tear, and dulling due to dust build-up.

There are a number of ways to maintain the beauty of your carpet and countless carpet cleaning tips on how to clean specific carpet stains found on the internet. However a lot of these tips can be vague and do not give you proper instructions for treating the carpet without causing damage to the fibres. So here are the seven rules to carpet cleaning that you should always remember; provided by professional carpet cleaners:

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Rule #1 Vacuum Often

Seven Rules on How to Do the Carpet Cleaning

Carpets are a magnet for dust and should be vacuumed once or twice a week. The dust acts like tiny microscopic razors that cut at the delicate fibres of your carpet, and excessive dust build-up can lead to infestations from microscopic pests and allergic reactions.

Rule #2 Tackle Spills Immediately

No matter how much you take care of the carpet there will always be occasions where your self or somebody will accidentally spill something that can potentially stain the carpet. You should act on these instances immediately in order to prevent permanent staining.

Rule #3 Avoid Sealing Dirt into the Carpet

If you’re one of those carpet owners that uses stain protection, make sure that all dust and dirt is vacuumed or cleaned thoroughly before treating the carpet. The last thing you want to do is seal the dirt into your carpet.

Rule #4 Blot Spillages, Do NOT scrub!

Not only does scrubbing at a spill spread the stain over a larger area of carpet, it can also cause damage to the fabric. If you have spilled a liquid on the carpet you should always blot it and soak up as much of the moisture as possible before carrying on with the carpet cleaning. And remember Rule #2; always act immediately!

Rule #5 Never Apply Concentrated Solution to the Carpet

Excessive use of any carpet cleaning solution; whether its soap or any mild product, using too much and not diluting it can leave heavy residue, which will do more damage than good and discolour the carpet material.

Rule #6 Never Use Too Much Water to Clean the Carpet

While it’s important to dilute any carpet cleaning product, it is doubly important to not over-wet the carpet. Doing so can shrink the backing and loosen the fibres. It is also very important to extract every last bit of moisture from the carpet to prevent moulding.

Rule #7 If in Doubt, Seek Professional Help

Carpet cleaning is no easy task and should only be attempted if you absolutely know what you are doing. If you are unsure of any cleaning methods or how to use a product properly, then you should hire a carpet cleaning service.

To take advantage of these highly skilled professional cleaners all you have to do is call a carpet cleaning company and ask for a free quote.

The steps are not particularly complicated to starting a house cleaning service and it is going to be easier if you already enjoy cleaning. You could offer services including tending indoor plants; servicing floors through vacuuming or steam cleaning carpets; cleaning windows, indoors, and out; general housework and maintenance; and helping people get their homes organized.

Grow Your Profits

Free House Cleaning Flyers

All businesses, the cleaning industry included, begin with their first customer or contract. And if you don’t want to work full time, or if you already work full time, your house cleaning business can supplement the income you are already earning. As you grow your loyal customer base, the business will eventually grow and you can naturally grow into full time work, or you could look to win a larger contract or client that could sustain your business. You need to know where to canvass for new clients, so try some of these areas:

Starting a House Cleaning Business

• Your local neighborhood
• Approaching the manager or concierge of apartment buildings, as they may require such services
• Homes on the market need cleaning for viewing, so approach some real estate businesses
• People that run their own small business, as they may be short on time for domestic cares

Potential Problems

A lot of the same business principles used for any other kind of business will apply to your cleaning service. You need to consider the law and legal requirements, and make sure you are covered for liability. It may take time to get all your procedures and equipment in place at the beginning, but you do need to be conscious of some specific matters before you begin.

• Find out how much insurance and liability coverage is likely to cost you.
• You may need to have your business listed with local or state establishments.
• Consult with your accountant so you are clear on pricing, fees you should charge, and tax obligations.
• You will be handling cleaning chemicals, which need to be stored and cared for specifically, so make sure you know the requirements.

When You Begin

In the beginning stages of your business, you will likely have only a few good clients, and you may not need to work full time. The best way to build a loyal customer base is to get referrals from current satisfied clients and encourage people to pass the word, as well as investing in some marketing and advertising. There are some low cost methods you can use to advertise your presence. Place a classified in the newspaper. Make it less than 25 words and plan for it to run over the weekend. When you can see this is building your customer base, it might pay to advertise under the business section of the newspaper or consider actually running your own small advertisement in the paper.

Meeting people will be the most valuable way of gaining loyal customers. Make the most of each social situation to give out business cards and test the waters for potential clients. When asking for referrals, offer a bonus or small gift for those that will refer you on to others, or perhaps give them a discount voucher as a thank you. A good way to distribute fliers is to attach them to doors. Stuffing them in letterboxes or elsewhere, you run the risk of the wind stealing them. As a result, you may be fined. You could also join forces with a larger cleaning company. Sometimes larger corporations are prepared to contract out to independent service providers so they can handle larger volumes of business.

You can begin your own cleaning business without too many headaches. It will be important to act professionally when communicating with your clients, and to offer service for hours that will be convenient to your customers. As long as you follow these two general rules of thumb, referrals to new clients will be a natural progression.