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Many cleaning business owners feel like they don’t need a cleaning business plan, which is why they’re unable to build a scalable cleaning business.
Trying to grow a successful cleaning business without a business plan is like going on a road trip without a map… You know where you want to go but have zero vision or plans of how to get there.
A great cleaning business plan will help you to create, visualize, and conquer your goals. Also, it’ll help you to capture potential market opportunities you can use to grow your business.
In this article, we’ll talk about what makes a great business plan as well as how you can create the best business plan for your cleaning business.
By the end of this article, you’ll have all the tools and information you need to start creating the best cleaning business plan TODAY!
Since a business plan helps you to organize your goals and discover growth opportunities, just by creating a cleaning business plan, you’re setting your business up for success!
In addition, a business plan helps you to:
As a result, your business plan is one of the most important foundations you can give your business.
Pro tip! A business plan is not a “one-and-done” task. As your business grows and evolves, it’s important to consistently re-evaluate and update your business plan. A good rule of thumb is to conduct your full revisions annually and your financial revisions monthly.
Cover pages serve as a great quick-reference point for your new employees. It gives them a quick overview of your management and contact structure.
Plus, as your cleaning business grows, it’ll offer you a great way to streamline your training process and offer new employees a brief business overview.
Also, your cover page provides quick contact information for every viewer. This is especially useful if you apply for any grants or loans.
Think of your cover page as a cover letter for your cleaning business. Since it’s the first thing viewers will see, it’s essentially a brief business overview.
As a result, it’s important that your cleaning business plan emanates the ultimate professionalism. It should resemble a professional booklet and be as pristine and current as possible.
These are some things your cover page should include:
After you’ve created your cover page, it’s time to start on the executive summary.
Think of your executive summary as a brief, one-page summary of your entire cleaning business plan.
This is where you’ll explain your business’ main concepts in order to establish solid growth goals to help scale your cleaning business’ growth.
Your executive summary should include things like:
Once your executive summary is complete, you’re ready to create your business overview.
Your business overview is important because it explains your business’ basic function, everyday operations, and operational structure.
Upon a mere glance, your business overview allows anyone who enters into your business to quickly understand how you operate. This is especially helpful when someone like an employee or third-party accountant needs a brief business overview.
Your company summary is a brief outline of the vision of your cleaning business.
These are a few things you’ll want to include in your company summary:
After answering these questions, you should have a complete company summary for your cleaning business plan.
However, since every cleaning business is different, you might have to add additional information to your company summary.
Your company summary is one of the best ways you can provide an outline of your everyday operational structure to new employees or third party viewers.
A company summary is a great way to help give you a sense of direction. Additionally, this helps to give you a better idea of who your ideal cleaning client is.
Remember when you first started your cleaning business and you had to decide which business entity in which you wanted to register your business as?
Whether you’re registered as a partnership, corporation, sole proprietorship, or something else, it’s important to include this information in your business plan because of its tax implications.
Since your business entity protects you from being personally liable for your business’ financial implications, it’s an important part of your business.
As a result, it’s important to include your company’s ownership in your company summary.
And if you haven’t registered your cleaning business yet, then click here to read our full guide on starting a cleaning business.
In short, your start-up summary details your startup costs and uses your assets to calculate your cleaning business’ value.
Your assets and startup costs have the potential to be key predictors of your business’ success.
Also, if you ever apply for loans or grants, this is typically the most important section they’ll look at to determine your eligibility.
If you’re just starting out, then this section will be a start-up summary. However, if you’re updating an existing cleaning business plan, then this section will include your business expenses and assets.
In order to calculate your true overhead costs, you’ll need to have an estimate of your start-up costs.
Once you’ve established your cleaning prices, your startup costs can be included in your overhead costs.
In addition, your start-up costs section is important because it can cause you to lose money and undercut yourself on pricing if you skip it or do improperly do it.
As you begin your start-up summary, you’ll start by including all of your start-up costs. This will tell you how much it’ll cost you to buy all of your necessary equipment and chemicals to start or maintain your business.
It’s important to also note that any equipment or assets that you already own should NOT be included in this section. This section is only intended to cover the things that you need to buy.
Typically, your start-up costs will include things like:
Include how much all of these things will cost you in your start-up summary.
Regardless of whether or not you’re looking for outside financial assistance, your startup costs help you to create a better financial plan for your cleaning business.
Any assets that you already have that will contribute to your business in the long-term, you should include in your start-up summary.
Since they don’t have to be regularly replaced, an example of a long-term asset in your cleaning business are your company vehicles.
Your business’ assets are a huge predictor of your success because of how much value they bring to the table. As a result, they’re a huge reflection of how much your cleaning business is worth.
Also, your long-term assets are important because they indicate to third party financial advisors how much your business is worth if you need to apply for grants and such.
As you document your long-term assets, don’t forget to be as detailed as possible and note things like the make, year, model, cost, and etc…
Alternatively to your long-term assets, your short-term assets are the assets you already own that contribute to your business in the short-term.
Just to mention a few, these are a few short-term assets that you might already have:
The more assets you have, the less overhead you have, which means you’ll have more revenue going towards your profit.
As a result, all of your assets are important to document so that you’ll have a better idea of how much your business is worth.
Even though it’s likely tedious work to record all of your short-term assets, it’s a VITAL process for your cleaning business. This will help you later on when you start tracking assets.
Instant invoicing
Better scheduling
Manage your clients and employees all in one system
Depending on how much your calculated costs are from the previous step, you can determine which cleaning services you’ll be able to provide.
You should base your decision on which cleaning services to provide based on these two things:
Now, write a three to five-sentence paragraph explaining the services you’ll offer.
If there’s any seasonality or frequency, be sure to note those factors of your services. This will help you to build a foundation for your everyday business operations.
In essence, your market analysis summary explains how your cleaning business is going to compliment the needs of your target market.
Here, you’ll pinpoint any industry trends and define your ideal client.
Your market analysis summary helps to grow your cleaning business because it helps you to get a picture of your local market and choose your ideal client.
Now, include the answers to these questions in your market analysis summary:
Pro tip! If you haven’t already, you can download our FREE cleaning client persona template to help you to define and identify your ideal client. Plus, it’s a great idea to include it in your cleaning business plan to look even more professional!
One of the best parts about your market analysis summary is that you can really customize it and make it as detailed as you need.
All of the previous sections of your cleaning business plan have had a hand in helping you develop your business strategy.
Now, we just need to tie all of the previous information together into this section.
Plus, when you have an excellent cleaning business strategy, it helps you to establish the best cleaning pricing strategy possible.
This section is predominantly focused on building the best business strategy possible, which will help you to better scale your business.
If you want to build a wildly successful cleaning business, then you’ll have to master the art of pricing your cleaning services for maximum profit.
As you calculate the perfect price for your cleaning business, you should consider things like:
These are a few among the many factors you should consider before establishing the best possible cleaning price for your services.
Click here to download our FREE pricing calculator build just for cleaning business owners like you! This calculator is quick, easy to use, and it’ll tell you exactly how to price your services.
In essence, your implementation strategy outlines the marketing and sales strategies you use to upsell your cleaning services.
Depending on your overhead costs and services prices, you can determine how many clients you’ll need to win in order to reach your profit goals.
Then, you have to find out how you’re going to win those clients.
Take a look at a few basic marketing strategies to get you started:
Click here to explore more marketing strategies you can use to win more cleaning clients.
In your implementation strategy, you can get as specific as you’d like and include things such as:
Your implementation strategy is whatever you need it to be. Use it to explore various ways to determine how you’re going to win more clients and reach your overall goals.
When you properly create an effective implementation strategy, you can establish a clear plan of what your marketing campaigns need to look like in order to surpass your goals.
Fun fact: Labor costs can make up as much as 30% of your annual revenue costs.
As a result, your management summary makes up an important aspect of your cleaning business plan.
Unlike many of your other costs, you can better control your labor costs than anything else.
Streamlining your everyday operations, increasing your route density, and improving your time management are just a few ways you can control your labor costs.
By the way, did you know that Service Autopilot can automate ALL of these tasks AND MORE using our cleaning software?
One of the keys to keeping your labor costs down is knowing when to hire more cleaners.
Your prices + operational costs + your profits will help you find out when you should hire your next cleaners.
Your management summary should include things like:
At first, you might not have enough clients to hire a new cleaner and that’s okay.
Many new cleaning business owners clean houses on their own for a year or two until they win enough clients to hire their first employee.
When you start feeling tired and overworked, then you know it’s time to hire a new employee.
However, if you’re feeling overworked and still can’t afford to hire a new cleaner, then it’s probably time to consider raising your cleaning prices.
Click here to see how much you should be paying your cleaners (there’s also a FREE employee wage calculator inside).
A financial plan gives you a sense of how successful and profitable your cleaning business is.
When you don’t have a financial plan, you’re blindly growing your business without any clue to the state of your finances.
The types of cleaning businesses that skip this step are the types of cleaning businesses that end up leaking profits and going bankrupt.
It’s a good idea to consult with your bookkeeper or accountant as you build out this section of your business plan.
A financial advisor is great because they can evaluate your finances early on and discover profit holes and financial concerns BEFORE they become a problem.
Even though it does cost a bit to speak with a financial advisor, it can determine the success or failure of your cleaning business.
I strongly suggest you speak with a reputable financial advisor ASAP before completing this business plan.
After all, your finances are important and can either make or break your business.
As a result, the margin for error is small and it’s important to get it done right the first time. Make sure you consistently consult with financial advisors.
Take a look at a few things your financial plan includes:
The items above in bold are the ones the bare bones items that you MUST include in your financial plan. The rest of the items are bonuses that you can use to take your business plan to the next level.
Even though not everything listed above will apply to you, it’s a great start in creating your first cleaning business plan.
At last, you’re ready to get out there and begin building out your first cleaning business plan!
Even though a business plan can be time-consuming, this complete, step-by-step guide shows you a simplified process of how YOU can create the best business plan for you starting TODAY.
Now, you have all the tools and knowledge you need to use these steps to successfully grow your cleaning business and surpass your goals!
Related: How to Get Your Cleaning Clients to Pay You
Originally published Feb 11, 2021 5:41 PM
Tags: Business Operation, Featured Post
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