How to Prepare a Cleaning Business Plan
When starting a cleaning business, or any business for that matter, a business plan is extremely important. It gives other interested parties such as investors, lenders or partners a clear idea of the opportunity at hand and it gives the business owner a way to compile his or her research in one place. A plan is all about knowing where you want to take the business and setting goals and targets to get there.
Many people don’t know where to start when it comes to preparing a cleaning business plan. This article gives you a basic structure to build upon and towards the end lets you know how you can find some sample business plans that have been used by cleaning services.
1) The Executive Summary – An introduction and outline of the basic concept or idea.
2) Ownership structure – What parties will have an interest in the business and if they will be active in the management or only passive investors. Outline the management structure if there is more than one owner actively involved.
3) Goals and targets – Set out your businesses objectives or what will be achieved by certain dates.
4) Mission statement – Outline the purpose of the business, it’s values and a company philosophy.
5) Start-up requirements – List down the things that must be acquired before you can start. How much money will you need to get started?
6) Market research and analysis – Compile the results of your research into the local market. What cleaning market segments offer the best opportunities? Who are your target customers? Who are your competitors and how do you plan to position your company to compete with them?
7) Marketing – Set out details and a budget for your cleaning business marketing strategy. What methods will you use to attract enquiries? How will your sales approach turn these leads into new accounts? What is your advertising budget?
Employees – Set out the process for hiring employees, estimate costs and set out a timeline for taking on staff as your business grows.
9) Financial estimates – Do some hypothetical cash flow forecasting. Make estimates of monthly income and expenses and plug them into a spreadsheet program. You can then estimate how much profit you will make over the first few years of your business’s life. Remember that many business owners are overly optimistic when they start out so you should run some worst-case scenarios with low monthly income forecasts just to give you an idea. Run some best-case scenarios too to allow you to see how much you could make if things go to plan.
Before you start out in the cleaning industry make sure that you have a solid cleaning business plan in place so that you are organized and 100% certain about the direction that you want to proceed in.
Author: Steven Sutherland
Why Not Start Your Own Cleaning Business
If you don’t mind cleaning offices and houses or getting your hands dirty then you might want to consider starting your own cleaning business.
Commercial Cleaning Business Plan
Mail this post
