[David Brown]

Hi everyone, I was recently tasked with finding an office cleaner for my work and struggled to get one. Eventually I found one who answered the phone but he did not turn up when agreed. I had been doing the cleaning on a Saturday and did a pretty good job. So when he told me the going rate was £20 per hour I thought I would give it a go. At present I have a website ready to go, a facebook, twitter and other socials, flyers ready to be distributed, business cards made, signage for my vehicle, supplies and equipment. I just wondered if anyone would have the time to offer some advice on starting out. Mistakes you made? Even any cleaning tips, products you swear by, pricing,  :etc.
Thanks
David

[Mike Halliday]

It's not clear what you are actually doing, you have started an office cleaning company ? You thought because you couldn't find a cleaner for your office their is an obvious Gap in the market waiting for an aspiring entrepreneur to make a fortune😂

I would say consider this venture to a be a full time job, if you are not cleaning you are out cold calling trying to find work your flyer, biz cards, website will do no good unless people actually read them

[TomCrowther]

I have a contract cleaning business too and can tell you that £20 per hour is completely unrealistic unfortunately. The industry typically runs on small margins so you need a good volume of jobs to make it work unless you specialise. General office cleaning the charge rates will be around £12-£14 if you are lucky.
Pressure washing, window cleaning, carpet cleaning all demand higher rates.
Take half a day and have a good read through this and other forums and you will gain a clearer picture as to where you might want to invest your time.

[Smudger]

as mike said you need to be more specific - but the general gist is that you want contract cleaning ( insides ) commercial and residential  - the mother in law runs a small biz for residential cleaning her rate is £15 p/h for standard work

in general my advice would be ONLY spend WHAT you need to, ONLY buy ESSENTIALS not "it would be nice to have"
do you need a van ? if doing flyers have you looked at/researched your target areas - door knock first this will give you a taste of the market demand

Darran

[Andrew Harkin]

  I would concentrate on your day job for income,  get flyers out by all means but ideally you need to go door to door to small businesses - with your flyers - make sure you speak to the right contact (MAN) who makes the decision, then ask if you can quote for the business.

Ask him relevant questions and then listen to what he says. Always listen. You will, after about 100 conversations, get a good idea for demand, prices and time involved. Otherwise known as 'is it do-able?'

Do not spend any more money - nada - until you have tested the market. Always test first.

That said, good luck. But £20/hour for office cleaning? if it was that easy I'd be doing it!

[Matt.]

It's not so straight forward, first you will need some customers.
I can't give a price for domestic but I know a few commercial cleaning companies that are charging as low as £10 ph of jobs some will go lower which if u sole trader or small company the profits are so small it's not worth getting into
All the things you have listed have to be paid out of that small profit, even if u got 40 hrs work a week at £15 ph, it's only £600 before u have to say goodbye to most of it unless u working it urself then u could prob keep 50% ...... Which means ur working 40 hrs for £300 ( 40 x £7.50 plus no holiday pay ) might aswell go work for some one else if that the case.

[Smudger]

Wait till the min wage is increased to £10 over the next 3 years

Darran

[jasonl]

I charge out my general cleaning staff at £18/hour. If the customer wont pay then its fine, no point working for no profit.

[Michael H Jones]

I don't use Facebook, but have a cheap Adwords guy to run my advertising account so Adwords is something that could well be suitable if you are trying to get long term contracts. Let me know if you want his details. I believe there are also cheap on-line courses for both Adwords and Facebook (Udemy). Don't get ripped off by SEO companies - you can boost your website yourself with a little research.