Opening a cleaning company in the UK is similar to starting any other business.
Opening a cleaning company requires thought and planning to put the right structures in place to build a sustainable business. You will have to make several important decisions such as deciding what kind of audience you want to target or what kind of cleaning service you want to offer, how to price etc. . We’ve compiled a few pointers below to help guide you on how to get your business off the ground.
How to Start a Cleaning Business in UK
Cleaning services are among the most sought-after business sectors in the UK. There is a high demand for the maintenance of health and hygiene as cleaning holds a lot of benefits from protecting people’s health, to ensuring buildings are safe.
Opening a cleaning business in the UK if done correctly can be an extremely profitable venture. Wherever you go in the country, someone’s going to need to make use of a professional cleaning service, regardless of whether they have a deep-set mould problem or need to disinfect a building after a virus outbreak.
If you’re looking to start a cleaning business, you’ll be looking at a minimum initial investment of £20,000. This will help cover any potential partner investments, the funding for renting a space to work from, and acquiring the essential equipment and resources. You will also need to budgetto cover workers’ salaries.
After this, it will be time to start thinking about how you will be able to build your company and leverage your new business venture.
1. Choosing Your Target Market
Before starting a cleaning business in the UK, you will need to decide what branch of the cleaning industry you want to specialise in. This will also help you to pinpoint and narrow down your audience.
The three main paths you can choose from are commercial cleaning, domestic cleaning and specialist cleaning. Commercial cleaning involves offices and places of business. Your clients will be shop owners, business owners and anyone involved in a variety of different industries.
Domestic cleaning will be primarily concerned with homeowners and people who require their private residences cleaned while specialist cleaning covers any cleaning that might present a bigger risk to health and requires the use of dangerous chemicals that cannot be handled by the general public.
2. Obtaining Cleaning Certificates
There are several certificates that can help to make your business more trustworthy and reliable in the eyes of your future clients as well as prove that you are able to handle chemicals with care and take all the necessary precautions with protective gear and health and safety.
The ISO certifications you should have need include:
- ISO 45001 – covers health and safety.
- ISO 9001 – marks the quality of your business to prove your competence and allow customers to view you as trustworthy.
- ISO 14001 – covers protection of the environment.
3. Get Your Business Insurance
It’s important to make sure you’ve set up your insurance schemes to offer the best protection for both you and your clients.
Insurance can cover public liability to protect you against claims of personal injury and damage to the property you’re cleaning and employer’s liability which also protects you from claims from the cleaners you’ve employed in case of any accidents while on the job.
You will also need to make sure you have your professional indemnity insurance. This will help to cover you if a customer refuses to pay the cost or the invoice or if there’s a mistake in your cleaning work that you need to exhaust more resources to fix.
4. Write Up the Business Plan for Opening Your Cleaning Company in UK
The best thing you can do for your cleaning company is to have a clear idea of your business goals from the beginning.
A business plan involves thinking of what direction you want to take your cleaning company (the target market), your financial goals and how you plan to reach those goals. Your planed expenditure to service and market your business.
5. Setting the Cost for Your Cleaning Services
Before your cleaning company goes public, it’s important that you have a clear plan on how much you will charge for your various cleaning services.
This price can fluctuate depending on the services you are contracted for by each client. For example, a contract that focuses on a scheduled regular clean will have a different cost than a more thorough and intensive deep clean with specialised services.
The price of your cleaning contracts should also depend on the equipment and cleaning materials you use during your service so make sure when planning the cost of your services, you take everything into account.
6. Acquiring Clients for Your Cleaning Company
When your cleaning business is up and running, you will need to already have your methods of pitching too and attracting customers ready to go.
This can involve posting flyers and leaflets, a method that works best for domestic cleaning services or setting up a social media presence. You can buy advertisement space on websites, in newspapers or on billboards to increase your publicity and make sure you get more awareness from the public. One of the biggest challenges in marketing your business is knowing which part of the £££ you are investing is working for you. Most Franchise options in the cleaning sector will have an effective marketing plan to attract customers and avoid you wasting large amounts of money.
When your business has been solidified and you have a steady influx of customers, more options for advertising will open up, including word of mouth and reviews on websites. You can also try email marketing and SEO services to get your business more recognition on search consoles.
Because of the ever-increasing demand for cleaning due to outbreaks of infections like monkeypox and coronavirus, starting a cleaning business in the UK can be incredibly lucrative.
So long as you have a solid business plan that takes into account your goals and finances, along with official and legal cleaning certificates you should find starting a cleaning business in the UK to be a little easier.
To get in front of people requiring a cleaning service quicker than the competition has got to be a smart thing to do.
Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel on how to achieve this, why not consider investing in a Cleaning Franchise.
Call Total Clean today to see what your future could look like.
