One of the first rules of making money is that it is rarely something that can happen suddenly; even some of the methods discussed on Moneypantry are things that require some time and effort to be put in to make sustainable income off of them.
Business ventures, especially, tend to take some ‘incubation time’ to come to fruition.
It is possible to start making more money faster, however, if you’re willing to do the work that others won’t do.
In this case, we’re talking about making money cleaning houses.
Don’t be mistaken, it’s definitely not easy work. You should expect to be working harder than you would on your own Sunday cleaning! But that also means that you can make money by charging more than a minimum wage’s rate, which will get the whole thing up to speed faster.
Let’s take it a bit more in-depth, though. You can make $1000 a month (or more) cleaning houses – But it will require some careful thought!
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A House-Cleaning Business Model
Cleaning is a niche that has existed for as long as there have been economic societies. It comes and goes with the tide – With a healthy economy, people are more than willing to pay others to do the cleaning for them.
In a bad economy, however, people will cancel their service in a hurry. That doesn’t mean that you can’t weather a bad economy, but you’ll do better when it’s flourishing.
You may even be one of these people who would rather pay a cleaner than clean up yourself, which is good: it means you understand the customer mindset.
While we are talking about making money with simple house cleaning, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a bit of a business mind going in.
Think about pricing, materials, and transportation.
Pricing is, of course, the most important aspect of doing business. Most cleaners charge between $50 and $100 an hour, with $75 per hour (with a team of two) being the most common pricing model.
This is good for you; setting your price competitively against those rates will allow you to secure customers more easily. $25 An hour for a team of one (yourself) would be pricing conservatively!
Make sure you factor in the distance/transportation as well as materials cost into your pricing, that alone might be a good reason to bump the rate up to something like $30/hour.
If you set your rates competitively and do a decent job of getting the word out (tell your friends, post on Craigslist, put up flyers) then you can get yourself at least a few clients. A few clients will be a few hundred dollars’ worth at least, and if you do a good job, they might recommend you to others who are looking for cleaning services.
This is how businesses grow, so making a good impression is very important.
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Expanding Your Business
If you’re interested in taking this thing to a more full-time opportunity, consider your options for expansion.
Providing services for people can very quickly spiral out into being a full-blown business, as you eventually take on subordinates and establish a platform for your service.
Hiring an assistant at minimum wage will enable you to broaden your cleaning power (and asking price) in return for their salary.
Of course, it’s a good idea to pay more than minimum wage, too – But you still need to keep your own budget in mind.
Another good idea for the long-term is to get yourself a website. In the modern world, websites are essentially 24/7 employees that work to direct people to your company. Building a website and optimizing for search engines (through the art of SEO) will enable you to climb meteorically as a business. Serving hosting is less expensive than you think, so starting this step is better done sooner than later.
Takeaway
The long-term business model tends to imply that you will eventually appoint someone to do your old job, and you can step back into a simple moderating role, assigning the jobs and doing customer contact.
If you do make it to this late stage of the business, make sure you don’t fall behind on taxes. Not paying taxes is a killer for self-started businesses!
As you can see, though, this is actually a lucrative way to make money by catering to a universal niche.
If you want to make an extra $1000 a month cleaning houses, all you need to do is enterprise like a business and get a few customers coming in.
The economics are simple, just like the job – There’s nothing to it but to do it!
I call Bs. I have tried all of these things mentioned in the article about starting a cleaning service and it simply doesn’t work. The truth is that everyone these days thinks they are a cleaner; not to mention that in our wrecked economy very few people can afford cleaners at least at the rate a cleaner would like to be paid.
Scott, I don’t dispute that it doesn’t work for everyone. Not every single business works for every single person. This is one of those businesses that takes a lot of effort and leg work (especially in the beginning) to get it going. But just because it doesn’t work for you, doesn’t mean it’s not a viable option for other people. I personally know people who do this for a living and are doing great.
I used to call this whole “make money blogging” thing BS as well. I tried it a few times for a few months and I wasn’t making a dime. So I really started believing it was BS. But I kept hearing about other bloggers who were making a living as bloggers, so I kept on going. Eventually (when I actually took it seriously and worked my ass off) I succeeded too. The funny thing is, I still see a lot of people who think this blogging thing is all BS. And for them it may be BS, but for me and for thousands of other people, it’s not. Again, we all have different skills and passions, so what may work for one, may not work for all.
The rate you say is the common rate is WAY over estimated. If you charge more than 15-25/ hr, they aren’t interested.
It really depends on your location though.
I have also realized that when you do a good job in say home 1 automatically you are connected to the other homes around.job well done sells.
You are absolutely correct, Abigail. Word of mouth is the best from of advertising and getting more customers.