Starting a cleaning business is an easy and lucrative thing to do. You can start your cleaning business on a shoestring budget, and growth of the cleaning business depends on how much you put into it. The first thing you need to decide for your cleaning business, is if you are serious enough to make a real attempt to make some real money, with minimal work and overhead.

The first thing you need to decide for your cleaning business, is if you are going to clean residential properties or commercial, or both. I would suggest sticking to residential till you get the hang of the business. Most residential customers are a little more forgiving when it comes to you learning the ropes, and trying to make a go of this type of business. Commercial companies expect a little more, and they expect Urgency, which is something you may not be able to provide until you get more experience and time.

Now that you have decided you are going to clean residential properties, we need to get some supplies for our cleaning business. You will also need to check to see if your cleaning business needs to be licensed in your city for this type of service. Most cities don't require such a license for cleaning businesses.

1. Extension Duster

2. Vacuum

3. Glass Cloths

4. Eraser Bars

5. Grout Brush

6. Lysol And Air Freshener

7. Small Trash Bags

8. Caddy To Hold All Your Cleaners

9. Mop

10. Multi Cleaning Rags

11. Brillo Pads

12. Small Dust Broom

13. paper towels

14. Assorted Cleaners (Pine Sol, Toilet Cleaner, Furniture Polish, Bleach, etc...)

There are many ways to get customers for your cleaning business, and I will explain how to get them step by step. I would suggest getting some nice business cards with the name of your cleaning business on them. Please do not skimp on the business cards, You want your cleaning business to look and be professional. Start by handing out your business cards to people you know and explain that you are in the cleaning business for yourself now and would like to have them as a customer.

Put and add in the paper for your cleaning business and explain what services you provide and a phone number that you can be reached at. If you are not by your phone all the time, have an answering machine or voice mail with a professional sounding message. Again you want to be professional about your cleaning business.

Put an add on Craigslist in the services section for you particular city, and again make sure your add is professional. Leave them a contact email and a phone number to reach you at. You can put in the add that you will give free estimates for cleaning jobs, and that will draw a lot of replies which will lead to paying jobs.

Hand out fliers for your cleaning business, put them on windshields, on bulletin boards, laundry mats, or wherever you can find to put them. A print shop can print these out for you at a reasonable rate. I suggest using bright colored paper that will draw more attention to your flier, and again put something on the flier, like FREE ESTIMATES, or HALF OFF YOU FIRST CLEANING SESSION. These tactic really work and you will have a lot of work in no time.

Good references when starting out is very important to be successful, ask some friends or family members if you can clean their homes for free or at a discounted. The sound of working for free may not be appealing but it will be worth it to get some good references to show potential customers.
When cleaning your first homes, go for quality, not how fast you can clean the home. Cleaning efficiently takes a long time, but you will get to the point where you can do a thorough cleaning in no time. After cleaning make sure you go back and check all rooms again to make sure you didn't miss anything. Impress those first clients and word of mouth will spread quickly.

When ever you get a customer or two for your cleaning business, be respectful at all times and be professional as possible. Always ask them how they would like there home cleaned, and if they have any special request. When cleaning do a thorough job, don't break anything, and don't re-arrange anything. When they see how well of a job you did and compliment you on it, It ok to ask them to spread the word about your work. Truth is, they probably know someone else that is in need of you cleaning service.

In my opinion, I would not do anything for less than $20.00 per hour. You have to factor your supplies, gas, and your time in the equation, and I think that is a fair rate of pay for this service. So if a house is going to take you a couple of hours to clean, charge $40.00 or $50.00 for the job. There are not a lot of jobs out there where you can start off making that type of money. Remember as your cleaning business grows, you may have to hire help, so factor that in when giving estimates in the future. How much you can make at your cleaning business depends on how much of yourself you put in to it.

House cleaning gift certificates make great gifts for any occasion. Birthdays, Anniversaries, Housewarmings, Weddings, Baby Showers, Christmas and Valentines Day. I have a lot of requests for gift certificates around Christmas. If you have a website you can email the gift certificates to the recipient.

Offer a referral program. If one of your current customers lands you a new cleaning account. They get 50 percent off their next cleaning session, or the next cleaning session is free. This is a good system for getting new clients fast and your current customers do all the work in getting new clients.

Offer coupons for cleaning services at a discounted rate. This is also a good promotion that will land you new customers quickly.