The quickest way to earning $100,000 per year from your business is as an efficient owner/operator. The beauty of a carpet cleaning business is that you can make a lot of money without having to build a complicated infrastructure. Prematurely building a large infrastructure will slow you down and possibly threaten your success. It’s a race against time. People starting a cleaning business typically have limited money. Time is critical for most because they are draining their cash and credit reserves to pay business and personal bills while building the business. The clock is ticking until you can produce enough to pay those bills. If you run out of cash and credit before you hit that point, it’s over. Anything that needlessly adds to the complexity or expense of running the business makes reaching the goal that much harder. Your advantage is the simplicity of the business structure that requires minimal sales revenue to reach the goal. A common mistake is to prematurely expand business costs.

Many operators add nonessentials such as additional cleaning technicians, office help, overly expensive equipment or ineffective advertising. Poor choices can add tens of thousands of unproductive dollars to the annual expenses. Minimize your need for new customers The most challenging and expensive part of building a business is getting new customers. Minimizing the need for new customers increases your chances of success. The fewer customers needed to pay your business expenses plus your $100,000 income, the easier life will be. Nonessential expenses require more customers and make success more difficult. You need a plan to build a streamlined owner/operator business. A good plan focuses on spending wisely and attracting profitable customers. Without a plan, it’s easy to make choices that slow down your progress. Most of the business advice in our industry is from people who have succeeded with large and complex operations that require huge sales revenue to maintain.

Most of that information is helpful to companies that are already earning $100,000 and are striving for higher goals. Evaluate the advice you hear as to whether it is appropriate for your business. A small business is on a different path. Good ideas for a large business could be costly for you. You must get it done The quickest way to $100,000 requires you to perform almost all the cleaning and business activities.affordable pool vacuums Your success demands that you do things you may not be comfortable with or enjoy doing. portable vacuum cleaner price indiaOnce you reach your goal, you can choose to do things differently.carpet cleaners gold coast reviews Giving in to the temptation to avoid some unpleasant tasks makes it harder to reach your goal.best affordable carpet cleaning machines

Your challenge up to this point is a lack of profitable customers, not a lack of time. Failing to perform important tasks, or paying someone to do things you can easily do, is a mistake. There is nothing complicated that prevents you from reaching the $100,000 goal. A lot of little things must get done and you’re the one to do them. Answering and returning telephone calls, data entry, paying bills and printing, folding and sending out follow-up and marketing materials are all part of the job. Until you have more work than you can handle, you must remember that every dollar you needlessly spend is an additional dollar you must earn. You hold the advantage when competing for jobs and gaining new customers. The skill, care, knowledge and expertise you provide are perceived to be greater than those of an employee-technician of a large company. If the customer is given the choice between having the owner or his best employee doing the job, the customer will choose the owner.

Appearing more skilled and professional increases your value to the customers, enabling you to win a larger percentage of jobs. You also have the advantage when competing for high-profit consumers. Again, your superior skills and professionalism make it easier for you to win the more profitable consumers who are willing to pay extra for quality. These consumers tend to become loyal, long-term customers who repeat annually, thereby reducing the number of new customers you need. These consumers also tend to refer you to others more frequently, accelerating your growth. Winning high-profit consumers enables you to greatly reduce the cost of your advertising expense. Once you reach the $100,000 goal, you are in a position of strength and financial security to decide where you want to take your business.You won the race against time. The door to great opportunity in this industry is now wide open. Now, you can choose and decide to continue the freedom and flexibility of running a single truck business and build it to higher levels of profit, or expand your business to become a multi-truck company.

Building your business as an owner/ operator is the quickest way to reach the goal of earning $100,000. There are other ways, but considering the greater investment and risk, keeping it simple and fast increases your chances of success. Steve Marsh is the creator of the Be Competition Free Marketing Program. He is a 30-year veteran of the carpet cleaning industry, an IICRC-approved instructor and a Senior Carpet Inspector. Marsh is a marketing and business consultant who provides a turn-key program for attracting better customers. 's Second-Quarter Startup Kit which explores the fundamentals of starting up in a wide range of industries. In Start Your Own Cleaning Service, the staff at Entrepreneur Press and writer Jacquelyn Lynn explain how you can launch a profitable cleaning service, whether you want to offer maid services, janitorial services, carpet and upholstery cleaning, and more. In this edited excerpt, the authors offer words of wisdom from owners of successful cleaning businesses on what you need to do if you want to succeed in the cleaning industry.

Nothing teaches as well as the voice of experience. So we asked established cleaning service owners to tell us what's contributed to their success and what they think causes some companies to fail. Here are their tips: 1. Never stop learning. The cleaning industry may not be the most glamorous or complex, but established business owners say there’s always something to learn. Technology advances affect the equipment you use, safety issues affect the chemicals you clean with, and there will always be ways you can enhance your organizational and managerial skills. Read industry publications, go to meetings and conventions, participate in trade organizations, and encourage your suppliers to keep you up to date. 2. Tap all your resources. A wide range of associations serves various aspects of the professional cleaning industry. These groups can help with operational, marketing and management issues. Many state and government agencies also offer support and information for small businesses.

3. Clean it like it’s your own. Regardless of what you’re cleaning and whether you’re doing traditional housecleaning, janitorial work, or providing a specialty cleaning service, clean like you’re cleaning your own home or office.Systems provide a structure that allows you to work consistently and efficiently, and also let you create a company that will continue to run whether you’re there or not. Create systems for every function: cleaning, laundry, supervision, reporting, customer service, accounting and management.Though time is your most valuable commodity, don’t rush so much that you get careless. Customers will usually understand when accidents happen, but you’re better off if you don’t have to fall back on that. Also, the cost to repair or replace something--in out-of-pocket cash, time lost and damaged customer relations--is usually far more than the time you might save by working carelessly. 6. Don’t undersell yourself. When you’re starting out, you may be tempted to try to undercut the competition’s prices.

A better strategy is to simply outperform them by providing quality work. 7. Take care of your employees. Your employees are critical to your success; after all, it’s the quality of their performance that determines whether your customers are satisfied. Look for ways to make them want to do their best. Train them well, don’t micromanage, and treat them with respect. Provide bonuses and incentives for top performance, and consider offering perks such as letting them use company equipment in their own homes. 8. Find a niche. Don’t try to be all things to all people; pick the market you can best serve, and focus on that. For example, if you choose to service smaller office buildings, you may not be able to provide quality work at a profitable price level to larger facilities. Excel in what you’re doing and build consistency in the services you provide. When you try to serve too many markets, you won’t be successful in any of them. 9. Develop your computer skills. You need to be as skilled with your computer as you are with a mop or buffer.

The cleaning business may not be particularly high tech, but you don’t have time to do estimates, billing, payroll, inventory control and other record-keeping by hand. 10. Track labor costs. The biggest single expense you have is labor, and you must stay on top of it. If you aren't watching your labor costs every day, they'll get away from you. Compile a daily over and under report, which makes it easy to spot trends before they become major issues. If labor is on the increase, figure out where the problem is. Is the customer asking for extra services you aren’t charging for? Did you underestimate the time it would take to do the work? If you’re under on your labor estimates, make sure your employees are providing the quality you’ve promised. 11. Invest in customer service. The quality of your cleaning is important, but it’s not everything. Building strong relationships with your clients requires a serious commitment to customer service. Don’t assume that just because the work looks satisfactory to you that it is to your customers--or that there’s nothing else they want or need.

Be sure to follow up with them consistently to find out how things are going. 12. Keep your eye on the economy. As long as things get dirty, there'll be a need for professionals to clean them. But economic changes can mean changes in your market. Residential cleaning services, for example, are often seen as luxuries, and an economic downturn could affect your customers’ willingness and ability to pay to have their homes cleaned. When business profits shrink, companies look for ways to cut expenses, which means they may examine their budgets for services that can be reduced or eliminated. Also consider how the world economy can impact your profitability. If oil prices skyrocket, you’ll have to spend more to operate your vehicles, and your general utility costs will probably increase. When the cost of lumber goes up, so does the cost of bathroom tissue, paper towels and other disposable paper products you provide to your customers. You may be able to pass along some of those costs, but don’t depend on a thriving economy to keep your business profitable.