Advice for using cleaning business forums

There are many cleaning business forums online. These can be great places to get information and advice or they can be horrible places to get information and advice! Just because people gather for free, it does not necessarily follow that some of these people will have brilliant or expert advice.

How can you spend your time more effectively on a cleaning business forum?

Questions to ask yourself about the forum:

• How old is the forum?
• Who runs the forum?
• What is the point of the forum?

Is it just to make easy ad money? A respectable forum should have moderators that monitor for spam and bad behavior. The owners should be involved daily or otherwise I would be very skeptical of the forum. 

Issues to look for once you are a member of the forum.

Ask yourself these questions before you post.

• Do the same small number of members post over and over?
• Should you listen to that person?

You should visit their website and get a feel for how healthy their business is before you take their advice. I have spent a fair bit of time on forums and the worst advice is easily had there and in great supply. Many of these people should be growing their business instead of hanging out on forums, no?

Avoid cliche advice such as under pricing the competition. Are they running a least common denominator business by trying to get as many low paying jobs as quickly as possible, by under pricing everyone else? This is a terrible idea that you see cleaning service business owners touting over and over again in forum posts. You are not selling TVs! If you want to get trapped into low paying jobs and only get low paying referrals then this is the approach for you.

Here are the forums I have experience with since 2004.

Cleaning Talk (United Kingdom)

Truck mount Forums

City Data

US Cleaners Network

Keep in mind that freely had advice is usually cheap advice! It is always best to find a mentor that will not give you cliche black and white cookie cutter advice.