Start a Commercial
Cleaning Business

Start a commercial cleaning business and make an excellent living in a recession-proof service niche that is always in demand.

This is an excellent niche in the cleaning profession. We've had great success cleaning offices and light industrial spaces along with our residential cleaning business over the years.

Some of the benefits of starting a commercial cleaning business are:

• It's recession proof.
• Work is done on a contractual basis.
• Very high-profit margins.
• Can be done part-time or full-time.
• No special trade skills or education needed.
• You can start on a shoestring budget.

Commercial cleaning is different from residential cleaning
You cannot lump commercial service in with a residential cleaning service, they are very different business systems and work processes. A business may do both, but they have to be able to navigate both niches in a distinct way.

The trick with commercial cleaning is getting the contracts and negotiating the right deal for you. A typical misconception about starting a commercial cleaning business is that you need a lot of expensive commercial-grade cleaning equipment to get started. Not so, just as with residential cleaning, your clients usually have all the tools you need on the premises or they're easily acquired. As you grow the scale of your cleaning service, you will be able to lease the equipment you need. Seriously, folks, I've never had to turn down a cleaning job in any niche due to lack of equipment. There's always a way, so don't let that stop you from starting!

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The other nice element of contract cleaning is just that, you have a contract which does give one a sense of security. The "contract" is the key ingredient along with negotiation in landing the sweet jobs in commercial cleaning field. But don't let that scare you, these skills can be learned and mastered.


Is commercial cleaning for you?

Do you want to --

• Make a full-time income from a part-time effort?
• Add a new revenue stream to your already existing cleaning business?
• Start fresh with a new business that has an excellent profit potential?
• Start and grow a small business based in your own home?
• Find a recession-proof business with a big future?
• Start immediately on a shoestring budget?

Then starting a commercial cleaning business may be for you. It's an expansive cleaning business niche that can be grown to any size.

Should you start out small and grow it?
Many cleaning business start-ups will start with residential cleaning because it is easier and cheaper to start, with the plan to switch or morph into the lucrative commercial cleaning niche. That sounds smart but there are problems with it.

They are very different setups.
Scaling up can mean a dip in profits as you switch over.
Your role as the business owner will change.

Again you will be running two very different businesses when it comes to the actual work. You can cross-market them quite effectively, but that does not transfer over to the actual workload and processes.

When you attempt to scale up to commercial cleaning jobs of a certain size, you will actually have to invest in equipment, new employees, taxes and employee benefits. Your net income will diminish as you take on the burden of this upscaling. You will need to cultivate relationships that can result in some business credit to get you through the growing pains.

One of the great surprises for cleaning professionals as they move into the commercial cleaning sector is that their role as the business owner changes from a one-person business with a lot of variety in skills and processes to an employee manager who spends most of his/her time on the phone and driving around. Growth can mean changes that are not to your liking, bigger is not always better!

And yet, many cleaning service startups have no choice but to start with residential cleaning and make the switch to commercial accounts. It is a common progression. 

Start a commercial cleaning business
If you have the startup resources to launch a commercial cleaning business from day one, you should consider doing that and skip the residential cleaning niche. There is much more money for less hassle in commercial cleaning. Residential cleaning jobs tend to max out in the range of $125 – 150 for a monthly total of $300. Commercial cleaning jobs can be an average of $3k monthly. So it would take 10 residential jobs and all the complexity that goes with implementing them compared to one job with one crew for the 3k.

When considering a commercial cleaning business, you need to really think about where you want to start and where you want to end up. Do not treat all cleaning service industry jobs as the same.

Full list of commercial cleaning business articles