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In today's competitive market, building a successful cleaning business requires more than just a mop and a bucket—you’ll need the right cleaning business plan.
A well-structured cleaning business plan is the foundation of any thriving enterprise.
This guide will walk you through the essential components of creating a robust cleaning business plan, helping you transform your entrepreneurial vision into a concrete roadmap for success.
Cover pages serve as a great quick reference point as it gives readers a quick overview of your management and contact structure.
These are some things your cover page should include:
After you’ve created your cover page, it’s time to start on the executive summary.
Think of your executive summary as a brief, one-page summary of your entire cleaning business plan.
This is where you’ll explain your business’ main concepts in order to establish solid goals to help scale your cleaning business’ growth.
Your executive summary should include things like:
Once your executive summary is complete, you’re ready to create your business overview.
Your business overview is important because it explains your business’ basic function, everyday operations, and operational structure.
This is especially helpful when someone like an employee or third-party accountant needs a brief business overview.
Your company summary is a brief outline of the vision of your cleaning business and should include:
Your company summary is one of the best ways you can provide an outline of your everyday operational structure to new employees or third-party viewers.
A company summary is a great way to help give you a sense of direction.
Additionally, this helps to give you a better idea of who your ideal cleaning client is.
Whether you’re registered as a partnership, corporation, sole proprietorship, or something else, it’s important to include your legal structure in your business plan because of its tax implications.
Since your business entity protects you from being personally liable for your business’ financial implications, it’s an important part of your business.
In short, your start up summary details your startup costs and uses your assets to calculate your business’ value.
And if you ever apply for loans or grants, this is typically the most important section they’ll look at to determine your eligibility.
If you’re just starting out, then this section will be a start up summary.
However, if you’re updating an existing cleaning business plan, then this section will include your business expenses and assets.
In order to calculate your true overhead costs, you’ll need to have an estimate of your startup costs.
Once you’ve established your cleaning prices, your startup costs can be included in your overhead costs.
It’s important to also note that any equipment or assets that you already own should NOT be included in this section. This section is only intended to cover the things that you need to buy.
Typically, your start up costs will include things like:
Include how much all of these things will cost you in your startup summary.
Regardless of whether or not you’re looking for outside financial assistance, your startup costs help you to create a better financial plan for your cleaning business.
Any assets that you already have that will contribute to your business in the long-term, you should include in your startup summary.
Since they don’t have to be regularly replaced, an example of a long-term asset in your cleaning business is your company vehicles.
Your business assets are a huge predictor of your success because of how much value they bring to the table. As a result, they’re a huge reflection of how much your cleaning business is worth.
Also, your long-term assets are important because they indicate to third-party financial advisors how much your business is worth if you need to apply for grants and such.
As you document your long-term assets, don’t forget to be as detailed as possible and note things like the make, year, model, cost, etc.
Short-term assets include things like:
The more assets you have, the less overhead you have, which means you’ll have more revenue going towards your profit.
As a result, all of your assets are important to document so that you’ll have a better idea of how much your business is worth.
Even though it’s likely tedious work to record all of your short-term assets, it’s a VITAL process for your cleaning business. This will help you later on when you start tracking assets.
Instant invoicing
Better scheduling
Manage your clients and employees all in one system
Depending on how much your calculated costs are from the previous step, you can determine which cleaning services you’ll be able to provide.
You should base your decision on which cleaning services to provide based on these two things:
Detail the cleaning services your business will provide:
Explain how your services meet market demands and differentiate you from competitors.
Also, if there’s any seasonality or frequency, be sure to note those factors of your services. This will help you to build a foundation for your everyday business operations.
In essence, your market analysis summary explains how your cleaning business is going to complement the needs of your target market and it should include:
All of the previous sections of your cleaning business plan have had a hand in helping you develop your business strategy.
Now, we just need to tie all of the previous information together into this section.
This section is predominantly focused on building the best business strategy possible, which will help you to better scale your business.
Detail the day-to-day operations of your cleaning business:
This section should demonstrate that you've thought through the logistical aspects of running a cleaning business.
If you want to build a wildly successful cleaning business, then you’ll have to master the art of pricing your cleaning services for maximum profit.
As you calculate the perfect price for your cleaning business, you should consider things like:
These are a few of the many factors you should consider before establishing the best possible price for your services.
In essence, your implementation strategy outlines the marketing and sales strategies you use to sell your services.
Depending on your overhead costs and prices, you can determine how many clients you’ll need to win in order to reach your profit goals.
Then, you have to find out how you’re going to win those clients with marketing.
Outline your plan to attract and retain clients:
Describe how you'll build a strong reputation and grow your client base.
In your implementation strategy, you can get as specific as you’d like and include things such as:
Your implementation strategy is whatever you need it to be. Use it to explore various ways to determine how you’re going to win more clients and reach your overall goals.
When you properly create an effective implementation strategy, you can establish a clear plan of what your marketing campaigns need to look like in order to surpass your goals.
Labor costs can make up as much as 30% of your annual revenue costs.
As a result, your management summary makes up an important aspect of your cleaning business plan.
Unlike many of your other costs, you can better control your labor costs than anything else.
Streamlining your everyday operations, increasing your route density, and improving your time management are just a few ways you can control your labor costs (easily accomplish this with Service Autopilot!).
Your management summary should include things like:
Don’t forget to introduce the key players in your business within this section of your cleaning business plan:
Highlight the relevant experience and skills that make your team qualified to run a successful cleaning business.
A financial plan gives you a sense of how successful and profitable your cleaning business is.
The types of cleaning businesses that skip this step are the types of cleaning businesses that end up leaking profits and going bankrupt.
It’s a good idea to consult with your CPA (i.e. certified public accountant) as you build out this section of your business plan.
A financial advisor is great because they can evaluate your finances early on and discover profit holes and financial concerns BEFORE they become a problem.
Even though it does cost a bit to speak with a financial advisor, it can determine the success or failure of your cleaning business.
Take a look at a few things your financial plan should include:
The items above in bold are the bare bones items that you MUST include in your financial plan.
Even though not everything listed above will apply to you, it’s a great start in creating your first cleaning business plan.
Identify potential challenges and your plans to address them:
Demonstrating awareness of potential risks and having contingency plans shows investors and stakeholders that you're prepared for various scenarios.
Outline your plans for scaling the business:
Explain how you plan to capitalize on success and grow your market share over time.
Include supporting documents such as:
These documents provide additional context and support the claims made in your business plan.
As you develop your cleaning business plan, keep the following points in mind:
At last, you’re ready to get out there and begin building out your first cleaning business plan!
Even though a business plan can be time-consuming, this complete, step-by-step guide shows you a simplified process of how YOU can create the best business plan.
Now, you have all the tools and knowledge you need to use these steps to successfully grow and surpass your goals!
Related: Cleaning Business Budgeting: A Robust Guide
Originally published Feb 11, 2021 5:41 PM updated on Oct 15, 2024 2:30PM
Tags: Business Operation, Featured Post
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