Month: May 2023

How to Start A House Cleaning Business In 7 Simple Steps

One of the main reasons people start businesses is to make money. For some it’s a blessing to make money doing something they love. I’m not saying that you have to love house cleaning in order to have a successful house cleaning business; however it would be a good idea if you didn’t hate it.

How much money you make depends on how big you want your business to be. It could be a one person operation where you set up at home and service areas close to home, or you could set up a commercial office and hire people to work for you.

Here are 7 simple steps to get you started on your own house cleaning business.

1) Decide exactly what kind of house cleaning services you will offer.

Here you decided what cleaning you will do, like making beds, vacuuming, mopping and waxing floors, dusting and so on. Also note what you won’t do, e.g. laundry. You can also decide to specialize, e.g. by cleaning carpets only, or cleaning suspended ceilings only.

2) Pricing your housecleaning service.

To have an idea of how to charge for your housecleaning service, use your competition. Check your telephone directory and the classified ads section in your local newspapers for cleaning businesses, call them up (pretend to be a prospective client) and find out exactly what cleaning services they offer and how much they charge. With this information gathered decide the best price to charge for your cleaning service.

3) Workout startup costs.

For this you need to consider, tools, material, transport, advertising, insurance etc. Write down a list all the tools and material you need, like cleaners, sponges, mops, carpet cleaning equipment etc. Next find out the cost of each item on the list and write it down next to the item.

Transport: you will have to estimate your costs here. You see it depends on where your client is located and your means of transportation to get to your client. (Having your own vehicle would be to your advantage).

Advertising: You can use free advertising (word of mouth) and paid advertising (classifieds, telephone directory ads etc). Phone calls to your local newspaper and the telephone company who publish your telephone directory will tell you the cost of placing ads.

Once you’ve gathered all this information, calculate your total startup costs.

4) Name your business.

Choosing an appropriate name for your house cleaning business is important. Here are a few examples I got of the internet, ‘Maid Brigade’, ‘All Shine Cleaning’, ‘White Glove Cleaning Service’. Please avoid using ‘Your Name Cleaning Services’. Using your own name as part of your business name is over done by many house cleaning businesses. Brainstorm and come up with a name that helps you stand out of the crowd.

5) Learn the zoning regulations of your community.

Check the city clerk’s Office or your local library for a copy for a copy of the zoning laws governing your community. Your reason for doing this is that some zoning regulations prohibit home businesses in a community.

6) Do a few free cleaning jobs.

Well you’re not actually doing them for free. You’re doing them in exchange for references (these add to your credibility for future paying clients and are invaluable). You can offer these free cleaning jobs to friends, non profit organizations in your communities etc.

7) Get your first paying client then get another and another and another and so on.

Tell everyone you know that you’ve started a cleaning business and place ads in the local newspapers. In the beginning you need to spend most of your time and money getting paying clients. However, the more clients you get the less time and money you spend on marketing and more time you spend on cleaning and making your clients happy.

This is just the beginning. Once you start making money take a house cleaning business course to help you better manage your business in terms of growth, accounting, taxes, insurance better marketing strategies and more.

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You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included. A courtesy copy of your publication would be appreciated. fayolap@yahoo.com

8 Golden Success Secrets for Small Businesses

Running a small business is as challenging as trekking to Mt. Everest without having oxygen cylinder, prior practice, and a valid map guide. The challenges are only because there are no authentic rules that can lead a small business towards success while other major obstacles comprise: low budget, limited manpower, and lack of efficient resources. But as a small business owner, you must delve into the passcodes that help you decode the secret patterns of operating a successful startup or small business. It not only helps you to sustain your current growth but also excel your business planning’s to achieve higher objectives. There are a few suggestions based on real-world experiences, which can assist you to hit the bull’s eye.

1- Utilize the power of social media:

Nowadays, the entire world revolves around social media and if you are able to use its full potential, it can immediately help you increase your sales and brand reputation with very minimum resource and effort. Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, help you connect with a large scale of users, where you can directly interact with them, thereby allowing you to convert them into your potential clients. It forms a two-way channel that not only allows you to put your message across but also, listen to what your targeted audience want, which eventually goes a long way in improving and growing your business.

2- Research and analyze your competition:

A business turns to be successful only if it runs on some finely grinned facts and figures. And competition analysis is one of the most important elements of the process. Competition analysis tells you the strength you will require to establish your brand in the market as well as it helps to prepare your business planning adequately so that you could avoid the chances of business failure. An additional benefit of competition research is it allows for designing and developing more feasible and user-oriented products that eventually help you attain a competitive edge over the current market.

3- Work as per your plan but be flexible too:

Efficient planning is a roadmap that drives your business to the top in the long run with predefined routes. It is always advised to stick with our planning even if we face a few hurdles while running our business given that the strategies are designed after in-depth analysis. And day-to-day challenges should not incline you to alter with whatever you planned. The winners always back their business plannings regardless of the stiff challenges, but on the other side, a successful business requires the owner to be flexible enough to embrace new changes. Adapting the new ideas and concepts not only makes a business owner take smart decisions but also, keeps their core planning intact and fresh.

4- Use informative materials to build trust and loyalty:

The Internet is the best medium to reach out to the huge audience with less effort, but you should keep the fact in mind that there is already a heavy flow of advertisements and endorsements all over the web. So, what can be an efficient way to create our presence with a significant impact?

There are definitely some better ways to do it like using informative online materials such as well-written blogs, well-designed infographics, animated videos demonstrating some set of skills, and presentation sheets, etc. Following such practices will attract a huge mass to our platform to learn and engage with us, which gives a sense of trust and ultimately convert them into our long-term clients.

5- Hire your weaknesses:

A small business consists of a team of limited dedicated professionals, having different skill sets of all the corners to tackle most of the business requirements. Small businesses, sometimes, compromise in some crucial areas since they can’t hire specific individuals due to the lack of budget. To get your business positioned to the top, please don’t bear with your inefficient area. Rush into hiring experienced professional(s) so that all parts of your business fire with the same intensity.

6- Be ready for mergers and acquisitions:

Even after working with your full potential, you may not generate enough force to compete with the leading competitors. Other small businesses with the same concept may face the same situations. Just find them and join in the talks to check the possibilities of the merger to form a combined force, which can provide the required pace and power to achieve the common business goals. Mergers have a long, rich history of producing successful businesses, so don’t shy away with it. Similarly, business acquisitions are a noble idea to inject more strength to our business if budget allows us to do so.

7- Keep the quality service always on:

Quality service is the most important source that keeps your client for a longer period of time and it spreads huge positive feedbacks in the mass, driving in a large number of new clients. There have been more than just a few businesses reaching to the top just on the base of excellent service and even without spending a bomb on advertisements and business promotions. While there are other businesses which have failed miserably because of giving no importance to the quality of the services they provided. All in all, having the sound quality of the products/services is the key to succeeding in today’s cut throat competition.

8- Don’t give up:

Running a successful business is not a child’s play since it requires a lot of guts, courage, and risk-taking capabilities. It, sometimes, shakes your ambitions when going through some rough patches, and you need to have the burning desires within you to keep it alive. Keeping patience is also an important character that the small business owner must have, as the formation of a business and climb the ladder of success, demands to wait for long period of time. So, as a business owner, you need to instill never give up attitude to see your dreams come true!!

Summing it up, though the above-mentioned points are not entirely foolproof but yes, following these points will definitely help you to become a smart small business owner who can defy all the challenges and get on the top of the competition. Of Course, the chances of success or failure of your business completely depends on your planning and execution.

Importance of Business Communication

In this era, the business or trade world is the most money-spinning and creative platform for the businessmen. You may be a business entrepreneur, a startup venture or a big industry, you need to grow and create an impact on the customers through quality of your service or product.

It is mandatory to update your business acumen, the trends and the technology. To compete and excel in the market, it is essential to keep an eye on every aspect that may help you gain big profit and name.

Communication is one feature that is of foremost significant for growth of any business. The message you send to the masses or target audience should generate goodwill depending on the brilliance of communication sent across. Successful companies have a dedicated team to take care of Public Relations and Communication.

Business Mails have become one of the major forms of business communication. One must carefully draft emails and put the message in an interesting and innovative way to attract the attention of readers towards the idea or concept being sold.

A well composed mail itself should be sufficient for any proposal or business idea. It should be so alluring that a proposal can be agreed and sealed, inception of new alliances could take place, and partnerships or projects could be renewed.

Hence, business email is immense important in today’s cut throat competition. The business email is the first impression; it creates the business image of a company. It enhances the company’s position, its standards and objectives. It develops the confidence in reader’s mind about the service or industry, the competence and business acumen of its team members.

Thus, it becomes most challenging to draft an effective email. While drafting a business email one must ensure a flawless documentation and presentation:

· Format: The design or the template of email should be contemporary. Always follow the structure of formal letter with every rule or parameter taken into consideration. Don’t forget to put salutation, and subject of mail in the opening.

· Email Receivers: Keep the receiver email in “To” and others in “BCC”, “CC” to your seniors or team members can also be sent.

· Brevity: Remember to keep it short. The reader would ignore long and tedious mails. You have to value a busy schedule of the reader.

· Wording: Use formal, polite, yet attractive and compelling vocabulary. A second person addressing gives a personal touch and it would impress the reader.

· Accuracy: Ensure that the mail has crisp and clear words, and it should be properly addressed. Go for spell check to guarantee that there are no spelling errors. Also, ensure there should be no grammar mistakes. The content should be precise and unblemished.

· Signature: The signatures should be given at the end in a defined format:

1. Thanks/ Regards,

2. Yours faithfully/ Sincerely, Truly,

3. Name of sender,

4. Designation of sender,

5. Contact information with the mobile number and email,

6. Company website and logo,

7. Link to social media.

5 Must-Haves While Looking For A Digital Marketing Agency For Your Startup

Every startup or small scale business holds the potential to grow if it has the right ingredients. The ingredients are the right idea, funding & a professional digital marketing agency to hoist the digital campaigns & plans for such business.

To expand any business’s horizons it has become important for them to be a part of such a digital era. Digital marketing over conventional marketing is becoming one approach that is no doubt output-oriented, steadfast resulting and most of all cost-effective.

A brick & mortar business in today’s time requires a website, social media presence & some key strategies & actionable tasks to evolve as a recognized brand in the market. But before starting with the process, the key is to understand what your startup must look for in a digital marketing agency before partnering with their services – apart from their digital marketing startup package.

Here are the 5 must-haves to look for in a digital marketing firm of today other than digital marketing startup package:

1. Hard to miss – their website

The first thing you need to approach is their website, their website will help you decide how well they can plan for your website’s marketing. Check if their website is up to date and has all the capabilities that any website should host. Their website will speak volumes about their agency, their achievements, competency and the efforts they may be willing to put in your startup’s website to make it trending & best-selling.

2. Referrals for the credibility

It is the most crucial thing to do – to check the company’s profile & market image before extending a contract with them for their service. You can contact their ex-clients or customers to get the preview of their work pattern & check how well they have managed to publicize certain brands in the search engines. The best way could be testimonials & the portfolio embedded on the website.

3. Veteran of the current technology, software & marketing methods

Digital marketing is effortless if it doesn’t house the latest technologies, software, tools & the methodologies. Look for the veterans or experts that are familiar with the latest social media performance monitoring & analytics tools, knows the search engine’s guidelines and can come up with customized strategies suitable to the brand/company profile.

4. Complies well with your startup’s goals & ideas

A well-reputed online marketing agency knows how to come in terms with any startup’s shared goals, nature & idea behind it. An agency must comprehend the nature of business & must revert the strategies or plans that work in their demeanour.

5. Flexible in terms of making communication with the client

Such marketing firm should be easy in terms of bringing right communication on the tables. They should not lapse in terms of communicating the core messages like the process, progress or the suggested actions for the certain project.

It takes the right digital marketing firm to flourish any startup to with creativity, innovation, insightfulness in their coming process.

Solve Funding Issues to Finance SME’s Growth Plans

SME’s are developing rapidly and flourishing enormously worldwide. Since its initiation and establishment, there some extremely important and basic requirements to be met and adopted. These requirements include; infrastructure and employment requirements, a developed information technology infrastructure along with funding sources, which is the most important aspect of the sustainability of these SME’s.

Funding sources are the strengthening pillars for such small and medium-sized enterprises.

SME (small to medium enterprise) is a convenient term for categorizing businesses and other organizations that are somewhere between “small office-home office” (SOHO) size and the larger enterprise.

Unavailability of timely and adequate funds has an immense adverse effect on the growth of these SME’s which in turn affects the growth of the Indian economy. Such insufficient funding sources serve as the crucial barrier in the development and sustenance of SME’s.

The economic development in India is hugely dependent on the performance of small or micro and medium enterprises. They are the powerhouse of innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and enormous talent, which is required for the nation’s development in the economic sector.

Indian SME sector:

This sector contributes to the industrial output, provides employment to masses. They also contribute widely in exports. These organizations produce quality products for national and international markets.

The presence of SME’s is greatly acknowledged. The manufacturing sector is rapidly advancing because of the contribution of these organizations.

Undoubtedly, these SME’s are performing their best, despite their limited sources. Still, there are multiple cases of these organizations facing funding issues.

The solution for funding issues faced by SME’s:

The government has been taking initiatives like setting up the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council, announcing National Manufacturing Policy (NMP) and much more to energize and boost the manufacturing sector.

Banks have made stable strides to support SME’s. However, such approaches by banks for funding are limited and restricted because by controlling and managing risk, they ultimately create value. Thus, banks are not always a rightful solution as a funding source.Access to capital markets is rare, in the case of SME’s. Therefore, such organizations hugely depend on borrowed funds from some financial institutions and banks.

Mostly commercial banks provide extended working capital and financial institutions provide investment credits. Universal banking services, working capital, and term loans are becoming available for SME’s for funding.Meanwhile, the traditional requirements of finance are still actively in use, for creating the asset and working capital.Globalization is generating a demand for introduction and development new financial and support services.

The RBI should issue necessary guidelines to all banks on credit flow. Moreover, the Government should work rigorously to create an environment conducive for growth for the SMEs that restrains the need for capital and debt.

Setting up SME-targeted banks that provide priority to lending to the SME sector.

Financing schemes for SMEs can be formulated and be beneficial. These might be highly risky, but promises great returns. There is also a need for a reduction in the interest rates. SMEs has been paying high-interest rates for bank loans. The loan structure should restructure, on an urgent basis as lower interest rates are an extremely important need for SME’s.

Delayed payments are yet another major area of concern for SME’s that lead to reduced working capital.

Recycling of funds and various business operations are majorly affected due to delay in dues settlement. Defaulting customers are mostly large enterprises and the SMEs due to fear of losing business are not able to report against them.

An automated portal could be established by the government, wherein SMEs makes available their customer detailings.The government can also send automated reminders to defaulting organizations, in the cases of payment defaults.

As it is well known all over that, for the government, the Budget is an occasion to set up new financial goals and economic goals, allocate financial resources and provide policy directions. During Budget presentations, the Finance Minister announces new policies, schemes, projects and allocates finance for the development of several sectors of the economy, to meet the overall goals of socioeconomic growth.

For SMEs, the potential sources of finance are very limited. However, their usefulness is limited because of mostly practical problems. Crowdfunding also supplies chain financing are some funding sources.

Some more funding sources for SME’s

The owner, family, and friends of SME

An excellent source of finance. Mostly, such investors, invest not just for financial gains and are willing to accept lower returns than other investors. However, the key limitation, for most of these organizations, is that, that the finance they can build personally, from friends and family, is limited.

Trade credit

SMEs can take credit from their respective suppliers. It is however just short-term and, if the suppliers are big companies who have identified and categorized them as potentially risky SME, the possibility to extend may be limited, for the credit period.

The business angel

A wealthy individual who is willing to take the risk of investing in SMEs. However, they are just found in rarity. Once such an individual is interested they can become useful to the SME, as they have great business plans and contacts.

Factoring and invoice discounting

These sources help the organizations to raise finance. It is only short-term and is mostly more costly than an overdraft. However, with the SME growth rate, their receivables will grow thereby the amount they can borrow from invoice discounting will also rapidly growing.

Leasing

Leasing assets is a better option rather than buying.them, as it avoids to raise the capital cost. However, leasing is mostly possible on tangible assets.

Listing

An SME can become quoted by acquiring a listing on the stock exchange. Thus, raising finance would become less of an issue. But before listing can be considered the organization must grow to the considerable size that a listing is feasible.

Supply chain financing

SCF is new and is somehow different than the methods of traditional working capital financing, such as offering settlement discounts, as it promotes collaboration between the buyers and sellers in the supply chain.

The venture capitalist

A venture capitalist organization is mostly a subsidiary of a company that has worthy cash holdings and might need to be invested. Such subsidiaries are at high-risk, potentially high-return part of their investment portfolio. To attract venture capital funding, such organization has to have a business strategy and idea, that may help to create, high returns that the venture capitalist is seeking. Thus, operating in regular business, venture capitalist financing may be impossible for many SME’s.

The above mentioned are the various solutions for SME’s to deal with the issue insufficient funding sources.

5 Powerful Tips to Consider Before You Start a Catholic Business

There are about 1.2 billion Catholics in the world. With that many people with something in common, there is a great opportunity not only to build a great business but one that is socially good virtuous.

Now, in reality, a Catholic business shouldn’t be any different from any other business aside from its goals. When devout Catholics want to start a business, you’ll often see them create a book store. That’s great, but often these small shops get dominated by larger online chains.

Here are some tips for starting a business that carries with it the conviction that comes with faith:

  1. The most important thing to realize that everybody needs a solution to something, and if you can fulfill that need you are making their life better. Your business does not have to be overtly Catholic (i.e. a Catholic book store, or a Catholic bakery), rather your mission statement and the soul of your business should be geared toward holiness. That way, you could start a web development, show shine, or online fishing store and still carry with it the impact of your faith.

  2. You need to learn effective selling and marketing skills. I can’t tell you how many Catholic businesses I’ve seen that have horrible promotional campaigns, terrible websites, and still wonder why they can’t get any customers. Just because your business is faith-based it doesn’t mean that you can ignore the fundamentals.

  3. Engage in social media. There are a lot of folks out there that are willing to spread the word of your business, especially if you’ve engaged them on a consistent basis. Do not ignore the revolution that is taking place, and take a course on social networking if you have to.

  4. Find a mentor – even if they are not Catholic. You need someone to bounce ideas off of and to ensure that your ideas are realistic and doable. A mentor will act as a guide and will make sure that you are successful.

  5. Join a mastermind group and share ideas. The best way to learn something new is to learn it from someone else. There are meetup groups all over the place and for almost every industry, and you need to take advantage of them. One additional benefit is that you’ll be networking with other people who may become future clients.

The point of this article is that you need to do everything that a secular business person needs to do. Just like being religious won’t help you to be a better soccer player, if you intend to join the game of business you need to learn the rules of business. So get out there, and start learning.

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