Learn how to start and grow your carpet cleaning business with a solid plan, essential tools, marketing strategies, and eLogii for efficiency.
When the pandemic hit, people had to switch to virtual meetings and remote work. Many realized that hardwood floors caused echoes, which wasn’t great for Zoom calls. Because of this, a lot of them switched to carpeted floors, which caused a 12% rise in residential carpet sales.
As more people choose carpets, the need for carpet cleaning services is growing in 2024. This trend makes it a great time to start your own carpet cleaning business.
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If you’re thinking about starting a business in 2024, you need a solid plan and official registration. For a carpet cleaning business, you’ll also need the right tools for the job and ways to promote your services.
A business plan is a simple guide that helps you run your business smoothly. It explains what your business is all about and how it operates. Having one is crucial for success.
The first step is to create a title page for your business plan. Then, write the following seven sections:
Each section should have specific details. For instance, the company description should outline your business model and target audience. In the products and services section, list the carpet cleaning services you’ll offer and their prices. The financial section should explain how you manage your money, including your business bank account and tax ID number. The more specific your plan is, the better it will guide your business to success.
Registering your business makes it official and legal. It assigns a tax ID to your company and lets local authorities know you’ve set up your business. Depending on how big you want to go, you can register as a sole proprietorship or an LLC.
If you plan to work solo, registering as a sole proprietorship is a good idea. But, if you aim to grow, a sole proprietorship might not give you enough protection. An LLC turns your business into its own entity, which keeps you and your employees safe from things like personal liability if a customer sues over accidental carpet damage.
The documents you need to register can vary based on your state’s rules. Generally, you’ll need a business name and some insurance, like business or general liability insurance. Other specific permits and certifications might also be necessary, depending on where you’re operating.
To do your job well, you need the right carpet cleaning gear. Here's a list of essentials for your business:
You can find some of these tools at your local hardware store, but those are mostly for small home cleanups. For professional equipment and products, check out expert reviews in industry magazines like Cleanfax.
You’ll also need to set up your business. This means getting office space for your headquarters and supplies for your staff, from pens and paper to software. Plus, you’ll need trucks or another vehicle for your employees to travel to job sites.
Once you’re set to start offering your services, it’s time to market your business, letting customers know they can book you. For carpet cleaning businesses, old-school marketing methods still work great in 2024. Hand out business cards to customers or provide a sign for their yard to boost referrals. Going door to door with flyers and coupons in your area can also be effective. But, don’t rely on just these traditional methods.
Your marketing plan should include creating a company website and registering on Google Business Profile. This helps potential customers find you easily and informs Google about your contact details, business hours, and website. You can also grow your marketing reach by getting active on social media or buying ads in local media outlets.
Once your business is up and running, consider expanding your services. Offering more services can bring in more customers and boost your profits. Some additional services you might offer include:
To decide which services to offer, look at the startup costs and potential profits for each one in 2024. For instance, adding upholstery cleaning has low startup costs since you may only need a few special brushes or cleaning solutions. But keep in mind, the demand for this service isn’t very high, so it might not significantly increase your profits by itself.
To succeed in the long run, your business needs to make a profit. Carpet cleaning businesses earn by completing cleaning jobs—the more jobs you do, the more money you make. You could hire more cleaners to do more jobs, but that means spending time and money on new hires and higher wages. While you might handle more jobs, the increased costs could eat into your profits. Instead, if you focus on better routing and scheduling, you can make your existing team more efficient, allowing them to take on more jobs without raising costs.
You can improve routing through route optimization, which finds the most efficient sequence for all your service stops. True route optimization considers where your appointments are, how long it takes to get there, your appointment times, and how much time you need to spend at each job, then finds the quickest sequence that meets all these factors. Even if your technicians are already taking the fastest routes, you don’t want them crisscrossing town between jobs. Efficient service and technician scheduling practices can help by grouping services in nearby areas together.
Optimizing your routing and scheduling in 2024 can boost your profits in several ways:
However, letting one person or even a whole field service management team handle routing and scheduling can be slow and prone to mistakes. For instance, if someone double-books appointments, you might end up with too few technicians for the job. Canceling a customer’s service unexpectedly can also leave a bad impression. Using software like eLogii helps avoid these issues by utilizing AI to manage your scheduling and routing efficiently.
Routing and scheduling are crucial for managing your mobile workforce in a carpet cleaning business. But, they can be tough and take a lot of time. eLogii is a routing and planning tool that makes these tasks easy by automating them.
To automate route planning with eLogii, simply upload key details like service times and job locations to the platform. Then, click the “plan routes” button, and eLogii will review all the job details to create routes that get your technicians to their appointments on time. The routes are optimized to reduce mileage, which helps you save on fuel and cut down on vehicle wear and tear.
Once the routes are set, drivers can view them on their phones. eLogii’s Driver App provides turn-by-turn directions, ensuring they reach the job site without any issues.
It’s crucial to have enough cleaners scheduled to handle all your planned services. However, poor scheduling can lead to problems like overstaffing or paying overtime. eLogii helps you avoid these problems by automatically calculating employee hours and checking all your appointments to figure out how many cleaners you need. With the Weekly Planning feature, you can plan out an entire week or month in advance, ensuring everyone gets enough hours and all clients are covered.
Using eLogii to fine-tune your routes and schedules lets you boost efficiency with the resources you already have. By optimizing your routes, you cut down on the time cleaners spend driving between jobs, freeing up more time for them to clean carpets. Plus, eLogii’s workload balancing helps spread the work evenly among your team, so you can finish all your jobs without burning anyone out.
Once you’ve scheduled appointments and provided cleaners with easy directions, eLogii lets you inform customers about their service timing. This enhances their experience by setting clear expectations for your service. The system can send automatic updates to customers when their service is confirmed and reminders when their appointment is near.
eLogii also gives managers complete visibility into where cleaners are during their jobs. If a cleaner is delayed by traffic or other unexpected events, you’ll know the reason for the delay. This helps you decide whether to reschedule, send a different technician, or inform the customer that their cleaner will be a bit late.
In this section, we’ll tackle some common questions about launching a carpet cleaning business in 2024.
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