how to write a business plan for commercial cleaning

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Business Plan for a Cleaning Business: Complete Guide

• January 30, 2023

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Whether you’re looking to raise funding from private investors or to get a loan from a bank (like a SBA loan) for your cleaning business, you will need to prepare a solid business plan.

In this article we go through, step-by-step, all the different sections you need in the business plan of your cleaning business. Use this template to create a complete, clear and solid business plan that get you funded.

1. Executive Summary

The executive summary of a business plan gives a sneak peek of the information about your business plan to lenders and/or investors.

If the information you provide here is not concise, informative, and scannable, potential lenders and investors may lose interest.

Why do you need a business plan for a cleaning business?

The purpose of a business plan is to secure funding through one of the following channels:

• Obtain bank financing or secure a loan from other lenders (such as a SBA loan )
• Obtain private investments from investment funds, angel investors, etc.
• Obtain a public or private grant

How to write an executive summary for a cleaning business?

Provide a precise and high-level summary of every section that you have included in the business plan for your cleaning business. The information and the data you include in this segment should grab the attention of potential investors and lenders immediately. Ensure that the executive summary doesn’t exceed 2 pages in total.

The executive summary usually consists of the five major sub-sections that include:

• Business overview : introduce what services your cleaning business offers (commercial vs. residential cleaning), what type of customers you focus on (individuals, businesses, factories, etc.), any specific cleaning service you focus on (e.g. carpet cleaning), your company structure and, more importantly, how and why you want to start such a business today
• Market overview : the market overview section will contain an overview of the expected market size and growth of the cleaning industry in your area as well as your target customers. Another important part of any market overview is a clear and thorough analysis of your competitors
• People : introduce your company’s management and employee structure. Provide a brief (no more than a couple of sentences each) of the experience of the team. Also, speak about your hiring plans: who will you hire and who will report to whom?
• Financial plan : how much profit and revenue do you expect in the next 5 years? When will you reach break-even point and start making profits? Include here your key financials such as revenue, gross profits, and net profit
• Funding ask : what loan/investment/grant are you seeking? How much do you need? How long will this last?

Cleaning Financial Model

Download an expert-built 5-year Excel financial model for your business plan

2. Business Overview

The business overview section is sometimes called the company description and is one of the most important parts of the cleaning business plan.

Here, you will want to provide crucial information about your cleaning business, including your services, pricing structure , customers, and company structure.

a) History of the Project

This is a brief description of your business, outlining its origin and your reasons for venturing into this field. As one would put it, it answers a major question about business; why a cleaning company? 

When starting a cleaning business, you want to use all your best tools to show the lenders and investors that your passion is deeply built around the need to fill an existing market gap. For example, you would argue that many customers in your area need eco-friendly cleaning, tile and grout cleaning, or commercial kitchen cleaning services.

b) Business Model

You should be clear if you are opening an independent cleaning company or partnering. Also, make it clear if you are buying an existing franchise.

Franchising has an added advantage of simplicity, given an already established market base. However, every model has its risks and benefits. So, choose what’s best for your target market and long-term goals. 

c) Services

Don’t get it twisted. Cleaning companies offer a range of services to their consumers depending on the business location and demand. So, an important aspect of laying a solid foundation is to explain to your customers what they should expect from your business. In other words, what type of cleaning services do you intend to offer? 

The 2 main categories of cleaning services are: residential and commercial cleaning.

Residential cleaning targets private residences and homes. If you choose this option, you can specialize in home maintenance, move-in and move-out cleaning, deep cleaning, green cleaning, and residential event cleanups. 

On the other hand, commercial cleaning suits businesses and requires significant manpower, more space, and sophisticated equipment. You can’t run this business in some regions without enough vehicles to transport your equipment. 

If you plan to specialize in commercial cleaning, you can focus on general office cleaning tasks, large-scale specialized cleaning, construction cleanups, commercial kitchen cleaning, and hazardous waste cleaning.

d) Pricing Strategy

Another important part of the business overview section is your pricing structure. It should be as clear as possible because investors will rely on it when assessing your financial need.

Most cleaning companies in the US set their rates per square foot, per room, per hour, or as a flat fee. And the standard national hourly cost of house cleaning services in the US ranges from $50 to $90 per hour per cleaner.  

e) Target Customers

Who is your ideal customer? And which cleaning services do they need? You might have already identified your target market if you can answer these questions correctly. 

For instance, if private residences and apartments dominate the region, many individuals will probably need residential cleaning services. Make sure you offer that.

Similarly, a busy city center with many offices and commercial properties will probably benefit from commercial cleaning services as mentioned above. Identifying your target market is one of the fastest ways to increase revenue potential after assessing the competition. 

f) Legal Structure

Finally, your business overview section should specify what type of business structure you want. Is this a corporation or a partnership (LLC)? Who are the investors? How much equity percentage do they own? Is there a Board of Directors? If so, whom? Do they have experience in the industry?

3. Market Overview

To run a successful business, you need all the facts that back your decision to start a cleaning company in the region at that time. Market analysis will help you identify the level of competition in the region and whether the investment is worth it. 

For example, offering commercial cleaning services in a residential setup would make little sense. Similarly, overpricing your services when the dominant population is low to middle-income earners won’t fast-track business growth. 

a) Cleaning Business Industry Status Quo

This section should answer two obvious questions about your cleaning business;

• What is the market size of the cleaning industry in your area? 
• How fast is the cleaning industry growing? 

Both questions will help you set realistic expectations when getting into this field, having analyzed the market trends and size. 

How big is the cleaning industry in the US?

It’s always good to start any market overview by assessing the market size at a national level.

Of course, the figures may not represent the actual status of the cleaning business in your region, but they offer a solid foundation for building a thriving business. According to the latest statistics, the cleaning service industry in the US had a value of $97.6 billion in 2022 . 

The staggering need for cleaning services means that the commercial cleaning sector will likely grow at a steady rate of 5.4% up to 2025 . Although this may be a good sign for setting up your cleaning business, you should also assess market growth in your area (see below).

How big is the cleaning industry in your area?

Getting the market data at the city level gives you a clearer picture of what to expect from the market. It may complicated, but you only need the total number of cleaning companies in your region and their services to assess your area’s market size.

For example, let’s assume you want to get into the carpet cleaning business. With close to 32,000 carpet cleaning businesses in the US, and a total market value of $4 billion (carpet cleaning US market), we can safely assume each carpet cleaning business generates $125,000 in sales per year on average.

Now, assuming there are 25 competitors in your area, the estimated market size of the carpet cleaning industry in your area is $3.1 million.

How fast is the cleaning industry growing in your area?

You may need to analyze multiple factors to determine the growth rate of the cleaning industry in your region. Sometimes, this involves a few calculations to get an actual figure when drawing your conclusion. 

For example, if the region had 120 cleaning companies in 2020, which increased to 150 in 2022, you can assume that the industry is growing at a steady rate of 12% per year. 

Pay attention to all factors that may directly impact the growth rate, including a population influx, increased demand, and increased income potential. 

However, don’t be shocked if you notice a successive drop in the demand for cleaning services in the region. This is possible even when the national statistics show otherwise. Its part and parcel of the business and could indicate that this isn’t the right time to launch a cleaning company. 

b) Cleaning Business Competitor Analysis

Another crucial step in the business plan of your cleaning company is to assess the existing competition. There are a couple of questions to guide you here, including;

• How many cleaning companies are there in your region?
• What services do they offer (residential, commercial cleaning, or both)?
• What’s the average price of hiring a cleaning company in the region?
• What’s the total number of individuals employed by a typical cleaning company in the region? 
• How many customers do they serve per week/month? 

Why do you need a competitive analysis in the business plan of your cleaning business?

Assessing the competition in the area where you plan to start your cleaning business will allow to better understand whether there is sufficient demand, and whether you are well positioned to take market share from competitors.

For example, starting a new business would make perfect sense under the following circumstances;

• There’s a clear market gap that you can fill in the region (For example, offering a service that other companies might have missed, like eco-friendly/green cleaning) 
• There are no or inadequate cleaning companies in the region. This would present the perfect opportunity to tap into the market potential and grow a thriving business. 

c) Cleaning Business Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section is almost similar to your target audience . However, this is your chance to prove to the lenders that your target market is real and available. You can use the following questions to analyze your client base; 

• Which individuals need cleaning services in the region? 
• What’s the average income of the individuals in the region? (This is also important when determining your pricing structure)
• Which cleaning services are they interested in?
• How often do they need cleaning services? (daily, weekly, monthly)
• Are they more likely to benefit from commercial or residential cleaning services?

Usually, the level of competition in the region also influences your customer analysis. So, that should be clear to help you determine the market demand or predict the success of your cleaning business.

4. Sales & Marketing

The sales and marketing strategy sums up your plans for acquiring new clients. Here are a few helpful questions to guide you:

• Which marketing channels are best suited to your business (online vs. offline marketing)?
• Do you have a unique selling point? If so, what is it?
• What is your marketing budget for the first months / year?
• How can you track the success of your marketing strategy?
• Do you plan to offer any promotions to attract new customers? 

Cleaning Business Marketing Channels

You can use the following channels for marketing your cleaning business locally;

• Pay-per-click campaigns (e.g. Google ads)
• Email, SMS marketing
• Social media content & ads 
• Word-of-mouth advertising
• TV and radio advertisement

What are your Unique Selling Points (USPs)?

A unique selling point is what puts you ahead of the rest. It’s no secret that you will face stiff competition from established cleaning companies in the field. So, how you set yourself apart matters. Some factors to consider include;

• Price : Cheaper services than your competitors
• Location : Your proximity to the target market gives you a slight edge over the rest
• Quality : Stellar cleaning services with modern equipment will attract more clients

5. Management & People

You must address 2 things here:

• The management team and their experience/track record
• The organizational structure: different team members and who reports to whom?

a) Management

Small businesses often fail because of managerial weaknesses . Thus, having a strong management team is vital. Highlight the experience and education of senior managers that you intend to hire to oversee your commercial cleaning business.

Describe their duties, responsibilities, and roles. Also, highlight their previous experience and explain how they succeeded in their previous roles.

It is also important that you explain how their experiences and qualifications help you in offering the services you are proposing. If they have specialized training and education (such as carpet cleaning, industrial cleaning, etc.), add that information too.

b) Organizational Structure

Even if you haven’t already hired a senior manager and any other relevant staff members, you must provide a flowchart of the organizational structure defining the hierarchy of reporting as shown below.

6. Financial Plan

The financial plan is perhaps, with the executive summary, the most important section of any business plan for a cleaning company.

Indeed, a solid financial plan tells lenders that your business is viable and can repay the loan you need from them. If you’re looking to raise equity from private investors, a solid financial plan will prove them your cleaning business is an attractive investment.

There should be 3 sections to your financial plan section:

• Your historical financials (only if you already operate the business and have financial accounts to show)
• The startup costs of your project (if you plan to start a new cleaning business, purchase new equipment, etc.)
• The 5-year financial projections

a) Historical Financials (if any)

In the scenario where you already have some historical financials (a few quarters or a few years), include them. A summary of your financial statements in the form of charts e.g. revenue, gross profit and net profit is enough, save the rest for the appendix.

If you don’t have any, don’t worry, most new businesses don’t have any historical financials and that’s ok. If so, jump to Startup Costs instead.

b) Startup Costs

Before we expand on 5-year financial projections in the following section, it’s always best practice to start with listing the startup costs of your project.

For a cleaning business, startup costs are all the expenses you incur before you start making sales. Luckily, these expenses are rather low for cleaning companies and mostly include the cost to purchase equipment and the vehicle you will use to transport them.

As an example, it costs on average $73,500 – $167,500 to start a small commercial cleaning business with 2 vans and 4 employees. We have laid out below estimates for the key startup costs you can expect for a cleaning business.

Note that these costs are for illustrative purposes and may not be fully relevant for your business. For more information on how much it costs to start and run a cleaning business, read our article here .

c) Financial Projections

In addition to startup costs, you will now need to build a solid 5-year financial model for your cleaning business.

Your financial projections should be built using a spreadsheet (e.g. Excel or Google Sheets) and presented in the form of tables and charts in the business plan of your cleaning business.

As usual, keep it concise here and save details (for example detailed financial statements, financial metrics, key assumptions used for the projections) for the appendix instead.

Your financial projections should answer at least the following questions:

• How much revenue do you expect to generate over the next 5 years?
• When do you expect to break even?
• How much cash will you burn until you get there?
• What’s the impact of a change in pricing (say 20%) on your margins?
• What is your average customer acquisition cost?

You should include here your 3 financial statements (income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement). This means you must forecast:

• The number of customers over time ;
• Your expected revenue ;
• Operating costs to run the business ;
• Any other cash flow items (e.g. capex, debt repayment, etc.).

When projecting your revenue, make sure to sensitize pricing and the number of customers as a small change in these assumptions will have a big impact on your revenues.

7. Funding Ask

This is the last section of the business plan of your cleaning business. Now that we have explained what your company is about, the services you offer and to whom, what’s your strategy, where you go and how you get there, this section must answer the following questions:

• How much funding do you need?
• What financial instrument(s) do you need: is this equity or debt, or even a free-money public grant?
• How long will this funding last?
• Where else does the money come from? If you apply for a SBA loan for example, where does the other part of the investment come from (your own capital, private investors?)

If you raise debt:

• What percentage of the total funding the loan represents?
• What is the corresponding Debt Service Coverage Ratio ?

If you raise equity

• What percentage ownership are you selling as part of this funding round?
• What is the corresponding valuation of your business?

Use of Funds

Any business plan should include a clear use of funds section. This is where you explain how the money will be spent.

Will you spend most of the loan / investment in paying your employees’ salaries? Or will it cover mostly the cost for the lease deposit and the renovation?

Those are very important questions you should be able to answer in the blink of an eye. Don’t worry, this should come straight from your financial projections. If you’ve built solid projections like in our Cleaning financial model template , you won’t have any issues answering these questions.

For the use of funds, we also recommend using a pie chart like the one we have in our financial model template where we outline the main expenses categories as shown below.

Privacy Overview

Cleaning Business Plan Template (+Free PDF Download)

Read Time 8 minutes

Author Joanne Bratton

Published March 29, 2024

Download the Guide

Table of Contents

Executive summary: Setting the foundation

Industry analysis: understanding the market landscape, marketing plan: promoting your cleaning services, financial plan: estimating costs and projections, operations plan: running a thriving cleaning company, set up your commercial cleaning business for success.

A commercial cleaning business plan can kickstart a new endeavor or clear the way for growth for an existing enterprise.

Crafting a comprehensive commercial cleaning business plan is pivotal to starting a new venture or fostering significant growth in an existing service. A well-structured business plan becomes a cornerstone for:

Making informed decisions

Setting objectives

Navigating the competitive commercial cleaning market

A cleaning company business plan isn’t a one-and-done task. You should regularly review and revise your business plan to evolve as your company grows to reflect your current vision, market, and financial targets.

This template provides a sample to help create a business plan.

An executive summary is an overview of your entire business plan.

While the executive summary is the first section of a business plan, most business owners find it makes sense to write it last. The executive summary often is one to two pages, but you should keep it as short as possible.

Essential components of an executive summary include:

Mission statement: Defines your company's mission, vision, and core values.

Company overview: Write a company description of services, locations, and number of cleaning staff. Include a short history of how the business started, names of owners, and business growth milestones.

Market synopsis: Provide an overview of your market, mentioning your commercial cleaning business's size and competitive advantages.

Financial elements: Summarize your business financials, including sales, profits, and projections for one to two years.

Future objectives: Outline your company’s plans for growth, such as offering new services, adding verticals, or expanding your service area.

Your executive summary must be clear and concise. If you’re seeking funding for your small business, the executive summary should demonstrate your cleaning company’s value to potential investors.

An industry analysis identifies the potential market for your commercial cleaning or janitorial services. This involves defining and comprehending key elements such as:

Target customers

Competition

Cleaning industry trends 

Customer’s changing demands

Customer analysis

Commercial cleaning companies perform a customer analysis to understand and meet customer needs. This research-based process identifies your potential client base's demographics, values, and behaviors.

To perform a customer analysis:

Gather information about your target market through your existing customer data, industry research, online tools such as Google Analytics, and social media surveys.

Segment your customers based on similar demographics, traits, preferences, and pain points.

Create customer personas, or fictional profiles, of your target customers and their specific needs.

Leverage your customer analysis to inform business services, products, and prices.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software assists market analysis by providing invaluable information about your customers and their buying journeys.

→ Aspire commercial cleaning business software helps businesses connect the dots with real-time customer data, feedback, and analysis. 

CRM data empowers companies to retain existing customers and expand their customer base by cultivating strong relationships with prospects and customers through:

Efficient communication

Personalized offers

Proactive support to address potential issues before they escalate

Competitor analysis

A competitive analysis identifies the competitors in your market. It helps you understand market demand and gives your business a competitive edge.

For instance, if you plan to specialize in carpet cleaning or window cleaning, you’ll want to know if competitors offer these services and what they charge.

Steps to perform a competitor analysis include:

Identify and gather information about your competitors.

Evaluate competitors’ services, service areas, prices, promotions, reputation, sales tactics, marketing strategies, target audience, and online presence.

Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your business.

Develop sales, marketing, and pricing strategies to gain a competitive advantage.

Once you know your customers and competitors, these assessments will help you develop effective marketing campaigns.

While a service business plan template provides a guideline for developing a marketing plan , it’s crucial to identify your company’s marketing goals and include methods to measure outcomes.

An effective marketing plan includes the following components:

Market research: Know your audience, their preferences, and their preferred online channels.

Marketing objectives: What do you want to accomplish? Increase cleaning contracts? Generate leads? The more specific your objectives, the better.

Marketing strategies: The marketing channels you use depend on your target audience. The most effective marketing campaigns use an omnichannel approach to share a consistent message online and offline.

Pricing strategy : A cleaning service pricing strategy should cover costs and include an appropriate profit margin. Your target market preferences and competitor pricing should also be factored into your pricing strategy.

Marketing budget: Determine the percentage of revenue for your marketing budget. Focus on the channels that deliver the best return on investment (ROI). You can adjust your budget depending on objectives, channels, and results.

Key performance indicators (KPIs): Measure marketing effectiveness with KPIs. These could include conversion rate, customer acquisition cost, cost per lead, customer lifetime value, and overall ROI. Track KPIs to make better marketing decisions and improve your ROI.

Review your marketing plan annually. Some businesses review their marketing strategy and budget quarterly to adjust as needed.

A solid financial plan ensures your commercial cleaning business doesn’t just stay afloat but thrives.

To get funding for business operations, you’ll need a realistic estimate of: 

Initial startup costs

Ongoing operational expenses

Financial projections 

A comprehensive, realistic financial plan shows potential partners and investors the value of your company and outlines business growth.

→ Include graphs and visuals in your financial plan to break down the numbers and easily communicate business information.

If you struggle with financial planning or creating budgets and forecasts, consider hiring a professional financial advisor.

The right business management software makes collecting accurate data in your initial months much easier to ensure your initial estimate and projections are sound. 

→ The earlier you can adjust operations and pricing to maintain profitability, the quicker you can set and achieve new goals.

The following sections provide more detail about key areas of a financial plan.

Calculating initial startup costs

Initial startup costs cover one-time expenses for a new cleaning or janitorial business.

While startup expenses vary based on several factors, the average cleaning service spends $3,500 on startup costs .

Startup costs may include:

Legal fees: If you seek the advice of legal professionals, you’ll need to budget for legal expenses.

Business licenses and permits: Check on local regulations because you may need to register in additional states if your business performs work or hires employees from another state.

Cleaning equipment: Equipment such as floor buffers, vacuums, brooms, mops, cleaning supplies , cleaning products, and other specialty equipment.

Office space and equipment: Property purchase or rental deposit for an office space and technology costs.

Company vehicles: Depending on the size of your company, you may use a fleet of branded company vehicles.

Operational software : Instead of implementing siloed solutions for different aspects of your business, look at comprehensive software capable of scaling with you as you build. 

You’ll also want to consider additional marketing and advertising dollars to spread the word about your business.

A clear understanding of operational expenses ensures you correctly price cleaning jobs and target realistic revenue goals.

Recurring expenses are costs you pay regularly to keep your business running. Ongoing expenditures include:

Employee payroll and benefits

Mortgage or rental payments

Office utilities

Business insurance

Vehicle insurance

Cleaning products and supplies

Equipment maintenance

Technology subscriptions

Some expenses may be fixed, such as the mortgage payment, while others may be variable, such as the cost of cleaning products. 

Follow a budget, use best-practice accounting procedures, and track expenses to make needed financial adjustments.

Aspire’s comprehensive business management software collects financials above the gross margin line and pushes them in a one-way data sync to your accounting platform so you have clean, accurate data to inform your business plan updates. 

Financial projections and realism

Financial projections predict business revenue over a certain period. Data-backed financial plans drive better business decisions and help you plan for the future.

A startup cleaning business uses projected financial statements to determine future revenue and expenses. Industry and market analysis data can provide a starting point. In the case of an established cleaning business, use your historical data to project a percentage of financial growth.

To create a financial projection, you’ll need the following financial statements:

Income statement: An income statement, or profit and loss statement (P&L), shows your income and expenses. Your income statement should cover one year.

Cash flow statement: This statement projects all incoming and outgoing expenses for one year. A break-even analysis shows you how much revenue you need to break even with your expenses.

Balance sheet: This document lists business assets and liabilities and shows a summary of a business at present. 

In financial projections, accuracy is key. You don’t want to inflate your numbers, fail to reach your goals, or underestimate and miss out on growth opportunities.

As your business continues to operate, it’s important to use the right software to capture accurate financial data to achieve financial objectives and increase the accuracy of future projections. 

Aspire commercial cleaning business software integrates purchasing, invoicing, accounting, and payroll for full financial visibility. Robust reporting allows you to drill into sales, financials, job costs, and KPIs.

With real-time data , you gain deeper insight into business performance and can develop more effective business growth strategies.

A business operations plan outlines how your company will deliver high-quality service and achieve operational goals.

As you create an operations plan, involve your management team for ideas and input. After all, your managers are the ones who provide on-the-job oversight and remain accountable for operational goals.

An operations plan includes these elements:

Determine operational goals: Set business and departmental  goals. For instance, you could set a goal to increase annual revenue by 20% or a sales goal of 10 new cleaning contracts monthly.

Create roles and job descriptions: Clearly define the roles and responsibilities of each position. This ensures accountability and the ability to measure performance.

Plan the how-tos: Detail business processes and workflows in every department so your team delivers consistent, efficient results. This includes investing in commercial cleaning business software to centralize data and streamline operations.

Track performance: Set KPIs to measure short-term goals and identify areas for improvement. Operational KPIs measure the performance of your operations, such as average contract amount, contract renewal conversion rate, closing percentage, and gross profit percentage by department. 

Aspire provides user-based dashboards so every role can see the KPIs relevant to their short- and long-term goals. Having accurate, real-time information fuels responsive management, building ongoing growth momentum.

Commercial cleaning business owners who optimize operations experience the greatest profitability and growth. Aspire commercial cleaning business software provides seamless workflows in every area of business, including:

Crew management

Job costing

Equipment and supply management

Streamlined processes reduce waste, increase efficiency, and improve performance in your operations.

Creating a thorough commercial cleaning business plan sets the stage for business growth. But successful results rely on how well you execute your plan.

Aspire commercial cleaning business software provides industry-specific management tools to empower business owners to take control of operations. From simplified scheduling to accepting customer credit card payments online, Aspire’s advanced features give cleaning contractors full visibility into business operations and finances.

To get your business plan off the ground, implement the right tools to improve business and boost year-over-year growth.

Ready to see what Aspire can do for you? Request a demo to see Aspire features in action.

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Commercial Cleaning Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Commercial Cleaning Business Plan

You’ve come to the right place to create your Commercial Cleaning business plan.

We have helped over 1,000 entrepreneurs and business owners create business plans and many have used them to start or grow their Commercial Cleaning businesses.

Below is a template to help you create each section of your Commercial Cleaning business plan.

Executive Summary

Business overview.

Denver Corporate Cleaning is a new commercial cleaning service that serves the Denver, Colorado area. We offer the best quality services in the industry and can work with any type of business that needs our services. We offer several cleaning services including office cleaning, emergency cleanings, sanitization, and carpet cleaning. With our stellar work ethic, high-quality cleaning services, and client focused service, we plan to be the #1 commercial cleaning company in the Denver area in the next five years.

Denver Corporate Cleaning is founded by Pedro Hernandez. Pedro has worked in several cleaning companies over the past twenty years, but was disappointed in the lack of good customer service that these companies provided. For years, Pedro has been planning his own business that will provide client focused service as well as a longer list of cleaning services than the competition. After years of planning, he is now ready to launch his business.

Product Offering

Denver Corporate Cleaning offers a full suite of commercial cleaning services for businesses located in Denver, Colorado. These services include office cleaning, breakroom cleaning, window cleaning, emergency cleaning, and sanitizing. Clients can order a one-time cleaning service or regular services that occur monthly, weekly, or daily. Long-term clients will be charged monthly for their plans.

Customer Focus

Denver Corporate Cleaning will provide cleaning services to businesses located in Denver, Colorado. We expect most of our clientele will be corporate offices, but we will also work with churches, gyms, restaurants, schools, and other establishments.

Management Team

Denver Corporate Cleaning is founded by Pedro Hernandez. Pedro has worked in several cleaning companies over the past twenty years, but was disappointed in the lack of client-oriented service that these companies provided. For years, Pedro has been planning his own business that will emphasize client focused service and provide a longer list of cleaning services than the competition. After years of planning, he is now ready to launch his business.

Success Factors

Denver Corporate Cleaning is primed for success by offering the following competitive advantages:

• Professional cleaning services for an affordable price.
• Client-focused service where the owner will keep in touch with clients on a monthly basis.
• A referral program where clients can earn a free cleaning for every business they recruit.
• A focus on maintaining long-lasting relationships with our clients.

Financial Highlights

Denver Corporate Cleaning is seeking $225,000 in debt financing to launch. The funding will be dedicated to the office build out, purchase of initial supplies, working capital, marketing costs, and startup overhead expenses. The breakout of the funding is below:

• Office location design/build: $50,000
• Initial supplies and equipment: $50,000
• Three months of overhead expenses (payroll, rent, utilities): $50,000
• Working capital: $25,000
• Marketing: $50,000

The following graph below outlines the pro forma financial projections for Denver Corporate Cleaning.

Company Overview

Who is denver corporate cleaning.

Denver Corporate Cleaning is a new commercial cleaning service that serves the Denver, Colorado area. We offer several cleaning services to the businesses located in the area including office cleaning, emergency cleanings, sanitization, and carpet cleaning. We are open to working with any business (including churches, gyms, and restaurants) but we expect much of our clientele will be corporate offices.

  Denver Corporate Cleaning is founded by Pedro Hernandez. Pedro has worked in several cleaning companies over the past twenty years, but wasn’t satisfied with the level of service these companies offered their clientele. Pedro has been planning his business for years and is now ready to launch.

He recently conducted a market analysis and consumer survey to see if the business would be in high demand. The results from these were very positive, with many consumers saying that they would be interested in hiring the company’s services as soon as the business launches.

Denver Corporate Cleaning’s History

After spending several years in the cleaning industry, Pedro Hernandez gained the knowledge, skills, and expertise to start his own commercial cleaning business. In April 2023, he quit his job at his employer and incorporated Denver Corporate Cleaning as an S Corporation.

Since incorporation, Pedro has achieved the following milestones for Denver Corporate Cleaning:

• Developed the company’s name, logo and website
• Finished the list of services the company will provide
• Determined equipment and inventory requirements
• Found a potential office location

Denver Corporate Cleaning’s Services

Denver Corporate Cleaning will provide the following services to our clientele:

• Office cleaning
• Breakroom/kitchen cleaning
• Emergency cleaning
• Sanitization
• Window cleaning
• Carpet cleaning
• Weekend services

Industry Analysis

Revenue for the commercial cleaning industry is expected to grow over the next five years. This growth is due partially by the increase in demand from businesses across all sectors. Businesses are expected to continue outsourcing cleaning activities to janitorial and cleaning service specialists. In particular, education, healthcare and medical-related industries, which outsource the majority of their cleaning requirements, will likely provide sustained demand for industry services. Most businesses save money by outsourcing cleaning services, so this will be a major factor in the industry’s growth.

According to Grand View Research, the contract cleaning services industry was valued at $343.34 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.3% from now until 2030. This shows that commercial cleaning services are still in great demand and will continue to be. Therefore, this is a great time to start a commercial cleaning business.

Customer Analysis

Demographic profile of target market.

Denver Corporate Cleaning will serve the businesses located in the Denver area. Most of our clientele will include corporate offices, but we will also serve churches, gyms, restaurants, schools, and other establishments.

Customer Segmentation

Denver Corporate Cleaning will primarily target the following customer profiles:

• Corporate offices
• Restaurants

Competitive Analysis

Direct and indirect competitors.

Denver Corporate Cleaning will face competition from other companies with similar business profiles. A description of each competitor company is below.

Denver Cleaning Solutions

Denver Cleaning Solutions is a local cleaning business that primarily services office buildings in downtown Denver. The company has a team of over 40 cleaners who provide a long list of services to their clients. These services include cubicle cleaning, office cleaning, breakroom cleaning, and sanitization. Unfortunately Denver Cleaning solutions suffers from high turnover which results in low quality services. Therefore, the company is seen as a low-end budget quality option and will not be a major competitor for clients who want higher quality services.

Smith Premium Family Cleaning Services

Smith Premium Family Cleaning Services is a family-owned company that has operated since 1990. They have a small, yet highly trained cleaning staff that cleans residential homes and commercial spaces located around the Denver area. As the name suggests, they offer premium services that have given them a great reputation, but also allow them to charge premium prices. Though Smith Premium Family Cleaning Services will continue to succeed, the company is small enough that we don’t expect them to be a major competitor.

Denver Maids

Denver Maids is a popular cleaning service that serves the Denver area. They clean both residential and commercial locations and offer a wide suite of services and contract options. They have more than 100 cleaners on staff and are fully equipped to manage hundreds of contracts throughout the year. Though most of Denver Maid’s contracts are for residential cleaning services, they also service many businesses, making them a strong competitor in the market.

Competitive Advantage

Denver Corporate Cleaning will be able to offer the following advantages over their competition:

• Client-focused service : Customer service is our #1 priority. Our entire mission is to provide high-quality client focused service that focuses on maintaining long-term relationships with our clients.
• Management : Pedro has significant experience in the industry and knows what it takes to offer the best cleaning services and keep clients happy. Pedro will interact with each client on a weekly or monthly basis to ensure they are completely satisfied with their cleaning service. He will ask for any constructive criticism in order to implement strategies beneficial to client retention and referrals.
• Referral Program : We will offer a referral program where clients can earn a free cleaning for every business and/or household they recruit.

Marketing Plan

Brand & value proposition.

Denver Corporate Cleaning will offer the unique value proposition to its clientele:

• Affordable and quality cleaning services
• Highly trained staff
• Wide variety of commercial cleaning services
• Ability to work with any commercial business in the area

Promotions Strategy

The promotions strategy for Denver Corporate Cleaning is as follows:

Referral Program

Denver Corporate Cleaning will implement a referral program that will reward an existing client with a free cleaning service if they recruit a fellow business to our services.

Social Media Marketing

The company will have several social media accounts and invest in ads on all social media platforms. These accounts will showcase pictures of our cleaning crew as well as a list of the services we provide. The company will use targeted marketing to appeal to our target demographics.

SEO Website Marketing

Denver Corporate Cleaning will invest funds into maintaining a strong SEO presence on search engines like Google and Bing. When a person types in “local commercial cleaning services” or “Denver cleaning services”, Denver Corporate Cleaning will appear in the top three choices.

Advertisement

Advertisements in print publications like newspapers, magazines, etc., are an excellent way for businesses to connect with their audience. Denver Corporate Cleaning will advertise its services in popular magazines and news dailies. Obtaining relevant placements in industry magazines and journals will also help in increasing brand visibility.

The pricing of Denver Corporate Cleaning will be moderate and on par with competitors so customers feel they receive value when hiring our cleaning services.

Operations Plan

Denver Corporate Cleaning will utilize the following operations plan. Operation Functions:

• Pedro Hernandez will be the Owner of Denver Corporate Cleaning. He will oversee the general operations and keep in touch with all clients to ensure they are satisfied with the company’s services. To efficiently run the business, Pedro will hire the following:
• An Accountant who will manage all client invoicing, billing, and payables.
• A Human Resources Manager who will oversee all employee hiring, onboarding, payroll, retention, and benefits programs.
• A Training Manager who will develop and implement a strict cleaning protocol program that every employee will have to pass.
• 20 hourly cleaning professionals to provide cleaning services to our clients.

Milestones:

Denver Corporate Cleaning will have the following milestones complete in the next six months:

• 5/1/202X – Finalize lease agreement for office space
• 6/1/202X – Office build out
• 7/1/202X – Hire and train essential staff
• 8/1/202X – Begin marketing campaign
• 9/1/202X – Launch Denver Corporate Cleaning
• 10/1/202X – Reach break even

Denver Corporate Cleaning is founded by Pedro Hernandez. Pedro has worked in several cleaning companies over the past twenty years, but was disappointed in the lack of client-oriented service that these companies provided. For years, Pedro has been planning his own business that will emphasize client focused service. We will also provide a longer list of cleaning services than the competition. After years of planning, he is now ready to launch his business.

Since he has worked in the industry for decades, Pedro has in-depth knowledge of what it takes to provide premium cleaning services. Though he has never run a business, he will hire several staff members who will help him run the operations, marketing, management, and accounting aspects of the company.

Financial Plan

Key revenue & costs.

The revenue drivers for Denver Corporate Cleaning will come charging our clients for our professional cleaning services. We expect most of our clients will stick with us long term, so we will charge them monthly for our services. Businesses that need a one-time cleaning will be charged the day of the cleaning.

The cost drivers for Denver Corporate Cleaning will include the overhead costs, salaries, cost of supplies, and marketing expenses.

Funding Requirements and Use of Funds

Key assumptions.

The following outlines the key assumptions required in order to achieve the revenue and cost numbers in the financials and pay off the startup business loan.

• Number Of Clients:
• Average Client Contract Per Month: $500
• Annual Lease: $25,000

Financial Projections

Income statement, balance sheet, cash flow statement, commercial cleaning business plan faqs, what is a commercial cleaning business plan.

A commercial cleaning business plan is a plan to start and/or grow your commercial cleaning business. Among other things, it outlines your business concept, identifies your target customers, presents your marketing plan and details your financial projections.

You can easily complete your Commercial Cleaning business plan using our Commercial Cleaning Business Plan Template here .

What are the Main Types of Commercial Cleaning Businesses? 

There are a number of different kinds of commercial cleaning businesses , some examples include: General Commercial Cleaning, Healthcare and Lab Cleaning, and Damage Restoration.

How Do You Get Funding for Your Commercial Cleaning Business Plan?

Commercial Cleaning businesses are often funded through small business loans. Personal savings, credit card financing and angel investors are also popular forms of funding.

What are the Steps To Start a Commercial Cleaning Business?

Starting a commercial cleaning business can be an exciting endeavor. Having a clear roadmap of the steps to start a business will help you stay focused on your goals and get started faster.

1. Develop A Commercial Cleaning Business Plan - The first step in starting a business is to create a detailed commercial cleaning business plan that outlines all aspects of the venture. This should include potential market size and target customers, the services or products you will offer, pricing strategies and a detailed financial forecast.

2. Choose Your Legal Structure - It's important to select an appropriate legal entity for your commercial cleaning business. This could be a limited liability company (LLC), corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship. Each type has its own benefits and drawbacks so it’s important to do research and choose wisely so that your commercial cleaning business is in compliance with local laws.

3. Register Your Commercial Cleaning Business - Once you have chosen a legal structure, the next step is to register your commercial cleaning business with the government or state where you’re operating from. This includes obtaining licenses and permits as required by federal, state, and local laws.

4. Identify Financing Options - It’s likely that you’ll need some capital to start your commercial cleaning business, so take some time to identify what financing options are available such as bank loans, investor funding, grants, or crowdfunding platforms.

5. Choose a Location - Whether you plan on operating out of a physical location or not, you should always have an idea of where you’ll be based should it become necessary in the future as well as what kind of space would be suitable for your operations.

6. Hire Employees - There are several ways to find qualified employees including job boards like LinkedIn or Indeed as well as hiring agencies if needed – depending on what type of employees you need it might also be more effective to reach out directly through networking events.

7. Acquire Necessary Commercial Cleaning Equipment & Supplies - In order to start your commercial cleaning business, you'll need to purchase all of the necessary equipment and supplies to run a successful operation.

8. Market & Promote Your Business - Once you have all the necessary pieces in place, it’s time to start promoting and marketing your commercial cleaning business. This includes creating a website, utilizing social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter, and having an effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. You should also consider traditional marketing techniques such as radio or print advertising. 

Learn more about how to start a successful commercial cleaning business:

• How to Start a Commercial Cleaning Business

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Commercial Cleaning Business Plan

Not all firms can afford to keep in-house cleaning personnel, so this business is necessary. Commercial cleaning fill in the gaps of the employees that are needed to keep a firm clean. Thus, this business is profitable.

Are you looking to start writing a business plan for your commercial cleaning? Creating a business plan is essential to starting, growing, and securing funding for your business. We have prepared a commercial cleaning business plan template for you to help in start writing yours.

Free Business Plan Template

Download our free business plan template now and pave the way to success. Let’s turn your vision into an actionable strategy!

• Fill in the blanks – Outline
• Financial Tables

How to Write a Commercial Cleaning Business Plan?

Writing a commercial cleaning business plan is a crucial step toward the success of your business. Here are the key steps to consider when writing a business plan:

1. Executive Summary

An executive summary is the first section of the business plan intended to provide an overview of the whole business plan. Generally, it is written after the entire business plan is ready. Here are some components to add to your summary:

Start with a brief introduction:

Market opportunity:, mention your services:, management team:, financial highlights:, call to action:.

Ensure you keep your executive summary concise and clear, use simple language, and avoid jargon.

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2. Business Overview

Depending on what details of your business are important, you’ll need different elements in your business overview. Still, there are some foundational elements like business name, legal structure, location, history, and mission statement that every business overview should include:

About the business:

Provide all the basic information about your business in this section like:

• The name of the commercial cleaning services and the concept behind it like; commercial green cleaning, carpet cleaning, glass cleaning, industrial cleaning services, etc.
• Company structure of your commercial cleaning business whether it is a sole proprietorship, LLC, partnership firm, or others.
• Location of your commercial cleaning and the reason why you selected that place.

Mission statement:

Business history:, future goals:.

This section should provide an in-depth understanding of your commercial cleaning business. Also, the business overview section should be engaging and precise.

3. Market Analysis

Market analysis provides a clear understanding of the market in which your commercial cleaning business will run along with the target market, competitors, and growth opportunities. Your market analysis should contain the following essential components:

Target market:

Market size and growth potential:, competitive analysis:, market trends:, regulatory environment:.

Some additional tips for writing the market analysis section of your business plan:

• Use a variety of sources to gather data, including industry reports, market research studies, and surveys.
• Be specific and provide detailed information wherever possible.
• Include charts and graphs to help illustrate your key points.
• Keep your target audience in mind while writing the business plan.

4. Products And Services

The product and services section of a janitorial services business plan should describe the specific services and products that will be offered to customers. To write this section should include the following:

List the services:

• Briefly describe the precise cleaning services supplied by your commercial cleaning company, such as floor cleaning, washroom cleaning, and window cleaning. Emphasize any specialty cleaning services that the company provides, such as COVID-19 disinfection or green cleaning.
• Describe each service: For each service, provide a detailed description of what it entails, the time required, and the qualifications of the professionals who will provide the service. It may include the particular duties carried out, the tools used, and the cleaning agents employed.

Ensure customer satisfaction:

• Explain any guarantees or warranties that the company provides to assure client satisfaction, such as a promise to refund any money paid or to make good on any cleaning service flaws.

Overall, a business plan’s product and services section should be detailed, informative, and customer-focused. By providing a clear and compelling description of your offerings, you can help potential investors and readers understand the value of your business.

5. Sales And Marketing Strategies

Writing the sales and marketing strategies section means a list of strategies you will use to attract and retain your clients. Here are some key elements to include in your sales & marketing plan:

Develop your unique selling proposition (USP):

Determine your pricing strategy:, marketing strategies:, sales strategies:, customer retention:.

Overall, the sales and marketing strategies section of your business plan should outline your plans to attract and retain customers and generate revenue. Be specific, realistic, and data-driven in your approach, and be prepared to adjust your strategies based on feedback and results.

6. Operations Plan

When writing the operations plan section, it’s important to consider the various aspects of your business processes and procedures involved in operating a business. Here are the components to include in an operations plan:

Hiring plan:

Operational process:, equipment and supplies:.

By including these key elements in your operations plan section, you can create a comprehensive plan that outlines how you will run your commercial cleaning business.

7. Management Team

The management team section provides an overview of the individuals responsible for running the commercial cleaning business. This section should provide a detailed description of the experience and qualifications of each manager, as well as their responsibilities and roles.

Key managers:

Organizational structure:, compensation plan:, board of advisors:.

Describe the key personnel of your company and highlight why your business has the fittest team.

8. Financial Plan

When writing the financial plan section of a business plan, it’s important to provide a comprehensive overview of your financial projections for the first few years of your business.

Profit & loss statement:

Cash flow statement:, balance sheet:, break-even point:, financing needs:.

Remember to be realistic with your financial projections, and to provide supporting evidence for all of your estimates.

9. Appendix

When writing the appendix section, you should include any additional information that supports the main content of your plan. This may include financial statements, market research data, legal documents, and other relevant information.

• Include a table of contents for the appendix section to make it easy for readers to find specific information.
• Include financial statements such as income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. These should be up-to-date and show your financial projections for at least the first three years of your business.
• Provide market research data, such as statistics on the size of the cleaning industry, consumer demographics, and trends in the industry.
• Include any legal documents such as permits, licenses, and contracts.
• Provide any additional documentation related to your business plans, such as marketing materials, product brochures, and operational procedures.
• Use clear headings and labels for each section of the appendix so that readers can easily find the information they need.

Remember, the appendix section of your commercial cleaning business should only include relevant and important information that supports the main content of your plan.

The Quickest Way to turn a Business Idea into a Business Plan

Fill-in-the-blanks and automatic financials make it easy.

This commercial cleaning business plan sample will provide an idea for writing a successful commercial cleaning business plan, including all the essential components of your business.

After this, if you are still confused about how to write an investment-ready business plan to impress your audience, then download our commercial cleaning business plan pdf .

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Frequently asked questions, why do you need a commercial cleaning business plan.

A business plan is an essential tool for anyone looking to start or run a successful commercial cleaning business. It helps to get clarity in your business, secures funding, and identifies potential challenges while starting and growing your business.

Overall, a well-written plan can help you make informed decisions, which can contribute to the long-term success of your business.

How to get funding for your commercial cleaning business?

There are several ways to get funding for your business, but one of the most efficient and speedy funding options is self-funding. Other options for funding are:

Small Business Administration (SBA) loan

Crowdfunding, angel investors.

Apart from all these options, there are small business grants available, check for the same in your location and you can apply for it.

Where to find business plan writers for your commercial cleaning business?

There are many business plan writers available, but no one knows your business and idea better than you, so we recommend you write your commercial cleaning services business plan and outline your vision as you have in your mind.

What is the easiest way to write your commercial cleaning business plan?

A lot of research is necessary for writing a business plan, but you can write your plan most efficiently with the help of any commercial cleaning business plan example and edit it as per your need. You can also quickly finish your plan in just a few hours or less with the help of our business plan software.

About the Author

Upmetrics Team

Upmetrics is the #1 business planning software that helps entrepreneurs and business owners create investment-ready business plans using AI. We regularly share business planning insights on our blog. Check out the Upmetrics blog for such interesting reads. Read more

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How to write an effective cleaning services business plan

Key takeaways

• Write your executive summary last to create the most compelling start
• Include an actionable business strategy and clear financial plan to prove your growth potential
• Frame your cleaning business in a positive light—especially for lenders and others outside your team—but always be realistic

Cleaning your house—sweeping, mopping, vacuuming—are chores everyone has to do but few people love. It’s no wonder thousands of homeowners and business owners across the country outsource their cleaning every year. With a strategic cleaning services business plan , you can start a profitable new business that makes the most of this demand.

Here are six key sections you need to include in your business plan template to help you successfully start your cleaning company .

1. Executive summary

Every cleaning services business plan starts with a compelling executive summary that offers a concise overview of its contents.

First impressions are important, and the executive summary is your first chance to introduce your business and explain your purpose. If you’re sharing your business plan outside of your team—perhaps to lenders or potential business partners—it’s crucial to make your summary as enticing as possible. If not, they may not even read the rest of your plan. 

Even if you’re only sharing your business plan within your management team, a strong start gives busy managers the key facts about your business. This allows them to understand and implement your purpose and values until they have time to sift through the more detailed parts of your business plan. An executive summary also helps excite your team about the business they’re helping to build.

A solid executive summary should include:

• A brief intro to your business
• Your mission statement , which is a short, powerful phrase that defines what you do (for example, “to provide healthier, safer workspaces for professionals”)
• What makes you stand out, as compared to other cleaning services
• An overview of your business strategy and financial plan

Keep your summary brief and put the most impressive facts forward. This section should be no more than one page long, so make sure to leave out unnecessary minor details or flowery language. You can go into much greater detail with the rest of your business plan , which should be at least 30 pages long .

Some business owners find it better to write the executive summary last, which allows you to easily narrow down the best points to highlight and saves time on later revisions.

2. Business description

Your business description section is the place to talk about the details of your company and what it does best. Start off with a paragraph or two that provides details about:

• Your company’s purpose: Are you a commercial cleaning company or a residential cleaning business ?
• Your company history: Are you a startup ? If not, how long have you been in business? What experience do you bring to the table? 
• Your location: Where do you operate? What area do you serve? Do you have office space?
• Your team: How many employees do you have? How many people work in the front office? How many are on your janitorial team?
• Your objectives: What specific, measurable goals do you have? You can update your cleaning business plan over time, but choose 1–3 goals you’ll focus on for the next three years, such as “increasing net profits by 110% and reaching 75% growth within our first year .”

Target market

No cleaning business can be the perfect fit for everyone. Be specific about the clientele you want to serve, including your ideal client’s demographics and interests. Explain the problems they’re facing that may lead them to search for a cleaning company .

As an example, a house cleaning service may specifically target upper-middle-class families with children and busy work lives. They need a cleaning company so they can have more time to relax and be with their kids.

If you’re not sure what types of clients you want to focus on yet, do some research on other cleaning businesses in your area. Who are their typical clients? Are there any noticeable gaps you could fill? Are there less saturated parts of your local cleaning industry you could enter?

Value proposition

Your value proposition explains why you’re uniquely suited to serve your target market . You can use this part of your cleaning services business plan to highlight your greatest strengths—for example, if your team members are cleaning industry veterans or if you use particularly high-quality or eco-friendly products.

Cleaning services

It’s crucial for you to describe each type of cleaning service you offer. If you offer carpet cleaning , you may give some brief insight into what carpet materials you can clean and what carpet cleaning plans you offer. If you offer window cleaning services , specify whether you work with high-rises or only single-story buildings.

3. Market analysis

As the owner of a cleaning business , you need to keep an eye on trends in your industry and immediate market. The market analysis section of your cleaning services business plan shows your investors and partners both your knowledge and ability to succeed by answering questions like:

• What is the current state of the cleaning industry ? Is demand or spending projected to grow? Who is seeking services right now?
• Who are your competitors? Who are their potential customers ?
• What opportunities and challenges will you face entering the market?
• Despite the challenges, what gives you a competitive advantage? For example, you may be entering a saturated market, but you could still be the only office cleaning service in your area focused on serving small businesses .

Answer these questions as accurately as possible and back them up with thorough research and data. While you should always aim to put your cleaning business in a positive light to impress potential lenders, partners, and others, your business plan also serves as a guiding document for your company so it should be realistic. Your management team will benefit from understanding the actual challenges they’re facing and how you plan to overcome them.

4. Business strategy

Growth is essential for every company. In this portion of your cleaning services business plan , you’ll flesh out exactly the actions you’ll take to achieve that growth.

A great business strategy includes two components:

Pricing strategy

How you price your cleaning services can have a significant impact on your sales and your ability to reach your target audience. If you’re a new business , it can also affect your ability to attract new customers.

If you’re trying to attract money-conscious clients, it makes sense to offer coupons and deals on your services when you’re first launching your business. Coupons and deals can get their attention quickly, allowing you to make them loyal to your brand before you charge full price—which may still be at or below typical prices in your market. 

On the other hand, if you want to position yourself as a luxury cleaning business, your potential customers might not be seeking competitive pricing and be willing to pay more for higher-quality janitorial services .

Learn about nine pricing strategies you can implement in your business.

Sales and marketing strategy

The other essential component of your cleaning business strategy is your sales and marketing strategy , which explains how you intend to grow your cleaning company through driving business and making sales. This is where you can explain:

• How you’ll generate leads
• How you’ll engage those leads and drive them toward a purchase
• How you’ll keep engaging and retaining customers over time

This section should include all of the strategies you’ll use to promote and market your cleaning business (with details), such as running social media ads, claiming your Yelp Business Page , sending emails, or using traditional marketing like direct mail or print ads.

Most business plans will also include a sales forecast here that explains the results you expect to see based on your marketing efforts.

Learn how to reach new customers, cultivate customer loyalty, and elevate your brand with this guide on online marketing for small business .

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5. Management summary

The management summary of your cleaning services business plan details how your company will operate on a day-to-day basis. A strong management summary will prove your team’s competence as a whole. Below are some subsections to consider including in this part of your plan.

Business structure

This section is relatively simple—just explain who owns your company and what business structure you have ( sole proprietorship , LLC, S corporation, etc.). If you have any other stakeholders, such as employees with equity in your business, make sure to provide this information too.

Management structure

The people behind the wheel of your business are the ones who shape its direction the most. That’s why your business plan should provide a brief biography of each member of your leadership team, as well as their relevant experience. Highlight all of their education and credentials, along with any relevant career accomplishments. For example, if you have 10 years of experience as the operations manager of a national cleaning company, highlight that.

Operations plan

Create a visual organizational chart for readers ( these free templates can help), so potential investors can easily see the hierarchy structure within your company. How do your cleaning technicians receive assignments? Do you have a customer service representative taking calls? Expand on how your cleaning service functions in individual departments and as a complete unit.

6. Financial plan

Writing a business plan doesn’t have to cost any money unless you hire a business consultant to write it for you, which usually costs at least $1,500. However, as you’re writing your plan, you do need to be aware of the costs of running your business.

Use this section to describe what expenses you’ll face as a business. Separate any startup costs (like LLC formation costs ) from ongoing operational costs (like rent, payroll, and cleaning equipment expenses) to present a clear picture of your potential.

It’s critical to be highly accurate with your financial figures in your cleaning services business plan. Overestimating expenses is better than underestimating them so that you or your team aren’t surprised by any additional expenses later on. Do your research on average prices and expenses or even chat with other cleaning business owners if you’re not sure.

Using your sales forecast as reference, present your expected financials for the next three to five years. What will your profit and loss statements, cash flow statements, and other financial documents look like? Use charts and graphs with specific numbers whenever possible. You may want to work with an accountant on this step, as they can advise on what’s realistic.

Put your cleaning services business plan into action

Once your cleaning services business plan is complete, it’s time to start putting it into action. After launching your business, enact your business strategies. Your business plan should provide guidance for at least the next three years, though it’s perfectly normal to need to make adjustments to your objectives and strategies at any time. Get more tips on how to market your cleaning business to take your cleaning services to the next level.

The information above is provided for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice and may not be suitable for your circumstances. Unless stated otherwise, references to third-party links, services, or products do not constitute endorsement by Yelp.

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Free Cleaning Service Business Plan (Download PDF Sample)

Download Our Free Template to Get Started

A cleaning company business plan is a comprehensive document outlining your cleaning company’s objectives and explaining your marketing plan , cleaning services, and funding information. It serves as the blueprint for your cleaning business. 

• Savvy entrepreneurs create a business plan when starting a new business, and they continue to update it as their business grows. 
• A well-written business plan will guide you through your journey as a small business owner. It will help you make critical decisions as you work hard to reach your goals over the years.
• You’ll be able to glimpse the bigger picture and keep track of your progress when you’ve got it all written down.
• A business plan will significantly increase your company’s chances of success , setting a clear path to long-term growth and helping you plan efficient organizational processes. 

If you’re aiming to gain the trust of potential investors, a business plan is a must-have tool that will show them if your business is worth taking the risk.

We’ve created a downloadable cleaning services business plan PDF that you can easily edit to fit your needs. Get my sample template below:

Components of a Cleaning Services Business Plan 

Now that you understand the importance of a cleaning company business plan, the next step is to start creating your own. But there’s no need to worry! We’ve done much of the legwork to ease the process of creating a business plan for you. 

Our free downloadable cleaning services business plan PDF contains essential components to help you define your goals and make better business decisions. 

However, keep in mind that every business plan is unique. You can remove or add any section as you deem necessary to create the best business plan for your cleaning company. 

Include the following elements to get started in the right direction: 

1. Executive Summary 

The first part of a comprehensive business plan is an executive summary, which provides an overview of your company and summarizes your entire business plan.

Highlight what makes your cleaning business stand out from competitors in the cleaning industry. You can also describe the weaknesses and shortcomings of other cleaning firms and how your company aims to solve these problems. 

You can include the following information in your executive summary: 

• Owner’s experience
• Mission statement
• The leadership team and employees
• Financial and growth goals

2. Company Description 

• Why did you decide to start a cleaning services company?
• What particular problems are you trying to solve, and how do you intend to beat competitors in the cleaning industry?

Your company description is where you emphasize the strengths and competitive advantages of your cleaning business. 

3. Objectives

Set the best objectives that will help keep your cleaning business on the right track.

• Think about the key goals you want to achieve, whether to reach a certain amount of sales revenue or expand your operations to a broader service area.
• When you carefully define your main goals and objectives, you’ll be able to take the proper steps to get where you want to go. 

4. Market Analysis

Market analysis gives you an insight into your target market share, the needs and demands of your customers, and your competitors.

• Do some research about the cleaning company industry and what your competitors lack to know how your company can gain an edge over others.
• With proper market analysis, you can also analyze the need for funding from financial institutions and investors. 

5. Organizational Structure 

• Define the specific roles that need to be filled, such as cleaners, an office manager, and a project manager.
• You can also talk about hiring competent personnel as your company grows and outsourcing services for processes like digital marketing and accounting. 

6. Cleaning Services

An essential part of a cleaning company business plan is identifying the type of cleaning services you intend to provide: 

• Scope of Cleaning Services – Do you plan to focus on bidding on commercial janitorial jobs , residential cleaning, housekeeping, post-construction cleaning or all types?
• List of Specific Cleaning Services – Talk about your company’s services and prices, from interior home cleaning and damage restoration to industrial cleaning. 
• Benefits of Your Cleaning Services – How will your target market benefit from your company’s services? Think about the problems you’re trying to solve for your customers, like giving them a wide selection of cleaning services to reduce the need for hiring multiple contractors. 

7. Marketing and Sales 

To survive in a competitive industry, your cleaning business needs to employ tailored marketing strategies to help you stand out and beat competitors.

Outline your marketing and sales strategies to promote your cleaning services, gain leads, and ultimately boost sales. You should determine the number of clients you must win to achieve your cleaning company’s profit goals. 

The most effective marketing strategies for cleaning businesses include: 

• Online Marketing – Your objectives can include building an authoritative business cleaning service website design , using paid advertising like Facebook ads , leveraging social media, implementing email marketing, and maintaining an excellent reputation online. 
• Offline Advertising – Timeless strategies include direct mail, distributing pamphlets and flyers, connecting with the local community, and creating branded merchandise. 

8. Funding Requests 

• Add this section if you need additional funding for day-to-day functions and operational expenses.
• You can create a table outlining your cleaning company’s expenses, letting potential investors and lenders know precisely where their money will go. 

9. Financial Projections 

Your cleaning company business plan should have a realistic financial forecast based on your extensive market analysis and company goals.

• It should include well-researched financial projections for the future to demonstrate your targeted profits. 
• Try to include a cash flow estimate, capital expenditures, and approximate payrolls for the next few years.
• You can create an annual or quarterly target profit that your team can work to accomplish. 

Pro-Top : include a cash flow estimate, capital expenditures, and approximate payrolls for the next few years. You can create an annual or quarterly target profit that your team can work to accomplish. 

10. Appendix

Your business plan ends with an appendix where you add all relevant documents, definitions, legal notes, and other critical information.

• You can include resumes, certifications, bank statements, credit reports, charts, and other supporting documents. 
• Refer readers to this section anywhere in your business plan when necessary. For example: “See Appendix, page 5, for management team certifications.”

Example of a Cleaning Services Business Plan PDF

You can open or download our free cleaning business plan PDF below:

To get an editable version on Google Docs, enter your email below:

Why Does My Cleaning Company Need a Business Plan? 

You might think, “But making a business plan sounds like a lot of work! Do I really need it for my cleaning company?” The quick answer is: Yes, you definitely need that business plan!

As tedious as it sounds, preparing a strategic business plan is crucial to set yourself up for success and not get lost along the way. 

Take a look at the following key reasons why your business will benefit from a cleaning company business plan: 

Find Out If Your Cleaning Services Business Idea Is Viable

Creating a business plan will help you test if your business idea is feasible, saving you time, money, and energy. Many aspiring entrepreneurs believe they have outstanding ideas that could never fail.

However, around 20% of business startups fail during the first year due to a lack of planning, among other things. 

To survive the cleaning business startup phase, you must perform careful and methodical planning and create a well-developed business plan. It’s the key step between visualizing the concept for your cleaning company and turning your vision into a successful business. 

Increase Your Chances of Growth and Success 

The cleaning industry is enormous, and competitive residential and commercial cleaning businesses are everywhere. There’s always demand for cleaning services. Around 80% of households in the US are expected to use home cleaning services by 2024. 

Considering the competition you’ll be facing, it helps to create a business plan that will help you identify how your cleaning company will stand out. 

• Extensive planning will help you pinpoint your target market, determine your unique selling proposition, and develop a startup and operating expenses budget.
• This process will ultimately set your cleaning business up for long-term growth and success.

Secure Financing

Established financial institutions, lenders, and investors typically perform an extensive investigation before committing to an investment. With a solid business plan, you’ll be more likely to secure the funds you need to get your business up and running. 

Common Questions about Cleaning Company Business Plans

A business plan will help you determine if your cleaning business idea is viable, increase your chances of success, and secure financing.

An executive summary includes a mission statement, information about the leadership team, and financial goals.

Final Thoughts: Driving Your Cleaning Company’s Success With a Solid Business Plan 

Equipped with a well-researched business plan, you’ll have much higher chances of succeeding in the cleaning services industry. It’s also a valuable tool that can help you secure funding for your operational expenses as a cleaning startup. 

After downloading our free cleaning services business plan PDF, make sure to edit each section and include all essential information to create a comprehensive document.

Our free sample cleaning company business plan serves as an excellent starting point – a helpful template that you can personalize as necessary.

Written by Nelmie Jane Pardo

Nelmie Jane Pardo is a senior contributing writer who lends insight into digital marketing methods and business solutions. She regularly writes at BusinessHue to help business owners take their online marketing to the next level.

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10 Things to Know Before Writing a Business Plan for a Commercial Cleaning Company

April 24, 2021 | Read: 10 minutes

Whether you’re just starting out or already a veteran, but looking for a refresh, writing a business plan for a commercial cleaning company will have its challenges. As with most things, preparation is key to your success. 

This is why I’ve put together 10 things you should know before you pick up the pen and outline your 5-year business plan. 

Let’s get started! 

Your company brand

Do you ever feel like all commercial cleaning companies look alike? Don’t get me wrong, a squeegee, bubbles, and lots of blue are certainly effective at getting the message across quickly, but it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. 

So, before outlining a business plan, it’s important to find what makes your business not only different from, but better than your competitors. This knowledge will serve as a useful guide as you shape your brand. For example, if you want to service high-end apartment buildings, then a premium design (think dark navy, gold, minimal lettering) will work better. On the other hand, if you’re planning to bid for public building contracts, then reliable and formal is the way to go. 

 “Know yourself” applies to business just as much as it applies to personal growth.

The customer experience

What kind of customer experience are you planning to offer? If your answer is simply “A great one!”, you’ll have to expand on that a bit more. That’s because your answer will inform you of what tools you’ll need to include in your business plan to help deliver such an experience, and I’m not just talking about physical tools. 

These days customer expectations are formed by what they see from all sorts of other companies, from Uber to Amazon, not just your direct competitors. 

If you want to win contract bids and impress building managers with your modern cleaning business, you can think about options like: 

• A log-in portal so they can book jobs on their own
• Uber-style vehicle tracking so you can show customers when technicians are en route 
• Automatic tenant notifications so the occupiers are always aware someone is coming and they know to be at home (therefore saving the management company money on second visits) 
• Consolidated invoicing options to save the customer from trawling through hundreds of files

Anything that makes the customer’s life easier should be worked into your commercial cleaning company business plan if you want to make sure you succeed. 

Storing customer information

When it comes to commercial clients, data security is essential, and usually features in the proposal. That’s not to say residential customers don’t care about it, but, more often than not, it won’t be a priority. Businesses still have to keep it in mind or risk legal consequences later down the line. 

This is why your plan should account for secure storage, especially when it comes to 3rd party info such as tenant names, addresses, or building plans. 

Whatever type of database you choose to use, it’s a good idea to check your state legislature (and, ideally, do so with a lawyer) to make sure that you’re staying compliant and avoid any costly lawsuits. At the same time, guaranteeing information security is part of that all-important customer experience, too so you shouldn’t overlook it.

In the end, would you do business with someone who would lose or, worse, sell your personal info as soon as you turned your back? Not likely. 

What is the step-by-step process of working with you?

Before you start writing your cleaning business plan, you need to put yourself in the customer’s shoes and follow the process of what it means to work with you, step-by-step.

Contracts can be worth a lot of money, so competition will be high. As a result, your proposal needs to blow your competitors out of the water. By outlining the elements that will help you do that, you can ensure your business plan covers the tools needed to deliver success. 

For example, a proposal with a step-by-step process of how a customer books a job with you can set you apart, especially if it demonstrates a frictionless journey involving as little admin for the customer as possible. Next, imagine presenting them with a customer-facing log-in portal that offers secure access to all their properties, the option of adding new jobs, a full view of their invoices and debts, as well as automated communications with their tenants. A little like the one in the video below:

Finally, you can explain how these solutions reduce admin time by 80% and virtually eliminates back-and-forth calls & emails. Wouldn’t you want to hire someone like this? There’s no way your competitors can beat such a proposal!

Managing contracts

When thinking about your business plan, managing commercial cleaning contracts should be a top priority. Half the work is admin, after all, so if you want to run a tight ship and maximize the efficiency of your team, you’ll have to account for some help of the digital kind.

Service level agreements (or SLAs) are common in the field service industry and any commercial contract you win will come with an agreed upon standard of work. Breaching these contracts usually comes with a financial fine. 

For example, if you do commercial cleaning for a restaurant chain, an SLA will probably give you X amount of hours to arrive on site and clean an emergency such as a deep fryer spill. Exceed that time, and either you’re not going to get paid for your work or, depending on the SLA you’ve signed, you might end up paying a fine to the customer for the inconvenience. Therefore, planning in advance how to keep track and monitor SLAs can save you a lot of trouble. 

Learn more about: 5 Must-Have Tools For Service Level Agreement Monitoring

Tracking inventory

Generally speaking, cleaning companies can make do without a dedicated inventory system at first, when they have fewer than 10 employees. However, depending on the size of the commercial contracts you want to target in your business plan, you’ll have to account for the necessary supplies, as well as their storage. Buying in bulk is obviously going to be cheaper in the long run, but in order to do that, you need both the capital and the storage space. 

At the same time, your commercial cleaning company business plan should include a section on vendors and how to build the best relationship possible with them.

Whether it’s because you always have your inventory reports straight or you never miss a payment, being the easiest client to deal with means quicker delivery times and preferential pricing, both of which can help you save money and offer a more convenient experience to your own customers. 

Managing money

If you want to make money, you have to know how to manage it first. Most business experts will tell you that an accountant is the first person you should hire if you want your cleaning company to thrive, and they’re usually right, especially if you’re working with other businesses and not individual customers. 

Tax and legal paperwork will soon become unmanageable without a professional to keep an eye on them, so making room for an accountant in your business plan is essential. They will also be able to advise you on what kind of accounting software you need, as well as how the best invoicing and payment features look like when it comes to your management software. 

Are you ready to grow?

A mistake many cleaning business owners make when writing their plan is not accounting for growth. Sure, there may be a back-up plan in case of failure, but, somehow, success seems to take them by surprise. A lack of preparation when it comes to growth is how they find themselves overwhelmed. As a result, businesses can struggle to manage a larger workload, not because the processes they outlined were bad, but because they simply aren’t the right strategy for a new level of success.

However, a great proposal should  include a plan for a sudden increase in workload and the best way to manage it is to have tools that can easily grow with you. Starting out with a free app or basic software is all well and good, but that’s a wobbly foundation to build your business on.

Your management software will become the backbone of your cleaning business so making sure you have your eyes set on the right one from the beginning (with plans that let you upgrade and do more, or scale back, should you require) will make things much easier in the future. 

How will you gather and implement feedback?

A business plan has to run from beginning to end, following the right field service customer journeys , and gathering feedback is an essential (albeit often forgotten) part of that. Planning to have an “active role” in your review strategy means researching how to gather reviews, where to display them, and what to do in case of getting negative ones.

This is how you take control to ensure your customers are always happy in the end, and that your business looks good to new prospects. Additionally, keeping your business plan flexible and being open to change is how you resolve the matter of implementing feedback. More often than not, the difficulty comes with an aversion to change, rather than a lack of tools/abilities, but a good business plan can certainly help with that.

F or example, if multiple customers complain about the same thing over and over (e.g. having to read 150 separate invoices every month), that points towards the need for improvement in the shape of consolidated invoicing. Gathering feedback is, after all, an opportunity for you to learn just as much as it is a tool for attracting new customers.  

Read more: Customer Feedback Software: 5 Steps to Securing Return Business

Training and educating employees

Last but not least when it comes to a business plan for a commercial cleaning company, training and educating employees should be a top priority for any owner. Fostering a company culture that appreciates self-improvement and the idea that there’s always something new to learn will mitigate the aforementioned “fear of change” and smooth out any new measures you’ll be wanting to implement in the future. 

This being said, training employees implies additional costs but if you include them in the business plan from the beginning, these won’t feel like burdens anymore, but real investments in your cleaning company – which, at the end of the day, is exactly what they are. Engaged and educated employees have a demonstrably lower turnover rate and higher company loyalty, as well as (quite simply), being better employees. 

The takeaway on writing a business plan for a commercial cleaning company

Writing a business plan is naturally challenging because it represents the backbone of your cleaning company. At the same time, being prepared for anything and everything will make future difficulties seem like a breeze and there’s nothing that prepares you better than having the right tools for the job.

As we’ve mentioned throughout this article, writing proposals, impressing commercial customers, and standing out from the competition is difficult nowadays, but software can make it a lot easier. If you’d like to hear more from us about software and technology update, make sure to subscribe as we deliver quality content bi-weekly!

Cristina Maria

I'm here to bring you next-level strategies to the field service industry. When I'm not working on the best tips to grow your business, I'm on the lookout for sci-fi novels and cookie recipes.

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How To Write a Cleaning Services Business Plan + Template

Creating a business plan is essential for any business, but it can be especially helpful for cleaning services businesses that want to improve their strategy and/or raise funding.

A well-crafted business plan not only outlines the vision for your company, but also documents a step-by-step roadmap of how you are going to accomplish it. In order to create an effective business plan, you must first understand the components that are essential to its success.

This article provides an overview of the key elements that every cleaning services business owner should include in their business plan.

Download the Ultimate Cleaning Business Plan Template

What is a Cleaning Services Business Plan?

A cleaning services business plan is a formal written document that describes your company’s business strategy and its feasibility. It documents the reasons you will be successful, your areas of competitive advantage, and it includes information about your team members. Your business plan is a key document that will convince investors and lenders (if needed) that you are positioned to become a successful venture.

Why Write a Cleaning Services Business Plan?

A cleaning services business plan is required for banks and investors. The document is a clear and concise guide of your business idea and the steps you will take to make it profitable.

Entrepreneurs can also use this as a roadmap when starting their new company or venture, especially if they are inexperienced in starting a business.

Writing an Effective Cleaning Services Business Plan

The following are the key components of a successful cleaning services business plan:

Executive Summary

The executive summary of a cleaning services business plan is a one to two page overview of your entire business plan. It should summarize the main points, which will be presented in full in the rest of your business plan.

• Start with a one-line description of your cleaning services company
• Provide a short summary of the key points in each section of your business plan, which includes information about your company’s management team, industry analysis, competitive analysis, and financial forecast among others.

Company Description

This section should include a brief history of your company. Include a short description of how your company started, and provide a timeline of milestones your company has achieved.

If you are just starting your cleaning services business, you may not have a long company history. Instead, you can include information about your professional experience in this industry and how and why you conceived your new venture. If you have worked for a similar company before or have been involved in an entrepreneurial venture before starting your cleaning services firm, mention this.

Industry Analysis

The industry or market analysis is an important component of a cleaning services business plan. Conduct thorough market research to determine industry trends and document the size of your market. 

Questions to answer include:

• What part of the cleaning services industry are you targeting?
• How big is the market?
• What trends are happening in the industry right now (and if applicable, how do these trends support the success of your company)?

You should also include sources for the information you provide, such as published research reports and expert opinions.

Customer Analysis

This section should include a list of your target audience(s) with demographic and psychographic profiles (e.g., age, gender, income level, profession, job titles, interests). You will need to provide a profile of each customer segment separately, including their needs and wants.

For example, the customers of a cleaning services business may include:

• Small businesses
• Commercial businesses
• Industrial businesses

List the needs and wants of each customer segment, as they relate to your cleaning services. For example, a small business owner may need their office cleaned on a regular basis, but may not have the time or resources to do it themselves. Conversely, a homeowner may want their home cleaned but may not be willing to pay for professional services.

You can include information about how your customers make the decision to buy from you as well as what keeps them buying from you.

Develop a strategy for targeting those customers who are most likely to buy from you, as well as those that might be influenced to buy your products or cleaning services with the right marketing.

Competitive Analysis

The competitive analysis helps you determine how your product or service will be different from competitors, and what your unique selling proposition (USP) might be that will set you apart in this industry.

For each competitor, list their strengths and weaknesses. Next, determine your areas of competitive differentiation and/or advantage; that is, in what ways are you different from and ideally better than your competitors.

Marketing Plan

This part of the business plan is where you determine and document your marketing plan. . Your plan should be clearly laid out, including the following 4 Ps.

• Product/Service : Detail your service offerings here. Document their features and benefits.
• Price : Document your pricing strategy here. In addition to stating the prices for your services, mention how your pricing compares to your competition.
• Place : Where will your customers find you? What channels of distribution (e.g., partnerships) will you use to reach them if applicable?
• Promotion : How will you reach your target customers? For example, you may use social media, write blog posts, create an email marketing campaign, use pay-per-click advertising, launch a direct mail campaign. Or, you may promote your cleaning services business via word-of-mouth.

Operations Plan

This part of your cleaning services business plan should include the following information:

• How will you deliver your product/service to customers? For example, will you do it in person or over the phone only?
• What infrastructure, equipment, and resources are needed to operate successfully? How can you meet those requirements within budget constraints?

The operations plan is where you also need to include your company’s business policies. You will want to establish policies related to everything from customer service to pricing, to the overall brand image you are trying to present.

Finally, and most importantly, in your Operations Plan, you will lay out the milestones your company hopes to achieve within the next five years. Create a chart that shows the key milestone(s) you hope to achieve each quarter for the next four quarters, and then each year for the following four years. Examples of milestones for a cleaning services business include reaching $X in sales. Other examples include expanding to a new city or adding additional services.

Management Team

List your team members here including their names and titles, as well as their expertise and experience relevant to your specific cleaning services industry. Include brief biography sketches for each team member.

Particularly if you are seeking funding, the goal of this section is to convince investors and lenders that your team has the expertise and experience to execute on your plan. If you are missing key team members, document the roles and responsibilities you plan to hire for in the future.

Financial Plan

Here you will include a summary of your complete and detailed financial plan (your full financial projections go in the Appendix). 

This includes the following three financial statements:

Income Statement

Your income statement should include:

• Revenue : how much revenue you generate.
• Cost of Goods Sold : These are your direct costs associated with generating revenue. This includes labor costs, as well as the cost of any equipment and supplies used to deliver the product/service offering.
• Net Income (or loss) : Once expenses and revenue are totaled and deducted from each other, this is the net income or loss.

Sample Income Statement for a Startup Cleaning Services Business

Balance sheet.

Include a balance sheet that shows your assets, liabilities, and equity. Your balance sheet should include:

• Assets : All of the things you own (including cash).
• Liabilities : This is what you owe against your company’s assets, such as accounts payable or loans.
• Equity : The worth of your business after all liabilities and assets are totaled and deducted from each other.

Sample Balance Sheet for a Startup Cleaning Services Business

Cash flow statement.

Include a cash flow statement showing how much cash comes in, how much cash goes out and a net cash flow for each year. The cash flow statement should include:

• Cash Flow From Operations
• Cash Flow From Investments
• Cash Flow From Financing

Below is a sample of a projected cash flow statement for a startup cleaning services business.

Sample Cash Flow Statement for a Startup Cleaning Services Business

You will also want to include an appendix section which will include:

• Your complete financial projections
• A complete list of your company’s business policies and procedures related to the rest of the business plan (marketing, operations, etc.)
• Any other documentation which supports what you included in the body of your business plan.

Writing a good business plan gives you the advantage of being fully prepared to launch and/or grow your cleaning services company. It not only outlines your business vision, but also provides a step-by-step process of how you are going to accomplish it.

Now that you know what should be included in a cleaning services business plan, it’s time to get started on writing your own. The template we’ve provided can help you get started, but don’t forget to personalize it to reflect your unique company and its goals.   

Finish Your Cleaning Business Plan in 1 Day!

Wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your Cleaning business plan?

With our Ultimate Cleaning Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

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Cleaning Service Business Plan Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Over the past 20+ years, we have helped over 5,000 entrepreneurs create business plans to start and grow their cleaning services businesses. On this page, we will first give you some background information with regards to the importance of business planning. We will then go through a cleaning services business plan template step-by-step so you can create your plan today.

Download our Ultimate Cleaning Business Plan Template here >

What is a Cleaning Service Business Plan?

A business plan provides a snapshot of your cleaning services business as it stands today, and lays out your growth plan for the next five years. It explains your business goals and your strategy for reaching them. It also includes market research to support your plans.

Why You Need a Business Plan for a Cleaning Service

If you’re looking to start a cleaning services business or grow your existing cleaning services business you need a business plan. A business plan will help you raise funding, if needed, and plan out the growth of your cleaning services business in order to improve your chances of success. Your cleaning services business plan is a living document that should be updated annually as your company grows and changes.

Source of Funding for Cleaning Services Businesses

With regards to funding, the main sources of funding for a cleaning services business are personal savings, credit cards, bank loans and angel investors. With regards to bank loans, banks will want to review your business plan and gain confidence that you will be able to repay your loan and interest. To acquire this confidence, the loan officer will not only want to confirm that your financials are reasonable. But they will want to see a professional plan. Such a plan will give them the confidence that you can successfully and professionally operate a business.

Angel investors are wealthy individuals who will write you a check. They will either take equity in return for their funding, or, like a bank, they will give you a loan.

Finish Your Business Plan Today!

Cleaning services business plan template.

Your business plan should include 10 sections as follows:

Executive Summary

Your executive summary provides an introduction to your business plan, but it is normally the last section you write because it provides a summary of each key section of your plan.

The goal of your Executive Summary is to quickly engage the reader. Explain to them the type of cleaning services business you are operating and the status; for example, are you a startup, do you have a cleaning services business that you would like to grow, or are you operating a chain of cleaning services businesses.

Next, provide an overview of each of the subsequent sections of your plan. For example, give a brief overview of the cleaning services business industry. Discuss the type of cleaning services business you are operating. Detail your direct competitors. Give an overview of your target customers. Provide a snapshot of your marketing plan. Identify the key members of your team. And offer an overview of your financial plan.

Company Analysis

In your company analysis, you will detail the type of cleaning services business you are operating.

For example, you might operate one of the following types:

• Residential : this type of cleaning services business offers general cleaning services to households. In addition to cleaning services for inside the home, this type of business may also offer exterior cleaning services.
• Janitorial : this type of cleaning services business serves both residential and commercial clients. These businesses may specialize in a particular niche, such as medical facilities.
• Carpet Cleaning : this type of cleaning services business clean rugs, carpets and upholstery for residential and commercial clients. Companies in the industry also provide a range of other services including dyeing used rugs, damage restoration services, ventilation duct cleaning and other cleaning services.

In addition to explaining the type of cleaning services business you operate, the Company Analysis section of your business plan needs to provide background on the business.

Include answers to question such as:

• When and why did you start the business?
• What milestones have you achieved to date? Milestones could include sales goals you’ve reached, new store openings, etc.
• Your legal structure. Are you incorporated as an S-Corp? An LLC? A sole proprietorship? Explain your legal structure here.

Industry Analysis

In your industry analysis, you need to provide an overview of the cleaning services business.

While this may seem unnecessary, it serves multiple purposes.

First, researching the cleaning services business industry educates you. It helps you understand the market in which you are operating.

Secondly, market research can improve your strategy particularly if your research identifies market trends. For example, if there was a trend towards “green” cleaning services, it would be helpful to ensure your plan calls for eco-friendly product and service options.

The third reason for market research is to prove to readers that you are an expert in your industry. By conducting the research and presenting it in your plan, you achieve just that.

The following questions should be answered in the industry analysis section of your cleaning services business plan:

• How big is the cleaning services business (in dollars)?
• Is the market declining or increasing?
• Who are the key competitors in the market?
• Who are the key suppliers in the market?
• What trends are affecting the industry?
• What is the industry’s growth forecast over the next 5 – 10 years?
• What is the relevant market size? That is, how big is the potential market for your cleaning services business. You can extrapolate such a figure by assessing the size of the market in the entire country and then applying that figure to your local population.

Customer Analysis

The customer analysis section of your cleaning services business plan must detail the customers you serve and/or expect to serve.

The following are examples of customer segments: families, schools, apartment complexes, etc.

As you can imagine, the customer segment(s) you choose will have a great impact on the type of cleaning services business you operate. Clearly residential customers would want different pricing and product options, and would respond to different marketing promotions than hospitals.

Try to break out your target customers in terms of their demographic and psychographic profiles. With regards to demographics, include a discussion of the ages, genders, locations and income levels of the customers you seek to serve. Because most cleaning services businesses primarily serve customers living in their same city or town, such demographic information is easy to find on government websites.

Psychographic profiles explain the wants and needs of your target customers. The more you can understand and define these needs, the better you will do in attracting and retaining your customers.

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Competitive Analysis

Your competitive analysis should identify the indirect and direct competitors your business faces and then focus on the latter.

Direct competitors are other cleaning services businesses.

Indirect competitors are other options that customers have to purchase from that aren’t direct competitors. This includes businesses hiring internal janitorial staff, and people doing their own cleaning at home. You need to mention such competition to show you understand that not everyone who needs cleaning services will engage a cleaning business.

With regards to direct competition, you want to detail the other cleaning services businesses with which you compete. Most likely, your direct competitors will be cleaning services businesses located very close to your location.

For each such competitor, provide an overview of their businesses and document their strengths and weaknesses. Unless you once worked at your competitors’ businesses, it will be impossible to know everything about them. But you should be able to find out key things about them such as:

• What types of customers do they serve?
• What products and services do they offer?
• What is their pricing (premium, low, etc.)?
• What are they good at?
• What are their weaknesses?

With regards to the last two questions, think about your answers from the customers’ perspective. And don’t be afraid to stand outside your competitors’ locations and ask customers as they leave what they like most and least about them.

The final part of your competitive analysis section is to document your areas of competitive advantage. For example:

• Will you provide superior cleaning services?
• Will you provide cleaning services that your competitors don’t offer?
• Will you make it easier or faster for customers to book your services?
• Will you provide better customer service?
• Will you offer better pricing?

Think about ways you will outperform your competition and document them in this section of your plan.

Marketing Plan

Traditionally, a marketing plan includes the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. For a cleaning services business plan, your marketing plan should include the following:

Product : in the product section you should reiterate the type of cleaning services business that you documented in your Company Analysis. Then, detail the specific services you will be offering. For example, in addition to standard residential cleaning services, will you offer damage restoration services?

Price : Document the prices you will offer and how they compare to your competitors. Essentially in the product and price sub-sections of your marketing plan, you are presenting the services you offer and their prices.

Place : Place refers to the location of your cleaning services business. Document your location and mention how the location will impact your success. Discuss how your location might provide a steady stream of customers.

Promotions : the final part of your cleaning services business marketing plan is the promotions section. Here you will document how you will drive customers to your location(s). The following are some promotional methods you might consider:

• Advertising in local papers and magazines
• Reaching out to local bloggers and websites
• Social media advertising
• Local radio advertising
• Pay per click advertising
• Banner ads at local venues

Client Retention

Your cleaning service business plan should discuss not just how you will find customers in the first place, but how you’ll hold on to them and discourage them from switching to another firm. After all, it should be much less expensive to keep a customer than to market and sell to a new one. Some methods of retaining customers involve creating the perception of switching costs; that is, that they will lose money and time when switching to a new cleaning service. Others involve fine-tuning your customer service skills into a customer service system around retention.

Loyalty Program

Creating a loyalty program is a positive way of creating switching costs for your customers. For example, by offering a free cleaning after every 10 cleanings, or some specialty service when certain milestones are missed, your customers will worry about losing the value they have saved up that is only of use if they stay with your company.

Premium Customer Levels

Another related retention strategy is to reward the frequency of customer cleanings. For example, customers who order cleanings once a week and keep that up, can be offered entry into your “premium customer group”, marketed with a branded name to build interest. You can offer members of this group more leeway to schedule last minute cleanings, reschedule or cancel, additional perks, or priority customer service of some other kind. Clients who are almost at the point of qualifying may push themselves to reach that point in order to get these valuable perks.

Tracking Retention

Simply by tracking the numbers and percentages involved in your customer retention can yield valuable information about what you’re doing right or wrong and how successful new initiatives are over time. Statistics to track may include customer complaints, the average speed of complaint resolution, the percentage of customers in a given month who were using your services last month, 3 months ago, 6 months ago, a year ago, etc, and so on. When your staff is aware of these statistics and is given targets to work towards, the message that customer service and retention is a priority is heard loud and clear.

Operations Plan

While the earlier sections of your business plan explained your goals, your operations plan describes how you will meet them. Your operations plan should have two distinct sections as follows.

Everyday short-term processes include all of the tasks involved in running your cleaning services business such as serving customers, procuring supplies, etc.

Long-term goals are the milestones you hope to achieve. These could include the dates when you expect to serve your 100th customer, or when you hope to reach $X in sales. It could also be when you expect to hire your Xth employee or launch in a new city.

Management Team

To demonstrate your cleaning services business’s ability to succeed as a business, a strong management team is essential. Highlight your key players’ backgrounds, emphasizing those skills and experiences that prove their ability to grow a company.

Ideally you and/or your team members have direct experience in the cleaning services business. If so, highlight this experience and expertise. But also highlight any experience that you think will help your business succeed.

If your team is lacking, consider assembling an advisory board. An advisory board would include 2 to 8 individuals who would act like mentors to your business. They would help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. If needed, look for advisory board members with experience in cleaning services businesses and/or successfully running small businesses.

Financial Plan

Your financial plan should include your 5-year financial statement broken out both monthly or quarterly for the first year and then annually. Your financial statements include your income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statements.

Income Statement : an income statement is more commonly called a Profit and Loss statement or P&L. It shows your revenues and then subtracts your costs to show whether you turned a profit or not.

In developing your income statement, you need to devise assumptions. For example, will you serve 20 customers per week or 50? And will sales grow by 2% or 10% per year? As you can imagine, your choice of assumptions will greatly impact the financial forecasts for your business. As much as possible, conduct research to try to root your assumptions in reality.

Example 5 Year Annual Income Statement

Balance Sheets : While balance sheets include much information, to simplify them to the key items you need to know about, balance sheets show your assets and liabilities. For instance, if you spend $50,000 on building out your cleaning services business, that will not give you immediate profits. Rather it is an asset that will hopefully help you generate profits for years to come. Likewise, if a bank writes you a check for $50.000, you don’t need to pay it back immediately. Rather, that is a liability you will pay back over time.

Example 5 Year Annual Balance Sheet

Cash Flow Statement : Your cash flow statement will help determine how much money you need to start or grow your business, and make sure you never run out of money. What most entrepreneurs and business owners don’t realize is that you can turn a profit but run out of money and go bankrupt. For example, let’s say a company approached you with a massive $100,000 damage restoration contract, that would cost you $50,000 to fulfill. Well, in most cases, you would have to pay that $50,000 now for supplies, equipment rentals, employee salaries, etc. But let’s say the company didn’t pay you for 180 days. During that 180 day period, you could run out of money.

In developing your Income Statement and Balance Sheets be sure to include several of the key costs needed in starting or growing a cleaning services business:

• Cost of equipment like vacuum cleaners, power washers, carts, vans, etc.
• Cost of maintaining an adequate amount of supplies
• Payroll or salaries paid to staff
• Business insurance
• Taxes and permits
• Legal expenses

Example 5 Year Annual Cash Flow Statement

Attach your full financial projections in the appendix of your plan along with any supporting documents that make your plan more compelling. For example, you might include any insurance company affiliations or remediation licenses.

Cleaning Services Business Plan Summary

Putting together a business plan for your cleaning services business is a worthwhile endeavor. If you follow the template above, by the time you are done, you will truly be an expert. You will really understand the cleaning services business, your competition and your customers. You will have developed a marketing plan and will really understand what it takes to launch and grow a successful cleaning services business.

Download Our Cleaning Services Business Plan PDF

You can download our cleaning services business plan PDF here. This is a cleaning company business plan template you can use in PDF format.

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Other Helpful Business Plan Articles & Templates

Sample Janitorial and Commercial Cleaning Business Plan

Example commercial cleaning & janitorial service business plan.

This is a comprehensive tutorial on putting together a sample janitorial & commercial cleaning service business plan. This template can be used by cleaning services, janitorial service, commercial cleaning specialty and carpet cleaning businesses.

The goal was to write out a custom business plan using practical information and cover the main topics.

Some of the topics were too big and we had to use an introduction and then provide a link to the full resource. Every section has a link to view details of specific sections.

The plan divided into 6 sections:

• Business Description

Table of Contents

Commercial Cleaning- Janitorial, Carpet Cleaning, VCT, Tile, Office Cleaning

In the executive summary we list all the main sections and then give a brief description of the topic.

• Business Description – Next Door commercial cleaning service located in Toledo Ohio and was incorporated as an S Corp July 2020. We are currently in the start up stage with August 1st 2020 as our first day of business. We currently have 3 employees, one marketing person and 2 cleaning technicians. ND currently leases 5 000 sqr feet of office and warehouse space out of Toledo. Our current target market is employers with 50- 100 plus employees, primarily professional offices with cleanable office space of 10,000 sqr feet minimum.
• Services – Next Door will provide daily cleaning services to local businesses including an emphasis on specialty cleaning services such as : Carpet cleaning, hard tile cleaning, VCT waxing, furniture and general disinfecting. Most businesses don’t have the time to recruit, hire and especially training cleaning staff. It can take 3-6 months to train a good cleaner, this is time, money most businesses would rather devote to their specialty and their clients and not on maintaining a clean building.
• Marketing – The company is going to use Account Based Marketing, what this means is weighting our budget to best payoffs. The strategy is to shift our resources to the biggest payoff and not market to every business equally. Some businesses will spend $1200 year, while others might spend $50k. We want our marketing plan to reflect that . This can really hit home – if we apply 80% of our effort to just 20% of our leads (our Key Accounts) we will receive 80% of the  rewards.
• Management – As we grow especially in commercial services where its common for businesses to have 10, 20 and even hundreds of employees. We want to avoid this first slide of every employee, every customer, invoice, equipment question coming to you directly. This is guaranteed to fail eventually and create lots of stress in the process.
• Operations – Commercial cleaning employee manual or handbook, this can be used for janitorial, carpet cleaning and commercial cleaning services. The purpose of this sample is to share some topics and general information to include in an employee manual.
• Financial – The financial part is the final part of the business plan and here we will use charts, graphs and spreadsheets mainly to map out a long term successful future.

1.Business Plan- Summary

Next Door commercial cleaning service located in Toledo Ohio and was incorporated as an S Corp July 2020. We are currently in the start up stage with August 1 st 2020 as our first day of business. We currently have 3 employees, one marketing person and 2 cleaning technicians. ND currently leases 5 000 sqr feet of office and warehouse space out of Toledo.

Our current target market is employers with 50- 100 plus employees, primarily professional offices with cleanable office space of 10,000 sqr feet minimum.

Client sustainability is going to be the main variable to consider when deciding which business to market to. We want to be thinking of industries that will be in business for the next 20 years.

Medical, clinics, doctor, technology, professional services like architect, law, financial. We see these as basic services that will survive the ups and downs of the macro economy. The main threat long term is the use of remote workers but we feel this is still a long ways out in large numbers.

Next Door plans to be diverse offering daily building cleaning services and also high margin specialty services. We believe this mix will balance our revenue/profits out over long term macro changes.

1.1 Industry Overview

Currently the retail sector of the industry is a mess and very difficult to make work. As more people continue to buy online retail stores continue to close stores and significantly cut back on cleaning budgets.

Right this second hospitality is also in shambles with pandemic and government ordered shutdowns or limitations on capacity. This includes restaurants, hotels, leisure, etc. We believe there will be permanent damage to this sector and will stay away for the first couple years. Even when they do get back on their feet they will be keeping budgets tight.

Industrial businesses are hit and miss, really depends on the specific product they make. This will be a sector ND will keep in the marketing mix

Medical, including hospitals clinics and doctor services are always needed and with an aging population only will be needed more. The only risk long term is more doctors using online tools to speak with patients but they will always need to see patients face to face somewhat.

Professional services including technology, lawyers, engineers, management, etc is one of the safest in our opinion long term. These are services that can’t be replaced easily by future robots. These services require thinking and not just repeating tasks. The risk is remote staffing but we feel in large numbers there will always be enough office space needed.

Commercial Property Management is currently experiencing a lot of financial problems with 20-30% of tenants not paying leases. We will be avoiding this sector over the short term.

1.2 Company Description

Next Door is an S Corporation formed in the state of Georgia with 2 shareholders Jason & Lisa Jones. The state or city does not require any special permits or licenses. The company will provide building cleaning services to other businesses.

The office/shop is located in between 2 main thruways giving access to all areas throughout the metro area within 30 minutes. This was a major reason for choosing this location, it is centrally located. Also with commercial cleaning businesses we needed warehouse space to hold various equipment and store misc cleaning products.

 Office is currently leased for 5 years.

Most cleaning staff will report directly to the buildings they service and not come to the office often. The office will be staffed with marketing, management and human resources. Supervisors will share workspace in the office but mainly work in the field at client buildings.

Because of this we only needed 3000 sqr feet of office space and 2000 sqr ft of warehouse.

Mission Statement Our goal is to provide a clean and healthy environment for our customers through state of the art cleaning technology and a commitment to customer service Method Clean Biz

Safety is a priority for our customers and employees, while in your facility we follow a detailed health & safety program, This insures quality service, happy employees and competitive prices.

One of the things Next Door wants to be about is safety, this is as a value proposition for marketing but also be aggressive in training, supervising employees through monthly safety meetings. We feel this is a topic that will be important in the forseeable future.

Also the large employers we target are generally the ones that care about safety. Under 50 employees you will start to see the topic be less and less important.

1.3 History and Current Status

The company is a start a up and we don’t have any history to share. Jason and partner Lisa Jones started the company August 1 st 2020. Jason has worked in the commercial cleaning industry for 20 years as a former franchise owner, operations manager and salesperson for 2 different businesses in the industry.

Lisa is a former office manager and salesperson for a landscaping service for 7 years with an MBA from Georgia University.

Jason feels after 20 years in the industry with practical real life experience in various management roles that the industry is changing and one variable is to focus more on high margin project work to combine with lower margin cleaning contracts.

Lisa has an MBA and can add the business structure needed to grow and sustain long term growth.

Both have experience in sales specifically in the service industry and know how to market, sell contracts.

1.4 Goals and Objectives

The goal is to build the business to about $1.5 million in sales with an owner benefit of about 20% which equals about $300k in benefits, wages and profit for the shareholders. The timeline is 5 years with a slower rate in the first 2 years while they are building the core infrastructure and then dramatically scale that up in years 3-5 after the core is solid.

One of the experiences Jason has had is small businesses growing too fast too early and then crashing because they don’t have enough management in place. Often owners try to do everything themselves and burn out.

1.5 Critical Success Factors

The key to success in the cleaning industry is human resources, people. Recruiting, hiring, training and supervising staff and also developing management, supervision talent in house. We feel the best way to grow and sustain it long term is by developing our cleaners into supervisors.

Each lead person is creating the next lead person. Trying to hire supervisor’s from other cleaning businesses comes with a lot of challenges, some have bad habits to begin with that are difficult to change. Also run the risk they quit after a short time and have information about the internal workings of the business and client lists, training material etc.

Training and supervision will be key success factors. The challenge In the cleaning business is employees are working at the customers location, mainly unsupervised on an hour by hour basis. This is why hiring the right people in the first place is so critical and then getting them in a routine through training.

We will create a culture of everyone sticking together and supporting each other. With 90% of the workforce working remotely it becomes important we communicate with each other on a regular basis and trust each other.

There will be a big emphasis on communicating nightly through email, text, phone so employees are tuned in.

1.6 Company Ownership and Exit

The company has 2 shareholders with Lisa owning 40% of the shares and Jason 60%. Each has the option to buy the other out at an agreed upon price after 5 years. Shares cannot be sold to a third party unless agreed to by both.

Jason will hold the title of CEO and have direct authority over Operations dept. Lisa will have the title of President with administrative and Sales/Marketing directly reporting to her.

The long term plan is operate the business for approximately 15 years and sell to the general public splitting the sale price 60/40.

2. Services

Next Door will provide daily cleaning services to local businesses including an emphasis on specialty cleaning services such as : Carpet cleaning, hard tile cleaning, VCT waxing, furniture and general disinfecting.

Most businesses don’t have the time to recruit, hire and especially training cleaning staff. It can take 3-6 months to train a good cleaner, this is time, money most businesses would rather devote to their specialty and their clients and not on maintaining a clean building.

The 2 nd part is specialty work. Most businesses do not want to invest $10ks of dollars of capital into cleaning equipment that is used 1x month or maybe even only a couple times a year. Also the training of employees required, again for a task that might only need to be done a couple times a year.

Businesses would rather spend that capital on areas where there is a much bigger payoff.

2.1 Service Description

• Daily janitorial and office cleaning
• Carpet steam cleaning truckmount
• Carpet cleaning low moisture
• Hard surface steam cleaning including ceramic, porcelain and quarry tile
• VCT floor waxing, polishing
• Office furniture steam cleaning
• Disinfecting services

Daily Janitorial and office cleaning

The company feels the key to success in daily cleaning is one initial training and two communication. Often cleaning businesses are small and lack management talent, understaffed and overall desperate for bodies on any given day.

We feel the competitive advantage is in training cleaners not only the technical skills but also the importance of service skills. Often clients will like a cleaner and think they are the greatest in the world even if their technical skills are average.

NEXT DOOR wants to make this a key part of training cleaning staff. Some of the training elements will be uniform, appearance, communication with the client, body language, how to address complaints, safety equipment like wet floor signs, tone to use when speaking with clients, etc.

Training will take approximately 3-6 months with technical training only taking 30% of the time. The company feels not only will we have happier clients but cut down on employee turnover by reducing the stress. We feel by training employee’s customer service skills they will also feel like we care about them and want to see them succeed in life in general.

More than anything clients want to know you care and we want to focus on training staff to be proactive in relaying that message. Most clients understand people are human and will make technical mistakes. BUT it is unacceptable to not care about a client building or the staff that works in that building when they are paying you.

2 nd Key element is communication. Most cleaning employees work remotely and does not interact with management on a daily basis. This more than anything can lead to cleaners feeling like nobody is watching and worse nobody cares.

The company is going to be very aggressive in creating a communication system so we interact with every cleaner, every day in some way. Either by a supervisor stopping by, calling, texting or maybe even email in some situations. Our thinking currently is daily text alerts mixed with phone calls.

Carpet Steam Cleaning- Truckmount

The company will invest almost $40k in a van based carpet cleaning system. This system will allow us to steam clean carpets at a very high level of quality and production. With advanced systems we can have a 10 on quality and a 10 in production. This system can also clean up to 300 feet away from the van, targeting large employers we will need to work at great distances on a regular basis.

Carpet Cleaning- Low Moisture

An emerging and often overlooked service is using low moisture technology to clean carpets. With this service the company can sell high margin services at an affordable price. Often in larger buildings access can be a problem or they need the area turned over quickly, low moisture provides a quick 30 minute dry time.

Hard Tile Steam Cleaning

Using the van based carpet cleaning system we can quickly change tools and offer steam cleaning of various tools. This is another high margin service to offer and it makes the daily office cleaning a lot easier and quicker.

Often these areas are the toughest areas to clean: restrooms, lobbies, cafeterias and also the areas that receive the most complaints.

The long term goal is create a route just cleaning hard tile surfaces, the benefit is it’s a high margin service and also can help get our foot in the door to sell big monthly cleaning contracts.

VCT Floor waxing, Polishing

VCT flooring is usually located in high traffic areas like hallways, cafeterias and restrooms. We have found the overall appearance of a building can be greatly impacted by having shiny, clean looking floors. This can be accomplished by stripping old finish off and applying new or high speed polishing.

How clients “feel” about a cleaning service overall can come from how well a cafeteria floor looks. This is medium profit margin service in most cases because how labor intensive it can be. But can help greatly in the overall satisfaction of clients.

Office Furniture Cleaning

Office furniture is another high margin but niche service. The company will use the van based truckmount system in most cases to keep production high. This can include partitions, chairs and small sofas

2.2 Competitive Advantage

In section 2.1 we covered what we believe our competitive advantage is for janitorial and daily office cleaning.

Specialty cleaning services: carpet cleaning, upholstery, office furniture, VCT, hard surface cleaning has some of the same focus but there are two key points to make.

Two things we have found true with specialty services is most janitorial businesses are not very good at them. The main reasons are lack of training in staff and equipment. We believe in buying the highest production equipment available and spending considerable resources in training of technicians.

These two variables can give NEXT DOOR a significant advantage over competitors and get our foot in the door for janitorial services at client buildings of competitors.

#1 Using van based truckmounted system and also current low moisture carpet cleaning systems.

#2 Using dedicated technicians that have been through specialized training at certified organizations like the IICRC.

Often janitorial services will send general cleaners out to complete these tasks with limited training and modest equipment.

3. Marketing Plan

Marketing is a huge subject in itself, we already have a large section with a specific marketing plan. In this section we will give a brief overview and then the link to the full marketing plan.

3.1 Marketing Research

Toldeo Ohio metro area is the designated service area. Toledo has a total of 18,000 businesses but we need to narrow that number down to a manageable number.

Key Accounts – businesses with 100+ employees = 328

Businesses with 50 + = 659

Key Account total = 987 businesses

These represent where we will dedicate 75% of our budget and resources

Growth Accounts- businesses with 10 -50 employees = 4300

These are growing businesses that we will dedicate roughly 15% of our budget too. Remember some of them will grow to 50 employees over the long term.

Advertising – misc. advertsing will receive the smallest piece of the pie of 10%. This will include google, adwords, social media etc. The reason is we can’t control always who calls from a big advertising campaign, some will be big and most small but its still an opportunity for PR/Marketing and fill in gaps. 

3.2 Competitors- High Barriers To Entry

Part of our marketing strategy is coming up with areas that are difficult for our competitors to easily repeat. If there is one thing we know about human behavior its if something is easy everyone will do it. So we want to look for tactics that are very difficult for our competitors to do.

Difficult to do: targeting businesses with 50 plus employees is a key part of this strategy. Most commercial cleaning services will find it very hard to do consistently over long periods of time. One of the biggest reasons is patience, larger jobs take a lot more patience and lets face it most cleaners are not very patient and our current society is built for on demand.

EASY To Do:

• Lead generation service
• Google search adwords
• Facebook marketing

HARD To Do:

• Telemarketing
• Door to Door sales
• Highly Targeted Google display ads
• Direct Mail

3.3 Sales Plan

6 Simple Steps To Creating a Commercial Cleaning Sales Plan

How to create a commercial cleaning sales plan, this can apply to commercial cleaning, carpet cleaning and janitorial services. We are going to cover 6 steps to creating a dedicated sales plan we can follow every day, month and year. A sales plan is meant to be a living document that as we learn will be updated and improved over time.

Step 1 What is our objective or financial goal?

Step 2 What Resources are available, what is your commitment level?

Step 3 Targeting, who are the types of businesses you will focus on?

Step 4 Services, what services will you focus on?

Step 5 Activity Log- What physical actions will you take on a daily/weekly/monthly rotation

Step 6 Training- What Training do you need to accomplish your goals?

3.4 Pricing Strategy

Pricing Strategy- After deciding on a goal we then can create a pricing strategy.

Cost Plus – we figure our costs for a job and then add our gross margin. Our gross margin goals will be as follows

• Specialty cleaning  jobs including carpet, tile, furniture and VCT- gross profit- 70%
• Small cleaning jobs less than $10k per year- 60% profit
• Medium jobs- $10k – $30k per year – 50% profit
• Large Jobs- $30k plus- 40% profit

The reason is smaller jobs require much more office support in fill in staff, supervision, training, supplies, etc.

Larger jobs are self contained with a team leader working on site at a client building to provide all those tasks.Supervisor will inspect 1x week.

Square foot – sqr ft or unit pricing is best when you have experience with a specific service and type of client. Sqr ft pricing will be used using the above gross profit goals.

Time and Materials – or another way to use this is hours X hourly rate. This is often used when you are unfamiliar with a service or type of client building. This strategy will be used when we are unfamiliar with a job, misc tasks, obscure requests and 1x jobs.

3.5 Sales Strategy

Strategy section: objective is increase cashflow, measure by percentage increase, goal is 30%. How do I increase our cash flow? How does this change our sales strategy?

 In commercial cleaning, carpet cleaning or janitorial cashflow is extremely important, maybe the most important challenge we face. What happens whenever taking on a new project is we have costs of labor, chemicals, equipment, gas but might not see a payment for 30, 60 or even 90 days. First is the data or analytical part, we currently are at 22% and in previous months hovered around 24% but now need to greatly increase that.

How to: look at the current client list, is there a pattern with accounts that fall below our goals? Reduce invoice terms, is there a pattern of industries, sizes or areas that are paying in terms greater than 30 days net? Change our terms to 15 days net for all one time jobs, these are usually specialty cleaning services carpet cleaning, windows, small construction projects.

Over time I think most of us find certain industries have industry logic built in that it is commonplace to pay in certain invoice cycles. This is fine but something we have to think about as we grow.

For example you are currently cleaning a lot of property managers and they are all paying 60 days plus, that might be a situation where its time to stop marketing to that group and find a new target

3.6 Sales Forecasting

This is a quick video on using forecasting to determine when it is time to hire a new technician. Often us contractors wait until the last minute to hire new staff and that usually doesnt work out too well. Regardless if hiring a part, full time or casual employee its always best to plant the seed and start the process months before we actually need someone.

The easiest way is to create a table in word or spreadsheet in excel or just take a piece of paper and a pencil. This is an example of a sales forecasting table separate by 3 columns. Customer, estimate amount and probability or forecast.

In the first column list name of the customer or bid, examples medical building, restaurant and property management account. Second column list the gross amount of the bid, in this example we put $1000 dollars for medical, $12000 restaurant and $3000 for property management company. The total comes to $16,000.

To forecast list low,medium and high of 25 percent%, 50 percent % and 75 percent %. Now this is subjective, sometimes we win low % bids and lose bids we think we have nailed down, it happens.

At this point its time to start placing ads, time to collect and read resumes, interview the best applicants. You want to have all this pre-planned and set up 2 weeks, 2months and 4 months in advanced so when the work does come in you have a list of contacts to put in place.

4. Management

4.1 company organization.

As we grow especially in commercial services where its common for businesses to have 10, 20 and even hundreds of employees. We want to avoid this first slide of every employee, every customer, invoice, equipment question coming to you directly. This is guaranteed to fail eventually and create lots of stress in the process.

This second example is more of a traditional organizational chart for a commercial cleaning service, janitorial service. In this slide we show 3 departments: operations, sales and administration. You can see a big difference right away in this structure, instead of every employee reporting directly to you, now they report to the managers and the manager’s report to you.

The Operations Manager will have all the supervisors, team leaders, technicians, specialty cleaners and cleaning staff reporting directly to them.

Sales Person might have 1-2 assistants working for them setting appointments, sending out direct mail, emails etc. Often these can be part-time staff that either work inside sales setting appointments over the phone or outside sales/networker going door to door and attending events.

Office Manager or Administration might have the bookkeeper and 1-2 office assistants helping with employee interviews, HR, fact checking resumes etc. Note, some owners prefer to have the bookkeeper/financial staff next to them and report directly to owner and not under admin.

4.2 Professional Support

The company needs to make a list of various vendors, suppliers and professional services. Below is a starting list of vendors will need to hire.

• Accountant/ Tax
• Financial advisor
• Equipment supplier
• Day to day cleaning solutions supplier Main
• Back up supplier
• Payroll service
• Credit card
• Credit card processing
• Website hosting
• Digital marketing
• Design marketing
• CRM provider
• Technical consultants – IICRC or ISSA
• Business specialty consultants
• Phone service
• Van mechanic- tires, inspection, etc.

4.3 Management Structure

In this section we will show some examples of organizational charts to structure a commercial cleaning, janitorial or commercial carpet cleaning service.

5. Operations

5.1 employee handbook.

Commercial cleaning employee manual or handbook, this can be used for janitorial, carpet cleaning and commercial cleaning services. The purpose of this sample is to share some topics and general information to include in an employee manual.

** Note this is not a legal document and any employee manual should be customized and verified with a local consultant or lawyer based on your specific state laws.

Welcome to Commercial Cleaning Service!

On behalf of our big family of fellow associates, owner, vendors, customers and management we want to welcome you to our team.

At Commercial Cleaning Service, we believe that every associate contributes to our growth and are also rewarded equally. We want every team member to take pride in driving our van, wearing our uniform and serving our customers to the best of your ability.

This employee handbook is a simple way to describe the expectations of our team members and outline the policy and procedures we follow to provide the absolute best service experience possible.

All associates are expected to become familiar with the contents of this handbook in the first 30 days of employment and share all questions they may have with management.

Topics to be covered:

• Timekeeping
• Direct deposit
• Termination
• Phone usage
• Equipment usage

5.2 Recruiting, Hiring and Interview Process

How to hire employees for your commercial cleaning service. The goal is to create a flow chart to map out the hiring process, I find it very helpful to be able to see processes and map out the different steps involved. I feel it helps a lot in understanding and the actual follow through.

The 10 Essential Steps To Hiring Amazing Employees For Your Commercial Cleaning Service

• Job opening

Job Description

• Create Database

Find Recruits

Phone Interview

Onsite Interview

The first step is determining we have a job opening or several job openings and writing a job description. A job description has the basic tasks involved, hours/days, full time or part time, any certification or education requirements.

Identify the type of person we would like to hire. Some positions require a detail minded person while others need a lot of physical labor. It is our job to find good matches of the recruits with the position.

Before running ads we want to create a database to hold all of this information and make it easily searchable in the future. Often we will have several qualified candidates but only one opening currently and want to find the other candidates later on.

Run Advertisements

Decide where we will run advertisements on, for how long and what is our total budget. The best place to start is referrals of course by sharing on social media and through email blasts of our current database and reaching out to former candidates. Some options for advertising are indeed, monster, local newspaper.

Go over the resumes and score the best qualified candidates for contact.

I personally like the phone interview first to reach out and get a feel for the candidate, ask a couple basic questions and make sure they understand the job description.

This will depend on the position of course, next an onsite face to face interview. Also can meet in a coffee shop, some people prefer a relaxed setting so candidates are more comfortable.

Go over all the information and make a final decision.

This is where we have the new employee fill out required paperwork, insurance, sign off on employee manual’s and layout the next steps.

5.3 Safety Meetings

The goal of this template is to create a 12 step safety manual with meetings on a monthly basis covering different topics. Cleaning businesses encounter several situations at clients building’s, company shop, office and driving to commercial carpet & tile cleaning jobs.

12 Month Health & Safety

Month 1 Introduction

The purpose of this health and safety program is to establish company standards for working in client buildings, driving in company vehicles and working in company office/shop.

The company has identified 12 key topics to be covered in monthly safety meetings that all employees must attend. It is intended that this manual is a “living” document to be upgraded and added to with input from employees, owners and managers.

• Introduction
• PPE- personal protective wear
• Electrical Cords
• Work area signs, tape
• Vans/Equipment maintenance
• SDS Sheets, Chemical storage, mixing

5.4 Employee Compensation

Often, we try to reward employee behavior through bonus programs and focus on one specific performance at a time, for example an attendance bonus.

In this example instead, we are going to create a Balanced Scorecard using a point system. The difference is we will have 5 different performances instead of focusing on only one.

The points vary from poor to satisfactory to excellent and at the end of the review we will add the points up give a financial bonus based on the number of points.

The five variables we will be using in this bonus evaluation are

• Inspections
• Customer Survey or Review

The Top 5 Performance Evaluations

Attendance- Attendance will depend on if the employee is full time or part time. I think we definitely have to weight this somehow. We could deduct a point for every day missed but honestly anymore than 1 is too many and even 1 is not good.

On Time- I understand some cleaning jobs when they clock in doesn’t matter a lot but for project work like carpet cleaning, floor work, etc. often clients are waiting for us, so it is critical.

Inspections- This can be a weekly or monthly inspection you would normally have. To make this easier I would just use a 5 point system or grades A,B, C,D,F and then transfer that to the scorecard.

Equipment- will depend on the type of service, for office cleaners we will be mainly looking at floor machines and maintaining vacuums.

For project work though like carpet cleaning, tile cleaning the equipment is critical and cost upwards of $50k plus. In that case I would weight it much higher than an office cleaning position.

Customer Survey or Review- This will break down between residential and commercial cleaning services. With residential nowadays reviews have become very important in digital advertising.

5.5 Inventory

The company will use an inventory control system made with excel spreadsheets managed by the operations manager. Inventory will be made on a 30 day cycle and 14 day cycle when cashflow is tighter in the first 2 years.

• On site inventory will be delivered and maintained by the building supervisor on a weekly basis. Cleaners and team leaders are to submit to supervisor supply needs and supervisor hands in worksheet to operations manager.
• Specialty Cleaners working out of shop will complete an inventory checklist daily and hand in to operations manager.

5.6 Credit Policy and Cashflow

The company will extend terms to clients following the sales strategy explained above.

Standard 30 days net

Exceptions 60 day net

60 day plus only authorized by CEO

Specialty cleaning jobs recurring 15-30 day net

1x Specialty jobs due on receipt to 7 day net maximum.

The company will follow this policy regarding tracking accounts receivable and payable

Complete an aging receivable at least monthly to track how much of your money is tied up in credit given to customers, and to alert you to slow payment problems.

Also tracking accounts payable using the same format.

Current- 30 day- 60 Day- 60 day + – Charge offs

6. Financials

The financial part is the final part of the business plan and here we will use charts, graphs and spreadsheets mainly to map out a long term successful future.

The main topics we will cover are:

• Start up funds and 1 st year
• Income statement
• Break even point
• Balance Sheet

6.1 Start up and 1st Year

In this section we think about all the money we will need to start up including 1x cost and monthly cost.

GENERAL/ADMIN                           

BANKING FEES  $200.00                $15.00

CONSULT FEES   $500.00                $95.00

OFFICE SUPPLIES              $200.00                $60.00

LICENSE FEES      $150.00                $15.00

BUSINESS INSURANCE   $500.00                $380.00

TOTAL GENERAL/ADMIN              $1,550.00            $565.00

SUBSCRIPTIONS                $237.00

TOTAL OPERATIONS       $-            $237.00

MARKETING/PROMO                    

ADVERTISING    $1,500.00            $1,800.00

PROMO $300.00                $50.00

TOTAL MARKETING/PROMO       $1,800.00            $1,850.00

WEBSITE/MOBILE APP                  

DOMAIN              $1,000.00            $30.00

HOSTING             $-            $30.00

TOTAL WEBSITE/MOBILE APP     $1,000.00            $60.00

RENT/LEASE       $-            $750.00

PHONE $-            $137.00

ELECTRIC              $-            $237.00

GAS       $-            $150.00

WATER/SEWAGE              $-            $50.00

WASTE REMOVAL            $-            $40.00

REPAIR/MAINTENANCE $-            $200.00

SECURITY             $-            $25.00

Then Estimate what the first year will look like.

TOTAL START-UP COSTS $4,850.00

TOTAL RECURRING MONTHLY COSTS               (1 YR = 12 MO)        $87,612.00

TOTAL BUSINESS EXPENSES         $92,462.00

ESTIMATED FIRST-YEAR BUSINESS INCOME          $112,000.00

BUSINESS FIRST-YEAR PROFIT/LOSS         $19,538.00

AVAILABLE CASH/ SAVINGS/OTHER          $30,000.00

BUSINESS BALANCE        $49,538.00

6.2 Break Even Point

In this section we look at how much revenue we need to generate to break even every month. This can be tricky sometimes for beginners, we want to calculate using a fixed monthly cost like rent and also a percentage of cogs or cost of service.

Fixed Cost            $4,300

Cost of goods sold            $3,000

Number of Jobs 1

Average Job Price             $9,300

6.3 Income Statement

Our income statement is a profit and loss statement, looking at net income and then minus taxes to see net, net.

6.4 Cashflow

Cashflow statement is one of the most important financial metrics to follow for a commercial cleaning business. Just because we have invoiced a client doesn’t mean we physically have the money in the bank.

Often what can happen is cleaning services fall behind and then have to start borrowing large sums of money to stay alive each month.

6.5 Balance Sheet

Lastly is the balance sheet what do we own and what do we owe. Including intangible assets like intellectual property which is difficult to judge so be very conservative.

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Janitorial Services Business Plan

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Clean Office Pros

Executive summary executive summary is a brief introduction to your business plan. it describes your business, the problem that it solves, your target market, and financial highlights.">.

Introduction

Clean Office Pros is a new cleaning service specializing in office cleaning and serving the Kansas City, Missouri area. The business will sell office cleaning and related services to businesses with office spaces of any size. To that end, Clean Office Pros seeks funding for equipment and initial operations of the business.

The Company

Established in 2009, the business offers office cleaning, floor treatment, carpet cleaning, and window cleaning for businesses with office space in the Kansas City area. The business was founded by Paul Vinci and Reid Werbitt, cleaning industry professionals with decades of collective experience, who have pooled their resources to develop a new strategy for reaching and serving business clients. The business will operate out of a central office and storage facility and use the labor of trained cleaning crews to serve clients.

Services offered will be based around basic office cleaning scheduled on a monthly basis, which will be offered with extreme care for the client’s privacy, security, and assets. Additional services will be sold to the same clients to deepen their relationship with Clean Office Pros. Organizational services will be introduced in after three years. Services will be environmentally friendly, both in the products used and in their methods of disposal.

The market currently consists of 40,000 small, medium, and large office businesses. Healthy growth is expected for this market, especially for small offices which will be the initial target market for the business. Focusing on small offices will establish the reputation of the company by working with a variety of clients and will force the streamlining of operations.

Financial Results

The business expects to reach $1 million in annual sales in its second year of operation and begin to pay dividends to investing partners in its first year. Net profit of $70,000 will be achieved in the first year and will double in the second year. Break even will be achieved quickly partially due to the fact that the management is experienced with sales, marketing, and operations, and that all cleaning crews will be paid only for hours worked, reducing the payroll risk for the business.

Clean Office Pros seeks to establish itself as a leader in office cleaning in the Kansas City, MO area. Specific objectives we will seek to meet over the next two years include:

• To create a culture of productivity and resourcefulness for all staff by encouraging the best ideas and cleaning procedures to rise to the top and rewarding cleaning crew for their contributions.

Clean Office Pros seeks to ensure that businesses have a spotless office environment to support the work they do and forget their worries about office cleaning. The company values its employees to clean well and clean smart, listens to the needs of its client to do the job they need done, and responds to the demands of the environment.

Keys to Success

To become successful in the office cleaning business, Clean Office Pros must:

• Remember that the cleaning must meet or exceed client expectations to be considered done

Company Summary company overview ) is an overview of the most important points about your company—your history, management team, location, mission statement and legal structure.">

Clean Office Pros is a office cleaning business located in Kansas City, MO. Established in 2009, the business offers office cleaning, floor treatment, carpet cleaning, and window cleaning for businesses with office space in the Kansas City area. The business was founded by Paul Vinci and Reid Werbitt, cleaning industry professionals with decades of collective experience, who have pooled their resources to develop a new strategy for reaching and serving business clients.

Company Ownership

Clean Office Pros is an S Corporation currently owned 51% by Paul Vinci and 49% by Reid Werbitt, the founders and directors of the company. Once additional investment has been contributed by angel investors, those investors will own 49% of the business, Paul Vinci will own 26% and Reid Werbitt will own 25%.

Start-up Summary

The startup expenses for the business reflect the legal permitting required in the state of Missouri, the legal agreements with additional investors and banks for financing, two month’s security deposit at an estimated $2,500 per month and one month’s rent for improvements to the office and storage facility, improvements including lighting fixtures, storage cabinets, and sinks, and office supplies and computer supplies for three workstations (two founders and one administrator).

Assets which must be purchased include office furniture and computers for the office, cleaning equipment including buffing machines, vacuums, and basic tools (mops, brooms, buckets, etc), and one delivery van.

Some of the larger pieces equipment can be purchased with seller-financing, such as the delivery van and buffing machines. Otherwise, it is most economical or required to pay for these expenses and assets in cash.

Services to be offered by Clean Office Pros will focus specifically on office spaces and include:

• Bathroom and kitchen area cleaning

In the future, Clean Office Pros will provide office organization and decluttering services through an interior designer. This service will be provided as an upsell to this foundation of services.

Market Analysis Summary how to do a market analysis for your business plan.">

The market for office cleaning in the Kansas City area includes small offices (1-5 employees), medium offices (6-20 employees) and large offices (21 employees and up). In the Kansas City area, businesses with offices are growing as the service sector increases, with a net of 3,000 new businesses established in 2008. Due to the economic renewal occurring in this community, this growth is expected to continue over the next two years. Small offices are targeted as well as large, although margins will be lower due to the increased amount spent on sales and travel relative to medium and large offices, because many small businesses will expand, giving Clean Office Pros a foothold in this market by the time competitors are willing to sell to them.

Market Segmentation

The market for Clean Office Pros is comprised of small offices, medium offices and large offices in the Kansas City area.

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Medium Offices: This group has a growing acceptance of the need for professional cleaning services and is concerned primarily about price.

Large Offices: This group accepts the need to outsource their office cleaning to professionals and is interested in working with vendors who can handle specific requests and take care to protect the information, security, and equipment within their office spaces.

Target Market Segment Strategy

Clean Office Pros will build its expertise from the ground up, by building a successful base of small-office clients, moving on to medium-office clients and then large-office clients. While larger clients will not be turned away as the business starts out, it is expected that they will be more likely to use Clean Office Pros services after its record of customer service and operational success is established by work with numerous smaller clients. Furthermore, by working with smaller clients first, the business will establish a foothold faster as they will not be competing directly with established cleaning companies at first, and will be able to work towards making this group more profitable through economies of scale and tight operations.

Clean Office Pros will not work for landlords, providing building janitorial services. Many firms specialize in this service already, and marketing janitorial services to buildings involves different promotional activities, operations, and cleaning skills, to a certain extent. By specializing in commercial office cleaning, Clean Office Pros will increase its ability to market to the many thousands of area businesses directly.

Service Business Analysis

The office cleaning industry includes many local companies as well as some national franchises. Services are purchased directly by business managers and owners for small businesses and by purchasing agents, office managers, and procurement specialists for larger businesses. Businesses desire ongoing relationships with cleaning vendors where they do not have to worry about the cleaning process, but will be concerned if they are paying higher than market rates. Businesses appreciate the ability of a company to quote monthly cleaning rates to make costs less variable, but also to handle special cleaning request as they arise. Cleaning vendors are sought out through internet searches, the yellow pages, and business referrals.

Financial analysts report that the commercial cleaning industry is recession resistant and highly stable. Commercial cleaning overall was an $80 billion industry in 2008 and is one of the fastest growing industries in the US, with projected growth to $150 billion per year by 2010.

Competition and Buying Patterns

The commercial cleaning industry is very fragmented with no one company owning more than 6% of the market. Franchises account for 10% of the market and local companies account for 90%. Top franchises include JAN-PRO Cleaning Systems, ServiceMaster Clean, MTOclean, the Cleaning Authority, and MARBLELIFE. Economies of scale for franchises are obtained through unified operations systems, national marketing campaigns, and somewhat through volume discounts from suppliers.

Customers seek out cleaning services based on a combination of reputation, price, and depth of services offered. While large offices value depth of services more so, smaller firms put a greater value on price.

Strategy and Implementation Summary

Clean Office Pros has selected the following priorities for its rollout strategy:

• To rapidly scale up organizational infrastructure, including cleaning crews, equipment, and vans.

Competitive Edge

Clean Office Pros will develop a competitive edge based on its utilization of the skills, ideas, and productivity of its employees. By encouraging and rewarding employee initiative and ingenuity to discover the best ways to clean well and smart, morale will be increased, making Clean Office Pros a more desirable place to work. The reputation of the firm as a great place to work will increase application rates and the strength of new hires, reducing the costs of turnover and training. Customer satisfaction will increase and costs will drop due to this focus on employee utilization.

Initial training by Reid Werbitt and Paul Vinci will be for cleaning crew heads. This will be ten hours of training in Clean Office Pros methods for experienced cleaning personnel. Cleaning crew heads will each provide ten hours of training, in turn, for new members of their cleaning crews when they are brought in to the business, based both on Clean Office Pros methods and basic cleaning skills (depending on the current skills of the crew member).

All client information about the cleaning will be transferred to a detailed job sheet which will be discussed with the cleaning crew head before reaching the job site. The cleaning crew head will go through a tour and inspection of the job site while the client is present to insure that the job sheet is complete and that all information about keys, security, and access is understood. Cleanings will always be run by a cleaning crew head and a crew of one to four members. After the crew have experience on a site, a cleaning crew head may move between a few job sites to supervise a greater number of jobs over one day.

Marketing Strategy

The marketing strategy for Clean Office Pros begins with its initial target market of small offices.

Promotional activities in the startup phase will include:

• Coupons for free trials for new businesses passed on through the local Small Business Development Center and Chamber of Commerce

From the startup period onward, the following promotional activities will be important:

• Local TV commercials

These ongoing promotional activities are reflected as marketing expenses on the Clean Office Pros Profit and Loss statement.

Sales Strategy

Sales will be managed by co-founder Reid Werbitt. Reid Werbitt expects about ten small business clients from his previous work at JAN-PRO to move to Clean Office Pros upon learning of their value proposition. This will account for a starting base of clients for the business.

The sales process will begin with a short phone conversation to go over the basics of the services offered and to qualify the customer as one interested in regular cleanings. An in-person meeting at the customer’s office will follow, after which a proposal for a monthly rate for cleaning will be given. A follow up with the client will occur after the first three regular cleanings to get additional feedback and to continue to adjust the directions to the cleaning crew.

As a partner in the business, Werbitt will be compensated through a base salary, dividends and appreciation of the company’s stock. After two years of operation, an additional salaried salesperson will be hired who will be compensated for sales through quarterly bonuses and Werbitt will remain sales manager.

Sales Forecast

Growth is expected to speed up rapidly over the first two years as small-office customers are sought out and sold to. After the first two years growth will slow as operations must be continually increased to allow for greater growth. However, the additional target market of medium and large offices will be accessed starting in the third year of operation. Sales will be driven by the basic office cleaning service. Based on the previous success of Reid Werbitt as a seller of commercial cleaning, these projections are reasonable, as Werbitt sold $2 million in cleaning services in his last full year at JAN-PRO. The additional services will be sold as add-ons to clients who purchase office cleaning. It is estimated that 50% of clients will purchase some additional services.

The forecast is also supported by the fact that, after the first year of operations, medium offices will be targeted as well, increasing the rate of growth as each sale will bring a higher square footage of space to clean.

Direct costs include the labor of cleaning crew members and the cleaning crew head, cleaning supplies and gasoline or other transit costs for crew and equipment. Cleaning Crew Head supervision of jobs is expected to cost 5% of sales and Cleaning Crew (Hourly) wages for the execution of cleanings is expected to cost 27.5% of sales.

To ensure that sales are profitable, Werbitt will not be compensated on commission by sales, but by profits, after a reasonable base salary. This will keep gross margins around the industry average of 68%.

Reid Werbitt will head the sales activities, including prospecting and networking to generate leads. Paul Vinci will manage the marketing and promotional activities including two trade shows (in January and February), the TV ad production (through a video production vendor), initial search engine optimization (through an SEO vendor), and the coupon campaign, which will cover three months of basic office cleaning for small-office clients.

Management Summary management summary will include information about who's on your team and why they're the right people for the job, as well as your future hiring plans.">

Paul Vinci and Reid Werbitt will be the initial managers of the company. Paul Vinci has ten years experience as store manager of a cleaning supply store, where he managed a staff of ten and was responsible for marketing, operations, and human resources. He will continue to manage those departments at Clean Office Pros and his title will be CEO.

Reid Werbitt will manage sales and be the lead salesperson for the early operations of the firm. He has ten years experience as an account executive for JAN-PRO, a commercial cleaning business. Werbitt’s title will be Chief of Sales.

Financial management will be through a part-time accountant during the early operations of the firm.

Personnel Plan

The business will begin with minimal salaried staff, with most work performed by the two founders. The founders will be compensated through reasonable base salaries and will receive compensation through dividends and the growth of the business.

In the first year, an accountant will serve the role of Chief Financial Officer (CFO). In the second year, this will become a part-time position which will grow into a full-time position in the third year.

The operations assistant will be a basic administrative assistant focusing on the fulfillment of cleaning services, scheduling, quality assurance procedures, and human resources needs.

Total staff full-time equivalent on this chart include cleaning crew who work on an hourly basis and have their payroll assigned as costs of sales. One Cleaning Crew Head will be hired at the outset of the company, an additional Crew Head will be hired in the second year and a third in the third year. Each will oversee crews of one to four members, and can also supplement their supervision responsibilities as members of crews under other supervisors. Cleaning crew members will grow from five in number at the outset of the business to 11 on average in the second year and 16 on average in the third year. All of these hourly staff will be hired when at least 20 hours per week of work is available, but their overtime will be limited. The business will hire additional employees rather than use significant overtime.

Cleaning crew will receive healthy base salaries as well as quarterly bonuses based on performance ratings from both their supervising cleaning crew head and clients. Crew heads will receive performance ratings from the company managers and clients to determine their quarterly bonuses.

Once the company reaches a sustainable level of profitability, the owners want to offer a health benefits plan for their employees, but this is not included within the plan’s estimated expenses at this time.

Financial Plan investor-ready personnel plan .">

Clean Office Pros will grow significantly, even over the first three years of operation, by taking advantage of the opportunity presented by its first target market, small offices, and leveraging its success there with medium and large offices. Growth of about $300,000 is expected in sales from the first year to second and over $400,000 from the second year to third.

Financing for this growth will come from the free cash flows generated by the healthy margins in this business once break-even volume has been achieved in the first year.

By the fifth year of operation, the business will be well positioned for a strategic sale to a commercial cleaning franchise (one of the competitors discussed earlier) interested in expanding its expertise with small businesses. At this point an exit will be possible for investors and the original owners.

Start-up Funding

Start-up funding will come in part from the financing of the initial purchases (delivery van, computer and cleaning equipment), and from credit card debt.

Break-even Analysis

Each cleaning service offered has a healthy margin and a break even will occur around 552 units sold per month. This represents 512,000 square feet of offices or around 600 small business clients (or 400 small business and 100 medium business clients). At this point, work will be both over night and on weekends, with an average of 16 clients cleaned per day by shift workers. Six crews will be needed to provide this amount of service.

Projected Profit and Loss

Gross margins will remain relatively stable and grow slightly as better margin business (medium and large offices) is sought out and better prices are established with vendors for volume discounts. The first year will represent a net profit of $71,000 which will continue to grow.

Projected Cash Flow

Cash flow before dividends will be positive in the first year. Five months of negative cash flow are required for marketing activities to take hold before they show a greater effect on sales. Dividends can be paid out beginning in month nine to investors.

Accounts receivable will be collected in 30 days, but 45 days average has been given to be conservative.

Investment will be continually made in additional cleaning equipment and delivery vans to enable more cleaning crew to work. Furthermore, by the end of the first year, the office will expand to allow for additional storage and staff.

Projected Balance Sheet

The net worth of the business will grow significantly over the first three years of operation as the business will be primarily financed by its own earnings and not need to take on a great deal of new debt. The debt that is taken on will be financing for the purchases of new cleaning equipment and delivery vans, primarily.

Additional capital is not required over the first three years of operation as the free cash flows from the business will support the business.

Business Ratios

This table shows ratios for the three years of the plan compared to the janitorial services businesses of similar revenues. Clean Office Pros expects to improve on industry profitability, as shown in this table, even with slightly higher spending on S G A and advertising as a percentage of sales. Gross margins will be slightly better than the comparable industry gross margins.

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