HOW TO START A COMMERCIAL CLEANING BUSINESS IN NIGERIA

Do you want to learn how to start a cleaning business from home with no money? Do you want to know the ins and outs of starting a commercial cleaning business from scratch? Do you need a sample commercial cleaning business plan template or feasibility study? Then read on.
Starting a cleaning business is in every way feasible. Everyone needs his/her house clean. This should tell you that the demand would always be there. Cleaning both residential and commercial premises is a great option with great financial promises; while requiring minimum initial investment. In this article, I will teach you how to start a cleaning business from home with little or no money.
Why You Should Start a Commercial Cleaning Business
Do you know that many people prefer to hire a cleaner than do the cleaning themselves? Now, picture a typical business office where everybody is busy trying to solve one challenge or the other with barely a chance to relax, who would have the time to clean the office?
If the office was left dirty because no one has the time to clean, would that not be a way of driving the customers away since no one likes to visit a dirty place?This is why a cleaner is needed in almost every commercial establishment.
Companies are always willing to outsource the cleaning of their offices so that it can be professionally done, and the staff can concentrate on their jobs. Cleaning business is divided into residential cleaning and commercial cleaning.
Residential cleaners offer home cleaning services while commercial cleaning involves cleaning of offices and commercial buildings. A Commercial cleaning business is one of the best businesses you can start with little capital. The procedure for starting a cleaning business is easy and straightforward. The most important thing is how to get clients to patronize you as a new comer into the business.
But before I go into the details of starting a cleaning business, I want to emphatically state that the information provided in this article does not in any way replace the need for you to conduct a feasibility study, write a business plan and do your own due diligence.
Secondly, the information shared in this article is applicable to any locality; be it USA, Canada, UK, Nigeria, Ghana, etc. Without wasting your time, below are some guidelines on how to start your own cleaning business from home with little or no money.

How to Start a Commercial Cleaning
1. Determine the niche you want to pursue
You could choose from either:
• Residential housecleaning
• Floor cleaning
• Gutter cleaning
• Roof cleaning
• Carpet cleaning
• Pool cleaning
• Window cleaning
• Office cleaning
• Foreclosure property cleaning
One important advice is to explore the business opportunities from your chosen niche that you can exploit to its fullest. This includes thorough understanding of the market trends and its behavior, the competition, the current rates, your investment options and the profit margins involved.
2. Conduct feasibility research
As you gather knowledge on how to start a cleaning business, you also need to decide whether your business will operate full-time or part-time depending on the time factor you can accommodate for it. You may have to put in extra effort if ever you are going to make this your primary source of income.
3. Your Qualification
The good news is you do not need a degree or certificate to qualify as a commercial cleaner. However, you would need some training and special skills to enable you succeed and stand out in your business. Seek out some commercial cleaning establishment and work with them for a little while.
After a six months or a year, you should be able to understand all the techniques and intricacies of a commercial cleaning business.
4. Create a Business Plan
For every business, it is important to create a business plan. In your business plan, it is necessary you make a list of all the services you would be offering. Some of the services offered by commercial cleaners include sweeping offices, vacuuming carpets and rugs, mopping, taking out trash and cleaning furniture. You may also be required to clean the bathrooms.
Your business plan should also contain future plans for your business, how you plan to expand your business and other services you would like to add in the future. Do not forget to list all the equipment and cleaning items you need to start, as well as the costs.
5. Determine your investment capacity at the moment
Determining your start-up capital will not be difficult if you have a sound business plan on hand. You are also going to need this in case you will need financial help from lending institutions. If you can convince them that you not a high risk; then you’ll get financial help. Probably one of the good news you can expect when learning how to start a cleaning business is that you can launch business operations with just a minimal investment.
6. Purchase cleaning supplies
This business type does not require heavy investments in equipment, maintenance, an extravagant sophisticated setup and instructional courses. You can take things slowly and start from home with just the basic supplies and equipment. In some cases, you may need to have a vehicle with which you can transport cleaning supplies, equipment, and personnel (if you have any).
To start your commercial cleaning business, you would need to purchase items like dust pans, solid brooms, vacuum cleaner, buckets, paper towels, stain removers, paper towels, cleaning rags, aprons and coveralls, rubber gloves to protect your hands and clothe rags. Make sure you buy quality products because the quality of products you use will affect the outcome of your job.
7. Register your business and obtain insurance
You also need to determine all the legal formalities before you can operate your business legally. You need to secure business licenses and sufficient insurance coverage to protect your business.
To be on the safe side, it is important to register your business and obtain a business license to enable you operate your business legally and freely. Application requirements for each business and ownership structure differ. Check out the local state guidelines to make sure you are not doing anything illegal on your end.
To determine the application requirements for a commercial cleaning business, visit a business registration office in the state where you wish to operate your business.
Well, you may be saying “Why do I need insurance?” Commercial Cleaning involves working in business offices and handling company items. What if in the course of cleaning one day, you mistakenly break something, something really expensive that you cannot afford to pay for from your savings? That’s where liability insurance would come in handy.
Your insurance would cover all damages that may happen in the course of your business. Having an insurance policy is also a huge selling point for your business because it would give clients the confidence to hire you.
8. Set prices for your services
As a beginner, you may be a little confused about what you should charge your clients for your services. This shouldn’t be much of a challenge if you had undergone some training because you would already have an idea of market prices.
If you do not have an idea of existing market prices, you would need to conduct a personal research to determine how much other cleaners are charging. You can look for phone numbers, e-mail addresses or office addresses of about three cleaning companies around you and call them up while pretending to be a prospective customer.
Find out how much they charge for each category of cleaning service and then come up with your own prices. Make your prices as competitive as possible to get more customers.
9. Look for clients to patronize your business
You need to advertise your business. Remember that no business, regardless of the nature, can ever survive if the market does not know about its existence. Your marketing campaign may consist of flyers and brochures you can distribute in people-frequented places like the mall and the park.
Another way is to get the phone numbers of business offices around you and call them up. Introduce your business and offer them competitive prices. You may be able to get many customers this way.
Another way to get clients for your business is to harness the power of the internet. Create a website for your business to make it possible to reach more clients and promote your business on social media.
As a final note, you can also start a word-of-mouth campaign starting from your family and friends. This is a very effective technique, and it gets customers to trust in you. Another cheaper alternative would be to advertise online. Here, you have the possibility of reaching new markets that traditional print marketing cannot accomplish for you. Social networking sites are just perfect for the job.Thereare many ways to source for clients to patronize your commercial cleaning business.
10. Build a reliable team
It’s almost impossible to work alone in your commercial cleaning business. You may need to be in different places at the same time, so you would need to build a team of reliable cleaners. Cleaners who have just about the same passion for the business as you.
When recruiting people to join your team, you must conduct interviews to learn more about them and their ability to do the job perfectly. You should also train your employees and teach them all the techniques to do a perfect job and keep the clients happy.
Lastly, I will advice you learn how to start cleaning business from home now. The opportunities to earn good money are there, you’ll just have to know how to exploit them.

For more details and enquires please call
CHOGON FACILITIES SERVICES LTD
10 Diya street Gbagada Lagos
+2348072292381
info@chogonfacilities.com
www.chogonfacilities.com

Nice post OP. But I think you could have presented this informative article better with adequate spacing. Home and Office Cleaning Business in Nigeria is still young and evolving but I trust it won't be long before it becomes comparable with other climes.

Updated Cleaning Service Business Plan and Feasibility Study is available
www.businessplaninnigeria.com.ng/cleaning-service