Contract Cleaners - Travel To Expand
The vast majority of Contract Cleaning Companies are small
'one-man band' outfits that provide basic cleaning to a limited
number of clients within a relatively restricted area. This is
fine unless you want to make real money and continue growing and
expanding. If you restrict yourself to a small locality and
operate alone then you have a limited number of potential
customers. If you want to be out the front of the competition
and challenging the big players in the cleaning business then
you must be prepared to widen your horizons.
Much of your competition will be these small cleaning companies
who because they have limited overheads will be able to undercut
you. However by careful marketing you can put yourself ahead of
these and get yourself recognised before them. How to market
yourself successfully has been covered in previous articles.
Having beaten off the competition by your carefully planned
marketing strategy you will still restrict your growth potential
if you do not widen your area of coverage.
A planned well managed expansion is difficult to achieve within
the cleaning business. Once you start to advertise your services
outside of your immediate area you have no idea what the
response will be and the golden rule is to never turn down work
because that potential customer will never ever return to you if
you do turn them away. Consequently you must accept most of the
work that comes in and worry about how you might manage it once
you have got it.
In the initial period of expansion out of your area there will
obviously be a great deal of travelling and extra work and you
will imagine that there are just not enough hours in the day to
cope with all the work you have taken on. If you are determined
to achieve then you will and once you have a few contracts
established in another locality you can always employ others to
look after them. It is only that initial hurdle that you must
overcome. Having done it in one or two places you can then
continue to expand as far as your vision will take you. This is
the one big problem with franchising because as a franchisee you
cannot expand outside of your designated area so you will always
be restricted. Think big, act big and you will make big things
happen. Think small, be restrictive and small things will happen
and you will never escape from this 'smallness'.
About the author:
David Andrew Smith runs a successful contract cleaning company
that operates throughout the UK
Written by: David Andrew Smith
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