Saturday, February 4, 2012

How to Start a House Cleaning Business on a Tight Budget

How to Start a House Cleaning Business on a Tight Budget-Bargain Books Wholesale

"If you use Emotion and Love to drive your sales and your business, you will create Loyalty Beyond Reason. And I promise you, you will build relationships and enjoy a business that exceeds beyond your wildest expectations"

Bargain Books Wholesale

First of all, before you decide to start your cleaning business, make sure this kind of work is right for you. You will need to be in good physical condition. Cleaning is very hard strenuous work. You will need to have good customer relation skills. You will need to have basic office skills and some accounting skills.

If you are planning on leaving your full time position to start a cleaning business, make sure you have at least six months of savings. Or keep your full time job and start out part time.

Research all the aspects of the cleaning service business. From customer service to advertising, taxes, employees, insurance and bonding, what to charge and how to clean a home professionally. Cleaning your own home and cleaning professionally is totally different. Learning how to clean professionally takes a lot of time. When a client pays for your services they expect to come home and find their home spotless.

Getting those first clients takes time, persistence and patience. You will not get a hundred clients overnight.

Obtaining Those First Clients The hardest part of starting your own cleaning service is obtaining those first clients. Most clients want to know how long you have been in business and want references. The best thing to do is let clients know that, yes, you are new to the business but that you have thoroughly researched all aspects of the cleaning business and assure them that you know what you are doing and that you are quit capable of cleaning their home to their specifications. Be confident. I can't stress this enough. Clients love to see confidence. It relieves their worries and lets them know that their home is in good hands.

References: To get a few good references when starting out, ask some friends or family members if you can clean their home for free or at a discounted rate. The sound of working for free may not be appealing but it will be worth it to get some good testimonials.

When cleaning those first homes, go for quality, not how fast you can clean the home. Cleaning efficiently takes a long time, but you will get to the point where you can do a thorough cleaning in a short time. After cleaning make sure you go back and double check all rooms to make sure you didn't miss anything. Impress those first clients and word of mouth will spread soon.

Advertising Your company image is everything. Before you start advertising, decide what image you want to portray on your advertising material. Your image is very important. Be consistent with all your advertising. If you have a logo be sure to use it on all your advertising materials. I think it is best to have a website developed before you start advertising. When advertising, stick with the same logo and colors.

Advertise in Local Paper: Start by running a text ad in your local newspaper. Try to come up with an eye catching ad. Do not sell your services on low rates, sell your services on your quality of work and what you can do for the client that other companies don't. There is a lot of competition in the cleaning service. You have to stand out from the rest.

Magnetic Signs or Lettering for your Vehicle: Having your business name and contact information on your vehicle is a great way to advertise. We use the vinyl lettering. The lettering looks much more professional than the magnetic signs.

Flyers: You can print nice flyers on your home computer, but I would suggest investing in some professional flyers. Hang flyers at Hair Dressers, Laundromats, Restaurants, Bakeries, Grocery Stores, etc. Put flyers on car windows at local groceries stores and businesses. You can even go door to door in neighborhoods you would like to work in. You cannot put them in mailboxes. but you can put them in the front door.

Door Hangers: Door hangers are a great way to get new clients. Pick the neighborhood you would like to work in and hang the door hangers on the doors. When people get flyers or ads in their mailbox they usually throw them away with the junk mail. But if there is a door hanger on the door they will take the time to look at it.

Business Cards: Start passing out your business cards to friends and family members. You can also ask your local businesses if you can leave some cards on their counters.

Referral Program: A great way to obtain new clients is through a referral program. Offer existing clients a discount when they refer a friend. You can give your existing clients a discount when the friend uses your services three times.

Website: These days people live very busy lives so they use the convenience of the internet to shop for the services they need. A lot of working women will shop for services while at work. Everyone that has a business should have a website. It shows clients that you are serious about your business and allows them research your business in their own time.

Cleaning Products: By using all natrual products, you can offer your clients a healthy cleaning experience and protect ourselves against harsh chemicals. Clients love the natural cleaning products with essential oils. They come home to a healthy clean home filled with the wonderful scents of aromatherapy essential oils.

Tip: Always carry hand sanitizer and wash your hands often while cleaning homes. Wear gloves when cleaning bathrooms. You will be exposed to a lot of different germs in clients homes.

Remember most customers prefer that you bring your own cleaning supplies. That way they do not have to worry about going to the store for cleaning supplies before you clean. Some customers have special cleaners for certain appliances or floors in their houses. These customers usually will have these cleaners on hand for you to use. We almost always use the customers vacuum cleaner. That way you do not have to carry a heavy vacuum from house to house.

What to Charge I mentioned earlier that you should sell your services on your quality of work and not your low rates. If your rates are too low, clients will think that your work is sub-standard and that you are not experienced. Also you want to attract the clients that can afford your services. I made the mistake of pricing my work too low when I first started out. Cleaning is hard work, charge what you are worth. As the old saying goes "You get what you pay for."

Some companies charge by the hour, some charge by the room, some charge a flat rate per home and some charge by the square foot. I think it is better to charge by the home, not by the hour. If a client knows they have to pay one set fee, they don't care if you take 2 hours or 5 hours. Also your clients will know what they are paying up front and won't have to worry about added expenses.

No two houses are the same. And there is no set charge for all homes. You have to clean for awhile yourself to get some experience and to work out a system to clean efficiently. Only you know what you want and need to make. Decide what you need to make hourly to cover all expenses and still make a good profit.

A word of advise: Make sure when you start your company that you charge what you would charge if you had employees. Some people make the mistake of under charging when they start out just to get customers and then later on when they grow and need to hire help they aren't making enough money on their houses to pay help. Don't under price your work. Cleaning homes is very hard physical work and you didn't get into this business to work for nothing.

New Construction Cleaning If you decide to do this type of work you will need more equipment. You will need ladders, window cleaning kits with long extensions, a shop vac, etc. These types of jobs are usually 2 to 3 person jobs. New construction cleaning requires a lot more cleaning. You may have to remove stickers and labels from windows and bathroom showers, sinks and toilets. Some require that you clean the vents to remove dust from construction work. There will be ceiling fans to clean, scrubbing floors, and cleaning woodwork to remove dust. New construction cleaning rates depend on the area you live in.

Insurance and Bonding. You need to be an honest person and somewhat personable. People will need to trust you to be in their homes. Most clients are concerned about having someone new in their house, with good reason. You should be bonded and fully insured. Liability insurance rates depend on your insurance carrier and where you are located. Each person you hire will increase your liability insurance. It's well worth the cost. You can pay quarterly or yearly. You can purchase your bond through your local insurance company. You will need to renew the bond every year. *Note: if you hire employees and cover them under your insurance, they must be an employee on payroll and not a sub-contractor. If you employ them as a sub-contractor your insurance will not cover them. If they are a sub-contractor they are required to carry their own insurance. You

Hiring Help If you start out cleaning the homes by yourself, you will eventually get to the point where you need to expand your business. Start out with one part time employee. Train her and let her take your place one day a week. Then have her take your place 2 days a week and so on. This will give you the free time that you need to market your business and obtain more clients. After you get more clients you will be able to hire more part time help. Eventually you will be able to stop doing the cleaning yourself and just run the business end, which is the only way you will be able to grow your business. When training new employees, always, either train them yourself or have a lead person train them. Make sure there is a lead person on each and every cleaning job. Employees have a tendency to slack off when they are on their own.

Growing Your Business You will eventually get to the point where you have enough employees and lead people and you will be able to stop working in your business and start running your business. You will find that after awhile it will get to be too much trying to clean everyday and at the same time giving estimates, answering calls, scheduling, doing book work, obtaining new clients, etc.

Remember one of the most important qualifications for a cleaning service is TRUST. A client has to know they can trust you alone in their home. After you acquire a few cleaning positions ask the clients if you can use them for a reference. Most of the time they are more than willing to let you use them for a reference. This is how you build your business and acquire new clients is through referrals. Be dependable. Most clients will want to be set up on an every week or every other week schedule on the same day of the week. Try to always keep this same schedule unless the client asks you to switch to another day. If you have to cancel a cleaning date, make sure you try to reschedule at the earliest possible date to make up the cleaning.

Related articles:Spring Valley Vitamins ,ทำ seo ,ดาราจัดฟัน

Sunday, January 29, 2012

How to Profitably Sell Books on Amazon

How to Profitably Sell Books on Amazon-Bargain Books

Knowing which books to offer on Amazon can mean the difference between a good income stream and total failure. Here is what you need to know.

Bargain Books

First, how do I sell books on Amazon

Amazon.com has a feature called Amazon Marketplace. This service lets you sell your used books, CDs, DVDs, etc. just by listing their code number (ISBN number for books, etc.) Listings can literally be completed in a minute or less for each item you sell. It does take a few minutes to set up a selling account but there is no charge for doing so. In fact the only time you incur a charge is when something actually sells.

There is one small negative to this approach. It only works with products that have a code number. So if you have antique books or other items without a code number, you will need to set up an amazon shop. There is a monthly fee for setting up a shop but the fees that amazon charges are much less in this method of selling than the direct selling method in the prior paragraph. So if you become a volume seller it is probably worth the investment in getting an amazon shop as the investment will quickly be paid for by the savings in fees.

Second, decide your interest level (i.e. just list books or get a store)

The next step is to decide your interest level. It is going to be a casual thing or will you be treating it as a serious business.

Lets say you were just cleaning house and wanted to make a bit of money on some books or CDs you have. In this instance, it doesn't make sense to set up an amazon shop as you won't earn enough to justify the monthly investment in keeping your shop running. But lets say your passion was yard sales and bargain hunting and you knew that every week you could find and list hundreds of books, CDs, DVDs, etc. In this case getting an amazon shop would be a wise investment.

Basically amazon is structured to satisfy anyone's selling needs and they have a variety of simple tools that will help you achieve your selling goals in a quick, cost effective and efficient manner.

Third, these are the types of books you should not be selling

Selling used books is not an obvious thing to do. Common sense would say that bestsellers are the best kind of book to offer because they have sold millions of copies. But it is their very popularity that makes them poor books to sell. If you do a search on amazon for a bestseller, you will find that many people are selling their used copies, many times for under .00. With millions of copies out there, the market is glutted. This is true for any type of bestseller - fiction or nonfiction. Other books types you want to avoid are biographies, cookbooks and political books. And of course books like encyclopedias, readers digest condensed books, dictionaries, etc. are also terrible for resale. Oh, and also avoid old library books. There is nothing wrong with them per se but they will be slow sellers because of the markings the library puts on the books.

The only exception to this rule would be signed first editions. If you find a signed first edition, it will retain value and possibly be worth more than the published price depending on who the author is.

Books you should be looking for are books about specific nonfiction. subjects. (In other words, avoid all fiction books.) For instance, books about cars, boats, playing tennis, collecting coins, herbal medicine, business (as long as they are not best sellers), real estate, gardening, etc. are all excellent books and have a very high prospect of selling for a very high price when compared to a bestseller. I will typically get 50-75% of the cover price selling these types of books on amazon.com.

One other thing to note when choosing books to sell. Try to find books that are in perfect or near perfect condition. These books will have their dust jacket if hard cover. The spine will not be broken. They will not be filled with writing. People know they are buying used books when buying from you but they want a book that is nice and presentable, not one that is falling apart.

Where can you find used books for sale?

Used books are everywhere but your goal is to get them as cheaply as possible - preferably for or less. Places I regularly check include yard sales, flea markets, thrift shops and libraries. Libraries often have used books donated to them that they just put right on the sales table. I think the people who donate them think they will end up on the shelves of the library but they never do. Estate sales and auctions can also provide opportunities to buy books. And keep your eyes open. You never know when you might run into a buying opportunity.

Will all the books sell?

No matter how carefully you pick your books, you will end up with some that just don't sell or are just very slow in selling. This is normal. Chances are good that the book will eventually sell but it could take several months. And if you purchase your used books cheaply enough, the carrying cost of the books that sell will be small. I find that if I list a random selection of 100 books, about 25% of them will sell each month. That means that after 4-5 months, I can pretty much assume that all the books that will sell have actually sold and I may be left with 5-10 books that for whatever reason had no buyers.

At that point, I make one of two choices. I either lower the offering price on amazon to try to attract a buyer or "trade" the book for something more desirable.

The only time to buy bestsellers

There is one time and one specific reason I will buy bestsellers. If I have the opportunity to buy a large number of hardcover (and sometimes paperback) bestsellers in perfect condition for under each (under .25 each if softcover), I will usually buy them. However, I will not sell them on amazon.

There are a large number of used bookstores that will buy or trade books with you. They typically give you 20-25% of the books list price if you want cash and up to 50% of the books list price if you want a credit. That means I have a ready outlet for liquidating these books. If it is worthwhile, I can just swap them for immediate cash. Or I can trade them for other books I can sell at amazon. In general, I make out better in a trading situation than in a cash situation but sometimes if I have way too many books, I will just go for the cash option to reduce my inventory. It is a really effective form of inventory management.

Before you jump out and buy 100's of bestsellers, do check with the used bookstores in your area to see what they are offering for these books. Different shops may offer different rates depending on their current inventory. A little shopping around by phone can result in a lot more cash ending up in your pocket.

How much can I realistically make?

The amount you can make in any given month depends entirely on how many books you acquire that month, how well you did at negotiating the cost and how well your books choices were. This is a business where you can easily make several hundred to several thousand dollars a month depending on the above items. Also it is a business that can give you higher returns the longer you do it. The more you sell, the more you get to know what will sell quickly and what will sell slowly. That will let you be a bit more particular about the books you choose in your book hunting. Instead of ending up with lots of unsold books at the end of the month, you will have an inventory that turns over very rapidly.

Book selling is a really fun and stress free way to earn anywhere from a supplemental part time income to a full time income. And with the tools offered at amazon.com, it is really easy to get started and keep the profits flowing. There aren't many businesses where you can make money by shopping but this is one of them!

Related articles:Spring Valley Vitamins ,ทำ seo ,ดาราจัดฟัน