7 Questions You Need To Ask Yourself

Every once in a while you need to stop the presses and evaluate your efforts.

This act invariably leads to asking yourself a few questions about how your cleaning business performed over a given period of time.

These questions will help you move from the past to the future in a profitable manner.

Though each of us faces unique challenges, the following 7 questions are pretty uniform and apply to all cleaning business owners. Asking yourself these 7 questions will help you grow your company faster and easier than ever before.

7 Questions Every Cleaning Business Owner Needs To Ask.

1 – Can I trim any fat off my expenses? This means looking at phone bills (both cell and land lines), insurance premiums (auto, general liability & workman’s comp), accounting, Internet and other “everyday” charges your business faces.

If your not careful, some of these cost can slowly spiral out of control one dollar at a time. Before you know it you are spending much more than you should be. But by reviewing these charges annually, you catch bad habits before they do too much harm.

2 – How did my cleaning business fare overall? This question helps you to see the big picture and evaluate your overall situation. This in turn forces you to ask some even more specific questions.

Consider these examples; Did I pick up or lose clients? Did I reach the goals I had set for myself? Was my revenue up or down for the year? Answering these questions help you evaluate how you fared and help keep your business on track.

3 – Am I doing all that I can to maximize my revenue? This is a powerful question that makes you think through how each cleaning account is handled.

For instance, do I send out a “special offer” with each invoice to existing clients? Do I keep in touch with my customers to make sure they think of “me” when they need other services (floor-care and carpet cleaning)? How can I improve the process of reaching out and acquiring more business?

Customers will not magically call you if you don’t solicit their business. You need to stay in front of them so that when they are ready, you get the call.

4 – What area in my cleaning business needs the most improvement? This can be a rather easy issue to spot. Simply ask yourself “where did the majority of my headaches come from? After thinking this part through, good solutions usually present themselves.

5 – Are my customers as satisfied with my service as they should be? The only way to know this is to ask. You do this either through the use of surveys or constant interaction with all your clients.

Keep in mind that many clients “suffer in silence” because they want to avoid uncomfortable situations. When this happens, clients “suddenly” jump ship. Always redouble your efforts to keep clients as happy as possible and prevent them from going to one of your competitors.

6 – What mistakes did I make this year that are preventable next year? This is another area that is easy to correct. You know your not perfect, therefore you will make mistakes. There is nothing wrong with that. The only time mistakes become a problem is when you don’t learn from them.

Most mistakes have simple remedies that prevent future occurrences from happening. Simply institute the changes and prevent the most common mistakes from happening again.

7 – What “type” of customer is the most profitable, and how do I get more of them? This is where you dig deep inside your company to see which of your cleaning accounts brings you the most profit. Believe it or not this is not very difficult.

Trends will start to occur rather quickly when you run a cleaning business. Once you see where the money is, spend more time attracting that market.

You should be getting the picture by now on why these questions are important. When you are in the “thick” of running your business it’s quite easy to lose sight of the “big picture” and get distracted.

This is why it’s a good idea to try to spend a few moments to correct course and ask yourself the 7 questions we just discussed.

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