New Business Research
Discussion
Hi All,
I already run a business, but I'm now also in the early research stages of a possible new business.
The new business would offer the following domestic services:
Regular Domestic Cleaning (min 2 hours per week)
Regular (6 or 12 weekly) Window Cleaning
Regular Garden Maintenance (lawn mowing, hedge cutting etc..)
Yearly Gutter Cleaning
(Possibly yearly chimney sweeping)
Customers could mix and match services and pay 1 monthly payment by direct debit for their chosen services.
The idea is that we would be one business offering multiple "regular" services - meaning that customers only need to deal with us - not multiple different businesses for each service.
Comments / constructive criticism please...
I already run a business, but I'm now also in the early research stages of a possible new business.
The new business would offer the following domestic services:
Regular Domestic Cleaning (min 2 hours per week)
Regular (6 or 12 weekly) Window Cleaning
Regular Garden Maintenance (lawn mowing, hedge cutting etc..)
Yearly Gutter Cleaning
(Possibly yearly chimney sweeping)
Customers could mix and match services and pay 1 monthly payment by direct debit for their chosen services.
The idea is that we would be one business offering multiple "regular" services - meaning that customers only need to deal with us - not multiple different businesses for each service.
Comments / constructive criticism please...
In my experience and also knowing a few people that provide these types of services, they are services provided by 'people' rather than 'businesses'. By which I mean most people have a bloke that does the windows, another that does the lawn and a lady that comes round to do the cleaning, and so on. These are relationships that have been built up over years, starting out with personal recommendations and as such, is very, very difficult to break into.
New build estates may offer some opportunity where there doesn't exist any established service.
Commercial properties are probably more likely to use a complete service offering but is a market that's already exceptionally well served and likely protected by contracts. Again, difficult to break into.
Personally, I don't think householders are tuned into to paying a lump sum for all these types of services and quite like having individual service providers.
If you're serious about this, then you need to do some door to door research - establish the number of people who have a separate window cleaner, gardener and cleaner and how many of these would be willing to group all these into a singe service type arrangement. My betting is very few but don't let that deter you at least looking!
HTH.
New build estates may offer some opportunity where there doesn't exist any established service.
Commercial properties are probably more likely to use a complete service offering but is a market that's already exceptionally well served and likely protected by contracts. Again, difficult to break into.
Personally, I don't think householders are tuned into to paying a lump sum for all these types of services and quite like having individual service providers.
If you're serious about this, then you need to do some door to door research - establish the number of people who have a separate window cleaner, gardener and cleaner and how many of these would be willing to group all these into a singe service type arrangement. My betting is very few but don't let that deter you at least looking!
HTH.
Where you may struggle is with is the combination of seasonality (especially for gardening), managing quite a broad set of skills that aren’t easily interchangeable from a workload planning and delivery perspective, and getting consistency of service quality and staffing. You wouldn’t, for example, want a different cleaner turning up unexpectedly.
The other challenge is understanding what the client wants and delivering against that. It’s not a waste of time to clean the inside of windows before they’re visibly dirty if the client has told you they want them to always be clean whereas others will just want the minimum doing or a bit of help with certain jobs. If the team gets it wrong on one service it puts the rest at risk.
In some cases (thinking gardening in particular) qualifications and expertise will also be necessary for some clients and can help you sell vs the one man bands. Basic gardens anyone can do, but people with more developed gardens will want someone who demonstrably knows what they’re doing.
I’m sure there’s a market but probably isn’t going to be huge. Either cash rich/time poor, larger houses where multiple services are consumed, or people getting older and struggling to get it all done themselves. The first two of these would mean displacing existing providers, the latter would likely see you starting small with each new customer but needing to win that business vs a solo provider.
Fwiw, I’d consider using such a service and already prefer using proper companies for ongoing work where possible. It’s worth it to make staffing issues someone else’s problem. Like DSL says there’s possibly a market for landlords too. It’d be great if one call got changeover clean and garden buzzed over.
The other challenge is understanding what the client wants and delivering against that. It’s not a waste of time to clean the inside of windows before they’re visibly dirty if the client has told you they want them to always be clean whereas others will just want the minimum doing or a bit of help with certain jobs. If the team gets it wrong on one service it puts the rest at risk.
In some cases (thinking gardening in particular) qualifications and expertise will also be necessary for some clients and can help you sell vs the one man bands. Basic gardens anyone can do, but people with more developed gardens will want someone who demonstrably knows what they’re doing.
I’m sure there’s a market but probably isn’t going to be huge. Either cash rich/time poor, larger houses where multiple services are consumed, or people getting older and struggling to get it all done themselves. The first two of these would mean displacing existing providers, the latter would likely see you starting small with each new customer but needing to win that business vs a solo provider.
Fwiw, I’d consider using such a service and already prefer using proper companies for ongoing work where possible. It’s worth it to make staffing issues someone else’s problem. Like DSL says there’s possibly a market for landlords too. It’d be great if one call got changeover clean and garden buzzed over.
I think it could be quite a viable business if you can get the right people to work for you. So many people now want to pay monthly for everything like cars so they might be up for a housekeeping service, it takes away the hassle of trying to start and store the lawnmower! The issues will be getting decent staff though, we have had a cleaner through an agency before and they were hopeless as they sent different people every time and used the wrong products to clean things that then stained them, you also need to really trust people if they are going to be in houses alone.
If you can make it work it might be good and could be franchised but I suspect the margins will be low as private punters wont pay the rates that businesses do.
If you can make it work it might be good and could be franchised but I suspect the margins will be low as private punters wont pay the rates that businesses do.
Gassing Station | Business | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff