August focus: Domestic Cleaning Service

 

To get your business off to a great start you should try to think of some different angle to grab the readers’ attention and write an editorial to send to your local newspaper. For example, if your were to donate all the money you make in your fist month of being in business to your favourite local charity, the newspaper would favour your article and place it into the community interest section of the local paper, giving your business the push it needs to get started. Or, you could write your story from the angle of perhaps being out of work for many months and deciding to start your own business instead of failing all the interviews you have been attending. Local papers generally do not publish stories that seem only to be promoting the business and do not have a community or charity appeal. You must come up with an idea for promoting your business that would appeal to the community. Donating your earnings to charity would certainly appeal to the community, as would picking yourself up from a difficult situation and triumphing over adversity.

These approaches to your story would also bring new and return customers to you. Make sure you have a photo ready that shows you hard at work cleaning a happy client’s home, or holding products and equipment from your kit. But have a photo ready that clearly shows you smiling at the camera while doing your work.

Promoting Yourself with your Business Card

Another method of gaining new business is promoting yourself through Networking. This is achieved through handing out your business card to as many different people as you possibly can, as often as you can.

It is important that you develop an unrestrictive attitude of ‘there is plenty for everyone – Plenty of clients, plenty of business and plenty of opportunities’.  This allows you to give freely of yourself in order that someone else may benefit or reach their goals. It is known as ‘giving without hooks’ or giving naturally rather than to gain something in return. Then when you hand a person your business card they do not feel an underlying obligation to use your services. In the networking environment it is not who you know but rather who knows you. Therefore let everyone know who you are and what you do. Your business card is a very inexpensive tool for creating new clients. Make sure you show clearly who you are, what you do and how to contact you. You should utilise both sides of your card as well, describing your services on the reverse of your card with room for writing down their next due date of service if that is what is needed.

 

Questions

When is the best time to begin advertising for your new small business?

What aspects of your business must you have ready before you commence your advertising?

What services can you add to your business as you go along?

To get your new business off to a flying start what should you do every two weeks for the first two or three months?

In which section of the paper is the best place to advertise?

What should you be prepared to do after your first visit to do the work for a new client?

What should you be prepared to do depending on the outcome of the previous question?

In promoting that you are now in your own Home and Strata Cleaning business, what else could you do to let people know of your services?

 

Exercises

• Open Two Bank accounts.
• Set up your office
• Design your own leaflet for distribution to local homes in your area. Start distributing your leaflets.
  
• Ring your local paper and place your ads and find groups on Facebook and sites like gumtree.com.au to place your ad as well.
• Practice answering your phone the right way.
• Design some business cards and have them printed. Remember to use both sides of the card to promote yourself.
• Look through your wardrobe for clothing that you can use while working, or purchase clothing suitable for cleaning. Have a standard set of colours that you wear all the time.

 

You can read in next article about: Telephone Techniques