Home cleaning is a great service especially if you get those ongoing clients that give you a nice constant revenue stream. However, sometimes in smaller markets you can run out of room to grow. It is often easier to sell more to your current customers than it is to keep chasing more clients. As you offer more and more services, it can make you also harder to replace. Add on services can be a good way to increase the margins of your home cleaning company by adding some higher margin services to your product mix. However be careful, these can also be a distraction and they should only be pursued once you have really built a strong and stable company and you suspect you are running out of ways to grow your core business.

Here are a few ways you might be able to expand your cleaning company.

Carpet Cleaning
As home cleaners, one of the most popular services we sell is the Move cleaning. The new owners of the home do not want to see or worse, smell, any evidence that someone else lived there before. Carpet Cleaning is almost always scheduled with a Move In Cleaning. Scheduling this service not only gives you a chance to offer an add on service, it also lets you control the schedule so your different cleaners will not be tripping over each other. You can start by simply partnering with a local carpet cleaner and resell their services at a mark up. Most have simple pricing based on the number of rooms, hallways, and stairways and can be easily added to your sales process. If you ever get tempted to start providing the service yourself be sure to invest in some training from IICRC. Carpet Cleaning is not a business you want to learn in the client’s home. The damages can be extensive when it is done wrong.

Handyman services

Having the ability to fix odds and ends around a house is an extremely useful ability to have. If you’re already in someone’s home and they need something fixed, they can ask your employees if they could do something about it. You’re gaining another revenue stream that might go to your competitor otherwise. It is also very nice to be able to fix the occasional damage by your employees in-house. Like carpet cleaning, you can often partner with a local handyman willing to work for $25 – $40 an hour and resell his services for $75 or $100 an hour.

AirBnB Cleaning
AirBnB has become a larger and larger phenomenon for people who want to rent for a short period of time. It used to be that AirBnB owners were just ordinary people who didn’t live in their house all the time. Now, it has become a rather lucrative business where business owners act as landlords for their AirBnB’s and have several properties. Offering to clean these properties is a new market that is under served, and they have unique needs such as laundry and restocking groceries. This business is growing so fast there is even a new up and coming franchise devoted to this space, Maid This!.

Window washing and gutter cleaning
These two can go hand in hand even though they are technically completely different services. I’m lumping them together because the reasoning is the same for both. If you’re cleaning a house, you should be able to clean the entire house. That way, if a customer needs something done, you can do anything they ask. You would be able to charge more, of course, and it would make your clients less likely to outsource to any competitors who offer a service you do not. Many companies like this one , have found offering the full bundle of services is a great combination. There isn’t a lot of extra equipment required, and there are plenty of vendors at the annual ISSA show happy to teach you everything you need to know.

All in all, being a highly versatile cleaning business will be ultimately highly beneficial to your company. Obviously, you might not be able to do all these things right away. However, you might want to give it a thought when planning your business operations.

Brandon is a digital marketing intern working with Blue Skies Services and Cleaning Business Today.

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