Use a combination of your employment history and national salary data to establish a reasonable – and manageable – salary for the cleaning business owner.
When you started out as a single cleaner, you simply pocketed whatever was leftover after you paid for supplies. Add that up, and that was your salary for that year, right?
But when you establish a formal company – no matter whether it’s a sole proprietorship, a partnership, or a corporation – you’ll need to establish a wage or salary for you – the owner. Here are some things to consider when making that decision:
- What do you do? Write out your job description as the owner – not simply every single task that some day someone else will be able to do for you, but the things that ONLY YOU can do as the owner.
- What were you paid at your highest responsibility position previously? Many CBOs are coming from another job, so begin there considering the income you’re looking to replace.
- What would you get paid if you were working at another company doing the same job?
- How often do you work? Consider your office work at a higher pay rate than your field work; though both may be essential in the beginning, consider which one you’ll hire someone else to do first – and the income you’d be taking away from your own salary then.
- How big is your business? Size matters; you can’t pay yourself more than your business is making.
- Where are you located? Because the cost of living is so different from city-to-city, it’s dangerous to compare yourself to a colleague/friend doing the same thing in another city.
Once you’ve considered all of that data, check one or more free resources to establish the national average salary for a cleaning business owner:Bureau of Labor Statistics – be sure to look at executive/manager salaries in the services industries
Source: Forbes
