How to Scale Your Cleaning Company by Planning for Growth
Too many BSCs grow without a plan. They sit in the passenger seat and watch as their business accelerates into overdrive, passing the seven-figure mark with ease. Inevitably, though, it crashes and burns.
The problem? Not taking control of the wheel and proactively putting systems in place to handle the growth. Throwing things at the wall and hoping they stick isn't a solid plan for expanding your contract cleaning business. That approach leads to a poorly trained staff with high turnover, quality-control issues, and dissatisfied customers.
When it comes to scaling your cleaning company, you need a formal growth strategy.
Having a tangible action plan in place before you start growing will help you make informed decisions and monitor your progress to ensure sustainable success. This roadmap can minimize risks and allow you to expand more effectively and quickly.
Business growth is exciting, when it's done well. Here are seven steps you should take now, before you begin the hard work of scaling your business.
1. Get Clarity on Your Goals
How do you want your business to grow? Your first step is to document everything you want to achieve in the next one to five years, big or small. Write down all of your goals, both specific (grow sales to $1.5 million) or general (increase brand awareness). Don't worry about editing just yet, for now just get everything out of your head and onto paper.
Next up, you need to prioritize all of the goals on your list. The ones at the top should be those you're most passionate about and that offer the highest return on investment. Also, you're mostly likely to achieve results when your goals are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound), so eliminate those that aren't.
2. Create an Action Plan
Goals are great, but they're nothing more than words on paper until you create an action plan for executing them. Think through in great detail exactly how what is required to meet your top-level goals.
For example, if a goal is to expand into more markets, you'll need to conduct research to determine the ideal locations, advertise new job openings, create a formal hiring process, conduct market research, determine marketing strategies to increase brand awareness, and more.
Knowing these detailed steps early in the game is important. Otherwise, you'll be swinging blind. The process may help you determine a goal isn't as feasible as you expected or convince you to re-prioritize goals based on your resources.
3. Conduct Research
Before you can jump into execution mode, there's more work to do. You need to conduct serious research to make sure your goals are realistic and based on data, not assumptions.
For example, if you're hoping to expand your services into new cities, market research will help you be certain there's demand for your services in the proposed expansion areas. The last thing you want is to spend time, money, and resources in a new area where there's no market for your services. This is a simple mistake many companies make that can easily be avoided with proper planning.
4. Set a Timeline
If after looking at the data you feel your plans are achievable, it's time to assign realistic deadlines to your goals. You can create a timeline based on priorities (doing the most important things first) or in a sequence (increasing revenues by 20% before growing in a new city, for example, to cover expansion costs).
Putting timelines to your goals will motivate you to take action and increase your chances of success.
5. Establish Structure
Before signing on a slew of new customers, you first need to build a strong foundation that can withstand increased business.
Make sure your business is putting its best face forward. Is your marketing (website, trucks, uniforms, etc.) representational of the company you're aiming to become? Also, what systems and processes need to change so you can continue to run like a well-oiled machine as you expand?
You also want to start hiring people based on where you're headed, not where you are now. Choose people who can perform at the level you'll need in the future and who will help you get there. Make sure you have a clearly defined management structure to ensure your services remain consistent during the changes ahead.
6. Prepare for Challenges
Scaling a business inevitably comes with growing pains. You'll most likely be faced with challenges when you're planning for and executing growth.
Some common traps and challenges that tend to plague businesses during periods of growth include maintaining a harmonious company culture, finding and retaining quality staff, managing cash flow, and balancing big-picture thinking with daily operations. Learning how to identify and manage problems before they become crises is critical.
7. Revisit Your Plan Often
You want to monitor your growth strategy as you scale up. Do not be afraid to make changes when your current strategies are not working. Without monitoring and altering your plan, you risk the chance of moving in the wrong direction and you do not want to wait until it is too late to make changes. You need to adapt your plan to your company's strengths and your clients' needs to keep them coming back.
There isn't a one-size-fits-all growth strategy. Rather than blindly implementing a vague cookie-cutter plan, create something custom using your company's data. You need to tailor your strategy to your business, market, and customers because the more specific the plan, the more successful it will be. Understanding your specific needs will help you naturally lead to growth.
Download: 10 Surefire Signs It's Time to Scale Your Contract Cleaning Business
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Most building service contractors dream of someday growing their business. Unfortunately, many start scaling before they're ready, and that can be a recipe for disaster.
Download the 10 surefire signs your business is ready to enter a growth phase.
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