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Start a Carpet Cleaning Business with Rental Equipment
You can make a new career cleaning carpets today! The world around us grows ever busier as many companies move toward 6 or 7-day workweeks and most manufacturers and may retailers seeking to stay open 24 hours a day. This means, no one has time to clean their own carpets – either at work or at home. This work is getting contracted out more and more. What do you need to get in on this opportunity to run your own company?
Scout out opportunities
You will save yourself money in the long run and gain more work opportunities if you get out and test the waters a bit before buying equipment. Get out into the community, visit your local businesses, talk to some owners and knock on some doors in your neighborhood to find out who is interested in carpet cleaning, where they are located, and how big the job would be. These three pieces of information will help you make the best decision in acquiring equipment as you start your business.
Factoring time
The most important factor for you to consider when getting equipment is time. How much time are you and your clients willing to allow for the cleaning to get done? If this is a rush job, and especially if it is a big job, you will need a big water extraction unit. Truck-mounted or van units are among the largest kinds of units available for purchase and rent. Unless you have a lot of very big jobs lined up immediately, you will probably be better off renting this kind of equipment first and saving up for purchase later on.
These big jobs will be the ones that bring in more money, but your consistent work may very well be smaller homes or small local offices. For these, you will want a portable extractor/carpet cleaner. In fact, when you have saved up enough money, this may be your first company purchase. Again, you don’t need to feel an immediate need to purchase this equipment as you first get started. Just make sure you are saving enough money back to begin making these purchases eventually. Renting this cleaning equipment is a beautiful way to start up a new business, but as you grow, it is helpful to make investments where possible to increase your profit.
The People Factor
The final thing to consider when looking at these jobs is if you have enough labor available to get it done efficiently for your client. If a job is too big to be handled by one person, you probably need to consider hiring additional help. If a job is big enough to warrant the use of a truck-mounted unit, you are probably very close to needing a second person on hand to help.
Don’t get in over your head with unnecessary expenses from purchases or from accepting and attempting jobs that are too big for your abilities. Negative reviews for a job you accepted are far more harmful than turning down jobs you have not yet grown into yet. Take your time, start with rental equipment, and scale your growth into the success you can sustain.