I’ve got no business plan – can I grow my cleaning company with no business plan? I’ve got bill collectors but can’t pay them because I have outstanding collections. I need a band-aid for the bleeding wounds. And I need free resources to help me with business growth and development. Any advice?
Yes, you can start a maid service with no business plan. You have to know about SCORE from the Small Business Administration. Did you know as a house cleaner or maid, you have access to free mentors, and free advice?
Listen: No Business Plan – Can I Grow My Cleaning Company Without One?
Watch: No Business Plan – Can I Grow My Cleaning Company Without One?
Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.
Can You Start a Cleaning Business with No Business Plan?
No business plan. Can you start a cleaning business with no business plan?
Normally, I would say make sure you have a business plan and you have all your ducks in a row. But my philosophy is to jump in and put a Band-Aid on the bleeding wound.
Now, most people do not start house cleaning businesses because they want to earn money years down the road. Most of them start cleaning businesses because they need money right now, okay? That is the bleeding wound, you need the money now.
You Don’t Need a Business Plan to Put a Band-Aid on the Wound
To start, we’re going to put a Band-Aid on the wound. Now once you cover it up, then we need to think about the business plan.
Then focus on growing and expanding your business. But you want money to be coming in first. Because it’s very hard to concentrate on the details of your business when bill collectors are calling and interrupting you and you’re barely surviving with money.
Then once you have the money, we’re going to stop and figure out if we made the right choices with our bidding and pricing. We can work out those details as we go, but right now we need to solve the immediate problem.
Use Trial and Error or Hire Experts
All right, there are a variety of different places you can go to get the information you need. This is trial and error, which is figuring it out on your own, or you can hire industry experts.
Right now the industry experts’ prices are astronomical, including me. When you try to hire a consultant, they can save years off your learning curve. But for most start startup companies it does not make sense.
However, doing it all by yourself without any help can lead your business into a sinkhole and it will probably fail.
Use Every Free Service Available to You
Right now to fix the bleeding wound, use all the free services that are available to you.
As soon as you get your business up and running and you have a foundation set, then we can invest money in coaches and consultants.
Right now we want to cast a little bit wider net, and we want to go for the free options. Because right now we live in the information age. There are lots of free resources available to you
Use Resources to Make Your Business Plan
Now I wrote a book called How to Start Your Own House Cleaning Company. You can read it on any device for free.
Then there is YouTube, and you can watch shows on YouTube to learn. We have over 400 episodes in Ask a House Cleaner, and we answer questions on house cleaning business every single day. Check out all those on YouTube.
Also, it’s a podcast on all your favorite podcast apps, so you can listen as you’re driving in the car.
Use Score to Find a Mentor
All right, the next thing you should look into is Score. If you don’t know about Score, it’s amazing.
It is a 50-year-old nonprofit organization that is in the United States. It is run by the Small Business Administration, and it has over 10,000 volunteers as business mentors.
The volunteer mentors are existing or retired business owners in 62 different industries. You can tag in and find a mentor.
How to Ask Someone to Mentor You
When you ask someone to mentor you, say, “Hey look, I’m starting a business in house cleaning. How do I get started?“
And they can help you with everything. From how to create a business plan to should you become an LLC or should you stay a sole proprietor?
They can help you with taxes. What are you able to tax deduct? How you should do your advertising. How you should do your marketing. They’ve got a wealth of information and it’s free.
If there isn’t a Mentor in Your Area
Now if there’s not a mentor in your area, they do have online mentor-ships. You can do Skype calls, you can do emails back and forth. They have online training.
They also have a library with over 80 videos in it that are on a variety of topics for small startup businesses.
You have to use the free resources that are available to you as you’re getting started.
You Can Start with No Business Plan
All right, so having said that, as you start your business you can start without a business plan. Yes, that’s true.
But because this is a business, not a hobby and we’re here to help you earn money, use free resources for two hours a day.
Now I know you’re going to be out cleaning and doing other things. The two hours a day is an investment of your time into your business. At that time you can learn the things you need to learn to move forward.
You Have to Have a Business Plan to Grow Your Business
Once you have stopped the bleeding you need a business plan. You can’t just think that you’re going to go out and clean a few houses and that’s going to build a business.
Then 20 years down the road you’re still cleaning a few houses, you’re still working by the hour. You’re working in your business, not on your business.
Your business will not have grown, but you may be able to pay a few of the bills in between.
You Need a Plan to Build Your Business Up
If you want to build a business, you have to start somewhere. Don’t start out with the empire because there’s no foundation. If you try to go too fast, you will just get burnt out.
You have to build the foundation so it will support what you’re building.
That’s all the learning that is going to be required right now. Use your resources and build a foundation to start
Use Two Hours a Day to Think of Your Business Plan
Two hours a day. Whether you take it in the morning, at night, in increments throughout the day, but you need to spend about two hours a day building your business.
This is learning as much as you can. My suggestion is this, learn for an hour and put it in place for an hour. Because if you only learn and you don’t install anything, you’re no better off for having learned the information.
Learn for an hour and then implement for an hour, and it’s amazing how fast your business will grow.a
*** Resources From This Episode ***
SCORE – Free Business Advice, Find a Mentor – https://www.score.org/
Small Business Administration Free Workshops – https://www.score.org/content/take-workshop
Ask a House Cleaner Learning Library Free Videos – https://goo.gl/UCs92v
Business Plan: The Right Way to Create A Winning Business Plan – https://amzn.to/2oVyzKH
Business plan template and example: how to write a business plan: Business planning made simple – https://amzn.to/2wYjNq6
The Secrets to Writing A Successful Business Plan: A Pro Shares A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating A Plan That Gets Results – https://amzn.to/2OdwZyA
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