This is where you step in!

If you are reading this article, you are probably looking for advice on how to start a janitorial service. Hopefully following information and advice will get you moving in right direction.

Start Up Costs and Financing Sources:

$500 and up

It is possible to get started with almost no investment, but you will be in a much better position if you have a few hundred dollars of basic equipment available. Equipment for a full-scale commercial janitorial service may run many thousands of dollars.

Writing a sound business plan describing how to start a janitorial service in your area - including detailed market research and plans for future growth - may help you to secure some of your initial funding from venture capitalists or angel investors.

Pricing Guidelines for Service:

Base your time at $20 to $50 per hour (before taxes and expenses) and price your services according to time you expect to spend on each task.

Itemize exact services you intend to provide. Charging by hour tends to make clients comfortable asking you to do more and more work for same money. Be clear that you provide certain services for a certain price. By charging a flat fee, you will continually earn a better hourly rate as you improve and become more efficient.

Advertising and Marketing:

Get listed in yellow pages under all of main services you provide. This is more expensive than one general listing, but you can't expect all of your potential clients to look under "Janitorial Services" when they are really looking for "Window Cleaners".

Face-to-face selling can go either way. Some managers and store owners like fortitude of this very direct way of marketing, but others find it very annoying - especially if they get a lot of people coming in and asking to wash windows. Always obey "No Soliciting" signs.

Walk around town and identify businesses which look like they really need your help. Send a professional-looking brochure to general manager.

Essential Equipment:

A janitorial cleaning service can start very small and build up as it grows more popular. It is sometimes possible to start out by using equipment of client companies, buying your own equipment with that revenue.

Get a unique uniform - and unique does not mean outrageous! A uniform looks much more professional than jeans, and it can provide a marketing service for you, as well. When people recognize your janitorial cleaning service working at company down street, it lends credibility to you when you approach them for a contract.

Much of following equipment will become useful as your business expands:

Safety Equipment:

A worm is like a virus—it also replicates itself. However, it can stand on its own and does not need another program to run. It usually infects your computer’s networking features, which includes its internet connection.

Spyware and adware go hand-in-hand. Spyware is a kind of program which gathers information, specifically browsing habits.

It tracks down what kind of sites you visit, and adware will generate ads that fit with your interest which spyware based on information it gathered in first place.

Malware is malicious software. It’s any program that is useless, or worse, destructive. A Trojan a program pretending to be good but once it’s deep in your system it proves to be quite opposite.

In spite of all their differences, they have one thing in common: they are out to give you headaches by rendering your computer unusable.

To protect your computer as much as possible from being infected, here are four dangerous activities that you should avoid, or at least minimize:

• Opening email attachments

Do not open any email attachments if they aren’t scanned by antivirus software. Worms can spread through email, so even a friend can unwittingly send you one by way of an attachment.

• Internet File-sharing

In file-sharing via internet, your computer is exposed and open to others it is communicating with. If other computers’ files can be transferred to yours, same thing can be said about a virus, if others are infected.

• Downloading free software of questionable origins.