As my cleaning business has continued to grow over the last year, I’ve decided to renew my focus on it for the next 3 to 4 months. My goal is to double the profit before fully removing myself and handing the business over to a capable day-to-day manager. The clearest method for hitting this goal is growing the existing cleaning business. However, I also want to create new optionality in the business by trying to launch another service line. This is partly due to the benefits of diversification and potential growth, but it's also because I just enjoy building things.
Home cleaning will never be my full-time role, so when I thought about new service lines, I wanted to ensure the service was simple to price and complete. There are far more attractive types of home service businesses, but I wanted something that directly aligned with my existing business so that it wouldn’t require additional office staff in the long-term.
With my current cleaning business, I’ve been able to differentiate in the market by having clear and transparent pricing. In addition, I allow the customer to schedule online. As I researched the mobile car detailing market around me, I found no competitors that had this operating philosophy and tactic. While the mobile car detailing market is much smaller than home cleaning, I think there’s an equal opportunity to differentiate from the existing competitors in my geographic area.
There are some obvious downsides to this market. The market may just be too small to succeed in. There are 3-4 other players in my area so clearly there is enough demand to test it out. I also believe that it will be harder to get recurring cleans since many customers see car detailing as more of a treat than a necessity.
Obviously launching a new service line is fun, but the only thing that matters is getting sales and having the service appreciated by customers. Importantly, they need to hear about the service to set an appointment. Without an appointment, we won’t have the opportunity to deliver great work. As I planned the business, I laid out my core growth strategy that I’ll execute over the next 3 months. Hopefully, by the summer this will be a self-sufficient business line with enough inertia to keep growing with reduced marketing cost.
Focus on Cross Selling: I can leverage my existing Pelican Clean customers and my email list. For better or worse, because most of my home cleaning customers are recurring clients, I don’t have a crazy large email list. I hope client loyalty will make up for it!
Digital Marketing: This was the main driver for my growth when I launched home cleaning so I’m hoping I can replicate some of my best practices and avoid some of the big failures:
Direct Mailing: I’m planning to test send out about 1,000 postcards to people in the area we serve. I got some of my earliest customers from this tactic. While it’s expensive, I think there’s meaningful ROI. I also enjoy the design process and think it’s fun to put this whole postcard together. I always include my home in the direct mailings. This way, I get the joy of receiving my own creation. Seeing what I do in the real world always gives me a kick.
Other Creative Ideas: The interesting thing about car detailing is that I think there are a lot more interesting creative options for growth in this market because you can target anywhere people park their cars for a long time.
As with this entire experience, the ultimate goal is to learn and build something sustainable. However, it’s helpful to build concrete goals for the business so that I know my time investment is actually worth it. So, here are my rough goals: