If you are looking to increase sales for your cleaning business, one strategy people often try is lowering their prices. This might sound like it would attract a lot more sales, but it often doesn’t. In addition to that, there can be other unforeseen consequences from lowering your prices. In this post, you’ll learn 8 ways to increase sales for your cleaning business without lowering prices.
Why you should avoid lowering prices
Have you ever lost a sale because someone said your cleaning service was too expensive? Chances are you probably have. It may seem like this should be a signal for you to lower your prices. However, we suggest that you don’t make that decision too quickly.
Often when people say this they might not end up hiring a cleaning service at all. If the only thing a person is looking for is the lowest-cost cleaning business to hire, they probably aren’t the type of customer you are looking for.
Of course you don’t want your services to be overpriced, but you don’t need to be the lowest priced service to make sales. The most successful cleaning companies are never the lowest priced service. The more you offer discounts and reduce your prices the harder it will be to maintain a profit, and you didn’t start your business to not make a good living.
Typically over time, your overhead will go up. Wages increase, fixed costs can go up, and inflation also can factor into the general prices of cleaning services. It doesn’t need to be a dramatic increase in costs either. It could be a combination of offering discounts, lowering prices, and costs rising that could make your services unprofitable.
So instead of trying to compete on price focus on attracting people who see the value in your cleaning services and that are willing to pay for it.
1. Educate your customers on the value of your service
When you market your cleaning business and talk to potential customers your job is to build the value of your service. You want customers to feel that the service is worth the price or more. There are several ways to build the value of your service for potential customers.
You can increase sales without lowering prices by focusing on educating customers so they understand your cleaning service is worth the price. People are willing to pay for a more expensive cleaning service if they see value in it.
Many potential customers don’t really know the difference from one cleaning service to the next. It’s your job to educate them on the difference between your cleaning service compared to others.
You can do this by creating content on your website like industry pages, service pages, and blog posts. These kinds of pages should break down things like the equipment you use, your process, and how your company is the best choice to provide these services.
You might also want to include relevant photos from cleaning jobs and customer reviews related to those services. By including content such as this on your website it can build credibility and trust, and it can position your company as an expert in the cleaning industry.
It will also help educate potential customers and it can build up the value in your service which can help increase sales for your cleaning business without lowering prices.
2. Networking and prospecting
Another thing that we feel a lot of cleaning business owners don’t do enough of is networking. As you build and expand relationships with other business owners in your service area, it can often lead to new cleaning clients.
In many cases, networking is either free, or you’ll pay a nominal fee to join various networking groups. We suggest joining memberships like the chamber of commerce to meet the right people who may be interested in hiring a cleaning service.
One thing to note on networking is that you shouldn’t go in for the sale immediately. You want to focus on relationships first and if an opening to promote your cleaning business arrives naturally, then you can transition into business. No one likes the aggressive and pushy salesperson, so don’t act that way while networking.
Another way to grow your cleaning business without lowering your prices is to put in some additional work prospecting. Unfortunately, we find a lot of cleaning business owners hoping for marketing to completely replace active prospecting and networking.
Typically replacing prospecting and networking completely with digital marketing could take several years and a large advertising budget. If you are just getting started and don’t have those yet, we suggest combining networking, prospecting, and marketing for the best results.
You might also consider networking and prospecting on LinkedIn. For more info, check out this post on growing your commercial cleaning business with LinkedIn.
3. Offer additional specialty cleaning services
If you are looking to increase sales and profits for your cleaning business without lowering prices you might want to start offering additional specialty cleaning services. For example, you could start offering carpet cleaning services, window cleaning services, or other specialized cleaning services.
Not only could this attract new cleaning clients looking for specialty services, but it could also increase the average sale per customer. You might have some customers that just get general cleaning services from you, and you could upsell them on additional services to increase sales.
When people are looking for a cleaning service to work with they look for a few things. One of them is a full-service cleaning company. Most people don’t want to hire multiple different companies for each aspect of cleaning they need to be done.
If you offer several additional services you can attract new clients that would otherwise hire a different company that does provide everything they need under one roof. For more ideas on additional services, you could offer, check out this blog post on 9 upsells to add more profit to your house cleaning business.
5. Add commercial cleaning services or residential cleaning services
In addition to adding specialty services to your service offerings, you might also consider expanding into either residential cleaning services or commercial cleaning services if you haven’t already. Each type of cleaning service has advantages and disadvantages, but if you offer both types of services it can help increase sales and bring in an entire new target market.
By offering both types of services it can really help you increase sales for your cleaning business without lowering your prices. For example, as a residential cleaning service, you could greatly expand your monthly revenue with just a few commercial cleaning clients.
However, one thing to note is that there are additional expenses associated with running a commercial cleaning business that is different than running a residential cleaning business. Check out this post for more details on expanding into commercial cleaning as a residential cleaning business.
By adding residential cleaning to a commercial cleaning business it could help balance out your cash flow. Typically commercial cleaning works on an invoicing system so you will be paid monthly for the work instead of per cleaning.
With house cleaning services people tend to pay at the time of service or even before service is completed. This means by adding in residential services you could generate cash flow quickly compared to the time it takes to get paid on a commercial cleaning job.
4. Invest in new equipment
Investing in new equipment can be another way to increase sales for your cleaning business without lowering prices for a number of reasons. To implement the above strategy of adding additional services you might need to invest in additional equipment.
For example, it would be hard to add a floor polishing service if you didn’t have floor polishing machines. You might also need specialized equipment and tools for cleaning things like stone or tile.
Typically if you are expanding into commercial cleaning from residential cleaning you’ll also need additional equipment. Unless you are only doing small office cleaning, you’ll likely need new equipment to offer commercial cleaning as a service.
Another benefit of new equipment is that they often are more efficient. For example, you may have push vacuums right now vs having backpack vacuums. Backpack vacuums will have a much higher production rate compared to push vacuums.
If your cleaners are more efficient you could clean faster, and could spend fewer hours on employee wages. A higher production rate could also allow you to clean larger facilities.
Investing in your business can be scary, but it often results in higher profits when you invest in the right things.
6. Improve your online presence
Most people consider lowering their prices because they don’t have enough qualified leads coming in that can afford their current pricing. Typically this is caused by an ineffective cleaning business marketing plan.
A key part of your marketing plan should be to improve your online presence. Doing this can help to attract more of your ideal customers and can help improve your conversion rates.
If you have a poor online presence or no online presence at all, it can actually cause people to not work with you. Most people look at your online presence as a reflection of how you run all of your business. If your online presence isn’t optimized it can be a red flag for potential customers.
Invest in things like a quality website in order to give your potential customers a good first impression of your business. In addition to providing a good first impression, a quality cleaning business website design can help convert those that are in research mode.
Be sure to include content marketing as a part of your online presence and marketing strategy to build authority and to help educate potential customers on the value of your service.
Offline strategies like networking can be effective, but if your online presence is poor it could hinder those networking efforts as people look more into your business. Improve your online presence to help increase sales for your cleaning business without lowering prices.
7. Paid advertising
With your foundation of a solid online presence in place, another great way to increase sales without lowering prices is through paid advertising. Word of mouth advertising and building your online presence can help attract new customers to your business, but those strategies can take time to get results.
If your online presence is professional and converts organically it might be time for you to invest in paid advertising for your cleaning business. Doing this can help you to find more people who are interested in hiring your cleaning service and that are willing to pay full price for it.
Again, most people decide to lower prices or offer discounts because they don’t have enough qualified prospects reaching out to them. This forces them to lower prices to try and convert people who aren’t really their ideal clients.
If you do have enough qualified leads that can afford your services it shouldn’t be hard to convert them while keeping your prices as they are. Running paid advertising campaigns is a numbers game so don’t expect every lead to be a laydown sale.
However, depending on your advertising strategy, these leads will likely be better than cold calling or prospecting strangers who aren’t specifically looking to hire a cleaning service.
8. Create a referral program
One of the best underused resources you have as a cleaning business is your existing customer base. Not only can happy customers be a resource for getting positive reviews, but they can also be a referral source. There is a big difference between trying to convert a new customer from a cold lead vs a warm lead.
Who’s advice are you more likely to take? Advice from a friend you know and trust, or advice from an advertisement or a stranger? Obviously, most people are going to choose to take advice from a friend.
Referrals already have a warm connection established with your business. This can be a great way to get new customers for your cleaning business without having to lower prices. A way to expedite this referral process is by creating a referral program for your cleaning business.
A great way to incentivize your existing customers to refer new customers is to offer additional services for a referral. When existing customers try a new service they may decide to make it a permanent part of their ongoing service. This could lead to an increase in average customer value.
If they really like it, it may become a regular part of their ongoing service. This could further increase your revenue beyond the new customer they referred.
Just be sure to avoid giving away too much for your incentive for referring a new customer. Make sure the things you offer for referrals don’t lose you money.
Conclusion
By now you should realize that there are many ways to increase sales for your cleaning business without lowering prices. Lowering your prices has many potential negative consequences. Usually, it isn’t worth the few extra sales you may get from it.
There are several better ways to attract new customers without resorting to a price drop. The first step to acquiring new customers without reducing your prices is to build up the value of your services in potential customer’s minds.
You can do this by educating them on the value of your services through content marketing and improved sales skills. Make sure your content, marketing, and website highlight the benefits of your services, not just the features.
Building content on your website that educates potential customers helps establish your company as an expert in the cleaning industry. This can help convert sales from your website.
Optimizing your online presence it can allow you to organically attract your ideal customers without lowering prices. With an online presence that converts as your foundation, you can then accelerate your results by using paid advertising.
Also, don’t forget your existing customer base as they can be a great resource for new customers. Create a referral program as another method to increase sales for your cleaning business without lowering prices. Follow these strategies consistently and you should have enough customers willing to pay full price for your service.
P.S. If you are struggling to get quality leads for your cleaning business, Click Here to Learn How to Get More Clients for your business with these Top 10 Lead Sources For Cleaning Business Owners.