Starting your own house cleaning business
Many of those who lose their jobs during a recession will find it difficult to find another job and may start thinking about investing in their own business with whatever redundancy pay they may have received. This may be a golden opportunity to become your own boss, but it takes hard work, determination and persistence to make a new business successful, and it rarely happens overnight.
It’s always tempting when you’re thinking about starting a business to do something you’ve always loved to do – turn your hobby into a job. But, unfortunately, in most of these cases, the business simply fails. This is mainly because they were undertaken with personal bias and not from a purely business perspective. Whatever decision you make to go it alone, that decision should always be business first.
The best approach to starting your own business is to research all those services or products that are needed in both good and bad economic times.
Home clearance business is one such service that will always be in demand. More and more people are seeking this service, sometimes simply to prepare their houses for sale. Or they may have moved and settled abroad permanently and now want someone to clear out the house in readiness for sale. Establishing good business relationships with local real estate agents can lead to regular business referrals.
But clearing the house is especially necessary after a death in the family. Bereaved people often don’t want to clear the house at such an emotional time, and the act of disposing of a loved one’s belongings can be overwhelming. Relatives may have difficulty organizing the deceased’s belongings while dealing with their grief and the ongoing demands of work and family life. Or there may simply be no emotional ties and the deceased is a distant relative in another part of the country.
Whatever the reason, there is a thriving business in clearing out other people’s unwanted belongings.
Although local auctioneers sometimes offer house clearance services, they are really looking for valuable items to sell at their auctions and are usually not interested in junk. So if you go into this kind of business then you have to be prepared to clear it all and often deal with people at a difficult time in their lives.
Many items that are unwanted by a person can still be recycled or donated to charity, so be sure to consider these options whenever possible.
To distinguish your business from a scammer running a bogus house clearance service, it’s worth joining the UK House Clearance Association.
Each member of the association undertakes some key commitments that are simply good business practice:
· To provide a clear description, price and schedule for performing the house cleaning.
· To ensure full liability insurance.
· Have a current waste transport license issued by the Environment Agency.
· Be courteous, competent and committed to providing a high standard of service.
· To deal quickly and sympathetically with anything that might go wrong.
If you think this might be the business for you, then it’s a relatively easy business to start with little capital outlay (so you might actually be able to save some of that extra cash). There are just a few simple steps you need to take to be your own boss:
Get liability insurance
When you enter someone’s house and are likely to be moving large and heavy objects, you should have adequate insurance against damage to the fabric of the building or to people inside it.
Get a waste hauler’s license from the Environment Agency
Disposing of waste at municipal sites on a commercial basis requires a licence. They are cheap and last 3 years, so apply for one well before the first house is cleared.
Decide which vehicle you need
If you don’t own a van yet, you’ll definitely need one, but while you’re still testing out your business idea, why not rent a van instead of buying one. This way you can decide which type of van is best for your area.
Advertise in local press and online
The advantage of a small business like house clearance is that you can avoid expensive advertising costs by advertising your services in local publications and in local places.
House clearance is just one small business idea that is a service that is in demand regardless of the economic climate and is simple and inexpensive to start. But there are many other similar businesses that can mean the start of a new life as your own boss.
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