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Chicago, IL, United States (AHN) – The economic grip which had been strangling most offices during the holiday season appears to be loosening its stronghold on holiday cheer in the office. According to a recent survey employers indicate they intend to offer more holiday perks (bonuses, parties, gifts) than last year.

According to a CareerBuilder survey 33 percent of employers plan to give their employees holiday bonuses this year, up from 29 percent in 2009. Among that group, 59 percent are planning to give the same amount as in previous years.

However, nine percent of employers say they will not be giving their workforce holiday bonuses even though they have in previous years, down from 12 percent last year.

In regards to the highly desired office parties 52 percent of employers are planning on throwing some type of holiday bash for their employees this year. Up a few points from 2009′s 49 percent.

Nearly three-in-ten (29 percent) employers plan to give holiday gifts, up from 26 percent in 2009.

“Many employers are financially in a better place this season and recognize the positive impact holiday perks can have on office morale,” said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources for CareerBuilder. “Companies are not only giving back to employees this holiday season, 45 percent say their charitable donations will be the same or more than previous years.”

Holiday perks in the office aren’t just from corporate; a quarter of workers say they plan to buy holiday gifts for co-workers this year, compared to 22 percent who plan to buy their boss a gift.

86 percent of workers buying gifts say they plan to spend $25 or less on average for each holiday gift they buy for the office.

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One way that many people make money online is by paid surveys.  When you choose to make money online completing surveys, you will want to make sure you choose a consumer research company that offers you compensation from your time, because there are many sites that will rip you off.  If you want to start working from home by completing paid surveys your best bet is to choose a company you recognize.  After this, all you will have to do to make money online is spend your time filling out surveys and joining research panels.

Another way that people make money online is by affiliate marketing, in which you advertise a product in exchange for a commission on each one that is sold.  There are many opportunities to make money online from affiliate marketing, as you simply choose a product and advertise it anywhere you frequent online by adding it in your signature post.  If you do not want to extensively market a project, this is a great way to supplement your income working from home because you almost always have an opportunity to write in a link on any comments, emails, or web pages you have.

More traditional ways to make money online include selling Adsense and selling items that you purchase for cheap on eBay.  Whichever method you choose to use when you start working from home, you will find with hard work you can start to make money online and say   farewell to the office.

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Let’s face it; nobody likes to clean. It is just not one of those fun jobs to be doing with your time. Many individuals put cleaning their own houses on the back burner; often to the point the place may need a professional house cleaning service to come in before a celebration or different affair.

On the subject of an office cleansing business, it’s a lot different than typical housecleaning. You aren’t only able to charge competitive rates but also schedule your individual hours and work in relative solitude without someone peering over your shoulder.

In some instances, when cleaning properties or places of work, you may find that cleaning shouldn’t be drudgery at all. Actually, given the amount of cash that may be made and being your own boss makes cleaning nearly a joy instead of a job.

Why Is Office Cleaning in Demand in a Poor Economic Climate?

The short answer to this query is employers don’t want employees to clean.

Why? Most employers are not going to make any employee ‘stoop’ to cleaning the office. Truly, can you see an office accountant changing into dungarees and hauling trash cans into the outdoor dumpster, let alone cleaning the bathroom(s)? I don’t think so.

Also, part of the ‘prestige’ of any company is showing that a “cleaning crew” comes in after hours. Staff (and even potential staff) are impressed by that and so are the company’s clients.

What Does it Take to Begin a Cleaning Enterprise?

Surprisingly, office cleaning takes little cash to begin, often under $100.

If you find this hard to imagine, read on.

My daughter’s mom-in-law started her office cleaning enterprise with little or no cash (which she didn’t have to begin with at the time). She grabbed all of the cleansers below her kitchen sink and the vacuum cleaner and purchased: “rubber gloves, paper towels, sponges, and different sizes of trash can liners for less than $20.”

After I asked her how she went without business cards, she replied, “Most professional offices don’t care about business cards; they need bids. All your data is on the bid.”

To be a legitimate office cleaning service, you will, sooner or later, need a business licence and become bonded. This will cost you in the neighborhood of around $500 if you do it yourself. If you enlist the help of an attorney, the cost will be much higher: around $1-2,000.

If you find yourself making a consistent amount of money after working for a few months or so (check the statutes in your state), you will have to get a business license. Corporations prefer that cleaning personnel are additionally bonded so be sure that you are bondable. That is to insure against any breakage or theft. Having both also shows that you’re professional, even if it is your first job in this business.

Most often you’ll need:

1. A vacuum cleaner
2. Varied cleansing products such as window cleaner, bleach, and bathroom cleansers.
3. Dusting rags, paper towels, and sponges
4. Trash bags to fit numerous sizes of containers
5. Air freshener spray, particularly Lysol
6. Rubber gloves
7. A method to journal your online business expenses and income. This can be done with a small enterprise software program or by hand if you do not have a computer. You need to keep good records when it comes time for taxes (bear in mind, all your expenses, together with fuel, are business write-offs).

More tools can come later as you develop and grow your new enterprise.

How Do You Get Customers?

The most effective ways to get offices to clean, but additionally the most costly, is by turning into a member of your local Chamber of Commerce. Many people have obtained clients very quickly by way of their Chamber and it also provides further credibility to your business.

In general, local Chambers of Commerce cost approximately $250 yearly for the membership price, although bigger city Chambers can charge much more. Many small business owners have turned out to be members of both because the local Chamber presents certain advantages while a large-city Chamber has many extra members to help spread the word about your business.

When you’re starting out on a shoestring, business cards will typically do, although they aren’t necessary as bids are generally used for information as well as pricing. Later you could possibly consider printing small brochures and making a website. Many new office cleaning companies have started out just by visiting workplace complexes and privately-owned companies, chatting with the proprietor and leaving a business card.

Bear this in mind: you do not know if any business is dissatisfied with their current cleaning crew. You possibly can wind up at the right place, and the right time, and nail a cleaning job on the spot or within a couple of weeks!

You can pass out flyers and advertise and promote your office cleaning business in the local paper and in online free or paid classified ads.

Office cleaning opportunities are also available at:

1. Churches
2. Schools
3. Dental and medical offices
4. Post offices

In most cases, particularly with a post office, it is going to be essential to submit a bid. Run some searches on the web to learn how to submit nicely-done and successful bids.

Issues with an Office Cleaning Business

Ensure that your time is flexible and your automobile is in good shape. There’s nothing worse than to break down somewhere and never get the job performed for your client. It exhibits lack of professionalism and unreliability.

Most workplace cleaning jobs are done after hours…which suggests within the evening. While not going utterly on a graveyard schedule, your hours will replicate a sort of “swing shift”: 4 p.m. to midnight, depending on how many places of work you need to clean that day.

Make sure you don’t undercharge for your services. There’s a vast difference between routine workplace cleaning and cleaning up after an enormous office party. Make sure to state pricing for these special cleaning requests.

Above all, office cleaning could be fun and does supply job security, even in a poor financial climate. After all, is there anything better than being your own boss and dictating your own rate of pay in a business that doesn’t seem to go away?

Author: Shawna Newton
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Starting an office cleaning business is simple, and requires little start-up capital. For the most part, the only expense involves buying supplies and advertising.

Fortunately, cleaning supplies are cheap, and it costs even less to advertise in local newspapers, or online. Because most business professionals are busy, they are willing to pay a company or individual to clean their offices. You just need to learn how to brand your Office cleaning company in order to grow your business.

Remember, Almost anyone can clean. The trick is to hire others to do all the cleaning once you get things up and running. This leaves you free to generate new business. There are very simple and inexpensive ways to market your office cleaning accounts.

Here are just a few simple ways:

* Specialized Service:

If you offer your cleaning service for just one type of business.. let’s say , lawyer’s offices, by concentrating all your efforts in one type of clients, it will make your life easier, and your efforts far more better than being everything for everyone. Think about this, if a lawyer compares between 2 companies, company A is a general commercial cleaning company that offers service for all type of businesses, and company B specializes in just lawyer offices. Who would he choose?

By specializing in one or few types of service you give a message that you offer a service tailored for their needs,and that’s exactly what loyal clients want. Try to copy this idea by finding a small niche, like Doctor’s offices, dental offices, pharmacies, Real Estate, High Tech offices, etc..

Don’t misunderstand me here. You can still go after any type of offices to clean. But you can tailor your marketing towards each individual type of industry. In other words..You can have specialized services in many different industries.

* GIVE-A-WAYS:

One marketing strategy used by office cleaning business owners are giveaways”. Businesses love to try services for free. Once they see what a good job you do, and once you earn their trust, there’s a good chance you have just earned a client. If you’re running a cleaning business, you could give away a cleaning tips brochure, free cleaning guides, or color swatches. Once you begin giving away authoritative information customers will begin to perceive you as an expert in your field. (This may seem somewhat difficult and time consuming but I promise you it’s not).

* Business Cards:

This is one of the greatest marketing tool for any Janitorial/office cleaning business. The problem is most folks that are new to the office cleaning business don’t know how to do this correctly. If you know how to get your business card into the hands of the right people, at the right time you will generate a ton of business just from this one little strategy alone.

Simply learn how to Provide an irresistible offer on the back of the card for new clients. This has worked for office cleaning business owners many times over!

You don’t have to hand out 200 business cards and hope for the best. There are methods of getting leads that can actually help you obtain more business than if you were running an expensive full-page advertisement in the phone book!

* Print Advertising:

Start by setting an advertising budget. Once you set your budget, decide where to advertise. For a cleaning business it makes no sense and would be a waste of your money to advertise in a large magazine or buy a TV commercial that airs on a Saturday night. Besides being expensive, these ads will most likely not reach your target audience. The common print ad, run in your local newspaper or shopper, is the most basic unit of advertising.

Print ads have launched major office cleaning companies and created many success stories. Running ads in a local paper can be a great way to promote your cleaning business…but you must follow a few basic rules.

Your ad should attract attention! Although this sounds obvious, unless your ad attracts attention you are throwing your money down the drain. The most compelling way to have a “noticeable” ad is to have an interesting and visually appealing headline. If you are designing a large ad, think of using a subhead. This will provide added information and can be longer than the headline.

* Greeting Cards:

Greeting cards can be used as a great Marketing Tool when it comes to repeat business and referrals. Use them to thank clients for their business. Send them as greeting for most of the holiday occasions. Try to send cards as early as possible so they can be the first in your clients mailbox. Surprise them first so they can always remember you. Use handwritten messages to show more appreciation to your customers. If you use this marketing tool,you can always save money by buying cards after occasions, in quantity and keep them for next year.

* Electronic Media:

Buy banner ads in electronic media. Look for websites that target your potential customers, such as your local chamber. This can deliver your information right to the business that needs your service.

Copyright (c) 2008 Brent Wale

Author: Brent Wale
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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One important thing to understand about how to make money office cleaning is that office owners don’t have the same picky high standards that you would find with the owner of a residential home. Therefore, offices are easier to clean then homes. Homeowners are emotionally tied to the appearance of their house and if the job isn’t done perfect you will often get nasty criticism. When you clean offices, instead of homes, the customer just has a list of task that needs performed and when you do the task to a certain level of proficiency you will be met with glowing enthusiasm. .

Starting A Commercial Cleaning Business  Tip #1 – Don’t be afraid of the small jobs

When many people begin in their own office cleaning business they often feel that they need to make a zillion dollars starting right out of the gate from day one. If you have this attitude, you might think that the only way of how to make money office cleaning – is to get the large jobs which the giant corporations are fighting for also. This just simply isn’t true.

What most new office cleaning business owners don’t know is how easy it can be to get the jobs with small companies. Large cleaning businesses overlook them. There simply isn’t enough money in the small jobs to satisfy the greed of the bigger cleaning companies. If you’re a small one or two man operation you can easily fill your bookings just picking up these little jobs.

Starting A Commercial Cleaning Business Tip #2 – Always look for ways to save time – because time is money

The best way to save time is to plan ahead. Make sure you have all the equipment and supplies that you are going to need to get the job done. Do the work to be performed in an order that won’t require you to come back and redo work that you have done already. For example, do the higher dusting before you do the lower dusting and empty the trash before you do the sweeping. It doesn’t take much brains to realize how to make money office cleaning , in this case, it is to not waste time doing the same job twice.

Another important way to save time is to make sure that the jobs you book are in the same neighborhood. Nothing wastes time more than driving your car halfway across a large city. You don’t get paid for the miles that you drive – you get paid for the offices that you clean! When your offices are right by each other it takes little time and effort to clean one and then go to the next. When doing a lot of small jobs, like I suggested in how to make money office cleaning tip number one, being able to get from one job to the next quickly is an essential part of making doing small jobs profitable.

Starting A Commercial Cleaning Business Tip #3 – Become a full service cleaner

One of the best and often most overlooked ways of how to make money office cleaning more profitable is to increase in gross profit of each job by offering more services than a typical cleaning would consist of. Instead of just doing dusting, emptying trash, sweeping, or cleaning bathrooms… you might think about adding services such as shampooing carpets, cleaning upholstery of furniture, and maybe even window washing. By doing this you increase the money you make by two or even three fold. If that isn’t one of the best ways of how to make money office cleaning that you ever heard – then I don’t know what is.

As you can see, it isn’t very difficult to figure out how to make money office cleaning if you just use a little common sense. By thinking outside the box and not waiting for business to come to you – you can start making money much easier than you ever thought possible. There are many tips of how to make money office cleaning that I did not include here which would be sure to make your business explode. Although I could not share everything in this short article… I hope that it was helpful and you start making the kind of money for your office cleaning business that you dream of.

Author: Thomas Ridgeway
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Although these days I mainly write informational articles like these and run an online business, for many years I ran a redbrick janitorial supply company. Some of the things I learned there made me think that maybe, just maybe, I’d made the wrong choice within the cleaning industry!

What made me think that? Well, my company supplied cleaning chemicals and equipment (it still does – I just don’t work there anymore!) to end-users and also to what, in the UK, are termed Contract Cleaners. These are firms who clean on a commercial and contractual basis for other businesses – hence the term Contract Cleaning.

Some of these companies specialise in heavy-duty, one-off cleans at industrial and catering sites. That’s a dirty, tough job. However, the ones I noticed who seemed to be making the money – and some of them made really serious money – were the ones who specialised in light office cleaning.

It took me a while to figure out why and, by this time, my own business was well established and I didn’t want to change it. Had I known the money to be made in cleaning offices a few years earlier, I would have put the wheel over and changed to cleaning services instead of supplies.

But that’s history. The thing I’d like to share with you in this article is WHY you should look at a cleaning business as your choice of employment. Here are a few reasons that might tempt you:

1. Low entry cost. You can start an office cleaning business with just a few hundred pounds or dollars plus a pickup truck, panel van or even an estate car. I’ve seen it done. Contrast this with starting up a janitorial supply business. In my experience I would say that if I started that type of business again – knowing what I know now – I’d want to have about £50K ($100K) in my pocket before I’d even consider it.

Why? One word – stock. OK, let’s make that two words – stock and premises. No, that doesn’t do it. Three words – stock, premises and transport. I think you might see where I’m going!

Yet I’ve seen many Contract Cleaning businesses start up with minimal equipment and succeed. Yes, some fail. In business this happens. But generally in the office cleaning industry those who work at it will succeed. That brings us to the next point.

2. Grow as slowly or as quickly as you like. This is one of the few types of business where a pretty good income can be had from the word go. If you’re happy with that, fine! Maybe you just want to work three or four days and spend the rest of your time on your leisure. On the other hand, I have seen these office cleaning businesses simply explode in terms of turnover for those that want it. One in particular that springs to mind went from zero turnover to just under £1M (about $1.9M) in SIX MONTHS.

If that doesn’t get your attention I don’t know what will! Now before you get too excited, that’s a turnover figure from a firm who was really trying hard. Profit margins are generally pretty good though, so although you might not be an overnight millionaire like some business ideas promise, you would be earning serious money at those sort of figures.

3. Swift transition into a management position. Sure, at the start you’ll be the one doing all the work. That’s the way things are – but office cleaning businesses have to employ workers to do the work. That leaves you – the boss – to manage the business. I have yet to see one successful owner of this kind of business get their hands (or anything else) dirty on a regular basis. Maybe sometimes you WILL have to do that – but the vast majority of the time you’ll be the one in the suit – out getting further contracts!

4. Good exit opportunities. It may seem strange to mention selling a cleaning business before you have even started one but consider this: most people never, ever think of the day when they may well want a change. Cleaning businesses with a good contracts portfolio and a healthy turnover to profit balance can literally be worth a fortune. Bigger outfits snap them up every day of the week. Could you see yourself retiring in ten years time? Or less? I’ve seen it done. Maybe you can do it too!

To conclude this short article I would point out that, although starting and running a cleaning business is pretty easy, only you will be able to make it work. It’s not an easy money option – but it’s a darned sight easier than many other business options I have seen. A last piece of advice. If you are serious about starting out down this road, go and work for a cleaning business for a while. Sure, it’s maybe not the greatest job you’ll ever have but consider it an investment for the future. Then go and set your own up!

Author: Steve Dempster
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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You should know that while this is a valid argument, it also happens to be a mediocre maxim, not to mention a lousy choice. If anything, this is the perfect time to get creative in order to generate more money using very simple ideas that most people take for granted.

One ingenious idea that you should consider is starting an office commercial cleaning business.If this sound new to you, there is no need to be intimidated because it is actually a very easy enterprise to launch, not to mention it has a very promising profit potential.

What do you need to start an office commercial cleaning business?

Contrary to what you might be thinking, you will not require too much capital to star this kind of business. In fact, if you already have a few thousand dollars saved up, you might be able to swing a no-debt launching which means that you gain profits faster because you have no loans to pay off.

The first thing you need in order to start with this kind of cleaning business is a concrete study of the market i.e. potential clients within a hundred mile radius or within your own city. It is important that you establish the fact that there will be potential clients that you can work for in line with the service you are offering.

Here are some of the essentials that you need make arrangements for in order to start a successful business:

• Quality cleaning system- you are going to promise your clients a cleaner workspace so that is what they will expect. In order to actually be able to deliver on this, you personally have to device a set of standards that all your future employees will have to follow so as to maintain outstanding quality of work day in and day out.
• Excellent cleaning crew- When you start hiring people for the job, you have to keep in mind two very important things. One, you are operating on a very limited budget so you would have to be able to offer other perks so that you will get people to sign up for the work. Two, competency is non-negotiable so you need to find ways of making sure that the people you will hire are going to be effective as well as efficient on their jobs.
• Soft Advertising- It pays to advertise. This is just a fact. Months before you formally launch your business and have the services available for clients, you should make arrangements for advertising opportunities because people need to know that you are coming and that you have very useful services to offer them. You might even be able to find clients willing to deal with you on a probationary basis which, if it goes well will certainly give you the street credibility that you need to drum up more business.

Author: Jeremy P. Gray
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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