Episode 125: Top 20 Most Profitable Business to Start in 2023

Episode 125: Top 20 Most Profitable Business to Start in 2023

Brandon Schoen:
At the end of the day, we don't look at just the numbers. We're looking at are we making progress? Are we making an impact? Are we growing? You know, and if we're doing those things right and we're happy, we're delivering happiness to our customers, we're making delivering that value. I think that's what really matters at the end of the day. But just some, some numbers to inspire you guys. And also just a reminder of how awesome this business is. Top five businesses in the country to start, right? Yeah. The most Profitable. So yeah, so that was pretty cool to see. So I mean, it makes me feel like we're on the right track. And you guys listening should also feel excited about it too, 'cause you too are on the right track. The podcast is called Profit Cleaners. This was an episode to talk about that. So

Announcer:
Grow your cleaning business, make more money, have more time. This is the Profit Cleaners podcast with your host Brandon Condrey and Brandon Schoen.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Profit Cleaners podcast. The only place where you can learn from the top 1% of cleaning business owners from around the world to take it to the next level and win.

Guys, thanks for joining us today. We have another great show for you, some value and some knowledge we're gonna double down on. So let's dive into it. Today's kind of episode and topic title is we're gonna dive into the 20 most profitable small businesses to start in 2023 and how house cleaning is actually in one of those top categories in the top five actually.

So we're gonna dive into that and give you guys a little insight on why this business is such a great business. We've talked about this before. We're gonna talk about it again because well, we're in the business after all and there's a reason we chose it. So if you guys are still on the fence about starting a cleaning business or if you're wondering why you started one in the first place,

we're gonna remind you today why it's such a great business. So welcome Brandon. Welcome to the podcast. I'm joined by Brandon Condre in the house. What's up man? Here I am in the flesh, we're on the zoom or the whatever, We're on the Riverside Zoom thing, whatever this technology is. But guys, we're bringing it to you fresh.

So let's, you sent me this article the other day, Brandon, and you were like, Hey, this popped up in my Google feed. And I don't know why, probably Google's retargeting you or something, but they know you're a cleaning business owner, right Brandon? Yes. I assume that's why it came in. So make sure, you know,

we'll put the links to this in the show notes. But this is from a website called Insider Monkey, which I had never heard of before. So take this with a grain of salt perhaps, but it appears to be a, it's a stock picking website that you have to pay access for and I think to drive websites, they kind of make listicles.

For those of you that aren't familiar, a listicle is a list article and I believe it was pioneered by Buzzfeed. So anyway, what we're gonna do is we're gonna rattle off the top 20 most profitable businesses to start in 2023. And I was actually shocked at how high cleaning ranked and then we'll talk about profit margins here at the end. So here we go.

I'll do five. You do five. Shane, you ready? Let's do it. Seven. Alright, you're coming in at number 20 online tutoring and then building supply retail business. Then food business. I'm not sure what that means. I think it's just restaurant in general. Home improvement and e-commerce is at number 16 with 10% profit margin. All right.

And after food business we've got home improvement, net margins, 9%, e-commerce. I was expecting to see that one on there. 10% pre loved items, 11% margins and translation services at 11% net margin. There you go. Alright, then there's consultation services. That's a wide range. Real estate, I'm not sure if they're investing or not, they do get little blurbs or you can,

you guys can read through it. Social media management, affiliate marketing, these are all terms that you guys should have heard in these previous podcasts. But affiliate marketing is number 10 with a 16% profit margin. Yeah. And then getting closer to cleaning. We've got number nine, retail distribution, 16% margin content writing services at number eight, which is something my wife has done for a long time.

She does all of our content and copywriting, so I know that's a very lucrative business. But yeah, net margin on content writing services, 16% information technology, which is pretty vast as well. 16%. And then all the way down to website design net margin 18%. All right. And then here's the top five bookkeeping, 19% event management, 20% number three,

home cleaning services. It specifically says home cleaning. I wanna point that out. It didn't mention commercial cleaning. Number three, home cleaning, 28% profit margin Number two is Airbnb hosting with 40% profit margin and number one was pet services at 40%. So I honestly didn't know if cleaning would be on there at all when I got the article. And then the fact that it was number three kind of had me blown away.

Profit margin 28%. We've told you guys and we tell you guys in the course, if you are one of our students that we're shooting for a profit margin of 20%, I think there's gotta be some kind of relationship here. Like the bigger you get, you know, the more employees, the more scale, the lower the profit margin becomes. But because it's bigger,

like the numbers are bigger so the amount of profit you're taking home is higher. So I wonder the 20%, so I'll read you guys the blurb they've got on there, the 28% rather. So the blurb is businesses offering home cleaning services can expect to earn up to $100,000 in profits per annum. That's per year. The business has a high net profit margin due to people prioritizing hygiene and cleanliness in their homes.

Future prospects for this industry look encouraging as well as there are no indications that demand for home cleaning services would decline in the coming years between 2023 and 2033. The home cleaning services industry is forecast to grow at 6.5% to reach $14 billion in 2033. So in 10 years they are predicting cleaning, home cleaning to be a $14 billion industry. How much of that piece of the pie are you gonna get as a cleaning company owner?

That is the question. Yeah, that's a great question. That's an empowering question. Instead of being like, how am I ever going to get to that point? The question you should be asking is, what do I need to do next to start or grow my cleaning business so I can get a piece of that pie? Like Brandon said, because it is growing guys,

when we started this business, did a lot of research and we, if you haven't seen us pull up charts before of like, you know, just simple things like you can pull up Google trends, it's a cool tool out there. Just type in home cleaning. Look at the trends over the last 10 years. It is what we call an evergreen market.

It is consistent. It has a little e ebbs and flows like you know, with some seasonality maybe in the winter. But it's always consistent and it's always growing. And if you just think about what we said from the beginning on this podcast guys, we are selling happiness but we're selling people their time back. It's basically a subscription. It's Netflix for cleanliness,

right Brandon? Yeah, Netflix for cleanliness. That's the way to call it. Yeah. So I mean 28%, like 20% is what we're shooting for. I don't think we're at 20%. We're in the double digits for sure. But I think part of the reasons that we haven't gotten to that 20% is essentially the debt vehicles that we have used to get to this point.

Because our focus has been on very quick growth and of course the pandemic which everyone felt and dealt with. But as a result of the pandemic, we ended up with a bunch of big numbers on our balance sheet. So the PPP loan was forgiven, that was great, but we also have a disaster loan that is not forgivable. And then there was a state run program that was also a disaster loan.

The benefits of those programs are that they are very long-term and very low interest rates. So from a cashflow perspective it's fine, but from a balance sheet perspective it probably doesn't look so hot. But at the same time, our goal is also to be big to scale. And so we take the money that's left over from the business and keep pushing that into it.

So you can design this how any way you want, you know, as your own cleaning company owner. So there are strategies like we're doing get big or dia, you know, and whatever leftover money's in there. Like Brandon and I have a comfortable living and we could be taking way more profit out of the business, but that's not the goal. The goal is to get it bigger and bigger and then eventually,

I don't know, sell it maybe who knows? Or pass it off to our kids. Like there's lots of options. But we had talked to a guy who had wanted to sell and he'd been in the business for 40 years and he was wanting to sell for about, you know, $700,000 and he had $700,000 in revenue and he'd been very comfortable for a long time.

So if your goal is to you know, make yourself a job and pay yourself well then you would be able to get to that 28% quicker I think than what the method that we're kind of doing here. Yeah, exactly. It's just like Brandon, I look at it like what's the time value of money if we put that money back in, keep reinvesting it and grow faster.

Maybe our profits are a little leaner on the front end. But the long-term vision here is we're getting towards the bigger profits, the bigger valuation because we're growing a lot faster. A lot of companies, I don't know what they're, what the average is, but I mean I, I know from people we've talked to, you know, in the market probably 10 or 20% a year,

you know, just a nice gradual growth rate is is pretty typical if you're doing anything at all. If you're trying to grow at all. I know Brandon, when we started the first few years we're like hockey stick type growth. Like what was it like hundreds Percentages Growth percent for Sure. We won an award for that. We were the sixth fastest growing company in New Mexico in 2021 I think.

Yeah, Exactly. And so that's our strategy guys. It doesn't mean it has to be yours and obviously every business is different. The way you're building your business is different. So you could very well, I mean we've talked to students that are using totally different models than we are that are already at 30, 40%. So it's possible to even do like higher than that.

But I think in general closer to like 20, maybe 28% like they're saying here is a little more realistic. And again, it's something that is gonna come with time guys. So if you're investing in your people in new systems in marketing and different things to make yourself better, that's the long-term payoff. It's like a delayed gratification, right? And sometimes that's how we're trained and programmed is like we want results right away.

You know, like social media, you put something in, you get a response right away. Like that's the world we live in right now guys. But it, if you can think long-term, have a long-term perspective on this and just remember as you're growing, yeah you might not be at 20% or 28% even margins right away. You might start out at three or 5%,

you know, you might move up to 10% and over time you're gonna get more profitable as you scale. There's something called economies of scale with business. So something like a bi, just an example of this, as we had more teams, instead of our teams driving across the city and spending 20, 30 minutes in on a trip to each house, we were able to district our teams down,

right? So with economies of scale, now they're driving three to five minutes to each house. And so now we could do more houses with more profit each day 'cause we had more time. And so that's just an example is as you grow, if you're growing a certain weight and even if you're being aggressive, you can definitely build with more volume, you can build inefficiencies and things like that that will make you more profitable.

Whereas in the beginning it might be a little more inefficient, right? But you gotta get past that hump and get past that first breaking point in your business and then implement new systems and become more profitable. So yeah, I think that's really a good goal. We're still shooting for it Brandon. We're on our way. Yeah. Wanna know why most cleaning business owners fail or get stuck systems?

When you don't have the right systems in place for hiring, training, marketing, all of the day-to-day essentials, then your business gets jammed. And without the right systems it's impossible to keep moving forward. If you're ready to add smart proven systems to your cleaning business so that you can join the top 1% of cleaning business owners, head over to our free Facebook group now and watch the masterclass pinned to the top of the group.

Just search top 1% cleaning business owner club, find our faces and watch the free class to learn exactly how we took our business from zero to seven figures in just three years. The other one I want to talk about on there too was number two, which was Airbnb hosting at 40% profit margin. We've talked about Airbnb many times in the past. It's kind of tricky to service Airbnb from a recurring cleaning standpoint 'cause the schedule's quite erratic.

But we've also talked about potentially getting like dedicated division or team that would just do Airbnb cleaning. And one of the things that we have benefited from is that Brandon and I do manage an Airbnb. It's a friend of mine, we kind of did it as a pilot program. And so we deal with the booking questions and the scheduling and setting the prices and all that stuff as kind of an educational experiment there.

But also because we own the cleaning company, we have an easy in with with the owners 'cause we're them to get the cleaning scheduled. So I think one of the hardest parts that I've heard from people hosting Airbnb is that finding the reliable cleaner to do it is hard. So if you're doing it yourself more power to you, you're gonna get a bigger profit margin off that Airbnb thing.

But if you're trying to find someone to do it, I think it's pretty hard to get a reliable person in the door. So if you already own a cleaning company or are considering starting one, then there's an easy pivot in there. Or you could also get an Airbnb going with built-in cleaning from you. And so that's what we have done and that has worked very well.

The profit margin on the Airbnb is silly. People have asked us why we don't open more. It's a pain man. Doing the Airbnb thing is not easy. There are constant questions all the time from people and it's enough with one that we're tolerating it, it's fine. We're doing my friend, we're helping my friend out who you know, moved outta state to get a PhD.

And so if you can pull it off, I think it would be interesting. And then I know that we've had customers in the past that scaled Airbnb and they have multiple properties and we were their go-to for a while and then at some point they outgrew us and they just hired their own in-house cleaner. So they are effectively doing that. But instead of being a cleaning company that does Airbnb,

they are an Airbnb company that does in-house cleaning. So they're getting both sides of the pie. Yeah, absolutely. I love that too because it's like we definitely have experimented with the Airbnb model. I think it's a great business model that's still set to grow a lot. But as you saw there in that article, Brendan, it was 40% profit margin.

So it's pretty high profit margins. But if you consider if you're doing the cleaning, you have a cleaning business, that margin goes up pretty significantly. 'cause cleaning is a huge part of your margins because that's a huge cost, you know, on everybody when you're turning those properties over. So just something to think about. I think there's an even like,

we're not gonna teach a whole class on Airbnbs here, but there's something called Airbnb arbitrage where you can take over properties without buying 'em. You can lease 'em and then you can sublet 'em out basically to Airbnb and do it that way. So there's lots of ways you can do this guys that we're not saying that you have to start an Airbnb business, but we're just thinking it saying it's interesting that you could couple this together and create almost a,

you know, an even more profitable version of a unique hybrid of this business. Because one of the biggest things in Airbnbs is the turnover, the cleaning. And again, this is something like we've mentioned that is a harder system to dial in. If we were really going all in on this model, we would definitely have probably just like we do with the cleaning business,

like a virtual assistant, someone that's running those questions day to day. So we're creating a system more around it. So we're not doing all that. But anyways, guys, just wanted to like inspire you guys to show you, 'cause a lot of you guys do ask, ask about Airbnbs. It is a great business model, but again, cleaning is there is right there alongside it.

There's so much demand for both of these businesses. I, I was just in a, a little mountain town this weekend or this past week and everyone was like, Hey we can't find anyone to do any cleaning up here. You know, and I was like, we own a cleaning company that we don't service this area. But it's the same thing if you have areas where there's vacation rentals,

really any area in general, like people have a hard time finding good cleaners, but especially in more remote areas and vacation rental areas. So great opportunity there to potentially pivot into both of those business models if you haven't already. But yeah, I think that's interesting to look at it and I think we're gonna continue pushing forward on, on our business with the cleaning business being our main focus.

And we'll keep you guys updated on the Airbnb stuff, but you know, we're gonna keep pushing towards getting to that 28% margin. I don't know if we'll get 28%, but I think we'll get pretty close. I Mean 28% would be Fantastic, especially At scale. But it just seems, yeah, it seems far away. You know what I mean?

Like, not that we can't get there, it's a big hairy, audacious goal and lots of things seemed far away when we started the company and we're way better off than when we were then. Sure. So it's totally possible, but it's very true. 28% would seem to me like, man, we're like cutting things of the bone. Like you're being so brutally efficient that it might be miserable to work there.

You know what I mean? Like we're using cheap cleaning supplies, we're providing cheap uniforms or no uniforms, we don't have a building, we're running it. You know, like there's ways that we could be trimming things, but part of our promise to our employees is that it's a fun caring place to work. That's one of our core values. And you know,

you can't do that if you're trying to spend the minimum amount on rent and the minimum amount on uniforms. So there's a balance in there. And again, this goes back to your goals. So if the goal is to just get it as profitable as possible, then just design it from the ground up with that 28% in target and see how you can get there.

We didn't do that. We designed it to scale like that was the goal is to just be bigger and better than every other cleaning company. And I think by and large we have succeeded. Absolutely guys. And it's, as you can see, it's not always about just the number or the, at the end of the day, it's not just about,

you know, making a certain amount of money or having a certain amount of customers. What's really more important is what's the impact you're creating? Is your life getting better? Like that's why you started this business in the first place, right? That's why we start businesses is to ultimately get freedom. I think it creates so much impact and value that you can also set yourself free and it creates something that runs without you.

And so I remember, you know, certain times looking back at our profit loss with John and different things, like we've definitely had certain months where we are a lot more profitable. I think it was in the closer to that 20% upwards range. Yeah. But it's not always that it ebbs and flows, it goes back and forth because certain months we have a lot more to invest in certain months we have higher,

you know, more marketing or more things or we have to buy another car or whatever it is. So certain months it doesn't look like that and it averages out lower. But again, if you're in rapid growth mode, those margins are gonna be less. So don't beat yourself up and be hard on yourself 'cause you're at 10% or 50% margins. Like that's fine if you're growing,

if you're in rapid growth mode and trying to be a hockey stick and get lots of customers and grow fast, you're gonna be reinvesting a lot. Those numbers are gonna be small in the beginning, but I think that's a cool, just a, a note to see like the potential there. That's where they're, they're gauging the market at 28%. So that's,

that's what's possible on average. And I think everybody should be shooting for that goal or something close to it. But again, I don't think what you mentioned Brandon was really important, like don't lose quality and the sustainability and the long-term vision of what you're doing just to hit a, a number goal, right? Because ultimately the values and inefficiencies, sometimes the things you're gonna do that costs a little bit more money or time are gonna what be what keeps people around and keeps loyalty and keeps your brand the story that people talk about.

And because you're doing something that's remarkable. So just remember that you know, good things take time and if it takes you five or 10 years to build a really solid brand and then get to those profit margins because you're reinvesting so much, that's fine too. And that's kind of like the track we're on. But at the end of the day, we don't look at just the numbers.

We're looking at are we making progress? Are we making an impact? Are we growing? You know, and if we're doing those things right and we're happy, we're delivering happiness to our customers, we're making delivering that value, I think that's what really matters at the end of the day. But just some, some numbers to inspire you guys. And also just a reminder of how awesome this business is.

Top five businesses in the country to start, right? Yeah. Most profitable. So yeah, so that was pretty cool to see. So I mean, it makes me feel like we're on the right track. And you guys listening should also feel excited about it too. 'cause you too are on the right track. The podcast is called Profit Cleaners. This was an episode to talk about that.

So you are hopefully working your way towards that 28% or maybe you're above it. If you're above it, you should hit us up at hello about Profit Cleaners dot com. We'd love to learn from you and put you out on the podcast to see yeah, just what is going on there because it sounds interesting. I'd, I'd love to get to 20%.

Yeah, absolutely. We love learning just, and we wanna be there with you guys and we're in the business with you and we're all getting better together. So like Brandon said, send us a win, send us what you're doing if you're getting to those profit margins and we'd love to hear what you're doing. Have you on the podcast, hello at Profit Cleaners dot com.

And yeah, I think, you know, just again, a fun reminder guys, that when Brandon and I started this business, we did not see this article and be like, wow, we gotta start this cleaning business. It's the most profitable. We did a lot of thinking about it, did a lot of research. We didn't know it was,

I don't even think we knew it was, it was as great of a business as we know now. But I think the truth is there's a lot of businesses out there you can start. Don't just start a business for profit, but if you do start the cleaning business, know that it is profitable. Know that it's a great sustainable, long-term market.

It's growing. And sometimes that's where the money is, is just solving a problem. Sometimes it's boring, but you can make cleaning sexy, you can make it fun again. And that's what it's all about. So yeah, reach out to us if you've got some ideas on making your business more profitable. We'll keep sharing more episodes and things to share with you guys,

how we're making our business more profitable and how we're growing. If you guys are getting value out of the show, tell 'em what they need to do. Brandon, give Us a review. Wherever a fee, wherever, wherever you are listening to your podcast, leave us a review. That is the best way to tell us thanks. Alternatively, if you know someone who owns a cleaning business that might benefit from listening to two dudes talk about cleaning businesses,

by all means. But alternatively, as we've shown today, maybe you just know someone who's itching to start any business and they're in part of that search today would be a good episode to send them because there are lots of businesses on that list in the show notes that they could check out. Absolutely, guys. So yeah, regardless, help us out if value,

if, if we made you think something new, if we inspired you, whatever it made you laugh, made you cry, whatever it is, like please help us out, share the show out, share it to somebody else, you know, subscribe to the show, leave us a review. That'd be huge. And yeah, if you guys haven't already hopped on a call with us,

check out the masterclass. We have a whole masterclass where we talk about the cleaning business, our story, how we scaled it to, you know, seven figures in less than three years. So please check that out, Profit Cleaners dot com slash masterclass and we'll book a call. We'll strategize with your business, help you guys out. I think that's pretty much it for the show,

Brandon, in the meantime, Keep it clean. Keep It clean. Thanks for joining us today. To get more info, including show notes, updates, trainings, and super cool free stuff, head over to Profit Cleaners dot com and remember, keep it clean.