Barrier to Scaling Up a Commercial Cleaning Company

The 3 common bottleneck and how to fix them

Author

Etienne Duchaine
February 27, 2025

Hello Friends,

Scaling a commercial cleaning business isn’t as simple as “getting more clients.” At some point, you’ll hit a wall—a bottleneck that stops you from growing further.

After scaling from 0 to $6M+, I’ve seen three main reasons why cleaning businesses get stuck:

The 3 Most Common Bottlenecks

  1. Leadership – You can’t scale alone.

  2. Scalable Infrastructure (Systems) – Growth breaks weak systems.

  3. Marketing – If you don’t have a way to attract clients, you won’t grow.

Let’s break it down.

1. Leadership: Build Your Future Team Now

The bigger your business gets, the more critical leadership becomes. You need to start thinking ahead:

  • Identify the next key leadership position you’ll need.

  • Define the role and responsibilities before you feel the pain of not having it.

  • Start looking before you actually need it—good leaders aren’t found overnight.

📖 Recommended Reads: The E-Myth & Buy Back Your Time.

2. Scalable Infrastructure: Systems Are Your Growth Engine

If your business needs you to function, it’s not scalable. You should constantly be:

  • Identifying bottlenecks and optimizing.

  • Investing in IT, automation, and systems that allow you to grow without breaking.

For example, we spend $4K per month on subcontracted business intelligence and dev. We’ve been doing this for years, and because of it, I’m confident we could scale from $6M to $12M+ without changing a thing. That’s what real scalability looks like.

3. Marketing: Define Your ICP & Build a Lead Machine

Most owners think they have a marketing problem, but in reality, they don’t even know who they should be targeting.

  • Step 1: Define your Ideal Client Profile (ICP)—Who are they? What do they need?

  • Step 2: Build a system that attracts & reaches them consistently.

And that’s where I can help.

Need Help with Marketing? Let’s Fix That.

Happy to say that I have someone that joined my team for our Marketing service. That why we just opened 4 more spots for my Done For You Cold Email service.

We’ll set up the exact system we used last year to close $350K in ARR with a 69X ROI.

(Cold email is cheap as f*ck.)

If you’re ready to get consistent commercial cleaning leads, reply "Cold Email", and I’ll send you the details.

Cheers,

Etiene