Starting your own street-sweeping business can give you the professional and financial independence you want. A successful venture begins by developing an operations plan that is easy to market and maintain and, of course, having the right street-sweeping equipment to get every job done.

Know Your Audience

What kind of street-sweeping operation do you want to run? Will you focus exclusively on parking lots? Do you want to target certain communities or municipalities? You will develop your business by determining what services you will offer and where your services will be most in demand – and knowing your customer will inform the type of street sweeper you purchase.

Know Your Capabilities

Street sweeping isn’t only about cleaning, it’s about collecting litter too. Vacuum street sweepers suck up debris while cleaning, making for greater productivity. Multi-purpose machines handle large sweep paths, bumpy debris, or uneven surfaces, like cobblestone, brick, or patched roads.

You can choose equipment that manages urban cleaning challenges, navigating around bus shelters, benches, fire hydrants, and more to clean narrow alleys, sidewalks, bike lanes, public markets, alongside buildings, and pathways.

Street-sweeping machines are versatile, but some models are better suited for smaller, more intricate jobs while others are designed to manage large areas of roadway or pavement. You have to know what you want to sweep before you say yes to your equipment.

Know Your Hours

If you’re planning to make street sweeping your main source of income, it’s important to think about the kind of hours you plan to work. This type of road maintenance is not necessarily a nine-to-five job. After all, when do you see parking lots being cleaned? It doesn’t happen during business hours – it’s at night, after hours, when everyone has gone home and the place is deserted.

Make sure you’re prepared for the type of hours you will work, whether you’re servicing shopping malls, schools, arenas, amusement parks, industrial areas, or otherwise.

Know Your Price

You won’t be the only street sweeper in your area or target market. You want your pricing to be competitive, but you can’t afford for it to be so low that you can’t manage your expenses. You must spend money on your equipment, maintenance, insurance, and fuel. You’re also spending time – so you need to know how long it will take you to manage a certain area so you can decide if you’ll be selling your services by the hour or by the job.

Find out what kind of debris you’ll be dealing with, the exact measurements of the area to be swept, the frequency of the sweeps – will this be an everyday service, once a week, monthly, quarterly? Are there challenges with the terrain, like speed bumps or major landscaping?

Know your services, know your needs, then contact Bell Equipment, trusted Elgin Street Maintenance Sweeper dealer in Michigan, to discuss your business goals. Find out what machine is right for your operation.