How to Start an Airbnb Cleaning Business

We spoke with Logan Robison, the owner of Bonnie & A Broom , an Arkansas-based residential cleaning business focused on Airbnb properties.

In my conversation with Logan, we discussed his unlikely path to ownership, the differences between residential and Airbnb cleaning, how to hire great talent, and more.

The 10 Key Takeaways

Below are the 10 most essential insights from our conversation with Logan that you can apply to your home services business.

1. Using Undercover Billionaire as inspiration

Bonnie & A Broom doesn’t have a traditional “two guys in a garage” founding story. While watching the show Undercover Billionaire with his brother-in-law, Logan hatched the idea of doing a competition similar to the show.

While Logan and his friends were excited about the competition, the first five weeks were unproductive for the entire group. Being competitive by nature and intensely wanting to win, Logan followed a Tweet explaining how to start a cleaning company. By following these steps, he made $500 and won the competition.

“No one made any money after the first five weeks, but I still wanted to win. I saw a Tweet laying out the step-by-step process of starting a cleaning company, and in the last week of the competition, I decided to follow this plan. I set up a website and landed a $500 job two days later and won the competition. I thought, “holy cow, it took me two days to make $500 in revenue. It looks like I have a business.” One year later, we did $100k in revenue.”

— Logan Robison (@loginarobison)

2. How to start an Airbnb cleaning service

Logan breaks down his process behind starting Bonnie & A Broom into two simple steps:

Find cleaners via Facebook Groups

Message hosts on Airbnb

Logan went to Facebook Groups for short-term rental owners when he needed to find cleaners to service his first $500 job during the competition.

After he leveraged the Facebook Groups to get commitments from a few cleaners, he started messaging hosts via Airbnb to find his first customers.

“You’re going to make a lot of people mad with this, and I don’t do it today, but you have to get your foot in the door somehow, and this is how I did it. Go on Airbnb, look at all the houses in your area, and request to book reservations there. You’re not booking a reservation; your goal is to message the host saying that you’re starting a cleaning business and want to give them a quote. If you do this a few hundred times, most of them will cuss you out, but a few will listen, and you can get your first customers.”

— Logan Robison (@loginarobison)

3. Finding marketing channels that perform

Logan succeeded in finding cleaners via Facebook Groups and getting customers via Airbnb. Still, he knew he needed to expand his marketing channels to grow his business.

Logan tried Facebook Ads, Google Search Ads, yard signs, and more. The channel that worked best for him was Google Local Serviced Ads. While they’ve become costly today, they were Bonnie & A Broom’s growth engine for a long time.

Logan follows a simple process to convert his Google Local Service ads into paying customers.

“Our process from lead to job is simple. We get a call from Google Local Service Ads, quote them, collect payment information, book the cleaning, send the cleaners out with a checklist, and charge the customer once it’s done. It’s not easy, but it’s simple.”

— Logan Robison (@loginarobison)

4. Sharing is caring

In addition to digital channels like Google and Facebook, Logan found sharing his business with friends and colleagues was a great way to grow.

Logan has noticed that other entrepreneurs hesitate to share their business with their network and may miss opportunities to get more customers as a result.

“Many early-stage entrepreneurs are afraid to tell people they’re starting a business. They don’t talk about it. When I was starting it, I told a friend about Bonnie & A Broom, and that friend overheard a co-worker saying that they needed a cleaning service. Shortly after, that co-worker became one of my customers. My first customers came from friends like this. It’s not rocket science; tell people about your business.”

— Logan Robison (@loginarobison)

5. Pivoting from residential to Airbnb cleaning

Bonnie & A Broom specializes in cleaning Airbnbs today, but the company initially started doing residential cleanings and other odd jobs.

After analyzing his customer base, Logan realized that his most prominent customers were all Airbnbs, and his best cleaners had experience cleaning Airbnbs. This segment could be an excellent place for his company to focus.

By focusing on one niche, Logan knew his company could build a brand and reputation for being great at one specific service instead of never having an identity.

“I asked myself, “What do we want to be known for?” I looked at our best cleaners; they all have extensive experience cleaning Airbnbs. Then, I looked at my customers on a spreadsheet, and sure enough, my highest-paying customers were Airbnbs. I decided we would only do Airbnb cleans moving forward and stopped accepting every other type of job. It’s been an excellent decision for us, mainly because we are starting to be known as the go-to Airbnb cleaning company.”

— Logan Robison (@loginarobison)

6. The difference between residential and Airbnb

While both jobs are cleaning homes, residential and Airbnb are very different businesses.

Residential cleaning is a more transactional business-to-consumer service.

AirBnb cleaning is a business-to-business service with a higher quality bar. It requires long-term relationships with other business owners.

Logan approaches the sales process with Airbnb owners much differently than residential homeowners. Logan focuses on building trust and a relationship with the owner to create a strong foundation for future business.

“When we get calls for Airbnb cleaning, we build relationships and trust before anything else. We visit their property, look at their listing, and get to know the property so that we can tailor our offering to that specific Airbnb. There’s more at stake with an Airbnb clean, so the sales process takes longer. We usually service residential customers twice per month, but with Airbnb customers, we might clean their property twice per week, so the relationship is much more important.”

— Logan Robison (@loginarobison)

7. How to price Airbnb cleanings

Cleaning a luxury Airbnb presents different challenges than cleaning a home. Guests entering the Airbnb expect the house to look immaculate, and anything that indicates another guest recently left can make them unhappy.

Logan must price his services to promptly deliver a deep clean multiple times weekly. Logan is responsible for cleaning the home, doing the laundry, refilling supplies, and ensuring the house looks perfect when the new guests arrive.

Does Airbnb sound too intense? Start with residential cleaning. Read The Workbench interview with Liam Kircher, who started a remote residential cleaning business. theworkbench.beehiiv.com/p/start-remote-cleaning-company

Read The Workbench interview with Liam Kircher, who started a remote residential cleaning business.

theworkbench.beehiiv.com/p/start-remote-cleaning-company

“We’re typically cleaning higher-end Airbnbs. We charge per square foot and have a $150 minimum. Our lowest cost per square foot is $0.85 / square foot for a really big house. We’re telling the Airbnb owner that if you want us to come in, turn over this property, do all the laundry, refill all the supplies, and make it look like nobody else has ever stepped foot in this house, this will be the price.”

— Logan Robison (@loginarobison)

8. How to hire great cleaners

Since Logan is cleaning high-end properties, he needs to hire high-quality cleaners, and, as we all know, great talent isn’t cheap. Logan does a few things to ensure he gets the best talent:

Puts candidates through a thorough interview process

Look for candidates with professional cleaning experience

Pays top-of-market hourly rates

Give bonuses to show appreciation for great work

“These jobs are thankless, and cleaners do not receive much praise and only hear about problems when they occur. We give bonuses based on quality control checks. We make our cleaners feel valued and have a very low turnover. We’ve had the same core cleaning team since the beginning.”

— Logan Robison (@loginarobison)

9. Bonnie & A Broom’s tech stack

Logan has a background in finance, so he relies on Microsoft Excel for many of his business needs. In addition to Excel, he uses three other tools to run Bonnie & A Broom:

BookingKoala

OpenPhone

Breezeway

“My website is hosted on BookingKoala. I use an Excel sheet to calculate pricing and also use Excel as my CRM. I used OpenPhone for my phone, which is awesome. They have an automatic reply feature in case I miss a call or we’re closed. My software to manage Airbnb clients is called Breezeway. It’s made for property management companies, but I use it to create checklists and schedule cleans. It integrates with the Airbnb calendar, so I love it.”

— Logan Robison (@loginarobison)

10. Advice for starting a Airbnb cleaning business

Logan says that new entrepreneurs should realize that every business, even his, has challenges and that there will always be a better time to start. So, you should start now. Please don’t wait until every problem is solved and everything is precisely how you want it to be (hint: this time will never come). The best thing you can do is get started.

“Every business has its issues. Airbnb cleaning is not the perfect business; it’s challenging. Regardless of the challenges, you must pick a lane and go as deep and far as possible. Everybody thinks they have to have it all figured out, and everything has to be perfect before they can start. They think the website, pricing, and offer have to be perfect. This is so far from the truth. I got my first customer two days after starting, and I had no idea how to price it, but it didn’t matter. I just started. People sit there spending weeks or months perfecting their website when all they need to do is start.”

— Logan Robison (@loginarobison)