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Your break-even point is the amount of income you must generate each month in order to cover your expenses. Your initial budget should cover your income and expenses only. In the beginning, there is no work, so no salaries have to be paid. Once you need staff, remember to budget for training sessions.

Work backwards from what you know to arrive at a useful figure. Take the total expenses from each month in the chart that you have worked out and multiply it by ten. This is a quick rule of thumb that is surprisingly accurate. You can also elect to pay staff monthly, holding the first month back to ensure that income is received prior to expenses incurred by staffing.

You need to know if your plans are reasonable. By adjusting your costs and the other things you need to run your business, you will get an idea of what works and what does not. Ask yourself the following questions:

(a) Are there enough homes in my area to support my plan?

(b) What do other business owners think about what I propose to do?

(c) Can I compete with the cleaning services that are already outthere?

You won’t have a clear yes or no answer to all of these questions, but when you weigh your break-even numbers against them, you’ll see where the flaws are in your thinking. Or you may be able to take comfort from knowing that the numbers show that you have a wide margin of error before you have to worry.

Your break-even point should be at approximately two months, when the full impact of your advertising campaign has taken root. Then the company should continue to grow. Effective advertising and advertising strategy is discussed in further detail in Chapter 5.