Learning how to start a beer line cleaning business is simple. The difficult part is executing it efficiently and acquiring as many clients as possible. In this informational guide, I will walk you through the exact steps required to start a beer line cleaning business from scratch. Alongside, I will also talk about the finances and pros/cons of starting a beer line cleaning business.
Industry Overview
The global cleaning industry reached a valuation of a whopping $57.9 billion in 2020. Moreover, the global bars and cafes market is expected to grow from $335.55 billion in 2020 to $403.8 billion in 2021. Everyone who operates bars, pubs, or restaurants with a beer dispense system should regularly clean their lines. Each type of beer has its own distinct taste, scent, and color. If contaminants like yeast, bacteria, mold, and beer stone are allowed to establish on these lines then they will ruin the beer. This issue creates a unique business opportunity where a business can provide the service that regularly cleans and maintains the beer lines. Also one of the advantages of this cleaning business is that the beer line needs regular cleaning and maintenance. This lets your business generate revenue month in month out even with a low volume of clients.
Equipment & expertise needed to start a beer line cleaning business
In order to start a beer line cleaning business, you do not need a degree. However, understanding how the beer dispenser system works is really important. Although certain states have specific guidelines for the frequency of cleaning the beer line system, it is wise to follow the following ground rules:
- Every Two Weeks: Clean the beer lines at least once every two weeks with an alkaline detergent cleaner or beer line cleaning solutions. Make sure you disassemble and clean the faucets as well.
- Quarterly: Perform an acid cleaning to break down and wash away beer stone (Calcium Oxalate). Beer stone is formed from a chemical reaction of Oxalic Acid (produced during the brewing process) and calcium.
- Yearly: Make sure the Vinyl jumpers and vinyl direct draw lines are replaced yearly.
- As Required: Check, clean, and replace couples, bottom seals, and O-rings.
Bear in mind, you must wear safety equipment while cleaning the beer lines. This helps to avoid any complications associated with your cleaning chemicals. Also, make sure that you read any safety hazard information that the manufacturer provides. As far as the cleaning products go, soap and water are not going to cut it. To be sure that your beer lines are well sanitized and there is no health hazard, you’ll need to get the cleaning chemicals made for specifically this purpose.
Furthermore, you will also need tools depending on the type of line cleaning you will be doing.
For small bars, pressurized cleaning is more than enough. As pressurized cleaning tools, you’ll need :
For bigger bars and pubs, you need to perform a recirculating cleaning. This type of cleaning uses more advanced tools like a motorized recirculating line cleaning pump. A wrench and cleaning brush would also be needed for disassembly and faucet cleaning.
You can also go for beer line cleaning kits. They will include everything you’ll need in order to clean beer lines.
Pros and cons of a beer line cleaning business
The beer line cleaning service is more of a necessity for bars and restaurants. As long as there are bars, pubs, and restaurants, beer line cleaners will always have work, unless of course, cleaning robots take over all the cleaning work. There are a lot of pros and cons to starting a beer line cleaning business. I have compiled and presented them below so you can evaluate whether starting a cleaning business is worth it for you.
| Pros | Cons |
| 1. Very Low Startup Costs | 1. Highly Competitive |
| 2. Low Barrier to Entry | 2. Tough Physical Work |
| 3. Highly Scalable | 3. Stressful |
| 4. Marketing is cheap | 4. Competing on pricing |
When you look at the table above, you can clearly see that the pros outweigh the cons. Every industry will have its own disadvantages, but when you compare both the pros and the cons, I would highly recommend you start a beer line cleaning business. I have personally grown many of my client’s cleaning businesses from a few thousand of dollars to $100k per month within a matter of a few years.
Beer line cleaning business not for you? I have listed some other lucrative business ideas below:
- Leggings Business
- Activewear Business
- Delivery Routes Business
- Blinds Installation Business
- Dropservicing Business
Buying an existing business v/s starting from scratch
The biggest advantage of buying an existing beer line cleaning business is that it comes packaged with accounts, employees, and clients. Think about it, when you start your own business from scratch you will not only have to start from zero but also actively try to acquire more clients and hire employees.
However, on other hand, it may be a good thing. Starting a beer line cleaning business from scratch is a learning process. It helps you understand the basics of this business model, which benefits you massively during the scaling phase.
Yet another option is franchising a beer line cleaning business. The total franchise fee for a popular beer line cleaning business is around $20,000. The franchise fee will include your own huge, protected territory, a training package, a full equipment pack, a marketing launch, and full ongoing support.
Startup costs in order to start a beer line cleaning business
In order to start a beer line cleaning business from scratch, you will need at least $2500. Bear in mind, the startup costs hugely depend on the scale of your cleaning business. If you want to operate your beer line cleaning business on a small scale $2500-$3000 will take you a long way whereas if you want to target the bigger fish in the river, you’d certainly need to splash a lot of cash on branding and marketing your business. The most basic cost breakdown for starting a beer line cleaning business is as follows:
- Equipment and Tools -> $500 – $800
- Business Website -> $500
- Marketing & Advertising -> $1000
- Misc. -> $500
7 Steps To Start A Beer Line Cleaning Business
With the basic overview of the beer line cleaning business out of the way, let’s talk about the exact 6 steps you need to take in order to start your own beer line cleaning business from scratch.
1. Drafting a Business plan
Perhaps, one of the most important steps in operating a service-oriented business is preparing a business plan. Without an actionable business plan, you will be flying in dark. Your business plan should detail your goals and ambitions as the business owner and addresses the necessary steps to be taken to achieve those goals. Some of the key points to include in your business plan are budgeting, market research, target demographics, pricing strategy, and marketing ideas.
If you are having difficulty writing a business plan for your business, SBA has a great resource to help small businesses write their business plan.
2. Registering your Business
Registering your business helps to authenticate your business as a legal entity. It is crucial while acquiring new clients, filing taxes, or even opening a business bank account. One of the most basic, yet powerful, business structure to register your beer line cleaning business is as an LLC. It stands for Limited Liability Company and as the name suggests, it protects your personal assets. It also unlocks the ability for you to open bank accounts, enter into contracts, hire employees, and get business licenses and permits.
Starting an LLC is really simple through LegalZoom. Their pricing plans start at just $79 (plus filing fees), and you can add more services as you go.
Once you register your business, the next step is getting an EIN through the IRS website. An EIN is a unique 9-digit number assigned by IRS to your business. This number helps the government to identify your business as a tax-paying entity.
3. Hiring Employees
You may not have to worry about hiring employees when starting out. However, if your beer line cleaning business takes off and you want to scale it quickly, having an employee hiring strategy is a good idea. Here are some of the most important traits to look for while hiring your employees.
- Friendliness
- Trustworthiness
- Previous Cleaning Experience
- Reliability
- Dedication
In order to advertise your job posting, you can rely on these networks:
- Your Website
- Social Media Pages
- Craigslist
- Indeed
Furthermore, you can follow my favorite 5-step hiring process to hire employees for your beer line cleaning business.
Step-1: Review your Applicants
Step-2: Set up Initial Interviews or Screening
Step-3: The Interview
Step-4: Background and Reference Checks
Step-5: Job Offer
4. Creating a Digital Presence
Prior to marketing a beer line cleaning business, you must make sure there is a digital presence associated with your business. In order to drive traffic to your business through digital marketing, you must have a business website. Creating a simple business website is not that difficult. However, if you have zero design or technical knowledge in this field, you may feel like being in strange territory.
If you have the capability of creating a website by yourself, I would highly recommend going with Bluehost as your hosting partner. The best thing about Bluehost, is they offer shared hosting plans starting from just $2.95/mo. Moreover, you will get a free domain name if you go with a 12-month plan. You couldn’t ask for anything more.
If you would like to hire someone to design a professional website for your beer line cleaning business, please contact us. Our $499 digital package comes with all the digital necessities for your business including a website, a professionally designed logo, SEO service, digital marketing services, and a lot more. Even better, all our packages come with unlimited edits and lifetime support. Contact us today to get this deal.
We will make sure we take care of your digital presence so that you can solely focus on your business and acquire new clients.
5. Marketing your Business
The success of your beer line cleaning business will massively depend upon your marketing strategy. There are plenty of opportunities out there with so many bars and restaurants with owners willing to pay someone else to clean their beer lines regularly. The only catch is having a marketing strategy that turns potential customers into paying clients.
Here are a few effective marketing strategies to promote your beer line cleaning business:
I. Distribute Flyers
Bars are constantly looking for line cleaners — you just need these businesses to know about your service. That’s why flyers are particularly effective for your type of business. You can distribute them to the local bars and restaurants. It would also be better to post them in the community center or anywhere with a notice board.
II. Get Social
Social media (like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter) is a great place to reach businesses and promote your beer line cleaning business. Moreover, you can use it to keep your current customers up-to-date, or as a tool for attracting new clients. Before and after pictures can have a serious impact when you market your cleaning business so make sure to add them to your portfolio.
III. Create An Affiliate Program
Lots of business is likely to come your way through word of mouth. To give customers an incentive to recommend you to their friends and family, consider creating an affiliate program that rewards each successful referral.
IV. Digital Marketing
Digital marketing for cleaning businesses, with its ability to target audiences within a certain demographic and region, can be an excellent tool for your business. You may want to consider running paid ads through services such as Facebook Ads, Yelp, or Google AdWords.
Bear in mind, in order to use digital marketing, you will need to have a business website for customers to see when they click on your ad. You can easily create a small business website yourself, or again, use our $499 digital package. Contact us today for a great deal on your business website.
7. Acquiring your First Client
The hardest part of the beer line cleaning business is convincing most business owners why they need to clean their lines; most think it’s not needed. The next challenge is finding good beer-centric places that aren’t actually contracted with someone already or that don’t do it themselves already. Once these two puzzle pieces are in place, you can contact the business owner and offer him the ‘free draft consultations’.
After the free consultation is over, make sure to be really transparent with the business and focus on the key points on why the lines need to be cleaned. Offer the client your best quote and a business card. Also, make sure, your business card has the name, logo, website, and social media accounts of your business clearly visible.
