Are you tired yet of all the books out there telling you how easy it is to start a house cleaning business? I'm not inferring that all their information is bad, but let's be honest about how "easy" it really is.
There's a dirty little secret hanging over the cleaning
trade that nobody talks about, but every professional
cleaner runs into. And unfortunately, if you buy one of the
books on how to start your own cleaning business, they
won't tell you about this issue and probably don't even
know it exists. Why don't they know it exists? Because the
book was more than likely written by a business
professional and not a cleaning professional.
To share the responsibility, I'll be honest and reveal that
even the professional cleaners don't talk about this issue.
And I can't figure out why; are they in denial, do they
decide to just ignore it or are they resolved to keeping
their place in society?
What's the dirty little secret that nobody talks about? The
issue is that most of the customers that pay people to
clean their house think you are cleaning because you can't
do anything else and automatically think you will work for
pennies.
OK - I said it. Now it's out there because I think this is
an important issue that people should know before they
start a cleaning business. And it's also important for the
people that are currently cleaning to acknowledge that it
exists and know there is a way around the issue.
And once you know about it, you shouldn't let it deter you
from building your business; just know how to handle the
issue for success.
I know a lot about this issue because I started my own
house cleaning business and grew it into a company with
teams of employees. And I didn't just start the business
and immediately hire the employees to do the cleaning. I
started the business and did the cleaning myself.
I had been self employed in the computer industry doing
software design and development consulting for large
corporations. This is a stress-filled career because you're on-call 24/7, must fix software problems immediately, and you have project deadlines to meet. After doing this for 18 years, I was burnt out and needed a change.
I started the house cleaning business because I always had
my house cleaned by professionals. And I wasn't happy with
the quality of the work. I definitely knew what customers
wanted and knew I could build my business based on that.
With my business and technical background, I had no problem
preparing the advertising and bidding on jobs. In fact, I
landed 98% of the jobs I estimated. When I showed up to do
the cleaning, I got a whole different reaction from my new
client than when we met for the estimate.
Suddenly, they thought I needed supervision while cleaning.
They also thought they could ask and get more work done for
the original quote I gave them. And imagine my surprise
when they started telling me what I was going to clean on
their next appointment!
I had always treated the people cleaning for me with
professional respect. So it took me a while and a few
customers to figure out what was going on and why.
Obviously, other cleaners working alone would fall into this
trap and the customer got their way.
I snapped out of my obvious surprised stupor, dug in my
heels and ran my business as I had planned it. I learned
that when I estimated a job, the customer had to decide if
they wanted what my business offered and I also had to
decide if I wanted to clean for this prospect.
I used professional, custom business forms that I designed
and always required new customers to sign a Service
Agreement. It was up to me to decide if I wanted to bend my
rules, not up to the customer to demand that I bend them.
And you know what happened? My business kept growing, the
referrals kept coming in and this dirty little secret no
longer affected me.
I truly believe that every house cleaner can earn a
full-time income and enjoy the cleaning trade by knowing
what to expect before they get into a business they may not
be fully prepared for.
Gail Metcalf built her cleaning business from the ground up.
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