Ask a House Cleaner, Things to You Need to Know, Savvy Cleaner

Things You Need to Know – House Cleaning Biz

Things you need to know before starting a house cleaning biz. We’ll cover that today on Ask a House Cleaner. Sure, you’ll want to market your cleaning business. But there are a few things you need to know before shelling out a bunch of cash. 

Angela Brown, The House Cleaning Guru gives cleaning advice, small business tips, and strategies. Things you need to know include maid service training, house cleaner training, and DIY cleaning.

Answers to your questions on startup and why maids quit and fail in today’s tutorials on being a savvy cleaner.

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Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer.

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Question: Things You Need to Know Before Starting a House Cleaning Biz

 Today’s question comes from a guy who’s getting ready to start a business. He’s got all his cleaning supplies in place. But, there’s this little thing in the back of his mind. “There are things to know before starting a house cleaning business, and I may not know all them. Is there anything else I’m forgetting?”

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Answer: Things You Need to Know Before Starting a House Cleaning Biz

Things you need to know before starting a house cleaning business are these. Yes, you do need cleaning supplies and you need clients. But beyond that, there’s a whole host of other things you need to know to be successful in business.

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Future Proofing Your Business

I encourage you to spend some time with a pen and paper, and sit down and try to think into the future. We’re going to call it “future proofing” your house cleaning business.

As you start your house cleaning business you’re going to have a lot of surprises that come up along the way. And you’re not going to be able to expect them because you’ve never been in the situations before.

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Predicting Needs

But there are some things you can surmise. If I sit down with a pen and paper and I start thinking in the future, I can predict some needs. For example, if I need customers, I will have to go out and bid jobs. If I am going out to bid jobs, I will need to I have people call me. For them to call me, I will have to do some kind of advertising or marketing. 

Make a List

things you need to know checklist

So you’ve got to make a list. What is your advertising and marketing plan? What is the process when you go to bid the job? Are people going to ask me questions? What kind of questions are they going to ask me? What kind of information do I need to have before those questions start coming in?

Practice!

things you need to know about a man cleaning his house

Then you need to decide, “I’m going to go clean a house. Do I have any cleaning experience?” If you don’t have cleaning experience you don’t want to go practice on your first customer. You will want to practice on your own house first so that when you get there you know what you’re doing, right?

Other Things to Consider

things you need to know about a contract

So there are a bunch of other things.

  • Am I going to work alone, or am I going to hire some folks?
  • If you hire people, what does that look like?
  • Are you going to hire a recruiter to hire those people for you?
  • Or are you going to hold interviews yourself?
  • Do you have interviewing skills to hire the right kinds of people?
  • If you’re going to be hiring people, what kind of questions are you going to ask them?
  • Do you already have a list of questions you’re going to ask new hires?
  • Then once you hire the people, how are you going to pay them? Do you have a payroll system in place?

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Things You Need to Know to Prevent Business Failure

There are a lot of people that jump into the house cleaning business. They used to work for somebody that cleaned houses and they didn’t like the way it was going. And they were like, “Hey, I can do a better job” and they just went and started their own business.

But here’s the catch. Most of the startup spinoffs fail because they didn’t future proof their business. They didn’t think through the different elements that were necessary to run the business. 

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So Stop and Think About Things You Need to Know

So we have to stop for just a second before we jump off that ledge, and say, “What are all the things I might run into?” and make a list of all those things. Make a list of what happens when things malfunction. Maybe you can solve some of these issues before they happen. 

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Come Up With Systems

things you need to know about problem solving

For example, what if I have an employee that calls in sick? I will have customers that are expecting for them to show up today and they will not show up. What am I going to do in this situation? I know this is going to happen. It’s preparing for the worst and expecting the best.

There are a bunch of scenarios that you can kind of walk through in your head, and say, “Wow, that’s a good question. I don’t have a system in place for that yet.” Then you need to make a note to create a system for that.

High-and-Mighty Attitudes Lead to Failure

Things you need to know about winging it

I have been in this business for a long time. I have hired and trained a lot of people and I have found that there are a lot of house cleaners have a high-and-mighty attitude. They think they can start their own business and do things better. 

Then guess what? They go out and they fail because there are so many facets of the business they’ve never considered. They don’t have any answers, they don’t even know what the questions are. So they go out there, and they struggle., they complain and they fail.

They spin their wheels, and they’re like, “Well I should run more advertising.” If you don’t have systems in place, all the advertising in the world isn’t going to do you any favors. All it’s going to do is bring more people to you that you won’t be able to close.

If you didn’t ask the right questions to hire the right people, you won’t be able to service these accounts. 

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Things You Need to Know Or You’ll Come Crawling Back

I find people that keep coming back going, “Can I work for you again? Because I tried it on my own and it didn’t work out.”

These are the things you need to know before you start a house cleaning business. Not everybody can be a business owner. So if you find that you’re already in business, and you’re not meant to be a  business owner, turn around and get out.

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Get Out Before It’s Too LateThings You Need to Know About Debt

If you are not a business owner, and you are not willing to future-proof your business – get out now. Because it’s going to be quicker to get out right now than it is to spin your wheels for a couple of years.  If you spin and spiral out of control, you’ll loose money and get into debt. So don’t wait until you get so far underwater that you can’t save yourself.

If you are not good at future casting or business planning or you are not good at following through on details, get out right now and go get a job. 

Because that way, at least you’ll have money coming in and you can still pay your bills. These are the things you need to know before you start a house cleaning business.

All right. So that’s my two cents for today, and until we meet again, leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.

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Resources For This Episode

How to Start Your Own House Cleaning Company: Go from start-up to payday in one week – http://amzn.to/2yyB1fO

The Little Black Book of Success: Laws of Leadership for Black Women – http://amzn.to/2yyG143

Jeffrey Gitomer’s Sales Bible: The Ultimate Sales Resource: Including The 10.5 Commandments of Sales Success – http://amzn.to/2yTV3CU

Sales: The Best 50 Sales Tips and Techniques for Non-Sellers You Wish You Knew: Easy and Proven Strategies to Increase Sales and Making Big Profits Even – http://amzn.to/2zlBM9p

Start Your Own Business, Sixth Edition: The Only Startup Book You’ll Ever Need – http://amzn.to/2yyAt9u

Starting a Business All-In-One for Dummies – http://amzn.to/2zketwF

LLC Quick Start Guide – The Simplified Beginner’s Guide to Limited Liability Companies – http://amzn.to/2xR5HKj

LLC vs. S-Corp vs. C-Corp Explained in 100 Pages or Less – http://amzn.to/2zxuvnT

Small Business Start-Up Kit, The: A Step-by-Step Legal Guide – http://amzn.to/2zkiQrI

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