423 Ask a House Cleaner, Best Advice, Savvy Cleaner

Best Advice I Ever Got I’ve Used for My Cleaning Business

“The best advice I ever got I used for my cleaning business. The counsel was accidental and the wisdom rare. The best advice I ever got came from a new car salesman whose questions got me thinking about my options and choices.”

Angela Brown, says the best advice for buying a car, became a question she uses daily. “I’ll always have my gut instinct, but if I’m to grow my cleaning company, I need to have choices.”

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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. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.

The Best Advice for Cleaning Business Owners

Best Advice woman meeting car salesman“What is the best advice you would give to cleaning business owners?”
Well, I’m not sure there’s one best piece of advice. There are several, but the first one that comes to my mind I learned when I went to buy a new car. When I bought my car I did not know a lot about negotiation. And I drove by the car dealership and I thought I’ll just stop because it doesn’t cost anything to stop and look. Right?
So I stopped and as I was looking at a car, I was greeted by a high pressured salesman. he encouraged me to take the car for a test drive. So I took this car for a test drive, and before you know it, I was inside his office and he was trying to wrap up the deal.
And I wasn’t quite ready to buy it. I wasn’t sure if I was going to sell my existing car or if I was going to trade it in. I wasn’t sure what I could afford on a monthly basis.
Instead of taking what I needed into consideration, he took into consideration what he needed and he needed a sale for the day.
As I sat in his office he said, “Well, what are your options if you don’t buy this car?” And I started thinking about that. And I thought, “Wait a second. I do have other options. I’m going to leave right now and I’m going to go home and I’m going to think about my other options.”

What Are Your Other Options as a Cleaning Business Owner

Best Advice car salesman trying to close deal in his officeOne of the very best pieces of advice I could give a new business owner is what are your other options. Look at all your options together.
There are times in house cleaning that we’re face to face with a customer who’s unhappy with our work. And we want to fire them and never see them again.
Or we have employees that are being belligerent and they’re making our lives miserable. And we want to fire them and move on. You have to think about your other options.

Look for Three Other Options

Best Advice woman looking at paperWhat are your other options? Always look for three because the first one that you have might be a gut instinct. It might be a gut reaction. You don’t always want to “go with your gut.”
If you think of a second one, it might be the polar opposite. It might be, “Well, I could not fire them at all and I could just let them walk all over the top of me, or they might be a happy medium somewhere between.”
There are always more options. And when you are aware of your options, then you have choices. Because you could still fire the person or you could still fire the client but you might decide to do something different instead.

You Can Always Follow Your Gut Reaction

Why I Don't Clean My Own House, Woman Talking to TherapistOftentimes, my gut instinct guides me. But before I make a decision, I sit down and I look at the different options that are available to me.
But I can always go back to my gut instinct. I can always follow that gut reaction.
But instead of reacting to it, try to resolve this first with them. I can always come back and fire this person or customer the right way at a later date if need be. And so I have other options.

House Cleaning Business Owners Have to Listen to Their Gut in a Controlled Way

Best Advice writing on notebook close upMy best piece of advice to cleaning business owners would be, do listen to your gut and do follow your instincts but not hastily.
There are times in this business where it’s easier to try to mend a broken fence than it is to try to replace it. You can fix a broken work relationship too.
And by that I mean if you have something that has gone awry, whose fault is it? And if it’s your fault and you can fix it and you can correct it, then you’ve saved the customer and you save the day.

Stop and Look at Your Other Options Before Acting

Best Advice group of people isolatedThere are a lot of customers over the course of my career I wished I would have fired. But as times went on, we were able to work things out, our relationship became stronger and they became my friends.
I could have let them all go. So, there are times in business where you’re going to want to “Ah!” And get rid of everything but don’t do it yet.
Stop and look at your other options because when you’re aware of your options, then you have choices.

000 Savvy Cleaner Spacer Bar 2020*** Resources From This Episode ***

Badass Women Give the Best Advice: Everything You Need to Know About Love and Life – https://amzn.to/2MErZqc

My Best Advice: Proven Rules for Effective Leadership – https://amzn.to/2N66YUE

I Hear You: The Surprisingly Simple Skill Behind Extraordinary Relationships – https://amzn.to/2BYpKJk

Ask: The counterintuitive online formula to discover exactly what your customers want to buy…create a mass of raving fans…and take any business to the next level – https://amzn.to/2LCKJB6

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