Ask a House Cleaner, Professional House Cleaners Do Laundry, Savvy Cleaner

Do Professional House Cleaners Do Laundry?

Is laundry included in professional house cleaning or maid service? What are considered daily vs. weekly chores and do you have to pay your housekeeper more for extra services?

Today’s show sponsor is https://HouseCleaning360.com

HouseCleaning360 is a business referral network for house cleaners and maids and housekeepers.

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Hi there. I’m Angela Brown in this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get ask your house cleaning questions; I get to help you find an answer.
If I don’t know the answer, I probably know somebody who does. I’m connected with the best and the brightest minds in the housecleaning industry so between me and all my friends, we’re going to help you find an answer.

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 Today’s Question:  Is Laundry Included in Professional House Cleaning or Maid Service?

Today’s question comes from a woman who says: “
“I am supposed to wash dishes at a client’s house. Is this standard? They expect me to wash the dishes and do their laundry.”

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 Today’s Answer:  Is Laundry Included in Professional House Cleaning or Maid Service?

Okay, I don’t know if it’s expected or not. What arrangements did you make with the client?
So if you’re arriving to clean someone’s house, and their expectations are different from yours, there is a huge problem. The problem tells me this when you went to do your initial walk-through with the client, you did not specify the difference between daily, weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly chores.

There’s a whole different set of chores based on the frequency of when they need to be done.
So when you’re showing up to someone’s house what is it, they’re expecting? Are they expecting to pay you to do their daily chores? Which are dishes, washing the laundry and doing all these things. Or are they paying you to do by weekly chores which are the dusting the baseboards, vacuuming, mopping, cleaning out the toilet and all those other things?

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What Chores Do You Offer? Are Laundry and Dishes Included?

So as the business owner you get to decide. You get to decide when you show up what chores that you’re going to be doing.
So make an agreement with a customer. But make sure you make an agreement.

Okay for example, on an initial walk-through I will always stop at the kitchen sink. And I’ll say; “Hey look, I noticed that there are no dishes in the kitchen sink today.  Is this the way it’s always going to be when I come here? Because if I show up in their dishes in the sink, are you now paying me to do those dishes?  Because the job that I’m bidding you today doesn’t have dishes in the sink – there are no dishes here.But if I show up and there are dishes, do you want me to leave those? Or do you want me to do them? Because I need to build in a little bit of extra time if you expect me to do those when I come.”

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Housekeeper with dirty dishesMost People Don’t Want To Pay For Daily Housework

Most people, if you charge 25 to $45 an hour, they don’t want to pay you $25 to $45 an hour to wash their dishes. So those go into daily chores they will have to do those dishes.
So what happens if you show up to the house and there are a few dishes in the sink, do you do them? Did you agree to do them? If you did not agree to do them, you did not do them.
What happens is the entire house will be immaculate. It’s sparkling. It smells nice. The house looks fantastic. And then there are a few dirty dishes in the sink.

“Okay, my house cleaner didn’t do my dishes.” No. You didn’t because you said you wouldn’t. You agreed on day one you would not do those dishes.

No. You didn’t because you said you wouldn’t. You agreed on day one you would not do those dishes.

So guess what? Don’t do the dishes. That will only happen once or twice.

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You Set The Boundaries For Your Customers

Because you send a message to your customer, I’m not fooling around here. I’m not just going to go ahead and do the dishes because they’re only six.
What happens is this; there are six dishes today, next time there are 10. Next time there are 20. Two weeks from now, or a month from now, you get there, and there is spaghetti all over the kitchen. There are crumbs from the garlic bread. There is stuff leftover, and the fridge is open, and there’s just stuff piling out.
Because you’ve trained your customer then no matter what you said on day one, you would do whatever they left you.

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We Have a Limited Amount of Time At Each House

The truth of the matter is we work as house cleaners on a deadline. There is a very specific allotment of time for that house.
Okay, so if you get to that house and it’s not like it was the day you bid the job, where there are no dishes in the sink, and the kitchen is already clean.
The kitchen is super messy, and there’s stuff strewn all over – that’s going to take a whole lot more time, that you did not allot for.
So you have to be very crystal clear right up front; “What are the daily chores? What are the weekly chores, what are the by weekly chores and the monthly chores? Which of these chores are you paying me to do?”
Because you can do all of them if you like. I had a lady who said, “I really do want you to do all of my laundry.

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You Have to Budget More Time For Extra Taskswoman with a stack of folded laundry

Okay, I can do that. But it’s going to cost more money, and it’s going to cost more time. Even though I can rotate the laundry and be recycling the laundry while I’m cleaning other parts of the house. At some point, I have to stop and sort through the laundry. I have to spray the stains. I have to fold the laundry and put everything away, that’s going to take more time. That costs more money.

So right up front, once you specify what the chores are, then you can agree on a price. And then whatever it is you decided, that’s what you do. Don’t go the extra mile and do extra things you’re not being paid to do. Unless it’s a Mulligan. And we’ll talk about the mulligan at another time. But for the most part, you don’t want to set a precedence that says; I will do all these extra things that you left me, because I’m just a nice person. Because that’s not how the business works.

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You Get Paid More for Extra Assignments

auto mechanic working on carWhen you go to the auto repair shop, and you have your car fixed, they say we’re going to replace your tires. We’re going to balance them. We’re going to change the oil for your car. That’s it for this price. That’s what it costs.
When you get your car in there, and they find out that a gasket broke, that’s what they’ll call you up on the phone.
And they say “you have a gasket that broke. That’s going to be an extra $30, and it’s going to take us an extra half-hour to put in on, or an extra two days for the part. Do you want to authorize that? And then you have to make an educated decision and say yes, I do, or no I don’t.
So, it’s the very same with house cleaning. You don’t just throw in the gasket for free.

Who does that? This is a cost of doing business. So when you get to a client’s house do exactly what you agreed on, and everyone wins.
The guarantee that you are providing on the work you do, is based on the agreement you made, on day one.

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If you have a question you would like to be featured on our show, head on over to https://AskaHouseCleaner.com Leave your question there. There’s a little blue button you just click on it. Boom a little microphone appears, and you can ask us a question. Until we meet again, leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.

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Resources For This Episode

Put Your Upsell On Autopilot For New House Cleaning Clients – http://bit.ly/2kfoCpt

12 Cleaning Upsells for 12 Months – http://bit.ly/2CWWpeZ

4 Ways to Embrace Cluttered Clients with Upselling – http://bit.ly/2ATsmDt

How House Cleaners Use the “Upsell” – http://bit.ly/2Bb9NPi

Sales Tips for Your House Cleaning Business – http://bit.ly/2keXk2t

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HOUSECLEANING360 – Referral database of the world’s most prominent home service providers and the homeowners they serve. https://housecleaning360.com

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