Live in the Wrong Place to Clean Houses

The Ask a House Cleaner Show and Podcast with Angela Brown

If you live in the wrong place to clean houses should you commute or move? We Ask a House Cleaner how to create a cleaning hub if you live in the wrong place. Angela Brown, The House Cleaning Guru gives tips on lots of houses in a neighborhood to grow your cleaning business. If you live in the wrong place like a rural area you can choose a new territory. Market your cleaning business or maid service as a savvy cleaner and work smart not hard. Today's sponsor is https://HouseCleaning360.com where you don't have to be a clean guru to find one. #HouseCleaning36

If you live in the wrong place to clean houses should you commute or move? We Ask a House Cleaner how to create a cleaning hub if you live in the wrong place.

Angela Brown, The House Cleaning Guru gives tips on lots of houses in a neighborhood to grow your cleaning business. If you live in the wrong place like a rural area you can choose a new territory. Market your cleaning business or maid service as a savvy cleaner and work smart not hard.

Today’s sponsor is https://HouseCleaning360.com where you don’t have to be a clean guru to find one. #HouseCleaning360

So if you are a homeowner, you have most likely had service providers come out to your house. Let’s say you have had a handyman come fix some drywall in your house. You can find that guy on HouseCleaning360.com.

Now here’s the cool part. As house cleaners, our customers ask us all the time for referrals. They might say, “Who do you know who is a handyman that can come fix this for me?”

We then go to our own database of contacts. It is not effective. Now we are sending everybody over to HouseCleaning360.com!

If you’re a home service provider, go to HouseCleaning360.com and create a business page! So that we can send business to you. That’s how that works.

Listen: When You Live in the Wrong Place to Clean Houses

Watch: When You Live in the Wrong Place to Clean Houses

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.

Question: When You Live in the Wrong Place to Clean Houses

On to today’s question from Pondella who lives in the wrong area for cleaning.

Hi, Angela. My name is Pondella, and I am starting a house cleaning business. I live in a rural area, so the big neighborhoods and things like that are not in the area. I have downloaded the flyers. And I was just wondering how would I use them even though I don’t live in a neighborhood that I would like to work in? How would I use those flyers?

Answer: When You Live in the Wrong Place to Clean Houses

All right. That’s an amazing question. Because as a small business owner, you get to decide the territory where you want to work.

Now, it’s possible that you do not live in an area where there are lots of houses.

Try to Work in Neighborhoods

I recommend that you work in a neighborhood instead of along rural stretches of highway.

The reason I say this is because, on a rural highway, you will have commute time between houses. So it’s not efficient time-wise.

It is Your Choice

It doesn’t mean that people that live in rural areas don’t need a house cleaner.

I am just saying that if you are setting up your business, you have a choice where you work.

My suggestion would be to go to a neighborhood where there are a lot of houses. You have a better chance of working in many homes in that neighborhood on the same day.

How does this work? You’ve got to pick an area to work in. And that area can depend on a variety of things.

An Example

Let me tell you about the neighborhood that I live in right now. There is a girl that works at the school. But she comes to my neighborhood and cleans one house every day before she goes over to the school to work.

So she has chosen my neighborhood as her hub, and how that works is this. If there’s something going on in that particular area, then you go to that hub. And you build your business around that hub.

My Experience

When I was dating my now husband, he lived in a different area than me.

So I moved my business to his area so that I would be in that end of town when he got off work every day. I was hoping that he would invite me out for dinner or that we could spend some time together.

I didn’t want to be an hour down the road. And then have to go home, take a shower, change, and then drive all the way to his house.

There was a gym right down the street from his house. So I could clean houses, run over to the gym, and workout. I could take a shower, and then I would be ready for showtime when my future husband.

Pick Your Hub

So you’ve got to pick a hub, based on whatever’s going on in your life, and then you commute.

The commute is not commuting 20 minutes one way and 20 minutes back between every house. It’s choosing that you will work in this one neighborhood on a particular day.

That way you’re driving to the neighborhood, cleaning a few houses, and then going home.

Your commute is to get to the hub, and then in the next neighborhood over might be the next day. But you don’t want to be hopping here and there and 20 minutes here and 20 minutes here and 30 minutes down the road. You lose a lot of time that way.

Long Commutes

I know a house cleaner that lived about six hours from the hub. Because she lived way out in the boonies, like on the top of a mountain.

So she picked three days a week. And she would travel to the city and would do all the houses in the city. And then she would come back on the weekends.

Consider Moving Closer to the Hub

Then it got to the point where she ended up getting a place that was closer to the hub. Because it became expensive to commute back and forth to where her family lived.

But she needed the money, so she had to go to the hub. She had to move where the business was, and sometimes that is the case.

Sometimes you are only able to commute as far as your family will allow. It might be based on your resources and your time and your vehicle and all that stuff.

Where is Your Hub?

As a business owner, you get to decide on the hub.

The secret is to work smart not hard. And because you do not have a franchised business, you have the choice.

Franchises are assigned a hub and you are only allowed to work within it. Then they block out other franchises from that company so they can’t compete with you.

But as an independent contractor, you can pick any hub you want.

Here’s a Secret!

If you’re going to pick a hub, pick a hub where you see school bus stops in the morning. Because that means there are busy families in that area.

The parents, that stand at the school bus stop are going to be open to conversation. So you can have a conversation with them, and they have conversations with the other parents.

Neighborhood Word of Mouth

So if one of them hires you, they will talk to the other parents about you. They might be standing at the bus stop chatting. The conversation might go something like this.

“Oh, I’ve got to go run some errands today while my house cleaner comes over.”

“Oh, do you like your house cleaner? Who is it and what do you like best about him or her?”

Then you have an opportunity for them to promote you.

Pick Busy Areas

So you want to pick busy areas where there are busy families that are going to hire you.

You don’t need big fancy houses. Busy families are a good bet because they need house cleaners. And they’re so busy they don’t have time to do it themselves.

Go to a hub, and create a hub that makes sense for you.

Anyway, that’s my two cents. We’ll talk again soon, and until we do, leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.

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