How do you start a cleaning company in another country? What are the things needed to start a house cleaning business?
Do you know to find small groups within your community? Or how access your country’s established programs?
Have you heard of the Small Business Administration? If you’re an aspiring cleaning business owner, check these amazing business tips.
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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.
Start a Cleaning Company in Another Country
How to start a cleaning company in another country, what do you need to know? A house cleaner asked this question.
“I’m calling from Ireland. I’m ready in every way to start my small cleaning company. And I was so encouraged by you, all your videos and all the information I got from your site. But the thing now, I’m really stuck to think about how and who can help me to do my paper works once I need them. I mean, the agreement, the company’s rules, regulations, and sometimes, the employees’ paperwork.
Who should be doing my content, or I should have somebody to do all these? If let’s say I have to get someone, or you have to have someone to do this, I do not have any experience how to do the paperwork.”
A Lot of Things are Different in Another Country
Firstly, how exciting that you’re trying to start a cleaning company in another country. Now, I’m in the United States and so there’s a lot that is different between where you live and where I live.
But a lot of things are the same. One of the things that are the same, is the Small Business Administration in Ireland. Now, lots of governments, depending on where you live and depending on the country you live in, they have something similar, as they do in the United States. It’s designed for entrepreneurs to grow their businesses.
So, in America, they have a program in America called SCORE. And it’s active business owners and retired business owners, who are willing to volunteer their time and they are willing to help with things like finding somebody to do your paperwork. Or how do you find somebody to put together a business plan? Or how do you find somebody to help you get a business loan?
The Government Has Different Programs for Entrepreneurs
Then the government has all these different programs where they bring together entrepreneurs for networking events, and they say, “Hey share with each other, what you do and how you can help each other.”
And so, they might partner, for example, a carpet cleaner with the house cleaner, and they serve the same client, although their businesses are slightly different.
So, in that group, what you might have is a window washer, a painter, a carpet cleaner, a house cleaner. Or somebody that does things like home delivery for grocery shopping, or maybe they do pet sitting. None of those businesses compete with each other and yet they all share this same client base.
So, what happens as you’re working in a customer’s home as a window washer and the person says, “Wow, I need to get my house cleaned. Do you know anyone?” And you say, “Oh yes, there’s someone from my networking group.” And so, then you recommend the people that you know, and they recommend you. It’s a great way to network and collaborate.
The Goal of the Small Business Administration
The goal of the Small Business Administration is to help the entrepreneurs that are starting their businesses. And so, they oftentimes have free classes and courses that are generic enough that all the businesses can take part.
So for example, it might be on how to set up a business website and they might bring in somebody that is with a particular company or a hosting company or somebody that can help you register your domain names or any of those things.
And so, there are basics that are going to be across the board pretty much the same. Regardless of where you live, there’re basics that you must-do if you’re going to run a business.
We Live in an Online World
Now, we live in an online world of technology. And so pretty much wherever you go, other than a few remote areas where it is all word of mouth and everyone knows each other, it’s going to be based online. People are going to go online, looking for you, your social proof and your ratings and reviews.
And so, there are things that are true for everyone like you want to have an online presence. You want to make sure that the profile picture of you on your social media looks like the person that’s coming to the house to clean.
And so, there are things like that if you’re no good at it, there are people that are inside your own community that can help you set that up. Now some of them are going to be interns and some of them may be school students. Some of them may be existing business owners that have already jumped through those hoops.
I Didn’t Know Everything When I Started
Now I know that when I got started in my business, and this is pivoting my business back in 2016, there were a couple of things that I didn’t know. And so, what I did was I asked other people, I said, “Hey, you’ve registered domain names before, and you redirected the DNS.”
And what that is, is instead of it pointing to one server, it points to another hosting company over here, but I didn’t know how to do that. So, there are questions that you have, that you don’t know what the terms are.
You don’t know to say, “I need someone that can help me redirect the DNS.” Because you don’t even know what the terms are.
The Small Business Administration Will Guide You
Talking to the people at the Small Business Administration will guide you down that path and they’ll say, “Hey, I have a friend that works in computers and websites. He knows what that is.” Then you make a quick phone call and they tell you those terms. So, then you can find what you’re looking for.
YouTube is a Great Place for Information
Also, another great place for information if you’re starting is YouTube. And I know that on a global scale, you can reach YouTube in most countries, but it gives you a wide variety of how to. And so, I often search a term and it might not be the right term that I’m looking for, but YouTube keeps suggesting things.
I know one time when we started our YouTube show, I was trying to figure out how do you fix a shaky camera. And I kept typing in a shaky camera. And it would say, did you mean this? What I stumbled on is a term called Warped Image Stabilization. I would never have searched for that in a million years, but that’s exactly what I was looking for.
And so, once you start asking questions and you start watching a video or two, you’ll say, “No, that’s not quite what I’m looking for, but I’m close.” And it will help you narrow down the search so you can find exactly what you’re looking for.
Have Now and Later Information
Another tip for starting a small business in Ireland or in any country is what I call now and later information. And so, what do you need to know now that you need to install immediately? And then what do you need to know later?
So, I have two massive checklists that even now in my business I use. And so, as I go through my day to day basis, someone recommends a book to me. “Oh, have you read this book? It’s a great book.”
And I think to myself, do I need that information today or is that something that I need at another time? And so, I’ll put it on my later list because I don’t need it today, but I do want to read it sometime in the future.
Think About if it Applies to You Now
So, at any time, if I’ve run out of things on this list, I look over here and I say, does it apply to me now? Now one time I was trying to cobble together some information and I didn’t know how to do it, but I knew how I wanted to do it. How I wanted to do it as jump on the computer, open up a document, click on something and I wanted to show you the process of how to do that.
So, what I needed was a program called Camtasia and it was about $100 and it was expensive and there was going to be a learning curve for me.
Decide if it is Useful Now or Later
So, my first question was, is this now, or later? I could use it now, but I could use it later. If I were going to not use it now, how would I do that? Well, I would take a snapshot of this screen. I would go into something like PicMonkey and I would draw a little circle around the place where you click.
And then I would type in the instructions on click here to make this happen. So, there are other ways to still get the same result. I woke up one day and the amount of information that I needed to share would have been easier on Camtasia. I stood there, and I said, you know what? Today’s the day.
And I didn’t have the time, but I knew it would take me far less time to do a deep dive in, learn all the software and how the Camtasia works than to keep making excuses and doing it the other way.
Once You Learn Something You Can’t Unlearn it
So, I bought the software. I sat and I watched all the YouTube videos on how to do it. And now it is a go-to because once you learn something, you can’t unlearn it. And so now there are many times where if I’m on the phone with tech support and I’m trying to explain what’s happening, I’m like, “Give me 30 seconds, I’ll send you a video.”
So, I open up the screen and go, this, this, this, this, and this. And I’m talking at the same time. “When I click on this, this doesn’t happen. I need this to happen. What do I do next?” And I hit send, and it sends them the video.
And then they can watch it and go, “Oh, I see exactly what you’re trying to do.” So now it’s quicker. And it’s easier for me to use the Camtasia.
There are Things You Don’t Know Yet When You Start Your Business
So, as you start your house cleaning business, there are things that you don’t know yet and there are things you don’t know you need to know. But connecting with a local group, and it’s a group of similar people, they’re going to have the same similar things.
Like all the people in your business, in your area. Whether they’re a carpet cleaner, a window washer, a house cleaner, or any of those people, they all run into the same things, like how do I advertise my business? How do I do a Facebook ad? How do I put together a website? How do I find a bookkeeper that can do accounting for my small business?
You may not have enough business for one person to work full time, what could happen is all you that have the small businesses could use the same bookkeeper and it could conserve costs.
There are Great Things You Can Do as a Community
So, there are some great things that you can do as a community and it comes together by working through the established programs that are for your community. Check out the Ireland Small Business Administration. And also the US Small Business Administration, so that you can get in contact with whoever’s in charge of your country. But if you don’t have a link to your Small Business Administration, Google it.
Resources
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Start Your Own Business, Sixth Edition: The Only Startup Book You’ll Ever Need – http://amzn.to/2AGbynm
Lifestorming: Creating Meaning and Achievement in Your Career and Life – http://amzn.to/2wanPfN
Small Business Start-Up Kit, The: A Step-by-Step Legal Guide – http://amzn.to/2ADzfwt
Your House Cleaning Business, A Blueprint for Success – https://amzn.to/2VGsRiq
How to Start Your Own House Cleaning Company: Go from start-up to payday in one week – https://amzn.to/2JJbHKa
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