

	Small Business	Search the Directory:

Professional House Cleaning - The Dirty Little Secret

Are you tired yet of all the books out there telling you how easy it is to start a house cleaning business? I'm not inferring that all their information is bad, but let's be honest about how "easy" it really is.

There's a dirty little secret hanging over the cleaning trade that nobody talks about, but every professional cleaner runs into. And unfortunately, if you buy one of the books on how to start your own cleaning business, they won't tell you about this issue and probably don't even know it exists. Why don't they know it exists? Because the book was more than likely written by a business professional and not a cleaning professional.

To share the responsibility, I'll be honest and reveal that even the professional cleaners don't talk about this issue. And I can't figure out why; are they in denial, do they decide to just ignore it or are they resolved to keeping their place in society?

What's the dirty little secret that nobody talks about? The issue is that most of the customers that pay people to clean their house think you are cleaning because you can't do anything else and automatically think you will work for pennies.

OK - I said it. Now it's out there because I think this is an important issue that people should know before they start a cleaning business. And it's also important for the people that are currently cleaning to acknowledge that it exists and know there is a way around the issue.

And once you know about it, you shouldn't let it deter you from building your business; just know how to handle the issue for success.

I know a lot about this issue because I started my own house cleaning business and grew it into a company with teams of employees. And I didn't just start the business and immediately hire the employees to do the cleaning. I started the business and did the cleaning myself.

I had been self employed in the computer industry doing software design and development consulting for large corporations. This is a stress-filled career because you're on-call 24/7, must fix software problems immediately, and you have project deadlines to meet. After doing this for 18 years, I was burnt out and needed a change.

I started the house cleaning business because I always had my house cleaned by professionals. And I wasn't happy with the quality of the work. I definitely knew what customers wanted and knew I could build my business based on that.

With my business and technical background, I had no problem preparing the advertising and bidding on jobs. In fact, I landed 98% of the jobs I estimated. When I showed up to do the cleaning, I got a whole different reaction from my new client than when we met for the estimate.

Suddenly, they thought I needed supervision while cleaning. They also thought they could ask and get more work done for the original quote I gave them. And imagine my surprise when they started telling me what I was going to clean on their next appointment!

I had always treated the people cleaning for me with professional respect. So it took me a while and a few customers to figure out what was going on and why. Obviously, other cleaners working alone would fall into this trap and the customer got their way.

I snapped out of my obvious surprised stupor, dug in my heels and ran my business as I had planned it. I learned that when I estimated a job, the customer had to decide if they wanted what my business offered and I also had to decide if I wanted to clean for this prospect.

I used professional, custom business forms that I designed and always required new customers to sign a Service Agreement. It was up to me to decide if I wanted to bend my rules, not up to the customer to demand that I bend them.

And you know what happened? My business kept growing, the referrals kept coming in and this dirty little secret no longer affected me.

I truly believe that every house cleaner can earn a full-time income and enjoy the cleaning trade by knowing what to expect before they get into a business they may not be fully prepared for.

Gail Metcalf built her cleaning business from the ground up. Learn more with The House Cleaning Pro Turnkey System and the Pro Tips and Tricks. Site Map available on The House Cleaning Pro website. Permission is granted to reproduce this article but credit must be given to the author. No part of the article content can be modified, and a link must be provided to: http://HouseCleaningPro.com

MORE RESOURCES:

RELATED ARTICLES

Multiple Clients Create Your Independent Business
Would you rather have one good client paying you five thousand dollars per month or ten smaller clients paying you five hundred dollars each per month? Here are two good reasons for choosing multiple clients over just one client.1.

The Key To Success - Choose The Right Partners
Do you promote yourself as offering prompt, reliable and quality service?Of course - none of us promote ourselves as anything less, and equally we strive to provide this level of service all the time.So what happens when you take your networking to the next level, and start to offer referrals, or even establish partnerships or alliances for certain activities?Whatever you do at this point creates significant impact on your business and personal reputation - potentially positive and also potentially negative.

Naming Your Business: 3 Tips To Ensure Success
If you are just starting your business, or if you have just developed a new product or service for an existing business, one of the first questions you need to answer is, "What should I name it?" And while you may feel pressure to make this decision quickly, I caution you to not make it lightly. What kind of things should you take into consideration when choosing a name?(1) Don't Use Your Own NameWell, first of all, use a name other than your own name.

Creative Marketing Tips: Simple Things You Can Use In Your Business To Attract More Clients
The single most important activity you can do in your small business is create a unique marketing strategy and plan. When was the last time you saw a company marketing themselves in an outrageous way? In this day and age it looks like everyone has read the same book on marketing - and sorry to say - that book doesn't work!What does work - is a little creativity, a little personality and a lot of effort to make yourself so different from your competition - that there is no real competition.

Grab Your Consumers Attention in a Cluttered World of Marketing Communications
A cluttered world of marketing communications diminishes the ordinary. The consumer can no longer be bother with the dull, trite and a boring hodgepodge of marketing communications that are pandered in front of them every day.

Small Business Success - It's a Matter of Confidence
I was floored! I couldn't believe what they were saying! But there they sat -- three of the biggest film stars of our age -- telling the world they had issues with confidence. I was watching an interview where Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman and Julianne Moore were talking with Oprah Winfrey.

Small Business Marketing Series - Choosing a Niche Market
Many smaller businesses choose niche markets for various reasons and these niche markets can be very lucrative. This article will look at ways to identify and assess whether they are right for your business?For many smaller businesses it is important to have a focused strategy which enables them to operate in a small part of a chosen market with great success.

Serious About Writing A Business Plan... Start A Business Plan Library
Tap these treasures of ideas. The best money you can spend is money invested in your business plan education.

Nevada Incorporation: The Advantages of Incorporating in Nevada
Incorporation in Nevada has become an attractive option for savvy business entrepreneurs, and for good reason. Nevada corporations enjoy many benefits just not available anywhere else.

5 Small Business Management Questions to Help Choose Marketing Programs
As small business managers, we juggle limited resources in a quest for success. To an extent, when we focus on success in one area we forego attention elsewhere.

Have You Thanked Your Competitors Today?
Competition in the business world is often viewed as a negative thing, but it doesn't have to be. Competition can benefit you, your competitor, and especially your customer!Let's look at some of the ways in which competitors can help you:1) They prevent you from becoming lazy and overly comfortable in your business practices.

Joint Venture Your Way to Extraordinary Sales!
You know what makes me really happy? Drinking a Starbucks latte while doing my grocery shopping at Safeway. Getting my Godiva fix at Barnes & Noble.

Getting Grant Funding For Your Nonprofit Organization
Do you need grant funding for your nonprofit organization? If you do you are most certainly not alone in your needs. This combined with the fact that because of regular government budget cuts there's not as many federal dollars available as there once was.

You Dont Yet Know What You Dont Know
Someone new to business ownership recently told me, "Before I opened my business, I thought I was pretty well prepared. I knew how to produce and deliver our product.

Top 7 Small Business Tax Tips
Here are seven ways for owners of small businesses to save money on their taxes.1.

Expanding Franchisee Advice
Franchisor expansion policies are not as simple as one might think. On the mind of every businessperson is the idea of expansion.

Challenging the Gospel of Growth -- Must Business Grow to Survive?
A cherished business doctrine is that growth must be a primary business purpose: "grow or perish" is a mostly unquestioned truth. At South Mountain we favor certain kinds of growth, but not expansion for its own sake, which author Edward Abbey described as "the ideology of the cancer cell.

Keeping a Partnership ALIVE and THRIVING
What are the best methods for keeping a good business relationship?Once you have a business relationship in place, you need to work on that relationship to keep it intact. As a matter of fact, people nurture their business relationships more than they do their families! The first and most obvious method is to follow up with questions and requests in a timely manner.

What Happened to the Money and Freedom?
Ask anyone trapped in a cubical about their entrepreneurial dream and they will tell you, "I want to own my own business. I'll make more and have more time.

Where To Get Money For a Franchise Idea
How often have you thumbed through a business opportunity magazine, noticed a franchise opportunity advertisement, and felt you'd really like to get in on that..