Tired of Riding in The Backseat?

You’ve worked at a bunch of jobs. Sometimes 2 or 3 jobs at a time to make ends meet.

Jobs that were heavy with demands, but light on pay day.

You’ve worked split shifts, double shifts and 7 days straight.

You’ve had a boss call you on your regular day off and growl, “why aren’t you at work? You’re supposed to come in today!”

(Your boss changed your schedule without saying a word to you. 😖)

So you got dressed and went to work instead of taking care of the dozen things you had planned for your day off.

I know, I’ve been there. Grrrrr!

Your work life has been a bumpy ride in the backseat of someone else’s bus.

Now you’re ready to get off at the next stop, for good!

My Carousel of Jobs

Over the years, I’ve worked a bunch of jobs: waitress, bartender, barista, cook and childcare worker (my favorite place in childcare centers was the Baby Room!).

Then I grew tired of working rickety jobs (sometimes 2 at a time) with split shifts, double shifts and shifting schedules. I decided to go out on my own as a mobile personal chef for hire.

As a mobile personal chef, I drove to customers homes and spent the day preparing a week’s worth of dinners in their kitchens. All my customers had to do was pay me, heat and eat.

After a few years, my mobile personal chef business grew into a catering business. However, I soon found cooking was just a small part of professional catering.

I had a lot to learn about sales, bookkeeping, managing staff and a commercial kitchen. Plus delivering beautifully presented food at just the right temperature for safety.

Roller Coaster

A few years into the catering business, I decided to turn the part of the business I really enjoyed⎯⎯food presentation—into a corporate gift basket business.

The gift basket business was creative and fun! I really loved the networking events, business travel, trade shows and conventions.

Plus, every 4th quarter and holiday season brought in a thrilling blizzard of cash!

However, my fun creative 4th quarter business was a roller coaster of seasonal highs and lows the rest of the year.

January through August, I found myself making constant sales calls for small orders or chasing down late NET 30 payments for large orders.

Eventually, I burned out. My burnout was due in large part to my lack of solid marketing and financial systems.

Doors Closed…

When I hit the wall with the gift basket business, I faced a major fork in the road.

I didn’t want to go back to commercial cooking of any sort, self-employed or not.

I considered starting a home-based daycare business, but family losses around that time poured ice water on my heart.

Since I believe working with children requires a warm, full heart and mine was not at that time, the home daycare business was a non-starter.

So I decided to close the gift basket business and find a job⎯⎯any job⎯⎯that gave me time to think and find a new path.

…And a Door Opened

During that time, I saw a newspaper ad for Merry Maids with these words: No evenings, weekends or holidays!

After years of working jobs and running two businesses with long, demanding evening, weekend and holiday hours (sometimes 24 hours straight), I was ready for “regular” hours.

I spent a year working at Merry Maids. There I found I really liked cleaning houses and I had the stomach for cleaning. Not everyone does.

I liked turning messy homes into clean, tidy and shiny spaces.

I didn’t get into the mindset of some of my co-workers who spent their work days counting down toilets: “only three more to go and I’m done for the day”.

I learned the Merry Maids method for cleaning houses. I discovered the importance of speed, efficiency and repeatable cleaning methods.

Preparing For A New Start

A few of my co-workers had their own customers on the side. They gave me valuable tips on how to start and run a house cleaning business.

With my co-worker’s tips and encouragement and my brand-new professional cleaning skills, I decided to start my own business.

Since I’d been in business before, I knew I wanted to be licensed, bonded and insured from day one.

I started in my new direction by reading books about the business of house cleaning.

This was before the internet, so books and magazines were the main ways to learn about things.

I also understood the importance of researching the market I wanted to serve.

I spent time at the library learning about which local neighborhoods to target for my sales and marketing efforts.

I made sure I started with a plan for handling my earnings plus a plan for paying state and federal taxes each quarter.

I hired someone to do my bookkeeping since that’s not a favorite task of mine.

Turning the Key & Starting the Engine

Starting my own house cleaning business gave me the “regular” hours I craved plus a stable week-to-week income.

No more chasing late payments, seasonal highs and lows, graveyard shifts or 24 hours on my feet.

Plus I wasn’t stuck working in a shop, office, restaurant or childcare center all day. I drove around to customers homes, doing something different every day.

I was finally in the driver’s seat of my own work life instead of the backseat of someone else’s work bus.

Driving the First Few Blocks

Those first years of my new cleaning business were good money-wise.

After taxes and expenses, I was able to earn 5 times my previous income as a house cleaning employee, plus generous holiday tips.

At first, I signed up a wide variety of customers. A few years in, I zeroed in on the type of customer I worked with best: working couples.

I shifted my marketing to focus only on them and attracted more of the customers I wanted.

Mindset Leads to Unexpected Stalls

Even though I had a licensed business and a healthy customer list within a year, I still stumbled around with a bargain basement mindset for years.

I continued with my former employer’s cleaning methods, even though some of those ways of cleaning were not effective.

I was slow to raise prices, even with the messiest customers.

I allowed some customers to pile on extra tasks to basic cleaning without a price increase.

In some cases, I piled the work on myself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In some ways, I still thought and acted like a bargain basement cleaning employee.

Stepping Up To The Next Level

In 2008, the US economy melted down. Some of my customers or their spouses lost their jobs.

I was terrified I would lose all of my customers and the income they provided.

In the middle of sleepless nights, I got out of bed and fired up my computer.

I spent those dark, early morning hours reading online about ways to improve my cleaning services.

From the correct way to clean wood floors to best ways of handling customer cancellations, I picked up ideas to take my house cleaning service to the next level.

I was no longer willing to settle for a bargain basement employee mindset.

I challenged myself to step up and become a Trusted Expert for my customers.

One Step At a Time

I committed to giving each customer a more consistent and thorough cleaning every single time.

I researched new methods and tried different tools and cleaning supplies.

I sharpened my work methods and let go of some old ways of doing things.

I developed a repeatable batch workflow that focused on detailed cleaning throughout my customers homes each cleaning visit.

I fine-tuned my customer policies or “work fence”.

I developed and enforced solid boundaries and limits on my time and what I offered.

Growing Into a Trusted Expert Mindset

Within a few years, I not only kept all of my 2008 customers, I added new customers.

My unemployed customers even kept me on while they were between jobs.

I grew my income over 50 percent during a difficult financial time.

What made the difference was a mindset shift, a willingness to learn more, try more and step up.

That time taught me deeper lessons on how to manage my time and money.

I mastered systems of running the business that allowed me to work fewer hours for more money.

I stepped up from a bargain basement house cleaning employee to a Trusted Expert cleaning partner for my customers.

Mindset Changed Everything

What I discovered is a self-employed house cleaner with a Trusted Expert mindset works with their customers, not for them.

The shift in mindset and methods I made in 2008 made a lasting difference in how I saw myself and ran my house cleaning business.

It changed the way I treated my customers and how I was treated by them in return.

I went on to serve many of the same customers as a Trusted Expert for more than 22 years, through births, deaths, disabilities, earthquakes and economic meltdowns.

These Days

Today, I love writing and sharing ways to start and grow a one person, partnership or small team house cleaning business.

I’ve helped hundreds of people just like you fast forward ⏩ past my own mistakes. They learned how to start their own businesses with:

Are You Ready?

Are you ready to move from rickety, backseat jobs to the Driver’s Seat with your own dream🌟 house cleaning business?

I’m here to guide you with a proven roadmap around the roadblocks of “how do I get started” and “what do I do next”, straight into your own house cleaning business.

A business with you in the Driver’s Seat.

Get in and turn the key today!

First Steps

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