[Clough]

I'm going to have to think about the "keeping tabs" on the employees thing.

I'm going to ask Stringer to be a part of this thread now, because he is an expert at running a large cleaning service in a very large metropolitan area.

I'm glad that your business is going so well!

Concerning your advertising, I would definitely like to get back on track with that, because that's something that's my expertise.

Please click on the following link to see how much good exposure something already posted on this thread is getting. What you posted should be first on the top of the list in the Google search.

I am doing most of my ads in Brevard County and Orlando - Google Search

[nanc1430]

Looks good.
Glad this helps.
My business is just getting started but I am putting my all in it because I really believe it can do it.
There is no limit to knowledge and I would like to get as much as possible on this subject.
I think if you are doing something that you should know all about it.
As far as the employees, it gives them something for them to work for, finding out how the customer likes them and how I can improve my business.
This is all in one survey.
The ads I still need help with. That's where I need help. I know what I want but do not know how to send it across.
If you can take my ad and make something of it, please do. I am opened for criticism and thoughts.
I am now cold calling and finding out it's not that bad after all. I was leary of getting out there but determination made me do it.
I have two very possible developments out of it when they are ready.
One is 120 units and the other is 159 units.
I am also making up some door hangers for residential and office cleaning.
I also tell them if they already have someone to put me on their bid list when the contracts for cleaning expires.
As again, thanks for your help. It is greatly appreciated.
nanc1430

[Clough]

I have Private Messaged Stringer asking him to join in on this thread. I know that he will be a big help here. As for me right now, I do need to be getting to bed because I have to direct my barbershop chorus in a performance as well as play for a separate show tomorrow.

I will return to here at some point in the near future...

[nanc1430]

Thank you and good luck
nanc1430

[Stringer]

Good afternoon Nanc,

I have been in the commercial cleaning business for over 27 years in the Chicago 8 county area. We do just under $7m annually. We do commercial only and about 75% of it is medical cleaning... our niche. There are approximately 3700 licensed commercial cleaning companies in this market. We have over 200 full time employees and about 315 buildings that we clean every night... AND I am always in the "learning" mode my dear.

I helped my wife start a residential cleaning business from scratch about 6 years ago. She went from one house to having over 85 homes when she sold it 3 years later for over $60,000.00.

Clough is an expert in what he does; take his advice very seriously he knows his stuff. You will benefit a great deal from his free advice in business and advertising.

There is so much to cover here so it will best be handled by a question and answer process. I would be happy to share any knowledge that I may have with you so this may take a while.

You seem serious about making your business a success; that is good and a first step. Caring, determination, endurance, ability to change things, customer service, long hours/sometimes seven days a week, ability to step back and review, etc are only a few of the intangible items necessary to be a success.

Starting a new business or even starting a new division of the company requires a dedication that is unique and most don't have the "gumption" for it over the long haul...

So, although my experience blankets most areas in business I would like to address the sales and operations areas.

For the most part Nanc, can we do this in a format of questions and answers?

I will start;

Please give me some background;

Your personal experience; college (what majors?) I ask this only to see at what level we can start. I.e; do you have any courses in marketing or business management, accounting, etc?

How long have you been in the residential cleaning business?
How many homes are you presently cleaning?
How many employees presently? (Possibly move some good ones over to commercial to have a base of good workers... )

I am "fishing" I know, but if I can get a "handle" on where we are it will help to save time and effort my dear.

Stringer

Clough, thanks for the invitation my friend. :)

"What I put in my Contracts with Customers is that there is a clause that states basically, that any additional work and subsequent costs are to be mutually agreed to in writing by both the Contractor and the Customer."
- Clough

This is exactly what I have in all my contracts, way to go Clough-Stringer

[nanc1430]

Stringer,

Thank you for responding.

You will be surprised to hear that I have only a high school education with a hairdressers license.
I really didn't care for that and started working for a residential cleaning company that I knew. It was all great until the owner passed away and his wife took over but could not handle it any longer and finally went out of business.

I never thought I would be doing this but my son who has a slight handicap kept saying we have to go in business for ourselves. He said it over and over again. I couldn't think of anything that he would be able to do without dealing with money and directly with people. I was always afraid to get something started and not be able to make it. I was also looking for something that wouldn't cost too much to get started in either. I finally came up with commercial cleaning. You only have to deal with a few people at a time and there is no cash involved. There is still money but not like in sales.

I started this business myself. Did all the paperwork involved like making up invoices, quote sheets etc. got my license, business cards, flyers (that I made up myself) I joined the Chamber of Commerce, went to all the meetings and leads groups, along with networking and staying online 24/7 learning.

Then I got the idea to sign up with a temp agency for insurnces, workmans comp and have employees handy if I needed them. I knew that the insurances were up front money the first year and I had to find some way around it.

Another thing also that made me decide to do commercial cleaning was I could work with contractors one time and when the market is slow for them, take on real estate move/in's and move/out's along with sales. I was also focusing on property management companies. I wanted to do bank foreclosures also so I would be taking on people at either end. The people have to live somewhere and if they can't afford to buy a house or if they lose a house in forclosures, I would probably catch them for rentals or buying smaller houses after.

I made up a list of contractors, real estate companies and property management companies and called everyone of them. I asked them if I could fax them some info and they said yes.

I sent out hundreds of faxes and really only got a couple of responses. One of them was this company I am finally working for now.
When they called for me to bid, they asked about insurances and workmans comp.
I told them we were suppose to be exempt from them because of the amount of employees and they said that unless we met their criteria, we couldn't work on their sites.

I immediately sent her a letter saying thank you very much for her input and I would have all the qualifications they would need in the future.

They just called me and told me to send in a bid. The only idea as to the price was surfing the internet.
I sent the bid in and was only $48.00 off. I felt really good about this but for that reason , didn't get my hopes up to work for them as I was off but was very pleased with myself as far as being so close without really knowing.

She called me back and said to drop it down to their square footage price and I could start two days later.

I dropped it down and told her that I was giving her the 10% off for new customers which brought the price down to the price they were willing to pay.

I went out bought a trailer the very next day, went down to get it registered, bought my cleaning products that I needed and got myself and uniform ready for the next day.
A friend of the family was willing to give his time to help and get me started and went with me after we signed up with the temp agency.

We worked about 9 hours, and didn't know if it was about right or not but he spent all day on the windows and I did the rest of the cleaning.
(It was a 2500 sq ft house).

Now we are just waiting to go back to do the final clean.

I went down to the contractors office to meet the person behind the voice on the phone and she thought that was great and at the same time she said the other spec house would be ready by the end of the month and she would call when we could start that one.
I guess we got it!

That is a touch up once a week after that until they sell the house.

Now I am getting into residential cleaning and going to hire employees through the temp agency to do this. I am only making a few dollars more an hour per employee but thought that would give me a little more coming in and later, raise the cleaning price. I am keeping it very low right now hoping that it will bring in some customers.

I am also working on cleaning office buildings.

I am making up some door hangers that look pretty good as far as residential and office cleaning and will be placing them here and there as I go around.

I just need some help getting myself out there. I know this will work and I feel good about it knowing there is a lot of potential.
I have come too far to quit now. I am giving it my all and really believe this will work.

I am still trying to feel my way around everything and not seem unprofessional completely.

I am now cold calling and have two very possible residential complexes. One is 120 units to be finished in Dec. and the other one is 159 units and they only have 10 done.

I am pulling all the permits applied for in land development hoping to get a jump on other cleaning companies. I also want to be known to out of state contractors that work in this state. They will have to pay expenses and perdiem if they go with their cleaning companies and if they go with mine, it won't cost them additional expenses.

Sorry but I have been jumping around a little but have been on this thing all day and starting to see all the words running together.

One more idea that I have is the girls for the residential cleaning. I was thinking of a customer survey slip that the employees sign when they start the house and give it to the owners. This is self stamped and addressed to me. It is asking the customer about the employee and what we could do to improve our services. All the have to do it drop it in a mailbox. To keep the employees honest, I will tell them I will call the customers from time to time to check to see if they mailed the survey but never know who I will call.
I will give the girls some gratuity or something like that after 10 good reports. If they get one bad one, the 10 starts over. I thought that would be something for them to work for, give input from my customers and everyone wins. What do you think of that idea?

Well, enough for now. Hope you can make something out of this mess. I will clarify anything that is not clear after you read this.

I am trying to advertise for free on the internet and need some help with wording.
I know what I want but don't know how to put it on paper.
Thank you and hope this wasn't too much but you did ask for some info on me.

The only problem I would have right now is if you said I wasn't cut out for this.

The spell check is not working and you will have to excuse me if it's not correct as I have been writing all day.

Thank you
nanc1430 :eek:

[Clough]

Hi, nanc1430!

If you're still logged on here, please hang around for a number of minutes, if you can, because I'm writing you a lengthy reply that will take me a number of minutes to develop.

Ok?

Thanks!

[nanc1430]

No problem, I understand. It took me a while to send it.
Thanks
nanc1430

[Clough]

Hi, nanc1430!

Wow, that's some mighty post that you wrote in #66 above! It does sound like you are doing some really good things as far as promoting your business on paper as well as in person! Great and helpful post by Stringer, also!

I can't be on here long tonight because I have a matinée performance tomorrow for that show that I'm playing for and also have to prepare for another type of rehearsal tomorrow evening. Fortunately, tomorrows show is the last one! After tomorrow evening, I will have much more flexible time.

Concerning your advertising online, I do have a plan for that. I am going to do a re-write of your ad as I said I would some time ago. I do guarantee that you will get excellent results when people do look for what you do in the location(s) where you would like to work.

I can't do the above tonight, but will sometime in the next 48 hours.

What I would like you to do, is to join the following sites where you can advertise for free by signing-up, joining, registering or applying for an account. They are among the best of the best places to advertise that get the most exposure in searches. Please do everything that's asked for on them. You won't get spammed if you submit your email address, but be sure to look if there's any boxes to check to not receive any promotional things. I've never been spammed by any site where I have advertised.

http://www.hoobly.com/

http://geo.craigslist.org/iso/us/fl
Please choose the city that is nearest to you and then apply for an account. I haven't done that in a long time since I've been a member of that site for many years. I know they have changed some of the ways that they do things since I have joined.

http://www.domesticsale.com/

http://www.naymz.com/

http://www.olx.com/

http://www.webclassifieds.us/

You don't have to give me your username or password for any of them. I like to keep my username and password simple and the same for just about every site that I'm on. I also copy and paste any information that I've posted on an advertising site into the Draft file of my email so that I have a record of what I've done. I also have another Draft folder that has all my usernames and passwords in it. Some sites want people to be more complicated with their usernames and passords then I like to be.

What I would like for you to do next, is wait for me to re-write your ad in such a way that it will get excellent exposure via those sites. This will happen right on this thread, but will be done in such a way as to not to use this site for advertising but so that it will be obvious to you that you will know how to correctly word your ads on those sites. Please don't place any ads on those sites just yet.

Are you willing to join those sites?

Thanks!

[nanc1430]

Sorry but already beat you to most of them. I told you I have been really busy.
I put some ads on them except for naymz and hoobly. Not too sure about domesticscale also.
I know I will be able to edit most of them and repost after that.
Will wait for you to do anything else.
Thank you again for helping and hope all goes well with your performance.

nanc1430

[Clough]

Did you list specific cities in your ads, and, how long ago did you place the ads, please?

[nanc1430]

I specified Orlando Florida and Brevard County. That takes in a lot of territory. Orlando is about 40 min from here but is very big and busy and thought I would have to do something like that to get a lot of responses.
Most of the ads expire in 30-45 days and then I have to re submit them.
nanc1430

[Clough]

But, how long ago did you place the ads? Knowing that makes a difference in how I'm going to respond next.

Thanks!

[nanc1430]

I edit them as I find something I would like to ad but the last time I did this was about two weeks ago.

[Clough]

I'll be right back. Just have to do some simple searches. If you started posting them a couple of weeks ago, then they should be showing up by now in the searches.

[Clough]

Do links to your ads show up on any of the following searches on the first or second pages of them?

Cleaning Service Orlando, Florida - Google Search

Cleaning Service, Brevard County, Florida - Google Search

Janitorial Service, Orlando, Florida - Google Search

Janitorial Service, Brevard County, Florida - Google Search

[nanc1430]

I do not understand the way that some of them work but willing to find out.
I will see if they come up.

[nanc1430]

Nothing !
I'm starting to understand.
What do I have to do? It's getting pretty late for you. Let this go until later.
It can wait.
Thanks
nanc1430

[Clough]

Okay. Our objective is for you to beat the competition. Ideally, your ads should be coming up on the first page and toward the top of the page in any of those kinds of searches. If they aren't coming up in the way that I have described, then that's something that we're going to work to fix.

I got to go do some practice now! Thanks for wishing me well! If your interested in seeing any of the reviews, please let me know.

Thanks!

[nanc1430]

Love to see them.
Good Luck
nanc1430