"If you get stuck in the snow, we pay the tow!"

Karen Bickford from The Cleaning Advantage in Massachussetts commented on our last blog (below) and mentioned she had to let 3 employees go in the previous week because they failed to show up for work "because there was a couple of inches of snow on the ground." I responded to her by email with the following suggestion:

• Karen, when I owned a direct-sales business in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, we had to deal with blizzards and DEEP snow during very long winter months. We published a policy to our sales force that stated: “Get stuck in the snow, we pay the tow!” Excuse nullified! Sometimes situations like you ran into with these 3 employees create the opportunity to clean house and hire better people. One of the benefits in today’s economy is that with the rise in unemployment, you have an easier time in recruiting and retraining GOOD workers."

As an aside, Karen purchased her House Cleaning Biz 101 program on November 3, 2003 and started her business in April 2004. After my email to her, I received the following email the other day:

"Gary, I can't even tell you how happy I am that I bought your CD collection. My husband is too, because I wanted to spend $250,000 on a franchise. It will be 5 years in April (2009) and I am pegged for $450,000 in sales this year. That is not too bad from the ground up starting with no clients and no help. Yes, I did a lot of re-creating the wheel, which is a must. How could we be possibly learned if we didn't? I see a lot of cleaning franchises for sale and they don't have the revenue that I do. Imagine that! House Cleaning Biz 101!!!! You need to charge more for that program because it is so comprehensive. I would be your spokesperson for the program. You are the BEST!!!!”

Her comments, along with those I get from so many of you, confirm that in this or any economy, householders continue to hire and retain professional and high quality cleaning services!