Common Mistake: Hiring Experienced Cleaners

It might seem like the logical thing to do when looking to hire a new employee; find someone with house cleaning experience. After all, might this not be an indicator that their work experience will translate to knowing how to clean a home professionally and proficiently? Doesn’t this translate to being able to put the new hire on the firing line right away and avoid the tedium of conducting basic boot-camp training?

The answer to both questions is that, not only can we not make these assumptions; it can be downright risky and costly to you and your business to do so! Let’s examine why this has been my position, not only in this industry, but since early on in my entrepreneurial career dating back 45 years.

I built major sales organizations by NOT hiring experienced sales people.

As you may know, my first business endeavor started back in 1964 as a vacuum cleaner distributor in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I grew that business into an organization of 300 door-to-door sales people in 22 offices throughout Western Canada from Thunder Bay, Ontario to Victoria, British Columbia. And I did this without recruiting experienced direct sales people. In fact, if your application for employment indicated you had worked at selling vacuum cleaners, pots and pans, encyclopedias, aluminum siding or any other commodity typically sold door-to-door in those days, it as much guaranteed you would never work for me or any of my office managers or sub-distributors.

About the only profession that was considered to be lower on the ethics scale than used car dealer back then were those individuals earning a living selling goods and services door-to-door. Unfortunately, many of the people attracted to direct sales were not the most scrupulous souls on the planet, and the public’s disrespect for the profession was often justified. I had some bad experiences with the few “professionals” I did hire early on. I quickly determined that if I was going to build a large, substantial and successful business I was going to have to hire and train individuals with good moral values who had not been corrupted with “make the sale at any price” philosophy so prevalent back then.

I would hire people from any walk of life EXCEPT direct sales experience who had the will to learn and the ambition to earn more money on straight commission than they were earning from their salaried positions. I hired bank employees, railroad workers, waiters and waitresses, carpenters and other tradesmen, unemployed men and women – anyone from a background other than direct sales. I created a training program which included a product demonstration and a proven script they were required to memorize and deliver word-for-word.

The result of this hiring and training philosophy was that my organization sold over $55 million worth of vacuum cleaners (based on 2009 dollars) in the first four years. In fact, the average sales conversion ratio of closures to demonstrations consistently ran at a rate of just under 50%. We did all this without incurring consumer complaints with the Better Business Bureaus or government agencies across Western Canada. This could never have been accomplished without the recruiting and training practices I put into place to virtually clone every new employee to do things exactly the way I wanted them done.

Over the years, I learned that it is usually better to find good people and teach them your way of doing things rather than what I call bringing in “hired guns.” This is true of most positions from the bottom of the ladder all the way to the top of your company. Many of America’s largest companies have been run by people brought in years ago in low-entry positions and worked their way up the ladder to become presidents and chief executive officers. Bringing in high-powered, experienced professional from the outside often makes sense of course. Established companies usually don’t have the luxury of grooming a low-level employee for years when they need to fill an important slot in their organization now. But my own experience over the years is that people groomed from within your company make better cogs in the wheel, tend to be far more loyal and, unlike your typical “hired gun”, don’t switch teams as easily when another employer dangles a bigger carrot in front of them.

People much smarter than me adhere to similar principles.

My current read is a book recommended by my long-time friend and business associate Jim Cathcart; Bailout Riches! by Bill Bartmann. In 1986, broke and in debt to a bank for $1 million, he founded a new venture and created a new industry in debt resolution. On a borrowed $13,000 he managed to repay that $1 million in three years and over the next 10 years built a company with 3,900 employees, revenues over $1 billion and profits of $182 million. Although his company specialized in packaging and buying bad debt portfolios from banks at pennies on the dollars, and then collecting what could be salvaged from the debtors, Bill refused to hire experienced collection agency people. Why? For the same reason I refused to hire experienced direct sales people: he did not agree with the high-handed collection tactics then being employed and he wanted to train his debt-collection staff HIS way. In fact, his company policy was that any collector caught using old-school collection tactics was immediately fired!

So, where can we go wrong hiring experienced house cleaners?

If you are going to build a successful residential cleaning business, a key ingredient to that success is in providing consistently great service for your clients. Every employee needs to be singing from the same song book. In other words, they can’t be doing their own thing, otherwise there will be no standardization and uniformity will be virtually impossible to control.

An important foundation for profitability for both your company and your employees is learning to work efficiently. Obviously, a team who can do 50% more work in the same amount of time as a less efficient team will earn more money for you and for its members. Simply winding up with great results isn’t enough for a company or individual cleaning for a living. You need a combination of great results done in the most efficient manner. From what I have seen, it’s pretty difficult to get an experienced house cleaner to adapt to using a cleaning apron and following efficient steps throughout the cleaning procedure. Failure to do so results in the same inefficiency a carpenter would experience if he went up and down a ladder every time he needed a nail or another tool – that’s why he wears a carpenter’s apron. The end result could be the same with or without the apron, but without it the job could take two, three or four times longer.

I told you that I taught my sales staff to follow a script word-for-word. I didn’t just teach them to follow the script “more or less”; they had to memorize and deliver it word for word. The same holds true for the way your employees must be trained. They obviously don’t follow and deliver a verbal script, but they must follow and deliver a scripted method – as you or your trainer teaches them – and follow it to the letter. When a sales person went into a slump, I or his office manager would either go over his presentation in the office or accompany him on a live presentation in a prospect’s home. It was easy to see where the person was going wrong. The same is true with having all of your employees follow specific cleaning techniques without variation of any kind. You need to implement and enforce a no-tolerance policy in this regard. Of course, we’re assuming that you are teaching the most effective and efficient techniques in the first place.

As with my sales force, when you hire and train people with no professional experience in this line of work, they learn YOUR way of doing things. Yes, it does mean that time and effort must be put into training, which some owners feel can be skipped by hiring people with cleaning experience. And it does require supervision after the initial training but, believe me, it’s worth every ounce of effort and every second of time you spend up front. Plus you don’t have bad habits and inefficient methods to redirect.

I suppose one thing that might be presumed about an experienced individual applying to work for your company is that they have proven a tolerance for doing this kind of work. We know that not everyone can adapt to the work involved in cleaning homes for a living. For that matter, even someone who has worked as a professional house cleaner may not really be cut out for the work either and may be simply desperate for work until she can find something else. Whether the risk-reward ratio is worth gambling on hiring experienced cleaners is one which only you can decide. I can only caution that if you do decide to bring aboard someone with prior professional cleaning experience that you explain – in no uncertain terms, that you require all employees to follow your established procedures to the letter. NO EXCEPTIONS. Tell them to set aside any methods or policies they may have learned in the past which conflict in any way with the training they must go through with your company.

Clean4Me named 2009 Chinese-Canadian Best Start-up Business of the Year!

This past Saturday, April 4th, Amanda and Chris Collucci from Markham, Ontario, Canada received the prestigious award on behalf of their residential cleaning company Clean4Me.

What a wonderful evening, a key milestone for Clean4Me and Amanda’s career as an entrepreneur. There were many people at the event including the Canadian government’s Minister of Finance and mayors from the Town of Markham and Newmarket, both suburbs of metropolitan Toronto.

They showed a video on Clean4Me illustrating why Amanda and her husband Chris deserved to win the award. The Colluccis will be featured in the Chinese Newspaper next week and on the local TV news channel – OMNI TV. Canadian Business Magazine was at the event as well and they will pick 1 or 2 stories to cover for the publication.

Amanda added the following comments when reporting her achievement this morning:

“Your coaching was a key element in Clean4Me’s success. You, as my business coach, have been guiding my journey since the start of Clean4Me 2 years ago. You helped me in many areas. From financial projections, marketing, sales approach, to coaching me on the process of building and growing Clean4Me. Being our business coach, you have been an important part of the success of the Clean4Me team.

Clean4Me achieved many significant business mile stones. This includes being a recipient of the Chinese-Canadian Best New Start-up Entrepreneur Award for 2009 and a feature on Canada’s national CBC television Fortune Hunters show on Feb 7th, 2009

You continue to play a key role in the expansion plans of Clean4Me. I highly recommend your House Cleaning Biz 101 CD course and personal coaching to those who are serious about building a successful cleaning business.”

Please join me in congratulating Amanda and Chris Collucci for their successful achievements and recognition – especially coming at a time when some entrepreneurs are fretting about a recession. Like so many other successful entrepreneurs in this industry, the Colluccis have made a determination NOT to participate in the recession. Make up your mind to adopt the same attitude and you’re virtually guaranteed to succeed in this or any other economy!

There may NEVER be a better time to grow your business than NOW!

Front page headline South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Today, March 24, 2009
“BANKS PLAN, HOUSING SEND MARKET SOARING – Dow Jones Industrials jump almost 500 points after Treasury lays out plans for “toxic” assets.”

Associated Press Washington, DC: Today, March 24, 2009
“EXISTING HOME SALES MAKE SURPRISE GAINS – Sales of previously occupied homes jumped unexpectedly in February by the largest amount in nearly six years . . . The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of existing homes grew 5.1%, to an annual rate of 4.72 million last month, from 4.49 million in January.”

Also in today’s local news in South Florida, another headline shouted “HOUSING SALES SPIKE 33% IN FEBRUARY – Palm Beach County’s median home price down; bargain-hunters, cash buyers snap up deals.” With 30-year mortgage rates dropping to below 5% now, this is also contributing to the spurt in home buying around the country.

More good news: The national price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. was below $2 on March 1st, compared with over $4/gallon last June; a whopping drop of better than 50%.

Even good news in the struggling auto industry: While the auto industry as a whole is suffering, Hyundai is one of three automakers actually experiencing a sales increase in 2009, due in no small part to its creative “Assurance Program.” The Hyundai Assurance Program allows new owners to return their Hyundai within one year if they lose their job, which helps put those prospective buyers at ease with their purchase. It recently upgraded its promotion to “Assurance PLUS.” The Plus means that owners who suffer a disability or lose their job will get payment relief for 90 days or three car payments.

On March 19th AutoNation Inc., the largest U.S. vehicle dealership chain, announced it will cover six months of car loan payments if you lose your job. This incentive is free with any new or used AutoNation vehicle, either purchased or leased. Monthly payments up to $500 will be covered during the six-month period of involuntary unemployment under AutoNation’s plan. Clearly, even in an industry begging for government bailouts, there are bright spots for those companies that choose not to participate in the current recession by taking a positive, creative approach to their business.

There is even some good news in the labor market: While overall unemployment in the U.S. was at 8.1% at the end of February, some sectors actually saw an increase in employment numbers. Healthcare, for example, added an additional 27,000 jobs last month. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of people employed in education and healthcare increased from 18,932,000 at the end of the third quarter of 2008 to 19,149,000 as of February 28th. The U.S. government added 29,000 new jobs in that same period.

In a recent survey of 3,200 hiring managers and human resource professionals conducted by CareerBuilder.com, while 16% said they planned to reduce their number of fulltime employees, 14% said they intended to increase their number of employees and 56% said their numbers would stay the same in 2009. Thirteen percent said they weren’t sure how their hiring plans would be impacted. Of the companies interviewed for the survey, 66% said they intend to increase their employees’ salaries in 2009. In fact, 19% said they intend to increase their recruitment spending this year.

The bad news is that 12.47 million people are unemployed. However, the good news is that 141.75 million people in this country ARE employed. The glass is certainly more than half full folks! Let the other guys dwell on the negative; you need to concentrate and take advantage of the positive.

There may NEVER be a better time to grow your residential cleaning business: No industry is completely recession proof, but your industry has proven time and time again – and based on reports I’m hearing from our customers of House Cleaning Biz 101, the residential cleaning industry is certainly recession resistant. Homes get dirty in good economic times as well as in economic downturns. Dual income and professional households hire you to clean their home because they want and need your service. Let’s not focus on the 8% or 10% (or whatever that unemployment figure ends up peaking at); let’s concentrate on going after the other 90% of the population that’s out there!

While others in this industry may be pulling in their horns, you should be filling the gap they’re creating by continuing to keep your company’s name in the public eye through your marketing and advertising efforts. And if you follow the marketing and public relations guidelines outlined in House Cleaning Biz 101’s CD 4, you can continue growing and prospering in this or any economy.

Amanda and Chris Collucci wrote themselves a check for $24 million – and all of Canada knows it!

On September 13, 2006 Amanda Yeung-Collucci called me to discuss our House Cleaning Biz 101 program. She was an IBM sales executive in Toronto, Ontario and had a burning desire to start her own business. She had looked at various franchises and business opportunities but was intrigued with the potential in the residential cleaning industry. She purchased the House Cleaning Biz 101 program that very day and launched Clean4Me in Markham, Ontario in February of 2007. Starting with zero clients and no staff, Amanda grew her business to $26,000 per month in just a year and a half.

Late last fall her husband Chris quit his IT job and joined her full time at Clean4Me. This husband and wife partnership is destined for great things and virtually shrugs off the recession. Amanda recently wrote, “I really love the concept of the cleaning business – whether the economy is good or bad, houses still get dirty and they need to get cleaned. I have never heard of anyone who would not shower because he/she lost their job (some people maybe…who knows! :-)). The cleaning industry is one of the most recession resilient businesses and I love running it every day!”

So, what’s with this $24 million check?

Their success has not gone unnoticed in the Toronto market. In fact, it now has not gone unnoticed in the entire country of Canada! Last Saturday, February 7, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) featured the Collucci’s and Clean4Me on its popular weekly business show called FORTUNE HUNTERS. There, in front of a national television audience, the Collucci’s shared their plan to see Clean4Me signs and vehicles in Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines and other eastern countries, as well as throughout Canada. (Amanda emigrated from Hong Kong several years ago, after which she met and married Chris.)

Perhaps stealing a page from Jim Carrey’s book (another Canadian who wrote himself a $20 million check as a motivation to launch his show business career), the Collucci’s have written themselves a check for $24 million. Amanda proudly pointed out the check hanging on the wall of her office to the viewers of FORTUNE HUNTERS last Saturday night. What great PR for their business.

This has resulted in two immediate benefits for their business.

1. It has been a huge morale booster for Clean4Me’s employees. The show featured some of their employees cleaning clients’ homes. Imagine their pride in seeing their company and themselves on national television!
2. It has attracted a lot of interest from prospective clients – not only in her market, but from across Canada wanting to know when a franchise might open in their area so they could hire a Clean4Me clone to look after their home cleaning needs!
   

This did not happen by accident.

I should add that this great PR did not happen by accident. I have had the privilege of personally mentoring Amanda for the past two years. We spoke about the potential impact of creating and engaging in Public Relations opportunities. I had shared my experience over 30 years ago of what happened when an article appeared in SUCCESS UNLMITED magazine about my TIDY CAR business. In my case, it resulted in an explosion in franchise sales throughout the United States and many foreign countries. I must say that Amanda is a great apprentice and soaks up advice and ideas like a sponge.

You, too, should look for PR opportunities in your area. You’re probably not considering franchising your business – I can tell you that this is a very expensive proposition and certainly not the only way to expand your operation. But business editors are always on the lookout for interesting business stories to share with their readers. Perhaps you’re part of the Cleaning for a Reason team of owners across the country providing free house cleaning to women with cancer. Or you might submit articles about the industry, such as what to look for when considering hiring a residential cleaning service. It might even involve “tips” of interest in how to clean certain things in the home. It could be an announcement honoring one of your employees for exceptional performance. The list goes on – GET CREATIVE.

Getting publicity from the media can take some time and be hit and miss. However, it is well worth the time and effort and if and when you succeed, WOW!

Visualization and affirmation is a great antidote for media doom and gloom.

Some people might scoff over the $24 million check the Collucci’s wrote themselves. And I’m more than certain that Jim Carrey’s friends and acquaintances snickered at the $20 million check he wrote himself before he “arrived” on the scene.

When I was a young man in my late teens and just starting to work, I used to visit car dealership showrooms and look at and sit in luxury automobiles. I’d take home glossy brochures of my favorite models and hang up photographs on the wall of my room and the door of my refrigerator. Friends chuckled, especially since my job at the time was selling vacuum cleaners door to door. But before my 21st birthday I bought a brand new Ford Galaxy XL convertible. But I had always dreamed of owning a Cadillac convertible. So I focused on collecting Cadillac brochures and when I had a bad day or week with poor sales, I’d study the pictures and descriptions – and renew my determination to persevere. Guess what? I bought myself a brand new 1965 Cadillac Deville convertible for my 23rd birthday!

I don’t know if the Collucci’s will ever be able to cash a check for $24 million. But, hey, if they miss the mark by $15 - $20 million …. I would say this visualization and affirmation worked pretty darn good. Wouldn’t you?

HOME CLEANER MAGAZINE – a brand new publication from Perry Phillips, founder of ARCSI.

After launching the www.housecleaningbiz101.com Web site on February 1, 2003, Perry Phillips was the 68th person who purchased my House Cleaning Biz 101 program. Perry had been in the house cleaning industry for 20 years and was formulating the concept of creating an association of forward-thinking owners of residential cleaning services. He recognized the need for a trade organization dedicated to our industry and subsequently invested a substantial amount of his own time and money to bring his vision to life.

Under Phillips’ direction, the Association of Residential Cleaning Services International (ARCSI) has grown into a member-owned organization comprised of hundreds of members from all over the world. It sponsors seminars and conventions, tele-conference workshops, newsletters and is a respected resource for its members. At its annual convention each year, the association votes for a new president, vice president and board of directors from among its elite member business owners. I have had the privilege of knowing and working with many of them. In fact, I am proud to say that a lot of them are customers of House Cleaning Biz 101. As was the case with Perry, successful owners are always on the lookout for new and fresh ideas and practices which can be employed in their businesses.

After almost six years as executive director of ARCSI, Perry has decided to move on and launch a brand new publishing venture for the residential cleaning industry . . . .

Introducing: HOME CLEANING MAGAZINE.

So, why did Perry (pictured at left) decide to publish this exciting new trade publication for the industry? Here’s the answer in his own words:

“So you might ask, why start a publication? The answer for me is that at my very core, what gives me the greatest amount of satisfaction and completes me as a human being is to collect and gather information, bring people together, and share what I have learned. By creating my own publication I can freely offer opinion and focus on what I recognize as cutting edge and the trends of the industry that has been so good to me.

I have made many great friends and have incredible contacts, it has been presented to me that I am perhaps the most well connected individual in the home cleaning industry. Wow, that is flattering! It is my goal to use those relationships to keep you on the forefront for information in home cleaning as a professional industry.”

Be among the first to subscribe!

Perry was among my very first customers for House Cleaning Biz 101, and has been a proponent of the program ever since. I was among the first to support his efforts to build ARCSI and I am proud to say I am among the first to subscribe to HOME CLEANER MAGAZINE.

I strongly encourage you to check out the Web site for HOME CLEANER MAGAZINE and get a flavor of what you can expect by subscribing. In fact, if you’re an early subscriber you’ll find a special bonus waiting for you. There is already a lot of good information to be found on this online publication, including an article by Yours Truly entitled Coming Clean: Turning Your “Underground” Business Legitimate. I promise you’ll find this e-magazine a tremendous resource for your residential cleaning business.

Includes Featured Businesses

When you visit the site, you’ll see a category “Featured Businesses”. Richard Wilson’s Brittany Maids in Atlanta, Georgia is currently highlighted. He and his partner have been in business for 22 years and have built the largest residential cleaning service in Atlanta, with 30 cleaners, 23 company-owned vehicles and 500 regular clients. Richard was one of the early members of ARCSI and has been an active participant in the association ever since.

Having your business recognized in this international publication could be a great public relations opportunity as well. From my own experience over the years, I can tell you that published recognition from a respected source can lead to terrific local press for the featured business resulting in increased credibility, heightened pride among your staff and a lot of new clients.

The Publication to Include Featured International Businesses

I know Perry would love to hear from owners in countries outside of the United States as well. I encourage my customers in the 51 countries our House Cleaning Biz 101 program has been implemented to contact Perry Phillips directly by email at perry@p3communications.net to share how you’re doing in your country.

P.S. Please feel free to leave a comment below under “COMMENTS”. Prior glitches you may have encountered in attempting to leave a comment have been rectified.

Does Your Web Site Reflect Your Company’s Culture & Personality?

There is no question that the Internet gives you the opportunity to tell your clients far more about your residential cleaning service than a newspaper ad, direct mail piece, door hanger, billboard, radio spot or television commercial ever could. You can go into minute details you could never afford to share with your audience in any other advertising media.

Think about it. The Internet gives you the opportunity to create an image for your company which other forms of advertising don’t. You can make your company stand out as professionally as a major Fortune 500 corporation because you have unlimited options to include as much information and graphics as you want – without paying for prohibitively expensive full-page newspaper ads, multi-page catalogs and flyers, or hundreds of radio and television commercials.

With conventional media, about all you have space or time to present to the reader/viewer/listener is a quick overview of the features and benefits of your cleaning service. This, of course, is very important. But it’s difficult to convey your company’s unique culture and personality in a 1/8-page newspaper or Yellow Page ad or a 30-second radio or television commercial. Even merchants who make heavy use of conventional media almost always direct people to their Web site for more information (and all of your advertising should do the same for your prospective clients – and this should include your letterheads and business cards).

Web Site Examples:

Examples of how your company’s culture and personality can impact a prospective client’s impression of your business and his/her inclination to want to explore the possibility of hiring your cleaning service are linked below. Following is a sampling of Web sites operated by some of our House Cleaning Biz 101 customers around the world. (NOTE: To return to this blog, use the "BACK" arrow on your Internet Browser when you're ready to exit each Web site.)

A Helping Hand – Wisconsin
A to Z Housekeeping – Arizona
AE Cleaning Systems - Wisconsin
Best Maids - Maryland
Bien Servi – Paris, France
Brittany Maids - Georgia
Buckets & Bows Maid Service - Texas
Castle Keepers – South Carolina
Champagne Services - Virginia
Clean 4 Me – Ontario, Canada
Clean Reflections - Texas
Complete Custom Cleaning - Wisconsin
Crystal Clear Home - California
Dallas Maids - Texas
Details Professional Cleaning - Oregon
Earth Maids - Arizona
Hire a Maid – Ontario, Canada

Home Therapy - Australia
Internal Affairs – Alberta, Canada
Linda’s House Cleaning Service of Wellington - Florida
Maid 2 Please - Washington
Maids Matter – Ontario, Canada
Master Care Home Services - California
Mr. Maid - Pennsylvania
Omega Residential Cleaning – Georgia
ProTime Services – New Hampshire
The Ace of Maids - Georgia
The Cleaning Advantage - Massachusetts
Total Home Cleaning – New Jersey
Why Bother? – Great Britain, United Kingdom

Now that you’ve visited these Web sites, think of the ones which stuck out most prominently in your mind. All of them offered virtually the same services, with some offering more or less than others. But, basically, they’re all pretty much selling the same thing: Residential House Cleaning. If you were a client looking to hire a cleaning service, which one(s) would you be most inclined to follow up with? Most likely it would be a particular one which presented a culture or corporate personality which sounds like the best “fit” for you.

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"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!