Thread by @LiamKircher

For every RT this gets I’ll post a comment with some advice/tips about the Cleaning Industry.

Residential and Commercial! 🙌🏻

Also if you have a specific question like and leave a comment below and I'll answer it as well.

#1 Hire Earlier rather than later.

If you have over 5 contractors and you are doing on average 3-4 appointments a day you need to look into hiring a "Quality control manager" or an "ops manager"

Quality control is the most important thing and its one of fastest things to go

#2 Do not hire any cleaners without a background check or criminal record check.

You are setting yourself up for a disaster if you do this.

Look at companies such as @certn or @Commissionaires

#3 Customer has two pain points in residential cleaning.

Quality control and Reliability.

Leverage capital to incentivize cleaners to mitigate those pain points.

ex.

Monthly bonus $300 if the cleaners arrive on time as well as complete every appointment they are scheduled for.

Monthly bonus $300 if they get a total of 5 / 10 start reviews back from customers.

#4

Do not hire a contractor cleaner for either residential cleaning or commercial cleaning without a terms and conditions agreement in place or a contractual agreement in place.

Cover your ass. Worst case scenario insurance will want to see if this is anything that happens

Contractor agreements can be made with a local employment lawyer or you can find a template of one on google and bring it to an employment lawyer to customize it to your business.

#5 If you are not a marketing wiz or SEO wiz.

Keep it simple stupid. Customer demand is endless in this entire industry.

I don't use any marketing strategies. I follow google ads and what they recommend monthly.

I follow their advice on keywords, market budget, and titles.

#6 Never quote a commercial cleaning job over the phone.

You will most likely lose money monthly.

Always go walk through the building and create a scope of work base the pricing on the scope of work and labor hours estimated and then provide the customer with a quote.

#7 Never go and quote a residential cleaning customer in person.

It's a waste of time and people are not happy when they have to book an in-person consult when they just want a quick quote and they want the job done.

Remember the only two pain points are: Quality & Reliability.

So know that and streamline workflows and focus on those two things and you will do very well.

#8 ALWAYS quote hourly or residential cleaning.

Ignore the ridiculous pricing models your competitors use.

Set a competitive market hourly rate.

The reason you do hourly is because there are too many variables such as:

- Type of cleaning
- People lie about the state of their homes.
- Some cleaners are fast some are slow.

Keep it simple stupid.

We want to template this and streamline this.

#9 Have thick skin in this industry.

Everyone has their own definition of what clean is and most likely you will not be 100% perfect 100% of the time.

Ask for pictures from the customer if the complaints are large, then offer a discount, and continue moving forward.

#10 Always I MEAN ALWAYS

Collect Credit Card or Debit Card information upon booking. This can be done through automation but I see any house cleaning companies just sending an invoice post service.

DO NOT DO IT

You will quickly turn into a collections agency in resi cleaning

#11

Pay your cleaners weekly.

I use to pay cleaners daily in the early stages of my business. (It didn't work out well.) But weekly was perfect.

I recommend every Friday payout from the previous week's work.

Every Friday from the previous Monday - Sundays work.

#12

If you are using the contractor model similar to my resi cleaning company.

Never stop hiring. A monthly hiring budget should always be included.

I recommend keeping a job ad constantly running bringing in constant applicants as well as doing weekly phone interviews.

It does not matter if you are over-hiring.

trust me. cleaners quit randomly and you would rather have more numbers than less.

#13

Cleaners do not care about company culture or if you provide a $100 amazon gift card at the end of each month.

Use the capital to pay them more.

Find an above-average market rate by going on @indeed and searching up "House cleaner"

Post a job ad and pay higher.

#14 Use the contractor model if you are doing residential cleaning.

Forget the W2 model unless you want to take years to grow and have slow cash flow. (Which is fine for some people.)

Use contractors
Don't personally have the equipment - have the contractors provide their own

the only expenses you should have are:

Marketing - Customers
Hiring - Cleaners
Operations - ex. Website, software, google accounts.

#15

Stay away from niches in the cleaning industry or upsells unless you double down on those and only provide that service.

I recommend anyone who is just launching a cleaning business KISS.

If you are doing residential just offer general house cleaning do not offer upsells

for window cleaning, carpet cleaning, etc.

Remember the book "Traction by Gino Wickman"?

TEMPLATE everything.

Offering too many different services is way confusing. Double down on one route.

#16

Never hold keys for customers in house cleaning.

You’ll get asked this a ton. Say you kindly do not offer that in your services.

Either get the customer to be there upon cleaner arrival or hide a key outside or a lockbox.

#17

Draft up a template for cold DMs and begin DMing/emailing all the realtors in your market.

Tell as many people as possible that deal with residential real estate that you offer house cleaning .

#18

When cleaners want to create their own calendar on your software have them keep their calendars at least 2 weeks in advance up to date.

Just because they are contractors does not mean they can be on call 24/7 they need to have set hours they are available and want to work

If you don't do that you will be scrambling calenders around and very unorganized.

#19

Make sure you really communicate safety precautions and info to the cleaners.

Remember the cleaners are going into homes they have never been before.

Its a two-way street when people ask about "What if the cleaner steals" well... "What if someone is rude to my cleaners or

someone is inappropriate to my cleaners?"

Hmmm? Like I said two-way street.

I ALWAYS tell cleaners if anything uncomfortable happens on the appointment to call me ASAP and leave the property ASAP.

#20

Stop worrying about worst-case scenarios with contractors.

Listen Id be lying to say I have never had a crappy contractor but you know what? It is bound to happen but don't let the worry of bad cleaners hold you back.

Find good ones. they're all over out there.

#21

Your main focus when you first launch a cleaning business needs to be "General Cleanings"

You want to build as many weekly and bi-weekly customers as possible.

You want LONG LTV! MORE RECURRING REVENUE!

#22

You need to be educating these cleaners when you hire them.

Assume no one knows anything.

It does not matter if they have 20+ years of experience in the industry.

This is your business. You need to be clear on expectations of quality as well as reliability.