Serving these consumers is a big opportunity, but requires you to think through their needs & your business model. Last week I did a Hot Topic Tuesday call for ARCSI on the topic of the new consumer. There are some new nationwide trends right now towards a more urban consumer who lives in the [...]
Give your staff a sandbox they can play in. Congratulations, you’re no longer in the field. You have managed to hire and train enough cleaners so you are no longer cleaning anymore. But now you find yourself trapped again, this time in the office. In fact, you would probably rather be working in the [...]
We don’t want to let people go, but sometimes we have to. Because we operate service-based businesses, managing employees is key to our success. Until we master the areas of promotion, discipline, and termination we will not be able to sustain long-term growth. Termination is the missing piece. We have to know when to [...]
Why you should start recruiting now, even if it doesn’t look like you need more cleaners. For most of our home cleaning businesses there are two big surges in demand. The first is the annual Spring cleaning surge. The second one is back-to-school season. Once the kids go back to school and the family gets [...]
Make sure your cleaning techs are familiar with precautions for homes with natural gas. I was reading in one of the Facebook Groups about someone that had a client cancel service today because they came home to find the house filled with gas. The cleaners had accidentally left the one of the stove’s gas [...]
Get a handle on call-outs with a policy that's simple, fair & effective. A common topic we see on our message boards is attendance policies. A lot of people are always looking for advice on this subject. I am going to share mine in a moment, but there are two things you need to [...]
Quick, inexpensive guerrilla marketing tactics for your cleaning business It's summertime, which here in Cincinnati means it is summer festival time. Every weekend in Cincinnati, somewhere there is festival of some kind. It’s the same in most of your cities as well. Having a booth at these festivals can be a great way to [...]
Beat the heat with this “summer heat employee manual”We are having another record breaking summer for temperatures. As a good employer, you need to think about what this means for your employees. 1. Air Conditioning Many of our clients have programmable thermostats that turn up the temperature during the day when they are not home. This is [...]
Avoid those pesky summer skips, cancels, and reschedules with these 3 easy tips.It is summer. That means it is summer vacation time! Yeah! Oh wait. I did not mean your vacation. I’m sorry, I meant your clients are going on vacation. Which means skips, cancels, and reschedules, oh my. Nothing can suck the joy out of summer as quickly as [...]
How to turn complaints into opportunitiesUGH! You just got an email after hours and before even opening it up, your stomach is already in knots. You recognize the name – you cleaned for this Client just today – what’s wrong now?? You don’t want to open it but you can’t stop yourself – and there [...]
