Waching daily Dec 4 2017

Should I target my marketing or should I accept anybody who wants to hire me?

That's what we're going to talk about today.

Hi, there. I'm Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner.

This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question,

and I get to help you find an answer.

Now, today's question is brought to us by housecleaning360.com, and if your toilet or

your sink backs up, and you need to call a plumber, housecleaning360.com has you covered.

It's a 360 view of the perfect home, and if you need a service provider to come out and

help you with painting, or your roofing, or there's a leak somewhere, or you have a plumbing

problem, housecleaning360.com has you covered.

All right, on to today's question.

Speaker 2: Hi Angela.

I have a question for you.

I just posted on Facebook today that I was starting my own company, and I already have

two people that are interested.

However, not in my area that I want to work in, so I would say approximately 20 minutes

away, for both people.

Should I start seeking just about anybody, or should I concentrate really on my sectors

that I was hoping to concentrate on?

Is it worth the drive, the fact that I have no customers, should I be refusing, or should

I be taking anybody that's willing to hire my service?

If you can let me know, it'd be really interesting to find out your perspective on this.

Thanks.

Angela Brown: That is an excellent question, and since you're just 24 hours into your business,

I want to say congratulations.

It's an exciting time for you because you get to decide and

make up all the rules as you go.

Now, there are two schools of thought about where you go to create a territory

for your business.

If you have people that are interested, that are 20 minutes away, you could argue that

since your schedule is wide open, and that you don't have any customers yet, that yes,

it would be prudent, and it would make sense to accept those customers, because it would

give you some money coming in, and it would give you some cleaning experience.

Here's the catch.

Once you start cleaning for that customer, if the customer loves you, and you're good

at what you do, they're going to refer you to their neighbors and their friends, so now

instead of you driving 20 minutes to meet one customer, you're going to be driving 20

minutes to meet all of your customers.

And because of the snowball effect, that's how that works.

We want to do such a great job that our customers give us recommendations and referrals, and

if they do, but it's a 20-minute drive from your home,

today is the day you need to decide that.

So if you're just getting started in the business, and you're only 24 hours in, today's the day

you decide, "Do I want to travel 20 minutes for all of my customers, or do I want to work

right here at home?"

The other school of thought is working right here at home, because wherever you live, unless

you live way out in rural America, or somewhere else, there are houses all around you, and

all of those houses need house cleaning.

Yes, some of them may already have house cleaners, but we all know

that house cleaning is a rotating business.

People that were satisfied with a house cleaner at one point may be looking to switch it up

a little bit and get a new house cleaner.

So, if you live in a neighborhood, my suggestion would stay right at home, work right at home,

for a variety of reasons.

We don't get paid for time and travel in the business, so if you're driving 20 minutes

one way to a customer's house, and you're driving 20 minutes back, that's 40 minutes

of wasted time that you don't get paid for, and you can say, "Sure, I bill the travel

cost into my business."

That's fine, but if you have to raise your prices or whatever, you don't get to raise

that fee as well, and it's a lot of wear and tear on your car, and it's gas prices that

you also have to consider, so my suggestion would be work right at home, and today's the

day you get to decide that.

Now, if you work right at home, here are a couple of things that are kind of cool.

You can have a one or two minute commute, and if you forget something, and it will happen,

you can run right back home and get it, or if you decide that you want to swing back

by your house, and you want to drop off a cleaning caddy, and grab another cleaning

caddy, and go to the next customer's house, you have the latitude of doing that as well.

Or let's say that you have a short break between clients, and maybe you want to swing back

by the house and grab a sandwich.

You have the chance to do that as well.

If you're 20 minutes out, you're going to be left to bringing your lunch with you or

driving through a drive-through and eating whatever's available.

So there are a couple of different reasons why I suggest that you work right from your

own home and your own starting point.

Now, if you're a franchise and you've purchased into a particular territory, which this is

not the case because you're just starting your own business, but if you have, you are

locked into that territory.

You don't get to choose what area you're going to work in.

So if you are locked into a particular territory,

and you have to commute to that area every, single day,

those are the rules for you.

But if you're an independent and you get to choose, my suggestion would be

choose to stay right at home, because it's always going to be more convenient.

And here's the beautiful part, if for some reason, you get to a customer's house, and

the customer cancels on you, like right then and there, because this happens as well, you

haven't driven 20 minutes one way for nothing, because now you got to drive 20 minutes back,

and you can't resell that time, and it's not like you can just buzz back home and spend

the time at home, because now it's still costing you 40 minutes of your time.

If they live in your own neighborhood, you can say, "Well, I'll go clean my house right

now," and you can swap out your own cleaning time with a customer when you have to reschedule.

Anyway, that's my two cents for today.

Keep me posted, because I do want to hear how this works out for you,

and again, congratulations.

24 hours in the business is brand spanking new,

and there's so much that you're going

to be learning over the next few weeks and few months,

so I do want to hear how it goes for you.

Anyway, until we meet again,

leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.