18 y/o starting a local cleaning company.

[Blhhi]

For door hangers, check alibaba (though they usually have a minimum purchase amount). Sometimes they can be super cheap. I had an idea for selling posters recently (for people who are studying Japanese Kanji), and of course most print shops were hyper-expensive. Alibaba had some really cheap offers, but they were selling in massive bulk (500 or more prints).

I think D11's idea is genius. I'd go with them on the first few trips, posing as an employee. It's just a perfect idea.

I'd like to pick your brain because I think the ideas you use in your business could help me with my future business endeavors. Mind giving some insight?

Here are my questions (as someone who's inexperienced):

Company Setup:

1. What does the average company in your niche, locally, earn in profit per month?
a. How long does it take the average company to turn a profit?
b. How long does it take them to reach that average monthly profit?
2. How many customers do you already have? (If 0, what makes you confident enough to start now?)
3. Sharing a percentage of the earnings from a job with the employees seems strange. Why do that?
a. How do tips factor into this equation?
b. What are some alternatives to giving them commission that you've thought up? Seems interesting.
4. What would it take to make you say this is a failure? What about success?

Testing/Data:

1. How will you know which advertisements are most effective?
2. How will you know which offers make a difference? Like, does offering a 200% guarantee even motivate anyone to pay? How will you know for sure?
3. How will you measure performance? Surely there must be a "best" employee, and you'll have a "best" cleaning job ever done. But by what metric is something good?
4. How do you know which price is right?
5. How do you know what amount of workers to assign to a job?

 

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[Twiizlar]

UPDATE:

I have had phone interviews with all 4 potential maids and I have set up in person interviews with two of them. I am still trying to figure out my facebook and adwords strategy.

I will be ordering 500 flyers later today. I have decided instead of door hangers i can rubber band flyers to the door handles. This will be cheaper and more effective in my opinion.

I also emailed a couple people on craigslist looking for a cleaning service. No replies yet.

Still 0 bookings.

 

[vinylawesome]

A company called Homejoy, that provides maid service to 31 markets in the U.S. and Canada, makes all their new hires clean...

"Cheung (CEO) developed her mopping chops during a month of industry research working for a professional cleaning company. She learned some tricks of the scrubbing trade, but more importantly, began to understand in a real way the problems faced both by professional cleaners and owners of messy houses--so much so that Homejoy's initiation for new hires (yes, even execs and slobby engineers) is to have them go on a test clean."

http://www.fastcompany.com/3026170/...tartup-that-makes-all-new-hires-scrub-toilets

 

[Twiizlar]

UPDATE:

I will not being available to conduct in person interviews until Wednesday. Which is fine for me because i am trying to get some clients first. I have added my business to yelp and thumbtack. I have quoted one person who wanted a cleaner on thumbtack (costs $3). I am still messing around with adwords trying to get it to work. June 28 i had 2 clicks from adwords and 10 clicks from facebook. I am still searching for that first client.

 

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[D11FYY]

Sorry mate Iv been far too busy to actually spend alot of time on a logo this was my last bit of messing about. Sorry not to come up with something that stands out but hope these will do until you find one you love. GraphicRiver is good for logo templates if you fancy any buy it for $29 and I can update it for you.

 

[Twiizlar]

That logo is perfect! Thank you I'll add that to the flyers !

 

[leveragehacker]

Hey dude,

Great work so far. Inspiring to see someone young hustling hard.

A few ideas/thoughts:
- Think about distributing fridge magnets instead of door hangers. People keep them for longer.
- Consider adding a unique talking point to your customer service. Whats something that will generate word of mouth growth for your business? For example - last year I had a sandwich delivery business - all our new customers came through word of mouth because we wore superhero costumes when we delivered.
- Social proof: currently you have 1 facebook like that people can see during the booking process. Having low numbers has been proven to be adverse for social proof. Until you have over 100 fans I would consider not showing how many fans you have at all.
- Your website is fantastic (what did you use if you don't mind me asking?) but I feel your headline is a little misleading. Saying you provide cleaning at a flat rate but not saying the price in the same sentence is a little annoying. I don't know if your flat rate is $100 or $1000. Something to think about.
- Your 2nd page needs a little work. ie. 1. You say "choose your date and time" 4 times in a row 2. I would bring the form up above the fold and start putting testimonials and payment symbols down along the righthand side.

Good luck and don't give up.

 

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[Twiizlar]

Hey dude,

Great work so far. Inspiring to see someone young hustling hard.

A few ideas/thoughts:
- Think about distributing fridge magnets instead of door hangers. People keep them for longer.
- Consider adding a unique talking point to your customer service. Whats something that will generate word of mouth growth for your business? For example - last year I had a sandwich delivery business - all our new customers came through word of mouth because we wore superhero costumes when we delivered.
- Social proof: currently you have 1 facebook like that people can see during the booking process. Having low numbers has been proven to be adverse for social proof. Until you have over 100 fans I would consider not showing how many fans you have at all.
- Your website is fantastic (what did you use if you don't mind me asking?) but I feel your headline is a little misleading. Saying you provide cleaning at a flat rate but not saying the price in the same sentence is a little annoying. I don't know if your flat rate is $100 or $1000. Something to think about.
- Your 2nd page needs a little work. ie. 1. You say "choose your date and time" 4 times in a row 2. I would bring the form up above the fold and start putting testimonials and payment symbols down along the righthand side.

Good luck and don't give up.

Thanks for the tips!

Right now i dont have the budget to do fridge magnets but I can do that later on when i get some cash flow.

You are right about the facebook likes. That is just me. I can run a likes campaign to get about 20-30 more likes if that helps.

I used the buzz wordpress theme and some customization. I know about the error on page 2 and will get it fixed soon.

Also if you look on the prices tab we have flat rates per amount of bed rooms instead of hourly. That is what is meant by flat rate.

 

[Twiizlar]

UPDATE:

I have just gotten back from my college orientation (not my choice). I have been busy these past 2 days but now i am ready. Tomorrow i will be looking to interview the 2 maids in person. Also i still need to figure out whats wrong with my adwords campaign. I have sent 2 people quotes on the website thumbtack but no responses (cost money to send quotes).

 

[D11FYY]

Mate your business has to start at some point if the internet isnt obviously working get those flyers made ASAP!

 

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[Twiizlar]

UPDATE:

This morning @Andy Black has helped me tremendously with my adwords. Even though he didnt have to he screen casted with me for an hour and created 2 fully optimized adwords campaigns for me. I cant thank you enough for this. If there is anything i could do for you let me know!

Still 0 bookings but things are looking up.

 

[KevinM]

UPDATE:

This morning @Andy Black has helped me tremendously with my adwords. Even though he didnt have to he screen casted with me for an hour and created 2 fully optimized adwords campaigns for me. I cant thank you enough for this. If there is anything i could do for you let me know!

Still 0 bookings but things are looking up.

Did you design the website yourself or did you outsource it? Nice thread by the way.

 

[Blhhi]

UPDATE:

I will not being available to conduct in person interviews until Wednesday. Which is fine for me because i am trying to get some clients first. I have added my business to yelp and thumbtack. I have quoted one person who wanted a cleaner on thumbtack (costs $3). I am still messing around with adwords trying to get it to work. June 28 i had 2 clicks from adwords and 10 clicks from facebook. I am still searching for that first client.

This is always the big problem with any business idea. Do you just start building it? Or do you get a customer first? I personally think you could've set the website up, got some fliers made, did some adwords and basically looked like a fully set up business until you got a customer, and then rushed to get the rest set up so you could work for that customer.

But what's done is done, and at least you haven't been sitting around. Hopefully you'll get a customer. Glad you're prioritizing that now.

 

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[Twiizlar]

PIVOTED

I have decided to pivot my business from a cleaning business to a car detailing business. Check out my website vabeachmaids.com and tell me how it is. So far i have only changed the homepage and i have hired someone on odesk to create a comparison chart for a list of services i will offer.

I decided to pivot because there was a lot of comptetion in cleaning and i found someone doing the same thing (online booking w/ flat pricing) that was doing it better than me. There is less competition in mobile car washing/detailing. I will still have online booking and flat rate pricing for the most part. I am also targeting a couple cities in an area instead of a single city. Lets see how this goes.

 

[Deon]

Hey man, i have read the thread and wish you good luck on your journey.

The website looks cool.

Critisism:

- The logo is a little too small, and it doesn't really convey what you're doing. Looks like a logo a resort would have. And since the name doesn't really explain what the business does either, I think a logo with a car or something might be necessary. (Changing the domain name to something else can help too... I wouldn't see myself taking my car to a place called Va Beach Maids)... These are things you can change now while you haven't really started, will be hard later once you've moved in the process. But maybe somebody with more experienced disagrees with me.
- In the What People Are saying part, I would fill the white blank space with something, or at least center the testimonials. It looks too empty with that white space.
- When you scroll down, the text is hard to read with the pictures behind it. I don't know how you would solve this. If it's by changing the pictures or maybe by changing the text font/color/etc.
- Finally, when I click on Home, right before the car picture comes... the old picture with the sofa shows for a fraction of a second. Maybe you left it somewhere in there in the background.

Overall, the website looks nice.

Good luck! And I will be following this thread

 

[vinylawesome]

Just curious why you "Pivoted" so soon.

It has only been two weeks since you started this thread.

Is there a bigger demand for car detailing vs Maid service?

What about the seasonality of detailing a car?

Could this be done year round in your area?

Great progress.... Thus Far..

Applaud you for continually taking action.

 

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[D11FYY]

I dont get why you dont set up another website for the valeting also?
Did you even go hand out the flyers?
Also I agree I dont even like the logo I made lol
2 business's two different fields two different markets but profit is in both.
Do you have valeting experience I am an ex-valeter takes time to learn all the tricks and what products work best for example one of the products I use on the wheels is actually a Interior cleaner works better than acid for some reason.

Also a decent valeting kit/mobile valeting van costs around £2500-5000 here in the UK
The products itself could be around £300-700 time you buy your polish's , detailing equipment, machine buff, spray paints, hoovers etc.

You need to put the work in yourself mate if you want a business to work you cant just sit back from the beginning and it runs itself. Ask any of the guys on this forum I highly doubt I will be wrong.

Sorry I dont mean to be overly critical as I feel this is what im doing just I actually want to see you make your first $100 soon!

 

[Joshy]

Like D11FYY said, there is a profit I be made from valeting. It's a good business and I appreciate the hard work that goes into it.

I can clean my own car and yeah it looks pretty good actually, but a detailer will spend days on my car sorting the smallest errors out.

Good luck with this, I hope it goes well

 

[Goobii]

Congrats on taking the action bro! Awesome!

I've been in the cleaning industry for the past 7 years now & as easy as it is to setup and make $$, if not done right, it can also fail just as quick.
You've got an awesome concept! The website is clean and fresh. Your pricing seems on the mark as well. But what I'm confused about is why the sudden jump to valet?
Test it out man. Don't give up so soon. It took me a good 3 months to settle down with my 16-18 hour days, working in the business, learning from the mistakes and most importantly working out better systems so that I could replace me or have other people do what I do.

Systems & Procedures
If there's something I've learnt in the past 7 years is that never expect anyone else to do something you're not willing to do yourself.
I used to clean the toilets, showers, drains and scrub mould of ceilings and grout. Over time, I developed a better system to clean showers and bathrooms more efficiently & effectively that would produce the desired result in less time - increasing my overall profits.
I've done checklists too, but they aren't as good as a system on how to dust a desk for eg. If you've ever had a job at a fast food joint or a franchise of any sort - they're all about systems and procedures. Develop your own or emulate someone elses, but make sure that anyone can understand and follow the instructions. Make them multi-lungual if you have to.

Cleaning Products & Equipment
Will you be providing your own products or will the maids bring their own or will your client supply that? Some people prefer to use their own. I used to supply my own products and equipment to the staff. The higher-end of the market might prefer the 'greener' products. I came across a company here in Aus that supplied to most of the Westfield's shopping malls and other department stores. They have everything colour coded and number coded. They have the pumps for filling up the chemicals so that you're using the correct amounts of chemicals. It saved me a ton of $$$ just to swap over to them because of the wastage that I was going through before. Better chemicals for the staff, better for the environment and better for your wallet!

Job Scheduling
You could probably look at some job scheduling software down the track to help you book jobs and keep track of staff via GPS sync & a customer database.

Sorry for the lengthy post. Hope you found something to benefit you.

Good luck!

 

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[Oven]

I'm also confused on why you decided to switch to the car valet business. You need to understand that you're going to hit the same problem with getting customers in this businesses. I know how you feel because being a young entrepreneur myself I understand how easy it is to give up and work on a new project. I find myself having to remind myself to not change my business all the time.

What have you tried so far to get customers? You gotta keep trying man, don't give up so fast, have you tried handing out flyers, posting on craigslist, going door to door in a wealthy neighbourhood? Do whatever it takes dude, every business has its challenges, that's why not everyone is cut out for entrepreneurship. You can do it though just keep trying.

If I were you I'd go back to the maid service. Create a schedule and a plan on what you are going to be doing for the next month and really hustle hard, you've got a great support group on this forum, everyone's cheering for you man. You can make this work.

 

[MisterBHZ]

Definitely go with offline promotion. Flyers, posters, door hangers, etc.

Here are a couple companies that I use very often for print media. Check them out and see if they can help you:
www.clubflyers.com
www.mixtapeprinting.com

 

[Rinzler]

Check your inbox, I sent you a PM with a lot of information
If you want a new logo, I can try dishing one out for you within 1-3 days! Just tell me more or less what kind of colors you'd like involved, since I already have an idea.

Everyone's here to help you out here,man. It's up to you to make it all happen!

 

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[Twiizlar]

Thanks for all the replies! I pivoted due to a couple of reasons:

• Less competition in my area (no big companies such as Molly Maids and Maid Pro that have the lowest prices)
• Something I am more familiar with
• I generally have a passion for cars and not homes, since i was starting out and had no clients in the maid business why not switch over
• There was already a website in my area with a nice looking website and convenient online booking (My USPs)

Also I know I could have a maids business and a detailing business but I will do that down the line. For right now i want to focus on one business.

The only con about detailing are the winter months but people still do interior cleanings.

I will be contracting all work out. No need to worry about employees. I just need to find a reliable contractor.

@D11FYY your not being overly critical at all. Your helping me out immenseley. I agree with you and @MisterBHZ that i need to do offline marketing. Once i decide on a name and a logo i will create 500 flyers and start distributing those! I will be putting business cards in automotive shops. YOU CAN HOLD ME TO THIS. I will make sure to get it done!

@Rinzler a logo would be wonderful! Also i am checking my PMs now and will respond shortly. Thanks!

@deon10 thanks for the tips! The website was a maid company but i am in the process of changing it to a detailing website. I will be changing the domain and logo too. Is the text really that hard to see?

 

[Deon]

@deon10 thanks for the tips! The website was a maid company but i am in the process of changing it to a detailing website. I will be changing the domain and logo too. Is the text really that hard to see?

Don't you think so? That's how it seemed to me. I don't know what other people think. But when you scroll, there are times when it's white on white for example, and you can't read.

 

[Twiizlar]

Don't you think so? That's how it seemed to me. I don't know what other people think. But when you scroll, there are times when it's white on white for example, and you can't read.

Ok I will see if I can outline the text in black

 

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[Ca$per]

This is really interesting man. Good luck on your journey I'm pulling for ya.

How long down the line do you wait before you start an LLC? I am guessing the liability insurance would of taken care of most of your worries. Switching over to car care also should decrease your liability risk.

 

[D11FYY]

Thanks for all the replies! I pivoted due to a couple of reasons:

• Less competition in my area (no big companies such as Molly Maids and Maid Pro that have the lowest prices)
• Something I am more familiar with
• I generally have a passion for cars and not homes, since i was starting out and had no clients in the maid business why not switch over
• There was already a website in my area with a nice looking website and convenient online booking (My USPs)

Also I know I could have a maids business and a detailing business but I will do that down the line. For right now i want to focus on one business.

The only con about detailing are the winter months but people still do interior cleanings.

I will be contracting all work out. No need to worry about employees. I just need to find a reliable contractor.

@D11FYY your not being overly critical at all. Your helping me out immenseley. I agree with you and @MisterBHZ that i need to do offline marketing. Once i decide on a name and a logo i will create 500 flyers and start distributing those! I will be putting business cards in automotive shops. YOU CAN HOLD ME TO THIS. I will make sure to get it done!

@Rinzler a logo would be wonderful! Also i am checking my PMs now and will respond shortly. Thanks!

@deon10 thanks for the tips! The website was a maid company but i am in the process of changing it to a detailing website. I will be changing the domain and logo too. Is the text really that hard to see?

Over in the UK alot of valeters dont put it in car shops they put it on the cars thats parked at least they know its getting to the customers.

In my gardening business I included a Front & Back £ with a space for to price the job individually so it wasnt just a flyer but gave them a price and then left it up to them to call. Cheap prices got the business in and then bumped it up after the first year.
So what im saying is you could leave a blank gap with to full valet your car today would be $X to mini valet your car $X to set up a fortnightly valeting service to valet your car the price would be $X.
Fingers crossed mate!

 

[Twiizlar]

Over in the UK alot of valeters dont put it in car shops they put it on the cars thats parked at least they know its getting to the customers.

In my gardening business I included a Front & Back £ with a space for to price the job individually so it wasnt just a flyer but gave them a price and then left it up to them to call. Cheap prices got the business in and then bumped it up after the first year.
So what im saying is you could leave a blank gap with to full valet your car today would be $X to mini valet your car $X to set up a fortnightly valeting service to valet your car the price would be $X.
Fingers crossed mate!

I've been meaning to ask. We use valeting in the USA to mean parking someone else's car for them. Does it have the same meaning or does it mean car washing/detailing. Sorry just confused

 

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[D11FYY]

Yeah sorry mate over in the UK valeting means cleaning/washing/detailing lol didnt even think sorry!

 

[jockinbox]

can't you outsource?
You're charging a fairly good amount, I'm sure you can find a local spot that will do it for less.
LUXURY CAR CLEANING, show up in a suit & tie pick up cars, take them to a not so fancy spot clean the car, and deliver back to them in a suit and tie. Difference = Profit
Advertise only to high end folks attorneys offices, business owners, insurance agencies.
No overhead (except the suit & liability insurance...& unless you completely missed HIMYM you should have the suit)

just my 0.02 might try this in my area for shits and giggles