The Entrepreneur Forum | Financial Freedom | Starting a Business | Motivation | Money | Success

Welcome to the only entrepreneur forum dedicated to building life-changing wealth.

Build a Fastlane business. Earn real financial freedom. Join free.

Join over 80,000 entrepreneurs who have rejected the paradigm of mediocrity and said "NO!" to underpaid jobs, ascetic frugality, and suffocating savings rituals— learn how to build a Fastlane business that pays both freedom and lifestyle affluence.

Free registration at the forum removes this block.

[Progress] Growing a Cleaning Business

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
I spent some time speaking with Andy Black yesterday about my AdWords Campaign for my local service business.

You can listen to Part 1 of the call HERE. (This is the chat.)
You can listen to Part 2 of the call HERE. (This is the review of the AdWords account.)

He suggested I start a progress thread to report back on how everything worked out.

Seems like a good suggestion, so that's what I'll do.

Updates will probably be every couple weeks if the data makes sense. Might need to wait 30 days for the initial campaign to show some numbers. Obviously something that doesn't have enough data points is irrelevant to report back.

The big change Andy made with this campaign versus what I was doing before is implementing Modified Broad Match Keywords.

Essentially I was listing every possible variation of every keyword, and bidding on each and every one of them. From what I've learned, this isn't the most effective way to approach this, and can actually have negative effects on your CTR and Conversions. Which in turn affects how Google views your ads and the costs associated with them.

Modified Broad Keywords Andy has discussed at length, but is basically this:

Keyword = +City +TargetKeyword

The reason for this is to take what he calls the "low hanging fruit". What he means is a local service business like myself only wants to pay for those visitors that are ready to buy. We don't want the tire kickers, or people researching how to do the work on their own. We want customers in need of our service as soon as possible.

By using modified keywords, we ensure we only show for search terms that include both our city and keyword. This is key because people don't search "Great Neck Home Cleaning" unless they are looking for a local cleaning service. People who search "Home Cleaning" may be looking for a local cleaning service, or are just as likely to be looking for tips on how to do it themselves.

The other key piece Andy and I discussed, was the 3 key things that must match up for any campaign to be successful. Those things are the Keyword, the Ad Copy, and the Landing Page Copy. All three of these need to convey the exact same message to client.

When a client searches "Great Neck Home Cleaning", our ad must say "Great Neck Home Cleaning". Then, when the ad is clicked, it must take them to a page that reads right in the headline "Great Neck Home Cleaning".

Obviously this doesn't guarantee somebody books a service with us, but it's intuitive to see why somebody would be more likely to book versus if those pieces did not match up.

***************************************************************************************************************************

I haven't been active on the forum, but I'm happy to discuss anything regarding my business or building a local service business in general.

Andy and I discussed a lot of things, but I couldn't go all that deep in any one particular area. Glazing over things makes them seem a lot easier than they are in practice.

I know one question I'd ask if I were a listener is, "What cash flows do you have that allow you to put everything the business earns back into the business, yet still pay your bills, and still have the time to grow the business".

I wouldn't call it divine intervention, but I certainly didn't have the balls to leave my job on my own. I went in that Monday morning just like any other, yet walked out with no job. Whatever allowed that event to happen, waited until I had just enough things lined up that I wouldn't run scared to another job.

It's worth mentioning, I have student loans, a mortgage, two car notes, NYC rent, and a girlfriend who's currently in grad school.

I had every reason to be dependent on my salary, and I was.


Alright so to answer the question, what cash flows keep me afloat.

Rental Income - Own a 2 bedroom home in Baltimore Maryland. Bought this three years ago and lived there briefly before moving to NYC. This covers my mortgage payment and student loans. (1 Hour Per Month)

NYC Rental Income - I saw an opportunity in the short term rental market, and decided to lease apartments and rent them out short term. These are thru partnerships with guys who own the properties. It's a great income stream but certainly isn't passive like the property in Baltimore. Other downside is there's no end game to this. I can't sell the partnerships. The systems I've built allow the income to be more passive than not, but this will eventually just shut down. If your familiar with the field at all, there's a ton of regulatory concerns in NYC so this won't be a long term endeavor for me. (10-15 Hours Per Week)

Ecommerce - Girlfriends dad manufactures women's jeans and leggings. I offered to build him a website for free as long as I kept the profits from whatever sold online. It's had it's ups and downs, and is fairly stagnant at the moment since I'm not all that motivated to build it. Apparel is boring, and making trips to USPS sucks. (2 Hours Per Week - Trips to storage, then USPS. Could use fulfillment center, but like I said I don't really even want to grow this)

Freelance Wordpress Support/Consulting - Spoke about this a bit on the call with Andy, but I basically offered a service on Craigslist setting up Wordpress sites for people. Some of that is billed hourly, others are project based and I give a set price for it. This has been the most valuable in terms of learning and personal growth. I'm not technical, so offering to provide a technical service to a complete stranger is intimidating. It forced me to learn on the fly and each client chipped away at whatever fear I had going into it. (8 Hours Per Week)

In between all of this the real focus in on growing the Local Service Business. Answering the phone, responding to emails and online chat, drafting email campaigns, local outreach to bloggers and newspapers, social media, client relations, contractor relations, etc.


Alright, so enough about me. I'll continue this progress thread as the campaigns runs, and hope for the best.


Wish me luck.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Great update Neal.

I have a few questions: you mentioned that you're getting more traffic organically now, and your goal is to move away completely from paid. How much of your current traffic is organic vs paid, and how much has it changed from one to the other over the last 6-12 months?

I made a change a few months back regarding adwords. Basically implementing what @Andy Black told me to an even more direct level. Each Ad has it's own landing page built with Unbounce. I have a few different headlines for each running to split test, and the page is incredibly simple overall. Basically a headline that matches the ad headline, and space to gather lead info. Name, Email, Phone, and message regarding what they need done. Before I had different landing pages for each, but it was just a small variation in headline that added the city specific to where that lead was from. The landing page was just my homepage and client had to ultimately book on their own. I could only track direct conversions then as opposed to phone calls. Now, I encourage them to call the business (Since I have someone who answers full time).

When it was just me, answering phones, while insanely important, hindered the other things I needed to hustle and do. Constantly following up took time away from the other items that were necessary. Bringing on the assistant completely took this off my plate and she's been crushing it.

Cost per conversion (Leads that give me their contact info): $16.28. Cost per customer won (Leads that ultimately book): $133.93, Lead to customer conversion rate: 14.10%. 32% of customers won via PPC are recurring. April ROI 155.39%. May ROI 238.62%. We get about 10-15 new clients from this per month. 3-5 new recurring clients.

Goal here is to maximize ad spend in this channel. Try to figure out where the diminishing margin of returns lies. If I can spend 10k per month on Adwords before reaching that point, I'll do it in a heartbeat. Once I've found the maximum, I'll let it run at the point in perpetuity. Even if organic was bringing in a ton of business each month, there's no reason to stop a profitable paid channel. The channel I stopped was Yelp and Thumbtack because even accounting for retention, these were no longer profitable long term.

From May 1 to June 15th, Analytics shows Organic traffic was 510 New Users 4.3% Conversion rate to Bookings for 22 New bookings in that time and a little over 4k revenue in that time. Adwords 85 New Users, 2.35% Conversion rate to Booking for just 2 New Bookings. This does not calculate the number that land on our page and call, then we book them on the back end. Obviously that figure is a ton higher and shows how important it is to get someone on the phone.

Over the last 6-12 months so much has changed it's hard to compare apples to apples. 12 Months ago I was working full time, running a crappy adwords campaign, and breaking even each month. Flat line growth month over month. I think the biggest component here is Adwords and other paid channels are a snowball effect. I can't spend $50,000 next month on adwords and take my business to 40k per month. There's not enough searches happening each month. Instead, I spend $2,000 and get a $3,500 bump in revenue. Of which, $1,050 stays with me. Extrapolate that out for a few months and you can see where that snowball starts to get big.

I think this also goes to show the importance of delivering an insane level of service to each and every client. Your growth is in keeping these people. If you just look at them as a single transaction, and not a lifetime of value, you'll stagnate. That's where I see a lot of other small businesses come up short. They'll bicker with a client over $50 additional item, make that $50 but lose a recurring client. Instead, I'll throw in that $50 item no questions ask, but educate them on why we charge what we charge and how it allows us to provide an incredible level of service with each visit. Now I have a recurring customer who will make up for that $50 over and over and over.

Hopefully that answered your question and provided a little more context overall. My point boiled down is as long as a channel is profitable long term, I'll run it. After maximizing the highest ROI channels first of course. Organic will grow to be my biggest revenue contributor, but I'll never stop paid ads until they show a low or negative ROI.
 
Last edited:

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Update:

It's been another 60 days since my last update. Things are continuing to grow rapidly, and the chaos that surrounds a growing business is in full swing.

So April blew me away with the growth since March when we broke my goal of 10k. We rounded out April with $18,196.00 in revenue. This was the first month we completed over 100 bookings.

I thought there was no way we'd be able to maintain that, and just wanted to stay level in May. Again, we not only hit the previous months revenue, but exceeded it and booked $19,361 in credit card sales, and another 1k in Cash. Didn't expect to hit my next goal of 20k so quickly, but looking maintain $20k+ in June.

Biggest change from April to May was I launched a new service offering to complement interior home cleaning. I now offer Window Cleaning and Pressure Washing/Soft Washing of homes exteriors. I built one additional landing page for Window Cleaning and started driving traffic there via Adwords. Also added both services to Yelp, and figured I'd take care of these jobs as they came in, then hire help when justified. I was fortunate that my first job in high school was with a residential window cleaning company, so I already knew what basic equipment I'd need, and how to do the job well. Soft washing I learned from Youtube/Forums and the process is beyond easy. The equipment to get started in window cleaning is less costly, but the learning curve to do the job is higher. Since my site overall was already ranking well organically on Yelp and Google, inquiries started coming in very quickly. I priced high so it'd be worth it for me to take on, but heard more "Nah that's too expensive" than I otherwise would have if I just wanted to get the ball rolling fast. Yelp ended up being the best source for the first few bookings with this. My business networking group has been the other big source of these jobs. I now have a guy on call to tackle these jobs with me as they come in. Once he's proficient, I'll either make him a team lead and provide a vehicle, or bring on another crew member to train and do the same. Goal is to take myself out within a month or so with a team of two guys handling at least 5-7 jobs per week. Obviously would prefer more, but that's about the minimum to justify taking myself completely out of it and paying the guys.

I honestly find the work relaxing and it's only a few days per week. I schedule every job I take for 8:30AM, so it gets me out of bed and makes for a great workout. I'm back home working by 12:30PM, so I still have most of the day to work on other items. This would be far tougher if I was the guy fielding calls and scheduling bookings.

Which brings me to the next big change:

I hired a US Based virtual assistant. She is paid $1k for every 40 hours of production time worked. There's a log for every text, phone call, email, ect. , and I pay for that production time. Averages to about 80 hours per month. So $2k additional expense on this. This will drop a bit as she becomes more proficient with the Q & A's, and quoting bids, so her responses are then faster and won't need to come to me with questions.

Hiring an assistant, while costly, has been so incredibly amazing for myself and the business overall. I no longer need to field calls, follow up with clients, manage teams, schedule, etc. I do just the higher level building building and strategic activities. My assistant is based in Alabama and clients for whatever reason absolutely love talking to her.

Going forward my main focus is on building a core group of teams that can take us to the next level. Most of my teams are solid, but have their quirks that I deal with for the time being. Continuing to hire quality people will always be a consistent challenge, but one of the most important for further growth.

I stopped paying for Thumbtack bids. This was costing me about 800-1k per month. Back in January it was providing a consistent source of clients. That recently fell off a cliff. No idea why, as I have 20 5 star reviews, and the entire page is incredibly strong compared to competitors. I could very well just be too expensive for the platform, and unwilling to clog up my pipeline with low paying customers. This will save me money going forward and I'm happy I don't need to pay for the bids or someone to actively monitor the page.

Other items I stopped is Yelp adds. This was 800 per month, but the CPC went from $7-8 in February, to $12 most recently. Only 66 clicks to the page came from this ad spend in the previous month and that doesn't even bring them to my website. 180 clicks came organically thru yelp, so I was comfortable shutting this down entirely.

I might have a minor drop in bookings for June since I stopped these two items, but it'll help the business overall. Ultimate goal is to be independent of any paid ads, so as organic bookings from Google and Yelp grow, my overall ad spend will drop. I have a solid base of 5 star reviews on Yelp, Google, Facebook, and Angie's list with one exception on Angie's List and Facebook. I've actually had a better response from clients since the one bad review. There was also an onslaught of positive reviews provided to me from passed clients when they saw the negative items the guy wrote about my personal character. That was great to see. The bad review is now buried, and should have a negligible impact on future growth.

Goal for next update is a 30K month in combined revenue from interior home cleaning, window cleaning, and pressure washing. With the early growth in Window Cleaning and reviews growing at a faster and faster rate, I'm confident we'll hit this in July.

Happy to answer any questions anyone has. I'll continue to be an open book.

Onward
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Just finished listening to your chat with @Andy Black and it was very informative and cool to hear about your background/story. After reading through a bunch of gold posts on here, the common theme seems to be take action, any action just to hit the ground running. I've been researching like crazy and I want to make sure I don't fall into the classic trap of analysis paralysis.

I'm fortunate enough that I've been working for a few years so I have a decent amount saved up for when I do leave the 9-5. My plan at the moment is to start something on the side to get some practical experience and keep getting a paycheck while I figure out what I want to do.

The challenge I'm facing now is just deciding what I want to get behind 100% to start my first venture into my own business. I don't want to ask the typical question every new member poses such as "what specifically should I do?" but I'm working to identify any opportunities/unmet needs in my daily life and haven't found that inspiration yet. How did you decide to go into the rug cleaning industry for your business?

Really appreciate the offer too, I'd definitely be up to get a drink!

Thanks again
We actually do interior home cleaning. We've just now begun offering exterior window cleaning and pressure washing as well to take advantage of the spring cleaning rush.

My first job in high school was for a window cleaning company in Michigan. The owner was a crappy marketer, but was able to build a decent size business over the course of 20 years via word of mouth. I saw so many things I felt I could do better that I wanted to give it a shot on my own at some point. Fast forward to getting my first job, and that sort of fell by the wayside. I came across a guy who was doing lead gen for a snow plow service in the Boston/New England area and thought I could emulate that since I was working full time. I'd get the jobs but outsource the work. Unfortunately I didn't go about it the right way, and it just kind of fizzled out.

About a year later I came across this reddit thread: DAY 26: From Zero to Website Launch-A recap of everything that got us here! • r/EntrepreneurRideAlong

This guy had built a home cleaning company from 0 to $2 Million in just a few years. He used lead gen, but operated the actual cleaning service as well. I reached out to him directly and he was so incredibly open and willing to offer advice it blew my mind. Since I was in such a big market, I figured I could emulate his process and operate the same model where I was located. Literally any local service business would work using what he laid out. His 26 day process will take you from 0-60 in no time. It's up to you to take it from 60-100. I built the entire site using Weebly.com for free in a single weekend, just to test the concept, and had my first booking from Adwords that Monday. The second booking didn't come for quite some time, but it seemed promising.

I set up a basic Adwords campaign and sort of let it sit. I didn't market anything else extensively and just managed the few bookings that came in each month. I was working full time, so stepping out to take phone calls, questions, complaints, was intimidating. It wasn't until I left my job that I put my full weight behind growing the business. I knew the concept worked, but underestimated the amount of hustle it takes to get it off the ground.

The guys I see that start this and fail fall for that same mistake. They underestimate the amount of brute force effort, time, and money it takes to get the ball rolling. Most give up before they can create that momentum.

I think there's huge value potential in the local service space. Read up on Brian Scudamore, the founder of 1-800-Got-Junk. He took a fragmented local service business, Junk Removal, and built a system that focused 100% on delivering a highly customer-centric experience, then franchised it out to the rest of the country. He's now doing the same for Painting with WOW 1-Day Painting, moving with You Move Me, and exterior home cleaning with Shack Shine. The guy is a high school drop out worth $250 Million.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Update:

It's been 2 months since beginning this progress thread, and while I thought a 30 day update would make sense, I wasn't sure what to focus on and put off updating for another 30 days.

Something is better than nothing, so I'll just start typing and see where it goes.

I spoke with Andy Black on Wednesday December 7th. I had just come off the Thanksgiving rush and booked my highest revenue month on record at $4,295.15. Up from $2,942.10 in October (Also a record breaking month).

I implemented Andy's recommendations and made sure all of my tracking information and conversion goals in Google Analytics were working properly. I had a huge gain in confidence after making these changes and was no longer worried about whether I was wasting money on Adwords. December became another record month booking $7,467.60 in total revenue. While I can't attribute this entirely to Adwords, the amount of traffic I now get from Adwords is up 143%. Mainly because I raised my daily spending limits. This might have happened regardless of the changes Andy suggested, but I doubt I would have had the confidence to up my spending limits had I not spoken with Andy.

The additional bookings led to more recurring revenue for January, more reviews on major review sites, and a better established presence overall online. This allowed continued growth in January for another record month at $8,533.65. The next goal is breaking $10,000 in booked revenue. While February is a bit shorter, I'm hoping to attain that this month. As long as the Revenue is higher than January, I'm okay with it.

Once thing I did in December was write down my revenue goal for the month ($7,500). An interesting thing happened; I hit it! So in January I did the same thing, and like clockwork I nearly hit the exact revenue goal for January too ($8,500). Once I wrote the goal down on paper and planned exactly what needed to happen to hit that goal, the path was set. Now it was a matter of following that path and not deterring for any reason.

The website converts 3-4% of visitors to bookings. Currently an average booking is $169 in revenue. Knowing just these two numbers, I can figure out exactly how traffic I need to generate to hit my revenue target. If my goal is $10,000 then I need to book 59 total jobs in that month. Let's say 30% of those jobs are recurring from previous months (18 jobs). To book an additional 41 Jobs, I need 1170 in traffic converting at 3.5%.

Knowing this information is incredibly powerful as I can now make informed decision on where to get that traffic and how much I'm willing to pay for it. In the local service sector, there's a variety of options, but my main traffic sources are Adwords (Paid), SEO (Paid & Organic), Yelp (Paid and Organic), Angie's List (Organic), Thumbtack (Paid), and word of mouth. Depending on your market and how many people are searching for your service in a given month will dictate how fast you're able to grow.

Excited to see what February and March brings.

Onward.
 

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Hi @nzott , since beginning your short journey, what have you learned in regards to clients relations that you did not know compared to when you first started it?
The biggest transition was developing a way to handle complaints and issues that didn't depend on my natural people skills. It's simply not scalable for me to field all complaints and issues that arise.

We do a follow up email after each cleaning that rates our service. Good, Bad, or OK. Anything that isn't rated Good, gets a phone call. You're against the ropes in these situations because your entire reputation is built on that client not blowing you up publicly.

It wasn't until I sat down to draft out how to train others to handle complaints that I realized what I was doing. It's an insanely simply process, but followed correctly mitigates nearly any client services issue you come across. This process is actually what Disney uses for it's client relations.

1. Take Ownership - Never pass the buck. Your sole purpose in life in this moment is to solve this customers issue. Doesn't matter if you personally will be the decision maker, or not. You'll be the one to get the answers and solve the problem and ultimately deliver the solution and follow up to make sure they are happy.

2. Hear them out - Keep your mouth shut. Any time they pause, count to 3. Make sure they are done venting before you respond. People like to be heard. Be their sounding board.

3. Empathy - Never assume the client is lying or over exaggerating even if they are. Put yourself in their shoes. This isn't just saying you understand where they were coming from, it's mirroring their emotions and matching their tonality. If they are loud and angry, be loud and angry as you say "That's completely unacceptable, I'd never want that to happen to me. There's simply no reason for it. Oh I'll get this fixed alright, you better believe it.". If they are nice and reserved, but you just dropped the ball with this visit, match that soft voice and say "I know how important it is to me when I get the same service time after time. I love seeing the same smiling face each week, and understand we let you down. I want to make it up to you any way possible" - This is where client relations usually falls short. Call a big company's phone support and you'll hear in the most robotic monotone voice "I am sorry for the inconvenience, I can definitely help you out with that problem you are having". It sounds completely disingenuous and just eats at you.

4. Apologize - If you're the business owner, it's your fault no matter what, so let them know this. Even if it's a blatant mistake by an employee, tell the client it's on you, and you should have trained that employee better.

5. Resolve - Use these exact words, "What can I do to make this right". 3, 4, and 5 all come in quick succession. Match and mirror the client, let them know you sincerely apologize and need to make this right, and finally ask how you can do so. Our offer is always to come out and re-clean at no cost. Or, we give some money back. Worst case, we give all the money back and I send a hand written letter and small gift.

6. Diagnose and Correct - Once the client interaction is done, work backwards to find out the root reason why this mistake occurred. Put a process or system in place to make sure it doesn't happen again. It's important you do this without pointing any fingers.

Hope that helps
 

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Great progress report sir!

My question is this:

At what point, if any, do you see yourself stepping out of the business completely? Is that even a goal right now? Cheers.
Im completely removed from a lot of the day to day happenings. I'll get a couple emails each day from my VA to update on anything notable, but other than that, she runs it.

I branched out and started offering window cleaning which I currently do with a hired worker. We only do 2-3 per week which is about 1k in revenue on average. I'll keep doing this until it's sustainable work for a full time team then step away.

In the larger scheme, it's too early to tell what I'll do. I'm still in growth mode and keep nearly everything in the business. Growth target is 1 million in annual revenue or in monthly terms, $83,000. Once I hit that, I'll likely do one of 4 things.

1. Sell to a venture backed company in Manhattan looking to branch outside the city. Valuation will depend on how fast I can hit 83k per month because growth rate with increase the multiple I can sell at. I say venture backed as opposed to just anyone because startups tend to pay stupid money to gobble up other companies.

2. Launch same service in other markets. I've had numerous people ask to partner in other markets to do the same thing. I've also had investors offer to front the cash for fast early growth in exchange for an equity stake. I just haven't taken their money.

3. Franchise the business and sell to other people looking to start a similar service. It's similar to option 2, but completely different in how you sell and what your day to day duties would be.

4. Do nothing and hold it for it's cash flow. I'm a big fan of real estate, so the cash flow this provides would serve as an awesome tool to fund real estate ventures without needing to take on partners or raise outside capital.
 
Last edited:

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Update:

It’s been another 2 months, 4 months total since beginning this progress thread. 60 day increments feels like a good point to look back on. A lot changes in that time, but also provides me enough data and experience to reflect on without being repetitive.

While I was worried that February would be a down month overall since it was only 28 days, I continued to make strides and beat my gross revenue figure from January. I had been chasing 10,000 in gross revenue. There’s no particular reason I chose 10K, but 6 months ago I thought 10k/month in revenue was an enormous goal. It seemed the guys I’d talk to who were doing 10k/ month in their own business were crushing it, and wanted to get to that level. February ended up being super close, but total revenue was $9,619.65. I’d need to wait until March to break 10k.

One thing I did in December was joined a private Mastermind group that was part of a larger business development program. The guy who started the program ran a local service business that he built to 150k in monthly revenue before selling. Drawing heavily from Michael Gerber’s E-Myth, the program is tailored specifically to local service businesses. It’s a step by step process to systematizing every aspect of the business. To a degree I was already working on the business, not in the business, but the program provides the exact systems he was using to grow his company. Seeing his systems and processes made it far easier for me to wrap my head around how to attack this.

The basic process I found to effectively build any business system was 3 steps:
  1. Create a mind map

    1. Get everything out of your head and onto the page. While it feels like word vomit while you’re building it, once you take a step back, it’s incredible how organized the map becomes.
  2. Export the mind map to a word doc

    1. Expand the bullet points to full sentences and make the document flow
  3. Deploy it into your business

    1. Follow the system daily. Whether it’s just you, or you and 10 others

One of the key things I found was I had thought through all the systems I’d need, but I never took the time to draw them out. I knew in my mind what I’d do if a certain situation came up. I knew how I’d respond. What I didn’t do, was draft all of this out so when I decided to hire someone, all I’d need to do is hand them a binder full of exactly how to run the business. Instead of receiving countless questions, they’d have a reference guide for anything and everything imaginable. There are countless little things I do every day for the business that I never realized needed to be systematized. I needed to create a machine that could theoretically be run by a High Schooler.

March broke new records with a total monthly revenue of $12,319.12. I surpassed the coveted 10k threshold, and now aim for bigger things. 20k being that next big threshold I aim to reach.

Marketing wise, consistency has been my biggest ally. While many cut back on certain channels to save money in the busy times, I continued at the exact same level. Adwords has continued to provide quality leads. Thumbtack, while expensive, is still a great source of revenue. Yelp is finally coming into it’s own and brings me the highest paying clients. Yelp ads are super expensive ($10 cpc), but gaining just one recurring client each month from the channel makes it worthwhile.

Wanted to get something up here, and expand if need be.

Happy to answer any questions.

Onward.
 

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Reading your post gets me extremely excited - I am currently planning a Marketing Strategy for my Dad's cleaning business - i'm looking to pretty much take over management and retire my dad in his own business.

I just have a few questions.

1. I ran an ad for a cleaning job - like yourself, I had an overwhelming amount of people apply. Although, probably 95% of candidates were international students/adults which have only been in Australia for a couple of months. Roughly what are you looking for in a contractor?

2. I read on IceCreamKid's Carpet Cleaning thread that EDDM was doing well. Obviously you're doing amazing on Adwords - what was your initial decision on starting Online Advertising instead of Offline Advertising? (You also mentioned that flyers worked well)

3. How do you keep your employees happy? We had an assistant cleaner who had worked with my dad for 2 years and really fell off the last couple of months, so we dropped him.

Any advice would be much appreciated, I keep close tabs to this thread because it has some damn good content!
1. The process is as follows:

What I want before I'll even consider candidate:
-Have some experience (I don't care whether it's 1 yr or 10 years)
-Has a cleaning partner
-Has a car (Or partner does)
-Has own cleaning supplies (Or willing to get them with list from me)
-Authorized to work and speaks English
-Able to pass background check
-Has smart phone - Can text

In my initial discussion, I'm just trying to get a feel for their character. Do they bash an old employer, talk about some government funded program they are taking advantage of, talk about some lawsuit they are involved in. This comes out over the course of normal conversation. I'm providing details about how we operate on a basic level, but more so just letting them speak. I get a general gut feeling from this and if there's even a hint of bad, I move on. Reason I'm looking specifically for bad things is because it's easy to show up and act like a saint for a quick interview. No reason to notate good things. I need to tease out any negative item before either of us wastes our time further.

If all seems good, I schedule a cleaning at my place. Just a couple rooms and pay them for their time. Obviously I'm judging their timeliness, attention to detail and overall ability to clean. More so, I'm seeing if they work with a sense of purpose. Do they take pride in performing the job well. This comes out better if they don't know you are the owner.

Lastly, I schedule a coffee meeting where we go over specifics and sign documentation that officially brings them on board. Nail down expectation, how jobs are received, how they are paid, etc. I then provide about an hour long video for them to watch at their leisure that presents who we are as a company, where we are going, how we are going to get there and where they fit in to all that. This piece is more important than you may think. This exercise alone provided me a lot of clarity. Putting it on video allowed me to deliver a concise message to each and every new hire that I simply reinforce day to day.

2. I'm not the best to ask because I never tried EDDM. My print ads are what we call 5-arounds. We hand out a flyer to each of the surrounding five houses after every job. The flyer simply says "We just serviced your neighbors home and would love to do yours too" then provides a quote for everything we do.

To me, the upside in online versus print is online marketing provides you with immediate results and is easier to tweak and run tests.

I can set up an Adwords campaign and get a booking next day. I can hawk Thumbtack all day and bring in bookings same day. I could call Groupon and get a campaign set up within a few days and have more bookings than I know what to do with. With online, I can literally pull business to me (Usually at a lower profit, sometimes none. This is more so when you're just starting and need volume in a hurry). Print doesn't provide that luxury.

Also, with all marketing, everything should be a split test. Headlines, text body, call to action, etc. This is soooo much easier with online ads as opposed to print.

Lastly, I want to go after the low hanging fruit. I want to sell to people that are already looking for the services I offer. That means getting on places that people are looking for my services and standing out from the pack. Print is still interruption based marketing that by and large aren't currently looking for what you offer. Online ads is more solutions based. I have a problem, I Google that I want to fix this problem, This company fixes my problem, I'll give my money to them.

There's countless business that grow solely on print ads and EDDM. I can't knock them, it works. I just don't have any competitive advantage in that, so I'd rather stay ahead of the curve competing with non tech business owners in a growing tech world.

3. Open dialogue with each and every person that works for you. Find out what their goals are and align their day to day tasks with how they will attain those goals.

For example: Maybe they fell on some hard times and racked up some credit card debt that they don't see a way out of with their current pay. Set up a plan to tackle that issue using a bonus structure for doing well in their job. I give cash bonuses if teams get Yelp reviews that specifically mention that team member by name. I give bonuses for up selling our services and bringing in new business. If you align your goals with theirs, they're much more likely to stay the course.

Always remember, they don't give a shit about you or your goals. They give a shit about themselves and their family. That's how it should be. You as the employer need to find a way so that the things you care about and the things they care about are aligned.

Good luck and keep at it!
 

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Hi Nzott,

This thread is incredibly motivating to see your progress and you surpassing each monthly goal, excellent job! As someone who is new to the forums and doesn't know the first thing about Adwords, are there any books/resources you could recommend? I'm definitely interested in learning more about this.

What was your background before you started this work?

Thank you!
Awesome, thank you! I'm currently looking for my route out of the slowlane (been working at an investment bank for around 4 years and am in my mid 20s).

I'm going to spend a few hours tonight after work researching into this.
If any questions come up, I'm happy to help. What area of the US do you work in IB?

Corporate world was incredibly draining for me. Stayed up til 3AM every night reading books just to prolong going to sleep since it was a fast track to going back to work the next day. Outside looking in my situation looked great. Decent salary w/ bonus, couple vacations overseas each year, bills paid, made more than most of my friends back home, but couldn't stand it.

Some seek those things out and I don't knock them, but I knew within a month of starting my job that corporate life wasn't going to be for me. Sad part was I assumed no matter what I did or where I went I'd feel the exact same way. Friends and family would just say "Go find another job. The reason you feel this way is you haven't found a job you love". So I'd make a half hearted effort at looking for other jobs just so friends and family thought that was my way out. My sister is very successful in the corporate world. Went to Harvard Business School, and makes a boat load. She sends me jobs that she thinks fit me a few times each month. It's incredibly hard for me to explain to successful people in the corporate world that It's just not for me without making them out to look bad. So, I'll say thanks, do a quick google search about the job and respond with something that shows I looked at it. But I never actually do it.

I can't say I thought running a local service business was going to be my transition out, but I was and still am seeking freedom, not any specific business. If it produces great cashflow and won't take any intellectual ability to operate once it's established, I'm all for it. Could care less what the actual product or service is.

Sorry for the litany!
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Thank you for your answer.
We do mainly:
window cleaning 85%
Solar panel cleaning 10%
Roof cleaning 5%

When a potential customer calls me i pick up the phone and deal with the appointment/scheduling.

My younger brother works for me.
He does a lot off the ground work.
I make estimates, do the scheduling, follow ups, administration, ground work..

We dont need that much supplies, once every two months we go to the store for them.
Equipment is managed by me.

Leads are generated by:
Mouth to mouth.
Organic thru website.
But the main source are two leadgeneration companies.
In the early days (2014)
We did a lot off flyers this worked very well but costs a lot off time.

I send the leads always a short email.
And ask them for an appointment or photos to give a quote.

I now reviews are a big thing in the us an uk but here in Belgium it is currently not that important for a service business. I am sure this will change in the near future. I have a couple reviews from happy customers thru mail didnt use them in my marketing

I installed a mind map app on my phone going to put my time in this.

I see @IceCreamKid has joined the thread. Your threads are also pure gold ! Always a good reminder to keep me on track. Want start a business read his threads.

Finally some thoughts
I see a lot potential in this forum, people trying to do ecommerce,copywriting, shiny things
A service business doesnt appeal to much people. But it is definetly a great learning process.
When you put in the work you can grow this quick !
look in this thread @nzott is growing really fast. Dont waste your time thinking/action faking or askholing here.
Dont now what to do ? Start a service business and learn on the go...

Thanks !
Most logical step I think is to outsource your phones. You want to do whatever you can to take yourself away from working "in the business" to "on the business". Michael Gerber discusses this in his E-Myth book.

The way to do this is to map out exactly what you say and do when a call comes in.

For example:

When we answer the phone we say "Hi, thanks for Calling XYZ Windows, what information can I get for you?"

Then the call can go in a variety of direction:

Schedule Service
Estimate
How your pricing works
Call Back
Team is late
Cancellation
Complaint
Telemarketer
Etc

You need a specific line of questioning and responses for each scenario. Basically a FAQ's page as a phone reference. This is where the mind map comes in. Draw out each scenario to it's conclusion.

Now, you personally don't need this document, but in order for anyone to be successful taking over your role, they do. This will take a long drawn out crappy process and turn it into a productive couple weeks before they are operationally strong.

There's multiple answering services out there, so I'm sure a quick Google search should show you some options in your area.

Once you've taken this off your plate, you can draft out all the other things you do to run the business. Use the exact same mind mapping process. Then follow this "system" every day and make minor tweaks as you see fit. When the business can support it, hire a full time administrative assistant to take over everything. Your goal is to be able to hand them a binder or send a link to a google doc with everything they need to run your business and off they go.

It's easier said than done, but first step is to free up your time to allow you to focus on this. For me, that was getting away from answering the phones as quick as possible.

Hope that helps.
 

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
A lot of good info in this thread.
@momomaurice and @nzott How are things going?
Spring and Summer makes us looks good. Business is growing and holding steady. Last 4 months averaged 17K per month.

Everything is steady in regards to marketing and sales. Haven’t changed much. Just continuing to allow organic to slowly build.

Spending a ton of time on other endeavors, so I spend maybe 2 hours on the business total each week. 1 hour is a weekly networking group. The other is the few times my VA calls to ask a question or input from me. Otherwise, I’m hands off.
 

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Great forum man. Thank you for sharing.

How did you find an employee to work when you first started? Or did you do the work?

I ask because I'm thinking of doing something similar. But want to make sure I don't end up doing the work and becoming a technician. Plus I have a full time job so it would be hard.
I started with Independent Contractors. Found through Craigslist.

If your in a big city like me, people are constantly looking for work on Craigslist. It's up to you to fully vet these people to make sure they do a good job.

Here's the process I use:

1. Fill out Google form to weed out crappy candidates. Few things I want to know; experience, do they have a partner, do they have a car, can they pass a background check, etc
2. Schedule initial interview to discuss in greater detail
3. Those I like I arrange a trial cleaning at my own apartment or a friends place. I'm looking at how they carry themselves and their interactions with a client on site. I never tell them it's the owners home they are cleaning.
4. Meet up at coffee shop to bring them on board officially and cover expectations and how we operate day to day.

Being a technician is fine as long as you are 100% determined to exit that path as soon as it's reasonable to. It's incredibly easy to get trapped because you're making more money than you would be otherwise. My best teams clear $1500-$1700 per week. Its hard to go from making $1500/week to making $300 because you hired a full time team to take over the work. But, doing so allows you to grow well beyond that.

There's no reason you can't operate this with a full time job. When you start out, your phone isn't ringing off the hook, there's not a pitfall of issues to deal with day to day, it's sporadic. No reason you can't follow up with clients on your lunch break or have a well timed visit to the bathroom.

Marketing channels like Thumbtack can be done entirely from your phone. You can program automated responses that can be sent out to inquiries within 5 seconds or receiving the notification.

Being a technician with a full time job is far tougher. You'd have to schedule yourself exclusively for nights or weekends. It's possible, but not what I'd recommend.

Start with an owner mentality from the get go.
 

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
@nzott how went august ? Keep up the good work !
Been stagnant as of late. Hovered right around 16k - 18k the past few months. Biggest reason I can pinpoint is a lack of direct focus. I was 100% all in for the first 6 months of 2017, and it showed. The tough part was I was reinvesting everything back into the business to facilitate more growth. Figured pulling 2k out of a business that made 10k/month wasn't near as fun as pulling 10k/month out of a business doing 50k/month. I also didn't want to become an employee myself, even though this would have brought me a substantially larger share of the revenue each month.

Now, let's not forget, when you're reinvesting everything, bills still gotta be paid. So I was hustling elsewhere to make up the difference. As these other side gigs started to morph into full fledged businesses of their own, I found myself spending more and more time focused on other items. This meant delaying things I'd usually be running full tilt towards. Hiring new teams was pushed back, networking opportunities were delayed, etc. This isn't all bad. The other business creates a larger cash flow for me personally, which is great, but my goal is for the cleaning business to grow exponentially larger and that won't happen until I dedicate more time to it.

As I've mentioned before, I hired a full time VA who handles the business currently. She does 95% of the work each week while I sit back and pay the bills. She does a tremendous job managing everything, but it's clear that I need to refocus on what got me to this point and re-calibrate for what's going to take me over the next hurdle.

That's essentially where I'm at now. It's been 1 year and 1 month since I left my job and it's been an incredible journey thus far. I'd do it again in a heartbeat and only regret is that I didn't have the balls to leave sooner.
 

Andy Black

Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
370%
May 20, 2014
18,494
68,507
Ireland
It's amazing how a guy lays out the exact steps required to start your own local services business and it only gets 26 upvotes on Reddit! Just reinforces the point in MJ's book and some other posts on here that people would rather pay thousands for a "get rich ASAP" seminar instead of doing research and trying things out that are free online.
Shhh.... don't let the cat out of the bag. There's NO money being spent by local service businesses to get more leads and sales. Move along now, nothing to see here.
 

Andy Black

Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
370%
May 20, 2014
18,494
68,507
Ireland
R + R = Profit

Too many people only look at the initial transaction when determining if AdWords and other paid channels are profitable for them.

I prefer to think of the first purchase as a test.

Great update @nzott ... rep.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

IceCreamKid

With Great Power Comes Great Electricity Bill
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
2,188%
Jun 8, 2010
939
20,542
California
Wow. Not sure how I missed this awesome thread. Thank you for sharing your journey. And thank you @Andy Black for helping as well.

Question, I paid for Yelp ads a while back and ultimately cut the service too after much testing concluded that it wasn't worth it. Immediately after cancelling, many of my positive reviews disappeared. I called Yelp to ask what was going on and they claimed that their algorithm automatically filters out reviews that they deem potentially fake. All of my reviews are legit. I spoke to other biz owners and they experienced something similar too.

Did Yelp use any mob tactics against you too?
 

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Know I've been non-existent as of late, but promise I'm still chugging along hustling any way I can. Various ventures are going well and continuing to grow, but since this is a progress thread on the cleaning business, I'd stick to a few updates on that.

We continued the slow pace through the fall, but hit a turning point in November. December is shaping up to continue on the right path. Teams are finally catching on to the incentives I offer them and the revenue on the other side makes it all worth while.

I recently replied to forum question and figured I'd re-post my answer here since I think it's valuable content that some of you would find helpful. Not only for local service business, but for most any business in general.

Question:
Any advice for building capital in a cleaning business?
Does anyone have any advice for building capital for their cleaning business? I am constantly having to turn down work when I get new contracts due to capital. I would like to avoid taking out a loan.

Answer:
Here's 7 things I would do to increase revenue/profits over the next 30 days.


1. Raise prices on my current customers: Sure you may lose a few due to the higher prices, but overall as long as your current clients are happy with your current work, you'll retain most of them and be operating at a higher profit overall.

2. If you don't already have a recurring component to your business, build a maintenance plan for clients that keeps them with you. Chasing new customers each month is tough. Knowing you have X amount of money in recurring revenue already booked for the month makes it a lot easier to make capital expenditure decisions.

3. Your biggest revenue potential is your current customer base 10 times over. Call/Text/Email every single client you've ever done business with that was happy with your work. Follow up and see how they're doing. Run a promotion for discounted service. Call it you're "end of year extravaganza". Tell them you're looking to help as many of your customers before year end and you only have so many slots available at these discounted rates. You'd love to fit them in before the holidays roll in.

4. If you don't have it already, build a referral engine to your business. Reward current customers and potential customers for bringing you business. $20 discount on their next service for every customer they bring you. 10% discount for everyone if their neighbors book same day service, etc.

5. Market heavily on Thumbtack or other similar lead gen source and offer your services at discounted prices. Sure it's lower profit work, but it's a much needed influx in overall capital that you can leverage down the line to higher ticket jobs. If you don't have the money for a paid source, post multiple times each day on Craigslist, Backpage, Gumroad, or other free listing service.

6. Offer an Incentive for your current teams with bonuses for great work. Use public reviews as a proxy for this. Give your teams a $10-20 bonus for each public review that team gets on big review platforms, i.e. Yelp, Google, Angie's List, Facebook. Public reviews are social currency for your business. Each one is worth well over the $10-20 (or more) your going to spend paying the bonus. It's important to align your goals with your teams goals. Your team goals might not always be additional money (though it often is). Find out what those goals are and build them into your business to benefit both of you.

7. Analyze where your dollars are spent each month and see if there's any cost savings to be had. This is the lowest on the totem pole for increasing profit, since the best answer is always to just bring in more work. Bringing in work is an ever expanding route whereas cutting costs is limited. You can only cut so far.

Utilizing all 7 of these methods will no doubt bring in a huge amount of revenue and additional profit to your business. As long as your doing quality work, it's impossible for this strategy not to work. Please note, only one element I listed costs any money out of pocket. Plus, I gave you a free option for this as well. There's no reason you should need to spend money to grow your service. Sure, paid marketing can grow your service faster, but exponential growth isn't a necessity. A little time investment rolling out each of these methods and a lot of hustle is all you need.
 
Last edited:

momomaurice

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
232%
Apr 24, 2017
106
246
35
Ireland
A lot of good info in this thread.
@momomaurice and @nzott How are things going?

I didnt do too bad considering I live in a small town and only started mid March. I made profit of about 1500 a week during May and June. But.. I hate it, it's after turning into a job. I dread the mornings getting up and power washing with shit flying in your face and being on top of ladders with the wind blowing ain't fun either. Plus exterior cleaning is seasonal depending where you live. So here in Ireland the winter sucks so bad you make no money and now we are actually having a great summer here and there is a water usage ban so now its affecting my business too. I feel like you don't have full control over a exterior cleaning business because it's very dependant on the weather and you can't control the weather. I learnt a lot from this business but I am already planning something else now.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Andy Black

Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
370%
May 20, 2014
18,494
68,507
Ireland
Essentially I was listing every possible variation of every keyword, and bidding on each and every one of them. From what I've learned, this isn't the most effective way to approach this, and can actually have negative effects on your CTR and Conversions. Which in turn affects how Google views your ads and the costs associated with them.
The problem wasn't that you were bidding in lots of different permutations of the same search term, but that you were using too much broad match.

Poor targeting brings visitors that have no intention of converting (someone looking for "snow removal" when you do cleaning), which is wasted spend.

It also brings unwanted impressions, that reduces your CTR.




Thanks for the write up @nzott. Looking forward to your updates.

Ha... that's the second time I've been blamed for starting a thread (@SinisterLex).
 

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Hi Nzott,

This thread is incredibly motivating to see your progress and you surpassing each monthly goal, excellent job! As someone who is new to the forums and doesn't know the first thing about Adwords, are there any books/resources you could recommend? I'm definitely interested in learning more about this.

What was your background before you started this work?

Thank you!
Perry Marshall's "The Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords" is often recommended. I've read it, but didn't take nearly as much from is as I did just diving in and getting my hands dirty. Speak with Andy Black and read some basic guides to develop a working knowledge, then try developing some campaigns on your own. Cap your daily ad spend so you don't crush yourself, but use this as your educational expense. Once you get a feel for it, go back to Andy and talk some more. It's just one avenue, but provides consistent revenue when done correctly. The days of set up adwords and kick your feet up sipping Mai Tai's while cash rolls in are long gone (if that was ever a thing), but it's still a great route to explore.

I was the assistant manager of a regional bank branch. Spent 3 years there straight out of school before leaving last September.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited:

Andy Black

Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
370%
May 20, 2014
18,494
68,507
Ireland
Really interesting stuff, I just watched the video and read through the comments on that thread. I'm taking a lot of notes as almost all of this info is foreign to me.

Appreciate all of the suggestions! So my basic understanding is that your primary business is a consulting service to businesses to help increase their leads and sales. Whereas Nzott is utilizing Adwords as a tool to increase his own service business' leads and sales.

Does Google's algorithm change frequently? Just curious how often you have re-evaluate some of your usual tactics to help increase page rankings and other items.

Thanks again for all of your help.
Yes. I generate leads for other businesses. @nzott generates and fulfils his own leads.

Check out the call I had with @Pittman09 where he's starting what I'm doing and asked me about my particular business model.

Check out @IceCreamKid 's thread where he runs his cleaning company for more info too.

This is paid search rather than SEO. The algorithm for page ranking doesn't matter.

EDIT:
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.
Last edited by a moderator:

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Another 60 days have passed, so it's time for some updates:

Here’s how we rounded out the last couple months:

June: $21,114
July: $16,640

Crossed $100,000 for the year on July 21st.

Well, the growth had to hit a speed bump at some point. I mentioned in my previous post that I stopped paying for Yelp ads and Thumbtack in June, so it’s no surprise that July took a hit. Down 26% it pretty drastic and it was evident we’d have a down month within the first week and a half of July. I reached out to a number of other owners that have been around for a few years to get a sense of whether this was normal. Luckily, it is. I came to learn July tends to be a down month for the industry as a whole. For that reason, I was happy I didn’t just throw money at advertising to prop up growth.

With that being said, there were some items that I let get away from me that contributed to this. My SEO guy has been fairly nonexistent lately. He’s overseas and we usually check in for a call a couple times each month to assess where we are at and strategize what we’ll do going forward. We had big jumps in the SERPs from January thru May when I invested pretty heavily in SEO. We were top 3 in most of the highly trafficked keywords in my area. We’ve since taken a hit and sit in the 7-10 range. This difference is massive in terms of organic traffic, so that was felt in July.

I’m in the process of finding another SEO provider now. This won’t be an easy task because everyone claims to know SEO, yet few really do in practice. I'm fortunate that I have a working knowledge in SEO, so I know what to look for and when someones feeding me BS. I'll ask other business owners for recommendations and start there. Another route that I suggest anyone follow who doesn't have anyone to recommend someone is researching SEO services that rank for the term “SEO” or similar term in Google in my area. Reason being, it’s really hard to rank for a highly trafficked keyword like SEO, so it’s safe to assume that companies in the top 5 consistently in my area for variations of SEO got there because they know what they are doing. Sure, some may play games and do things that are frowned upon in Google’s eyes, but by and large if you see the same provider consistently, they’re there for a reason. This will definitely come with a higher cost compared to what I’m paying now, but it’s something that’s important and will pay for itself quickly.

I’m back to using Thumbtack daily. I have a VA that handles this and actively bids on jobs for me and follows up each day in a predefined sequence of messages. The reason I went back was because I am now recognized as a “Thumbtack Top Pro” which means I get a little badge on my profile and can tout this in my bids. Only 4% of Thumbtacks entire provider base has this. I had been waiting for them to award me this, and it’ll be a huge help going forward. We’ve already seen a significant uptick in bookings from Thumbtack, which had taken a nosedive the past couple months.

Yelp held strong since turning ads off. We had 246 and 247 Views in May and June respectively on our Yelp page which led to 113 and 140 “leads”. Leads can be visits to our website or calls/messages sent to us by potential customers. Since stopping Yelp ads, we actually had more views in July with 259 leading to 126 leads. The view to lead rate is pretty solid overall for Yelp, so I’m hoping this continues to hold strong.

August will be back to more growth and I will continue to attack the next major milestone of 30k monthly revenue!

Onward.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Nicoknowsbest

Gold Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
395%
Mar 31, 2014
460
1,818
Austria
I didn't want to steal this thread. Just don't think it's big enough, though I feel like Andy made me do it toooooo

Do it.

Don't worry about it being too "small".

It's *YOUR* progress.

And it's progress, not an event - you can make it big over the months/years if you want to!
 

Andy Black

Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
Staff member
FASTLANE INSIDER
EPIC CONTRIBUTOR
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
370%
May 20, 2014
18,494
68,507
Ireland
Marked Notable and thread renamed.

Well done @nzott, and thanks for your detailed updates.
 

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Thanks @HustleHard


Only experience I had was back in high school. My first job was with a residential window cleaning company. Interior cleaning I knew nothing about. I remember when I’d take phone calls and people would ask me what products I used for particular surfaces. I’d have my laptop googling their question during the time they were asking it. Do this 50 times and you build a pretty remarkable working knowledge in all aspects of cleaning.


It might sound weird, but the actual cleaning aspect of the business is such a tiny component that it’s completely unnecessary to spend any time on before starting. I had potential subcontractors come clean my place and I inspected each area. Whether they used a particular product or technique, I didn’t care as long as it got cleaned.


Google is your best friend for any product or technique question. There’s a ton of forums out there to learn ways of doing things as well. I had to use these when I wanted to expand into soft washing and pressure washing.


Studying how to create systems in the business is really what will separate you quickly.


My favorite hires are small services looking for more work. Small team of two with 3-5 great references but no knowledge on how to market and grow their service.


I’ll probably move to full time employees eventually for legal reasons. There’s a fine line between subcontractors and employees in the IRS’ mind. Not worth the business risk as things grow.
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

minivanman

Platinum Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
265%
Mar 16, 2017
1,722
4,562
54
DFW
It was residential. I started back when flyers were king. The only advertising I ever did was passing out flyers. That's basically it, nothing complicated at the time. I started with $3.17, a borrowed bottle of window cleaner, a borrowed bottle of shower cleaner, a vacuum that didn't suck.... really, it wouldn't suck a piece of dirt off the floor..... we cut up large towels for smaller rags and we arrived in the beautiful 1974 Nova that had the rear shocks rusted out so the wheel wells rubbed the tires and the whole exhaust was trashed. It was so loud I would kill it as far away from the customers house as I could and coast in so they wouldn't hear it..... until I had to start it to leave. lol

It grew fast and we had no plan. My girlfriend and I split about 1 year in to it so I started over again with 5 customers that she 'gave' me out of the darkness, eerrr, I mean kindness of her heart. So I started again, with no plan and some how it grew to 12-15 workers, depending on the day.

Through those years I learned what cleaned best and it turns out, the best cleaners are the cheapest. And then they came out with the Magic Eraser.... they cut our cleaning time by 1/3 which saved me lots of money on payroll. And then I found 100 Magic Erasers on Amazon for $7 which made my cost even less!!

My new found 'love' and I built the business and expanded to 3 cities before our love failed. We sold them and I then moved to Texas. But in Nebraska, I loved the cleaning business. The employees were so great, a few stay in contact and want me to come back and start another business there ~vs~ here in Texas = crap.
 

HustleHard

Bronze Contributor
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
134%
Oct 2, 2016
88
118
39
How to offer elite cleaning services
If your goal is to offer high-end, elite cleaning services to a target audience of wealthy clients, do your market research. It is vital to prequalify your prospects. Spreading your marketing efforts out too broadly will dilute the results.



“Market research” sounds more complicated than it is. It means that you must figure out where the neighborhoods are that will welcome your services. Then, target these neighborhoods with your direct marketing.



How to find the right clients

Here is what not to do, which may run counter to your intuition or the advice of your friends. Do not run an ad in the local paper. Doing so will result in bringing you jobs that will make you want to run screaming. There is absolutely no prequalifying the customers who will respond to an ad in the paper, because anyone and everyone can get their hands on a local newspaper.



The two biggest nightmare cleaning-job experiences I ever stumbled across were the result of my placing an ad in the paper. Typically, the people who answer these ads are bargain shoppers in need of a once-a-year (or even less frequent) housecleaning. These are not the people who will turn out to be your loyal customers, as they plan to never call you back after that first (and last) dirty job.





Housecleaners should also avoid putting an ad in the Yellow Pages for the same reason, not to mention the ridiculously high cost. However, a company that is specializing in commercial cleaning might consider placing an ad in the Yellow Pages if it's within the budget.







Espionage

Find only the best prospects. How is this accomplished? By finding the first-class neighborhoods, not the economy class ones. This is easily done online by using real-estate focused websites such as Zillow and Trulia. Search your area by home values, and get maps and pictures of the neighborhood. In the old days we had to get in the car and cruise the whole area, using a map and a magic marker. Now it is so much easier to obtain a mental picture of the territory and a more accurate feel for the home values, just by cruising around the Internet. We think it is still a good idea for anyone who is going to market to the area to take a drive-thru, and see if there are any obstacles. Keep an eye out for physical signifiers such as a community gate, or “No soliciting” signs posted. Keep in mind that I had my best results in the "no soliciting" neighborhoods! Proceed at your own risk.





Messaging

Once you have mapped out your target-market neighborhoods, the next step is to prequalify the clients. Do this by crafting marketing materials that resonate only with a certain type of person. Housecleaners who take this important step have a much easier time growing their business in the beginning. We have written extensively about this on this website. It is all about how you language the content on your marketing material. You only want the people that resonate with your signals to respond. This will make your job a whole lot easier, the jobs will pay better, and you are more likely to actually like the clients you clean for. That's a plus, because it lightens the workload.





Giving bids

Once you have your optimized marketing materials, spread them around, and you are getting responses, it is best to give in-person bids directly on-location for each job. You will be taking detailed notes on the specifics of the tasks needed for the job and determining whether or not the client is a good fit for you. Most importantly, you will be sizing up what you think they are willing to pay. You need to look professional and act somewhat sophisticated. Keep small talk about the job. If you can help it, do not get into discussions about politics, religion or personal hobbies or anything of a personal, subjective nature. After all, you want to get the job. You aren't there to convince this person about your point of view on various world affairs.





Closing the deal

The hardest part is giving the bid amount and closing the deal. There is no magic formula to follow that will give you the same results each time. That is because people are involved, and people are unpredictable. You just have to get better at it with practice. Closing a sale is an art-science and with time, you improve at doing it successfully. Be firm, and willing to stick to your price range. You cannot get into a situation where you need every bid to go your way. That is unrealistic. The way to not worry about getting each job, is to generate far more interest in your services, through marketing, than you actually need. This is strictly a function of marketing scale. It is better to overcompensate on the exposure end and turn jobs down, or bid high and not get the job. The thing is, reducing your charge by $15 - 20 may not seem like a big deal, but if you did the job twice a month for three years, that reduction in price would be $1,440.



The trick to offering elite cleaning services for profit is in your persona. Look, act, and excel at the role you are playing. Make an effort to understand their world, and try not to project your own personal values onto your clients. The actual cleaning is the easy part and even if you are an outstanding cleaning professional, that will not make your cleaning business a success. The key to success is how you interact and communicate with the client. That has the biggest impact on your business.


March/April 2018201606/sheila-marikar/two-maids-and-a-mop.html

How This $5 Million Home Cleaning Startup Is Sweeping the Competition

Ron Holt got into residential cleaning in the early 2000s, when he saw a surge in demand that the mom-and-pop shops dominating the industry couldn't meet. The result was Two Maids & a Mop, his Birmingham, Alabama, startup. By making some decisions that were expensive at first--but which bore long-term fruit--this three-time Inc. 5000honoree brought in $4.7 million in revenue in 2014. Holt explains how his company has thrived.

1. Doing the right thing is smart business.
When Holt created Two Maids & a Mop, he was inexperienced in business building. He visited five noncompeting cleaning businesses to learn their secrets. He found that the majority of home-cleaning companies employed independent contractors. It would have been cheaper for him to hire cleaners this way too. But since owners can't require independent contractors to perform tasks in a specific manner, "I just couldn't envision any scenario that would allow me to control an employee's action by using that model," Holt says. So, he decided to make all staffers W-2 employees. He also learned that cleaning companies often make their workers pay for damage they cause--and many of them hide it as a result. Holt chose instead to let customers and staff know that the company, not the cleaner, will pick up the tab for damage. "I never wanted my employees to break something and not tell me," he says. He believes these policies have boosted his brand's value and enabled the decisions he subsequently made that helped grow revenue.

Takeaway--Competing on integrity can be as important as competing on price.

2. It pays to give employees a reason to be great.
Holt started Two Maids & a Mop in April 2003. One year later, he had almost burned through his initial capital and was worried about making payroll. The morale of his cleaners was low and turnover was high. Holt had been paying them hourly rates, with most starting at minimum wage. His attempts to motivate his 12-person staff using a corporate style of management weren't working. "I wanted a way to get our employees to care without being a police sergeant," he says. In May 2004, he came up with a pay-for-performance plan--cleaners would be compensated on the basis of how customers rated them on a scale from one to 10. A 10 gets an employee a better wage--above the industry average, says Holt. "A one is pretty close to minimum wage." He had to raise prices, but rewarding employeesfor doing the best job possible led to higher customer satisfaction and buoyed the business. "We were never really that much different from anyone else," Holt says. "Now, when we talk about the pay-for-performance plan, we're different. A lot of people hire us because of our plan."

Takeaway--Customers will pay more for higher quality. Give employees an incentive to provide it.

3. Keep it consistent at scale.
While customer satisfaction increased with the pay-for-performance plan, there were still discrepancies from one cleaning to the next. "There would be individuals who would go above and beyond with good intention, and someone else would come in and clean the normal way, and all of a sudden, the previous cleaning had become the standard," Holt says. Cleaning quality also declined in the afternoon, likely because of tired staffers. In 2008, Holt enlisted the help of Debbie Sardone, a Texas-based cleaning consultant. She spent a month observing the company's cleaners. With her, Two Maids & a Mop developed a 100-page, room-by-room guide on cleaning a home. Staffers are required to follow the formula (something that couldn't be required if they were independent contractors), which has resulted in a more consistent quality of service. "We're not perfect," Holt says, "but now it doesn't matter if you clean at 3 p.m. or 8 a.m., because the recipe tells you what to do."

Takeaway--Successful scaling requires giving your employees the tools and knowledge they need to excel.
 

JLawrence

Bronze Contributor
Read Fastlane!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
553%
May 9, 2016
51
282
Awesome job on taking ACTION and getting the ball rolling! Keep us updated!

PS- I am fairly new here, while taking "ACTION" but GOING NOWHERE.... @Andy Black has been the 1 person that truly inspired me while also finally helping me realize my REAL PROBLEM was that I was purely "CHASING MONEY" rather than creating "VALUE" which complete mindset change while volunteering my time/working completely free for someone else (found 3 people who in just 2 weeks I have helped each person in some POSITIVE way which gave me new idea's on which I have already taken ACTION in my first business venture EVER!) .

Didn't mean to "hi-jack" your threat but AWESOME progress I will be following this threat and PROPS to @Andy Black!

All good man. That mindset change is huge. You'll be amazed at the opportunities that will start to come your way. You'll also notice synergies between people and ideas that you would have never come across otherwise.

Once you've volunteered your time and made some good connections, don't be afraid to start asking for a bit of money as well. Not because it's fun to make money, but because if you constantly do things for free, it will distort your sense of how you can deliver value. You'll start to feel like you can only provide value when you're volunteering your time or resources. When you know you can charge money AND deliver tremendous value to people, that's a game changer.

Keep at it my friend. I know that feeling of taking action and feeling like you're going nowhere. Persistence is key. It's cliche, but incredibly true. While you're bank account might not seem like it's gone anywhere, I bet if you look inward, you'll recognize how far you've come personally in the last 6-12 months. That personal growth will be the bedrock of everything moving forward.
 

Everyman

Get To The Choppa!
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Speedway Pass
User Power
Value/Post Ratio
178%
Dec 31, 2015
328
584
Ireland
Ha... that's the second time I've been blamed for starting a thread (@SinisterLex).

@Andy Black I don't know if I should start my progress thread then because:

Idea:

- it came from my client that wanted to be on the no 1 position for a keyword (which I did, well not too difficult with the posts here)

Knowledge - AndyBlack's threads and brain (mainly the latter):

- I PMed Andy and he wrote back - "maybe you can try running it yourself"

- I built a clean, one-page website (thanks to @Fox thread) for my uncle - local dentist - without his knowledge nor permission (...)

- I started a campaing (sounds big, doesn't it?) with 5E/day budget to see how it goes - 6th of April

I didn't want to steal this thread. Just don't think it's big enough, though I feel like Andy made me do it toooooo
 
Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

Post New Topic

Please SEARCH before posting.
Please select the BEST category.

Post new topic

Guest post submissions offered HERE.

New Topics

Fastlane Insiders

View the forum AD FREE.
Private, unindexed content
Detailed process/execution threads
Ideas needing execution, more!

Join Fastlane Insiders.

Top