August focus: Domestic Cleaning Service

Have Patience!

Now that you have begun your new small business there are a few things that you need to be aware of at the beginning. Your business will build gradually over a few weeks, and whilever you are following these guidelines there will be a constant flow of new work from clients that will respond to your various forms of marketing. However, if you do not follow these guidelines then you may not be as successful as is possible in this industry. You may lose those clients that you neglect or handle badly, which means that not only will they not become Regular clients but you will not be able to offer those clients other services from which you will earn more money. So if you find that the number of repeat bookings has slowed down you can more or less be sure that it is due to your own contributing actions or behaviours.

There are a couple of exceptions to the above statement though. If your business has commenced during any of the school holiday periods then there will be a lull in the amount of inquiries, which will affect the number of bookings. Also, if there is a long period of rainy weather there will also be a lull, as much of the marketing that you will do and the emotions of the client rely on good weather. Just think about it for a minute – you’re a young mum who is thinking about hiring a new cleaner and the weather happens to be dismal, keeping the kids stuck in the house. Would you be making a booking to have the house cleaned now or would you wait until the weather cleared up? I know what I would do!

So be patient during your first few weeks in business. The work is definitely there, in fact there are thousands of households in any given area that require someone to do their cleaning. My aim is to give you the training that you need to become successful in your new business. Try not to let your emotions carry you away just because perhaps somebody who knows nothing about the industry tells you that things should be moving faster than they may be. There are many, many factors that are beyond your control that contribute to the speed at which your business builds. One thing I can say, and that is that it definitely will build if you are willing to learn, you do all the right things, do courses to improve yourself, and read this information again and again if you have to. Here are a few basic tips to help you become successful, and congratulations on taking your first step towards career independence!:

During your build-up period you will have requests from new clients to do Vacate Cleans, Spring-Cleans, and First Extended Maintenance Cleans, as well as Regular bookings. The one-off bookings sometimes become Regular bookings if they are done well, so treat them just as importantly as the Regular bookings because they may possibly turn into Regulars if given the right service. The fact that these bookings are not Regulars during your build-up period does not negate their value to your business – all requests from clients should be considered, whether they be Regular or not.

If you would like to make sure that you don’t lose your clients after doing their cleaning for the first time, always do a follow-up call the same night after you have done their work. Then if the client wasn’t happy with your work you can go back the next day and fix the problem. This is one of the advantages of your business being slow to begin with, because it allows you the time to fix any problems that may arise and possibly cause you to lose a regular booking. This can only be done if your roster isn’t completely full yet, which only occurs in the early stages of your business. You should make it a habit to follow-up after the first visit to a new client, as all through your business clients will come and go. Sometimes the reason for them not wanting to continue to use your services can be remedied if you do a follow-up the very same evening after having done the work. However, don’t allow a client to complain three days after the work has been done, because by then you won’t know what was your error and what is the results of your client and her family living in the home.

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You can read in next article about: The Build-up Period – Part II