Starting out

On a trip here to the United States I met my future husband. After getting an extension of my Visa and waiting for my children to join me I asked what I could do for work. I have a dgree in Accounting from the University of Trujillio in Peru along with a long list of Adminstative credentials. Here in the United States I would have to return to University to make any of that applicable. So I was stuck.

My husband's brother does business in Thailand and brings people here from time to time to help with his business. When we went to the Immigration attorney's office he went through all the steps which seemed long, involved, and complicated. He said that I could own a businesses here. So my husband asked what I like to do and I said "clean" without hesitation.

My first clients were a couple who imported condiments from Peru. We met at a friends house. One afternoon a woman saw me with a bucket and asked if I could clean her unit. Sure, In a month I had three clients in the same building and two more in another. We ran an ad in the local paper then got a couple of houses on Magnolia. We put ads in local Real Estate offices. We did some one time cleanings but Real Estate agents proved to be a great source of regular clientele.  

My biggest push in business came from a large cleaning person referral company who didn't do regular or one time cleaning. We advertised with real estate agents and in the local paper. Then one day the phone stopped ringing. The large cleaning person referral company got two complaints about us in the same day. We were behind schedule because we couldn't find an address. Both complaints had to do with us being late on the same day and the company stopped referring us business.

It was devastating to lose close to four thousand dollars in income at one time. We concentrated more on the real estate agents to find they were slow pay, no pay. What happened that changed everything was the same thing that happened in the beginning. People began referring us more clients. To say that we built a business by word of mouth would be wrong. We did push for clients at the beginning.

We grew slowly from that point with a big increase of a November, December promotion for one time party cleaning. We were referred to many new clients by the promotional special. After the third year we were back to where we thought we should be. My brother's wife began helping in the business and another push started. We did some door to door flyers with some flyers going to grocery stores. We got a post card in the mail from a large company then sent out some post cards of our own.

The magic started with our web site. www.aspringcleaning.com was always a one page business card. It got great placement on the Google search. That in turn lead us the The House Cleaning Alliance and ASP professionals. We bought a template site at www.seattlehousecleaning.com and the phone started ringing again.

The placement was enhanced by the provider, who in turn upgrades, and refreshes the site. They also link us back and forth with like sites under the House Cleaning Alliance umbrella. It's now the only advertising we use.

Keeping up with employees was always an issue. We hired and fired people. Workers wouldn't care. We had helped set up my friend's business and she seemed to be doing fine. She had sub contractors from Guatemala. These women needed some one to speak English and schedule clients. They needed vehicles and equipment, but were more than capable of doing the job, with our friend taking a percentage. She can operate this business from the internet. She also has a web site that schedules and communicates.

I'd like to mention for a minute that the biggest fear some companies have is that the cleaners will steal the clients then work for less. It was so simple to structure our business to encourage people to start thier own businesses. My sister in law was the second to take the plunge behind our friend on the peninsula. After about six months I think she wanted her job back. Other people who work with us watch what we do and we are grooming the next woman to branch off on her own.

There is more than enough business for any one who wants to provide high quality services without getting greedy. A second part that I would like to make clear is that doing business in the United States is tricky. There are rules, laws, and quirks. There are systems in place here that are a learning curve.

In that learning curve Americans have quirks. I've lived on three continents and visited more. The people who live in the United States have a different way of life. Business is a serious matter. The phrase, "you should of thought of that before you went into business," is burned into my head. I've heard it a thousand times. Everything is immediate, everything should be perfect, everything should be done a certain way, and most important the customer is always right! I should have thought about that before I went into business.

Let me be clear I love this country, I love to clean, but the United States culture is a learning curve for the people who come here. It's something that I'm mentioning in terms of worker retention.  Many people want a buffer from the public. Even people who speak English. So for us our capacity for dealing with multiple cultural issues works in our favor. Many of our clients get confused about cultural aspects of the people who work with us. Attitudes about house hold pets is a big one that comes to mind. In other cultures dogs are for warnings or protection.

Today our business is ready to expand again. We have set on a balance of work and family that's important to us. It's a stream, that's becoming a river, and we are all grateful to have these opportunities in our lives. If you have questions about your business or how we grew ours, if you speak Spanish and want to get started, please think of us as a resource. If it can happen for us it can happen for you.