Are You Tired Of Riding Along In The Backseat?

You’ve worked at a bunch of jobs. Jobs with full of demands and very little pay.

You’ve worked split shifts, double shifts and 7 days straight.

You’ve had a boss call you on your regular day off and growl, “why aren’t you at work? You’re supposed to come in today!”

(Your boss changed your schedule without saying a word to you. 😖)

So you got dressed and went to work instead of taking care of the dozen things you had planned for your day off.

This happened to me. Grrrrr!

Your work life has been a bumpy ride in the backseat of someone else’s bus.

Now you’re ready to get off at the next stop, for good!

My Carousel of Jobs

Over the years, I’ve worked a bunch of jobs: waitress, bartender, barista, cook and daycare worker (my favorite place in daycare centers was the Baby Room!).

At some point, I grew tired of working rickety jobs with split shifts, double shifts and shifting schedules. I decided to go out on my own as a mobile personal chef for hire.

As a mobile personal chef, I drove to customers homes and spent the day preparing a week’s worth of dinners in their kitchens. All my customers had to do was pay me, heat and eat.

My mobile personal chef business led to a catering business. However, I soon found cooking was just a small part of professional catering.

I had a lot to learn about sales, bookkeeping, managing staff, maintaining a commercial kitchen and delivering beautifully presented food at just the right temperature.

Roller Coaster

After few years catering, I decided to turn the part of the business I really enjoyed⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯food presentation——into a corporate gift basket business.

The gift basket business was creative and fun! I really loved the networking events, business travel, trade shows and conventions.

Plus, each year 4th quarter and the holidays were a thrilling blizzard of cash!

My fun creative business became a roller coaster of seasonal highs and lows the rest of the year.

I found myself making constant sales calls for small orders or chasing down late NET 30 payments for larger orders.

Eventually, I burned out. My burnout was due in large part to a lack of solid business systems.

Without good systems, my business became a frustrating money chase.

Doors Closed…

When I hit the wall with the gift basket business, I knew I needed a major break.

I didn’t want to go back to commercial cooking of any sort, self-employed or not.

I considered starting a home-based daycare business, but family losses around that time poured ice water on my heart.

Since I believe working with children requires a warm, full heart and mine was not, the home daycare business idea was a non-starter.

At that point, I decided to dissolve the gift basket business and find a job⎯⎯any job⎯⎯that gave me time to think and find a new path.

…And a Door Opened

During that time, I saw a newspaper ad for Merry Maids with these words: No evenings, weekends or holidays!

After years of working jobs and running two businesses with long, demanding evening, weekend and holiday hours (sometimes 24 hours straight), I was ready for “regular” hours.

I spent a year at Merry Maids. There I found I really liked cleaning houses and I had the stomach for cleaning. Not everyone does.

I liked turning messy homes into clean, tidy and shiny spaces.

I didn’t get into the mindset of some of my co-workers who spent their work days counting down toilets: “only three more to go and I’m done for the day”.

I learned the Merry Maids method for cleaning houses. I discovered the importance of speed, efficiency and repeatable cleaning methods.

A few of my co-workers had their own customers on the side. They gave me valuable tips on how to start and run a house cleaning business.

With my co-worker’s tips and encouragement and my brand-new professional cleaning skills, I decided to start my own business.

Preparing For A New Start

Since I’d been in business before, I knew I wanted to be licensed, bonded and insured from the start.

I started in my new direction by reading books about the business of house cleaning.

This was before the internet, so books and magazines were the main ways to learn about things.

I also understood the importance of researching the market.

I spent time at the local library learning about which local neighborhoods to target for my sales and marketing efforts.

I made sure I started with a plan for handling my earnings plus paying state and federal taxes each quarter.

I hired someone to do my bookkeeping since that’s not a favorite task of mine.

Turning the Key & Starting the Engine

Starting my own house cleaning business gave me the “regular” hours I craved plus a stable week-to-week income.

No more chasing payments, seasonal highs and lows, graveyard shifts or 24 hours on my feet.

Plus I wasn’t stuck working in a shop, office, restaurant or preschool all day. I drove to customers homes, doing something different every day.

I was finally in the driver’s seat of my own work life instead of the backseat of someone else’s work bus.

Unexpected Stumbles and Stalls

Those first years of my new cleaning business were great financially.

After taxes and expenses, I was able to earn 5 times my previous income as a house cleaning employee, plus generous holiday tips.

In the first years, I signed up a variety of customers before I zeroed in on the type of customer I worked with best: working couples.

While I knew the basics of running a business and cleaning houses, I still found there was so much more to learn.

Bargain Basement Mindset

Even though I had a licensed business and a healthy customer list within a year, I still stumbled around with a bargain basement mindset for years.

I continued with my former employer’s cleaning methods, even though some of those ways of cleaning were not effective.

I was slow to raise prices, even with the messiest customers.

I allowed some customers to pile on extra tasks to basic cleaning without a price increase.

In some cases, I piled the work on myself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In some ways, I still thought and acted like a bargain basement cleaning employee.

Stepping Up To The Next Level

In 2008, the US economy melted down. Some of my customers or their spouses lost their jobs.

I was terrified I would lose all of my customers and the income they provided.

In the middle of sleepless nights, I got out of bed and fired up my computer.

I spent those dark, early morning hours reading online about ways to improve my cleaning services.

From the correct way to clean wood floors to best ways of handling customers cancelling at the last minute, I picked up ideas to take my house cleaning service to the next level.

I was no longer willing to settle for a bargain basement mindset.

I challenged myself to climb the stairs to become a Trusted Expert.

One Step At a Time

I committed to giving each customer a more consistent and thorough cleaning every single time.

I researched new methods and tried different tools and cleaning supplies.

I sharpened my work systems and let some old methods go.

I developed a repeatable batch workflow that focused on detailed cleaning throughout my customers homes each cleaning visit.

I fine-tuned my customer policies or “work fence”.

I developed and enforced solid boundaries and limits on my time and what I offered.

Within a few years, I not only kept all of my 2008 customers, I added new customers.

My unemployed customers even kept me on while they were between jobs.

I grew my income over 50 percent during a difficult financial time.

What made the difference was a mindset shift, a willingness to learn more, try more and step up.

That time taught me deeper lessons on how to manage my time and money.

I mastered systems of running the business that allowed me to work fewer hours for more money.

I stepped up from a bargain basement house cleaning employee to a Trusted Expert cleaning partner for my customers.

Mindset Changes Everything

What I discovered is a self-employed house cleaner with a Trusted Expert mindset works with their customers, not for them.

The shift I made in 2008 made a lasting difference in how I saw myself and ran my house cleaning business.

It changed the way I treated my customers and how I was treated by them in return.

I went on to serve many of the same customers as a Trusted Expert for more than 22 years, through births, deaths, disabilities, earthquakes and economic meltdowns.

Are You Ready for the Driver’s Seat?

Are you ready to move from rickety, backseat jobs to getting in the Driver’s Seat with your own dream🌟 house cleaning business?

Are you ready to move from jobs with lots of demands and very little pay?

Are you ready to move from split shifts, double shifts and working 7 days straight?

Now I’m ready to share my hard learned lessons to help you start your own licensed house cleaning business.

I’m here to guide you around the quicksand of “how do I get started” or “what do I do next” and head straight to starting and building a profitable house cleaning business.

A business with you in the Driver’s Seat.

When You’re Ready

Get started with all of the resources Self-Employed House Cleaner offers. (Just tap to open and close the tabs.)

Get in and turn the key today!