“Wait a minute! I own a residential cleaning business, so this sounds like either a trick question or a very dumb one. Obviously I am in the house cleaning business.” Would it be safe to say this was your immediate response to the above article headline?

Okay, we’ll concede that the industry you’re in is categorized as cleaning, house cleaning or residential cleaning. You hire, train and manage people to perform cleaning labor. You advertise your business as a house cleaning business. You get paid when you clean clients’ homes. Having said that, thinking within these strict confines as it relates to what your business really is will limit your ability to compete effectively and grow a substantial, successful and profitable business.

The Businesses Within Your Business

Before we address the broader question of what business you’re in, let’s look at the sub-businesses within your organization identified above that are critical to its overall success (in order of importance). These three sub-businesses apply to virtually any commercial business, not just your industry:

1. The Business of Human Resource Management
2. The Business of Sales and Marketing
3. The Business of Providing a Good Service or Commodity

Once you appreciate that these issues are designated in the order of importance, you’ll be far ahead of the majority of your competitors. If you were to ask 100 owners of cleaning businesses to rank these three areas in order of importance, you’d probably find that 90 or more of them would reverse the order. But all we need to do is reread the second paragraph at the beginning of this article to realize what the order of importance of those three sub-categories is.

A. If we’re not good at the business of human resource management, we won’t have enough good employees to be able to provide a service to market to very many clients;
B. If we’re not good at the business of marketing our service, we won’t have many clients to clean for; and
C. Finally, if we don’t have an excellent product we won’t be able to retain clients or charge enough money to build a substantial, successful and profitable business.

The ranking of these “businesses within a business” is evidenced by this writer’s House Cleaning Biz 101© CD seminar series with over five hours dedicated to Employee Development, three and a half hours on Client Development and just over one hour on our Professional House Cleaning Tutorial CD. (Click here for more details on this program.) I have learned the importance of thinking and managing in this fashion over more than four decades of business experience, including 15 years in the residential cleaning industry.

Conventional Wisdom

The house cleaning industry tends to attract people who think that because they know how to clean that they can start this business and become successful. The subsequent high failure rate due to this naïve thinking is clear evidence that is not the case. Even the best cleaner in the world cannot build a successful business unless he or she is good at employee and client development.

There is an old proverb that says, “build a better mouse trap and people will beat a path to your door.” If you believe it’s that simple, then focus strictly on being able to outperform any other house cleaning company in town – and see how far it gets you. You could be the best house cleaner in the world and be willing to clean a 4,000 square foot home for only $1.00, but if nobody knew about you, how many clients would you have? None! You’ve got to be good at marketing your business.

I have had owners tell me “I get most of my clients from referrals.” I am then bemused when I ask them how many clients they have and they throw out a number like 15 or 25 after being in “business” for 18 months. This is not owning a “business” – it’s owning a “job”! Not that there’s anything wrong with owning a job and working for yourself, but it can hardly lead to building a substantial, successful and profitable “business”. Every good business gets referrals, but you can’t sit back and wait for other people to do your marketing for you. The subject of “who cleans your house” is not a hot topic at most cocktail parties.

Now, let’s say you are good at marketing your business and getting and retaining clients. What good is that if you don’t have people to service an unending supply of new clients? “I get all the clients I can handle” is another often-heard claim in this industry. But how many clients does this represent? 50? 100? 200? 500?

The ability to recruit, train, manage and retain many good workers is essential in building a substantial, successful and profitable residential cleaning business. There are a number of folks in this industry generating $1 million, $2 million and even more in annual revenues and you can rest assured they don’t do that kind of business with only 10 or 15 employees.

Our point is – throw out the conventional wisdom that all you have to be to succeed in this industry is a good house cleaner. Not that you don’t have to deliver a top-rate service to succeed, because you do. This fact is a given. But you have to have a system to recruit, train, manage and retain good employees to do that on your company’s behalf. This is the most important “sub-business” within your business.

Let’s move on to the topic of “what business you are really in.”

Think “Outside The Bun”

I think the Taco Bell® slogan is terrific. It’s obviously designed to make people who patronize other fast-food establishments like McDonald’s®, Burger King® and Wendy’s® think about buying a taco instead of a burger. I am going to use it in this article to encourage you “think outside the box” as it pertains to the business you’re really in.

In order to get a handle on who your market is, what the potential for that market is and how to best get your share of the market, let’s take a look at one industry and examine what business some of these companies are really in:

• The Ritz Carlton – Lodging Industry – The Real Business They Are In: This posh hotelier is in the business of catering to the desires of upscale clientele who want to experience deluxe accommodations, fine dining, choice of several bars and restaurants, pampered service, amenities such as exercise parlors and concierge service and the entire ambiance associated with a luxurious lifestyle.

• Holiday Inn – Lodging Industry – The Real Business They Are In: This middle-of-the-road hotelier is in the business of serving the needs of business people, vacationers and other travelers who want more affordable but clean and comfortable accommodations along with such basic amenities as an on-site restaurant, bar and a swimming pool.

• Motel 6 – Lodging Industry – The Real Business They Are In: A no-frills hotelier in the business of providing a very inexpensive place for travelers to spend the night without any of the amenities. While the hotel/motel industry is referred to generally as the hospitality industry the word can only be used very loosely in connection with this level of property – if at all.

While the above hotels are categorized as being in the lodging industry, there are hotels that would really be considered as being in the category of “entertainment”. Casino hotels in Las Vegas and other gambling Meccas are a good example.

All of the above hotels are in the same industry, but are they really in the same “business”? The answer is obvious. And do they all cater to the same clientele? Again, the answer is clearly evident.

While all the examples we’ve illustrated have the same three sub-businesses to run, which we discussed at the outset of this article, their product and operational methods differ a great deal.

In our industry, your typical work-alone house cleaner could best be compared to Motel Six. The product is basically bare-bones, no-frills house cleaning. And like the low-end hotelier, the person rendering this service can hardly justify charging what professional cleaning companies can. It stands to reason that without being able to charge reasonable rates, these folks can’t afford to promote their service to a wide audience or to provide any amenities that clients should be entitled to. With consumers becoming more knowledgeable and demanding, this business model is not one that serious owners want to emulate.

At the other end of the scale in our industry is the business model more closely styled on that of the high end hotelier. Professionally trained, supervised, courteous and well groomed employees eager to satisfy their clients. Added amenities include the peace of mind that those workers invited into clients’ homes have been thoroughly screened, bonded and covered by workers’ compensation insurance. Employees are fairly compensated and treated in order to attract and retain the best possible workers. The company brings its own equipment and supplies, meaning the client can stop shopping for all that “stuff”. The company carries $1 million or more in liability insurance to protect its clients’ assets. Customer satisfaction is guaranteed by a company willing and able to back up that guarantee. The company is a member of the Better Business Bureau and local Chamber of Commerce. It operates its business from a commercial location and provides its workers with clean, safe and reliable company vehicles clearly identified with the company’s name, logo, address and telephone number. Because all these amenities are included, this company can easily justify charging substantially higher prices for its product than the low-end house cleaner – and, as a result, can afford to invest in marketing to a wide range of potential clients.

Both of these models are categorized in the same industry, but they hardly are in the same business. And the difference in their income is hardly the same, either. The first business model might be lucky to generate $50,000 a year; there are many examples of cleaning businesses modeled after the second scenario that do 20 to 50 times that! In the real world, most cleaning businesses fall somewhere in between; more like in the Holiday Inn category of hotelier. However, the wonderful thing about the cleaning business is that it’s very easy to graduate from middle-of-the road to the high-end level for only a little more time, money and effort. And that’s where you want to strive to be.

A Final Thought

Think about this question: Why do people buy ¼” drills? Because they want ¼” drill? No, because they want ¼” hole!

Why do people contract with a residential cleaning company? Well, of course they want a clean home. But unless they’re physically challenged they can clean their own home. In the overwhelming majority of cases they hire a house cleaning service for one or more of the following reasons:

They don’t want to clean their own home;

They don’t have time to clean their home;

They would rather spend their time doing something other than cleaning their home;

They want more leisure time then their busy life style would otherwise afford them;

Time is more valuable then the cost of hiring someone to do menial household chores;

It’s no longer considered a luxury to hire others to take care of lawns and landscaping, detailing the family car, cleaning the pool and other typical chores around the house.

When it comes right down to it, the vehicle on which your business moves is cleaning homes. But the product you’re really selling to the majority of clients is TIME. You are really in the business of selling the precious commodity of time.