by Chris Lude, Co-Owner of Denver Concierge.
—-Original Message—–
Sent: Tuesday, June 8, 2004 10:46 AM
To: Chris Lude
Subject: Info
I’m not sure I understand your operating forecasts. Why are you hiring employees you do not need throughout the first year?
Reply:
9 June 2004
Thank you for your interest. The decision to carry, or not, added employees during the start-up phase, [...]

—–Original Message—–
From: M
Sent: Friday, June 25, 2004 12:58 PM
Subject: how do I change?
Hi! I have had a small cleaning business for the past 14 years. I clean houses myself but I would like to expand and hire some employees, but I have a fear. I am trusted by all of my clients and don’t want [...]

By Chris Lude, Co-Owner of Denver Concierge.
Our most notable bad debt losses have always resulted from our own lapses of judgment.
On a day with some slack in our schedule, a realtor calls up and asks us to clean an empty house in a rush for an open house she is doing tomorrow. We ask who [...]

When I accepted the position for the Alliance, I had a long talk with the HCA staff about “agenda.”We all harmonized on this: Raise the level of awareness that house cleaning .keeping .is, indeed, a profession, and its potentials will grow remarkably through commitments to professionalism.

By Chris Lude, Co-Owner of Denver Concierge.
—–Original Message—–
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2004 11:58 AM
To: Chris Lude
Subject: info
hello
I am in the process of starting a new cleaning business and as I was looking over the websites I came to yours. I would like to know if there is any information or help you can give me [...]

Background and Description
The HCA Automatic Pricing Tool (“HCA Pricer”) represents a system for predicting the time required (“HCA Clean Time”) to professionally clean a human-occupied primary residence (“Household”), based on a Household’s attributes (“HCA Pricer Attributes”), the number of individuals involved in the cleaning process (“Team Size”), the efficiency factors for the actual individuals involved [...]

Suddenly the house cleaning industry is awash in know-it-alls. So let me begin by saying we obviously don’t. All we can offer is what has worked for us, and our experiences seem to be remarkably different from what is being sold as gospel by the house cleaning industry’s gurus.

I’d Rather be Golfing
I would prefer to play golf than do in-home price quotes–I am really tired of doing them. So I can’t dispute all the good reasons for skipping them. However, for those who are still on the fence, let me explain the reasons I still keep choosing them over golf:

by Chris Lude, Co-Owner of Denver Concierge.
Putting together operating forecasts is an important first step in deciding to start an independent or franchise maid service. Yet, too many entrepreneurs embark without bothering to prepare an operating forecast or understand the investment requirements and operating costs associated with a new venture. If such entrepreneurs had a [...]

You can buy books telling you what a low investment, high growth opportunity residential house cleaning can be. We believe that the house cleaning’s 50% per annum failure rate speaks for itself. It is an attractive industry, but it is the potential for limitless scale and profits from cleaning nice homes, not the misconception about [...]