The “How to Start a House Cleaning Company” booklets have been written by the Founders of Denver Concierge.
Denver Concierge is possibly the largest independent house cleaning company in the United States.
It was founded from scratch in 1999, and in the ensuing five years was grown to reach weekly revenue of nearly $40,000 per week.

The founders sold Denver Concierge for a significant seven figure sum in November 2006.
The booklets include practical information for starting, growing, and operating a residential cleaning company. Once you purchase them, they are available online from your login. They include the following:

How We Came to Start a House Cleaning Enterprise
Explains why two ex-investment banking MBA’s chose to start a house cleaning enterprise.

Starting a House Cleaning Company - 15 Easy Steps in 21 Days
Explains how to actually proceed once you’ve decided to start a house cleaning company. Assumes you’ve already researched alternative industries, visited at least a couple of different maid service franchise headquarters, as well as a half dozen local franchisees.

If you’ve completed this advanced preparation, then you will already have a pretty good idea that the industry is right for you, and the franchise route is not right for you. If that’s where you are in the process, then you may be ready to start your own independent house cleaning enterprise.

How to Price House Cleaning Assignments
I would prefer to play golf than do in-home price quotes–I am really tired of doing in-home price quotes. I can’t dispute all the super reasons for skipping them. However, for those who are still on the fence, let me explain the reasons a mercenary like me still keeps choosing in-home price quotes over golf . . ..

How to Manage House Cleaning Professionals

If you’re wading into a super labor intensive service industry, you’re going to have to get this one thing right. We don’t know about every alternative way to manage house cleaning professionals, but we can tell you how we’ve done it . . .

How to Evaluate House Cleaning Professionals

Building a house cleaning enterprise requires a solid foundation. In a service enterprise, the foundation consists of employees, not customers. So to develop a foundation, you must:
1) identify;
2) develop;
3) retain your star employees and counsel the rest to work for your competitors.

How to Train House Cleaning Professionals

Successful scaled service enterprises sustain a competitive advantage by excelling in a number of things, one of which includes effectively weaving training into every element of their operations . . .

How to Buy a House Cleaning Company

From the buyer’s perspective, it’s about tacking on some extra customers. From the industry’s perspective it’s about cleaning house.

How to Value a House Cleaning Company

The value of your house cleaning company will be based on its adjusted free cash flow or revenue, depending on your company’s profitability and other attributes. If you are interested in creating a scaled marketable enterprise, then before you even embark, understanding how your creation will eventually be valued by potential buyers can help you maximize the ultimate sales price, and keep you focused on the ultimate goal: converting your dilligent work into a tidy retirement fund. The most expeditious route to entering the industry is to buy an existing house cleaning company. If you are considering this, here’s our recommendations for valuing it.

How to Sell Your House Cleaning Company

Maximizing the value and expediting the sale of your house cleaning company can be achieved with some advanced planning. Of primary importance is to understand well in advance of a sale how your company will be evaluated by bankers, business brokers and various types of buyers. While many of the concepts of selling a house cleaning company apply to many small businesses, this article is written based on our actual experiences in buying and selling house cleaning companies.

The How To Start Booklets are only available to members of HCA. Membership is available on a month-to-month basis for $10 per month. Try membership for a month. If you like it, continue; if you do not then you can quit at the end of any month. Members can lease the Booklets for an initial fee of $499, plus $1 per month. Why bother with the monthly subscription? Because new booklets come out, and the existing ones are updated, from time to time.

 The only question may be: “Do you have the marketing savvy to exploit that advantage?”

One advantage you don’t have on the franchises, is information; the franchises have the dirt on what’s working nationally and you don’t. Those franchises which are applying Adwords nationally have budgets of over $500 per major market area x over 100 markets for an estimated total Adwords budget of over $50,000 per month. Let’s compare that to say, Denver Concierge, the largest independent house cleaning company in the US. It has a budget of say, $1,500 per month. While an Adwords budget of that size allows Denver Concierge to kick some Adwords can in its local market, its learning curve is obviously flatter, and statistical data much thinner, than that of the national franchise companies. For example, if you spent $50,000 per month in Google advertising dollars, you would then know which of the following words tend to result in a higher click thru rate, right?

• Thorough
• Dependable
• Careful
• Affordable

As most of you already know, HCA manages Google Adwords campaigns for local house cleaning companies. If you add up the total ad budgets of all HCA’s Adwords customers for a month, we’re still short of $50,000 in monthly ad spending, but we’re gaining on the franchising rascals. In fact, based on our latest competitor analysis, HCA may now rank fifth nationally in Adwords management among actual service providers, and the more accounts we manage, the smarter we become about what works best.

In case you were wondering, the phrase, “Not a franchise!” beats all of the above four keywords in terms of click thru rates. You have it all figured out now? Next question: “Which word results in a higher conversion rate?” MaidPro knows the answer. Do you?

With respect to HCA’s management of Adwords for house cleaning companies, there are no secrets involved; our Adwords management is a cards on the table deal. That means, we’ll actually show you how to do it. With our accounts, there is no minimum contract. You can hire us to put together your campaign for you, and then if you wish to take it over yourself after just a month or two, no problem. Also, some of our customers like to dabble in the management of their Adwords, while giving us primary responsibility for it, sort of as a learning experience. So, that’s an option too. If you are advertising your house cleaning company on Adwords, happy hunting! If you’re not, you should call us: 303-975-2810.

Failed Internet Marketing Strategies

If your website fails to generate leads, then you’re not alone, because for most small businesses, a lack of website traffic results in no ranking by search engines. And without search engine recognition, a website cannot begin to generate new traffic from internet searches.

When there is no traffic to your website, you’ll find it difficult to justify investing in a new design. But without a nice design, the few visitors who may somehow happen upon your website won’t waste a second look. And this is the typical quandary faced by small service providers who dabble in internet marketing.

Ripple Applications specializes in providing affordable effective internet marketing solutions for small businesses. Our website templates for cleaning industries are professional, flexible and affordable. They include no tricks, just smart value at prices suitable for small businesses.

Create a Website Worth Visiting

Most often the first step in patching up failed internet marketing is to get a new website, because if you have a waste of e-space website which isn’t worth visiting, advertising it is going to be a waste of money and time. So begin by taking a critical look at your website and buffing it up. Keep improving it until it is the sort site you are proud to show to friends, neighbors, and customers.

A pleasant design is important, but for your website to really convert prospects to customers, it’s also going to have to include sufficient information to interest prospects in your services. So your website should include a sizeable amount of information about your company and services.
And a website must also be built to facilitate visits by search engines, so that it can be ranked in search engine results under keywords which relate to your industry and service area. Once you have a professional website, you’re ready to begin your two-stage campaign: marketing your website, so your website can market your business.

Getting Traffic to Your Website

In the beginning you’ll be getting no help from search engines for traffic, so every extra visit helps. Armed with the confidence that your website represents your most convincing sales pitch, you’ll be ready to rally other advertising resources to promote your website. For example, put your website address on every form of promotional material, including your letterhead, vehicle lettering, business cards and even your equipment.
All of that is certain to help, but it’s unlikely to be enough, because most successful internet marketing strategies include web-based advertising. Web-based advertising comes in different forms, but the ads we’re talking about are those shown by Google and Overture to internet users when they search on the internet for your type of service.

Some small businesses find that managing banner ad campaigns can be difficult to setup and tedious to manage. For those having no interest in such things, Ripple can setup the campaigns for $250, and manage them thereafter ($50 per week) or hand them over to you to maintain.

For most businesses, especially those whose service area includes a major metro area, banner ads generally offer one of the most cost-effective means of gaining new prospects.

Refining Your Web-based Marketing

Once your website begins making your phone ring, you’ll have the confidence to begin refining your internet marketing strategies in ways which fit the needs of your business. The possibilities are endless . . .

For companies with multiple service regions across a major metro area, a logical way to expand a productive web-based marketing plan is to add additional websites to target customers in outlaying cities. Other companies offering multiple services might better appeal to prospects if they tailor their websites to the interests of distinct types of customers. For them, it may be advantageous to create one website which appeals to business customers and another which appeals to home owners, for example.

In terms of the banner ads and online advertising, the possibilities continue to expand. And finally, that is the really great thing about internet marketing–there is no minimum advertising period, minimum print runs, or any other form of commitment. You’re free to change anything, anytime, on a dime. There is no other form of advertising more agile than advertising on the web. And for small businesses, being agile can represent a significant competitive advantage over franchise service providers and other large companies.

By Hanna Loberg
President of Denver Concierge

Buyer’s remorse is served with a lemon twist for professional house cleaners, so a little common sense when dusting can go such a happy long way. Some of our most expensive dusting moments have been those during which we were making a special effort, because most often, it’s not about the table tops. For example, the risk / reward associated with taking apart light fixtures for cleaning is absolutely horrific. So the general rule for those cleaning details with which our cleaners have had little practice must be to leave such tasks to the wealthier novices, or their husbands.

This doesn’t apply to dusting high ledges. But even for those, clean them while the homeowner is home. While you might notice that fine line of lint along a high ledge, to a less practiced eye, a ledge cleaned and unseen looks peculiarly a lot like a ledge un-cleaned and unseen.

My mother warned me against marrying any man who hangs a picture which falls from the wall. When you are dusting a wall hanging, assume it was hung by a man not suitable for marriage, using a nail intended for paneling, pounded into half inch dry wall (by the heel of his shoe). Dust the picture with one hand, steady it with the other, and I’ve heard so many earfuls about it that I just can’t stop myself from saying, please straighten it when you are finished.

You can be the most honest maid in Mile High City, and your name will still be first on the lips when next that ivory hairpin for five minutes goes missing. Don’t blame them for this—they can’t stop themselves. So, leave any surface with valuables altogether untouched and any misplaced coin on the nearest table or counter.I’m not actually cynical about dusting, or anything else which involves opportunity. In fact, there is no fruit so low hanging as a predecessor’s poor dusting. That fine line I mentioned earlier? Find it, wrap it in a promise, present it discretely to the homeowner, and you will improve your closing rate by quite a meaningful percentage. You’ll know you are getting too good at it when you can’t stop yourself from noticing dusting flaws every time you walk into any house, including homes of friends and family. I am, of course, cursed for life

It looked so inviting, the Google Adwords Jumpstart. We just had to try it. What did we have to lose, except for the $299?

We decided to give them a really hard one to set up, house cleaning services for a little community located just outside a major metro area.

I actually give Google a lot of credit, because we got Jumpstarted by a real person. I had imagined that it might be like a fully-automated sort of thing, where we would speak into the phone and some voice recognition super-duper whambo-jambo software / hardware combo contraption would whip up a scientific concoction of an ad campaign-like we would get jump started by a robot, or something. It wasn’t like that.

We signed up. They had a 23 year old cheerily call back and speak with our General Manager about all the requirements. He asked really good questions about the scope in terms of geography, customers and the business. Our General Manager didn’t have to fake it a lot when she told him that she had no idea what exactly she was doing. Even for most reasonably capable people, setting up a Google Adwords account can be an intimidating experience. Afterall, you’re risking real money. And when the clicks start clicking, if the phone doesn’t ring, it feels like you’re dropping quarters in a slot machine.

Google was fast and efficient. They did everything they said they would. The account was setup in three days. We’d paid $299, and with the Jumpstart, had received an ad credit which could be used over six months.

It wasn’t just a Jumpstart, it was a launch–like to the moon. With the campaign they set up for us, we would have spent the entire $299 in less than a week. I paused it immediately so as not to waste the entire credit. The campaign they setup would have worked, in terms of getting us phone calls. It’s just that it lacked focus both geographically and in terms of keywords. They did some bad things-a lot of general keywords with no negatives. And their geographic area encompassed the entire adjoining metro area, which exceeded the company’s described service area in a very significant way. The combination would have caused us to burn through the entire credit in a very short time and then burdened us with a low click-through rate going forward. Giving Google the benefit of the doubt would require us to believe that our Google representative was naive. In fact, I don’t think Google is likely to hire a dufus. Irregardless of the cause, based on our experience, we don’t recommend Google’s Adwords Jumpstart.

The Ripple Alternative

Our website customers who have done the best with their web-based marketing all use Google Adwords. Ripple Applications began offering its own Adwords management for select industries, earlier this year for $250 down plus $50 per month, minus a $100 credit towards Google’s charges (because Google charges separately for the actual advertising). The $50 is the monthly fee to Ripple for managing the account. Ripple waives the $250 setup fee for website customers, and can pass management of the ad accounts back to customers once the Adwords is setup. So for our website customers, our deal is actually cheaper than Google’s jumpstart, because we waive the setup fee, and then give them the $100 Ad credit, and a month’s management of the ad account for free. It’s only after the first month that customers begin paying the $50 per month for management of the Google Ads Account.

For us, the point of managing Google Adwords for our customers is to improve the performance of their websites. When we setup Adword campaigns, we like them to earn click through rates of 5% or better. For cost per click campaigns, we generally pause any ad groups which earn rates below 3%. Our objective is to spend ad dollars efficiently.

In addition to the late nights, I had many early mornings. These early mornings were filled with grinding through all the nitty-gritty details of exactly how to implement all that I was prepared to encounter. Seems like a contradictory statement… but read on.

I had challenges before every major “First”. Yes… that is a key word. First’s. Opening month is filled with many firsts that you will experience. These include some of the following:

• Ordering inventory
• Interviewing
• Employee on-boarding,
• Training
• Payroll
• Taxes, and Accounting.

We all know we will encounter them. But have we really thought about the 5-10 very detailed steps of exactly how to get them done. Those first’s take time and can be quite intricate. Much energy and resources can be wasted during this first encounter, as well as subsequent encounters, unless proper steps are taken.

The key is to take copious notes and create a rough process as you are in the middle of the “first” so that you can immediately create a formalized process the next time. This contributes to success and a sound frame of mind. As you approach it the second time, you are experienced and have sound records of process; what documents you need, what forms to take with you, what questions to ask on an interview, what documents for the accountant and how to transfer them, what supplies to order, when to call in payroll, etc.

Where does all this need for a system and a process and a control come from? In the past two years I have had the incredible experience of two things… two separate yet very similar learning opportunities:

1. Became Green Belt certified in Six Sigma
2. Read the E Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What To Do About It by Michael E. Gerber.

Explaining and discussing Six Sigma could take months; that is not the purpose of this article. What is important is stressing the need for controls. When a process is known and understood, it can be controlled. Six Sigma is a tool initially developed in the manufacturing world to control processes – control leads to reducing error and less error leads to better products and services. Anyone interested in learning more about Six Sigma can pay hundreds of dollars for a course anywhere in the world. It is worth it. But it not needed further in this discussion. Controls are.

A much more economical way of learning about the importance of controls and processes is by reading or listening to The E Myth Revisited. The author focuses on the successes of Franchises; yes, I said it, Franchises. They work - they are successful. But learning what makes them successful and why can be incredibly powerful information for you to utilize in your business. The goal of the book is to empower entrepreneurs to NOT go the franchise route, but to incorporate the successful attributes of the franchise prototype model into your business.

The book’s premise is based off the Turnkey Revolution. Purchase a franchise and you are given a key to success. All you, as the licensed owner, must do is turn the key and run the business. Why is it that simple? What makes franchises statistically more likely to be successful in years 1-5? Formulas and models. That is it. When you buy a franchise you buy a proven formula to success and a model to implement. These tell you what to do and when, each day of the week, to achieve success. It is a model that provides the structure for control – control of the business, your environment, your life, etc.

Circling back to the point of this article… controls. We need to, as small business owners, put in place controls within the business so that it can operate without us. These controls reduce variance; these controls dictate how something is to be done. The process to load a car, clean a kitchen, and collect hours from teams for payroll can and should be controlled. These controls are what lead to success because it helps to produce a standard product… or service.

The first month is full of opportunities for a business and its owner to go haywire. So many new and unexpected events will be encountered. It is important to prepare for them. But even the most prepared can not possibly predict the random and unexpected “firsts” a new business owner will encounter. But if you encounter them the first month…. you will encounter them the second month. You will also encounter them in month 15, but by them the management structure will be in place that you have delegated responsibility to a manager to handle that event. The key is how did you as an owner train and prepare that person to handle the situation. And how will that person disseminate the information to others down the road. The key here is the first time you encounter it as the owner, create the process. The second time you encounter it, tweak it. The third time, it is set in stone and managed perfectly. And more important, it is now a process that can be explained to another person (either with or without your help) because it is written down somewhere. The best location for this process is an Operations Manual… but that is a whole other topic. Do not let the opportunity pass you buy as you experience it. During the first month, write out every step of every process you go through. It will make every other month thereafter so much easier!

Marty Mansfield

I was looking for a service that could do more then “surface clean” my own home. I wanted a service that paid attention to the details like cleaning inside the microwave, around the back of the toilet and put things back in their place after they finished dusting them. I also wanted a maid that came to my house on time, properly dressed and someone I was able to communicate with.

After some long searching, I was unable to find any services that met my high standards. For years I have run other companies successfully and know the value of customer service and the importance of doing it right. So in December of 2004, I left the company I was working for (with about $30k in the bank from a recent condo I sold) and started researching what it would take to start my own cleaning service.

After researching the web for a while, I came across Denver Concierge and what used to be the House Cleaning Association. They had a bulletin board where I posted questions to others that had started cleaning services and got back all kinds of advice and tips. Keep in mind; although I had started and successfully run other companies, I knew nothing about the cleaning industry. I probably spent a good part of a month researching other companies in my area and in other areas of the country, talking with people from the House Cleaning Association website and getting advice from people at Denver Concierge.

I knew that I wanted to start a business that would be larger then most in my area (that has 2 or 3 employees). I wanted to build a name that people would eventually recognize in my area. With that in mind, I put together a website (that was purchased from the House Cleaning Association), hired a graphic designer that put together a great logo, some business cards, letterhead, flyers and marketing material. Within 2 days of my website being up, I had my first client (scheduled cleaning January 2, 2005).

There have been many mistakes that I have made (most of which I should have listened to my mentors from the bulletin board) and I have made many successful decisions as well. I became profitable in May of this year (only 5 months into business). It wasn’t much of a profit but at least now I am making more then I am spending in a given month. This is after purchasing all new equipment (vacuums, etc), having enough inventory supply to last about 2-3 months at any given time. I leased 3 new vehicles (which I also use as advertising) and now have 8 cleaners on staff.

All of my cleaners are bonded, insured and supervised by me. I work with my clients to create a personalized cleaning plan that will not only meet but exceed their expectations. I think it’s time that my area had a premier cleaning service / maid service that not only took care of the details but was also affordable. Unlike most of the other companies in my area, I provided a 100% satisfaction guaranteed to my clients.

If you have questions about starting up, hiring employees (including creative legal ways to afford workers comp), advertising, or just want to hear more about my process over the past 7 months, I would be happy to help you out.

Thanks,
Jack George

Micro filters provide filtration efficiency of 99.73% for particles .3 microns and larger, as compared to HEPA filters which can cost 25 times as much and have a filtration efficiency of 99.97% for particles .3 microns and larger. HEPA filters are great for critical clean room facilities which manufacture microchips and some types of medical supplies. But such facilities are equipped with systems for filtering facility air intakes and have airlock chambers at all entries.

We find it difficult to believe that air purity within a client’s home is improved by using a HEPA filter in combination with a shake-out bag or dust cup, or claiming that a HEPA filter can be effective as a washable filter. Such products result from the compromises manufacturers make to write HEPA on a product without biting the bullet of including replaceable HEPA filters in the vacuums. Micro-filters are exceptionally efficient, yet affordable enough to change frequently. And changing the filters frequently will contribute more to air quality than the marginal difference of .27% filtering efficiency.

If you are allergy-prone and want the most effective clean filtering, use vacuums with micro filters, and change the filters frequently.

We hope to distill the debates, by:

1. Identifying those attributes in a vacuum which are most important for residential house cleaning;
2. Explain the basis for those vacuums we have chosen for the House Cleaning Alliance Shop; and
3. Defend HCA’s decision to carry only three vacuums in its online Shop.

Important Vacuum Attributes for Residential Home Cleaning

One twist to choosing the perfect vacuum for residential home cleaning is that there exist about one million ways to organize a residential home cleaning business, and the vacuum which is best for any particular company depends largely on the company’s operational and marketing choices. Each company differentiates itself by a lot of factors, but two have some bearing on the vacuum issue: 1) how many persons per team; and 2) how it positions itself on the price / quality spectrum. Some cleaning professionals clean themselves; other companies manage teams of two to four persons. Some companies sell a quick, dirty and cheap service, while others peddle a thorough and expensive service.

If you’ve read the many Articles included in this site, then you can guess that the House Cleaning Alliance Shop would, of course, be dedicated to providing cleaning equipment and products to those professional home cleaning companies which are intent on elevating the quality of service and the overall profitability of the industry. The products carried by the House Cleaning Alliance Shop are biased to cater to the needs of those companies which offer thorough cleaning. So of course, effectiveness is important. But if you are in business for the long haul, then durability and serviceability are also important factors in selecting a vacuum. And if you are going to remain competitive, then cost is always a consideration. The vacuums we have chosen are proven products with durable designs, have parts which are easily changeable, and won’t cost an arm and a leg to service.

Also, for residential cleaning, filtering is critical. For each of the models we have chosen, there exists a lower priced model by the same manufacturer with inferior filtering. Using vacuums with shake-out bags, dust cups and poor filters for home cleaning won’t make a positive impression on homeowners. The vacuums we have selected rely on micro-filtering and are particularly well-suited for residential use. [Compare to HEPA filters? Click here].

So, if you are comparing prices, please be aware that every manufacturer sells literally dozens of models of each vacuum line and across any given line, the price will vary by as much as 240% from the cheapest model to the most expensive model of the same line of one manufacturer’s vacuums. Differences relate to agitator, bag and filtering system, motor size, and material. If you are careful to compare models, we are confident that you will find our prices are very competitive.

Good Reasons for Choosing a Really Cheap Vacuum

We tried to think of good reasons for choosing a cheap vacuum, and were able to come up with just one: you should choose the cheapest vacuum possible, if you have serious doubts that you will be in business next year.

Otherwise, HCA believes that professionals can capture labor efficiencies and enjoy good value by investing in the best quality vacuums suited to the maid service industry. Maintain and operate a high quality vacuum properly, and you’ll benefit from five good years of service. In the process, your vacuums will not fail to make a positive impression on your clients. It makes no sense to dress employees in nice uniforms and have them use shabby equipment. And of all the equipment you use, in your clients’ eyes, your vacuums will make the biggest impression.

Beyond their ability to attract and keep customers, maid service operators’ success or failure depends primarily on the ratio of their prices to their all-in labor costs. Labor costs are huge in comparison to the pennies per day of amortization for a vacuum. Using the Sierra backpack as an example, with a cost of $450 and a useful life exceeding five years, an operator need capture less than $90 per year in labor efficiencies to pay for the vacuum. That breaks down to $1.73 per week or 35 cents per day. That means if the Sierra must save one of your employees just 1.5 minutes per day for five years to pay for itself. Put another way, a vacuum’s cost is miniscule in comparison to labor costs. If you think of break-downs in a similar way, then you’ll quickly appreciate our case for going up-market in choosing quality effective vacuums.

For Thoroughness, One Vacuum Doesn’t Cut It

Thorough vacuuming is central to thorough cleaning, and thorough vacuuming involves cleaning a wide range of surfaces, including wall-to-wall carpeting, carpet edges, hard surface floors, oriental carpets, upholstery, curtains, and high ledges. For the past five years, we have searched for the right vacuum to clean such a wide variety of surfaces, and have reached a conclusion that the most effective solution is in using two vacuums: an upright vacuum with an agitator bar for cleaning wall to wall carpet, and a backpack vacuum for cleaning everything else.

If you are cleaning alone, you might survive by using one upright vacuum with on-board tools (though we wouldn’t recommend it, since it is awkward, inefficient and less effective). But if you are cleaning with teams, the couple of hundred dollars per team you save initially will quickly be squandered in comparison to the efficiencies which could have been captured with having two vacuums. Additionally, dividing the cleaning between two vacuums reduces the load of each, thereby stretching the serviceable lives of each. So, if you are long-term serious about thorough and efficient home cleaning, it would be penny wise and pound foolish not to use two good vacuums for each cleaning team. And even if you are cleaning alone, the backpack vacuum makes a positive impression with your clients.

Which Combination then?

The House Cleaning Alliance conducted its own independent research of vacuums before selecting the vendors and models which it believes are best-suited for residential home cleaning, and it should come as no surprise that the vacuums it has chosen are already widely used by established maid service franchises. We might not have chosen the life of a franchisee, but you won’t catch us calling franchisors foolish.

Whether you are cleaning yourself, or relying on teams, don’t clean professionally without a backpack vacuum. Amongst backpacks, we believe that Pro Team’s Sierra Backpack vacuum is best suited to residential home cleaning. The Sierra’s size and contoured shape allows it to fit closely to the back, so as to avoid knocking over an excessive number of lamps. And, if properly maintained, we’ve found that it provides a powerful 98″ lift for over five years of intensive commercial use. Its price is high, but if you are in business for the long haul, then it offers exceptional value for the price. Clients love backpacks. Backpack vacuums imply a level of professionalism that a canister does not. So, if you are presently chipping about your clients’ homes with a drag around, then it may be time for an upgrade. Switch to a backpack-you’ll never go back.

We’ve heard Pro Team’s claims that the Sierra out cleans the Sanitaire, and Eureka’s claims that the Sanitaire out cleans the Sierra. We believe the premise of the argument between the two is absolute rubbish. Each has its best use, and using both together offers the most effective combination for maid services relying on teams.

HCA chose the Sanitaire model SC888 (don’t use a less expensive janitorial version for home cleaning!!), because of its near-indestructible design, serviceability, and efficient performance. No other vacuum in its price class has such an effective and durable agitator and drive system. We believe that this vacuum could survive one month’s hard use by a team of four gorillas. That notwithstanding, our maid teams regularly abuse and even damage them. But when they do, it doesn’t cost much time or money to swap out the parts. This vacuum takes a beating and keeps on whirring. Buy it, maintain it, repair it, and use it, forever . . .

If you are cleaning homes professionally and using your own vacuum, then it doesn’t have to be gorilla proof, because it’s your own vacuum and you treat it like the expensive friend that it is. In this case, there is no sense in lugging around a 25 pound Sanitaire tank. Instead buy an 8 pound Oreck model XL200HHB. Its filtration efficiency is exceptional. Its design is elegant, and with careful use, it will prove durable.

Why does HCA carry only three vacuums?

First of all, these are the vacuums we like, so we went to the manufacturers and begged to become dealers. It wasn’t the other way around. And we didn’t run around to twenty manufacturers searching for the brands which would yield us the highest margins. We chose these three, phoned up the manufacturers, and got ourselves approved as dealers. We put these three vacuums in the store, because they represent the best value among high quality vacuums.

Most vacuum vendors cater to commercial cleaning companies instead of residential cleaning companies, simply because such companies buy more vacuums. We aren’t really catering to commercial cleaners. The models we have selected are designed specifically for residential use. We chose these three, because these three are best suited to residential cleaning.

Finally, we’ve always found it annoying to buy vacuums from vendors who don’t bother with parts and service. So we are committed to providing parts for, and servicing, all vacuums we sell. Using the Sierra as an example, it has outperformed all other backpacks we have used by miles, but we’ve always found it difficult to get the most common replacement part. So when we approached Pro Team about selling the Sierra, we made parts sales a precondition to carrying their product. We’ve taken the same approach to selling the Sanitaire and Oreck. Each vacuum has an incredible number of parts. So we are stocking loads of SKU’s just to support the three vacuums we have selected.

The seemingly infinite stream of new entrants manage to capture a handful of customers each before going out of business. Conversely a few of the companies that manage to survive the first several years go on to be successful, profitable, valuable enterprises. But while the investment required to start a house cleaning company may be low, the investment and management skills needed to scale a house cleaning company are substantial. Many of last year’s failures were independent house cleaners who, given their personal successes cleaning houses, decided to expand into full-blown house cleaning enterprises. The problem for such individuals is that the skill sets associated with capably cleaning houses versus managing a house cleaning enterprise may be mutually exclusive.

Most Individual Housekeepers face unmanageable obstacles in cloning their own exceptional performances. They are not prepared for the challenges associated with: training employees; controlling quality; measuring and rewarding performance; tailoring a multitude of assignments to meet individual customer demands; and automating a schedule. Predictably, they fail in droves.

Since there are no barriers to entry in our industry, there results intense competition for those customers which are most easily won on price. Conversely, customers concerned about quality and dependability, generally view any new entrants with significant skepticism, until they have managed to prove themselves. The result is market segmentation, with intense fragmentation and poor growth prospects at the price-sensitive, or bottom end, of the market; and a comfortable profit margin and good growth prospects at the quality-sensitive, or top-end, of the market. Those survivors catering to the bottom segment of the market either move up or become statistics themselves. Attracting customers is easy, but attracting profitable customers is more difficult. Since most new entrants chose the industry precisely because they had little to invest, few manage to cover first year losses. They depart without even realizing the causes of their demise:

• Poor pricing
• Lack of funds and investment
• Inconsistent quality

Only the Maid Service Franchises and a select few independents have at their disposal the management tools required to clear the industry’s barriers to scale and attract a meaningful volume of profitable customers.

Market Segments and Service Providers

Despite the incredible failure rates, it is not the entire residential cleaning market that is embroiled in chaos and losses. In fact, there are three distinct market segments:

1. the Savvy Quality-Conscious segment is orderly and profitable;
2. the Bargain Hunter segment is chaotic and cutthroat; and
3. the Naïve Newcomer segment is just barely worthwhile.

The House Cleaning industry includes three primary types of service providers:

1. the Maid Service Franchises generally offer a medium, but inconsistent quality of service for a medium to high price;
2. Individual Housekeepers, the most successful of which flexibly provide precisely that quality of service for which they are paid; and
3. Transients who offer service quality ranging from OK to bad, always at unsustainably low prices.

Source: Denver Concierge records-”Who was your previous service provider?”

Savvy, Quality-Conscious Consumers are an Orderly Lot

Savvy, quality-Conscious consumers understand the value of paying for that quality of service which they seek. For such consumers, the economy has no relevance to decisions regarding maid services. They’ll lose 90% of their net worth in the stock market, sell their furniture, pawn their jewelry and sleep on floor boards, before even considering cleaning their own homes. They find a house cleaner based on referrals from friends and neighbors. Many Quality-Conscious Consumers prefer private individual housekeepers when a dependable one can be found, but finding a good housekeeper is not trivial. It might take some time and involve a painful process of test driving three lousy housekeepers to find a good one. And even among friends, secrets about domestic help may be closely guarded. Sometimes Quality Conscious Consumers prefer a company over an individual, particularly if they are conflict avoiding, have difficulty insulating themselves from the private lives of their domestic help, or if they dislike giving up their house for an entire day to have it cleaned.

Once the perfect Individual or company is found, Quality-Conscious consumers pay well. For such Individual and Consumer, an equilibrium is achieved . . . for a time. Those consumers who have only just lost their long-serving housekeeper resort to using a maid service franchise while they locate and carefully select the next perfect housekeeper. In this segment of the market an underlying unmet demand for quality service pervades. Those consumers who have temporarily settled for substitutes bide their time until a friend or neighbor puts them on to a better quality service provider.

Individuals offer tailored, quality service, but no scale. The franchise substitutes offer scale without consistency or quality. The Transients, with their low prices, inability to scale and inconsistent service, are shunned almost entirely by Savvy, Quality-Conscious consumers. Many Transients enter and exit the market over their average twelve month life-cycle without ever having serviced even one Savvy, Quality Conscious customer–having never attracted the first, they are never referred to the next.

Rascally Bargain Hunters and Naive Transients Strike a Pact of Sorts

I’ve always thought it odd that all those dinosaurs kept wandering into those tar pits. Ok, you can’t blame the first one, or two or even twenty. But doesn’t it seem like word would have gotten around by the time the thousand and first wandered in? And why do the Transients keep cutting off their own limbs and feeding them to the Bargain Hunters?

When you think of market wreckers, it is hard to know which deserves the most blame, the Bargain Hunters or the Transients. In the maid service industry, each plays the role of villain, without understanding (Transients), or acknowledging (Bargain Hunters) two of the industry’s fundamentals:

1. it is impossible to sustain the offering of anything but bad service for bad prices; and
2. regardless of how price sensitive any consumer may be, bad service always goes over badly.

The Bargain Hunters wail about bad service, but it is the Transients who are the true prey. As long as Transients survive, each in turn contributes to the Bargain Hunters’ sport: “They pretend to clean my home, I pretend to pay them.”

The Bargain Hunters like using individual housekeepers. The Individual housekeepers needn’t bother with insurance, worker’s compensation, payroll taxes, and social security. So other things being equal, they can profitably offer prices 30% lower than those of the M Franchises, and a few of the Transients. But the Bargain Hunters encounter the same difficulties in finding individual housekeepers that everyone else faces, and once a Bargain Hunter finds an Individual, the relationship proves short-lived. Lacking any means of leveraging their time, Individual Housekeepers are continuously seeking the highest paying customer, and on this count, Bargain Hunters do not qualify. From time to time the Bargain Hunters resort to using relatively high-priced Maid Service Franchises, but only when they are between other victims.

Service providers beware, for it’s in this segment of the market, that true chaos reigns.

Conditioning of the Naïve Newcomers is a Painful Process

Have you ever noticed that the major M maid service franchises always have ads saying things like: “Take a break, let “M” clean your house for you.” “You have more important things to do, go spend quality time with the kids.” The M’s are on a big-time crusade to convert consumers accustomed to cleaning their own houses to new maid service users. After all, the M’s ongoing success depends on their penetration of new markets (bless them). But if you are positioning yourself as a high quality service provider, then your perfect quality service will be lost on the Naive Newcomers. And should the economy turn, customers’ reversions to cleaning their own homes will operate on a LIFO system, with the newest converts exiting first, at least until their plights improve.

Lacking any point of reference other than their own cleaning, Newcomers cannot distinguish between good service and bad. They wail when their service providers arrive ten minutes late, but won’t bat an eye about keeping them an extra hour themselves. They’ll accuse them of stealing the children’s stuffed animals, blame them for hiding them when they are later found stacked in the closet, and the next visit blame them for not pulling them out from under the bed at all. They don’t yet understand the fundamental compromises and subtle inconveniences inherent in delegating house cleaning to hired professionals. House cleaners are not mind readers, and by degrees, none will meet the Newcomers’ expectations. Best let the M’s soften these customers up for a few months, then step in later and save the day.

Exasperating the problem is that the Naïve Newcomers don’t know how to go about finding a house cleaner. They may refer to the phone book or resort to some other similar means. They are scared to use a name they do not recognize, and are too naïve to actively seek referrals. So, unless they stumble upon a reference from someone, they often first test the concept of using a professional house cleaner by trying a franchise maid service.

They become distressed by details, and given their choices of service providers, it is indeed a multitude of details that they initially encounter. They fire their first M company for leaving the pictures crooked, the second for breaking a dish, the third for locking the cat in the bedroom, the fourth for shoddy cleaning. They give up on the franchise Maid Services, gather their courage and hire a string of Transients with worse results. Their painful quest to find the perfect house cleaning solution finally ends when they sufficiently tire of the process and achieve an equilibrium between their own expectations and the quality level of whatever service provider they finally happened upon. During the process they are, we are thankful to say, added to the larger market of house cleaning consumers. A new Bargain Hunter, or a Quality Conscious Consumer has been created.

As a Cleaning Professional, Which Role for You then?

Playing the bottom feeder is never fun, but in the house cleaning market it is a particularly hideous role. Life is better at the top-end of the market. The Franchise Maid Services have demonstrated an ability to scale, but to varying degrees have combined their ability to scale with inconsistency. And partly because of all those similar-sounding M names, they have, justly or not, been lumped together and labeled by the savvy consumers as “M” for Mediocre. Denver Concierge has shown that taking business from them at the high end of the market is possible . . . and it is profitable.

If you become a specialty retailer shop keeper or a bagel store minder, there are tangible limits to the size you can hope to achieve. For those independent maid services which can clear the barriers to scale, not even demographics generally represent a meaningful constraint on how large they might ultimately become. Denver Concierge has grown to over 600 customers and over 50 house cleaners in less than five years. And today we are growing at a faster rate than during any period in our history. We expect to be twice our current size within 18 months, and we won’t stop there. As far as the three types of service providers, we are an anomaly–one of a very short list of independent companies who, with a little luck and some better systems, managed our way past the barriers to scale.

So, if you are starting a house cleaning company, offer exceptional service and set your prices high. Build a reputation for quality. Growth will begin slowly at first, but will snowball as you win referrals from referred customers who were referred by a customer who was referred by a different customer who phoned you because of your very nicely done website and kept you because your well-trained, carefully-hired, properly motivated employees consistently and dependably offered exceptional and personalized service. While it’s not so difficult, really, it’s not drop-dead easy either. Considering the alternatives, we wouldn’t have done it any other way.