You Need to Hire a Team to Grow Your Cleaning Business

Did you know you don’t have to become successful by yourself? Matter-of-fact I’ll take it one step further and tell you – you can’t become successful all by yourself. You need a team of dedicated people, ready and willing to help you grow.

You also need good advice from an accountant and an attorney. Every business needs a good accountant and a good attorney, but make sure these people understand the business you’re in. Don’t hesitate and become timid, or scared to ask them for references. This is definitely not an area you want to cut corners; you don’t want to be paying someone to learn as they go at your expense.

You can rely on their expertise as you build the foundation and take your business to the next level. Building that client relationship will enable you to have professionals by your side in case of trouble lawsuits, audits, contracts etc.

Since your relationship will be close, an important part of your success will be to look for people you can respect and work with easily. In addition, you should build a good relationship with at least two or three banks, as well as janitorial suppliers and other vendors. Get to know your competitors and closely related professionals that may be able to help you grow your business.

Every business eventually comes to a point of having to make the major decision of whether to grow or stagnate.  If you choose to grow, it may mean dozens of employee interviews before you open the door or fill the positions needed.

It’s amazing the way some new business owners hire employees. They will take on a brother-in-law, a cousin who’s been out of a job, or someone they met at the store. Worse yet, they may hire any person just because they have a job that needs to be done.

Pardon the pun… is turning down your nearest and dearest when they ask you for a job enough to make you feel like Scrooge? Even though hiring family members can lead to a worse situation, your natural instincts may be telling you, “why not hire a relative?” You’ll reason with yourself that it would be fun to work with family, besides you’ll feel all warm inside. The relative you just hired thinks the world you. You can feel the excitement and fun building up – it’s an awesome feeling.

What happens when good old relative starts doing a poor job, or starts making mistakes? Of course in the beginning he will be much easier to talk to than a stranger. That is if you have a close relationship with that relative to allow for positive criticism. But what happens if your relative continues to mess-up? Your corrections could be embarrassing for both of you. There may be times you feel awkward in correcting him because you can’t face calling him on the carpet again. Now you’re finally realizing for the first time that this is not a good business decision, let alone practice.

The time will come when you have to confront the situation head-on and ask for a better job from your family member. Your relationship starts getting colder, his nearest and dearest start giving you the cold shoulder, or worse yet, good old relative, wants a raise. And you may give it to him hoping this will improve his workmanship, but you know you can’t really afford it and you know that it’s not good for business. But you know if you don’t give it to him that it can affect your friendship. Now to top it off, work problems are creeping into your social relationship too.

Now you begin to avoid each other at family functions. You can excuse it by claiming you see each other too much during working hours. But you both know that working together is damaging your relationship.

The worst thing is realizing that Mr. Relative proves so inept at that job and now you have to fire him. Then how will you feel? How is he going to react? How will the rest of the family react?

You can avoid unpleasant situations like these by establishing hiring policies and sticking to them. Analyze carefully the job to be done and decide what skills are necessary to fill that position. Then don’t hire anyone who doesn’t meet your minimum standards.

If a friend or relative meets those standards and you decided to hire them, keep work at a professional level and make your position known upfront.