This video is essential if you are planning on starting a new maid service( housecleaning business) or just want to improve your current maid service. Learn from the mistakes and successes of other maid service owners!. This video covers ten areas essential to a maid service's growth and success. Topics covered include:

Potential Growth, Structure, Basic Legal Matters, Pricing, Employees, Employee Retention, Quality Control, Advertising, Signs of a Sick Company, 10 Keys To Growth. Length:1 hour 15 minutes.

An interactive training video covers all the aspects of a routine home cleaning. Areas covered include:

Dress and attitude, Kitchens, Bathrooms,

Bedrooms, Main Rooms

Includes Training Manual!

Length:1 hour 15 minutes.

Get your share of this lucrative market! This training video will give your workers the experience they need to properly clean vacant homes and apartments. Covers all areas of cleaning for both apartments and houses. Detailed close-ups show your workers the "how to" of make ready cleaning. Length:1 hour 10 minutes.

This tape should be required for all current and future workers. The procedures section gives important safety instructions to help minimize on the job injuries. The supplies section covers in detail the cleaning supplies used in residential cleaning and how to properly use them. Regardless of your cleaning methods,this tape can help. Length:1 hour 10 minutes.

"It's nice to come home to a clean house!" It's not just a cute logo, to millions of Americans it has become a way of life. For the thousands of maid services currently operating, it is the battle cry of a multi-million-dollar industry! Just 30 years ago a maid service would have been considered a luxury. Today maid service has become a necessity, and an indispensable way of life.

The change in perception began about 25 years ago. It is around this time that people began to desire "quality time" to spend with their families and "free time" to do as they please. Each year as more women entered the work force, either by choice or out of economic necessity, there was suddenly less time for cleaning. Even the growing awareness that husbands and kids could actually be coerced to clean did not help. Free time was becoming a scarce commodity.

A recent survey indicated that most people feel they just do not have enough time. People want to spend time doing what they enjoy, not doing what they must do. Because of this desire for "quality time", time is more valuable than money for many people. This is where maid services enter to meet a growing need. A maid service sells "quality time" back to busy people.

The average client for a maid service consists of a working couple with kids. They are gone all day at work and busy with other activities during the evening and weekends. By hiring a professional maid service they recover hours of valuable time. These couples sign up for a weekly or biweekly service. The maid service will come in while the couple is at work and provide a complete cleaning.

The typical service a maid service provides consists of a thorough routine cleaning. Homes are cleaned from top to bottom including bathrooms, bedrooms, kitchens, main rooms, vacuuming dusting, etc. There are also specialized services offered to clients at additional cost. Among the more popular options is window cleaning, a heavy duty spring cleaning, carpet cleaning. Some even provide shopping and errand running services.

The most compelling reason a professional carpet cleaner would consider entering the maid service is the cross over nature of the service. A maid service that provides carpet cleaning has a built in qualified customer base. The maid service customer eventually ends up as carpet cleaning customers and many carpet cleaning customers will end up trying the maid service. Either way it is a mutually beneficial situation.

I recently advised a professional carpet cleaner who wanted to expand into maid service. Because of his existing database of clients, he had an immediate lead list for new maid service customers. Because of his existing office structure there, was no need for new phone lines or added office staff. With just a few simple and inexpensive adjustments he quickly entered the maid service market. Today his maid service has grown and is providing an excellent source of income and new carpet cleaning clients!

There are many benefits in operating a maid service that have lead to the terrific growth of maid services in recent years. Currently there are about 9200 maid services in operation. This number increases each year as the maid service industry continues on a growth curve. There are five main reasons to consider adding on a maid service.

Consistency . The bread and butter of a maid service are the regular customers. Most customers will schedule on a weekly or every other week schedule. These are customers that can be counted every week! They will provide a steady source of income on a regular consistent basis. This is money that will help even out the highs and lows that can be experienced with carpet cleaning.

Earning Potential. Maid service is on a growth trend! There are plenty of customers looking for a good service. The potential for earning is great. Maid services usually fall into three categories. A small maid service will clean less than 60 houses per week. A medium maid service will clean 60-160 per week. A large one is only limited by the market they are in.

If you did not want to work too hard at it you could end up with a small maid service cleaning 40 regular houses per week. The average house is charged 50-65 dollars. Your labor cost will be about 50%. This means that you have a gross profit (excluding labor) of $1000 per week. If you already have the existing office structure, your additional overhead is almost nothing. Not only will you gross $1000 per week you can count on that money every week! If you consider what a large maid service can do the numbers become very impressive very fast.

Cross Over Potential. As I mentioned earlier, there is a tremendous cross over potential between maid service and carpet cleaning. The two classes of cleaning can feed on each other and cause growth that would have been hard to obtain in other ways. Many maid services already take away many carpet cleaning customers out of the market by providing the service themselves. These are customers you can lock in for yourself by providing what the customers need. Carpet cleaning and maid service.

Anti-recessionary . Recessions over the last fifteen years have proved what most maid service owners believed all along. You would think that a maid service would suffer greatly in a recession. The exact opposite is true. Maid services can actually experience significant growth during a recession. The reason for this is quite logical. As money becomes tight more women go to work. The working population has to work longer and harder. As a result, time becomes even more scarce. Quality time, once again, becomes the overriding theme and people are willing to buy free time by hiring a maid service. I remember talking to dozens of maid services during the most recent recession. They were deluged with new customers and experienced tremendous growth!

Minimal start up costs. The cost to start a maid service is small. An existing office will provide the core of the business. A good set of training videos, such as those sold in the Cleanfax bookstore, is needed before any maids are hired. The only other expenses will be the cost of additional cleaning supplies and the cost of additional advertising. With a little creativity these cost can be held down to almost nothing.

The potential in expanding into a maid service is truly great. Even if you fail you will not have spent thousands of dollars on a new piece of equipment. You will only have invested a small amount in quality training materials and the purchase of additional supplies. With the potential of entering a growth market and earning a consistent income each week it is an opportunity that is hard to pass up.

Michael W. Baird is the president of the American Maid Service Association,

which provides training materials and support to maid services nationwide.

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