Just Spend the Money! Invest the Time!

My wife and I stopped by a local restaurant the other night for a light meal. The cost? Just about $20.00. The food was good, the time spent together - "great": at the end of the evening the meal and the $20.00 were gone, but the investment in the experience of building our relationship remained.

That is true of so much of life: a $20.00 bill almost 'vanishes' from a wallet. A few groceries, very little gas for the car, a couple movie tickets (maybe), order some popcorn and drinks - extra.

Twenty bucks, gone in a flash without thinking; and yet to invest $20.00 in building a future? Impossible for some, the best money ever spent for others. One of my 1st subscribers, and possibly my first book buyer, recently contacted me regarding bidding on another account. Like my friend Gina, who makes an extra $30,000/year office cleaning (her story is here), my subscriber/buyer runs her janitorial service as a part-time endeavor. She and her daughter make an extra $1,000.00 per month. She's grown comfortable in the business and now wants to bid on an account that will double her income. 

She spent $20.00 on a book that taught her how to earn an extra $1,000.00 a month, and sees unlimited potential. See, the Twenty Dollars was a Low Cost expense; the High Price was the willingness to do it.

If you want, you can pick up a used bike fairly cheaply, but if you want to use it to get healthy, that takes hard work.

How about you? Check out the opportunities here. The cost is LOW, But the price you're willing to pay for economic freedom.........?

Self-Employment: Is It A Business or a J-O-B?

The latest employment figures showed that about three-quarters of the jobs created were part-time (30 hours per week or less). Now, more than ever, your financial success may depend on whether or not YOU control your earning potential.

‘Successful and unsuccessful people do not vary greatly in their abilities. They vary in their desires to reach their potential.’ -        John Maxwell

I often ask people: ‘Why do you want to be in business? Why on earth would you leave the security of a job (no matter how unpleasant) with regular pay and benefits to start your own business, with all the uncertainty this holds?’

I usually get similar answers. Mostly, people say they:

• don’t want to work for someone else,
• don’t want to be told how a job should be done,
• are tired of having their income potential limited.

They do want:

• flexible schedules to spend time with their families,
• to do something they really love or gives life ‘meaning’,
• unlimited income potential or to build a valuable asset for their families.

These are all valid reasons for starting a business. But, ironically, many business owner-operators end up with the complete opposite. They find themselves with little control. They discover their clients will often demand they work longer hours than they ever did when working for someone else. Most small business owners pay themselves less than they would be paid working for another company.

If you pay yourself too little, work long hours, and don’t take a vacation, you can wear yourself out. A high percentage of businesses fail within five years of start-up. Disillusionment gets the better of them. They go into business to set themselves free and find themselves with a virtual chain around their ankle. Not surprisingly, they decide they don’t want to do it anymore.

 Here’s the problem: most people who fail to achieve financial freedom through their business do not have the right mindset.

Let me tell you about two friends of mine. One, we’ll call Jeff; the other, Richard.

Jeff and Richard opened businesses at the same time. Jeff opened up a small carpet cleaning service in the town where he lived. Fourteen years later he still had that small business and was still cleaning residential carpets 5 days a week and office carpets on weekends. Jeff was no better off financially and he still had to do all the work himself.  But what worries me most is that Jeff, like so many other owner-operators, will wake up one day and won’t want to do it anymore. As much as he loves his work and his customers, something will happen that changes his ability to live off its income, for health reasons or, more likely, because he’s lost the passion for it.

Richard started an office cleaning business, got a few accounts, then hired a neighbor to help him a couple night a week. Over the years he’s gotten more accounts, hired a couple managers and several employees. He mostly spends his time ‘selling’ his company’s services, then turns the new accounts over to his managers. When he’s ready to retire, he’ll have a valuable asset to sell.

Let’s look at the situations of these two friends. Why did Jeff go one route and Richard go another? The key difference was the mindset. Jeff chose to employ himself in a job he enjoyed. He did not choose to build a business. Richard knew he wanted a business and created a lifestyle where he never had to worry about money again.

They both made their choice; probably without even realizing they had done so.

We make choices every day. The most important choice is one you may not have given much thought to – until now. Are you choosing to build a business that will pay you back or are you choosing to work for a living?

If you want to build a business with unlimited potential, subscribe to my FREE newsletter here. Take charge of your life!

How I Overcome Discouragement in Selling

Reader 'C'  sent me this statement:

"I am so grateful for all the information; it encourages me to eradicate fear. Sometime when I give a bid, and it didn't go through I take it too hard. How do you get through situations like this?"

My answer: First of all, in order to succeed in your cleaning business, you need to believe in the value of your service. Can you possibly convince your prospective client of this if you don't believe in it yourself?

Keep these thoughts in mind-

Realize that people pick up on your anxiety and tentativeness. When you're doing calls to prospects and you're thinking to yourself that they probably don't want to be bothered, then they'll hear it in your voice and will end the conversation right away. However, if you change your belief to the idea that they really need what you're calling for, then they'll be more likely to listen and have a favorable response.

Think about the various services you offer. Do they have a benefit to your potential clients? Make sure you are able to deliver the benefits your prospects expect. After you can do this, you will believe in yourself and the value of the services you provide. If you're unsure of your ability to deliver, then you need to spend more time educating yourself on the niche you've chosen for your business. The more knowledgeable you are about your cleaning services, the more confident you'll become. When you have confidence, you'll believe in the services you can provide your clients.

Do you feel as if you need your clients more than they need you? Then you are 'selling' from an attitude of desperation. Realize that there are more than enough clients for you and the other ‘quality’ cleaning companies in your area. Then you'll be able to relax in the knowledge that your ‘share’ of clients will come. 

 Second: I devoted an entire chapter of Make Money Cleaning Offices to writing a proposal that sells and the proper way to present that proposal. Are you professional in your approach?

 People do tend to judge a book by its cover, and your potential client will judge the quality of your cleaning service by their first impression of you. People like to deal with other successful people, so look as successful as possible. Dressing neatly in clean, professional looking clothes is essential.

 Check your grooming. If possible, stop into a restroom before the meeting to make sure you look presentable.

 Keep things neat and orderly. Whatever sales material you use should be neat and organized.

 Be professional. Be on time. In fact, give yourself a 10 minute head start. Be a little early. It is far better for you to be waiting for them than for them to be waiting for you.  Don't smoke and don't chew gum; you need an empty mouth to carry on a conversation.

 Stay positive. Be enthusiastic about life and your business. Do not allow negatives to enter the conversation. Don't boast about your company, but present its strengths in a positive manner. Set the stage for success. Be personable, smile, use a firm handshake, and give a pleasant greeting. Remember, the potential client is not your enemy—someone to be beaten into accepting your services—rather, both of you will be winners in this relationship.

 Learn to Close the Sale

 There are many good books that will help you develop skills in selling your company's services. The Art of Closing the Sale by Brian Tracy and Secrets of Closing the Sale by Zig Ziglar are highly recommended. Read them, use what you can, and for good measure pick up a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

Build Relationships

 Developing a successful list of clients has as much to do with relationships as it does with cleaning. Some relationships will be built immediately; you will get to bid and your bid will be accepted. Other relationships will be developed more slowly; you will be building a bridge to a future successful business relationship. Don't be disappointed when a presentation does not lead to a successful sale.

Your goal is to establish a bond with the prospect and offer yourself as an expert in the contract cleaning field. At some point in time they may grow dissatisfied with their present cleaning contractor and turn to you.

Want to Learn More? Get my FREE Weekly newsletter to help you decide if a Cleaning Business can help you earn extra money, pay off bills, and retire in style! Check it out here!

Don't Let Anyone Tell You, "You CAN'T'

“Someone's opinion of you does not have to become your reality.” I don’t know much about Les Brown, but this quote ‘rings true’ for me.

My parents were teenagers during the Great Depression and lived through the turmoil of World War II. They married right after the war and life seemed to work against them. My mother suffered from health issues, my dad was crippled in an car accident; they saw life as unfair and unforgiving and predicted life would be the same for their sons.

Almost every one of us can remember someone who predicted that we would be a failure! Maybe it was a family member or the next door neighbor who told you that you would never be a success if you continued on as you were doing. People offer opinions about you for many reasons, and not all of those are fair and just. Some people are simply jealous of you, thinking that if you succeed it will show up their weaknesses or inadequacies. They try to hold us back with caring statements like, “I just don't want to see you get hurt when you fail.”

Beginning with our childhood, we are influenced by those around us in so many ways that limit our thinking. In order to become a successful adult, we need to examine these limits that we've accepted about ourselves, and eliminate the ones that don't apply. No matter how you were labeled as a child, you can acknowledge that, as an adult you actually have many positive attributes. Perhaps you are creative, focused, hard-working or adventurous. If you think about it long enough, you discover that you are smart, mature, strong, committed and knowledgeable enough to do whatever it is that you want to achieve in life. You are capable of believing in yourself and can accomplish whatever dreams you set as your goal.

The key is to know who to listen to. My life changed when I started listening to positive thinking CD’s and podcasts. I started reading Success Magazine to be motivated by the successes of others. If you are going to do big things in life, it means that there are some people who will not like it. Learn to tell the difference between someone who should be listened to, and those who ought to be ignored. A good idea, like a small potted plant, needs to be nurtured

Take your good idea, your big dream, and believe you can achieve it. Work on a plan to accomplish it. Oh, the plan may change and the outcome may be different than you anticipated. It may be far greater and far bigger than anything you ever imagined.

Learn How I turned my big dreams into reality here.

Don't Just Work IN Your Business, Work ON it!

I do not know the source of this quote, but it goes something like this, “To plan is to bring the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.”

The idea behind this post is, Work ON your business, not IN it. There is a big difference between the two. No matter how enthusiastic you may be today about your new business, your enthusiasm or energy level will probably not stay the same. Old Man Time takes his toll of both our physical and emotional energy, as do the curve balls that life throws at us. For that reason, as entrepreneurs, we need to be thinking ahead…

Successful business people treat their business as a lifelong endeavor - thinking beyond balancing the books at the end of the month. They plan long-term, transitioning their role from being the developer of the business into becoming a rich business OWNER. You see, whether you are a brand-new rookie in the business field, or have some experience under your belt, the time to plan and execute is now, not next year, or five years from now, or when you have enough money to think beyond getting your next contract.

1. Choose one day per week to move beyond the day to day activities of your business. Block off a few hours to work on improving, systematizing, or implementing new strategies.

2. Focus on one target market at a time. You cannot be all things to all people. I started out by selecting small office buildings between 5000 and 20,000 sq. ft.; big enough to be profitable, but not so big I couldn't staff them. Do a good job and establish a solid reputation in the business community.

3. The idea is to get rich, not famous. You are not the ‘brand’. If you build your business all around you… your image, your personality, your expertise and experience… you'll have a hard time stepping away, or expanding because people will expect to work only with you. Build your company's reputation.

4. Alternate. Outsource. Delegate. If a task is hard for you, find someone for whom it is easy. I would never try to keep my company's books, or file the tax forms. I can pay an accountant to do that and use my time to solicit new accounts.

5. Let your current clients lead you to new clients. We all know that it is much cheaper to keep a current client happy than to solicit new accounts. Let the happy client become a referral generator. They are already in their business networks. Let them know you are looking for new accounts and offer incentives for referring new customers to you; perhaps a gift card for dinner at a local restaurant if they refer a prospective customer

Doing some of these things will allow your business to grow, and you can reap the benefits of time well spent.

For more information on business building , check this out.

Fight Back! Overcome the Resistance That is Holding YOU Back!

This post is about overcoming ‘resistance’. The word ‘resistance’ may conjure up a number of images in your mind:

 For example, some dictionary definitions include:

: refusal to accept something new or different,

: effort made to stop or to fight against someone or something,

: the ability to prevent something from having an effect.

For the purposes of this post I am going to refer to the book, the War of Art, by Stephen Pressfield.

In his book, Pressfield labels the enemy of creativity ‘resistance’, his all-encompassing term for a destructive force inside human nature that arises whenever we consider a tough, long-term course of action that might do for us or others something that is actually good.

I am going to give you a simpler definition: resistance is a thing that holds you back. Our daily lives are filled with evidence of resistance at work. Here are some examples:

• Have you ever brought home a treadmill, and then let it gather dust?
• Have you ever started a diet, and then quit?
• Did you grow up with a dream of doing something really spectacular or accomplishing something really great with your life, and then never even attempted such a thing?

Pressfield says that most of us have two lives. The life we live and the unlived life within us. What separates the two is resistance. Press field is writing to an audience largely made up of creative types, but resistance is active in the life of the entrepreneur.

Many of my blog readers, newsletter subscribers, and book purchasers are individuals that have often dreamed for years about starting their own businesses. Many things have kept them from doing so:

1. A perceived lack of start-up business capital
2. A fear of giving up their regular job
3. A perceived lack of a salable skill
4. No prior business experience.

How about you?

• Do you dream of being your own boss?
• Are you tired of waiting for the boss to decide what your raise will be this year?
• Would you like to invest your time and effort in building up a business that will be an asset when you retire, rather than spending 12 months a year building up your bosses’ business?

I started my business as an act of necessity. See my story here. But you? YOU have a choice. You can start your office cleaning business part-time, use it to generate extra income to pay off bills or put the kids through college. OR, build a full-time business with unlimited income potential.

My book will show you how I started with just a few dollars, teach you how to bid an account, present the proposal and get the job. Learn as you earn. Fight the resistance that is holding you back!

Find it here and get the house cleaning guide for FREE!

Listen for Your Success

There are many people in life that are looking for success. yet success is not often something that you find, but it can be something you listen for!

 

Some people in the cleaning service business are amazed that, in an industry with a 40% client turnover rate, we keep our clients year after year; 10, 12, 15 years and more. Many people ask what the secret is, thinking that we must have some gimmick that causes such a high rate of customer retention.

 

We DO have a secret, one that costs us no more than a few minutes of time; we listen to our prospects and our customers. You see, the world is full of noise, much of it demanding our attention; how often do you find someone that wants to listen to you? Our clients are no different. They have needs and concerns, and they want someone to care about those things. Early in our business efforts, we made a point of making regular visits to each of our clients. It wasn't easy to do, we would have rather spent the time doing other things to 'grow' the business; but we learned rather quickly that it takes much less effort to keep a current client than to go out and recruit another.

 

Let me share with you just a few tips to enable you to become a really good listener:

 

1. Focus on the speaker - as if nothing in the world is more important to you than what that individual is saying. Give them your complete attention, it will be recognized and appreciated.

 

2. Wait before replying - allow a short silence to occur before you respond. Three great things happen when you do this:

 

• You keep from interrupting the other person if they are not finished speaking, but are merely pausing to organize their thoughts before continuing.
• You let the individual know that what they said was important and that you are taking time to consider it. 
• A short pause allows you to consider what the individual said and what they meant.

 

3. Clarify if necessary - language is a strange thing. Don't assume you know exactly what an individual meant what they said something. Don't be afraid to ask, "So what you're really saying is.......?"

 

4. Feed it back - rephrase what the individual said. That lets them know that you really are paying attention. When they are done, allow a moment and say something like, "I understand that you really would like five nights a week service, but the corporate office doesn't believe you need more than three, correct?"

 

 

Dave Ramsey, in EntreLeadership, says we all tend to trust people and connect with people who understand how we tick.  To do that, you have to Listen.

 

 

These are very simple but surefire ways for building rapport with anyone and can pay big dividends in a business relationship!

 

 

For more great business ideas go here.

Learning from my 2 biggest business FAILURES!

Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!  There is no other way to say it!

It is very tempting to ignore failures you have in life. Whether they are in business or in personal relationships, there is usually a lot of pain associated with them.

But, if we are going to be honest in our dealings with other people, we have to be open about our failures as well as our successes. In this post I'm going to share my two biggest business blunders. I survived both of them, but at great emotional and financial cost.

My first foray into the business world was going in with two buddies and starting a carpet cleaning company. This was no little endeavor; none of this grab a Rug Doctor type carpet cleaning machine and throw it into the trunk of my car. No, this was a big deal: with full size vans and professional truck mounted carpet cleaning equipment; tens of thousands of dollars went into each rig.

Next, we established a 'phone room', with two 13 'man' crews of phone salespeople; operating from 9 AM to 9 PM each day, five days a week. Each truck had a crew of two carpet cleaning technicians, and our trucks were on the road from 8 AM to 8 PM six days a week. We cleaned carpets in over 3600 homes a year, many of them on a 'repeat' basis.

To be honest, there wasn't a lot of profit with all of the start-up costs involved. But we figured the profits would come once the business was established. What came however, was the recession of 1982. During the recession people tightened their belts, quit cleaning their carpets altogether, or rented some cheap ineffective carpet cleaning machine from the local hardware store.

We tried to survive: we let all but one or two of the phone salespeople go (they concentrated on calling our previous customers, trying desperately to drum up some work); and then, one by one, we disposed of each of the truck-mounted rigs.

LESSON ONE: avoid starting a business which requires a great deal of capital investment.

Business number two was a discount grocery store offering slightly dated or about to go out of date grocery items at a 30 to 50% lower cost than retail. While there was some capital investment such as shelving, grocery carts, cash registers, etc., the building was rented. There were two problems with this business:

1. keeping the shelves stocked ( it was hard to find a consistently good supplier),

2. the bigger problem was that this was a passive business. on a day to day basis, we did not know if we would be busy or bored. On a really good days we would make enough money to cover overhead and show a nice profit. Then we might have two or three days with nobody coming in the store.

It is no wonder that most new retail businesses fail. We kept the store 'alive' for three years, mostly to keep our hard-working employees getting a paycheck.

LESSON TWO: never start a business where you wait for your clients to come in the door.

The upshot of all this was that my next business venture was a commercial office cleaning business. With this business I have avoided both the pitfalls:

1. The start-up costs are low,

2. You acquire the clients, and having done so, provide a quality service and they will continue to generate revenue for years.

John Maxwell, in his book Failing Forward, says that failure is a natural thing. We all fail - the question is whether or not we will learn from our failures.

I've leaned a great deal from mine and now enjoy a six figure income. How about you? Are there some failures in your past? What can you learn from them?

Interested in learning more about being successful in business? Start here and get 52 weeks of practical small business advice.

Ready for YOUR Palace?

Can a simple decision to make money by cleaning offices change your life?

A few years ago a biologist and researcher came up with a term he called “the adjacent possible".  It’s a complex theory but here’s a simple way to look at it.  Think of being in a house that magically expands with every door you open.  You walk into a room and see three more doors leading out.  Once you open one of those doors you enter another room with another three doors leading to yet new rooms.  Keep opening doors and eventually you’ll realize you’re in an expanding palace.

When I decided to make money cleaning offices, I had no idea how many doors that would open up for me. Yes, I still have a commercial cleaning business, but over the last several years I have added landscaping, house cleaning, window washing, and at one time had a commercial carpet cleaning firm with over 3600 residential customers.

A palace? Maybe yes, maybe no. But from that simple decision to make money cleaning offices, a whole new world of opportunity and income level possibilities opened up to me.

Ready to do the same?

For more information: http://cleanup4profits.com/

Using your memory at work!

As an active person, you are 'juggling' a multitude of activities in your life. Some of those are personal but many are work related. I want to share with you how I use my memory most effectively in managing my business. 

The answer is simple - I don't even try to use my memory! 

I don't use it to try and remember who needs what supplies and when and where.

I don't use it for keeping track of my inspection or training schedules.

I don't use it to remember what training and employee has received or still needs.

I don't use it to remember employee names phone numbers or job start and finish times.

I don't use it to remember job follow-ups on customer or complaints or requests.

By now you're probably getting the picture. Using your memory to assist you with your tasks you need to perform is a wasted use of the mind you have.

All of us have been blessed with a wonderful thing called the mind. The mind uses your brain to function. Many people have compared to the mind to a computer. There is no comparison. Computers are wonderful tools; they can store data and perform incredible calculations, but they can't think.

You, on the other hand, are a creative thinking being with unlimited potential. For you to succeed in business, your mind needs to be free to reason, deduce, use logic, and create opportunities. You will not be successful in business if you clutter your mind with junk, facts, figures, dates, times, etc.

Whether you're using a note pad or a digital device; 

all routine tasks, 

all appointments,

all requests,

all the complaints,

all the suggestions, 

all the inspections, 

all meetings, 

everything should be recorded in a place where you can easily access it. Doing so leaves your mind free of all the clutter so you can reason and think.

For more business advice and a free 52 week newsletter to help you build your business, check this out.

Earn A Great Part Time Income as you Make Money Cleaning Offices

We all need a few extra dollars to spend now and then, but taking on another job, even if it’s part-time can really cut into your family life. 

If this is your problem then you may want to learn how to make money cleaning offices or other commercial buildings in your spare time. This is a great way to build financial security, pay off debt, pr send the kids to college without student loans.

First: One of the benefits of creating your part-time job and earning the extra income you need. Is that you get to set you own hours!  If you can work on Monday and Tuesday nights and not Wednesday through Friday because you have plans with your family, then you could schedule yourself to only work two nights a week. Locate several small offices that would need your services once a week and still have free time on the nights that you need for your family. By setting up your schedule like this you can generate some office cleaning income and still have some flexibility with your work hours.

Second: You can also plan on how much money you want to make each week, making sure your customers (cleaning accounts) meet those needs. When you decide you need more income you can simply add more customers to your list. Do a good job, build up a reputation and you can easily increase your office cleaning  clients. Growing slowly, maintaining a balance with your new business and other responsibilities is one thing you need to do if you are serious about learning how to make money office cleaning and be a success at it.

Third: You will need to decide what kind of service you will offer such as light commercial office cleaning. Work from a proposal and a check list. You list what you will and will not do, such as not cleaning carpet, or not dusting people’s desk that have important papers on them (but you will dust their desks if they move everything to the center of the desk). Make sure your list to includes only those tasks that you are willing and able to provide. This way everything is clearly explained between you and your clients.

Fourth:  Always keep your word and don't make promises to your clients that you can't keep. If you can't show up for your appointed time be sure and let them know and arrange another time to do the job. Most clients will be okay with this as long as you let them know what happening.

For more info:  http://makemoneycleaningoffices.com

5 MORE Networking Mistakes

Here are 5 MORE Networking Mistakes to Avoid:

6. Staying focused on your own self-interest. If you make the effort to find out how you can help someone else get what they want, there is a good chance they will reciprocate and give you what you want. Zig Ziglar said it best, “You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want”.

7. Inability to articulate how you can help others. You need to distill what your company brings to the table in easy to understand language (make it easy for others to grasp what you are all about). How exactly would you do this?

Basically this means telling people that you operate a cleaning company that knows how to get things done right the first time, you won’t make excuses if there’s a slip-up, you are fanatical about quality control and you will solve their cleaning woes if given the chance.

If you can leave them convinced you are that person, you are going to be one busy owner of a highly successful cleaning company. Oh and by the way, you will probably become quite wealthy in the process.

8. Not establishing any connections. To network effectively you need to connect with people. Though you will not connect with everyone you meet, you can improve your results by making use of a simple approach that is guaranteed to work wonders for you. I call this the “A, B, C Technique”. If you master this method you will be ahead of the competition.

A. Make eye contact

B. Smile

C. Ask questions

Three easy steps: It all starts with great eye contact, followed by a smile, then finish by just asking questions and showing interest in the other person. You will instantly be among the best networkers by using the A, B, C technique.

9. Performing the “meet, greet and leave” strategy. Virtually every networking event has at least one person running around like a jack rabbit saying “hi, here’s my card, nice to meet you”. Then they run off to the next person in their path.

This type of technique may let you give your card out to a lot of folks, but you will never build a relationship with anyone that way. You will get much better results by creating relationships instead of performing the meet, greet and leave.

10. Not following-up afterwards. What you do after the networking event is just as critical as what you did during the event. You need to follow-up with whoever you just met (this is part of the relationship building concept). Keep in mind that following up does not mean touching base three months later to see what’s going on.

Instead, you need get in touch while everything is still fresh. Here are two follow-up strategies to consider:

# 1 – When you meet a prospect, make plans to get in touch with them shortly after the networking event took place. Contacting them within 2-5 days would be optimal. Arrange a meeting at a time that suits your prospect’s schedule. 

# 2 – When you meet someone at a networking event that is not a prospect, look for any opportunities to send some business their way. If you have someone that may need the services of the person you just met, either refer them ‘ASAP’ to that person, or give the contact info to the person you just met. Being a “giver” is a sure fire way to not only make friend, but to get some referrals coming your way when they reciprocate the favor.

Networking can have a huge impact on your sales providing you take the time to do it correctly. Avoiding these ten networking mistakes will make your efforts much more fun and profitable.

Check out our FREE Newsletter filled with great small business ideas here.