The Official Internet Marketing Sweetie Blog

Thursday, December 20, 2007

How Do I Find a Good Housekeeper?: Three Thoughts Thursday

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Hmmm...what does this have to do with Internet Marketing? If you work from your home, it means EVERYTHING.

Today's Three Thoughts have been inspired by a subscriber of my Outsourcing Tips...and her question was in response to this email from the tips sequence:

"Today I want to talk to you about my favorite task to outsource - cleaning house. I don't know about you, but vacuuming and cleaning the bathroom, aren't on my list of favorite things to do. I'd much rather spend the afternoon writing to you or adding some new resources to my website than scrubbing the bathtub.

So, one of the first things I outsourced was keeping my house 'somewhat' clean (If you have small kids you know keeping it completely clean for more than 10 minutes is impossible).

Think about it, how much time do you spend cleaning house each week? If you (like me) don't particularly enjoy it, it probably takes you quite some time. Hiring a housekeep to come in even just once a week to clean the house for a few hours could easily give you an extra 5 to6 hours of time to work on your business, or even better spend with your family or friends.

How much more would you make each week, if you devoted just 2 of those hours to building your business? If you can bring in as much money (or even more) as you are paying your housekeeper, it would definitely be worth your while to hire one.

To your success, Alice Seba"

And then Heidi wrote back to ask:

"Hi Alice!

So do you have any suggestions on HOW to find a good 'housekeeper'??? That's
definitely an area of my life that I just can't seem to keep up with & I get
overly stressed out when my house is a mess.

How do you find someone you can trust? Any ideas or advice would be greatly
appreciated. Thanks Alice! You're awesome!

Heidi =0) "

House Cleaning
So, let's get into the three thoughts on finding a good housekeeper:

1. Just like with any other outsourcing you do, referrals are best. Ask your friends or other parents at school...just start asking. I used a "reputable" service with bonded employees once, but they didn't do a very thorough job and they were overpriced. Thankfully, my best friend's mom returned to her cleaning business about a year and a half ago and I scooped her up because I knew what a thorough housekeeper she is and I've known her for a long time.

2. If you don't know the person, stay near. You mentioned trust issues and that is certainly understandable. There is no reason that you have to leave the house while they do the cleaning, especially as you're getting to know each other. Just be accommodating and get out of the way when they work in a certain area.

3. Make sure you get your money's worth. As I mentioned, I wasn't happy with the service I used. They didn't move anything on the floor to clean underneath, no matter how light it was. This included plants, baskets, etc...and forget about even moving or attempting to vacuum under a couch. I assume this might be due to employee or worker's compensation regulations, but to me - it was lame. I'd come home and feel like I could have done a better job...and that's saying a lot.

The lady I have now, does it all. She even moves the fridge and the stove on a regular basis...and while she cleans, she washes and folds our laundry without "taking me out to the cleaners", so to speak. ;-) So, before you take someone on, be sure you ask what they do and don't do...and how much time they'd need to keep your house sparkly clean.

2 Comments:

Blogger MaxJ said...

I wish I could afford someone to do all of the housework! It wouldn't really save much time (as I don't do any now) but the house would be much cleaner!

The reason I don't clean my house is because internet marketing takes far too long! Even when using tools such as Artemis Pro it's still really difficult!

3:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

We recently decided to claim back some of our time by hiring a housekeeper. Instead of spending Saturday mornings cleaning, I'm now free to work, while my husband takes our two sons out shopping, to a museum, anything they feel like doing. Afternoons free for us to do whatever we want. We get more family time, and I get more work time.

Our housekeeper was found through someone we know who owns a cleaning service. Can't get a better referral than that!

It's amazing how much time it takes to clean. This is probably one of the smartest "business" decisions I've made so far.

5:08 PM  

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