Induction cooktop

Over the next six-months, the House Cleaning Alliance will offer, mostly for free, its own details about how to operate a scaled maid service enterprise. Keep an eye out for the forms to appear in the Maid Service Co-Op Shop, over the next several weeks, at fantastically low prices. Until a complete package is made available, the following (along with Articles included in this site) will have to suffice to summarize our main points of dissent.

Astonish Industries

Your Father's Marketing Plan Any guru offering a marketing plan which doesn't mention web-based marketing is either headed for the bone yard, or has just arrived from the moon. Traditional marketing methods are passé. With a fully-developed web-based marketing plan, your next customer will seek and find you, and each new customer will cost you just pennies on the dollar, as compared to traditional methods proposed by the gurus. And you will add new customers at a rate which will astonish you.

Specifically, we don't agree with making door hangers the cornerstone of your marketing plan. Since the no-call lists have served to eliminate those dinner-time telemarketing calls, door hangers have taken their place as the new fly in home owner's ointment. Use door hangers sparingly, for operational reasons, and with discretion.

Mailings certainly have a place in your overall marketing scheme. They should be incredibly focused in terms of content and target, and we would never again have a third-party distribute them on our behalf, without independently verifying that they were indeed mailed.

Phone book and newspapers ads are passé. We don't intend to ever spend another nickel on either.

Mind Your Phone Manners The Gurus advise: End every sentence with, "So when's the In-Home Visit going to be then?" Such hard-sell techniques have no place in our industry. If a prospect phones your office, it would be remiss for you not to offer an In-Home Visit (or an hourly price over the phone, if the Prospect prefers), but to do so more than once would insult the Prospect's intelligence. If the Prospect has called for information, then give it freely over the phone. Selling house cleaning services requires instilling a sense of trust, and acting like a high-pressure used car salesmen is not going to give her that warm and fuzzy feeling she is seeking. Consumers are weary and wary of high-pressure sales techniques, so relax a little. The difference is subtle; it depends on adopting an attitude different from that of your mediocre competitors. Exude confidence, not desperation. You offer exceptional services, and your services are highly sought after. This Prospect is seeking your services. Be a facilitator. Invite her, don't scare her. Be the spider sitting back in your web, not the hawk swooping upon its prey.

When fielding calls from Prospects, you want them to finish the conversation thinking that you are polite and competent. Respect the Prospect's process, rather imposing your own. Your objective for each call from a Prospect should be to satisfy the inquiry, with a secondary objective being one of a number of possibilities: 1) the Prospect visiting your website for more information about your company and services; 2) the Prospect phoning back the next day (or next month) to inquire further; or just maybe 3) booking the In-Home Visit while the Prospect is on the phone.

In-Home Quotes: Leave your Plaid Jacket at Home The purpose of the In-Home Visit is firstly to describe those tailored services you are offering to this particular prospect. The process offers the chance for you to distinguish yourself from your competitors. Indeed, if it is a mediocre service that you are offering, then it might be altogether better for you to skip In-Home Visits and quote everything hourly over the phone. But if your service is exceptional, then it's going to be a natural sale. You can simply walk around, listen, and, with complete candor and confidence, make 20 promises to your Prospect about the baseboards, under the beds, cobwebs, etc. Collectively, the promises represent your sales pitch.

When you are done, and have established (and documented!) the scope based on your walk-through with the Prospect, then give her the prices. Hmmm . . . I have loads to say about how to arrive at the prices. It won't fit here. Suffice it to say, we go about it altogether differently than the gurus. If you want to chat about our pricing method sometime, I may be happy to do so. We are presently developing a statistical tool to help you price house cleaning assignments. It'll be ready this calendar year.

Aside from arriving at the price, we disagree with the gurus' Living Room techniques. Better to assume your Prospect has an IQ of 150 and will appoint a house cleaning company precisely when she is ready, and not before. Make your offer, then describe your method for having arrived at the price (it's a function of the time you estimate it will take to clean the home, based on the agreed-upon scope).

The offer is followed by a pregnant pause, not by the obnoxiously insulting question, "So what's it going to be then, weekly or every two weeks?" At this point in the visit, you will have a good sense for whether or not you've won over the Prospect. The price might astonish her. That's OK, you've already described your premium services, and now you've given her your premium price. Maybe she needs a moment to digest it. Be calm and polite. Of course, you're ready to book it on the spot. But if she seems indecisive, I always say, "These quotes are good for one year. If you get three quotes from three companies, I will expect that ours will be the highest. It's not that we charge more per hour for our services, but rather that we spend more time in our clients' homes, and our prices reflect that. If you are uncertain, then choose one of our competitors for a lower price. Once you've tried them, you'll find that they either satisfy your needs, in which case you've saved money, or they disappoint you, in which case you will be more appreciative of our services, once you appoint us six weeks hence." The most common response: "Wow (what confidence!), why would I waste my time with the others? When can you start?" Of course, over time, this only works if you can actually deliver what you've promised.

The gurus track close rates. To them, a sale equals success. To us, a sale may very well represent the worst-case scenario, if it is based on a bad price. An orangutan dressed in a plaid jacket can sell premium maid services for a bad price. We monitor close rates, but we emphasize accuracy in pricing. The difference may seem subtle, but beware, the results can be remarkably different.

Let the Market Dictate Your Operating Profile The gurus say three person teams are "the Best." That's like saying a Cocker Spaniel is the best. The best for what? When it comes to Operations, think outside the box. Flexibility is the key to meeting customer demands and optimizing the big Scheduling Puzzle. One of the benefits of being an independent maid service company is that we don't have to abide by one of those pesky operational manuals, and we're not about to impose superficial operational rules on ourselves as a substitute.

We happily and intelligently run one-person, two-person, three-person, four-person teams, depending on the clients, the location, and the circumstances (maybe even five or six-person teams for special assignments). We do it to please our customers, optimize the schedule, minimize drive-time, facilitate training, and because we have the systems which enable us to do it.

The gurus, with their manual forms and pencil sharpeners, sacrifice flexibility in order to simplify and solve the Scheduling Puzzle. To them, "a Team" is a static concept. To us, it is dynamic. On Monday, Maria manages a two-person team. On Tuesday she manages a separate three-person team. On Wednesday she manages an altogether different four- person team, and so on and so forth. What's the difference? Well, to Maria's Monday clients, there is none. She has the same Monday team each Monday. But from an operations perspective, the difference is remarkable. Firstly, evaluations: every Cleaning Associate works with, and is evaluated by, multiple Team Leaders every two-weeks. Yes! Another relative performance parameter on which to base pay! Secondly, flexibility in matching the perfect personnel package to the perfect assignment. Thirdly, flexibility in solving the Scheduling Puzzle. Fourthly, camaraderie across teams, not just within them.

The gurus' specialization concept? Yech! Who wants to become a bathroom specialist? Why would anyone introduce yet one more constraint into the Scheduling Puzzle? Get real. Everybody does everything-the Team Leader trains everyone, and uses her discretion in assigning tasks. She mixes it up amongst the team so as to make their lives more bearably interesting. And it would be naïve to imagine that quality won't suffer from the gurus' undue emphasis on efficiency. Give your house cleaners some credit for being intelligent enough to work out efficiency among themselves, monitor quality carefully and continuously, and you may be surprised at the results. Rely on your pay schemes to reward your employees for a combination of efficiency and quality. What pay schemes, you ask? Well, that really is the million dollar question, isn't it? Please see the Forum.

Please check back to read about our plans to send a maid to the moon.

There are so many varieties of carbonara that it is hard to sort them out. Typically carbonara is made with pancetta or guanciale, egg yolk, and parmesan cheese mixed in spaghetti. Pancetta is a bacon that has been salt cured and spiced with nutmeg, pepper, fennel, dried ground hot peppers and garlic usually and dried for about three months. It is typically not smoked (I will show you how to make it in a later article). On the other hand, guanciale is a smoked bacon with pigs jowls mixed in. I lean toward pancetta and rarely use guanciale (can't get used to the taste). In the US, sometimes cream is used in the recipe, but this is not typical in Italy. I give some variations on carbonara, but the recipe below is my favorite. Oh, by the way, carbonara is Italian for charcoal and has led to the idea that it was a coal miners spaghetti (nonsense - no one probably knows the origins of carbonara).

Carbona

A delicacy

I would like to think that my carbonara is more of a delicacy than a staple. It is a less traditional recipe than one would find in homes in Italy. But it is so creamy and delicious that my mouth waters just thinking about it. Try my recipe below and then move on to some of the variations I suggest to see what you prefer. It is a great dish for social gatherings.

Ingredients (4 to 5 servings):
8 slices pancetta (you can substitute applewood smoked bacon if you want a more typical American dish)

1 large onion chopped (you can use leeks but make sure you only use the white tender parts)

2 large eggs at room temperature

½ cup parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon chopped fresh Italian parsley

1 pound linguine (you can use spaghetti but I don't like it because it is hard to mix with the other ingredients)

Pancetta

Cook the pancetta in a large skillet over medium high heat until done - about 8 minutes (I don't like it crisp but you may wish to reduce the fat by cooking until crisp). Remove the pancetta with a slotted spoon to a plate covered with a paper towel to drain (dice or chop into fine pieces). Add the onions and sauté over medium high heat until tender (about 6 minutes).

Pasta

At the same time, cook the pasta in salted water al dente style (it literally means cook the pasta enough to still have a slight resistance to the pasta when chewed - but this is a matter of taste and I recommend what you are comfortable with). Drain the pasta but reserve at least ½ cup of the liquid that you cooked the pasta in.

Mixing

Whisk the eggs and parmesan cheese in a bowl and then whisk in ¼ cup of the reserved pasta liquid. Meanwhile, add the pasta to the onions and stir while heating. Remove the pasta and onions and then pour the egg mixture over the pasta. Stir until the sauce is a wonderful creamy consistency and the eggs are no longer raw (less than 2 minutes). Return the mixture to a very low heat (do not overcook because the eggs will curdle). Add some of the pasta liquid if the pasta seems dry. Stir in the pancetta and parsley and serve adding salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese to taste.

Voila

I love the opportunities for variation with this dish. The most common carbonara calls for egg yolks instead of eggs. So you can substitute 4 egg yolks for the 2 eggs in the above recipe (I hate to waste the whites). If you have a trim waste line you can add ½ cup heavy cream to the egg mixture and 2 garlic cloves (diced).

Jack Botticelli

Jack Botticelli
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