Should you have a cleaning niche?
That's a great question and we're going to talk about it today.
Hi there, I'm Angela Brown and this is Ask a House Cleaner.
This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question,
and I get to help you find an answer.
Now today's show is brought to us by TurnoverCleaningTips.com
And that's a website with a bunch of resources for people in the Airbnb industry, who have
a vacation rental by owner, or it's a short-term rental, or it's just a vacation rental, or
a cabin up in the mountains that you rent.
And it's for the people that do the cleaning of those turnover spaces.
So you've got a guest coming in,
you've got to turn it over and get it ready for the next guest.
If you do turnover service, you want to you to check TurnoverCleaningTips.com
There's a bunch of resources on there.
There are cleaning tips, there are podcasts, there are blogs.
There's a whole bunch of fun stuff on there that will help you with your short-term rental
business.
All right, on to today's show, which is from Nikki who has this question.
Nicki: Hi Angela, I own a cleaning business in San Diego, California.
My question for you today is, would you recommend a cleaning company to focus on a certain niche
when it comes to clientele?
I ask this because the bulk of my business comes from short-term vacation rentals.
I have about 30 units with one property management company and they want to continue to give
me more.
But I do have some residential clients ... from about eight to 10.
But I just feel like it's best for me to focus on building with different property management
companies, because this is where I shine the most.
And this brings my company massive revenue.
So would you say it's best to just focus on a certain niche and just grow from there?
Thanks so much, Angela.
I appreciate all your work.
Angela Brown: All right Nicki, I love your question, and it sounds like you've already
answered it.
If the majority of your business is coming from short term rentals, my suggestion is
that you've already found your niche.
And I would stay there.
Now, sometimes you search for a niche, and sometimes it finds you.
And so, it's interesting, because you have a choice.
You can always accept what finds you, or you can go chasing after something else.
It's always easier to let something find you.
Now it sounds like you're in an area where there's a lot of vacation rentals, and if
that is the case, and you are able to manage all of the different properties that are coming
your way, then boo-yah.
You're in the right place at the right time.
Now, they say, this is a Chinese philosophy, that resting things are easier to catch.
What that means is that if you go chasing after somethings,
oftentimes it will elude you.
So you go chasing after business.
And you go hunting down ... let's say residential cleaning.
Which are your by-weekly and maintenance cleans in this particular scenario.
And then it's harder to find those particular customers.
But why do you need those if somethings already come to you.
When you stop chasing, things come to you.
It's like the little dog.
The guy's out chasing his dog, calling and calling and the dog's nowhere to be found.
But when he stops calling and he ignores the dog, the dog come racing up to him and rubs
his body up against the guys leg and is like, "Ahhh.
Here I am."
Right?
So resting things are easier to catch.
Meaning, don't spend all your energy and resources chasing after something else when you've already
found a niche.
All right in the Airbnb industry there's a lot of that's stuff going on.
And we know that most ... and the majority of the cleaning is from 10 o'clock in the
morning until about three o'clock in the afternoon.
That's when guests are leaving, and the new guests are going to arrive.
So there's this weird little window where you have to come in and pull up all the sheets
and the linens, and do the laundry, and pick up all the food, and dust and vacuum and reset
everything for the next guest.
Now, if you are one person, it's going to be hard to maintain lots of properties.
But if you have multiple people, and this is not necessarily a maid service.
This might be working with lots of house moms.
Or a group of moms whose kids are in school during the day.
Their kids go to school, let's say at eight o'clock in the morning, and they get back
at 2:30 in the afternoon.
So they have this chunk of time during the day where they could pick up a couple of Airbnb's,
or one Airbnb, and they do that particular one every single time.
And if you have two or three of those types of house cleaners that are specific to what
you are doing, then what happens is, if you someone has, let's say a two day minimum.
They are going to be needing to turn their place three times a week, I guess.
So, usually, maybe three or four, but maybe it's only once.
So you might have work for them every day, or you might not.
At which point, you would put them on a different property.
So if you have two or four properties in a hub, you want two or three people so they
can rotate their schedules, and someone is always available for that quick turn.
So, it's a great niche.
And believe it or not, it's booming.
It is a huge element in business right now.
Especially in the house cleaning business.
Because there are a lot of Airbnb hosts that are doing so well as being hosts and super
hosts, that they are not staying on their one property.
They are investing in other properties and before you know it, they've got five or 10
properties that they are managing.
And a wise person will have multiple units in the same area.
So that they can hire a team of people to go in and manage that area.
Now if you are doing Airbnb cleanings, or VRBO cleanings, or whatever you want to call
those cleanings, the turnover service.
When you do those cleanings if you will stay in one geographic hub.
Just like you would a regular house cleaning business, that's even tidying down your niche.
Here's the reason why.
Let's say you ask everybody in this area, this very concentrated area, who do you know
who does this cleaning service?
They are going to recommend you.
But if you're scattered all over the city, nobody really gets to recommend you, and know
you as the go-to person, because it's impossible for you to maintain a particular area if you're
scattered all over.
So you don't want commute time because the window's very narrow, when you're going to
be able to get and clean those houses.
So you stay in your one concentrated area, and become that known person.
If you have a management company, and you're not a quite management company yet, you're
still ... it sounds like a maid service.
But if you're a management company, do you want somebody that lives and works in the
area, or do you want somebody who's managing you from 2,000 miles away?
The answer is no.
I want the boots on the ground.
I want the person that's there and can run over there if something malfunctions, and
they can see with their eyes.
And they can tidy things up, or they can help in the case of an emergency.
You want the person that's local.
And right now, Nicki, you are that person.
It sounds like this is your business.
And this is your calling.
So boo-yah.
You are in the right place at the right time.
And yes, I would say yes, stay with your niche.
All righty.
If you found this helpful, please recommend it to a friend or share it.
And until we meet again,
leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.
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