Why would you want to help your competition succeed?
Oh, I love that question.
We're going to talk about that 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 MyCleaningConnection.com
and that is a resource hub for people interested in cleaning.
So even if you're cleaning your own house, or if you're a professional house cleaner,
or if you're an Airbnb or a VRBO Host, and you clean your own place between guests,
this is a place for you.
It's got all sorts of resources, and there's even actually a self-help section on there,
with books on how to become a better leader, and a better manager, and how to communicate
better with people, and how to ask for what you need.
It's a great resource section of some of my personal favorite books, and podcasts that
have really changed and revolutionized the way that I do business.
So, I did not write the books, but other people did and they have influenced and changed my life.
Therefore, I am recommending them to you, MyCleaningConnection.com
All right, on to today's question which is from a house cleaner who watched a YouTube
video we created the other day.
And in the video, we were talking about should your employees see how much you charge a customer
for a cleaning service?
And in the video I explained that if the customer, or the employee that you're hiring, is interested
in starting their own business that you could help them on their way.
And there were a bunch of people that were like, "Why would you want to help your competition?"
If someone is going to spin out underneath you, why would you want to help them?
So there are several reasons why you would want to help them.
And it goes back to a trip that I took over the city of Las Vegas.
I'm flying in on a jetliner as we're cruising in over Las Vegas, coming in for landing,
and I look out and as far as the eyes can see there's this massive valley of houses.
And it struck me in that moment, there is an abundance of houses, there are billions
of people on the planet and most of them live in homes.
They live in apartments, they live in condos, they live in RV's, they live somewhere and
wherever they live those places need to be cleaned.
Now in addition to regular cleaning, this would be called a single family home, there
are also Airbnb's, and the Airbnb industry is exploding.
There are school teachers for example that are empty nested, their kids have move out,
moved away from home and they still have two or three kid's bedrooms in their house.
And so they've turned those bedrooms, for example, into rentals.
Where instead of people staying at a hotel will come and stay at these schoolteacher's houses.
And I bring up school teachers because I just read an article from the Airbnb industry
that school teachers alone, had brought in a 160 million dollars in one year in the Airbnb industry.
160 million dollars, that's more revenue that's being pumped back into their salaries that
they did not make teaching our kids in school.
Right!
So lots of people are not utilizing the extra space that they have as rental space.
So between each cleaning, each turnover, you have to have a cleaning.
And so let's say that you have three people come in one week and they each stay for two nights.
That's three times you have to clean that house, getting it ready for your new guests.
So there's not just house cleaning for a single family home that's going to have you come
back every other week, but now there are people who have homes that they need cleaned three
times in one week.
Okay?
So here's the reason you want to help your competition.
As I flew over the city of Las Vegas and I looked at all these hundreds and thousands
of homes, I thought to myself how many of those could I clean?
I mean that's where my mind goes, right?
A few!
I'm one person, I can only clean a few.
I need all the help I can get.
And so if there's somebody that comes into your organization and they are strictly there
to learn from you, so they can turn around and go start their own cleaning business,
this is a beautiful opportunity for you.
Number one it gives you chance and practice of being a leader.
You get to manage someone else who is managing your business.
And so you can put this person in charge and you can start moving away from the daily grind,
and so as you manage this person, they are managing the daily grind.
So they are learning from you.
Yes, you're teaching them and as you teach them you will refine the different programs
and systems that you have in place.
And as they implement them, they may come up with a couple of different ideas that will
also help you, because maybe it's a view or a vision you did not have.
So it's a way for you to learn from them as well.
In addition to that, if somebody learns how you operate your business and then they do
go off and start their own business, they live nearby.
Right?
Because they come to work every day, so they live nearby, that is a person you can call
as a backup.
And say "hey listen, Amy, I know that you've been in my company for a couple of years,
you know how we run things, I'm really short staffed this weekend, could I pay for you
for work this weekend and you come in as an independent contractor and you help me out
with this particular series of projects?
There's nobody that understands your business better than Amy.
Yeah, she's a competitor and yeah she has her own business, but as you've set it up,
you could also set it up as a franchise, for example.
Where you say, I will give you leads and I get 10% of everything that you earn.
And so you may have your own little franchise program going on where you spin people out
on their own and they can still come back to you for consulting and help, and spin ideas
off of, and ask you questions about employees and customers and all these things.
And then you make a percentage of everything that you send them.
So there are a lot of opportunities in the fire.
Now think of it as one candle.
One candle cannot light the whole world, right?
It has a very limited scope in its range of light.
But if there are lots of candles all over, you can create quite an illumination.
And so my philosophy has always been that instead of taking all of our precious energy,
because our energy is a resource, just like money, it's a resource.
And so if you have your energy and you're focusing on competing and you're trying to
knock the other guy down, and you're judging the other person so that you can elevate yourself up,
all that's doing is eating up your own energy.
How consuming is that?
And what do you get at the end?
You only get somebody that tries harder to compete with you.
And so now you got to work harder because you've created this weird competition.
But instead if you're trying to help and elevate everyone else, they in turn are trying to
help and elevate you.
It's a completely different currency.
So if you're thinking about competing or collaborating, collaborating is way more brilliant as far
as the energy and time and resources spent, and for the results that you get at the end,
than competition where people are backstabbing and bad-mouthing and trying to outdo each
other on social media and all these other things.
It's just two completely separate currencies.
So you either buy into this one or you buy into this one.
My philosophy is that it costs you nothing extra.
If you're going to hire somebody you don't know, if they're going to go off and start
their own business.
And you can have them sign non-competes and all this stuff, and you can have all your
rules and regulations in place, and if that's who you are that's fine.
There's nothing wrong with that, there's no shame in that.
That's fine!
And then you have to enforce that, and that might mean going to court, and again it's
spending a bunch of time and money and resources and energy, for what?
This person knows your business better than anyone else.
And in the event that you need their help, they're there.
There may be times where they are working for you.
Let's say somebody works for you for two years.
At the end of the two years the intention was for them to go out on their own.
They might be entrepreneurial enough that was their vision.
And they might be lazy enough that now that they see what's involved, they don't want to do that.
They're just perfectly content being there being your manager.
And then if you can motivate them with raises and all these other things, they may never
leave your company.
You're gold as the boss, as the leader, as the inspirer and the motivator is to motivate
these people to want to stay.
And I can't tell you how many people came in with the intention of spinning out on their
own and starting their own businesses only to find out they didn't have what it takes.
And then they're like, no, no, no, no, no, this is way too much responsibility.
I just want to come in and get my paycheck and go home at the end of the day.
And you're like thank you very much.
But you've trained them to do all the tasks that you do and now you're working on your
business and not in your business.
Alrighty, so that is why you may want to consider helping your competition.
Until we meet again,
leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.
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