Jennifer’s Story
In 1994, in Los Angeles, CA, I began as a secretary for a real estate broker. I was working 40 hours/week, sitting at a desk, and not happy with my pay or boss. During those first 8 months, I witnessed cleaning companies pick up their keys for the properties they were cleaning at the office, and come back in just 2 to 6 hours to get their checks. I asked a coworker (who was also a friend), “How much is the check?” She replied, “Some make $200.00-$600.00 in 2 to 6 hours.”
A month later I gave my two weeks’ notice and decided to clean houses on my own. At the time, my parents thought I was crazy! “What are you doing?” They would say, “You don’t know the first thing about cleaning!” I simply replied that I loved cleaning my apartment, and I was just going to try this for a month. If it didn’t work out, I could look for another job. I went out and bought cleaning supplies, copied ads from the Yellow Pages, and went to Kinko’s to make flyers. The ironic part? I had ZERO knowledge of cleaning. In one day, my friend and I passed out about 500 flyers, and then I waited.
One week later, with zero responses from the flyers, I decided to grab the newspaper and look at the help wanted ads. The following week interviewed for secretary positions and had a request to come back for a second interview. I still had zero calls from my flyers. I went on the second interview and when I came home I had 5 messages on my answering machine from potential cleaning customers! I called my friend over to ask her for advice, and at that point I decided to call the secretary job and tell them I had a family emergency and needed to come back to Michigan. They agreed to hold the position. I felt terrible lying, but I wanted to see if I could make this work. I was excited and scared at the same time! I called the customers, set up a free estimate, and winged it from that point. Each place was different, and I charged according to each individual place at an hourly rate. I knew I was a good cleaner, but had no idea how much to charge, so I just took my hourly wage from my Secretary job and added $3.00. They thought that was a fair price.
I cleaned the houses and made more money in that first week of cleaning houses than my prior full time position – and in less than 40 hours!
Jennifer Helsel
Needless to say, I declined the secretary position. I cleaned like a mad person, Monday-Sunday. I made great money but the exhaustion and physical soreness started to catch up with me. I decided a good next step was to hire two girls which was a new challenge because I never had anyone working for me. I interviewed over 10 girls and loved 3 of them so thought “what the heck? I’ll give those three a try.” (Mind you I was in my early 20’s and lived in California and was basically winging it.) My challenge to my new hires was this:
I said, “I will pay you per house, and whoever can keep up with me gets a raise and will get their own houses!” This was a true challenge since by then I had quite a bit of experience, and was tough competition.
All 3 girls did amazing! I took care of transporting them to their houses (crazy, I know), raised their pay, and promoted them to their own houses. They soon were making nearly 50% of the cleaning fee. Yes, 50%! I learned that when you pay them good and act like a team they will stay. I made a ton of money! At the end of it the original 3 stayed with me for 5 years. And I hired 8 more. My business is California was amazing!
While in California, I was introduced to my future husband. I fell in love and sold my cleaning service for a lot of money to my original 3 girls. I moved to Arizona to be with my future husband.
When I got to Arizona, I found out that that cleaning was a little different there. I had to learn how to clean basically stone and travertine floors. People also had different preferences and priorities. I quickly adapted and started to clean just like I had in California. I used the same flyer platform and hired a group of kids to pass out flyers for me (of course, I did monitor to make sure it was done). Before I knew it, I had 15 houses, and I began to hire cleaners just like I did before. I showed them how I did the “CLOCK” method – my original trick for getting everything done. I trained them in all the ins and outs of cleaning, and within 6 months I didn’t need to clean anymore – I was a full time business manager. I grew faster in AZ than in California. I had great staff, paid them the same, and it worked yet again. I had my business there for over 14 years, with 15 girls and over 250 homes. I worked with 20 hair salons, and also real estate companies. I had accounts with vacation rentals that rented out to professional Baseball players for spring training. I could tell you all about that too… My favorite person I worked with was Jason Giambi!
At this point, my marriage started to go bad, so I sold my business and moved back to Michigan. And started it all over again. To date, I have 8 girls and over 170 houses. We are constantly growing! I pay the same I had in CA and AZ, have used the same flyer template, and have utilized additional advertising strategies. Bottom line: It’s working.
I’m looking forward to working with people from all backgrounds in the domestic service industry – nannies, house cleaners, businesses, you name it – if you are looking to build your own business or simply add to your current skill set as an employee, or even if you’re a busy mom looking for some much needed relief and support as you tackle your own home, Simply Maid to Help is here for you!
It’s not easy, but nothing worthwhile is easy, is it? Just know if you try, listen and learn you will have just as good of chance as anyone else!
Simply Maid to Help 
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