16 Rules for building your Housecleaning Business.

Are you having trouble kickstarting your Housecleaning franchise? Can’t seem to build a reliable clientele? Running out of steam in a world of unthinkably efficient steam engine cleaning dynamos? We know that you are! Our tested and proved methods will turn your flagging business around in no time. You’ll be a regular John Henry, leaving the corporate machine in the dust. What follows are 15 rules that we promise if you adhere to strictly, will yield the same unerring results. We've seen it work time after time. So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and . . .


1. Come up with a snazzy name or pick from a nifty list we've provided Don’t use your own name as a part of your company name, but do use some fictional name. This will add the mystery necessary to a bristling and vigorous business. As an example, no one names a football stadium after a player or coach that is currently on the roster. And warships aren’t named after current presidents and generals. North Koreans would scoff if they saw the USS Obama glide past them on the high seas.

2.Buy a white van and paint the name of your business on the side. Try to use lots of purple, pink, and light shades of green in your logo.

3. Outsource! Hire foreigners and pay them in roubles or some other obscure currency that they are unfamiliar with. In this way, you can underpay them, and with a van full of employees, you’re outfit will appear to the world as a credible and thriving business.

4. Sure you need to always think big but start out by thinking small. In the housecleaning business, you can bet that all of the mansions are already staffed with a cleaning team on hand to wipe up misfired urine streams around the clock. And since all of the really posh neighborhoods are canvassed by all the big Housecleaning corporations already, you’re going to have to go to the slums! They are called the slums for a reason. Plus, you can charge a mid sized fee and clean the units fast since they are usually nothing more than 20 square feet devoid of all furniture save a broken recliner and folding dinner tray.

5. Make all your migrant workers wear stark white outfits. You want to look like a psychiatric outfit coming into take away the lunatic locked in a room on the third floor. This will add style and a certain level of uniformity to your business. Make sure that you march in and out of the houses in single file. Have them line up in military fashion behind you as you ring the bell for a prospective house. and then

6. make sure to have a great tagline ready to greet the unsuspecting customer when they open the door. Actually, don’t waste time coming up with your own. Use this one: Shall the cleaning commence? With a crack team of migrant workers lined up with chests puffed out, how can anyone refuse?

7. Use a system of regimental commands and military banter when speaking with your crew. All hands on deck, man the pumps, advance, and prepare the cannon should get a lot of mileage here. Make sure to leave out any hint of irony. You want the people you service to really believe you’re ex-military somehow. If you get any compliments on the efficiency of your team, be sure to say that you run a tight ship.

8. Resist the impulse to steal loose change. Too many housecleaners have been fired from an accusation of having a hand in the cookie jar. You definitely don’t want to get a reputation for being a modern day Benedict Arnold. In fact, it is often a good idea to leave extra loose change lying about, and make it obvious you put it there. I recommend getting rare coins, wheat pennies and buffalo nickels and putting them in between sofa cushions. Won’t they be surprised the next time they fish for the remote!

9. Try to get a reality t.v. show interested in following your crew around. Your 15 minutes of fame will turn your outfit into a novelty and give you some extra cash to boot. A one time spot like Dirty Jobs is good, but a season long special like Super Nanny is the goal here. You want to assert yourself in public consciousness as the authority of housekeeping. Once you are the star of a season long t.v. show you should

10. make sure the show is popular enough to make it to a second and third season. What you want to do is go for the lifetime network or some similar network that comes with a ready-made diehard base of viewers. At this point you need to be thinking

11. bookdeal and

12. branding. Sell the idea! Go on talk shows and do interviews with magazines. Go to all the celebrity galas and don’t shy away from the public eye. Keep the military persona going at all times, and

13. in the mornings, first thing, open the front door of your house and scan the horizon with binoculars. Don a captain’s cap and

14. pack a pipe with good old fashioned tobacco. Don’t skimp, go with a reliable name like P. Lorillard. Then, strut confidently over to the paparazzi encampment on your front lawn and take notes on their activity. Be sure to write what time everything took place using the 0 600 hours method. Refuse to answer some of their questions while muttering something about state secrets, but always pose for photographs and shake hands.

15. Accept the meeting with the chiefs of state and don’t refuse their offer to be made a five star general of the U.S. Navy! Be sure to sound like JFK when you talk and nod your head a lot. Always defer to the desire of the executive chief and be ready to fire those rockets! This is it!