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Hello, my name is Gloria Charles and James Nokes, the owner of this site asked me to tell you a little about myself and my company. So, here goes...
Cleanpin is the name of my company and it's a cleaning business in Nigeria. I started my business in June 2006 by registering it with the government. Once that was done I could officially open my doors. Because there aren't a lot of cleaning services in Nigeria and particularly in the State I live in, I decided to do both Office Cleaning and House Cleaning as well.
Because of the quality of service I provide, I have been able to diversify, my company now cleans hotels, parks, estates, schools, and even factories. My first few contracts however were residential work.
The very first cleaning job I got, I cleaned out the children's bathroom of a clients house. I did the work myself because I didn't have any employees at that time and despite all my dreams and hopes I wondered if I had chosen the right business, my hands and back ached so much; but I was encouraged by my client.
She loved the job I did and told me not to worry about the early days of my business, early days are always hard, she said, especially in a service business like mine. She told me that that was actually a good thing because it helped to keep the competition down. If it wasn't for the hard, early days that all new businesses go through everyone in business would have ten times as much competition as they do and nobody would be making any money!
I was really encouraged by her kind remarks and over time I came to realize she was right; the hard time most people have at the start of their business life is what keeps us from being overrun by the competition. After all, if it was easy, everybody would be the boss and have their own business!
In the early days I didn't have enough money to advertise so I had to do a lot of cold calling. I made complementary cards and fliers and chose a graphic designer who had an excellent eye and could do a lot on a slender budget.
My fliers, brochures and the like came out very well and that really helped me to get off to a good start. I also hired a marketer for a month which was expensive on my small budget but paid off because I learned a lot in that one month about how to market myself...
| A day in the life of Gloria Charles, a Cleaning Entrepreneur in Nigeria: |
Now that I'm established, my business day typically begins with supervision. I check on employees at the
various offices they're cleaning and make sure everything is going well.
Next, in the absence of any prior meetings at my office, I do my daily marketing. Basically, this means cold calling, going from office to office meeting with CEO's and Chairmen.
Usually because they are such a busy group, I make appointments prior to going in to see them. And before I get to speak to them I meet with their Heads of Staff and Administration and talk about my services.
As I said earlier, there are very few cleaning services where I live so this first meeting always becomes a debate on
why they need a cleaning service when it seems cheaper to employ in-house staff. This is always the most
challenging part of my day. I never try to compete on price, instead I start by pointing out all the areas in the office that are dirty to these office heads and show them areas in-house staff never seem to properly clean.
I also demonstrate the difference between the cleaning products in-house staff use in and what my professional cleaners use. There is, of course, also an issue of
proper supervision which in-house staff don't have. But I have to be diplomatic when I say this because these people are the supervisors for the in-house staff.
So, I always point out that while they have many tasks to oversee, I have only one, to make sure that their building is properly maintained and when they hire Cleanpin they have one less job to worry about so they can do all their other tasks that much better!
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