I get this question a lot. I'm sure nearly every business owner does. This is an easy one!
I was in the military for 7 and a half years. It was a great experience, and even knowing what I know now, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat! I may have handled a few situations differently over the course of that career, but I otherwise wouldn't change a thing.
However, toward the end of my time in the Air Force, I suffered under the command of a couple of real jerks for about six months. It was the most miserable 6 months of my entire life thus far (I'm 42 as I write this today), hands down, worst days of my life. That was in part the impetus for me to get out of the military as soon as my active duty commitment expired. As luck would have it, my first child was born two weeks before my active duty service commitment expired. I went on maternity leave, then terminal leave, then was out on the last day of 2006.
So I gleaned from that experience that I didn't ever want to work for jerks again and maybe couldn't blindly follow orders very well either. The only way to have that choice is to be the jerk at the top...
I was a stay at home mom for six years before I started the cleaning businesses. Before those, I had a couple of hobby quilting businesses that I did in my 'spare' time such as it is when you have little ones. I also volunteered a lot with my husband's various squadrons. Perhaps I could have lived that life indefinitely. But something in me felt I was supposed to do something else.
In 2010, I decided to use my Post-911 GI benefits to go back to school to get a Master's Degree. I looked at English literature or creative writing, but that looked too hard to get into 12 years after my undergrad. I'd have to have writing samples and references and such! But University of Phoenix was happy to take me as I was into their MBA program. And I was glad! The rebel in me always says, "hey, don't you judge me and tell me what I can and can't do! Let me prove myself. Throw me in the deep end, and let me swim. I'll swim better than all you all!" A lot of traditional, brick and mortar schools won't do that. They want you to take all kinds of tests and jump through hoops. One local university told me I had to take 8 refresher courses since I had been out of school for more than 7 years!!!! That's just a racket, right there. So, University of Phoenix was right for me. And it worked out great! I enjoyed it and learned a lot. Again, the rebel in me says, "don't judge where I got my degree. It's not where I got it, it's what I do with it that counts, and I'll show you!"
So here I was with a yearning to do something, a whole lot of self confidence (and rebelliousness) after solving the Chinese Drywall problem, a shiny MBA, and residual nightmares from working for a couple of real jerks. I also had a 6 year gap on my resume and didn't want some HR department to tell me my worth.
And that is why I went into business for myself!
Thursday, April 26, 2018
How did you get into Cleaning?
People always ask what made me start a cleaning business.
Well, I had just finished my MBA and had grown close to the neighbors who had helped us through the Chinese Drywall debacle. We had all decided to go into business together. I didn't want to go get a job and interview for jobs. I think the neighbor wife was looking for something better than being an hourly admin at the time, and her husband was hoping to find something to give him back his life. The guy worked 12 and 14 hour days routinely! They were good, hardworking people. My husband was going to be retiring in a year, which meant we finally knew that we were staying somewhere, and it was time to put down roots!
The four of us brainstormed many different business ideas. The most compelling was an indoor batting range. They had two sons in baseball and had to drive nearly an hour to the nearest indoor batting range. And they lived for little league baseball and travel ball. They even moved across town so their oldest could be in a 'baseball' district with a competitive school team. We mulled it over, worked up numbers and a business plan, even looked at spaces to rent and priced batting machines. In the end, we recognized that none of us had the capital to pull together to fund such a startup with no guarantee for success.
One day my neighbor quit her job, and so we needed to move fast to get the business up and running! I think that was probably March of 2012. In researching the topic of starting a business, I had always hear that one should start a business doing something they know about. At that time, I had a 4 and a 6 year old. As a stay at home mom of two little ones, I felt that I knew a lot about cleaning house. And my neighbor had had a house cleaner for years, so she actually knew a bit about being a house cleaning customer. It also seemed like a business concept that would be inexpensive and simple to start and quick to gin up so that we would have a going concern fast. And that is exactly how we got into cleaning.
We started a house cleaning business as a multi-member LLC. It was called Refresh Your Nest Cleaning Services. The partnership lasted one year. Thankfully we had gone to a lawyer already had a plan in place if anyone wanted out. Our neighbors got out in April of 2013. That was the same month that my husband retired from the Air Force. So then it was just the two of us, and we grew, and grew, and grew!
Well, I had just finished my MBA and had grown close to the neighbors who had helped us through the Chinese Drywall debacle. We had all decided to go into business together. I didn't want to go get a job and interview for jobs. I think the neighbor wife was looking for something better than being an hourly admin at the time, and her husband was hoping to find something to give him back his life. The guy worked 12 and 14 hour days routinely! They were good, hardworking people. My husband was going to be retiring in a year, which meant we finally knew that we were staying somewhere, and it was time to put down roots!
The four of us brainstormed many different business ideas. The most compelling was an indoor batting range. They had two sons in baseball and had to drive nearly an hour to the nearest indoor batting range. And they lived for little league baseball and travel ball. They even moved across town so their oldest could be in a 'baseball' district with a competitive school team. We mulled it over, worked up numbers and a business plan, even looked at spaces to rent and priced batting machines. In the end, we recognized that none of us had the capital to pull together to fund such a startup with no guarantee for success.
One day my neighbor quit her job, and so we needed to move fast to get the business up and running! I think that was probably March of 2012. In researching the topic of starting a business, I had always hear that one should start a business doing something they know about. At that time, I had a 4 and a 6 year old. As a stay at home mom of two little ones, I felt that I knew a lot about cleaning house. And my neighbor had had a house cleaner for years, so she actually knew a bit about being a house cleaning customer. It also seemed like a business concept that would be inexpensive and simple to start and quick to gin up so that we would have a going concern fast. And that is exactly how we got into cleaning.
We started a house cleaning business as a multi-member LLC. It was called Refresh Your Nest Cleaning Services. The partnership lasted one year. Thankfully we had gone to a lawyer already had a plan in place if anyone wanted out. Our neighbors got out in April of 2013. That was the same month that my husband retired from the Air Force. So then it was just the two of us, and we grew, and grew, and grew!
Chinese Drywall Part 2--a whole lot of luck and hard work
I can say Chinese Drywall instead of just 'defective drywall' because our drywall actually did come from China. Want to see pictures of the labels with the Chinese writing on them? Well, anyway, it's been nearly 8 years since my last post about our Chinese Drywall incident. I know you are riveted and dying to hear how it all ended.
There was no insurance to cover this catastrophe. It was labeled either an environmental exclusion to the policy or a product defect. I understand the product defect angle because the insurance company felt like there was someone specific at fault who should pay. I just wish they had the policy of making us whole and then subrogating the claim to the responsible party. But that's not how the cookie crumbled. Here's what happened...
We paid out of pocket, our own pocket. Timing is everything, and we were lucky. We still had the house from the previous military assignment and had a good renter in there. She found the man of her dreams and decided to get married and move out of our house. She gave notice and had taken great care of the place. We were able to sell the house and net about $30,000 on the sale. That covered half of our Chinese Drywall remediation bill. The other half came from...there were lots of tears and much gnashing of teeth... the sale of my husband's 2003 Corvette ZO6.
The way we were able to keep this remediation so affordable was that we were permitted to be the general contractor for our own home as long as we weren't going to rent it out or sell it for at least a year. I arranged all of the licensed subcontractors and used their licenses to pull permits for all the work that needed a license. My husband and I, along with a very kind and skilled neighbor, performed any all work that didn't need a license or special expertise.
As luck would have it, the housing industry was still very slow after the housing crash of 2008. I was easily able to get the contractors in exactly when I needed them. They would often be on the heels of the previous contractor or the city permit inspector. Something would pass inspection, and the next crew would be in that afternoon (or an hour later) to begin the next step. We were able to remediate the entire 2700 square feet of house in 5 weeks from final demolition to move back in.
We originally thought we would live on one floor while the other got remediated then switch floors. Sounded like a good idea at the time! But it was terrible. We had that plan to avoid the expense of living in a hotel (while still paying the mortgage and the useless homeowners insurance). We actually tried it at first. They demoed the upstairs while we camped in the downstairs. But the working shower was upstairs. There was a false wall blocking our living quarters from the stairway. One day after my shower, I found myself locked out of our living quarters! I can't recall how I got back in. I may have removed the door handle while in a bathrobe with a towel on my head...
Luckily, we lived very close to MacDill Air Force Base, and my husband's commander was able to go to his commander and get special permission for us to stay in temporary living quarters for families on the base. Those units are generally reserved for people who are moving to or out of the area and need up to a week (two at the most) to stay with their family while looking for a home or having their household goods moved out or delivered. My husband's commander got us up to 4 weeks in that housing! Now it's not free, but it is extraordinarily affordable! And it has a kitchen, two bedroom rooms, lots of beds, a living room, laundry, and is safe and was convenient to work and to the house. But there was a week we had to cover between final demolition and the day we could move into the base family quarters. For that week, we lived at the beach! The base also has a family campsite where, mostly retirees, miltary or retired can bring a camper and hook up to water, sewer, and electricity. In Florida, it is packed with snowbirds for the winter. They also had a couple of RVs to rent to people like us who wanted to stay there but had no RV of our own. So we stayed in one of those for a week with a 2 and a 4 year old! It was an adventure.
So, we finally got out of the house, all our permits pulled, all our plans approved, the entire house demoed, all of the subcontractors lined up, child care for our 2 and 4 years old babies, the money in place, and we got to work. My husband still had his day job, so he did that, although, I'm sure his boss was generous in letting him leave early when need be. But I was a stay at home mom with two kids in full time daycare, so I was at the house all day nearly every day. When the project got really underway, it was not uncommon for us to work late into the evenings. Our neighbors would watch the kids after we picked them up from daycare. Our kids went nearly a month without seeing us for anything but breakfast and dinner. They were in day care 10 hours a day and with the neighbors another 4 hours while we worked shoulder to shoulder doing everything we had to to make the project work. We met the contractors, met the inspectors, hung the insulation, painted the walls, and cleaned the place before we moved back in.
We moved back in on December 6th. As we were moving back in and unpacking boxes, our 4 year old sat down on a box and wrote out her name. We had no idea she could do that! And during that month of reconstructing our house, our 2 year old potty trained while at day care. Huge milestones while we were otherwise engaged. My husband and I looked at each other with a mix of pride for our children and disappointment that we had missed it.
They were long, hard days. But they shaped us. We didn't back down, we didn't' give in, we didn't walk away as so many did. We fought and won and are still waiting on China to make us whole... But my husband and I, as if we needed more proof, further recognized how much we have each other's back and that we are together, shoulder to shoulder through whatever life throws at us. Here it is 8 years later, coming up on our 15 year wedding anniversary, and we still have such deep trust, love, and respect for each other. And I am sure it is part and parcel because of these trials we've walked through together.
We're still in the same house! It is still the house we fell in love with back in May of 2008, and even with the Chinese Drywall debacle of 2008-2010, we still love our home and all the memories it has created for us, and all the memories we have created in it.
There was no insurance to cover this catastrophe. It was labeled either an environmental exclusion to the policy or a product defect. I understand the product defect angle because the insurance company felt like there was someone specific at fault who should pay. I just wish they had the policy of making us whole and then subrogating the claim to the responsible party. But that's not how the cookie crumbled. Here's what happened...
We paid out of pocket, our own pocket. Timing is everything, and we were lucky. We still had the house from the previous military assignment and had a good renter in there. She found the man of her dreams and decided to get married and move out of our house. She gave notice and had taken great care of the place. We were able to sell the house and net about $30,000 on the sale. That covered half of our Chinese Drywall remediation bill. The other half came from...there were lots of tears and much gnashing of teeth... the sale of my husband's 2003 Corvette ZO6.
The way we were able to keep this remediation so affordable was that we were permitted to be the general contractor for our own home as long as we weren't going to rent it out or sell it for at least a year. I arranged all of the licensed subcontractors and used their licenses to pull permits for all the work that needed a license. My husband and I, along with a very kind and skilled neighbor, performed any all work that didn't need a license or special expertise.
As luck would have it, the housing industry was still very slow after the housing crash of 2008. I was easily able to get the contractors in exactly when I needed them. They would often be on the heels of the previous contractor or the city permit inspector. Something would pass inspection, and the next crew would be in that afternoon (or an hour later) to begin the next step. We were able to remediate the entire 2700 square feet of house in 5 weeks from final demolition to move back in.
We originally thought we would live on one floor while the other got remediated then switch floors. Sounded like a good idea at the time! But it was terrible. We had that plan to avoid the expense of living in a hotel (while still paying the mortgage and the useless homeowners insurance). We actually tried it at first. They demoed the upstairs while we camped in the downstairs. But the working shower was upstairs. There was a false wall blocking our living quarters from the stairway. One day after my shower, I found myself locked out of our living quarters! I can't recall how I got back in. I may have removed the door handle while in a bathrobe with a towel on my head...
Luckily, we lived very close to MacDill Air Force Base, and my husband's commander was able to go to his commander and get special permission for us to stay in temporary living quarters for families on the base. Those units are generally reserved for people who are moving to or out of the area and need up to a week (two at the most) to stay with their family while looking for a home or having their household goods moved out or delivered. My husband's commander got us up to 4 weeks in that housing! Now it's not free, but it is extraordinarily affordable! And it has a kitchen, two bedroom rooms, lots of beds, a living room, laundry, and is safe and was convenient to work and to the house. But there was a week we had to cover between final demolition and the day we could move into the base family quarters. For that week, we lived at the beach! The base also has a family campsite where, mostly retirees, miltary or retired can bring a camper and hook up to water, sewer, and electricity. In Florida, it is packed with snowbirds for the winter. They also had a couple of RVs to rent to people like us who wanted to stay there but had no RV of our own. So we stayed in one of those for a week with a 2 and a 4 year old! It was an adventure.
So, we finally got out of the house, all our permits pulled, all our plans approved, the entire house demoed, all of the subcontractors lined up, child care for our 2 and 4 years old babies, the money in place, and we got to work. My husband still had his day job, so he did that, although, I'm sure his boss was generous in letting him leave early when need be. But I was a stay at home mom with two kids in full time daycare, so I was at the house all day nearly every day. When the project got really underway, it was not uncommon for us to work late into the evenings. Our neighbors would watch the kids after we picked them up from daycare. Our kids went nearly a month without seeing us for anything but breakfast and dinner. They were in day care 10 hours a day and with the neighbors another 4 hours while we worked shoulder to shoulder doing everything we had to to make the project work. We met the contractors, met the inspectors, hung the insulation, painted the walls, and cleaned the place before we moved back in.
We moved back in on December 6th. As we were moving back in and unpacking boxes, our 4 year old sat down on a box and wrote out her name. We had no idea she could do that! And during that month of reconstructing our house, our 2 year old potty trained while at day care. Huge milestones while we were otherwise engaged. My husband and I looked at each other with a mix of pride for our children and disappointment that we had missed it.
They were long, hard days. But they shaped us. We didn't back down, we didn't' give in, we didn't walk away as so many did. We fought and won and are still waiting on China to make us whole... But my husband and I, as if we needed more proof, further recognized how much we have each other's back and that we are together, shoulder to shoulder through whatever life throws at us. Here it is 8 years later, coming up on our 15 year wedding anniversary, and we still have such deep trust, love, and respect for each other. And I am sure it is part and parcel because of these trials we've walked through together.
We're still in the same house! It is still the house we fell in love with back in May of 2008, and even with the Chinese Drywall debacle of 2008-2010, we still love our home and all the memories it has created for us, and all the memories we have created in it.
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