References.
Do you need references in order to clean houses?
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 housecleaning360.com
It's an online referral database of home service providers that are house cleaners and carpet
cleaners and window washers.
If you need somebody to come service your home, check out housecleaning360.com for the
very best in the industry.
All right now, on to today's show, which is from a guy who keeps texting me that his customers
are asking for references.
He texts me about five times a week and says, "Hey, somebody else asked for my references.
What do I do now?"
There are referrals online.
There are reviews online.
There's a lot of online material for social proof, but as far as having references,
meaning I give you three names of my customers that you can call,
we don't do that in the house cleaning business.
That's not standard.
You don't put your other customers in a position where they have to feel obligated to give
references to other customers.
That's just weird.
There are very few service businesses that will actually do that where you got to call
other customers to find out if your service provider is good.
That is what the Better Business Bureau is for.
That is what ratings and reviews for.
That is what nextdoor.com is for.
There are a variety of different online sites that can promote you.
Now if you're new getting started in the business and you don't have any references, there's
something that you're saying about being new or not knowing what you're doing that's making
a customer ask what your references are.
If that question keeps coming back to you, your marketing is bad.
Here's what you need to get started if you have no references and you have no referrals.
Number one, you need a satisfaction guarantee.
Because if you have a satisfaction guarantee, here's the deal.
You need house cleaning.
I can provide it.
If at the end of my cleaning you're not completely satisfied with my work,
you don't owe me any money.
What happened is you just took down that wall of risk.
You just completely reduced the risk.
Now to reassure them that you're the person that's right for the job, you need to let
them know that you're bonded and insured.
Now being bonded and insured is not expensive. You can get a policy for about 30 to $35 a month.
That will cover about a $2 million policy.
If that's as big as your policy is, here's a secret.
Don't choose a house that's worth more than $2 million.
Then if everything goes up in smoke and something happens, at least your $2 million policy will
cover the damage.
If you're bonded and insured, that protects you and the homeowner against theft or liability
or damage or misuse of cleaning chemicals or whatever.
If you're bonded and insured, and if you've been trained certainly let them know.
I've gone through this series of trainings.
I'm ready to be your house cleaner.
If you have a satisfaction guarantee, you've removed the wall of risk.
If a person keeps asking for your references or if you're getting multiple people asking
for references, you're either saying something in your telephone call or your initial walkthrough
that's causing red flags to cause up, which means either they don't think you know what
you're doing or they don't trust you.
If they don't trust you, they're not going to want you in their home.
But don't put other customers in a situation where they have to vouch for you.
That's just weird.
This new customer that is going to hire you,
you're not going to put them in that situation either.
It goes back to your online marketing.
Do you have a website?
Do you have social proof?
Are you on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn,
and all of the places people will go to look for you?
When they go to look for you, what will they find?
If you're not there and you don't have any social media presence,
how are they going to vet you?
Here's the catch.
As house cleaners we're going inside people's homes with their families and their pets,
and we know where all of their belongings are.
So if you're going to bring somebody into your home on a regular basis
they want to vet you.
They want to make sure that you are in fact a person that is safe for their environment.
If they're asking you for references it's because there's a red flag or there's something
you said or there's something that triggered them to ask that question.
Remove all doubt and assure them that yes, I'm the person for your job.
I'm bonded, I'm insured, I've been trained properly, and I have a satisfaction guarantee.
Let them give you a try.
They can be there while they give you a try.
It might take a couple of times before they trust you enough to then leave while you clean
the house and/or to give you a key or an alarm code or whatever it is you need to actually
get inside their house and do your job.
They may be there for the first few times in order to build and gain that trust.
Now when they do, they will send referrals to you if they like your service.
There's a big difference from asking people, "Can I have you as a reference or can you
give me a reference?"
versus them saying, "Hey, I'm so pleased with what you did.
Can I give you a referral?"
A referral is very different from a reference.
You just want to make sure that you have all your bases cleared up front.
Don't use references.
Very few people use references.
It's not industry-standard anymore with the social proof and the availability of finding
everything there is to know about you online.
Alrighty, that's my two cents for today.
Until we meet again,
leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.
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