Partnering with a Maid Service

[WillS]

Since we don't offer any "Maid/Housekeeping" type services I've been thinking of ways to partner with a local Maid service here in town. We currently use one we refer to and they also refer back to us, but not in a large quantity of jobs as they are a smaller company. We are cleaning approx. 60 homes a week, and are constantly asked for referrals for housekeeping. I would like to grow this relationship to be more beneficial for us. Since it is our name at risk when we are referring these companies out and if the work they perform is crap, it'll come back to us.

Does anyone currently do this a certain way? Do you have your own in-house maid service?

Problem is I'm unable to find a maid service that actively uses internet marketing like we do, or they don't do commercial property cleanings, etc. The ones that do commercial cleanings already have some sort of crappy carpet cleaning that they offer as a side, but don't push it. I'd like to incorporate the maid service we partner with into our advertising or even as a service listed on our site, but can't be promoting a maid service that doesn't have the power of promotion that we do.

Does anyone do this in some sort of way?

 

[Desk Jockey]

Does anyone do this in some sort of way?

We did for about a year. The maid service has a good name in the area but I can't say we got more than a handful of jobs from them. It just kind of died out, despite initially nurturing.

Hope you have better luck than we did.

 

[WillS]

Same here, we get jobs here and there from them. They did send us a nice $1,500 tile job which makes up for most of what we send there way. Now that we have a good base of property management companies that are calling us weekly for rental properties, they are asking about maid service. So we recommend our current maid referral, but feel like we are contributing so much to there business with little return. So I'm getting tempted to start our own. We would hire experienced maids, we provide them chemicals, they provide their own transportation and go from there, but that could get messy. Hence why I'd like to have an established made service company out there that doesn't offer carpet, floor cleaning, etc. I'd also like them to have a good base of commercial clients to refer them to use.

Maybe I'm dreaming to big on this.

 

[Desk Jockey]

So we recommend our current maid referral, but feel like we are contributing so much to there business with little return.

We have a construction company we feed work to also in the same kind of relationship...one way.
We may give them $1-2oo,000.00 and no reciprocal work from them.

I think you could do it but you or your partner would have to focus on it and the remaining guy stick with carpet cleaning. I think you could do well in it BUT to try and do both services my blow your mind.

 

[Shane Deubell]

Its a completely different business, your market is so large i would just add more services and more customers.
Plus a truckmount .

 

[Shane Deubell]

Will, cleaning is all about labor which means much much more admin duties.

You would end up spending your day interviewing , training and dealing with problems.
Only reason i still do it is people just find me somehow, that and winter is pretty harsh here.

 

[WillS]

Got it would you suggest probably partnering with a company that is already established to get a comission for each of our referrals to them instead of just referring back and forth to each other?

 

[hogjowl]

Maids are here today, gone tomorrow.

Much like us.

 

[Ray Burnfield]

Maids are here today, gone tomorrow.

Much like us.

Not the good ones.

 

[Mike Draper]

this looks like a good maid service in Vegas.
http://bustoutmaids.homestead.com/About-Us.html

 

[Brian H]

We have looked into that business over the years. The challenge with that type of business is that there is not enough margin to make it worth the effort for us. As recently as last month we spoke with a major player in town about their operation. Because of the low margin, the pay is low. Low pay means lots of turnover. The way I see maid service companies is they are recruiting companies that also performs maid service.

I would rather focus my energies on higher profit ventures.

 

[steve_64]

Does anyone currently do this a certain way? Do you have your own in-house maid service?
Does anyone do this in some sort of way?

I met Genny when she was finishing cleaning an apartment i was going in to clean the carpets on. Ive never seen anyone clean as well as she does. So yes i literally have an in house maid service. She is the only one i have ever been able to recommend since most do a crappy job from what ive seen around here.

 

[Shane Deubell]

Got it would you suggest probably partnering with a company that is already established to get a comission for each of our referrals to them instead of just referring back and forth to each other?

Honestly would just go to them as a referral source for me and offer $20 or whatever.

Wouldnt want to "partner" up with any 1 company because than their problems can become MY problems.
I have enough as is

Like Brian said, cleaning businesses are just temp agencies on a day to day basis.

Vega$ has endless opportunities at $150 hour why mess around with $30 hr.

 

[Jack May]

I looked into it heavily early on as an add on/fill in option to our fire cleaning crews but for a lot of the same things already mentioned, it wasn't worth it. Margins would be far lower than FDR work, then they would become a liability when they crews were really needed for FDR work but had regular daily/weekly commitments. I got as far as developing the brand, marketing and structure etc then walked away.

For a number of years I partnered with a general cleaner and honestly, she used to send or contract us for carpet jobs far exceeding what we could return with cleaning or vinyl referral work. It worked well, but eventually dissolved for integrity issues I had with her business tax practices

Ironically, a lot of my brand design cues ended up in another company logo for my fathers CC business when he started a few years later.

John

 

[GeneMiller]

i have house keepers that send me work. never tried it with a big company. they are consistent but its always the same houses. best partnerships I've found is decorators ,realtors and house sitters.

gene