A business idea that I'd like to start, but not sure how to go about it.............

[GreaterVisibility]

I haven't been on here in a bit, as I've really taken aim at increasing my proficiency in my own businesses that I've had for years. My wife and I are and have been self-employed for over a decade. We have a house cleaning business that keeps our days packed with work, and then we have a mobile auto detailing business that we operate on weekends and evenings, if we have time and work.

I always have an itch to get into something else, and I have to reign myself in so that I don't chase all of my ideas. I do NOT want to grow our cleaning business, though I could get as many jobs as I want. My wife feels secure with our cleaning business as-is, and does not want to try to expand it. Our auto detailing business could grow, but it is quite seasonal, so we use it to fill gaps in our cleaning schedule or to earn extra income on evenings/weekends.

In the end, I see a need to start something that is a real business, not just self-employment. I want to make money without having to do all of the work myself someday. In our cleaning business, I've come across a niche that I think I want to pursue. That is where the problem lies.

The niche is a specifically targeted type of carpet cleaning that I will aim directly at pet owners, and that I think could be quite successful. I'm busy though, in my own self-employment. So, I need to think of a way to start this without having to be the one to do all of the actual work.

I don't want to hire traditional employees. I don't want to get into all of the requirements like worker's comp, unemployment, taxes, reporting, etc. that comes with that. I'm reluctant to approach subs to contract out work to, as this is a very cutthroat industry.

I've already got the equipment and supplies to start this and do the actual work. I've got a name picked out, got a marketing strategy to follow that should bring in work. I've tested out my methods on some current cleaning clients with great success thusfar. All I need is someone to do the work while I market it, without the headache of hiring people and jumping through the hoops to do so, and without using subs.

So, what avenue might you pursue if you wanted to pursue this without hiring or subbing?

Right now, my crazy idea is to basically set someone up with the dba as the carpet cleaning company if I can find someone that wants their own business. Then I can contract with them to do all marketing and thus maintain a separate identity. They officially own the business, but I own their marketing, and we split the profits up. I could kind of be a marketing provider/business consultant contractually to their carpet cleaning business.

Please pick apart my idea, and feel free to suggest your own ways of going about this. Tell me that I'm crazy, that I just need to immerse myself in it and hire employees, or whatever you like. I know my limitations, and know that I don't want to be responsible for looking over the shoulder of my employees while they're out on the job. Maybe I could hire temps to at least alleviate the paperwork headaches.

All I know is that I have a great idea, a desire to pursue it, but the laws of life dictate that I cannot be cleaning houses and cleaning carpets in a different house at the same time. I have to find someone to do the work if I'm to pursue this idea.

[Russ in Vancouver]

I would sub or hire for your cleaning business, since you have a large client base already-feed off of it with referrals to build and grow it. Then when it gets to the point that you don't have to do the elbow grease yourself, start on your other venture. Why can't the same business and the same team offer both of these services, cleaning and carpet sanitzation, they are related?

[Steve B]

I think you just need to get over your fear of hiring employees. It's not as big a deal as you are making it and it is clearly what is keeping you as a prisoner in your cleaning business. You can call or PM me if you have specific questions (I've currently got several part-time employees and I was an HR Manager for 18 years).

Your cleaning business is a perfect example of a business that should not have the owner doing the direct work. It's crazy to have the owner doing work that can be done for $8 or $10 per hour (call it $13 to $15 per hour after taxes, benefits etc.). Every hour you are doing the cleaning, you are losing $40 to $100 per hour because you are not available to do the things necessary to grow your business.

I also don't see why this needs to be set up as a unique business. It seems like it should just be an additional service provided by your cleaning company. You might want to have an entire marketing campaign that just targets the carpet cleaning of the pet owners, but I wouldn't make another company just to do that.

[Business Attorney]

I have a client whose plan to expand was using a method very much like what you are describing. There are several issues to consider.

First, if you are not very careful, your arrangement may be characterized as a franchise or business opportunity. You need to be familiar with the laws governing those areas. If you think hiring employees is complicated, just imagine the complications of being governed by franchising laws and regulations.

Second, you cannot exercise control of the operation of an independent business owner the way you can control an employee. Particularly while you are developing the business, being able to control the quality of the services directly can be critical. Yes, you can terminate the contract with the person who formed the business (assuming that you built the right to do so into your contract) but that is very different that instructing an employee.

Third, since you are laying off a significant amount of risk on the independent business owner, you'll probably give up a significant amount of the upside potential of the business. You say "split the profits" but in similar arrangements I have seen (including most well-known franchises), the biggest share of the profits goes to the one who is operating the business. Of course, in a franchise, the monthly fees are generally based on sales, not profits, so the franchisor's share of the sales (even at 4-6% of sales) can certainly exceed even the total profit if the business doesn't reach its profit potential. The point is, however, that splitting the profits may be a very hard thing to sell.

On the whole, I think your plan has the potential to work, but you need to pay very close attention to the details.

[GreaterVisibility]

I think you just need to get over your fear of hiring employees. It's not as big a deal as you are making it and it is clearly what is keeping you as a prisoner in your cleaning business. You can call or PM me if you have specific questions (I've currently got several part-time employees and I was an HR Manager for 18 years).

Your cleaning business is a perfect example of a business that should not have the owner doing the direct work. It's crazy to have the owner doing work that can be done for $8 or $10 per hour (call it $13 to $15 per hour after taxes, benefits etc.). Every hour you are doing the cleaning, you are losing $40 to $100 per hour because you are not available to do the things necessary to grow your business.

I also don't see why this needs to be set up as a unique business. It seems like it should just be an additional service provided by your cleaning company. You might want to have an entire marketing campaign that just targets the carpet cleaning of the pet owners, but I wouldn't make another company just to do that.

Well Steve, you're right about some things, particularly about my angst with regard to hiring employees. It isn't like I've never hired someone before, as I was in management myself years ago and hired and fired. Within our cleaning business, however, we have built our business on the premise of the fact that it is just us. People like that. They like that they don't get teams of different cleaners sent into their homes each time. It is one reason that many people go with us. They have had cleaners that stole from them, that were unreliable, that never did the same job twice, etc. Ours is a very personal service, with long-term relationships formed in going to people's homes week after week over the course of years. I know for a fact that we would lose many clients if we tried to put other people in their homes. They would take it as a breach of our agreement, an agreement that we are the only ones that will be cleaning for them. Perhaps we set ourselves up for a measure of failure by doing so, but it is what it is and without starting a spinoff company in some way it will be difficult to brand ourselves differently.

My wife also ran the business by herself for a few years, and was a bit too lenient with our pricing. In other words, she didn't charge nearly enough, and once I came into the business full time a year or two ago, we started changing that. However, it has been a gradual change, and I'm not sure how well we could pay people and make a profit on top. Let's face it. If we hire minimum wage cleaners, they'll likely give minimum wage effort. We also would have to do extensive training on HOW to clean, because it isn't as easy as people think it is, and we see the effects of poor cleaning techniques often, which result in damaged surfaces. So, putting another person other than us in someone's home, even if we branded ourselves like other cleaning surfaces, brings up quite a bit of liability. Many of the cleaning business owners that I know and talk to regularly on other forums that are industry specific have really struggled as the economy has tightened and as more and more people are jumping out and starting their own cleaning businesses, often taking their clients with them regardless of any agreements. In the meantime, we've done quite well, and have picked up more and more clients, but that has to do with us. We don't really even have to advertise. Word is out about us, and people come to us. I'm not sure that would be the same with a different business setup.

So, those are some huge reasons that, to me, it doesn't seem as simple as just hiring someone to replace us in our cleaning business.

On to the carpet cleaning part of the discussion. Maybe you are correct, and I should hire employees for this part of things. Why do I want to keep it separate from our cleaning business? Well, partly because of the way we've branded our cleaning business. Also, partly because I think that by going with a pet oriented name I can really aim where I want to hit and brand it in that direction. Having a name like Derby's Pet Fence with the logo and the dog attached reflects your aim and is not generic. Everclean, the name of our cleaning service, is more generic. I want to point the carpet cleaning service directly at pet owners and brand it with pet references, not being generic like so many carpet cleaning companies are. Maybe that will pigeon hole us and hold us away from non-pet owners, but we'll see.

I'd love to pick your brain on the hiring side of things, to see more of what is involved. Perhaps you can offer some suggestions that will quell my anxiety. I am afraid of making a mistake with regard to taxes, or to get an employee that ruins something even though they've been properly trained, or to get an employee that steals, etc. Our services take us into the private homes of people, and it makes me nervous to have someone in there that I don't know.

There is money in carpet cleaning. I would say that there should be enough to pay someone a decent wage and to still make a good profit. That is predicated on me being able to get enough business though, to keep a person busy.

Does this make sense? I realize that we've made mistakes in the past. You live and learn, and I'm not going to kick myself for it but rather try to deal with where I am and where I hope to be. I see the carpet cleaning business model that I've picked out as a way to ease into the hiring of others, to gain more experience in doing so on my own, and then maybe later that experience can translate into hiring out other aspects of other business ideas that I have.

Thanks for your reply Steve. I do really value your input, being a service provider in much the same locale, and knowing the market as well. You obviously have vast experience compared to me in this arena, and I hope to be able to emulate some of what you've done and the freedom that hiring has afforded you at some point.

[GreaterVisibility]

I have a client whose plan to expand was using a method very much like what you are describing. There are several issues to consider.

First, if you are not very careful, your arrangement may be characterized as a franchise or business opportunity. You need to be familiar with the laws governing those areas. If you think hiring employees is complicated, just imagine the complications of being governed by franchising laws and regulations.

Second, you cannot exercise control of the operation of an independent business owner the way you can control an employee. Particularly while you are developing the business, being able to control the quality of the services directly can be critical. Yes, you can terminate the contract with the person who formed the business (assuming that you built the right to do so into your contract) but that is very different that instructing an employee.

Third, since you are laying off a significant amount of risk on the independent business owner, you'll probably give up a significant amount of the upside potential of the business. You say "split the profits" but in similar arrangements I have seen (including most well-known franchises), the biggest share of the profits goes to the one who is operating the business. Of course, in a franchise, the monthly fees are generally based on sales, not profits, so the franchisor's share of the sales (even at 4-6% of sales) can certainly exceed even the total profit if the business doesn't reach its profit potential. The point is, however, that splitting the profits may be a very hard thing to sell.

On the whole, I think your plan has the potential to work, but you need to pay very close attention to the details.

Hey, thanks for affirming that at least my idea isn't totally crazy, lol. I appreciate the push to make sure that things are done in a way that takes into consideration the risks that you brought up. I certainly don't want to be qualified as some sort of a franchise or something. Heck, I don't even have a successful model to sell yet.

Thanks for trying to keep me from making a costly mistake! I may go down this path if I can't get comfortable with hiring things out, and if I do, I'm better informed as to what to do/not to do.

[GreaterVisibility]

I would sub or hire for your cleaning business, since you have a large client base already-feed off of it with referrals to build and grow it. Then when it gets to the point that you don't have to do the elbow grease yourself, start on your other venture. Why can't the same business and the same team offer both of these services, cleaning and carpet sanitzation, they are related?

Thanks for the input Russell!. See my reply to Steve above for further explanation of where I've gone with things. Hiring for my cleaning business would be a potentially destructive option because of the way I've built my cleaning business. And yes, the same business could certainly clean and clean carpets, but I want to separate for reasons explained earlier.

Hopefully I can get the carpet cleaning business going, maybe even hire someone so that I don't have to do the actual labor, and learn from it and watch it grow. Then it will give me more flexibility as to what we do with our cleaning business somewhere down the line, should we choose to exercise such freedom.

[Steve B]

My perception is that the pet targeted carpet cleaning would not offer you enough of a market to make it viable as a full time operation. Unlike your cleaning business, you would only have a limited amount of repeat customers. The ones that repeat would only be using your service once a year (or maybe twice). This means you would be constantly searching for new clients and limiting yourself to only 35% of the population. This limitation would not overcome the gain you would have by being able to pick a targeted name. You could get almost the same result by having a targeted advertising campaign "Everclean - We now have a carpet cleaning division! - Have a Pet? No problem, our unique process effectively eliminates any hint of pet related odors ...."

I think a lot of business owners go through what you are going through with the anxiety of not being the one that does everything anymore. If you've explicitly told or have an agreement with your customers that only you or your wife will do the cleaning then you have certainly limited your ability to grow the business. I don't think there is anything wrong with this as long as you accept that your growth and income are severly limited. Even your current income is at significant risk because if you were to become unable to physically do the work, then your income goes away at a time when you can least afford it. I know a lot of pet-sitters that are in the same situation because trust is a huge issue. If I hired a pet-sitter I would ONLY want that particular person to be in my house. I can see the same type of expectation in home cleaning. However, as you know, many cleaning compaines have been able to successfully hire other people to do the cleaning. If I had gone to a Kentucky Fried Chicken when he was still alive I would have been much happier if Harlan Sanders would have been the one frying my chicken, but, instead, I end up settling for one of his thousands of trained employees to do it for me. It still tastes pretty good each and every time (because they follow an exact process that has been extensively trained and each employee is held accountable for doing it that way). I know that a restaurant is much different because it can be supervised and doesn't require going into someone's home, but a similar example can be made of RotoRooter, Orkin, Coit Carpet Cleaning etc. I'd love to have the originators of those companies do the work, but it's just not going to happen.

In my business, I remember the anxiety when we did the first job in which I wasn't on site. I was too sick to get off the couch and my employee was ready to go. I sent him off by himself and I felt like I was cheating the customer. Since then, I let it happen quite a bit. We're still known as the small company that gives great attention to detail. I've tried to smooth this transistion to being a company with employees that might do the work (instead of just me) by featuring a photo and a bio of each of my employees on my website. I'll probably start e-mailing this information to the customer in advance so they know who they will have knocking on their door the morning of the installation.

Cleaning a house has tons of variables and things that can go wrong. And, it all has to be done outside of direct supervision. It all comes down to hiring the right people, setting expectations, being extremely diligent about the training, and having a system that is as close to fool proof as possible (I make extensive use of checklists to be sure we do things the same way each time).

Of course there are lot of businesses where the owner does all the work (many of the posters on this board are in that category). Some of these situations are far different when it is a field that can charge $75, $100, or $200 per hour. The last attorney that I hired charged us $700 per hour. But, because the cleaning business can't get those kind of rates, you have to leverage yourself by hiring other people if you want to make a decent return for the risk of owning your own business. Plumbing (Huggytree) is an example on both sides of this. Because plumbers can charge lots more money than many other businesses, it's very possible to make a very nice living as "Fred's Plumbing". But, financial security and income potential still goes up if Fred can hire other plumbers and have three jobs going on the same day instead of one.

[GreaterVisibility]

All great points, Steve. I do take a bit of offense that you don't think I can get $700/hour for my cleaning services though. I'm worth it, lol. :p

You've given me some great things to think about. Right now is kind of a critical time financially for us, as we're working out of some old debt. I just can't afford to even accidentally kill the goose that's laying the eggs that's accomplishing what we need it to do right now, or even hurt it. That doesn't mean, however, that I can't add another layer to our current cleaning business (carpet cleaning) and grow it into something. Perhaps as I pointed out, going too pet-specific could pigeon hole the carpet cleaning. We have a job coming up Wednesday for someone that isn't a pet owner, well, wasn't until a week ago when they got a puppy, but they had asked about our services prior to that anyway. I'll think about the direction you've laid out.

Oh, and I put a link to your site from mine months ago. I hope that someone might venture over and give you some business. We have a client that may be getting a dog soon, and we pitched them your services. So, we'll see if anything comes of that. They aren't sure if a dog is going to be a reality or not.

Thanks for telling me a bit of your story. It is hard to give up the reigns of something you've put so much into. Right now is kind of critical in some financial ways, but I think I can still give some things a try, even if just part-time, and get a feel for expansion. This time next year we should be in a totally different financial shape, and then we will have new directions and options open wide for us. Of course, that's if things go according to plan, and we'll just have to see how things play out.

[Spider]

This is the difference between a micro-business and something bigger - hring employees. I see it all the time - 1 or 2-person businesses that cannot expand, they reach a celing where they have more work than they can handle but no desire to hire help. If you want to stay a micro-business, curb your desire to expand. If you want to expand, overcome your reluctance to hire. It's as simple as that.

You cannot jump a chasm in two small steps. If you want to expand and grow your business into a substantial business, you must replicate yourself, you must hire. It takes the same amount of knowledge to hire one person as it does to hire 50 people. It takes a bunch of work to hire one person and very little more to hire two people, or three people, and really not so much more to hire 50 people - but by then you will be making enough money to hire people to do the payroll and everything else that goes along with it. Now you have a substantial business and you are making the sort of money that controlling a substantial business can provide.

I cannot conceive of hiring one or two people - there's too much work and paperwork involved. To my way of thinking, it's best to plan on becoming a business that will hire 50 people or decide to stay a single owner-operator. Being a 1-person business with 2 employees seems to me to be the worst of all worlds - not enough business to warrant hiring someone to do payroll et al, and too much employment hassle to warrant the small increase in income.

You can't jump a wide chasm in two small steps. Plan to become a business that hires many people or stay small. Stop fooling yourself into believing you can gradually work your way up to the big time. Before you reach the big time, somewhere along the way, you will have to take that big jump. The sooner you do, the better it is for you.

[GreaterVisibility]

Thanks Frederick!

If I'm reading you correctly, your advice is to go ahead and go big, or to not go at all beyond where I currently am.

In this case, I'm trying to start something new, or at least a new division, of what I'm currently doing. Would your advice be to go ahead and hire a bunch of people to make that new carpet cleaning part take off? Because hiring one or two people right now would be all that I would have work for, unless I went your route and hired a bunch of people and a number of salespeople to get out and bring in the business.

Or, maybe you're just saying that I should be happy where I am now, or dream big. The reality is that I wouldn't plan on hiring out the carpet cleaning and only having a one or two man (or woman) team. My goal would be to grow it as large as possible, but I see that as something to do over time, not instantaneously. It seems like when one tries to jump too far in one jump, they're more likely to fall short of the destination.

Sorry if I'm reading you incorrectly. I'm what many would call an over-thinker, and can get paralysis by over-analysis.

[Spider]

If I'm reading you correctly, your advice is to go ahead and go big, or to not go at all beyond where I currently am.Yes.

Remember the phrase - you cannot jump a chasm in two small steps. Whether you go big or stay small is a decision only you can make, and the only right choice is the one that suits you best. But if you choose to go big, you will have to make that jump at some point - a jump, not small steps. The mindset of being a single operator and the mindset of being a business manager are two totally different things and there's no halfway mindset.

The single operator mindset is focused on the work. You set up your advertising to produce customers and you work them. As long as your advertising continues to produce customers, you never have to think about it again - you just look after the customers that are produced. You do the work of the business.

The manager mindset is totally different. You are not concerned about the work - you have employees to do that. You are not concerned about the how and the why or the quality of the work - you have supervisors taking care of that aspect. You don't even do the office stuff - you hire office workers for that. As the manager, you focus on growing the business, getting more customers, and you concern yourself with the work of the business only insofar as it impacts the growth of the company.

Do you see how it is impossible to do both at the same time? It's not like walking and chewing gum at the same time. It's like walking and swimming at the same time.

[GreaterVisibility]

Frederick, I totally understand. Thanks for pointing out the difference in mindset. The reality is that marketing and growing the business is my favorite part. My wife loves the actual work. I tolerate it, and do take pride in it, always looking for better ways to clean. However, that isn't what really interests me. Any time that we have an opening is something that I actually like. It gives me opportunity to go meet new people, to show off what we do, and I've always wanted to do more. I like sales and marketing of my own business. To be able to focus more on that and change the mindset sounds fun to me.

Thanks for helping me see a need to dream big and plan on how to reach that. Perhaps I'll pick up a book on the mindset that I'll need to have. Any recommendations?

[Spider]

Perhaps a business coach would be better. Then you'll get one-on-one attention to the elements you need to focus on and hands-on practice in using them. I don't know of any books that focus on mindset of this nature, but biographies and auto-biographies might give you insight to a business mindset at work - like "Jack - Straight from the Gut" by Jack Welch, of GE.

[tylerhutchinson]

I think you have a lot of great feedback already but I will put in my thoughts. First, not hiring will limit a business. You only have so much time in the day. You can hire people on commission for advertising and getting you and your wife more business and expand your hours to accommodate the extra work. I know many companies that were hesitant for your reasons but once they did it I think they realized that you will be fine and he was quickly able to step back and simply manage.