We hear the word often, but eco-friendly is not just a passing trend. Since the start of the ‘green’ movement, we have seen many companies and individuals successfully reduce their carbon footprint. As this consumer base continues to grow, companies that employ a green cleaning process and effective products, like EcoMaids, are able to flourish.
EcoMaids is an eco-friendly cleaning franchise. They offer a variety of cleaning services, from janitorial to housekeeping, that employs a high-quality cleaning process. The process is not only earth-friendly but also safe for people and animals.
Tell us about EcoMaids.
EcoMaids provides high-quality cleaning services using products, equipment and methods that are safe for people, pets and the planet. We offer residential maid and housekeeping services, commercial and institutional janitorial services, and wash & fold laundry services, all of which are 100% green. We recently began selling franchises of our residential cleaning concept nationwide.
What inspired you to start your business?
It wasn't until my daughter's birth that my eyes really opened and I learned what it meant to go green. I started to think more about how my generation's stewardship of the earth was going to affect my kid. You don't see the impact in one lifetime; it's intergenerational. It's hard to realize that and to be aware of how your lifestyle relates to the overall environment.
So I started to use green cleaning products in the home but again, the switch was motivated more by being healthier for us and for our child. This coincided with my motivation to start a new business and the whole idea of green cleaning seemed like a great niche because it hadn't really been done on a national scale. I saw it as a major opportunity to build something great.
What separates EcoMaids from the competition?
First, we are truly green, not just in the products we use but also the supplies, equipment, methods of how we clean, and how we operate the back-end of the business. We just do a better job and by and large, we're very consistent. We deliver in areas that matter to people. We have great customer service, we show up on time, and our cleaning process is a lot more thorough. Customers get more value from our service because we strive to completely clean a home every time.
With regards to the people we employ to clean homes, we look more for people who are conscientious, eager to work hard, and have a positive attitude. They are the people who want a long-term career opportunity.
Our franchise opportunity allows entrepreneurs to get in on the ground floor and take advantage of extremely competitive terms. Our franchise investment and royalties are the lowest in the industry, and early participants are able to claim expanded territories in major markets at incredible savings.
What are some of the eco-friendly cleaning products that are used?
All of the products used by EcoMaids staff are non-toxic, all-natural and biodegradable. The products are Green Seal certified, which means they meet the highest standards in all aspects of environmental sustainability.
An EcoMaids cleaning entails the use of multiple cleansers designed for specific purposes such as multi-surface cleaning, kitchen and bathroom disinfectant, tub and tile cleaning, and glass and windows. Since water is the first ingredient in all of our products, they are all purchased and even resold in concentrate form as well as in bottles that are ready to use. This minimizes the amount of plastics that are thrown away or recycled.
EcoMaids also employs microfiber as its exclusive tool for cleaning, dusting and polishing, with a color-coded system to prevent cross-contamination. Microfiber is specially designed to attract and capture the smallest particulates and can be washed and reused more than 500 times before losing effectiveness. EcoMaids clients receive the most hygienic cleaning possible while reducing waste and their overall consumption of paper products.
When did your company start franchising?
May 2009
What are your franchisee requirements?
Aside from the financial commitment, we're simply looking for motivated people with an entrepreneurial spirit who have the courage and fortitude to work hard to build a successful business and enjoy the rewards that accompany such an endeavor.
The total minimum investment to open an entry-level EcoMaids franchise is $32,600. Of that amount, only $9,500 goes towards the franchise fee. The rest is required to start and operate the business until profitable. EcoMaids also offers financing for the franchise fee and unlike many competitors, does not require a separate car for the sole purpose of business, which reduces overhead. EcoMaids royalties are the lowest in the industry, starting at 5.25% and decreasing to 3.25% as sales grow. These percentages are significantly lower than our competitors.
Do you have any advice you would like to share with anyone who might be interested in your franchise opportunity?
Be prepared for two things: to work hard and to grow very quickly. While it's exciting to start your own business, it's also challenging. Once you open the floodgates, it's a wild ride. There will be success at the end of the line but it takes a hard work and a strong commitment to your business.
Do you have any goals that you’d like to reach over the next year or two?
My goals are very specific. I'd like EcoMaids to become a household name and the leading brand in green cleaning.
With regards to the franchises, we started selling them at the beginning of May 2009. The plan is to sell 30 units in the first twelve months and expand to 300 over the next five years. That would be three hundred entrepreneurs who can be successful working for themselves, employing people locally, all while helping to clean the environment.
What are some of the most important lessons your business has taught you since it launched just over one year ago?
Opening EcoMaids has taught me that I can achieve any goal I can set for myself. No matter how insurmountable it may seem, I can make it happen. Even if it means going outside of my comfort zone, I can make it a success. That said, good people working with you are also essential. It's so important to elicit support from people and continually motivate them to share your vision.
So social media (Facebook, Twitter, and blogging, for example) is fun; but is it business? If you're wondering, then it's about time to take a step back, breathe deeply, and revisit the fundamentals.
While many social media applications are fun and handy for just about everything, not all of them fit for business. Below are a few steps you can take in your business to reach social media.
Make sure you have a review schedule before you even do any sort of business planning. Set up a specific day where you review once a month to see what your progress is, as suggested on OpenForum. Think through your business plan that you are about to put into motion, and then set up some steps on how to get there. This does not mean you always have to follow them, but it is nice to have steps towards your ending goal.
When all is said and done and put into perspective, execute your plan. No business plan ever goes exactly as you write it, you will always have to do some reviewing, correcting and steering in possibly different directions. But without a business plan, you would never even know where to at least start or where you at least want to end up.
The business model invented by Chris King, 19, a freshman at USC living in Huntington Beach, Calif., with his parents during summer break, is pretty simple: extract built-up lint from long, winding clothing-dryer ducts, and charge $39 for the service.
It’s a low-cost way to immediately boost energy efficiency and dramatically cut drying time for clothes.
“One neighbor said it took like an hour and 20 minutes,” King said. “Now it’s down to 20 or 30 minutes, tops. He’s super happy. He said, ‘Call me back next summer.’”
King said he got the idea after trying, unsuccessfully, to find a summer job.
“One weekend, my mom was complaining about how long it took to dry her laundry,” King said. “My dad tried to fix it. I was helping him.”
Like many others in his neighborhood, their house has a laundry room in the middle of the house. The duct that releases warm air from the dryer must be 18 feet long to reach an outer wall.
A kind of light bulb, perhaps with a greenish tinge, went off in King’s mind. A lot of his neighbors had the same floorplan.
The cleaning method - King wants to keep it secret for now - works most dramatically on long ducts. In only two weeks of offering the service door to door, he says he’s already picked up about 25 customers.
In February, after 12 years in a downtown La Jolla, Calif., storefront, Brett and Kimberly Buffington packed up their children’s clothing boutique, Eurochild LLC, and moved it into their home.
“Business just stopped on a dime” 18 months ago, Buffington says, and he and his wife were unable to renegotiate their $7,000-a-month rent.
Working at home allows the couple to save $12,000 a month in rent and other overhead costs and focus on revamping EuroChild’s Web site to attract new customers. “You don’t have overhead, you don’t have to manage employees, you don’t have to keep the store clean — all the stuff that comes along with running a retail business,” Buffington says.
But as more small businesses around the country ditch their storefronts and offices to cut expenses during the recession, they’re encountering new hurdles. Many of them have to deal with home-business zoning ordinances and take on new insurance and marketing costs. The Buffingtons, for example, faced $1,200 a year for home-based-business commercial insurance, as well as an expanded online marketing budget.
Business owners also confront the challenge of making it appear to loyal customers that nothing significant has changed. “Clearly, the biggest mistake is having a huge drop in customer base,” says Larry Cox, associate professor of entrepreneurship at the Graziadio School of Business at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.
“You have to have a sense by talking to customers of how attached they are to the locations,” he says. “Will they continue to do business with you with a different model?”
I don’t feel that you should invest one dollar more than you are completely comfortable with. The amount you invest should not keep you up at night.
Every franchise is going to be obviously different in terms of yearly fees, supplying the franchise, the initial franchise fee and so on. Generally there is on average a franchise fee of around $45,000, and then some require yearly fees where as others do not.
With banks when starting up a new franchise, they as a general rule of thumb are going to want you to put 20-30% down of your own money. The thing to remember in regards to investing in a franchise is that the more money you invest does not reflect how much income you will earn from the franchise, recently stated on The Franchise King.
Their are many calculations that you have to do in order to figure out what your initial investment should be on any franchise, the amount of money you have to bring to the table, what level of income you feel you will be able to make from that franchise once opened and so on.
Consumers who lack the time, energy or skills to prepare delicious home-cooked meals themselves already have semi-cooking options to help them along—including shopping and delivery services, as well as meal prep stores, with or without instruction. When even those are too much, BookOfCooks is a new online marketplace that can help consumers find local foodies who are willing to cook for them.
Professional and amateur chefs around the world can use BookOfCooks to set up an online restaurant or bakery that showcases their cooking talents with menus, prices, licenses and videos. Using BookOfCooks is free both for those in search of food and for those who prepare it.
Consumers then can search BookOfCooks by city for the dish or food type they’re craving, or they can browse the site’s online Google maps and archives for links to local cooks and food aficionados, including ratings and reviews. When they find one that sounds good, they can place an order with the cook for pickup, delivery or even in-home preparation.
Meals purchased this way are frequently less expensive than what one would pay in a restaurant, BookOfCooks says, and can also make it easier to find less common cuisines such as vegan or gluten-free.
For cooks, meanwhile, BookOfCooks provides a free way to establish a consistent clientèle, whether as a full-time business or—meshing nicely with what our sister site would call the sellsumer trend—for a little extra money on the side.
There are, of course, legal issues to be navigated when preparing food for the consumption of others—and the related question of how many consumers will be willing to buy food from amateurs.
Women entrepreneurs are a fast growing sector of business, as they move into new businesses everywhere and even are moving into innovation more and more. So how do they prioritize what is important with everything else that they tackle during their day? OpenForum posted a very interesting article regarding how women entrepreneurs boost their productivity in their business life.
As mentioned above, it is important to prioritize your “to do” list. List them as what you have to do, what you should do and what would be nice to do.
Delegate as much of it out to someone as you can. If the “to do” is not actually making you direct money, then delegate for someone else to handle for you. Get up early in the morning to start off on the right foot for the day. Set up a morning routine that work’s best for getting you into the zone.
The number one thing women entrepreneurs do to boost productivity is… focus on one thing at a time. Although women are known to be exceptional multi-taskers, those surveyed said they were able to get more done when they focused on one thing at a time.
Many people are fearful of starting a business during a recession. Times are tough, and people are curbing their spending, which makes the idea of starting a business in a downturn economy even more daunting.
Here are some types of home-based businesses that thrive during an economic downturns and present opportunities for home-based entrepreneurs:
1. Food business. 2. Financial advisor home business 3. Home staging 4. Auto Repair and Maintenance 5. "Green" Home Businesses 6. Virtual Assistant 7. Eldercare 8. Online video production 9. Cosmetics and little indulgences 10. Trading Assistant 11. Bargain hunting and coupon websites and blogs 12. Blogs monetized by ads 13. Buy into a home-based franchise 14. Direct sales 15. Home-Based Tutoring Business
Everyone in business knows that you have a certain demographic or market that you target your products and services towards. There are several different markets that a business owner can target towards depending on what they are offering. Entrepreneur.com recently posted an article regarding your many different markets.
Obviously with all of the new age technology you have your Generation I which is the Internet market. Demographic theories and testing are still new in this market, however, the good thing is that this entire market was born during the Internet move.
Boomers were once a generation that was forgotten about when they turned a certain age. This group is rapidly coming back into the market and needs to be addressed as they spend $400 billion more every year than any other generation to look at.
The Greatest Generation Born between 1909 and 1945, today’s octogenarian has seen it all when it comes to advertising, resulting in a particularly savvy consumer segment. They are more careful about whom they do business with, and they want to know more about your business before they choose to patronize it.
I'm convinced you can turn the summer of 2009 into one of your most productive ever. And I've come up with nine steps to make your summer a business success:
1. Develop your fall marketing plan. Be ready to hit the ground running when your customers are ready to start buying again. Figure out your strategy; work on your marketing materials; line up trade shows, sales calls, and advertising. Beat your competition to the best prospects after Labor Day.
2. Start social networking. Oh sure, you've heard about blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, but you've been too busy to come up to speed. Use these slower summer months to learn about these important sites and to launch your company's social networking marketing.
3. Hire a summer intern. They'd be great to help you with your social networking. After all, they're tweeting all the time. And no, it's not too late to find a good intern — especially with so many college students still looking for work.
4. Build your customer (and prospect) database. Most small businesses do a lousy job of keeping track of their past and current customers. After all, it takes time to enter all those names and contact info into a computer program (let alone all the business cards you've collected at networking events). But you need that info to be able to market effectively. Remember, a past customer is your most likely prospect for future purchases and referrals. Get that info into digital form!
The Laughable News is a black and white newsletter printed on the front and back of one sheet of 11 X 17 inchIt is filled with quirky news, fun facts, puzzles, cartoons, and jokes. It is designed to be read in restaurants, while waiting for your food to arrive. Earlier this year, Angela did a short interview with the owner, Ryan Armishaw.
The Laughable News is a source for everything needed to start a Community Newsletter business. We have professionally designed Newsletter Templates, a Member Forum where you can interact with other publishers, a File Download Area full of great items for setting up and running your business, a Comprehensive Member FAQ/Tutorial area complete with Video Tutorials, and much more. Our goal is to make starting a community newsletter business easy, while saving people time and money.
What inspired you to start your business?
Originally, we started the business because we needed a way to advertise our Coffee Roasting business ‘Earthson Coffee Roasters’ - which we’ve since closed down. We sold ads to other businesses and quickly discovered that the newsletter was the business to follow. After running it ourselves for 1 year, we decided that others could benefit from our knowledge/assistance. So, we decided to offer the templates to people across North America.
Why should someone use your service to build their newsletter instead of going elsewhere?
They should come and use our website for a number of reasons: it’s free to become a member. Membership allows you to post within the forum, discuss business ideas with other publishers, share ad designs/sales techniques, and much more.
If people want to pay for our quality content, they can purchase our templates at any time. But, they could technically use our website to learn all the skills necessary to start their own newsletter, with no requirement to purchase anything. We are interested in building a community where the shared knowledge will help everyone - even people who aren’t our customers!
How has your website grown since it launched?
Our website has gone through a few major upgrades throughout the last 4 years. It started out as a simple ‘blocky’ HTML site - ghastly - and then was upgraded to a Joomla 1.0 site. This was a major upgrade, and allowed us a cleaner design, greater control to share/protect files, etc. Earlier this year I made the upgrade to Joomla 1.5. It has improved the look and ease of use. We’ve also added a member forum and video tutorials which have greatly improved people’s experience.
What goals would you like to reach over the next year or so?
We would like to expand our website membership, and increase the number of people who are actively using our templates in their community. We’d love to have our newsletter spread throughout North America like wild fire!
Approximately how many templates are available for use? Do you make custom templates as well?
We just have one template design each week, but it does come with the option of customization. You can swap puzzles/cartoons in and out, rearrange the layout, etc. Perhaps in the future, we will design different templates for different needs - ie. ‘Bar Crowd’, ‘Religious’. But, for now we are focusing 100% on improving our current template to make it the best it can be!
Custom templates are possible, but we have not had anyone ask specifically for them.
Here’s a video tour of The Laughable News templates:
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