When I first thought of starting a business cleaning hard surfaces, there were several reasons why this was appealing. My background was in various professional services: accounting, copywriting, web design and executive leadership roles. Sitting down for a living had become tedious. I was aware of how this was becoming more of a health hazard, especially in my 40s. I wanted to be more physical. Secondly, I was getting worn down by people that were hindering and undermining my efforts at work. It was time to remove myself from ‘people with hangups’ and put myself in charge of my own operation so I could move freely at work. I also had financial goals that meant I needed to lift the ceiling off what I could earn.
About ten years prior, I was living in California. I had a side job doing the books for a carpet cleaner who had made the shift to hard surface cleaning. I saw the numbers in his business and he talked about how much more lucrative it was compared to cleaning carpets. When I returned to New Zealand with my toddler and 3 year old, I noticed how dirty everything was around town. I thought, “This would be a good business here, and nobody is doing it”. But the timing wasn’t right. I was pretty focused on being a Mum. But ten years later, the idea was still there.
Hard surface cleaning is physical, but not heavy. It’s active, but doesn’t require exertion. It’s varied and avoids the repetitive use of one muscle group. The work makes you strong and keeps you moving without putting strain on your body. I’m responsible for all of the business decisions. The consequences of these keep me focused, driven and learning all the time.
Once I made the conscious decision to remove myself from being around ‘difficult’ people, including and especially at work, I started to encounter one person after another in the business world, who was very encouraging and supportive. The first of these was Jeff and Carolyn Whyte. They were extremely patient with my multiple phone calls from New Zealand about the possibility of getting into the industry. This started a sure-footed momentum of things falling into place.
I took a look at a tile and grout cleaning franchise in New Zealand. I even applied to them for a franchise and was accepted. I thought it would be a good idea to get the support. However, once I received the contract, there were several clauses that made no sense to me. Things like: needing premises with certain colour schemes, and restricting the amount of drawings I could take out of the business, etc. Premises? What premises? They said “Don’t worry about those things, we don’t require any of them”. I therefore tried to discuss removing them.
That seemed reasonable? But they wouldn’t. They did not like being questioned about this and gave me sketchy and incorrect legal information about it. Then they said, “Look lady, none of the ‘guys’ who have signed these contracts have ever questioned these clauses”. The roots of sexism sprouted in front of me. The franchise folk were quickly added to the ‘people with hangups exiting my life’ list. I smartly moved on.
So, I circled back to Whytes in Australia. Before investing any money, I thought I would just do the training. This would allow me to get a feel for the work and ask myself, “OK Sousa, is this really what you want to do?”. It was a pretty left-field kind of direction to take. I called Whytes again to enquire about when the next training event was happening. It was happening in 3 days time! “What the hell, let’s do it!” I said out loud. I booked a flight that hour and ended up in Melbourne on Luke Whyte’s Hard Surface Training programme. He was so awesome, and so were all of the other participants who were mostly men and one other woman.
I remember Luke setting us up on the scrubber. I’d never used one before, but most people had. A couple of guys had a go first. Luke held on to the top of it until they got a feel for it. He then let it go to see how they handled it without his course-correcting-assist. He encouraged me to have a go. When I grabbed hold of the handles, all of the guys took several steps backwards to get out of the way! I said, “Oh come on guys, have some faith” and laughed. Luke had a hold of it and then gently let it go. He said “Actually... you’ve totally got this!” The scrubber is still my favourite part of the kit in my van. Afterwards, one of the guys came up to me and apologised. He shared that the first time he used the scrubber, he sent it flying through a large pane of glass! We had a good laugh about that. I left the course thinking, “I reckon this could be fun, let’s do it”.
The endless well of support that poured out of Whyte’s after that was a critical component of getting off to solid well-supported start. They totally had my back and this was a new experience for me. I did not need a franchise when I had them. I wasn’t interested in making top dollar to start with. I wanted to do an excellent job, cause no damage, and take it slowly and surely. In a small town, bad news travels fast. But so does good. I wanted to leave a trail of nothing but good news stories behind me and that meant triple checking everything, going the extra mile with details and care, and taking my time to get it right.
My strengths were with numbers, quotes, admin, the website, Facebook marketing, etc. But I also came to learn that I was a good sales person. I’d never worked in sales before. With all of the %&@# people hurled at me in my previous workplace, I actually thought I rubbed people the wrong way. Well... I do sometimes. I’ve always seen myself as a genuine and articulate communicator. These qualities, it turns out, make for a good sales person. I figured out that I was actually pretty good with people. Further, in the hard surfacing cleaning industry, people just appreciate a job getting done. This was really liberating compared to the professional services working environment where collaboration and process always seemed to be muddied with people’s personal agendas, a serious distraction and hinderance to business progress.
My challenges were in the fact that I’d never used a truckmount before. I’d grown up tinkering around with cars. But a truckmount was a whole new kind of mechanical wizardry. It took me a while to trouble-shoot when things weren’t working right. One problem at a time was met with Juha from Whytes workshop, on the other end of the phone ‘across the ditch’. Between my nervous laughter and lots of “Oh my God”, his calm and patient voice transferred ample amounts of confidence to me. Like a good marriage counsellor, he enabled me to gain an understanding of my new partner - the mighty truckmount. We did however separate in the second year of our marraige, when the Sapphire 870 Truckmount stole my heart.
One of the things that I was worried about as a woman in a male-dominated industry and operating a machine, was that people wouldn’t take me seriously. They’d be dubious. I’m only 5’3” tall. Previously, being of smaller stature and female often meant that I was misperceived as less authoritative or credible. But what I encountered in my new business venture was quite the opposite. There seemed to be some apparent ‘cool factor' to being a woman operating a big and frickin’ noisey machine.
I was received extremely well by business owners and the general public. Some of the wealthiest commercial property owners took one look at me working and said, “We need you, here’s my card”. People of all ages and genders gave me smiles of acknowledgement and approval for the work being done and many wanted to hear my story. Perhaps, people just enjoyed things being that clean? Who doesn’t? But still, being a woman did not interfere with the ‘value proposition’ that hard surface cleaning offered. In fact, I am sure it added to its appeal.
Another strength of being a woman, particularly in the commercial sector of the industry, is the amount of persistence and patience I have around paperwork and bureaucracy. Now, perhaps I am expressing some measure of sexism here myself. But can we agree that where machines predominate in the workplace, men will outnumber the women and when paperwork and admin predominate in the workplace, women will outnumber the men? Cross-populating these elements can be a great asset for a woman in the industry and a big contributing factor to business success. Let me explain.
One aspect of my startup business strategy was to go after and secure a small contract to clean the dirtiest section of commercially owned paving stones in town, outside the only supermarket. In a town with a population of 12,000, plus a million tourists a year, it’s easy to understand that these were heavily soiled and covered in bubble gum and stains. They were absolutely filthy, but they were the same type of paving stone covering thousands of more square metres throughout the Central Business District (CBD). I figured if I could document the cleaning of that small section, with photos, before, during and after, it would be the perfect material to open a discussion with the council to clean the entire district’s CBDs.
So, I did just that. After 12 months of emails, meetings, quoting several streets worth of paving stones, staff changes in Council, addressing environmental concerns, machine approval, water management approval, altering my insurance cover, researching and writing a required health and safety plan, engaging a consultant for a traffic management plan, researching and acquiring cordoning systems, safety signage, getting vacuum hose ramps made for the street, buying compliant high visibility gear and ticking numerous other boxes, I secured a contract for $100,000 in the second year of business, that now renews each year. Hence, upgrading to the 870! This year I also became certified to write my own traffic management plans.
Now, I’m not saying that guys can’t do this stuff. I’m not even saying that all women can either. But, I would say that women, more so than men, can go about this kind of stuff in a calm, relaxed and efficient manner. Many of the ‘tradie’ men that I speak to cringe with aversion to such tasks. They simply find it painful, and therefore not worth it. For me, it really didn’t take that much emotional energy to pull it together. I already had many of the skills, and with a good measure of tenacity, I could preserve with each administrative task, as it arose. If I had hired people to take care of all of this for me, it would have cost me easily an extra $20,000+. This would have been quite a stretch financially, especially in startup phase. Commercial contracts can make big bucks, but only if you are to be willing and able to put the yards in with compliance and paperwork. Women, typically, are good at this.
The spinoff benefits to working in the CBD is that it made my business highly visible to the public. Within a couple of months, the media did an article about our work and then I was interviewed for, and appeared on, television. After this exposure, the commercial business boomed. People were approaching me every hour on the street saying “We saw you on TV!” They thanked me for cleaning up the street and I of course smiled, chatted and handed out cards to everyone interested. The new ‘people-person Sousa’ had fully arrived and now wore a public relations hat. One elderly couple said, “We think you should run for Council”. Women are legendary for being ‘talkers’. In this industry, and particularly the commercial industry, I say it serves us well.
Moving in to the hard surface cleaning industry has been an extremely positive experience for me. The physical, emotional, social and financial rewards are all there. The support I have received from just about everyone I have interacted with, from the idea stage to having a thriving business in the third year of operation, has been truly life changing. Every woman has her assets and some of these I am sure are the same as mine and some of them will be different. Whatever they are, you may be surprised at how being a woman actually gives you an advantage.
Weaknesses just need the right support and this comes from the right people. You will know who they are. Find them and work with them. Through them, your weaknesses will gradually be minimised. I wish you all the very best in whatever you endeavour to do to make your life more of what you want it to be.
Digital Strategy by ZeemoTM