Cleaning For A Reason Milestones & ISSA

The cleaning conference was a huge success. I've been wanting to update everyone about Cleaning For A Reason and the success of the ISSA Convention. We reached some very exciting milestones this year and passed some tipping points. First, the MOST exciting news all year, is Cleaning For A Reason tipped the scales on over 1 million dollars in donated house cleanings to women with cancer! So far, our generous Cleaning Partners have helped over 4,000 women with cancer get their homes cleaned for free. I salute our giving Partners that are helping women everywhere. They deserve your support, so please only consider using a maid service that is Cleaning For A Reason! We grant a free cleaning every 90 minutes to a women battling cancer. This is only possible because of the generous maid services that are a part of this great program.

The next milestone, or tipping point was the ISSA show this year in Orlando, Florida. We hosted a Cleaning For A Reason Appreciation Reception at the Double Tree Hotel for nearly 100 Partners and guests. The evening was spectacular. We heard heart-warming stories from 5 prominent C4R Partners: Teresa Ward, Shirley Perlinsky, Lanette Richmond, Liz Trotter, and JoAnn Dipierro. Several sponsors donated great prizes and folks left with free vacuums, books, business training materials and products! Our GENEROUS sponsors made the entire evening spectacular and free to all attendees. Thank you to Jean Hanson of MyHousecleaningbiz.com, Debbie Richter of RF Monolithics, and Mike Julo of DirectMopSales.com. Direct Mops also provided a $25 Gift Certificate to every guest!

Lastly, and this is really exciting, the ISSA show was a tipping point on the tradeshow floor. Out-going ISSA President, Bob Stahurski accepted our offer to join the Cleaning For A Reason Board of Directors. He will be added to our Board in December. Bob was so impressed with Cleaning For A Reason, that he brought incoming ISSA President, David Holzman over to meet us. David was immediately enthusiastic and wore the "Ask Me" pin on his lapel all day. He also had it on the next day while introducing the keynote speaker, Prime Minister Tony Blair. David shared the Cleaning For A Reason story with Tony Blair at the executive breakfast that morning and presented him with the "Ask Me About Cleaning For A Reason" pin as well as a black C4R logo shirt! David Holzman and Bob Stahurski are two powerful, well-respected men in our industry and they are very excited about Cleaning For A Reason!

We made great contacts at the ISSA Show this year, and now we are working feverishly on our upcoming MAID SERVICE Best Practices Conference, which is January 21, 22, 2011. If you haven’t registered for this amazing event, you don’t want to be left out. We think it will be largest event of this kind in the history of the residential cleaning industry. We’ve lined up top speakers, maid service specific topics, lots of surprises, and tons of value and benefit! Don’t miss out, the early registration is extremely low cost: http://ping.fm/5Nmie

Twitter Case Studies

My son has been teaching me how to use Twitter and I've been trying to learn more and stay up on the latest technologies, especially as it relates to spreading my brand, spreading my message, and keeping in touch with clients. Twitter can even play a role in the usually unchanging communications and marketing of a cleaning service. Just because we're cleaning services, brick and mortar, mops and brooms, doesn't mean we have to stay 10 years behind everyone else. I know maid service owners who still do not use email in their business, and I know some who don't have a website yet.

I want to be a sponge (no pun intended) and soak up all the training, new techniques, marketing trends, and business tips I can get. If we're not learning and growing, we're shrinking and getting dumber! Technology will leave us behind if we don't stay up on it. That doesn't mean we need to spend money and waste time on every single new trend or technology, but the opposite is usually the case. The cleaning industry tends to be 10 steps behind the times no matter what. It helps if you like tinkering with technology as I do, but if you don't, it's important that you keep up with what's changing and how you can utilize free and cheap technology to grow your business, spread your brand, and nurture your clients.

A good friend and colleague, Rhonda Shuker or Dynamic Maids sent me this great little Twitter Case Studies eBook. I found it pretty informative and thought I'd pass it along:

Twitter Case Studies

I've used Twitter to notify people in my demographic area when we have some last minute deals on openings for cleaning, and I've used Twitter to notify those followers of the latest exciting things that are happening with Cleaning For A Reason. I used Twitter to instantly post a picture of me sitting in the Texas senate gallery when we were receiving a proclamation on behalf of Cleaning For A Reason. It's fast, easy, fun, and most of all an amazing way to stay connected to clients and colleagues. I know most people will use Twitter socially, but I think a blend of fun, personal, and business is a great way to benefit from this medium. Go over board in any direction and I think it loses it's effect if you are hoping it will have some business value. But, if your primary audience is business, not social, then do share your special offers to your exclusive group of Twitter followers and train them to expect great deals from your tweets.

My son-in-law, and UT Professor, John Jones is an expert at Twitter and all forms of online social and business communications. He was recently interviewed on FoxNews in Austin about "Social Networking Etiquette". I'm proud of him for getting FREE PUBLICITY, of course, but also for doing such a good job on the interview. I just had to share this with my friends:

Social Networking Etiquette Interview

Whether you Tweet, blog, Facebook, or all of these and more, it's important that you monitor ROTI (Return On Time Investment). If you you are wasting endless amounts of time on something that doesn't produce some value, don't do it just because everyone else is. Instead, find ways to make those mediums produce some results. Blogging improves your organic search results, Facebook is a great tool for keeping current information out there--information that you want the public to have (hopefully), and can even be used as a business website if you need one fast, easy, and free.

Don't be left out of technology. Have fun with it, and constantly think of how you can creatively turn these modern communications into tools for growing your maid service, touching your prospects, and nurturing your existing clients! Have fun! Oh, and I hope you'll follow ME on Twitter!

Modern Bride Magazine Mentions My Consulting!

Wow, I've been way too busy because I didn't realize I'd let so much time lapse between blogs! I've got to turn over a new leaf and keep my blogging promises and get back to blogging at least monthly, but ideally more often.

I am really excited about the mention I received in Modern Bridge April / May 2009 edition that just came out. As a business consultant, nothing can be better than free, national exposure! And to top it off, the concept of MAID SERVICE gift cards was mentioned in the article as well. Let me back up a little and bring you up to speed. I have a workshop I offer called "Barter Is A Guaranteed Sale" and another workshop called "How To Get Free Publicity". Modern Bride Magazine just helped elevate both of those concepts for me when they published an article entitled "Have It All But Spend Less!" by Elizabeth Larsen. Elizabeth is on the staff of Modern Bride and found my business blogs about barter. She interviewed me and the recent article is the result of that interview. Pretty sweet!

In my business workshops to maid service owners I teach residential cleaning businesses how to use barter to get business and personal services you might not otherwise be able to afford, especiall marketing. My concept of spend your trade and save your cash is the basis for my workshops on business bartering. I got to practice what I preach last summer when my daughter Amy got married. I blogged about using my maid service gift cards and services to barter for limousine service, flowers, the cake, a photobooth, and the photographer. The writer for Modern Bride picked up my blog and interviewed me for the article she was writing. That's amazing, free, national publicity from one article! Whew-hooo!

Now, you don't have to be a business coach to benefit from free publicity. You just have to be on the look out for every opportunity you can create to get you name, your brand, and your service out into the public and especially the internet. You can do this for your maid service the same way I have for my maid service and my maid service consulting business.

If you'd like to learn more about how to create free publicity and how to barter your services, you can can check out my audio CDs and start saving money like crazy, and generating free publicity for your company. Learn More......

To read the full article on barter click here: Modern Bride Barter Article

my mention is on the last page, last column.