What do baking and cleaning have in common?
They both need to have the right recipe and that recipe needs to be followed exactly in order to always produce a 5 star product.
When I was a little girl the Tinberg family had a special friend who owned a million dollar bakery in Chicago. He had a secret recipe for Danish Layer cake. My mom got it out of him before he died. It is the best cake ever.
A couple of years ago I was in our Milwaukee summer home and decided to make the Danish Layer cake but forgot the recipe at our ranch in Austin. I have never taken the time to move the recipe from the very old and flour covered recipe card to my laptop but it is a new world and there everything is on google. Sure enough, there were several recipes for Danish layer cake. None were exactly as I remember it but I picked one that I thought was very close.
It was OK but no one at the dinner said WOW like I am used to. I had the wrong recipe. Since that cake I put the recipe on my laptop and have had a WOW experience ever since—until this pasts April when I made the cake for my Mom’s 97th birthday. And yes, it is her favorite cake. I had the right recipe but I forgot the butter is supposed to be at room temperature. Being a last minute person I had no time for that now. I speeded up the process and used the microwave to soften the butter and my nightmare began. I whipped that sugar with that butter for 15 minutes but it would never whip together. You can guess the rest of the story. It was OK but it was not WOW. My very honest sister shared that with me although she did not need to. I knew it was so so without her input.
Two missed WOW opportunities missed because I did not have the right recipe or did not follow the recipe exactly? How many WOW opportunities have you missed because you have not given your cleaners a recipe to follow? A written process that they can follow, learn and someday know by heart like I now know that recipe? And what about the ingredients? Are they products that will leave a WOW response? There are products that clean, products that shine and products that clean and shine. What do the products do that your cleaners are using? An example, and I am not negating either of these products. They all have their place. If the final product you use on counter tops is dish soap that you rinse and dry or simple green that you wipe and dry neither of these will leave a WOW look or response. The areas will be very clean but not very shiny like some products will leave. Some products do clean and shine with one step and can be used in most areas. If there is a particularly greasy area you can always use dawn or simple green first and then shine with another product but use a product the clean and shines in one step when possible. It is all about efficiency with outstanding results.
Your process is your recipe and your products and tools are your ingredients.
I did resurrect my reputation when I made the Danish layer cake 2 weeks ago. I took the butter out of the refrig the night before and followed the recipe exactly. Even my sister said “Now this is the way it should taste!” Are your clients saying “Now this is the way it should look? “
After I worked with a client in San Diego he sent me an email he received over the the weekend from a client he cleaned the week before. It said “All I can say James is “WOW”. If you are not hearing “WOW, now this is the way it should look” perhaps you need a recipe or a new recipe and we hope you look at ours at housecleanerstraining.com