It started with a $2,000 vacuum.And a question: How does a young couple pay for such a thing? There was only one answer: It had to pay its own way.
And thus, the story goes,was Amazing Maids born.As it matured, it became what it is today Amazing Maids Referral Agency, Inc., a Reno-based corporation owned by Susan Beckett and operated on a business model similar to that of real estate agencies.
It works like this: Beckett markets the business,makes contact with prospective clients,matches them with her list of possible housekeepers, puts the two together, and manages the accounting.
The prospective Amazing Maid meets with the client,makes a bid on the job, and if accepted, puts the job on her calendar.
Beckett has about 20 housekeepers in her database, all of them working varied numbers of hours per week, some with preferences as to time, location, or job type, some with allergies, some with full schedules, some just starting out.
She has a corresponding much larger database of clients.
She started the business, which turns a tidy profit now, as a one-woman housekeeping business.
Typical of such a business, she began by putting the word out that she was seeking a few clients, and those few clients told a few clients, and they told a few clients, and soon she had more clients than one woman who wanted to spend time with her infant and work part-time could possibly handle.
She referred the overflow to friends and other mothers she met on the playground.
So, putting two and two together, along with some business research and encouragement from husband and friends, she branched out from simple housekeeping into the housekeeping referral business.
"I didn't want to profit off another woman's sweat," she says.
She wanted to structure the business so that it empowered the women to create their own businesses."I wanted something to lift them up and sustain them," she says.
That notion formed the core value of Amazing Maids.
The rest was a business model that is tried and true in the real estate business independent contractors who pay the agency a percentage of their checks, in a graduated split based on experience and production.
What the maids get out of it, says Beckett, is a business behind them that spends $1,600 a month marketing their service, and qualifies a client before the maid spends time meeting them.
She keeps the housekeepers' accounting for them,makes automatic deposits into their checking accounts, and sends them a 1099 for taxes.Also, she's there with a fill-in if the maid needs time off, or, conversely, she's there with a new client if an old one leaves.
And the clients? They have the assurance that they are working with licensed, bonded, insured housekeepers, and that the work is guaranteed to their satisfaction.
And Beckett? There's the business, she says, and the warm fuzzy feeling that goes with empowering women to run their own businesses.
The warm fuzzy stories of women making good are numerous: the woman with three young girls who is raising them on her own, the woman with troublesome teenagers who's making ends meet, the woman who left an abusive home and is living a life free of violence.
"I do it for those women," says Beckett.
She still cleans house for two clients herself, and is a mentor to new housekeepers coming on the list.
Maids have the option of buying out their clients from Amazing Maids, and some do, says Beckett.
But what's to keep them from simply setting up a direct payment line with the client? The contract, says Beckett, is clear on that point.
As her business has grown, Beckett has added janitorial services for commercial buildings and a new home service geared toward real estate agents and developers.
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