Fifteen years in business.
That’s a pretty big milestone for any company and I’m incredibly proud that Emily’s Maids has made it this far. So, in honor of our 15th anniversary, I thought I’d share a little about how Emily’s Maids came to be, what we got right, what we got wrong, and one very important lesson we learned along the way:
Being cheap is easy. Being good is harder. Being good and affordable? That takes some work.
The story actually begins before Emily’s Maids existed, with two other cleaning companies: Dallas Maids and a little company called Maid 2 Order.
The Idea: “What If We Just Charged Less?”
Fifteen years ago, I was celebrating the seventh anniversary of my first cleaning company, Dallas Maids. At the time, another local cleaning business owner was struggling to get his company, Maid 2 Order, off the ground. His prices were lower than Dallas Maids, so I had what seemed like a brilliant idea: Why not send him the customers who thought Dallas Maids was too expensive?
Customer: “Your prices are too high.”
Me: “No problem! Give Maid 2 Order a try.”
Everybody wins, right? Well… not exactly… Maid 2 Order eventually went out of business. And that taught me one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in more than two decades in the cleaning industry: You have to charge what your service is worth.
If you compete mainly on price, eventually you find yourself in a race to the bottom. And there’s not much waiting for you at the bottom besides exhausted cleaners, unhappy customers, and probably a stack of unpaid bills.
Here’s the problem: If you don’t charge enough, you can’t pay your cleaners enough. If you can’t pay your cleaners what they’re worth, you have trouble attracting and keeping great people. If you can’t keep great people, quality suffers. And when quality suffers, customers leave.
Suddenly that “cheap cleaning” isn’t such a bargain anymore.
So Naturally, I Decided to Start a Cheap Cleaning Company
You might think I learned my lesson immediately. I did not. Instead, I thought:
Okay… but maybe I can figure out how to make a bargain maid service work.
And thus, Emily’s Maids was born.
The idea was simple: create a lean, efficient cleaning company that could offer customers good service at a lower price. I organized Emily’s Maids as a referral agency, working with independent cleaning professionals rather than building it exactly like Dallas Maids. We also used talented overseas staff to help answer phones, support customers, coordinate schedules, and assist our cleaners at a lower cost than staffing every administrative position locally.
Then we looked everywhere else for efficiencies. Could technology save us money? Great… Could we streamline scheduling? Do it… Could we reduce unnecessary overhead? Absolutely. The philosophy was basically:
Spend money where it improves the cleaning. Be very stingy everywhere else.
And for a while, that worked. Mostly.
Then Reality Showed Up
Over the first few years, I learned something that seems painfully obvious today: Customers care a lot more about getting a great cleaning than getting an average cleaning for a few dollars less.
Who knew?
Our efficient systems allowed Emily’s Maids to keep prices competitive, but there was a limit to how much you could cut. At some point, cutting costs stops being “efficiency.” It just becomes… cutting corners. And corners are usually where the dust collects.
Over the years, I’ve watched many cleaning companies in Dallas come and go. And I understand why; This is a tough business. If your entire competitive advantage is, “We’re cheaper than the other guy,” eventualy someone else will come along who is willing to be even cheaper. Then somebody undercuts them. Then somebody undercuts that person. Eventually somebody is cleaning a four-bedroom house for $37 and wondering why they’re losing money.
That’s not a business model. That’s a hobby with mops.
Emily’s Maids Grew Up
Over the years, Emily’s Maids gradually raised its prices. Not because we suddenly decided we wanted to charge more. Because we realized that delivering consistently good service requires investing in good people. And good people deserve to be paid well.
When you can attract and retain talented cleaning professionals, everything gets better. Quality improves. Customers stay longer. Cleaners stay longer. Training costs go down. Turnover goes down. Complaints go down. And everybody is a little happier.
Today, Emily’s Maids is not the most expensive cleaning service in Dallas. But we’re also no longer trying to be one of the cheapest. Instead, we try to be something much better:
A great value.
Our frugal beginnings are actually part of our DNA. We still hate unnecessary overhead. We still look for smarter ways to operate. We still try to make every dollar work as hard as possible. The difference is that we no longer try to save money at the expense of quality.
The Great Secret of the Cleaning Industry
Today, 15 years later, Emily’s Maids is thriving. And the “secret” behind it really isn’t very complicated. Customers want great cleaners. Great cleaners want to be respected, treated with dignity, and paid what they’re worth. So if you’re a cleaning company owner reading this, here is my highly sophisticated, revolutionary, MBA-level business formula:
Keep your customers happy by keeping great cleaners.
How do you keep great cleaners?
Pay them what they’re worth.
How do you afford to pay them what they’re worth?
Charge what your service is worth.
That’s it. That’s the secret. I probably could have saved myself several years of experimentation if someone had just written those three sentences on a post-it note and stuck it to my desk.
Thank You for 15 Years
So that’s a little bit of the history behind Emily’s Maids. What began as an experiment in creating a bargain cleaning service gradually became something much better: a company focused on providing excellent value while taking care of the people who actually make that quality possible.
And to our customers, past and present, thank you. Thank you for trusting us inside your homes. Thank you for recommending us to friends and family. Thank you for the reviews, the feedback, the second chances when we occasionally got something wrong, and especially for allowing our cleaners to earn a living doing work they can be proud of. Without you, there would be no 15-year anniversary. You are the reason Emily’s Maids exists.
Here’s to the next 15 years. And hopefully, I’m done learning business lessons the expensive way.
Gratefully,
~ Greg
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