If you've ever watched the show "Undercover Boss", then you know the CEO's of major companies go undercover in order to work anonymously with their employees. They all struggle at most of the jobs they attempt, which is usually humorous, because it's a scenario that many people can relate to -- doing the job better than the boss. The CEO's have done a variety of jobs -- cleaning restrooms, call center operator, hotel admissions, assembly line work, arranging flowers, trash collector, and many other jobs that people might consider "easy".
What they quickly discover however, is that the jobs are anything but easy. In fact some of these high-profile CEO's have even been fired by the employee training them! So what does this have to do with the owner of a small cleaning company? Plenty! As your company grows, you will wear many hats, and that's ok -- for a while. Some of the jobs that you will probably do include cleaning, marketing, sales, bidding, phone answering, bookkeeping, hiring, training, and payroll processing. But how many of these jobs are you really GOOD at? And how many of these jobs do you really enjoy doing? And most importantly, how is being a "jack of all trades" holding your business back?
If you spend all your time doing all the jobs needed to run a company, then your growth will be limited to what you can physically do yourself. So if you are serious about growing a successful cleaning business, then you need to do what the "undercover bosses" do. First, hire great employees and stop doing everything yourself. Next, observe your employees and talk to them regularly to stay on top of what is happening in the field. We often think things are running smoothly in our business, when in fact there are many things that could be better. The only way to know this is to listen to what your employees want and need to do their job more efficiently.
When you stop wearing all the hats and start empowering your team to do what they do best and love to do, you'll have more time to set long term goals for your business and implement those goals with the help of your team.















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