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| News Articles About A to Z Housekeeping |
 ARCPnews April 2005 Profiles In Success: A to Z Housekeeping 
In October 2002, Rick Gordon and his wife Rocio started A to Z Housekeeping in Phoenix, AZ, as a part-time business. When the business first started, Rocio and a friend made up the first cleaning team. A year later, Rick sold another business he had been operating for several years to pursue the residential cleaning business on a full-time basis. Today, the service has expanded to employ over 35 employees and has annual sales well over a million dollars a year!Before starting his business, Rick spent a great deal of time researching the industry. He called and shopped around at the competition, getting estimates from other services. Rick says, "When I crunched the numbers I thought, ‘there is a lot of money to be made here’ but no one told me how hard you had work for it." Over the last few months, Rick says he has learned to work smarter, not harder. As most service owners will tell you, finding qualified employees willing to do the work is one of the biggest challenges they face. A to Z Housekeeping is no exception. Rick says he sees the limited labor pool in his area and it definitely affects the growth of his business. “On any given day, over 30 people come to A to Z Housekeeping looking for work, but most are not qualified,” says Rick. A large number of the applicants do not pass his stringent hiring procedures, which includes criminal background checks and verifying every reference. Rick’s staff works in teams of three and four. His extensive training pays off and helps keep his customers loyal. “We push the team concept not only to the customer, but also to each individual employee. We encourage our employees to work as a team and check each other’s work,” Rick says. This ensures customer satisfaction the first time, and drastically reduces the need for crews to have to return to homes. New hires go through 4-and-a-half hours of in-office training which includes company procedures and policies, correct product use and safety, as well as video training. Then new hires are pared with a supervisor to work one-on-one until they are ready to be introduced into a team. Only one new person is added to a team at a time. Rick says that even some of his employees are impressed with the training his company provides. Many of his employees have told him that while working for other services in the area, they had been assigned to clean homes with absolutely no training! The employees also seem to be pleased with Rick’s training program. “We don’t just hire warm bodies, and then send them right out to clean,” says Rick. Why is Rick’s service so unique? A to Z Housekeeping’s service is unlike other cleaning companies in that they provide service six days a week. Rick notes that a huge percentage of their business is done on Saturdays. He feels that alone gives his company an advantage over competing home cleaning services. What’s next for A to Z Housekeeping? Over the next 24 months, Rick intends to more than double the size of his service. Rick attributes much of his quick success to a hardcore direct mail campaign. He invests a lot of money into advertising and says he certainly sees results from it. In addition to a heavy direct mail campaign, Rick says the company fleet of Ford Taurus’s also gets a lot of notice. Rick laughs, “I certainly own more Ford Taurus’s than any one man should own.” With all joking aside, Rick says that he is taking the next step. He plans to have all the vinyl lettering removed from the cars and then will have them shrink-wrapped, a new technique that will give dramatic visual appeal to his fleet. Rick says he has always been a strong proponent of trade associations. He states that he undoubtedly sees the enormous value in networking with peers and coming together to elevate the entire industry through ARCP. Rick Gordon, and his success with A to Z Housekeeping, is a great example of how a good business plan and the quest for information can lead to outstanding accomplishments in the home cleaning industry!  | Home | Services | FAQ | Request Quote | Refer a Friend | | Mission Statements | Privacy Policy | Employment | Insurance/Bond | News | Contact Information: A to Z Housekeeping Phoenix & West Valley: 602-866-8114 East Valley: 480-961-0077 Email: Info@AtoZHousekeeping.com
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