Cleaning my way to success

On graduating from Maseno University with a degree in IT, Earnest set his eyes on employment. However, when he come to Nairobi, he identified an opportunity in the cleaning business while living with his uncle who runs a laundry business.

He sold the idea of setting up a home cleaning business to a friend who quickly bought into it. Junest Cleaners was formed then.

However, five months down the line, the partnership dissolved, brought about by the challenges faced in early start-ups where revenue does not trickle in as fast as the expenditure incurred in the business.

Earnest, however, did have faith of turning around the business and, therefore, pushed on. He, however, had to get into employment to sustain himself as he worked towards turning around the business which he did two years later.

The Business Coach linked Earnest to Anyiti Nanyama who is the founder of Crystal Africa cleaning services.

Anyiti, despite being in the business for close to five years, has experienced tremendous success in the business currently employing over 100 personnel on permanent basis and cutting out a niche for herself in the estate cleaning business.

Here are some tips that she offered Earnest:

1. Identify and understand your core market

A business is only as successful as the market it serves. It is vital that a business identifies and understands its core market as it cannot serve everybody.

The reason behind the success of Crystal Africa is its niche market in the cleaning business, which is the estates that they identified and specialised in.

2. Be reliable to your clients

Clients are core to every business and amongst the value proposition that one can offer to its clientele is reliability.

Once a client can count on you to deliver, you are guaranteed long term business from the specific clientele.

Crystal Africa have managed to seal long term contracts with clients running up to ten years just a result of reliability.

3. Create systems to properly manage your business

For a business to run efficiently and effectively systems have to be set that ensure that the persons working within the business are able to execute their operations and functions is a systematic format. For systems to work, they have to be written down and enforced through training.

The Business Coach airs on KTN Home every Monday at 7.30pm. You can catch up on past episodes on YouTube.