I have learned so much and appreciate what it takes to run a business! It was an opportunity for me to put myself into the shoes of business owners and understand why websites might not be a priority. It was the day to day operations and administrative tasks that took up most of my time.
Lessons learned
I was in university full time so it was essential I managed my time efficiently. Coming up with solutions that would create profit and save me time were my main goals.
Even though I had the advantage of being my own designer, I had to prioritize things, like building a website and creating a system to keep track of finances. Some things I tried didn’t work out as well as I thought they would.
Some things that succeeded were worth it and I enjoyed learning all sorts of things that come with running a business. I don’t offer cleaning services anymore mainly because of COVID-19, and have transitioned to full time design work now.
Front page – Desktop view
Front page – Tablet view
Front page – Smartphone view
Website
Starting with the website, it needed to be built quickly so I used Divi, a page builder for WordPress. I didn’t do a lot beyond working with what Divi offers, adding minor modifications and creating my own custom page templates with the page builder. I spent more of my time writing copy with keywords to attract customers and search engines.
For the video background in the header, I made a looping video with clips of me doing a variety of cleaning tasks. I designed a simple logo and customized my colour palette to strengthen branding.
Quote request page – Desktop view
Quote request page – Tablet view
Quote request page – Smartphone view
Client Intake
Initially, I tried an online shopping system but every property varies. The condition and size of a property controls how much cleaning is required to get the property to the level of cleanliness the client is looking for.
I still had to contact the potential client for photos of their property to get a better idea anyway. So I couldn’t depend on automation entirely and this is where customer services will have to come in.
To do job estimates, I built a custom form with all the information I need from customers when they want to book cleaning sessions. With information being provided by customers, I would then follow up with customers to confirm the estimate their appointments.
Internal invoice system
I created an internal invoicing system that generates invoices as pdfs running my own database. This way I didn’t have to work with spreadsheets every time I needed to make an invoice.
All I had to do was enter information into a webpage with a form for each cleaning session for every client and it would generate itemized invoices to be emailed.
At the end of the year I had all the information I needed to do my taxes, without paying a pretty penny for accounting software like Quick Books.
My business expenses were very low, other than paying for supplies and fuel, insurance and equipment. It was a profitable business for the most part, and I didn’t have a lot of administrative things to do since the website/internal invoicing system did the heavy lifting.
I’m proud to share with you this little business that got me through university and paid my bills. I was able to be my own boss this whole time and met all kinds of interesting people.
Gallery
Front page – Desktop view
Front page – Tablet view
Front page – Smartphone view
Services page – Desktop view
Services page – Tablet view
Services page – Smartphone view
Quote request page – Desktop view
Quote request page – Tablet view
Quote request page – Smartphone view
FAQ page – Desktop view
About page – Tablet view
