Member Profile: Tracy Miller

Your Name: Tracy Miller

Name of your business: Timsavers Etc

When did you open your business? 1995

What services do you offer? General Cleaning, Steam Cleaning, hoarding issues, Organizing, event assistance. 

Why did you start the business?  I started Timesavers Etc. when I had my second child. He is now 15. I wanted to be at home more. It originally started out as a service business. Running errands, cleaning, babysitting, etc. but I soon learned that there was a great need for good cleaning and that I was actually really good and enjoyed organizing. It has been an up and down process over the years. 9-11 knocked out most of my business. People were scared and I was first off the list. This taught me a valuable lesson about raising my prices to cover my self. I did have 3 employees at the time. I since went back to school and had a terrible car accident. But I am now in the process of trying to get it back of the ground to have employees again but do it right this time. I am ready to run a business not a job.

How many people are in your company? At the moment there is just me.

What has been the biggest surprise, good or bad, since you started? The biggest surprise is that it is difficult to get assistance and answers. I still am having a hard time getting info about legal steps to hiring and insurance needs. The other hurdle is getting people to pay what I am worth... or at least enough to pay for necessities of income and business expenses.

What is the toughest part of running your business? At first it was that there was not enough of ME to go around.. then it was training people to do it my way, now its back to getting business in the door again then starting the training process over.

What is the best part of running your business? Being my own boss and helping other people. 

Is there anything that you would have done differently? Train people properly, get insurance right away to cover me in case something happens.

What is the most important thing you will be adding, doing, changing in the next year for your business? Getting proper Insurance, training people and have training classes on a regular basis so that it is brought to their attention the importance of it to them and the clients. Working on my website.... I tend to over do it with info.... lol

Where do you see your business in 2 years, 5 years, and 10 years? Hopefully in two years I will be able to just supervise the cleaning, in five years I hope to have enough staff that I just can run the office and in ten well just having a complete staff and maintaining would be great. I am getting older and older as each day passes. lol

What advice could you give others and please don't hold back! Please don't hesitate to get insurance. No matter how small or large your business is. You never know what can happen in life. And if you are counting on that income daily it can be a disaster waiting to happen. It happened to me twice. First I had three employees and working full time myself people, then 9'11 happened and my phone rang for three days with cancellations. Clients where scared and held onto their money. I lost my home and went back to school. Barely got back on my feet then had a terrible car accident. Here I am again struggling to start over. But I am determined to do it right this time.

How do you use MyHouseCleaningBiz.com to help you with your business? INFO INFO INFO>>>>>> As well as experience of others. Learning from their mistakes and their input on how to do things differently.

What are some of your prior jobs or businesses? I ran a 34 bedroom house for the Ronald McDonald House foundation before I started my own business.

Is there a specific person or event in your life that made you decide to go into business for yourself? When I was working for The Ronald McDonald House a grandmother of a child who was staying there came up to me and said "I see how management treats you and I do not know how much they are paying you..... but I see how hard and efficient you work and they aren't paying you enough". That opened my eyes...... then my father use to say "you'll never be happy till your working for yourself" and then he passed away and left me a little money.... so thats what I did with it. Left Ronald McDonalds and started Timesavers Etc.

Website: http://www.timesaversetc.com

Email address: [email protected]

Your Social Network links (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc):
facebook: timesaversetc_ect
twitter: timesaversetc
LinkedIn: timesaversetc