Your Name: Jean Hanson

Name of Business: TheJanitorialStore.com

Type of business: Subscription website for owners of small cleaning companies

What does your business do? Help people who want to start a small cleaning business or take their cleaning business to the next level. We have all the tools needed, including online and telephone discussion forums, forms, ebooks, bidding calculators, articles, videos, product reviews, recorded interviews and much more.

Why did you start the biz and when did your business open? We launched the website in Oct 2005. We've owned two successful cleaning companies, so it's a perfect fit for us. We owned the first company for 15 years. In 2001 we decided to move closer to family so we sold the business. We then started a new cleaning company at our new location and it took only 5 years to match sales of our previous company. We decided to share what we learned with others who are struggling to get their cleaning company off the ground. We've found that we're very passionate about helping our members become successful and are now working towards getting a good team in place to run the cleaning business so we can devote more time to the website.

How many people in your company?

What's your office location like?  We were very fortunate when we moved because we found a house that had room for 2 offices, plus a shop. So we started the cleaning business at home. We then leased an office space for a couple years. I continued to work out of my home office, which I love because it's a very private property surrounded by woods so I have a view of trees out of every window, and a great deck and 3 season porch for relaxing. A couple years ago we bought a piece of property and last year we built a 3200 sq ft office/warehouse for our cleaning and janitorial supplies business. Click here for a picture.. We feel very fortunate to be able to own our own commercial building, and it's perfect for our business.

What's the toughest part of running your biz?

1. Finding and retaining quality people. This is what holds us back from growing as fast as we'd like.
2. Totally escaping from the business for a REAL vacation. We've started traveling a lot, combining business and vacations. We do like doing this, as it gets us away quite frequently. However we still have things that we handle for the business that are not delegated so it's hard to get away without being in touch by phone and email. The goal for this next year is to get people in place who can handle things and put out the fires for us so we don't have to be present every moment.

What's the most fun part?  The best part is when we get positive feedback on what we're doing. It lets us know that we are really helping our members succeed in their business. This morning I got up and checked my email and received this message:

Subject line: This website is the greatest!

Anything you would have done differently? 

Learn to let go of repetitive tasks and things that can be handled by others. In other words, delegate or outsource sooner!  It's hard for me to give up the things I'm used to doing and I sometimes worry that someone else won't be able to handle it as well as I do. It does take time to find the right people and train them, but once you've freed up more of your valuable time it's definitely worth it.

Explain what's next on the horizon for you and your business?  For the website, lots of new things - partnerships, interviews, videos to name a few. For the cleaning business, expansion into a new market, hiring another sales person.

What advice do you have for others?   It took me 20 years to really find something I'm passionate about. Don't wait that long! If there's something you want, go after it. Just make sure you're not going after a pipe dream. Do a lot of research and be prepared to work harder than you may have ever worked before. Just know that you're doing it for YOU, not an employer who knows that everyone is replaceable. Also make sure that your family is on board and that you have money saved to help you through the start-up phase.

How do you use OnlineBizU.com to help with your biz or sanity? I used to subscribe to dozens of newsletters from Internet marketers. Eventually I found that they all talked about the same things and promoted the same products. Donna's is one of the few newsletters I continue to subscribe to because she's always up to date on everything related to Internet marketing, so I rely on her to keep me up to date on what's happening. When Donna launched OnlineBizU, I had no hesitation about joining the site because she offers great advice in the discussion forum, in-depth and informative articles, and useful downloads.

School

• Some college
• Associate degrees in marketing, retailing, fashion merchandising (yeah, like I used that one!)
• Assist University (CPVA - Certified Professional Virtual Assistant)
• ... and the school of hard knocks ;->

Prior jobs or business?

• Operations manager for many years at large retailer in WI
• Co-owner of Hanson Building Maintenance, Inc. in Boise ID (sold in 2002)
• Owner of VA Office Solution (closed in 2006 to work on TheJanitorialStore.com)
• Co-owner of Brainerd Lakes Cleaning and Supply in MN
• Co-owner of TheJanitorialStore.com

Favorite food?  I don't think I have a favorite because there are so many I like! And like most women, chocolate is a very important part of my diet...lol

What are your pets' names?

• Sammy - cairn terrior
• Bailey, my golden retriever recently died. He joins his best buddy Casey, our black lab who died in 2003.

Do any of these pets help with your biz?  Bailey helped me a lot with my business. Whenever I got frustrated, he came running to put his head on my leg to let me know it was going to be ok. Sammy bugs me to get my butt out of my chair to go for a walk or just to play. If he didn't bug me I'm afraid I'd never get out of my office!

What person or event in your life led you to go into business for yourself?

One person and one event:

1. My husband Steve. He's a natural entrepreneur, and he taught me how to become an entrepreneur and how step out of my box.

2. I was totally frustrated at my job and at my wit's end. I couldn't find a job that paid what I was making and I kept resisting joining my husband in his cleaning business. I finally had to either join his business or continue going crazy at my dead-end job. It was the best thing I ever did.  Eventually I felt ready to start my virtual assistant business and was very successful. That gave me the confidence to launch TheJanitorialStore.com which is doing great.

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