Three Lessons

The woman who cleans the apartment every week is a whirlwind and a savvy and self-aware businesswoman. We chat if I'm here about business (while she flies around the apartment). Today we talked about insurance and hiring employees and contracts and a host of things.

At one point, she said (from the bathroom) "There are three things I've learned about business from running my own cleaning company." Here's her three things...

Always have a contract

In any professional relationship have a contract and read the contract. She's been on both the winning and the losing end of not reading contracts. The contract is the beginning and end of your business relationship.

AND contracts are negotiated, not just signed.

I've advised students and new massage therapists to take your own contract to a job interview. The fact that the spa/hotel/salon/group practice already has their boilerplate contract doesn't mean you have to accept it as is. If you bring your own, you can use the two of them as the place where you begin your negotiations.

Get everything in writing

No matter how good your relationship is with a businessperson, get everything in writing. Did you agree verbally to a rate change? Get it in writing. Did you agree to change who carries the insurance? Get it in writing. Did you agree to a change in duties? Get it in writing.

Everyone's memory is as susceptible to modification and mis-remembrance. Any conversation that's reduced to "you said..." vs. "no, what I said was..." is a losing conversation.

Remember it's business, not personal

Actually, she said "don't trust your employees", which made the employee working with her today laugh. She corrected herself and explained that she meant never mistake a business relationship for a personal relationship and vice versa. Remember and maintain those good boundaries.

You can have a cordial, even friendly, working relationship but remember it's always about work.

Trust your gut/trust yourself

It turns out, she had lots more lessons learned but I liked this one best. She said that when she first started in business, she wanted to be nice and she wasn't entirely confident in own judgement so she tended to do what others told her to do, even when her gut/intuition told her differently.

And she always regretted not listening to her gut.

A corrollary to this was to develop a strong sense of who you are as a business owner and keep that in your mind as you do business.

She actually had lots of other nuggets of learned wisdom that kept coming once she got started. You may see her and just see "cleaning lady" but she has multiple home and business contracts, has a staff, works hard, and knows that she is a small business owner.

She's very much like us and we could learn a lot from her.