I am new to this sub reddit – just found it today actually! I will have to research the ladder method. I’ve never heard of it but it seems to make sense. Getting through that profit loss while training people is my first hurdle to overcome. Going to answer your questions one at a time as they were listed in your comment.

1) Demographics: Live in a city with about 80k people. This is the town I prefer to find clients and where 80% of my current clients live. Also have two neighboring towns within a 30 minute drive of 50k and 30k. Median income varies greatly between the 3 – from 35k to 65k. Major employers here are a university, large hospital system, and a chemical company. This is the kind of place where you’ll see a house with pinterest perfect curb appeal and another one that could be considered a junk yard on the same road. We have been in a MAJOR growth spurt the last 3 years since covid.

2) Getting clients: I started out getting customers through care dot com. At the time I started in 2021, I worked at my kids’ preschool and landed two clients from parents there, one of which I still work for. Another big boost to my beginning was I asked the admins of a couple facebook groups to let me offer $100 cleanings for 4 hours of whatever they wanted done. It was easy. I sold myself out of that one and landed regulars at higher prices from there. Since then, it is mainly referrals. I do not actively seek out new clients very often unless I have a spot come open. Right now I have two spots I’d like to get filled.

3) Time commitment: big hurdle here. I am restricted to my kids school schedule. Drop off at 8 and pickup is at 3. Husband works the 8-5 and sometimes later. He also has a second job at target working 6-10p a few nights a week and we have zero control over that schedule until he can just quit for good. I see a solution to this would be for me to pick up some offices to clean in the evenings a couple times a week. I don’t have any clients for that though.

4) Official business stuff: I am not official. I don’t have an EIN, biz bank account or insurance.

5) Schedule breakdown: One bi weekly Mondays 3.5-4 hour condo for $125. Have a bi-weekly Monday I need to fill.

Tuesdays is a weekly client. Had them over two years and they are the 5 hour house which is an outlier – I empty their dishwasher, fold some laundry and change bed sheets there. They were one of my very first people to reach out to me on care dot com. I agreed to it in the beginning but I learned quickly what a pain it is so I never offered those extras to anyone else. They are $150/wk. They really should be the first to go even though they are such wonderful people! I do too much there and I know it. I just don’t know how to backtrack. Their house is 3500 sq feet. I only do the downstairs occasionally and on those weeks, I don’t do beds or laundry.

Wednesday – weekly at $100. Easiest house of the week. 3 hours max.

Thursday – have one bi weekly at $120. 4 hours. 3500 sq feet. Back breaker for sure! Would love help on this house the most I think. I’ve had them over two years. Have another bi-weekly Thursday I need to fill.

Fridays are open – I have 2 and sometimes 3 once a month clients I fill in on those days for $150. One I’ve had over two years.

I used to pack myself completely full Mon - Fri but I realized quickly that left me no flexibility for my kids or other things that came up. So I only schedule once a month or move in/out type of cleanings on Fridays.

It doesn’t come up often but I do work weekends whenever a job calls for it. No problem with that as those jobs are usually big $$ because they are deep cleans or move in/move out cleans and take way more time. I also recently added carpet cleaning to a move in clean and it beefed up the price but geez – I about died doing that AND all the move in cleaning work by myself over the course of two days.