Two years ago, Avril Jacobs returned home from Barbados. She had lived first in Trinidad and Tobago then in Barbados for more than 20 years. Some those years had been difficult given that intra-regional relations are not always attended by a spirit of hospitality.
Jacobs had worked as a cleaner in the hospitality sector in both Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados but over time the challenges of living in another country had left her tired. She decided it was time to renew her relationship with Guyana.
However, with limited savings and no job prospects, remigration posed its own challenges. There was, too, the small matter of how she would pay the mortgage on the home she had built in Guyana while she lived abroad.
The idea of self-employment was put to her by her daughter Bonica. Given her experience in Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados where she had cleaned hotels, guest houses and residences, a cleaning service was the obvious choice.
Thus was born Sam Cleaners, a modest enterprise, the headquarters of which is situated at 63 D4 Turkeyen, East Coast Demerara. Sam is the surname of her children and the naming of the company is linked to her expectation that they will succeed her as the owners.
Her savings and loans she had secured from her children amounted to $500,000 and this sum was used to acquire some of the tools of the trade: a power washer, vacuum cleaner, carpet cleaner, steamer and assorted cleaning agents. Sam Cleaners offers a full range of janitorial services including general house cleaning and carpet cleaning.
Marketing support from her daughter has seen the company being exposed on Facebook. There had been enquiries about the service from the first day that it opened its doors for business and by the end of the first week it had broken into a brisk trot.
The initial surge of cleaning jobs left the new CEO tired. She had learnt from her experiences in the demanding hospitality sector in Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados that oversight is a critical part of service delivery in the sector. During that first week of business she had visited every site in order to ensure that customers were satisfied with the service that had been delivered. There were instances, she said, in which she had to ‘double down’ with her employees in order to get the job done properly, hoping to build trust with her clients to ensure that they spread the word and that they continue to use the service.
Her priority is to build trust and expand her clientele by allowing the quality of the service that she provides to speak for itself. She said she believes that her charges are affordable; charges depend on the size of the area to be cleaned and the range of services required.
Jacobs is always on the lookout for staff: honest, conscientious and thorough people, not the lick-and-a-promise type. In a sector where the competition can be stiff, a less than industrious employee can cost a cleaning company a lucrative contract. Good help, however, is hard to find in a sector where the job is far from a career choice.
Her decision to target the residential market was strategic. Cleaning sizeable complexes and state premises requires experienced operators and major investment in equipment. There are also administrative and logistical considerations that are beyond the reach of small companies. Jacobs had arrived at that decision after undertaking limited market research arising out of which was the discovery that there was a considerable market among working adults for residential cleaning services. Sam Cleaners’ CEO told Stabroek Business that since its launch the enterprise has been doing well enough. During the year-end seasonal demand for cleaning services, she said, she was required to press her daughter into service as a helper. Not surprisingly, the same volume of service has not been required since the start of 2017. Compared with the year-end work rate of eight clients per week the company now provides services for two clients weekly. Jacobs considers this a short-term hiccup. She said she is in the cleaning business “for the long haul.”
The company has begun to accelerate its marketing drive, distributing fliers in residential areas and focusing on social media exposure. As marketing has been stepped up the company has had cleaning service requests from Berbice and Linden. Jacobs concedes, however, that her outfit is not equipped to service those requests at this time. Linden and Berbice, however, are part of her target market over the next five years. Those plans, she says, are not mere ‘pipe dreams’ but rather, are backed by strategic thinking that has to be refined and tested until she is certain of the direction in which she is headed.
