Back in 2004, we moved to Dallas from San Francisco pursuing other business ventures that didn’t take off. Thankfully our cleaning service did.
I was 21 and Karen 18 years old when we started cleaning for a company that used chemicals and toxic cleaners. After a month we said, “We can do better than that!”
We decided to start on our own by publishing ads on Craigslist, distributing flyers, knocking on people’s doors offering free cleanings, and giving out business cards hoping someone would call.
We were desperate…but after non-stop persistence and lots of flyers and time promoting on the streets, we finally booked our very first customer! Victoria (smiling below) decided to try our service.
Thanks to her, we kept on believing and survived to then build a small set of clients that were looking for green cleaning in Dallas. Until this day she continues to use our service, our longest running customer 10 years in a row.
“The hardest part of the beginning of the business, was to take a bus from Plano, and go and clean in Dallas. Somedays the bus took so long to pick us up we ended up hitchhiking to jobs” – Karen
We made lots of clients and friends along the way like this sweet dog Binay, Victoria’s dog who wouldn’t let us make the bed.
Our focus to gain new clients was—and continues to be—to clean homes as if it were our own home. We worked diligently by providing consistent and quality service to our few subscribed clients, doing it with excellence and always trusting God will provide more of them. In that process, a renowned site called Daily Candy featured us on their Dallas section as green cleaners, and let me tell you, business was booming! We were getting quotes in our inbox every 15 minutes after the post went live.
During the 2008 recession, the worst time to be in business, we grew Gmaids like never before. We felt a growth momentum pushing from all directions that allowed us to bring in cleaning teams to help us service new clients.
At this point, we got our first official car with advertising for everyone to see. (Back in 2008 we called ourselves “Green Maids Dallas”). We later learned that we needed a unique brand name.
We read several books on branding and by using the same trick Swatch used back in the 80’s by taking the letter S from Swiss and putting next to the word watch, creating Swatch. This is how we created Gmaids by putting together (Green and Maids), plus it makes total sense considering we clean with non-toxic green products.
We have focused on serving families that trust us by carefully selecting those who care and are vested in making our customers happy.
We continue to interview potential cleaning teams who truly love home cleaning and show a clean heart and spirit!
Thank you for your continued support Dallas!
