Look up “moxie” in the dictionary and it’ll say energy, confidence, and determination. Founder Amanda Thomas is using “moxie” in her company Moxie Girl to turn her housecleaning and errand running business into a household name.
Moxie Girl started in 2007, not as a cleaning company, but more as an errand running and organizing business. As the economy changed, so did the way people used services in their home. Moxie Girl morphed into a housekeeping company over the years, but kept the additional services available for families who wanted more full-service help in their home. Most of their clients use them for housekeeping and laundry service, but the errand running is on the rise.
Moxie Girl primarily works with busy professionals and their families, and loves being able to give them time to spend with their kids/spouse/friends, rather than doing household chores. Thomas recently took some time to answer a few questions about Moxie Girl and the growth she’s experienced in an ever-demanding industry.
You have a variety of services. How have you transitioned from “old school” to “online” services?
Moxie Girl could still be considered very old school. We have a website and do attract many of our clients through Yelp and other online listings, but from the moment a client calls us we focus on person-to-person interactions. We schedule an in-home consultation to learn about what the client wants, create custom checklists for their homes and leave them handwritten notes after service. What we find is that with all the technology that exists, many people still crave personal relationships with the people who work in their homes.
That being said, behind the scenes we are almost completely online with our team members. Everyone is virtually-based, so other than monthly staff meetings, we do everything online. We use Infusionsoft to manage our contacts, including client leads as well as applicants and schedules are kept online using AppointmentsPlus, another AZ company. We try to be high-tech behind the scenes, but high touch when dealing with our clients.
Tell me about your growth.
The first four years we saw tremendous growth – up to 60 percent each year. Knowing this type of growth was possible, we wanted to make sure we did it in a sustainable way, so we took year five to work on our processes and procedures. We worked with a few mentors to document and implement our hiring, training, marketing, sales, and service processes. Since implementation of our new processes we have seen a 53 percent increase in monthly revenue from the beginning of 2013.
What is your business philosophy?
Set higher than normal expectations, and exceed them. There’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to trust, communicate with, and even LIKE the person who helps you in your home. I only hire people who I would bring into my own home, so I never have to worry about how our customers perceive the Moxie Girl team members who come into their homes.
Thomas says “We truly love what we do, and appreciate all the clients that have allowed us to learn and grow with them over the years. We will never promise to be perfect, but we will always try and make things right.” That takes a lot of moxie.
Learn more about Moxie Girl here.
