With a house cleaning company, you expect to deal with things like vacuum cleaners, baseboards, and the occasional mystery stain that seems to have bonded with the carpet at a molecular level. What you don’t expect is for a bounced check to turn into one of those moments that reminds you why you built the company in the first place.
But that’s exactly what happened this week.
A Bounced Check… and a Concerned Team
One of our longtime Dallas Maids customers, Judy, had a check that the bank wouldn’t accept. Normally that’s not a big deal. A quick call, maybe a text, and everything gets sorted out. Except this time we couldn’t reach her.
Calls.
Texts.
Nothing.
Now Judy has been with Dallas Maids for something like a decade and a half, which in the cleaning industry is basically a lifetime membership. She’s been with us through different website iterations, different cleaning teams, the covid -19 pandemic, and probably several generations of vacuum cleaners. So our Operations Manager, Angela, did something that made me incredibly proud.
She didn’t just keep calling.
She went to check on Judy in person.
The Visit
Angela knocked on the door, probably preparing for anything from “Oh sorry, my phone died” to “Why are you on my porch?” Instead she was greeted by Judy, who was full of energy and doing just fine. And she was genuinely touched. Not because of the check. Not because of the cleaning. But because someone from Dallas Maids cared enough to actually come check on her.
That’s the kind of thing you can’t train in a manual. It just means the right people are on your team.
Angela definitely earned a few brownie points that day.
The Plot Twist
Then came the part that completely caught me off guard. Judy told Angela she knew her name, and she also mentioned something else that left me stunned.
Apparently…
She’s a huge fan of my blog posts.
Now I have to confess something here. When I write blog posts for the Dallas Maids website, I usually assume there are about three people reading them:
- Google’s search algorithm
- My future self
- Maybe my mom if she accidentally clicks the link
So hearing that a real, live human being actually reads them was a bit of a shock.
Why I Even Write These Things
The truth is the Dallas Maids blog serves a few different purposes. Some posts are practical cleaning advice. Those help homeowners and also help our website rank on Google. Search engines like fresh, useful content, and after running Dallas Maids for more than two decades, ranking websites is something I’ve gotten pretty good at. I even wrote about that here:
The funny thing about SEO is that once you understand the basics, it’s surprisingly simple. Many companies spend thousands of dollars hiring agencies to rank their website. Meanwhile I’ve mostly just written articles, procured a few backlinks, and done it myself. And that has turned into a huge advantage for Dallas Maids, because the money we would have spent on advertising can instead go somewhere far more important…
Our home cleaning professionals.
I’m proud to say our team members are paid well above a living wage, which gives us a huge competitive advantage by attracting and keeping amazing people who end up staying with our cusotmers for years. Take Delfina, who I mention in article, Celebrating Dignity This Christmas. She is coming up to nearly two decades of making our customers happy!
The Other Reason I Write
Not all blog posts are about house cleaning or SEO. Some are personal. In many ways the blog has become a bit of a diary for me. It’s a place to capture experiences and lessons that I want to remember later.
Actually, writing this reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while. When I first moved to Dallas after graduating from Baylor University and starting my first “real” job at IBM, I had an acquaintance named Norah Jones. Yes… that Norah Jones. She won ten Grammy Awards and Billboard later named her the top jazz artist of the 2000s decade. Even back then she was an extraordinary young woman. Not long after, she left Dallas for New York to pursue music, and of course the rest is history.
One of the last things she ever said to me was, “Greg, you’re looking goood tonight.”
I’ve been riding that compliment for the past 27 years. But seriously, I’m so happy to see Norah go on to such incredible heights as a musician. And in case she ever reads this and thinks, “Greg who?”… this is what I looked like back in 1999 (right). Feel free to reach out, it would be nice to catch up sometime.
(Mental note to myself: I still need to write that story someday.)
Some times, I write about moments that were simply too good not to share. For example, I once wrote about the secret to happiness prompted after a small gesture of gratitude while grabbing my morning coffee:
The Secret to Happiness (Courtesy of Timmys and Janet)
And sometimes I write things that I hope my daughters might read someday, like this post about turning academic failure into success:
From Failing Freshman to Graduating with Honors
Those posts are mostly for me… but if someone else finds them helpful along the way, that’s even better.
Sharing the Story of Dallas Maids
Sometimes the blog is also where I share pieces of the Dallas Maids story itself. One of my favorite posts talks about someone who played a role in our early days, an Olympic athlete who helped inspire and support our beginnings:
From Olympic Athlete to Dallas Maids: Honoring Esther Kim
Stories like that remind me that building a company is never a solo journey. Along the way there are mentors, friends, and supporters who help shape the path.
Building a Company the Right Way
Other posts document the practical decisions behind running the company. For example, we eventually decided to purchase our office building. It wasn’t about having some fancy headquarters (though it is pretty posch). In fact, it was the opposite. Owning the building simply made financial sense.
Now that it’s paid off, it reduces overhead so we can put more resources back into what matters most: better service for our customers and better pay for our staff. I even wrote about the recent makeover of the office here:
Curb Appeal Activated: Our Office Gets a Much-Needed Makeover
Running a business often comes down to simple decisions like that, cut unnecessary costs so you can add more value where it actually matters.
The Real Secret to Our Growth
Ironically, one of the biggest drivers of Dallas Maids growth hasn’t only been SEO or blog posts. It’s something much simpler.
Customer referrals.
Happy customers tell their friends. Their friends call us. Those new customers become happy customers and tell more friends. It’s the most powerful marketing in the world and it costs exactly zero dollars.
Why Judy’s Comment Meant So Much
What Judy said also reminded me of something important. Some of the blog posts I write are simply to say thank you to the people who trust us with their homes.
Like this one:
I’m Grateful for So Many Things… Especially You
Because customers like Judy are the reason Dallas Maids has been around for so long. Twenty two years now, but whose counting.
The Takeaway
So what started as a bounced check turned into:
- proof that we have an incredible team
- confirmation that someone actually reads my blog
- and a reminder of why we do what we do
Angela, thank you for caring enough to check on Judy.
And Judy, if you’re reading this…
You’ve officially confirmed that at least one person reads the Dallas Maids blog.
I’m still slightly blown away. 🤯