Test the water for custom housekeeping: 5 people complete a deep cleaning business in 16 hours,
college students start a business "not to fight for a job with cleaning auntie"
□ Changjiang Daily reporter Shi Qiang
"I didn't expect that housekeeping and cleaning can still be done in this way." Recently, Ms. Zhang, the customer, was surprised to see Wu Jiang lead someone to clean the dead corners of the radiator.
What surprised Miss Zhang was that, including the boss Wu Jiang, 3 of the 5 people who served her family were college students (including graduates).
From the morning to the early morning of the next day, 27-year-old Wu Jiang, the founder of Wuhan Bear Butler Service Co., Ltd., took Wu Pengfei and other 4 employees, and spent a full 16 hours to finally complete the deep cleaning and storage.
■ The third startup of a college graduate
The establishment of Wuhan Big Bear Butler Service Co., Ltd. is the third venture of Wu Jiang and his university classmate Feng Yongjie.
Wujiang is from Henan.
During college, he and Feng Yongjie actively participated in the school's entrepreneurial activities.
When graduating from university four years ago, Wu Jiang and Feng Yongjie continued to work together and founded a media company in Zhengzhou.
Their first venture failed due to poor management.
In August last year, the two saw the live broadcast outlet and opened a live broadcast company in Wuhan with more than 60 employees at most.
Later, because of the broken capital chain, their second venture failed again.
After the emergence of the new profession of "family hygiene manager", Wu Jiang and Feng Yongjie realized that a new entrepreneurial opportunity was coming, so they chose to start a business for the third time.
In April this year, Wuhan Big Bear Butler Service Co., Ltd. officially started operation.
"My family has always disagreed with me in starting a business. If I still fail this time, I can only go home to work, get married, and repeat other people's lives." Wu Jiang said.
The start of the third venture was not smooth, and there was no order for half a month.
Wujiang adjusted the online publicity strategy and asked friends to introduce it widely.
On April 20, a customer in Wuchang contacted them, and they made the first order, which solved the company's urgent needs.
Wujiang will lead the team every time they come to the door. Everyone wears uniform custom-made work clothes with the company logo printed on the work clothes.
Wujiang sometimes carries large tools such as vacuum cleaners by himself.
There are sometimes disagreements between companies and clients over cleaning areas.
"It's mainly the edges and corners of the balcony," Wu Jiang said. "Some customers think that these places can be 'smoothly done', but they don't consider that this is actually the range of charges."
"Sometimes it takes more than two hours to go to a customer's house by car, so we can only choose to communicate online." Wu Jiang said that online communication is often prone to such problems.
In the end, in most cases, Wujiang made concessions.
"Our company is not strong, and there is no way to survive."
For Wujiang's entrepreneurial decision, his parents have not been very supportive.
Wu Jiang came from an ordinary family. His parents hoped that he could find a stable job after finishing university successfully, and then marry a wife and have children.
However, this is not what Wujiang yearns for.
Sun Jiao, who now works in a TV station, is a college classmate in Wujiang.
In her eyes, Wu Jiang was very good at school and was very hopeful to work in TV stations.
"Under the circumstance that life and ideals cannot have both, Wu Jiang chooses to work hard for his ideals. His courage and fighting spirit are admirable."
"It is true that entrepreneurship has to face many pressures and difficulties, but for young people, it is always a pity to have no entrepreneurial experience." For the future development of the company, Wujiang has planned many new projects.
He revealed that the company currently has about 25 orders per month, and its operating income can maintain normal operation.
■ A fresh graduate's fourth job
Wujiang's company currently has 8 people, and Wu Pengfei, who is about to graduate from college at the end of June this year, is one of them.
"Does what most people chase must be good?" 23-year-old Wu Pengfei seemed very calm when chatting with reporters from Changjiang Daily about work.
Wu Pengfei, a native of Shanxi, majored in Communication Studies at the School of Humanities and Arts of Wuhan University of Arts and Sciences.
At the end of December last year, he started looking for a job.
In less than half a year, he tried 4 different jobs.
It was not until he applied to the company in Wujiang that he felt that he had found a career direction.
Wu Pengfei's first job was as a photography assistant in a photography studio.
Because he felt "depressed", he chose to leave after only 27 days.
In February this year, Wu Pengfei successfully joined a psychological consulting company.
Because he had never been in a relationship and lacked social life experience, it was difficult for him to resonate with customers. He only worked in this company for 23 days.
In March of this year, Wu Pengfei applied for a front-end job at a dating website.
He makes more than 180 calls every day, and the number of successful invitations in a month is only four or five, far lower than other colleagues.
In the end, he chose to resign.
"Job-seeking is a process of self-knowledge." Wu Pengfei said that through several failed work experiences, he recognized the shortcomings of recent graduates - less experience, less resources, and no work experience.
When it comes to the fourth job at the moment, Wu Pengfei thinks "it's right".
Colleague Cai Bin commented on Wu Pengfei: "I love this job very much, and it doesn't look like a fresh graduate at all."
Wu Pengfei has more than 50 university classmates.
According to previous years, everyone will be engaged in professional-related work.
He is the only one who has decided to pursue a career in the housekeeping industry, and he has not yet informed his family of his choice.
Previously, a colleague found that Wu Pengfei was very careful in cleaning up the house, and suggested that he take a certification as a receptionist and work in this field in the future.
Wu Pengfei signed up and attended a training class.
On April 6, he got the qualification certificate of the receptionist.
When he applied for a job in a company in Wujiang, he went for the position of a collection division.
With the gradual deepening of his understanding of the housekeeping industry, Wu Pengfei is also more and more optimistic about the profession of home hygiene manager.
His small goal is to start a business like Wu Jiang one day.
■ A single 16-hour deep cleaning
On May 20, this order from customer Miss Zhang set two "records": this is the first time that Wujiang's company has provided storage services for customers; 16 hours set a new record for the longest time for Wujiang's company to complete an order since its establishment.
Miss Zhang's house has three rooms and two halls, with an area of about 130 square meters.
That day, Wu Pengfei, who had not been in the business for a long time, was responsible for deep cleaning of a bedroom, while Wu Jiang left the most "troublesome" bathroom to himself.
According to the procedure, Wu Pengfei first wiped the dust off the furniture with a duster, then wiped it inch by inch with a wet towel, and finally wiped it with a dry towel with a fish scale pattern.
He peeled off the labels on the furniture one by one, and then used a professional potion to remove the residual glue, and then gently touched it with his fingers, and it was wiped clean when he felt that there was no stagnation.
Standing in the small bathroom, Wu Jiang used a shovel in his left hand to scrape off the stains on the wall, and a wet towel in his right hand.
When cleaning the ground, he could only squat for hours.
In addition to regular housekeeping cleaning, storing items in the room is also very time-consuming.
Wu Pengfei said: "This family has more than two things—a lot of cabinets and a lot of clothes. There are a lot of clothes on the beds in the three bedrooms. Teacher, Wu Pengfei instructs colleagues to organize clothes, and optimizes the way customers' clothes are placed.
Busy until 7 o'clock in the evening, he felt leg pain, but still insisted on working.
In the early hours of May 21st, all the work was completed.
Wu Jiang started the inspection with white gloves and a flashlight.
After the inspection is correct, he will notify the customer to come to the inspection.
Wu Jiang stretched out his finger and wiped it lightly on the edge slot above the threshold, the bottom of the cabinet and other dead corners, and the white gloves were not dusty at all.
Walls, light strip slots, skirting boards, door frames, etc. are the key parts of his inspection.
If defects are found, he will arrange for rework immediately.
Seeing the surprised look in the customer's acceptance is the most "proud" moment of the day for Wu Jiang and others.
It was not until the customer signed the name on the acceptance form that the stone in everyone's heart fell to the ground.
"In order to thank me, the client even gave me a can of milk tea." Wu Pengfei shook the unopened can of drink with a faint smile.
Although he didn't even have the strength to stand, the client's recognition of his "first show" made him very happy: "Isn't the so-called happy work just tired and happy?"
■ An industry that is difficult to understand without personal experience
The reporter saw on an acceptance list provided by Wujiang that the company divides the service area into 12 locations, and each location has more than 20 inspection items.
Taking the master bedroom as an example, there are 8 inspection items, including windows, top, wall, floor, electrical appliances, beds, cabinets, and doors. Each inspection item is subdivided into multiple sub-items.
"Private customized high-end housekeeping services" emerged in Jiangsu and Zhejiang last year.
Different from traditional housekeeping cleaning, its practitioners are generally "post-90s" and below, providing customers with "360-degree service without dead ends", and it usually takes more than 8 hours to complete a single order.
Wu Jiang said: "We are engaged in household hygiene management, and do not compete with the cleaning aunt. Our target group is 20% of the high-end group."
If you don't experience it yourself, it's often difficult to appreciate the hard work of this job.
Li Qiang, 23, worked in sales after graduating from college last year.
Restless, he wanted to make a transition, so he entered a home hygiene management company.
However, after finishing a deal with a colleague for the first time, he chose to give up.
"I didn't expect it to be so hard. It's very different from what I thought at first." He decided to attend a training class and switch careers to work on the Internet.
Xiong Haiyang, secretary of the Party branch of the School of Humanities and Arts of Wuhan University of Arts and Sciences, expressed his support for Wu Pengfei's choice.
He said: "Family hygiene management is a new type of industry. As a highly educated person, Wu Pengfei's humanistic quality and learning ability are higher than ordinary housekeeping practitioners. As more college students join the industry, it will definitely promote the standardization of this industry. , professionalization.”
Ke Shengying, 65, has been engaged in housekeeping for 18 years.
In 2018, she founded Wuhan Baijia Ruite Housekeeping Service Co., Ltd. There are more than 120 cleaning aunts, most of them are around 45 years old.
Ke Shengying introduced that traditional housekeeping also has service content similar to that of a family hygiene manager, which is called "fine work" in the industry.
She believes that compared with high-end domestic service workers, although the cleaning aunts are generally older, it also means that they are more experienced.
According to Xiang Dan, president of the Wuhan Family Service Industry Association, there are not many family hygiene managers in the local area.
"This industry has a low threshold for entrepreneurship, which will attract college graduates to work or start businesses. From the perspective of the job market, the government is encouraging."
Xiang Dan also believes that this industry has its own particularities and there are some uncertainties: First, the state has mandatory requirements for the basic salary of employees, and second, the market price fluctuates.
Previously, some companies that provided home cleaning services were difficult to maintain.
Xiang Dan suggested that young people who start businesses in a corporate model should be careful to avoid lightning.