The Alimond Show
Welcome to The Alimond Show --join us as we share our entrepreneurial guests' stories, uncover their secrets to success, and explore the unique paths they've taken to build thriving businesses in our community.
In each episode, our host, Aliyah Dastour, sits down with a diverse group of local business owners, from the corner cafe to the boutique shop, from tech startups to family-run enterprises. We peel back the curtain to reveal the trials, triumphs, and transformational moments that have shaped their entrepreneurial journey.
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The Alimond Show
Edwina Clark: Mastering the Art of Dual Entrepreneurship in Cleaning and Real Estate
Navigating life's twists and turns takes a certain finesse, a quality Edwina Clark undoubtedly possesses as she reveals to us the intricate dance of managing not just one, but two flourishing enterprises. Her odyssey began in 2010 with the inception of a commercial cleaning service, born out of the uncertainty of job security, and expanded into the realm of Maryland real estate, providing an added layer of financial resilience. Throughout our conversation, Edwina unveils the tactical choreography behind her daily schedule, weaving tasks from dawn until dusk, and shares her shrewd marketing strategies that paved the way for standout contracts and the successful growth of her ventures.
Embarking on a quest for affordable yet superior service, Edwina shares her core belief in fair pricing, refusing to exploit high demand, and her commitment to escorting real estate clients through the intricate ballet of buying a home with genuine care. Our dialogue transcends business acumen, touching upon the quintessence of life beyond the balance sheet—cherishing simple joys and the warmth of family and friends. As she muses over the potential of branching into residential cleaning, Edwina's parting wisdom resonates: In the grand performance of life, maintaining your authenticity is the most graceful step you can take.
My name is Edwina Clark and I'm a full-time real estate agent and I have a commercial cleaning business. We do commercial cleaning to businesses of all sizes. We also do turnover cleaning. We don't do any residential, we only do commercial cleaning. So we only deal with business to business offices and stuff like that. And then I'm a full-time licensed realtor in Maryland as well, so I can help you sell, buy or invest in real estate.
Speaker 2:That is awesome. Now tell me how that came to be. What's your story? How did you end up with two businesses as opposed to one?
Speaker 1:Okay, so I started my cleaning business in 2010 and I was temping and they didn't know if they were going to keep me. One person was like, oh yeah, we're going to keep you. Another person was like we don't know the budget stuff. And I just didn't like that feeling. I'm not going to lie. I had went through the whole experience of losing a job and looking for a job, and then I was like you know what? I need some more stability. And I was like, well, what can I start that? I didn't need a lot of resources or a lot of education to go back to school for, and I always knew how to clean. I've been doing that since I was a little girl. I used to clean the neighborhood old ladies in the neighborhood I would clean their house for extra money, stuff like that. So it was something I knew how to do. So I was like you know what? I'm going to start a cleaning business. So I looked into it. I went to YouTube, University, YouTube and Google and I found out what I needed and I put it out there and that's how the cleaning business came about.
Speaker 1:I originally first started out in construction cleaning. Okay, Let me tell you that it's not for the weak. I believe it. I believe it. I thought, because we were cleaning new homes, it was going to be easy, but it wasn't. It's a lot of work into construction cleaning. So I started that route and then, as I went along, I started seeing little things that I could do, because under cleaning, a lot of stuff falls under it. You could do residential, you can do office cleaning, then you can do grass cuts, you can do property management for banks, and that's what it did. It was like one thing opened the door for another and I just start doing different things and different aspects of the cleaning business open a door for another and I just start doing different things and different aspects of the cleaning business.
Speaker 1:Real estate came about in. I got my license in 2017. I just wanted another hustle because the economy was crazy At that time. I was going back to school. I was already working a job, already in a position, but in order for them to give me more money in that position, I had to have a degree. So I went back to school and in the course of that, I didn't know if I was going to finish school. I'm not going to lie I was going to get my bachelor's degree and I was like, you know, I don't know if this is what I want to do, but I know I need to make money. So I was looking at other avenues to bring in money and I was like, okay, real estate. And so I got my real estate license. So that's how they came about. It was more of a thing of needing some type of security on my end and some type of stability on my end, and that's how I became an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2:Amazing. Now can you talk to me a little bit about how you're balancing both Like? Do you have like a schedule where it's like these days is only this day and this day is only real estate, or how are you balancing?
Speaker 1:that I do have a schedule. I don't always stick to it. I have a schedule where I do both of them a day, because I feel like if I just focus one day on one thing, then I will let some things fall to the floor. And you know, if today is real estate day and something comes up with the commercial cleaning business, I still would need to focus on it. So on my schedule, how I set it up is get up at eight o'clock it's on my phone, it goes off every hour, get up, you know, dress, shower, exercise, and then it's two hours for ultimate clean, take a 15 minute break and then it's two hours for real estate and it goes like that up until five. So that's my schedule. Don't always stick to it every day, but that's the schedule.
Speaker 2:That's life. It's not always like one linear line, it's always like everywhere and as long as you're like sticking to some kind of schedule and making yourself like get up and do those things, then I think you're on the right foot there. Thank you, yeah, absolutely. And now with your job, how are you marketing yourself? Like getting your name out there as a realtor, getting your name out there as an entrepreneur, owning your own business, a cleaning company? For you said it's commercial right.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:How are you like getting the?
Speaker 1:word out. I do a lot of just going door knocking. Pretty much. I'm going to different business, handing out flyers, do a lot of cold calling.
Speaker 1:I Google businesses in the area and literally just call them, like, hey, you guys have a cleaning company. If they have one, it's like well, can you let me know when you guys will be looking for a new one so I can submit a bid? Then you have places like eMerlin Marketplace I live in Merlin so you can do business with the government and stuff like that, and even if you don't get a contract with them, you get access to other people as well, so you can advertise on there. And then, honestly, one of my best contracts came from Craigslist. Ok, this was in 2016. And I answered an ad on Craigslist for some Verizon stores. They were looking for people and I ended up not doing it at that time because they had one and it just wasn't worth the money and stuff for me. But they ended up keeping my information and called me a couple of years later and then that's how I got into retail cleaning.
Speaker 2:And then from there.
Speaker 1:I just Googled another business that was comparable to them their competition. I just Googled another business that was comparable to them their competition and started Googling everybody's competition and then going on their websites and filling out vendor forms and reaching out to them like that Wow.
Speaker 2:Craigslist. That's a throwback right there, I know I know, I know it did used to work back in the day it did.
Speaker 1:You could get a lot of stuff off of Craigslist back in the day. Now it's a little bit scary on there. But yeah, I know when, but yeah, no, when it was good it was good.
Speaker 2:And now for your commercial cleaning business. How many employees do you have, or how does that?
Speaker 1:Well, right now I only have one more employee, but I contract out. So when I have a lot of work I just do 1099 contractors. It's easier that way, as, being a small business, that way you don't have to worry about the overhead and onboarding people, offboarding people, stuff like that. If you use 1099 workers, they're responsible for their own taxes and everything you just pay them. They're essentially a smaller business of their selves, a different entity. So it's easier for me to go that way because it could be up and down Even with the construction cleaning. It was times where we were working every day 30 days straight and then the weather might come and then we're slow, you know, and I had people on payroll at that time and I was scrambling, trying to figure out how to keep them busy in between, you know. So before COVID I had employees, after COVID I just went more of the 1099.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right. And now for your businesses. When COVID was happening, how did you manage or deal with that? When it was going on, Like, did you shut down, did you?
Speaker 1:I didn't shut down. Some of my contracts did, but some of them, ironically, anything that had food in it got to stay open. So I was doing retail cleaning and, like I was doing raw stores at that time, value City Furniture. But oddly they let Value City Furniture stay open because people had back orders and stuff like that. So some of them shut down and some of them didn't.
Speaker 1:But that's when it became where I couldn't keep certain people employed and work either. So it did make me feel bad because it's like they were depending on it. And then you had a lot of large companies coming in and sweeping in and getting a lot of the business and then they wanted to contract it out but it's like was pennies on the dollar. So at that time, um, I did have to let you know people go and everything, and that's why I said I had to convert over to 1099 after that. But it was a struggle. Um, I lost some contracts and some of them I didn't. So I had enough to kind of like, stay afloat yeah, so, ok, yeah, that was a very dark time.
Speaker 2:For some people they found other career paths, but for some people it was like pretty dark time to overcome some of the challenges, like with letting people go or staying open or not, so I'm glad you found a way like your silver lining eventually, right yeah, and now, what are some challenges right now in, whether it's in the cleaning industry or the real estate industry, what are some challenges right now that you're facing and how you're overcoming them?
Speaker 1:Some of the challenges that I'm facing right now, especially in the cleaning business, is we compete with a lot of bigger companies that actually are not in the state, so they monopolize on a lot of stuff. Because there's no regulation for private sector commercial cleaning versus government sector. They have rules and regulations. They have so much that you have to give out to small businesses. They have rules that you have to obey. In the private sector they don't. So one company could be in Jersey and monopolize on a lot of the buildings out here and then they'll contract out to you and then you have to fight with them for the money and it's like but we're frontline, we're doing all the work, you know. So that's a major issue is no regulation in the private sector, and I feel like some rules need to be made because, like you said, like I said, you have companies that come in and they monopolize. I said you have companies that come in and they monopolize, you know, and this one company had all the Verizon stores and like four states and they were not in any of the states that they, you know, had the contract for, and I'm like that's crazy, you know. So I feel like something should be regulated to say, okay, these are the people in these states, these are the small businesses, so much should be allegated out to them and these are the rules and regulations.
Speaker 1:You guys can't do X, y and Z, but so for me that's the biggest challenge I'm facing and, as far as the real estate side goes, it's the interest rate. A lot of people were scared off because of the interest rate, but it's really not that high. When you look at historically, you know we've been higher before, interest rates been up to, like, I think, 16 percent one year and everything. So because COVID hit and the interest rates went down so low, some people were getting as low as 2 percent when it went up Now everybody's waiting for it to fall and it's not falling anytime soon.
Speaker 1:I don't know that it's going to get there. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, it's not. You know, some of the prices of the houses are becoming lower to try to offset the interest rate because they're staying on the market longer. Whereas it used to be, some houses could sell in a week, you know, maybe 30 days at the most. Now you have houses sitting on the market 90 days, 80 days I mean 180 days because people are a little scared to buy because of the interest rate right now. So that's the biggest thing I'm facing in the real estate.
Speaker 2:Okay, and now? Where do you see yourself in five years? It could be in regards to just your own growth or in your businesses. Where do you see yourself?
Speaker 1:In five years I would love to have expanded my business. I would love to become a corporation Edwina Clark's corporation and have my brands under me. I definitely will still be an entrepreneur. It's just in me and who I am. Every time I think about getting a job, I'm like, no, I can't do it. Hey, that's an entrepreneur there.
Speaker 1:I definitely see myself still being an entrepreneur, but I see myself growing my business on another level and being able to give jobs. I want to be able to give jobs to the community, especially people who already maybe had not the best walk in life or maybe ran into something in the law in their younger years Could have been something minor that's holding them back now. You know it's so hard out here to find a job and just live in the society if you made any type of mistake. So I definitely want to be a corporation. I definitely want to be able to employ people at least 50 people or more and I definitely want to give second chances to people that you know who might have made a couple of mistakes in life, you know, and just need someone to give them that chance to get back out here in life.
Speaker 2:I love that. Why is that so important to you?
Speaker 1:Because life is hard. You know, and I just know life is hard and people make mistakes. And I just know on my path of trying to find a job, you know when I didn't have the degree and I didn't have how people look down and it was like but we still have to eat, still got to put a roof over your head. And then I know a lot of people that made mistakes when they were younger. And then you see them out here and they grew up and now they're trying and nobody wants to give them a chance.
Speaker 2:So it's like I want to be that person to say you know what?
Speaker 1:I'm going to give you this chance. Come on, I know you still need this. Let's get back on track.
Speaker 2:I love that. So because. I feel, like a lot of people do forget about that and I know sometimes some mistakes are a little bit, you know hard, but they still, at the end of the day, they have families that they need to feed and care for. So, I'm glad that you're able to give them that second chance and give them an opportunity to better themselves. Thank you, that's amazing. What do you hope that you can provide for your clients when they do business with you, whether it's in the real estate or a commercial?
Speaker 1:So I want them to feel like they got the best service possible at an affordable price. That's my model for my cleaning business. We want to be affordable, but we also want to have excellent service. We want to be known for okay. They came and they showed out, they did above and beyond, but I could afford them at a reasonable price. So I want to be known for providing a substitute service, but, like I said, at an affordable price, because some people price gouge on things and if they know it's a need for it, they skyrocket it and some things are ridiculous. As far as real estate, I want to be known as someone who is compassionate and really helped them.
Speaker 1:I didn't practice for a couple of years when I had first got my license, because I couldn't pick the time and it's to really learn it, you know, and now that I have, it's like these are big investments for people. Some people buy a house and that might be the only house they ever buy and that might be the biggest investment they ever make in their life. They didn't send a child to college. They didn't get this. They didn't do that. Sent a child to college, they didn't do that, but they were able to purchase this house and I want them to say, when they came to me, that they felt like they understood the process. I talked to them, like you know, they really understood, like I didn't just do this. And then they have regrets later because you have people who buy houses later and they're like oh, I didn't know this, where I didn't know this option, my realtor didn't tell me this. I want them to feel like they were truly educated and they made the best decision off of knowing all the information that they were supposed to know.
Speaker 2:Yes, I agree with that. I think that's a great quality to have, especially for a realtor, because sometimes you're just like wait, they didn't tell me this. What the heck Like I'm not going to go with them again. And that's how you retain your clients, you know, just by being honest and trustworthy with them. And now, who are you outside of an entrepreneur? What do you like to do?
Speaker 1:I like to party with my friends oh okay. I mean I do like, um, I love that. My son is grown, it's my time now, so this is one of my friends. We go to brunch, we eat, we go out. I mean that's the thing I like live music and I just like being outdoors. Um, as long as it's a good vibe, I'm cool. I don't want to be around a whole bunch of drama and nothing like that.
Speaker 1:I just want to be in a nice atmosphere with nice people that I like and they like me, and you know we can just hang outside. Really, you know I just I'm at a point in life I just enjoy life. You know I watch too many people pass and I know tomorrow's not promised. So the little things is okay with me, you know, like sunshine, blue skies, just be able to say, hey, I'm here, I'm outside, hey, come on, let's go get something to eat, just little things like that. And I'm real family oriented. I have a lot of sisters and brothers and nieces and nephews, so I do spend a lot of time with them.
Speaker 1:So outside of the entrepreneur, I will be called a friend, a mom, a grandmother, even though I'm not a grandmother. I was going to say, wait a minute, you don't look grandma-like, not a grandmother. But some of my nieces call me grandma, okay, some of them call me auntie. One of them calls me their fairy godmother. Oh my gosh. She asks me if everything and I give it to her. So outside of the business person, I'm just like a family and friends person. You know, I'm just enjoying life no, I love that.
Speaker 2:And now my final question here is going to be and actually before I wrap that up, is there anything that I maybe didn't touch on, that you would like anybody to know, whether you have upcoming events or opening anything up, maybe like a workshop or anything with your?
Speaker 1:business. No workshops coming up. I am in a process of rebranding the commercial cleaning business. Um, I it's heavy on my soul if I want to go to residential. I do get a lot of residential calls and a lot of people ask for it, so I'm thinking about cornering that market because it is out there. Um, so that might be in the makings, but that will be the only up and coming thing.
Speaker 2:Okay, and now my final question for real this time is if you could leave our listeners with any message that's in your heart, it could be about anything. What would that message be?
Speaker 1:My message would be stay true to you In life. You will have to make some type of compromises. That's inevitable. Change is inevitable. But try to stay true to you and who you are. Don't let the world change you. You know you'll go through things and stuff like that, but if you stay true to who you are and your core values, you'll be okay I love that. What a great message thank you so much for sharing that with us thank you.