Sometimes, successful businesses are born out of necessity. Leah Wynne lives in the Wairarapa, where she says job opportunities have been scarce for some time. Years ago, she would have to make a lengthy commute to Lower Hutt every day for work, which she said was fine ... until she had a baby.
Short on time? Skip ahead:
- Disorganisation leads to missed opportunities
- Digital system ties up loose paperwork
- Seamless invoicing frees up precious time
- Kits keep quoting simple & accurate
- Tradify Helps Wairarapa Dream Clean sparkle
“I just wasn’t prepared to do that commute every day with a baby,” she explains.
Determined to do away with the commute, Leah decided to give up her job and start cleaning local houses so she could work closer to home, have control over her schedule, and care for her baby.
Today, Leah’s cleaning business, Wairarapa Dream Clean, is thriving. With nine staff servicing commercial and residential properties throughout the region, what Leah originally saw as a means-to-an-end job has now become a successful business in its own right.
“I never thought, ‘Hey, I’m going to start a business.’ It just kind of happened, and then it grew and grew and grew.”
When Leah was Wairarapa Dream Clean’s only staff member, she was able to manage her jobs without too much hassle. But as the business began to grow, she quickly realised that she would need a good system in place to help run things more efficiently.
“Everything was on paper and after a while, I thought, ‘There must be a better way.’”
1. Disorganisation leads to missed opportunities
In the early days of Wairarapa Dream Clean, Leah relied completely on pen and paper to manage her business, sometimes even keeping track of her to-do list in her head. That worked fine until the business ramped up and she started to bring more staff on board.
“I had a hundred different tabs open in my mind, all the time!”
She often found it hard to keep track of where she was at with each job.
“It’s easy to lose a bit of paper and then it’s like, ‘Well now what do I do?’” she adds.
When Leah began to employ staff, that’s when scheduling jobs became a nightmare. She tried to write down all upcoming job information and send it to her team, but she sometimes struggled to remember everything.
“I missed jobs — just completely forgot about them.”
2. Digital system ties up loose paperwork
Realising that a change was needed, Leah turned to Google and tried a few job management systems. She says some of them worked just fine, but none of them quite hit the mark until she discovered Tradify. She could see it would help her “tie up loose ends” and reduce her admin workload.
She says Tradify is an “all-in-one” solution that seamlessly juggles the numerous admin tasks that a trade business demands.
“I used to lose bits of paper all the time. Now we don’t even need paper because we can do it all online.”
A digital business management system like Tradify gives Leah and her team access to real-time job tracking and information. Each staff member is assigned a different colour in her Scheduler, which means she can keep tabs on job progress and workloads, and there’s never any fear of missing a job.
“The different colours on the Scheduler mean I can clearly see who has extra time — and I can quickly add another job in for them.”
3. Seamless invoicing frees up precious time
Being both a business owner and a mother, the last thing Leah has time for is admin. Using Tradify means that she can tackle her business admin without wasting any unnecessary time or energy. For example, tasks that used to take a lot of time, like invoicing, now take no time at all. Once her staff have completed jobs and clocked off, they can update the job status in the Tradify app to ‘ready to be invoiced’. That’s Leah’s cue to jump on Tradify and sort payment, which saves her juggling information across multiple systems.
“Now, I don’t get confused with everything. It all happens seamlessly.”
4. Kits keep quoting simple and accurate
For Leah, one of the best parts of Tradify is the Kits feature. Previously, with no structured quoting info, she was creating every single quote from scratch. This meant, with nothing to go by, she’d often under-quote a job and miss out on hard-earned profit.
With Tradify’s Kits feature, Leah can drop specific services straight into a quote. It saves her having to manually enter a list of her labour and material costs, plus it keeps her pricing consistent and accurate.
“It’s so easy — clients can select exactly what they want to be done. It’s all set up and ready, which saves me guessing how long a job will take. People like having an all-inclusive cost with no hidden extras. Otherwise, it can get messy.”
Speaking about how much Tradify has helped Wairarapa Dream Clean grow, Leah says she would definitely recommend it to others in the industry.
“Everything’s right there in front of you. Tradify is awesome – it’s just so seamless.”
5. Tradify helps Wairarapa Dream Clean sparkle!
- Digital system: no lost paperwork, no missed jobs.
- Quick kits: quick and easy quotes with consistent pricing.
- Seamless invoicing: reduces admin workload.
- Scheduler: colours for each staff member increases productivity.
- All-in-one system: job info accessible in real-time in one system.
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