A small business with a cleaning purpose in Melbourne.
After decades working in domestic, commercial and forensic cleaning businesses Beverley lost her sense of taste and smell due to the damaging chemicals contained in many of the products she used.
People kept telling me I really should sell the stuff so I worked on it, changing it until it was spot on. Then I started selling it. It’s a great product and more and more people are buying it.
Beverley’s business journey
I was working as a house cleaner and I still work as a house cleaner once a week.
I was using the cleaning product when I was cleaning houses and I was giving it away when people asked about it.
My business started as a natural cleaning product selling at the market but people aren’t very interested in cleaning products. I started making and giving away baby bath lotions with eucalyptus and tea tree oil which people loved. So I started making bigger bath lotions with calundra and lavender oils. It has now expanded into multiple products such as de-greaser, dog shampoo, exczema and psoriasis body wash and hand sanitisers. I have a pack where you can buy everything for your house under $200. It’s been operating for four years and it’s doing quite well. I have a hand sanitiser that is non-drying and we’ve sold out. Due to COVID-19 we did well with the hand sanitiser but unfortunately I’ve run out of IPA (Isopropyl alcohol) which is now too expensive to buy.
My son works with me. He’s on the pension. I wanted something that he can take over when I pass away. He knows what to do and how to do it.
Meeting Many Rivers
I met Gina at Money for Jam (women’s business support group) two years ago. Gina (Many Rivers’ business coach in Melbourne, VIC ) did more than anyone I’ve been in contact with. She’s been a sounding board for things. She helped with cash flows, business plans and also gave me a Recordkeeping Kit. I’m not good at book work. Now I have a good accountant.
She did help me with a lot of other things but when meeting face to face, you can see her reactions to things. So you come back home and rethink the issues. She was a great mentor. And I did trust her.
Biggest challenge
Getting people to try my products. Natural products have a bad reputation for not working but my products work well!
Biggest success
Hand sanitisers! I didn’t make too much money as I absorbed any price increases while keeping my price the same.
Future goals
I would like to be successful. I want to reap the rewards of hard work. I would love to sell the recipes and get a percentage of the sales. Who wouldn’t want that? I don’t mind going to the markets to sell. I know most people and it’s fun. It’s hard work but I like seeing my products there. I now have 125 followers on Facebook which is amazing given that it’s a cleaning product. It wasn’t through boosting, just genuine buyers. I would like to not do house cleaning anymore and just focus on the business.
Thanks Beverley for sharing your story. We want to encourage more and more people to take that first step towards building on their business ideas.
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