Oluwatodimu Ige, CEO of Toddy Domestic Services is a lawyer by training. He is also into property management. In this interview with Isaac Ngumah, he speaks about the company’s cleaning business and prospects
What is the business focus of Toddy Domestic Services?
It is a cleaning company. We have different categories of staff for different cleaning necessities. We also provide domestic staff like drivers and nannies. For instance, we have part time and full time nannies depending on clients’ choice. Most people prefer the elderly ones to deal with their babies while others prefer someone younger. The elderly ones are usually grandmothers, middle aged women from 40 years and above. If it is part time, they work from 6am to 7pm. In some cases, it is from 7am to 2pm when the parents would have rounded off their activities for the day. Our nannies could children who have closed from school till 6pm when the parent comes back. We also do fumigation. We render post construction cleaning services as well. In the post construction cleaning, when a property is constructed, there are always lots of dirt. Clients employ our services to clean it up. It also applies to industrial aspect. There are some factories that need specialized cleaning because of the grease and diesel. We are available for such service. We also clean vessels especially the ones that carry diesel and other chemicals.
In our residential cleaning, some clients want it daily or twice in a week. Same applies to corporate and non corporate offices. Our services are all professionally tailored.
In specific term, what are your lines of service?
We are into fumigation, tank cleaning, pre and post event cleaning, move in and out clean up, general environment cleaning, compound and drainage cleaning, driver hiring, office cleaning, car wash, post construction cleaning, nanny and baby sitting etc.
What are your standards for nanny recruitment in view of security?
For the nanny hire, we have a data base for applicants. Every home has its own requirements. Some would say we don’t want people from this tribe. Others would say we want somebody of this age. So, when we have such request, we go into our database to find appropriate match. Every nanny undergoes different security checks to ensure our standards are met.
What inspired you into this business?
Toddy Domestic Services will be five years old in January. It started when some years back I just woke up in the morning and discovered that the entire street I was living was littered with dirt. The arrangement was that one woman was cleaning the whole street and every household paid individually to the woman. She fell sick and couldn’t work for days. Some were praying for her to get well and nobody was ready to clean the street. I felt there should be a way round this. I told myself why I don’t come up with some people that can clean, train them and get them to be doing the job. That was how we printed flyers and began to approach each house of our ability to offer cleaning services for affordable fee. We assured them of consistency. That was how we started.
What management strategy ensures the success you have recorded in the business?
Basically you cannot eliminate God’s factors. One has to be close to God because there is always a higher being and I believe strongly that where we are is basically because of God’s favour. Secondly I don’t joke with integrity. If we give our word no matter the circumstances, there will be no going back on it. Integrity is central to our overall operations. Then, there is this aspect of hard work. Hard work is very important. This also includes professionalism and efficiency. There are some doors you need to knock 50 or 100 times before it gets opened. Therefore, we are always consistent on our pursuits and goals. We also try to be creative in the execution of briefs through researches and innovation. So, we are always thinking outside the box and I think that these are some of the factors for success.
What are your challenges?
Well, our challenges basically are staffing. We spend so much time and resources training our staff for the purpose of efficiency in service delivery. But more often than not, we lose those staff because of quest for higher pay and other incentives. When that happens, we are at a loss. Cost of equipment is also very high. We have mopping machine that costs as much as N500,000.
Beside, some clients and staff collaborate to outsmart us in business and we are worried about it. For instance, we could send a staff to a household for cleaning job. After some time, the client would, without any reasonable reason, cut the contract. What we discovered is that they negotiate with the staff for less pay to be doing the job. These are all challenges.
What is your business niche?
Our niche reflects on our time consciousness. We are always conscious of time. We get the place ready for you to either work or occupy ahead of time. We offer excellent service and take the load and challenge of dirty environment off your shoulder to be able to concentrate and achieve positive results in your set goals. Our staff are so professionally trained to the extent of zero error in our operations.
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