Samahria Richie, owner of Two Sisters Maid to Clean, knows a thing or two about running a business. Professionally, she worked in corporate IT, where she was a problem-solver for those who had computer issues or challenges accessing online resources. But after she had her fourth child, she felt the need to leave corporate life and stay closer to home. She did just that, and online sales was her first leap into entrepreneurship. It gave her the money she wanted and more time to attend to her children.
In 2017, Samahria and her sister, Kamille Henry, a daycare worker, were looking for new ways to make some extra money. Though neither were professional cleaners, they felt like cleaning was a good way to earn money and an activity that could fit into their already busy schedules. So, in the beginning, it was just the two of them: hence the name—Two Sisters Maid to Clean.
Henry later left the company to start the Learning Ladder Academy on New Salem Road, but the company name still reflects her role as a business founder.
Throughout the life and growth of the Murfreesboro business, Richie has credited her father as a chief mentor. They say that a leader is a reader, and her father recommended that she read the business classic The E-Myth by Michael Gerber. That book was first published in the mid-’80s, but it still contains numerous truths relevant to modern small-business owners.
One lesson the book emphasizes is that in order to truly become an entrepreneur, a business founder must take on other staffers to help with the day-to-day tasks of running an organization. And so she did.
Now, the cleaning business is burgeoning and Richie is looking to expand to other locations. Currently, her company serves Rutherford County and most adjacent communities, including Nashville. In fact, with several clients in Davidson County, she is now considering opening another facility there. Of course, she can’t do that without having a good team in place.
With her current team already two dozen employees strong, Richie is investing energy in creating added value for its clients as well as its team members, who receive benefits and paid time off.
The organization proclaims that its corporate mission is to “continuously develop while serving with integrity and improving the lives of those we encounter” and strives to accomplish that mission with its core values of compassion, safety, quality, integrity and people over profits.
Richie is currently demonstrating elements of that mission with an actively philanthropic gesture: for every new client in the month of October, her company will donate $50 to Cleaning for a Reason, a charity that provides home cleaning for cancer patents.
The business owner has a vision board in her office that keeps her focused on what needs to happen and where she wants to take the company.
But perhaps the biggest tool for her is that of systems, processes and procedures.
“A lot of business owners I talk to do not have good systems and you see a lot of people in our industry going out of business,” Richie says. “I also feel they won’t invest in how to learn to do [new] things and won’t move from the technician role,” which is why she recommends The E-Myth. According to the book, technicians, however skilled they may be, focus on doing the immediate work necessary that day—making, selling, delivering or cleaning—those good at the hands-on aspect of what they do. While entrepreneurs focus on the future, defining the mission of the business and closing the gap between where the business is and where they want it to be.
A business without the entrepreneur personality type in a leadership role—a visionary—can stagnate.
“Had I been stuck in that [technician] mentality, our business wouldn’t be where it is today.”
For more about the services Two Sisters provides or to find out about employment opportunities, visit twosistersmaidtoclean.com or call 615-596-7433.
