Window Cleaners Expanding With Sub Contracting

Aaron Hess grows with sub contractors.

Small home maintenance company strives to grow: Sparks resident, Aaron Hess, owner of Hess Family Companies LLC, faces the challenge of expanding his small business into an established company.

The company has been providing indoor and outdoor home maintenance services to residents in the Reno/Sparks area since 2010. The idea originated from a business called Clean Cut Lawns, which Hess and his brother, Jon, bought in June of 2005 doing lawn maintenance.

In 2010, Hess and his brother decided to split their business. Hess bought a window-cleaning business while his brother continued doing lawns. Hess then extended his own business into full-service maintenance for facility and home, inside and outside. The services include window cleaning, lawn and landscape maintenance, as well as carpet and hardware floor cleaning.

“We strive to take care of our customers and give nothing but the best,” Hess said. “I really don’t know what competition is out there against us, besides just one company for each thing that we do. But not a combined company like ours,” said Hess.

Hess is also thankful he bought the window cleaning business, which provides a higher margin of profit than maintaining lawns or cleaning houses. Since 2010, Hess Family Companies has grown about $30,000 each year in sales and the lawn business has grown 300 percent since it started.

As his business expanded, Hess started using subcontractors to help get his work done. In 2010, he began with just a carpet cleaning crew but this past year, Hess added more subcontractors for landscape and cleaning work because there was so much work to do.

Last year, he also began hiring employees but realized it was too much for him to handle, so he cut back to only having one or two employees. An obstacle for him has been hiring good people to help his company be run the way he wants it to be.

“People gain your trust and obviously, as an owner, they love you because you put everything you have into it. And when you start hiring employees, you start getting complaints, you know. Because people don’t like change. They go from having me to someone else and that’s tough,” said Hess.

The local resident enjoys having subcontractors because they are already established companies with good employees. He said that instead of competing against them, he brings them in to work for him so he doesn’t have to hire people.

Eventually, Hess does want his own employees and to stop using subcontractors. His ultimate goal is to establish his own larger business which will require him to find the right people to hire.

“I could stay small and do it myself or I can keep growing and find the right people,” said Hess.

Since Clean Cut Lawns is a business that originated in Sparks, most of Hess Family Companies’ clientele for lawn maintenance are Sparks residents. The majority of the clientele for indoor home maintenance are Reno residents.

“We enjoy working in both Reno and Sparks equally. They both have positives. In Reno, we get to enjoy mature landscape growth and some bigger upscale properties. Sparks has smaller properties, which are easier to maintain and typically its newer developed communities that we are working in. I believe both areas offer a client worth pursuing,” said Hess.