From Mop and Bucket to Business Group - Suzanne Waring on Building Helping Hands

In this episode of It’s Your Business, Kath is joined by Suzanne Waring, owner of the Helping Hands Group, for a warm and inspiring conversation about building a business from the ground up and growing it through trust, quality and genuine care.

Suzanne shares how the business began nearly 28 years ago when, after working for Lancashire Constabulary and becoming a mum to twin boys, she decided she wanted a different way of life. Looking for work that would fit around family life, she started a domestic cleaning business herself, armed with a mop, a bucket and a determination to do the job properly. From there, the business grew naturally through client need into domestic and commercial cleaning, laundry and ironing, property maintenance, gardening, power washing and, more recently, home care. 

What comes through so clearly in this conversation is that Suzanne has never built Helping Hands around profit first. She has built it around people. Whether she is talking about cleaning a client’s home, supporting an elderly parent, or developing her new home care company, her standard is simple: if she would not trust someone in her own home or with her own mum, they are not right for the business. That ethos has shaped the whole company and helped her create a loyal, trusted team over nearly three decades. 

Kath and Suzanne also talk about the realities of employing staff, running vehicles and teams across the county, adapting services over time, and dealing with the hidden complexity behind what some people might wrongly see as “just cleaning”. This episode is a brilliant reminder that every successful business starts by solving a real problem and that growth often comes from listening carefully to what clients actually need. 

This is an uplifting and practical episode about service, resilience, standards, family, and building a business that truly helps people.

To find out more: Follow Suzanne Waring on LinkedIn

https://thehelpinghandsgroup.co.uk/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to It's Your Business with me, KLG, your fairy podmother. This is the podcast that shines a spotlight on inspiring UK businesses, the mindset behind their success, and the practical tips that could help you too on your business journey. Let's get started. Hello and welcome to this episode of It's Your Business. And in my studio today, I have Suzanne Waring. Now, Suzanne is the owner of the Helping Hands Group, and we're going to find out all about Suzanne and what businesses she has in that group. Hello, Suzanne. Hello there. Hi. Now, you have the Helping Hands Group, which has a few different aspects to it. So can you first of all just tell us what is part of the Helping Hands Group?

SPEAKER_01 0:56

So a Helping Hands Group consists of a domestic and commercial cleaning business, a domestic and commercial laundry and ironing business, property maintenance, so gardening, power washing businesses, and for private clients. And more recently, we have started the Helping Hands Home Care Company, which is a limited company that employs nurses and carers throughout Lancashire.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Wow. That's a lot of things under the Helping Hands Group umbrella. But they all kind of fit together nicely but separate at the same time. So Lancaster. Yes, that's nice. So how did this all come about? What was the first business that you had, and when and why did you set that up?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

So I used to work for the police. I was a finance admin manager for Lancashire Constabulary. And when I then was pregnant, married and pregnant, and had twin boys who are now 31, I decided that it was time to have a change because I wanted to be a mum. I wanted to take Andrew and Mart to school. I wanted to pick them up. So I had a career break while they were babies. Went back to my job, realised that it was too much to be able to do it with the va va room that I did it before. And so decided that I'd set up my own cleaning business because I could never find a decent cleaner. There were lots of cleaners out there who were very good at turning up, haven't got a clue about cleaning up, and vice versa. So I started a cleaning business. Me, I'm open a bucket, went down to school and said, I'm starting this cleaning business. And people said, Oh, can I have this day? Can I have that day? So that is how I started doing purely domestic cleaning in the local area. And that was 20, nearly 28 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Wow. So how did that then build into commercial cleaning? And what came next?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

So what came next was my clients would say, You don't know anybody who irons your iron. Well, I love ironing. So I said, Oh yeah, I'll buy, I'll do your ironing for you. So I started with the ironing and laundry. And then they'd say, Well, my husband's got a business, or I've got a business, you don't do commercial cleaning. So I thought, well, we could probably bolt that on early on in the morning and do the commercial cleaning. So we started with that, and then a lot of my clients would say, You don't know anybody who can do gardening or can do some power washing. So we bolted that on. And then having been in business 28 years, a lot of my clients who came on originally have got a lot older, and the families are trying to look after them and keep them at home. And I personally don't believe there is absolutely any care in the care system whatsoever. I think it's just a very big broken machine. So one day it's always been a little bit of a yearning of mine because I do like to make sure that my clients are looked after, and we did touch on home help, so we'd take we'd make sure they're all right, and we'd make sure people got to the shopping or got the shopping to them, and we do the basic stuff, we didn't do any personal care. And so my business is based in Blackburn, and it's based uh in Daysfield Business Centre. And one day a nurse walked in and said, I'm retiring. Have you got any jobs that I'm interested in working for you? So that was the beginning of where we are. So we're currently well on our way through CQC registration, and we employ Paula and another lady, both of whom are registered nurses, and we have six healthcare ladies who all go out every day, seven days a week, and look after elderly people in their own home properly with the care that you would give your own parents. They all look after my mummy's 91. They go in to see her every day for two hours just to give her some company and companionship. She wouldn't allow them to clean or cook for her. She's very independent, but for my peace of mind, she's got somebody to talk to, somebody will take her shopping. And so basically, I run the whole business on the premise that if I wouldn't let you look after my mum, you're not employable in home care. And if I won't let you clean my house, you're not employable on my cleaning side. And that's how we operate.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Well, that's clearly worked for 28 years. But it started off just as you. Yes. So how scary was it then to start taking people on? Because that's a whole new ballgame, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Yeah. Well, I've coming from a police background, so that's public sector. So you don't really have to generate an income in public sector, the money drips out of the ceiling, and you just have to apportion it to where you want. So the actual earning it before you can spend it, that was a little bit of a different scenario. But it just sort of grew. So I knew not to employ cleaners and send them out on their own because from benchmarking against other companies, I knew that would not work. So what I did was I employed somebody to work with me. There were two of us, and then there were three of us, and there were four of us. And we went out as a team of four every day and had a list of clients, and it worked really well because I was the person in charge of the keys, I was the person in charge of the cleaning team, the quality, the standards, the security of the home. Um, and so what we've done over the last 20 odd years is we've just replicated that model. So I don't put anybody anywhere on their own to make the decision of what they're going to clean and what they're not going to clean. We work out a plan with the client, whether that be a commercial client or a domestic client, and the cleaning team go along and follow that plan with a supervisor on every team.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

A lot of people who listen to this podcast or in business or built businesses, and a lot of people say we didn't realise how much was involved. Some people have come from public sector, private sector, and they started their own business, and they go, We didn't realise how hard it would be. And some people say we didn't realise how easy it would be. Where do you sit on the fence of that?

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Well, originally I like a challenge. The big thing for us is the nature of the business. So I'm not talking about home care now, I'm talking about cleaning when I started the cleaning. The nature of the business you can imagine attracts all sorts of people to apply for jobs with us. Um, and maybe some of you might have fallen off the back of a prison van one day, decides I'll go, I can't do anything else, I'll go and do a bit of cleaning. So I'm all about the team. So I can teach anybody to clean, but I can't teach anybody to be decent. So I employ all my staff. I the role on my payroll, it costs us lots of money in NI and all the things that go with employing people, but I would rather that because they are my staff, they're on my payroll. I enhance DBS check everybody before they even set foot in a van and work for me because that's the most important thing. That's the key thing to make sure I get the right kind of people. Um so therefore uh a heavy turnover of staff. We keep them. I mean, I've just had a lady actually very sadly leave and she's just gone back to Poland because her mother is in her late 70s and needs care, but she's worked for me right from the very beginning. So I like to pride myself on the fact that we look after our team and therefore I get the right team. So it's not it's difficult, more difficult since COVID because nobody wants to work. So everybody wants hands full of cash, but they don't want the graft. So it's harder to find decent people. So my aim is to keep hold of what I've got because it's a different scenario now, recruiting.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

On the face of it, people would say it's a cleaning company, they just go out and clean. No one sees this the admin behind it, the enhanced, the recruitment, selection, um, enhanced DBS, like you were saying, NI payments, all of the stuff that you the holiday, the maternity stuff, all these things that when you're going to the public sector and getting your wage, you don't think about what goes on behind the scenes, do you?

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Absolutely no idea. And the machine it takes to mobilize sort of eight vehicles, eight vans in the morning going to different areas of the county at 4am, that is a big machine, and a lot of planning and a lot of logistical thought goes into it before we even switch the vans on. Um, so we have there's lots of planning. I'm I quite like that. There's lots of planning, everybody knows what we're doing, we've got staff in place to kick in. So we always have a default. If a driver doesn't turn up, a van won't start, somebody's not well, we always have another plan to back that plan up. So every day those vans start and go, because there's no the option, there isn't an option to not go. Everybody's got to be out there working, that's how we operate.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

And also, of course, you're talking about vans, you've got the sign writing of them, the upkeep of them, yeah, uh tax insurance of all of them as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah, we've got everything, so ever absolutely everything, and then as I say, we've just created well the last few years the home care. So they all operate in small vehicles, they're all out every day around and about. So we've got a lot of vans, we've got a lot of staff, a lot of team members, and they're all happy. So as long as they're all happy, as happy as I can make them, that's it. And my clients are happy. If those two things are ticking along fine, then we're doing well.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

If you had the time again, what would you do differently from the start?

SPEAKER_01 10:42

So, what I would do, somebody asked me this the other day, and it's a really good question. It made me stop and think. So, what I would do differently, I fell into this, so it wasn't my I didn't go to a bank and say, Well, I've got a business plan here, and this is what I'm doing, and I need to borrow money from you, and I said, I want to look after my children, I'll start a cleaning business because I'm a good cleaner and I like a clean house and I think I'll do alright, in order to bring income into my family. That was the reason I did it. So then we've evolved to where we are now, which is 40 odd staff and teens of vans and vehicles, and so I sort of built it upside down, if you will. I built it back to front because I didn't have a plan. So I've created this without a plan. It's worked and it's very successful, but I think maybe in hindsight, if I'd have known what I was going to do, I'd have sat down and planned it a little bit better or made it a little bit easier for myself.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

But if you'd have planned it a bit better, you might not have done it and it might not have turned out as successful. Sometimes I think you sometimes I think people plan too much and then they don't actually execute it. You spend all the time planning it. You got up with your bucket and your mop and your brush and you went and asked people, do they want to whereas sometimes I think if you start that other way around, the perfect way, you've got all this plan, and then you go, Oh, this is way too much. I just wanted to clean some houses. Before you know it, you've put yourself off the plan, haven't you?

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Absolutely, yeah. And I love it. I love it. And then somebody asked me when I was going to retire, and I turned 60 in April, and I've no intentions of retiring. It's not on my radar. My dad worked till he was 77. Um, I am I come from that kind of a background, and I enjoy it. I enjoy going to work and being with the team and different ages and that sort of thing. So it's it's all good at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

It sounds really good, and you must be really proud of what you've set up and achieved as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

I am really proud of the team that work with me and because they are that's what it's all about, and they're all lovely, they're all the men and women, all different ages. An example today, we had one of our team that is led by a young gentleman who has his own son and partner, etc., but he's younger, he's in his 30s, and he has stepped up and runs a team over on the Foul Coast. And today he went to a new client who was in her late 80s with a husband who has dementia, and she's so consumed by looking after her husband that her house she feels as though her housework is slipping. So he went along today and she was so nervous. Her daughter's rung us about three times to say, Mum is so nervous about having this team come in, and she's so nervous about having somebody else clean a house. She's cleaned this house for 80 odds while she's been married, etc. And I passed this on to the team who were a team of three, Ryan and two ladies. And they went along and did the clean. And the lady herself rang us to say what a delight they were to have in her home. She didn't feel vulnerable, she didn't feel unsettled. It was a pleasure to have them. The job they've done's wonderful, and that makes me proud because I can't train that. That comes from within them, and I do my best to look after them, and I feel that they do their best to look after us as a business.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Yeah, and I think as well, people don't expect to see young guys in this profession either. And I think some of them are really good, and it could be a great profession for them.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Yeah, I have half and half of staff, half men, half women. And as I said earlier, I like to choose them. Would I let you go in my house? Would I let you look after my mum? And they've all got mums, or they've had mums and dads and grandparents, and it does bring out a nice side in them when they feel as though it's not we're not all about just the cleaning. We're looking after somebody's home, we're respectful of somebody's home, and it's far bigger than cleaning. Cleaning is a result of what we do, but it's a far bigger thing when you're going into somebody's home.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's I've had the odd cleaner, and I always think, Oh, you clean before they come as well, which is a bit weird. Yeah, I I haven't got one now, but I have a couple of times. And I go, I have tidied up a bit, and then one of them was amazing. The other one I didn't even realise she'd been, or couldn't tell she'd been. She was I came back earlier because I left, and she was sitting outside in her car, and I'm like, I wonder how long you've actually been in the house. And I said, Oh, have you finished? She's oh yeah, uh, I've just finished out, but I knew that she hadn't because of the ring doorbell. Yeah, and I looked around, I'm like, it just smells like somebody's been here, as if you've squatted something, but just there was nothing different, and that's not what you want when you pay some of the days it.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

No, it's all about the consistency and the quality of what you're doing, and that's why we work as a small team because there is a plan they have to follow. There is somebody there who's overseeing everything that we do. So, from a safety point of view, from a security point of view, from every point of view, there's somebody there responsible to me for that home and that clean at that time. Well, you never can come out of a clean early because there's always something to do, it's like your own home. You can always find something to do. So uh I also I used to say to people at the beginning when I started, I was on my own, Well, this hill, Suzanne, I've had a cleaner before. It's been a nightmare where she spends all the time telling me all about. In fact, I had a client in Storneyhurst who came on my books and she said to me, You have to come on a Monday because my cleaner comes every other day, and she's been coming so long, I don't want to upset her, so she's still going to come, but I need you and your team to come in and clean it on a Monday so that when she comes in, she tells me all about her shopping and what she's bought, and the kids and the grandchildren and all that. It doesn't matter because I know my house has been cleaned, and then she can just plod along at her own speed. So there's so many stories. I think I should write a book.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

You should write a book. She's getting a cleaner to clean so the clean she doesn't feel bad, and the cleaner doesn't have to clean, she can just chat to her. That's it, yeah. Oh my goodness, that's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Yeah, so yeah, there's lots of tales, but it's it's nice, it's nice.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

There's a lot of sad tales as well. You see a lot of people who, because of maybe mental illness or whatever, the houses are a bit of a mess, and it's not because they don't want to, it's because they can't, and then the more it gets messy, the worse it all gets. Do you go and do them kind of clean?

SPEAKER_01 17:41

Yeah, so we clean for all different types of people, and that's absolutely fine. And the thing is, everybody gets a service. And one lady interviewed me once and said, Well, you sort of think of yourself then a bit of the John Lewis of the cleaning world. And I said, Well, actually, I don't, I think of myself as a Harrods, and that's not that is not because of cost or anything like that. But if I walk through the door of Harrods, which I did once, and I was only younger, no money, but I wanted to go to Harrods, and I walked through that door, and the gentleman with the top hat opened the door for me, and I went in, and I experienced the same experience as somebody with lots of money going to spend there. I bought a bunch of grapes, I got a Harrods bag, and I had a walk around and I came out. And so, what I want for my clients is it doesn't matter whether you're in a one-bedroom apartment or you're in a 16-bedroom hall, I want you to get the same experience when you have us cleaning, and that's it in a nutshell. So we don't tailor it to the size of your house or anything, we tailor it to what you as a client wants from us, and it has to be quality all the way.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

That is a great way to be, though, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Okay, and and like you say, we've got clients, we work a lot with a local charity who will put people in touch with us, and those people, as you say, have problems that prevent them from doing their housework, or they have problems where they become overwhelmed by the whole thing, and it just compounds and it becomes a great problem. And we all go in and we'll help them. Some people are hoarders, there's lots of different scenarios that you're going to help. So I always go along first, have a chat, and weigh up what it is they want, and we take it from there, and then we draw up a plan. So every single clean or every single client we visit has their own individual package, it's not one size fits all. We choose the package with the client. We are the first thing I do is what can I do for you? What is it you need from us? Well, I need this and this. Great. Well, we'll tailor it to that. Somebody might want something totally different, and we just tailor our packages to that, and that is very much the same for our home care. We get a client, I've just been on the phone with a lady now, two sisters, and the mother's in her 90s, and she's just been discharged from hospital with some form of a package, and they're wondering how on earth they're going to be able to support her. So, my starting point is what is it you need? You and your sister are there. What would you need from us to make it perfect situation? So she's told me all that, so I'm gonna go and see them and see if we can plug the holes because they want to be involved in looking after their mother, but equally they're older and they can't do everything, so we're gonna go along and support them in supporting the mother, and that works fine.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Yeah, yeah. So you've got all of these different parts to the helping hands group. Is there anything else you're planning to plug into that?

SPEAKER_01 20:47

No, not at this moment in time. But if you'd have said to me all those all that time ago that I would be where I am now, when I would have thought, no, never. But it's all grown through client need, that's it. Yes, you see, I see a need, and that need's not being met, or he's been partially met, or somebody's been taken advantage of, and so I wanted to do something about it, so we created a little system for it.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Are you twin boys involved in your business?

SPEAKER_01 21:19

So, Andrew, twin one, as I was like to joke with him, he's an insurance broker, he lives in Newcastle. Mark, my other son, he is involved in the business, he lives in Cornwall, and he does all our accounts and all our scheduling. So he deals with that side of the business, he does it remotely, he comes up here and covers for me when I'm on holiday, or because he's worked in the cleaning business with me. He's driven a van, he's got up at 4am, he's run a team, he's done all the jobs in the business. So he he gets involved and does whatever I need him to do whenever I need it. So you do get some time off then? I do, not a lot. And I and I can. I mean, I'm dead interested in my garden, but in this weather, there's not a lot to do. I love gardening, I I'm very homey, I like being at home. There's nothing I like more than being at home dreaming. I am a bit OCD. So I wake up in the morning, get up about five, tidy around, get me washing on, make sure the dishwasher's stacked, washed and emptied, get everything to look like I want it to look when I come home, and then I set off for work. But I enjoy that in the morning, I enjoy doing that. Sorry for you lent.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

I love it. But the thing is, I think you need people like you in these sort of businesses because that's the sort of way that you want your house and people to look. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Oh yeah, I I am a bit much like I have my lounges and I have one lounge and the covers on, and my dogs do my I have three dogs and they do sit on that settee, but the covers are always on, and then I take them off, and I'm always bringing them here to get them washed. And then I have my other lounge where nobody's allowed to sit on the cushions. We have to move them before we sit down. So I'm a bit over the top, really, I suppose, but never mind.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

Well, congratulations on all the success and on building all these different arms of this business, it's been great. And I hope it's encouraging actually for people listening to go, do you know what? I could start my business and who knows where it'll be in the future. So it's great. Thanks for talking to me. Ah, thank you. Thank you for listening to It's Your Business. If you want help with podcast training, podcast production, or support with your show, visit www.furrypodmother.co.uk. And if you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, follow, and leave a review. It makes a huge difference and helps other businesses just like Finder. See you next time.