“The problem with my husband’s work was that, if you do a good job, you don’t see the customer again for a while.”
Ami Hizkiya and her husband Denny made aliya in 2007. In the States, he’d been an auto mechanic, while she worked as a computer programmer. In Israel, she was a homemaker, and he took a job in the supermarket just to pay the bills.
He tried to find mechanic jobs, but business was slow, and he didn’t have a shop he could work from.
Then a friend moved away, and asked Denny if he wanted to take over his part-time job cleaning two offices. He did.
“Here,” Ami explains, “if you do a good job, people want you back the next week.”
Denny started getting referrals and the jobs trickled in. Ami launched marketing efforts, advertising his services on online platforms.
Soon, people were asking for receipts, and the Hizkiyas opened an official business, “but I wasn’t sure what to do next,” Ami admits.
“A short while later, I saw an ad for the Temech conference. It’s hard to find your place when you’re an Anglo in Israel, female, religious, and a business owner. Temech checked off all those boxes. The conference was energizing.
“Plus, the networking opportunities were fabulous – all these businesswomen were eager to have reliable cleaning help.”
Business took off. Ami did the scheduling, booking, payments, and marketing while her husband did the cleaning. Soon, they hired an employee.
“I started attending Temech networking groups as well as their courses in business building. Creating goals and reaching goals, information about pricing, time management, marketing — it was invaluable.
“Equally important was the support. There are so many ups and downs in business, so many moments when you feel like – forget it, I can’t do this anymore. Then you go to the group, and see that others are also dealing with these cycles, that it’s normal, plus the other women offer warmth and support.”
“In one of the courses we were encouraged to write an ‘energy contract,’ — a contract you write to yourself, listing a goal with a target date. We were supposed to read it twice a day.
“I wrote down that I wanted to double my income — which seemed like an audacious, impossible goal.
“But then it happened. Within two months, we had doubled our income.”
The business, “My Cleaning Club,” keeps growing, and Ami keeps automating and innovating. Today, the couple employs 20 cleaners and serves 200 customers.
“For over a decade, Temech has been there for me. I’ve done three networking groups, two courses, and every conference.
“Whenever I get stuck and need advice or support, there’s someone I can reach out to. It’s a community.”
