Recently, I had some people over at my home to help me clean up the place. Yup, that’s right. These guys helped me vacuum my couch, steam my curtains and even took out the hard to clean hardened dirt on my kitchen stove. Kuya Mike and his colleague were a great help! Check out this video!
I interviewed Mr. Mike Gamez of Gruenheim Home Appliances, and his story was very inspiring!
Mike’s Story
I’m Mike Gamez full time entrepreneur. I’m married to Andrea Gamez, and we have 3 kids. My goal in life is to become financially independent, to teach to my kids the right work ethics of an entrepreneur and to inspire others to start their own business.
Interview with Mike Gamez of Gruenheim Home Appliances
Ginger: What is your Startup/brand/business? What is it about? How long have you been in business?
Mike: We started the business on August 08, 2014. The registered business name is GREEN GRACE SUCCESS, INC. Our Primary line of business is trading thru direct selling of GRUENHEIM Home Appliances.
This brand is based in Stuttgart, Germany. Under their brand, they have the GRUENHEIM Vacuum Cleaning System with Ecological Pure Water Filter Technology made in Germany, the GRUENHEIM Steam Cleaning System with Innovative Industrial Technology, which is made in Italy, and the GRUENHEIM Water Filtration System thru Reverse Osmosis Plus Alkaline Filter, which is also made in ITALY.
Our secondary line of business is we offer home cleaning services, and we offer deep cleaning, shampooing, steam cleaning and sterilizing of bed mattresses, pillows, stuffed toys, sofa, curtains, blinds, roman shades, upholstered chairs, carpets and car interiors. I have been in this line of business for almost 15 years (3 years distributing GRUENHEIM Home Appliances).
Ginger: Who is your target market?
Mike: Our target market for GRUENHEIM HOME APPLIANCES is Class A,B,C,D. Newlywed couples, family with small children that has breathing problems or allergies, picky housekeepers (OC), with house pets, likes to buy high quality products, the one that are looking for cleaning equipments, Need part time selling job.
Our target market for our CLEANING SERVICES DIVISION are the picky housekeepers, household owners with no helpers, household owners that are still saving to purchase GRUENHEIM cleaning machines, expats temporarily residing here in Manila, offices and restaurants. Also, we have rent a GRUENHEIM vacuum cleaner. Some of our customers avail this for 1 time general cleaning of their houses. Some want to try if the machine is effective or easy to use and eventually they will buy a GRUENHEIM Vacuum.
Ginger: Why did you choose this market? Can you give us the insight behind this market?
Mike: I chose this market because these are the people who are very particular with their health, wellness and cleanliness. The people in this market want to give the best for their family and they want to give a bright future to their children. Also, they choose quality and value for their money.
For me, doing direct selling and personalized cleaning service has such a huge market and is a sustainable business, because Filipinos want a “personalized” approach to selling, and have big expectations in terms of customer service.
Ginger: How did you come up with this idea?
Mike: I have learned this from my past experiences.
Ginger: What made you decide to start this kind of business?
Mike: After I graduated in college, my uncle Gerry, who was a Distributor of direct selling company of Vacuum Cleaners recruited me to join on his team as full time commission sales agent. I am very thankful to him that he patiently trained me. Through the years of my career, I gained selling and entrepreneurial skills. I was looking for the opportunity to utilize all the skills that I have learned to achieve my goal, which is to give the customer high quality products and services at a reasonable price, so I decided to put my own company.
Ginger: Were there any obstacles that you faced when you decided to pursue becoming an Entrepreneur? What are these?
Mike: Becoming an Entrepreneur has full of challenges and obstacles, one of them was how to start a business and what are the best strategies to promote and to patronize my target market.
Ginger: What are the greatest challenges in putting up and maintaining a business in your country?
Mike: The greatest challenges in putting up and maintaining a business in this country is the high cost of gasoline and traffic, because our marketing strategy is to go to customers’ house for home demonstration every day. Also, not to mention the not-so-fast system of our Customs to process the releasing of goods/cargo that cost us a lot on storage payment and time/opportunity cost.
Ginger: What are three traits that you think an Entrepreneur/Startup Founder should have when starting their own business?
Mike: For me an Entrepreneur/Startup Founder must have generalist mindset, meaning we need to know the every aspects in our business then focus on our strength and delegate to the team what is our weaknesses. The “Serving more” mindset is second. This is like what Robert Kiyosaki says, that if you serve more then you will earn more. Entrepreneurs must be trustworthy — TRUST is our intangible assets .
Ginger: Unforgettable moments or lessons that you learned as an Entrepreneur/Startup Founder
Mike: The lesson I learned was to focus on what is important for the business. Keep it simple and sweet ika nga! I mean not to diversify again on other kind of business that is not my forte for now. Dapat pala may continuous learning and have dominant mindset in my chosen line of business.
Ginger: What advice can you give to other Entrepreneurs?
Mike: Be happy! Let us continue providing jobs to help our country and give back.
Ginger: Do you believe that everyone should become entrepreneurs?
Mike: Yes, I believe that everyone should become entrepreneur or have at least an entrepreneurial mindset. We have a big chance to become financially independent and imagine if all of our government officials had an entrepreneurial mindset, like being more prudent in spending and investing or being a benevolent leader. For sure, we will prosper as a nation.
Ginger: What are ways that you can do to raise capital?
Mike: As a startup, what I do to raise capital is from personal savings, borrowed from relatives and company loan from the bank. But of course, the best way is to sell more GRUENHEIM Products (actual sales) and to serve more customers with our cleaning services.
Ginger: How do you market your products? Growth strategy?
Mike: As of now, we market our products thru direct selling, thru word of mouth system strategy, and as of now we have satellite office in Cebu, and we have plans to tap Davao and CDO market next year.
Ginger: What are tech tools that you use for your business?
Mike: As of now, we use IG and Facebook to promote our products and service, but we’re still not fully maximizing the others new platforms and tech tools. There are a lot of things to improve.
Ginger: Thank you so much for your time, Mike! You’re story shows that regardless of the business model or the product or service that you are selling, we all can have that entrepreneurial mindset and spirit! Good luck and more power to you on your business!
Contact information about your business:
Website: www.gruenheim.ph
Email address: gruenheimphils@yahoo.com
Mobile Number: 0917 5984968 or 0917 8790133
Instagram account: mikegamez_atyourservice
