Cleaning up through finding a better way

The only industry that would welcome her with open arms was the cleaning business, where all that mattered were rolled-up sleeves and a willingness to get the job done.

Ms Finch-Scally joined a cleaning agency desperate for staff, and went out with duster and broom, "but I thought there must be a better way of doing it," the now 71-year-old says.

Thus began Duster Dollies in 1993, a home-cleaning franchise that spans six agencies around Sydney and has an annual turnover of about $1 million.

The indefatigable septuagenarian is keen to take it back to a national level, having lost franchisees in Melbourne and Adelaide due to age and family reasons late last year.

It's a classic small-business story of a self-taught entrepreneur, who, without formal training, decided to run her own shop, setting it up with the help of an able accountant.

Ms Finch-Scally got a second telephone for the living room her business line and started printing pamphlets that she hand-delivered around the neighbourhood offering her cleaning services.

She was surprised by the response. "After two weeks there was too much work," she says. "The amount of people who want their houses cleaned, it was just amazing."

Ms Finch-Scally soon took on other women as subcontractors, before turning the business into a franchise in 2002. She was named New South Wales/ACT Franchise Woman of the Year in 2009.

These days, it's rare that she has to do any dusting herself. She runs her franchise of cleaning agencies that in turn send their own subcontracting cleaners to private residences from her home. For every hour of cleaning, she reaps 10 per cent in royalty and marketing fees.

To cement her own brand and streamline its operations, Ms Finch-Scally has devised a 15-page manual for Duster Dollies and written an A to Z book on home cleaning, "the third-oldest profession." Now she is preparing to add Facebook and Twitter links to her website.

"There's lots of changes in technology we should keep abreast of," she says.

Ms Finch-Scally has a succinct attitude to the secret to business success. "If you're passionate about something you will succeed," she says.

"Doing the house cleaning for someone else, as you're walking out of it and it looks nice and clean and tidy, you do feel you have achieved something."

She is now planning the next step, exiting the business, although retirement is far from her mind.

She has enrolled to study international law at the Australian National University, a thing she always wanted to do. "I think everything you learn you can use somewhere along the line, and I always have."