Couch-Surfing to CEO: Building a Million-Dollar Cleaning Company, with Misael Avalos

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Introduction

Hello everyone. Welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and today’s fantastic guest is Misael from Time Made Cleaning out in Arizona. I actually was on Misael’s podcast a few months ago. It is live. Definitely recommend you guys checking it out. He runs a fantastic podcast, and he is an absolute wealth of knowledge with an incredible story. So Misael, thank you so much for joining me on Filthy Rich Cleaners.

Misael: I appreciate it. Thank you, Stephanie, for having me on. Yeah, it’s good to talk to you again after our last meet. I look forward to being on your podcast now.

Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. It’s always fun to have, you know, switch roles, right? The host is now the guest, I guess, would be.

Misael: Yes, less thinking on my end, just more just responding.

Stephanie: Just responding, honestly. Being a guest is a lot easier. It really is. But yeah, you have such an inspiring story, and I just would love for you to describe to our listeners where the inspiration for your cleaning business came from. Your mother, right? Being a house cleaner.

The Inspiration: Mom’s 45-Year Journey

Misael: Yeah. So my mom cleaned houses back in 2018. She was already 39 years in the industry, and that’s just as a housekeeper. She cleaned by herself. She didn’t have an entity. She didn’t have employees. It was just her. And she raised me and my sister. My sister is special needs, and so she had a lot of work in her hands, not only raising two kids by herself, but also cleaning houses. She had 10 loyal clients, and those clients are still, honestly, I think now there’s six or seven that are still with her. So we’re talking about over 45 years. So yeah, the inspiration just started with my mom.

I was 30 years old, sleeping on the couch. I was doing a little bit of photography at the time, and I was just a bum. You know, I say a bum because I was just making a lot of bad decisions, and it ended up me being back in my mom’s house. And her coming home one day from a long day, I just remember her face and how tired she was. And I was laying on the couch just scrolling, and she’s like, hey, are you hungry? And it just hit me. I was just like, what am I doing? She’s out here working, coming home, I’m laying here. And so she fed me. She makes fantastic food. And I just asked, hey, if something happens to you, God forbid, what would happen to your clients? And she was like, well, they’d just go somewhere else. And once she said that, I was like, well, hey, what if I take your clients? What if we start something together and you give me the opportunity to retire you through your own, you know, through the clients that you have and start a business? And she said, yeah. She trusted my, again, no business experience, not a dollar to my name. I was in debt with tickets and debt with so much stuff. And she said, yeah. And here we are.

Stephanie: Wow. Despite, well, that shows one a mother’s love, because your behavior and actions was not showcasing at all that you would be able to do this. So I am very intrigued by the personal transformation that you’re describing from, you know, your own self-reported bumness to where you are today. And clearly you had that in you. You had that ability to change, and you kind of had this lightning bolt moment of shame, frankly, is what it sounds like. And why do you think you were able to actually do it? Because I think a lot of people have that moment where they’re just struck by inspiration like, I’m going to do this, or I’m going to change. But change is very difficult, right? And so you’re saying you had all of these life behaviors that were not aligning with where you are at, unrecognizable to the man you are today. So is there anything that actually made it stick to you? Do you feel that you’re like, I’m actually going to do this? And you actually did.

The Transformation Moment

Misael: I guess I was just tired of being tired. You know, I was just exhausted of not being able to become the man that I wanted to become. And I had a lot of weight on my shoulders being the man of the house. And the example of my dad leaving, you know, it really took a toll on me. So I think that was just a huge moment of my life that I also had to forgive and kind of just let go of the past and say, okay, I am in charge. Things are not happening to me. Things are happening for me. So what can I do at this point to be able to become the man that I want to become for the house and take care of my two girls, right? My mom and my sister. And I just got ignited. It’s like, you know, I was just going to encounter, go into an endeavor that I just, I don’t know nothing about, but it was just exciting.

And yeah, which is crazy, because I used my girlfriend’s computer at the time. I used my girlfriend’s car at the time. I didn’t have, I had no clue of building a site. I built a site, took me about three weeks. I started just networking, finding networking groups. I started getting into, by that time, I was already in personal development. I was already reading books, so I had an idea of taking action. And I really enjoyed sales. I was selling solar at that time, and I was making great money. So leaving solar and then getting into photography and wanting to do something for myself, I had a lot of sales experience already. So yeah, it was just a moment of, I believe it was a godly moment. He was just like, okay, hey, it’s now your time to really provide and become the man that you want to become. You just have to create action. You just have to get up and do it. And my biggest why was to retire my mom. That was the stronghold of my everyday decision.

I think that’s very important for anybody that is stuck in their life, where they feel like they can’t get out of a hole, or they’ve made a lot of bad decisions and they feel like they’re not worthy. You are if you restart. You can restart at any time. It’s just taking action. And if you have a why, if you have a purpose and you get up every day and you think about that, you’re capable of doing it. Because I am truly a, a lot of people don’t recognize, they’re just like, how did you create all of this? How did you do all of this? It’s little by little. I had to pay all of those tickets. I had to get my own car. I had to buy my own computer. I had to get my own place. All of my clothes was in my mom’s garage. Everything was in there. So living how I’m living now and where the company is, it’s not, I mean, I truly think it’s a miracle. And I had a lot of faith, and I just again, just got up every day and I just did it.

Lessons from Atomic Habits and the Power of Why

Stephanie: There’s so many things, one that is truly impressive, but so many things and areas that we could delve into. But if any of our listeners have ever read the book, The Power of Habit or Atomic Habits, two different habit books in my mind. Atomic Habits, he describes, the author describes basically that all of our actions are votes for the type of person that we want to be. And so what you’re describing is huge, huge change. And when, like you said, you’re unrecognizable now compared to who you were before. But what you’re talking about is you just made all of these little micro choices every single day and continually poured into yourself and improved over time in an incremental fashion.

And I also, you know, coming back to the purpose, I there’s some, there’s a saying that’s basically like if your why is big enough, the how is basically irrelevant, right, which is kind of what it sounds like you had, just this such a striking sense of purpose of like, this is going to happen. Despite the fact that you’d never had this experience. I do want to highlight, though, that you had the sales experience and that, you know, we can always draw from perhaps what seems to be irrelevant knowledge or experiences that we’ve had previously. So you had this sales experience. Is there any other traits that you feel that you had previously that have really lent itself? Because your business has grown quite quickly. So is it just a voracious desire for knowledge and a quick learning turnaround? Or what would you attribute other than strong purpose? Because it’s like, okay, you have systematized, you have scaled really well. So why do you think that that has happened for you?

The Marine Corps Foundation

Misael: It’s a great question. I would, I do want to give credit as well to the Marine Corps. You know, I went into the Marines at an early age. I was 19 years old and, you know, I learned a lot of values there and I learned the importance of it’s up to you to get things done. And as much as I did use that when I got out of the Marines, I believe the addiction of alcohol really got to me, right? As much as you want to be successful, whatever success means to you, as much as you want to attract these things into your life, when you have bad habits, it’s going to be impossible for you to get there. And that’s what I had. I just had bad habits and I had a bad mindset about myself. And I think I was playing the victim mode of, okay, these things happened to me and I’m not destined to change my family’s trajectory of income and possibility.

So I think the Marine Corps was definitely a big part of it. Also just staying active in reading. But I would contribute a lot of the core values that I learned there and just triggering back into it’s really up to me to be able to get to where I want to become. It really truly is a mindset shift that I just triggered because I wanted it so bad. You know, from there, it was just all action.

Personal Growth and Business Success

Stephanie: Well, and the reason I’m really highlighting this and talking about the mindset and the personality shifts and just the habit switches is because whenever you look at a successful business person or successful person, but obviously this is a cleaning business podcast, most of them will attest that they have had to go through insane levels of personal growth and shedding of one skin again and again. And I know myself of looking back at that 22-year-old girl who started the business, unrecognizable, like that’s not even the same person, it feels like, even though it is, of course. And I just love to hear that, you know, this iterated again and again, that we have to change in order to get the things that we want. We have to. And so change is inevitable. It’s just in which direction is it going to go? Right.

And so kind of going into the tactical and practical side of things, when you did open and start with your mom, I would love to hear how did you guys, I mean, she was still just cleaning and you kind of overtook the entire operations, sales, everything else. Or what did that kind of balance look like between you guys? Because, you know, a lot of our listeners work with family and it can be tough.

Working with Family

Misael: Yeah, it was, it was tough, right? Like my son is sleeping on the couch. My son, I’ve given him money to pay his rent. She’s doing all of these things for me, and then all of a sudden I’m like, hey, we’re going to start a business, and I’m going to retire you. And she’s just like, okay, son. It was hard for me to make her understand the possibilities of what this can become. And having conversations with her and trying to make her understand, after the fourth conversation, it was just like, okay, I just need to prove to her that this is possible.

So I did a lot of the cleaning. She stayed with her clients. I focused on the new clients. So there was a point that I was cleaning seven days a week. I was cleaning about two to three houses per day.

Stephanie: By yourself or with another cleaner?

Misael: By myself. By myself. Yes. I was exhausted, but I was so driven by this why, you know? And so cleaning three houses by myself and then invoicing, networking. I would still go to coffee meets, do a quick one-hour coffee meet with someone, shake hands. And I did that for an entire year. And we went from year one, I think we closed out the year like $15,000 of new income coming in. Again, no experience, no nothing. And in the second year, we jumped to $150,000.

Stephanie: Wow.

Misael: And that was just by cleaning three houses a day, seven days a week, invoicing, shaking hands, meeting a lot of people, building the site. And, you know, I did hire a couple people here and there just learning how to do it. But, yeah, it just took, you know, it took a lot of effort from my end. Once she saw that, because we did get the opportunity to retire her in two years, which is still amazing. And glory to God for that. She gave me the opportunity to do that. And once she saw that she doesn’t have to work anymore, she was just like, okay, you’re serious about this. So it was a great moment. But I did have to do a lot of the heavy lifting in the beginning.

Stephanie: Gosh, I have so many questions.

Misael: Even when I didn’t want to get up.

Stephanie: Yeah, even when I didn’t want to get up.

Misael: I still just did it. It was just like as long as I just get up and I just pick up the phone and I just text message. I had two phones at the time. So as long as I just do things every day, at some point, it has to get easier. Just a machine, basically.

The Power of Networking

Stephanie: And one, was this purely residential? Was there any commercial at all at this time?

Misael: Took me about a year to get to commercial. But yeah, it was mainly, I did a lot of move-ins and move-outs. I built a good relationship with real estate agents. You know, I found a group of real estate agents. I invested in the group and then I just went to all of their meetings. And I think that that’s where I got all of my work. But yeah, it was mainly residential cleanings that I was doing.

Stephanie: And I just, you know, for our listeners, I really want you to hear what he is emphasizing is the importance of networking and knowing the people in your community, being active in your community. You know, you can spend all the money on Google ads and all of these other types of marketing mechanisms to try to get leads in. And those things are important, but there is absolutely something to be said for being known in your community, for being familiar. And so that when people finally are ready to make that decision of, oh, I’m looking for a cleaner or for their business, a janitor, you’re the first, you come top of mind because they already know you, they already like you and that introduction has already been made. So I would imagine that that is a huge testament to your success is networking.

Misael: Huge. Yeah. I tell people all the time, look, if you do two networking groups a week, you do two to three coffee meets with the people that you meet, you do that every single week for a year, you’re going to be unstoppable. From there, then you can focus on ads because, you know, ads are an important part, but they’re not as important as you not wanting to go do networking. And I’m a true believer because that’s what I did the first year. And we have so much repeat business. We’re just everywhere because all of that work was put in unknowingly. I don’t know, I must’ve read it somewhere, but it was a huge, huge part of my growth. I got to meet someone that was wanting to sell their business through networking. So I ended up purchasing a business because I met someone out there. So it’s good. It’s always good to be building relationships and shaking hands. If you’re not doing that and you’re constantly wanting to only do ads and get it easily, it’s going to work. But you’re really taking all of the flavor out of being a business owner, having fun and meeting people.

Overcoming Self-Limiting Beliefs

Stephanie: Yeah. And I agree with that. It really does. It gives you a sense of fun. And I just, I mean, and I get it. Some people just aren’t extroverted or, you know, you may not see yourself as somebody who can do that. But that doesn’t, that’s how we see ourselves is kind of irrelevant to the action that needs to be taken. And even what you talked about, you know, coming back to the victim mindset and things like that. Alex Hormozi has talked about the concept of, you know, you can have, we all have gone through shit, right? We’ve all gone through some bad stuff in our life. And to varying degrees, some of us, it’s like, yeah, you have a mountain ahead of you where other people have a smooth road. And then what, are you just going to use that as I mean, well, I guess I’m not going to be successful, because I legitimately have more of a struggle, I have more of a hill to climb. That doesn’t help you. It only puts you in that place of like, oh, this is the lot I have in life.

And it’s like, obviously, you know, I’ve gone through things, you’ve gone through things, but it doesn’t change the fact of the work that needs to be accomplished and bringing that to the identity piece of like, if you don’t feel like, you know, you’re good at sales or, oh, I’m shy or I’m bad on camera, or I’m not a good leader, or I don’t know how to, all of these things that we say about ourselves. It’s like, that doesn’t change the fact that these things need to get done.

Misael: It’s just a belief. It’s just a belief. You know, when I first started networking, I remember the first, let’s just say the first 50 events that I went to, I had sweaty hands and it was so nerve-racking. It was embarrassing. First, I’m shaking people’s hands and my hands are sweating. I had to make up this thing that like, hey, I’m sorry, I just put a lot of lotion in my hand. It was embarrassing, but I knew I had to do it. There was many times I was in the car and I was at the event and I was like, man, I don’t want to talk to people. I already cleaned. I’m tired. I smell like I just got done. I was like, look, I gave myself a target just to shake five people’s hands and give 10 cards away. That’s it. And I just gave myself something to motivate me to create the action because we will talk ourselves out of it. Whoever thinks that this little voice in their head, they have to believe it and give it a voice, then you’re completely wrong because that voice is going to want to talk you out of it.

And it’s a belief. We just have this belief of ourselves that we’re not a sales person. We’re not a people person. And we got to be very careful of how we use the words that we use on a daily basis. If something comes up in your head and you’re like, I’m just not a people person, your subconscious mind is going to take that as truth. And as long as you change and you say, you know what, maybe I’m not the best salesperson, but I could try and I will try, you know, today I’m going to talk to someone and whenever they give me an objection, I’m just going to answer back and I’m just going to give it my best. And if you just start really unscrewing the beliefs that you have, within weeks, you will see a transformation where you’ll start hearing a different voice. You’ll start hearing something different because you have unprogrammed all of these things you’ve been telling yourself about. And it’s not going to be helpful. It’s not. It’s really you against your mind.

The Importance of Purpose and Action

Stephanie: And really what you’re talking about is getting the reps in and the concept of inertia of, you know, a body in motion likes to stay in motion. And so getting the body to move literally or figuratively here, whether that be working out or doing anything that we don’t want to do, we’re trying to stay comfortable, right? And so it is uncomfortable. But the more you do it, it’s like, you know, cold calling, cold emailing, nobody wants to do that stuff. Nobody. These networking events, do you think everybody just wants to do that? Or that you feel like it. And it’s the concept of like, I’ll do the thing when I feel like it, or when I’m feeling motivated. It’s like, no, you got to start and that motivation will come. You will feel it when, you know, if you start working out, it’s like, I really don’t want to work out. Okay. First five minutes, all of a sudden you’re like, oh, thank God I worked out. This is fantastic.

Misael: It’s very important to have a reason why you’re doing what you’re doing. Right. You got to have a purpose. You got to have a why. Why am I doing this? Okay. I’m going to go to the gym because I want to lose weight. Okay. How many pounds do you want to lose? Okay. And start at least one day a week, right? Start slow, but you got to have a reason on why you’re going to do what you’re going to do. Because if not, you’re not going to be able to get over the days when they’re really, really hard. And then you’re just going to really tell yourself, you know what, maybe this is not for me.

Stephanie: Yeah. And even, for myself, I find it very useful to go multi layers deep on the why, because even, you know, working out or like, let’s use an example in business, right? Like we all know that getting Google reviews is very, very important, right? That’s a very important thing. It’s vitally important to this whole SEO thing that people think they got to pay so much money to be able to get it done. SEO starts with reviews.

Misael: Correct. A hundred percent.

Stephanie: And so for myself, it’s like, okay, setting a reasonable goal of for us and Serene Clean, it’s always been get at least one review a week, right? That is reasonable. And it’s like, why should I do that? Well, reviews bring in more leads. But why is that important? Well, if we have leads, we have business for our cleaners. Well, why is that important? Well, that means I’m feeding mouths and families and I’m giving people a great job. And why is that? You know what I mean? And if you start doing that, all of a sudden it’s like, holy shit, reviews are so important. It really lights a fire under your ass.

Misael: No, for sure. And that’s a perfect example, Stephanie, because that is how we need to see it. We need to really get down to the core of why you want to do what you want to do so that you can get fueled by that. The point is just to get a fuel whenever you need it. I burned all the boats. I burned everything. I said, you know what? This is what I’m going to focus on and there’s nothing else that’s going to distract me from this. I had other opportunities, other jobs, other offers that were starting to come my way during the time of building. And I was so focused that nothing else was going to distract me. So that why has to not only be so strong, but you also have to dedicate, do the one thing and only do that thing only. Not get distracted by, oh, you know what? I’m just going to go do a little bit of a part-time job so that I could, you know. No, dude, go all in. How can you get clients? How can you get work so that you can then fund the life that you want to fund? But it’s really important to do that as well, that attaches it to the why.

Scaling the Business

Stephanie: A hundred percent. And I’d love to hear, as the business grew and you went from, you know, just yourself adding some cleaners to now, how many cleaners do you guys have?

Misael: We currently have 40. No, sorry. I wish. 24 cleaners. And then I got one field supervisor and three office staff.

Stephanie: Wow. That’s fantastic. And looking back, I know for myself, there’s certain phases of the business or things that we, again, I’m really big on, I’m so curious of what did you have to change? What worked at one size that didn’t work at another? You know, scaling. And so is there anything that sticks out looking back at the history of the business of that worked at that phase, but we had to revamp in order to get to the next level?

Leadership Evolution and Core Values

Misael: My leadership, the way that I approached my business, you know, in the beginning, it was a very personable, very kind of building a business around the people that I had. And a huge shift that I had to make was I needed to build, if this was something that I was really going to do and I really wanted to scale it, it needs to be systemized and it needs to have structure. So I started building a business based on what I wanted my business to look. And then I hired people to be a part of that business.

Another part too is the core values. I started understanding that, okay, these values, excellent quality, whatever it is, attention to detail, those things were important to me. I thought that that’s what my team needed. But now getting into a new phase, these core values need to be mine first, and then bring it to my people. And again, it’s the same thing, like hiring people based on those values, not hiring people because, you know, they’re a good cleaner, which I don’t think excellent quality is a good core value, because it holds no emotion into it.

Stephanie: No emotion. There’s no, great.

Misael: Again, we all say that, right? Like every business says that. It means nothing.

Stephanie: Exactly. It doesn’t.

Misael: Like what does excellence mean to you? And so that’s the biggest transition was understanding that I needed to build a business, then I allowed people to come into that business and then hold people accountable. You know, being friends with your cleaners, not a good thing. Like you will learn hard lessons doing that. And, you know, everybody gets treated the same. You love on your people, right? Because they are your people, they’re your community. But there needs to be a line and core values and structure creates that accountability to do so. And I grew a lot in my leadership understanding that I am the business owner here and I am going to be the one carrying this accountability and I’m going to reflect these values to them so that they see what our values are. And our core values, be kind, be helpful, do what you say. They’re very simple, very clear. You could understand what being kindness is, what being helpful is, and being reliable. If you say you’re going to show up, I need you to show up. So once I created these values, it was just so easy to hire and fire. And I think that that was the big leap that worked, you know, not having structure in the beginning, but then wanting to grow. That’s where I needed to change. I needed to shift.

The Power of Core Values

Stephanie: And I totally agree on the core values of it. It really does kind of sound hokey or performative. But once you start vetting people through that and vetting your entire business decisions based on those core values, it actually makes things very simple, not easy, but simple of what decisions that you need to execute on and what people should be on the team with you. And so is there any particular examples that come to mind over the years of somebody not aligning with the core values? Maybe it was a really difficult decision or not. Again, maybe it was a very difficult thing to actually make the cut on. But any stories that you’re willing to share of somebody not aligning with those core values and you getting rid of them?

The Medication Theft Incident

Misael: We’ve had our handful of the unreliable, those people that tell you that they’re going to be the best and they’re going to show up and they give you all of that great information in the beginning. And then you get discouraged. So I think the unreliability, not being reliable was a big, that’s kind of where we started firing a lot of people. The one story that comes into my head, the one situation that was really, really big, and I think I shared it with you. It was where, and we didn’t have these core values yet at the time. We had communication, attention to detail. And this one employee of mine decided to take medication from one of our clients. She was doing it for a good amount of time until they started noticing like, hey, where’s my prescription going?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Misael: And they were short and they put cameras in their house and specifically where the prescription was. And yeah, I caught the person on camera and I confronted the cleaner with, hey, so-and-so client saying that they’re missing this type of prescription. Do you know anything about it? She was like, no, I don’t. I don’t even know where it’s at. X, Y, and Z, right? And it was like, okay, are you sure? Like, you know, I just, just tell me if it is just, I just want to know so that I could, so I can help you, right? So that we can just move on from this because the client’s really upset and they’re really confident that the cleaning team is doing it. She was like, no, no, no. So I was like, okay, well I have a video of you doing it. Do you think this video would be you? If you’re in the video, would you believe that? And she’s like, no, there’s no way. And I was like, dang. I’m trying to save this one cleaner that I really, really liked and I really wanted to be a part of the team. She was really nice. She was very thoughtful.

But anyways, yeah, it just ended up being where I showed the video and it was just a very disappointing. And I honestly think after that is where I started really, okay, I need to hone down on how I’m hiring people and how I’m training people. But I think that that was the biggest part where they didn’t break a specific value that we had, but they broke my value and my value of having integrity. And that’s when I just knew like, okay, something really needs to change because this is just, she didn’t even press charges. She was just like, unfortunately, I don’t want to move forward with your company, but I do appreciate your time and really looking into this. And I just knew like, I’m not going to be embarrassed like this again. Like there’s just no way. And I use that employee as an example with everybody else. This is not what you do. People have cameras, people will call the cops, people will do stuff. Luckily, this person didn’t get any of that. But, you know, that was a huge lesson that we really needed to create accountability through core values.

Learning from Difficult Situations

Stephanie: Those situations are very devastating. I think that, you know, I shared my recent situation that was, you know, not medication, but similar concept of giving them ample opportunities to come clean, right? And just they’re lying to your face, even with camera footage and everything. And I think that that can really negatively affect us in a variety of ways as a leader, as well as just an owner of becoming so cynical of like, oh my gosh. But I kind of like your analogy of burning the boats. It’s like, okay, we’re not going to close the business down because of this situation, right? So if we’re not going to do this, what can we do about this to prevent this from happening? The biggest thing is always use it as a learning mechanism, use it to teach the others. And yeah, we’re the same way of, we will share those types of examples with new folks of, and also that this will not be tolerated. And it just levels up the entire culture, because I think it’s so important that your team sees you being, you know, holding others accountable, right? Other people aren’t getting away with this.

And did you, I mean, I’m sure, especially when you really like a cleaner, right? It’s very easy to say, no, we treat everybody the same. But then I know for myself, my heartstrings get pulled. And then I’m like, okay, maybe we can do a pay advance one time, even though we don’t do pay advances, right? And I start to think like that. Do you have any, where you have to constantly tell yourself, like, no, Misael, we’re not doing this, we’re not doing this? Or are you pretty good with your boundaries at this point?

Setting Boundaries and Being Generous

Misael: At this point, I still think I’m a little weak with my boundaries when it comes to paying advance. I do take care of my employees that have been with me for a while. And I have been disappointed in that part. And let’s call it a loss of money. But at the end of the day, I am blessed to be a blessing. If I could bless someone at that time. And God’s given me the opportunity to help. Obviously, it has to make sense. They’ve had to be here for, you know, quite some time for me to build that trust with them. You know, I still do that. But the firing part, you know, I had an operations manager at that time. And I would give a lot of people chances, you know. And it was just like, you know, I’m sorry. But, you know, as a man, if a female is crying to you, and it’s like, hey, you know, especially like, you know, again, I didn’t grow up with a dad.

Stephanie: So like, you had your mom.

Misael: So yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Stephanie: Especially the, I’ve had a couple of them where like, I can’t pay my rent, my kids, we’re just going to be in the street.

Misael: And it’s like, they see a sucker when they know.

Stephanie: On.

Misael: I was like, look, okay, this cannot happen again, right? This cannot happen again. And either way, it always happened again. Every single time, it just always happened again. So anybody that is dealing with employees that are telling them, excuse me, that are telling them that they’re not going to do it again, and they’re crying to you, it will happen. Like I have 100% accuracy every single time. And my operations manager was like, look, Misael, you know what? I think you should not fire people. I think you need to give me that. So from there, I just, I was never in the room. I was just away. And until now I have my field supervisor that he’s the one firing people.

Stephanie: But what you’re talking about is delegating the things that you are not good at. You can do it, but that’s a perfect example. I’m the same way, same way.

Misael: I don’t do any of the hiring.

Stephanie: Yeah. I’m a sucker. I don’t do it anymore. But I do have employees that have been with me for two, three years. And if, you know, I’m getting a lot less of pay advances because we increased our pay and we’re paying them really well. It’s getting a lot less, but if it’s someone that’s been with me for a while, I’m going to take care of them. Be generous. And for me, I’m very much of the mindset of like, this is a gift because I don’t expect to see it again. And so I’ve made financial decisions that make no sense from a profit standpoint, but they helped somebody in front of me that I felt called to help. And I just, for me, it’s more like, am I going to be resentful if this goes south? And if that is the case, I shouldn’t do it. Because I don’t want to make those types of decisions.

Gender Dynamics in the Cleaning Industry

But since you brought up gender, I would love to hear because I’ve seen in the groups and everything like that. You were a man going back to the beginning. You were a man cleaning houses day in and day out. Did you have, this is a thing I literally see of, you know, my clients don’t want male cleaners or if we send a male, they turn them away or they don’t want to work with us. Do you, I mean, I would love to hear your experience with that? And how did you handle that? Of course, you know, we want to make sure our clients are feeling comfortable, but it’s also, you know, you’re trying to do a job here, right?

Misael: I think my personality covered it. You know, going in and very much of, hey, you know, I’m from Time Made, I’m the business owner, I’m here to provide you the service. I think people really attached themselves to that. Like they felt comfortable. I never had a problem. Maybe something that I didn’t notice, maybe the reason why we didn’t get the reoccurring, you know, they could have been that. But I did a lot of cleaning the first year and that was mainly move-ins and move-outs. They were usually empty, but if I did go to a couple clients, I just always went in with a drive of providing more value than what’s expected. So I always did more and I connected. You know, I think I’m a good communicator when it comes to clients and I think I just won them over right away. And they were just, I think I changed their perspective. I’m like having a male cleaner. Yeah.

Stephanie: And I mean, what do you say? So for our listeners that have potentially butted up into this, because you want to be cognizant of like, I get it. You’re in a home alone. I want to respect people’s comfort level with a male cleaner. But obviously that makes it hard because you may have great guys that are available to you for staffing purposes. So do you have any recommendations of how to handle that as a male owner?

Misael: Right now, all of my, besides my commercial cleaners are males, but all of my residential cleaners, they’re all women. And we’ve had a handful of instances where we’ve had clients say like, hey, I don’t want a male in the house. I’m here by myself. My husband’s not here. He doesn’t feel comfortable. And after a while of just hearing it, it’s not that we made a decision not to hire males during the day. It’s just, we just understood that I think that it was just the best option, just not do it. So I guess we did make the decision of not doing that and only hiring for commercial cleaners for males.

So what I would just say is to not take the males out of residential cleaning, I would say it’s just a numbers game. Like how many people are you getting that are telling you that they are not comfortable with male cleaners? You know, we have over 200 clients that we service on a reoccurring. So we’ve had maybe like five of those clients tell us that. So it’s not enough data for me to make a decision and say completely no. So I would just say, look at the data, how many people are usually saying it. Don’t just start changing your systems because of one person. Make it because it’s been a constant thing that’s popping up and it’s giving you good feedback. It’s also helpful to do surveys, get your reoccurring clients to do a survey and to say, hey, are you comfortable with male cleaners? And that’s going to give you a lot of data of if they’re okay with it. If you get everybody that’s like, no, we don’t mind, then you’re right. You’re okay.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Stephanie: You know, you make so many good points and, you know, we’re the same way. All of our guys are in the janitorial side. That’s actually the only thing that they typically apply for is the janitorial side. So I have all women on the residential side. So it’s not something I’ve really ran into. And that’s why I just wanted to talk about this because I know it is an issue that people do run into. But what you brought up about, you know, utilizing data and not freaking out just because we get one bit of feedback, and then feeling like we need to overhaul the entire way we operate in a particular area of the business, because of that one data point, that could be an outlier. That could be somebody who also is just, you know, unhappy people are the loudest, right? Happy people are quiet. So that’s a really good point is like, don’t be emotional or overreact on this. And this could be done in a different way, but you may not have to change everything.

Would you consider, I’m curious, would you consider yourself a very analytical person? Or have you worked on being more, like knee jerk and reactionary? Is that something you ever struggled with? Or have you always been a very calm, measured person when it comes to decisions? Like, what does that look like?

Staying Calm Under Pressure

Misael: I’ve been calm. I’m a calm decision maker.

Stephanie: You seem real chill.

Misael: I’m super chill. And I think I got that because I knew that I am in control of, I’m not in control of everything. So I do make decisions sometimes just out of the whim. Like I make decisions really, really fast. But, you know, I’m all about knowing that if something does happen in the business, then that gives us the opportunity to get feedback and to adjust. So I’ve had, you know, we get complaints. If we get complaints, I’ve taught my team to, don’t freak out. Actually this is the opportunity to stand out. This is the opportunity to show them who we really are because they’re not hiring perfection. They’re hiring someone that is going to take it and make it right at the end of the day. That’s it, right? So whenever we get complaints, my office team used to freak out and I calmed them down. I was like, dude, we need to get complaints. It’s going to happen. We cannot serve over 200 clients and then not get one complaint. We’re not perfect. That would be actually a concern to me if we didn’t get any complaints.

So I’ve just always just been calm knowing that I am in control at the end of the day. If I freak out, everybody will freak out. And if I freak out, I’m not going to help anybody. So the best thing to do is just take a step back, take a deep breather. Okay. This has happened to us. What can we do to make it right? And I’ve always been in that system of okay, take a step back, take a deep breath. Hey, what’s going on? Okay, this is what’s happening. It’s not good. Well, what can we do to make this right? What can we do so that this doesn’t happen again? And then we just move forward. So I don’t simmer on things. I think it’s really bad when people start simmering on a problem for hours and days and weeks. That is very, very unhealthy. You’re actually doing yourself a disservice of a leader to your team. It’s very important for you to be able to simmer on it for five minutes, 10 minutes max, and then just put your pants on and make a decision. What do you need to do? The faster they know that you are comfortable and you’re calm during these times, you’re going to reflect that to your team. And that’s how you want them to be.

You don’t want to allow mistakes to continually happen. Obviously, like things constantly are happening, then okay, what’s going on in your system that is creating these complaints, what’s going on, and then okay, hey, what do we need to look at? Do we need to fire someone? Or is it something that our system is broken? Oh, you know what, I think the system’s broken, because everybody else is also getting the same results or whatever it is. So it’s good to be calm.

Leadership as Example

Stephanie: You know, what this reminds me of is, you know, when a kid is running on a playground, maybe a toddler and they slam into the ground and then they look at their parent. And if the parent freaks out, they start to sob and cry and scream. But if you’re like, you’re good, they stay calm. It reminds me.

Misael: That’s how I am with my daughter. Like, honestly, she’s falling. She’s looking back and I’m like, hey, are you okay? You’re fine. You know, kiddo, you’re good. And that’s a great example. It really, really is like that. And usually the person that we look back at is our past. Here it goes again. It’s happening to me again. Here it is. And we have this voice in our head. And it’s like, no, dude, you are responsible for everything that happens. But you also don’t want to be emotionally making decisions and freaking out in front of your people. That’s not the leader that they want to see. Now, if you want to have a mom and pops business, hey, I’ll go for it. Have them see you cry, build that type of relationship, go for it. But if you want to have 24 employees and you want to scale, you just can’t. They need to see a leader. They need to see that their structure and that we make decisions calmly and we’re just not firing people because they forgot to clean the kitchen properly, you know?

Stephanie: Yeah. And just being very intentional as to what we show our staff and which ones, right? Like I am much more likely to show my management team, perhaps some distress compared to my cleaning team. Like it is all smiles, all positive. I’m just laser focused on giving them a great interaction every time. Obviously I’m a remote owner. So it’s like, okay, in the team meeting, I’m very intentional. Like, who’s talking, how’s your life going? Like, I’m just, I’m so, and that’s just genuine as well, but I’m not here to make them feel any sort of instability in the business. I want them to feel so secure that, this is a great place to work. There’s no issues. I just got to show up and clean, right? And do a good job. And so looking at the different people in your business and what we’re being very careful as to what we show. And it’s not to hide yourself or anything, but we are the leader. We have to hold ourselves to a different standard than perhaps others and be somebody that they can look to of calm, even in times of uncertainty.

Building a Bulletproof Onboarding System

So if you’re looking at your current operations, where’s the gap? What’s the next hire? Or perhaps what is the area of focus for you when it comes to improving to continue to take it to that next level? Is there a striking area that you’re like, this needs to change before we can continue to scale?

Misael: Right now we are creating a bulletproof onboarding system. Bulletproof. We’re doing some things that our industry is not doing at all. I can guarantee it a thousand percent. And what we want to do is we want to create such a great onboarding process that is unbelievable, to be honest, that onboarding is going to really dictate if that person is going to stay with us and we’re just going to funnel people through it. Because I don’t run ads. Everything is just word of mouth and past clients. So in order for us to be able to run ads, I think once we do, we’re going to devour people out here. But once we run ads, I want to be ready that, hey, our onboarding system is solid. Our SOPs are all aligned. It’s a complete, we’re calling it Time Made University where everybody, even the office staff has every single video, every single process, every single step of their job so that I can completely just step out. You know, I’m only working 10, 15 hours a week if that, that’s because I want to, but it’s that. It’s being able to have a onboarding process for office team and cleaners so that I could pretty much have a turnkey process of hiring when we move to a different city in Arizona.

Stephanie: I see. Yeah, we revamped our orientation and onboarding in this past year. And we’ve seen such an improvement because at least for me, our orientation was like, hey, here’s your cleaning kit. Go with this person before. That did not fly at this level. Staying here, ask a couple of questions, give them a couple of tests. They do spend time with me one day and I talk about our reference guide, our employee handbook, I do all of that myself. And I want to get out of it. But I’m very, very, very intentional when I talk about the expectations. Very, very intentional. And I kind of scare them a little bit to where it’s like, we hire and fire based on core values. We actually just fired someone last week. So just want to let you know that. That’s kind of what I thought. Even if I didn’t fire someone, I tell them like, hey, we just fired someone last week and it was because of X, Y, and Z.

And I usually use the same examples of, it’s because, hey, people have cameras, right? People are not being a team player, right? And people are not being reliable. Those are the three things that I use because I want them to be conscious of there’s people in houses that have cameras. So we don’t accept any stealing. You need to treat their house like it’s yours. And then second, we’re a team effort. We’re not individuals here. Even though we do clean houses by ourselves, we do have the solo cleaner. At the end of the day, we’re all a team. So we’re not gonna accept anybody gossiping. We’re not gonna accept any of that. Is that something that you have? And it’s like, no, okay, cool. Because we do fire people on that. And then I’m very intentional that you’re gonna be accountable here. We’re not here to play games. If you’re just here to clean houses and you just wanna have fun and you want to do whatever you want, have your own system, go somewhere else. I’m very, very, very clear and very open because, you know, I mean, cleaners can really take so much time off of your office staff, having to reschedule cleanings, having to, you know, listen to their flat tires, listen to all of this stuff. And it’s just, and in the hiring process, interviewing people, onboarding them. It’s such a huge, it takes a lot of time.

So, you know, we want to create an onboarding process that is so bulletproof that there’s just no excuses on knowing how we clean specific areas around the home, what’s expected. And then so that when they go out in the field, they’re just ready to rock.

Starting Simple with Onboarding

Stephanie: I love that. And obviously you guys are at the size that you are. And I know a lot of our listeners are simply, you know, they’re not at a place that they can do a robust onboarding like that. You know, for us, we use a software called Trainual for all of ours and it’s pretty cool, but it’s expensive. And so if you were to get people started in the right direction, maybe they don’t have the time or ability or energy to do what you or I are building with onboarding, right? Where would be the areas to start of like, okay, we’re not just throwing them to the wolves like we used to do, like here, go clean. Is there a couple things that you would say, okay, sit down, go over these things with them or put these things in place first before we get into this big giant project?

Misael: What I’m currently building for my team, for my company will be available at some point through my coaching program. But it’s very important the taste they get of your business from the start, from the start. You know, it’s very important to have a process that lets them know that you’re serious. So I always recommend doing a phone interview first, just a simple three minutes, four minutes, just qualifying them. If they have a vehicle, so on and so forth, what is their experience? And then from there, letting them know, hey, you qualify for an in-person interview. And then you interview them in person. You are the one interviewing. The owner should be doing it until you get to a certain level where maybe you can have one of your cleaners do it. Your cleaner that embodies your values and your company. But I still interview at this time because I know that that’s the most important thing. If they’re the ones, I mean, a cleaner can bring almost $55,000 of revenue per year. So it’s a very important interview.

And I go in, I sit down, and I always ask them, most importantly, what are their values? Their values need to attach to ours, and then I let them know of our values and see if they are a good fit. From there, I do talk about past experience. If they are cleaners, then I do bring scenarios into the situation, what they would do in certain times while they’re cleaning homes. You can easily, you know, AI those questions and really put, okay, what are some scenarios cleaners go through? And ask scenarios, see what they will say. And then if you do end up wanting to bring them on or you want to do another interview, which I’m a big person on group interviews.

Stephanie: Same, yeah.

Misael: Group interviews. And then you put them as individually. So, hey, you know, I got a great vibe by this person. I’m going to bring them on for a one-on-one. And I let them know the importance of that interview, that we don’t usually pick people really fast. And again, you got to sound premium. You got to sound like, hey, we’re not just messing around trying to hire people. We’re really having, you know, we want to have these types of goals. And I always talk about my targets, what we want to do. Our biggest thing right now is going to Phoenix. So I always say, hey, we want to go to Phoenix and we’re looking for the right team. You know, what are you going to bring to the team that is going to make us go up there? To really get into those core value questions and those scenario questions. And then what we do is we do bring them on for a training where they’re not hired. They sign a training agreement. They’re not going to get paid unless they finish the training.

The Complete Onboarding Process

Stephanie: And they have a one-on-one with me. So on the one-on-one, I talk about, it’s our reference guide. So it is things that they need to do and what they should not be doing. We talk about our cleaning systems, very simple, simplified as much as possible. And then we go through the employee handbook one-on-one. I go through the entire thing. It usually takes me about two and a half hours to go through the whole thing. And then from there, I don’t hire them on. We just say, okay, cool, any questions that you may have. This is the feedback that I got from the trainer. I like to sometimes have the trainer there just for 10 to 15 minutes to give me feedback in front of them. And then they go back into the training for Thursday and Friday. Depending on how they did on Friday is where they have a one-on-one either with me or with my supervisor and with the trainer. We give feedback. If they’re a good fit, then we go over the employee agreement with them, which that usually takes 20 minutes. That’s usually the, I don’t know if I kind of extended on your question there, but that’s usually our onboarding process of what we do.

So the biggest thing is what we want to do is automate the reference guide, automate the cleaning systems, have all of that be more in video and in quiz mode because quizzes are great, especially when it comes to core values. Why is this core value important to you? You can use those answers that they gave you on the evaluations. Hey, you said right here, be kind is really helpful for you, and this is why. Why haven’t you been kind to a certain team member that we’ve noticed that you guys have been having issues with? So again, everything, I would say anybody, wherever you are in your business journey, everything you create needs to have accountability. It just does. And it’s up to us as business owners to create that accountability and to keep it active. Because if we don’t, we just start letting people slide, then you are, you’re not following your systems and that’s not scalable.

The Importance of Accountability

Stephanie: Yeah. And I know it’s hard, especially when you’re getting burnt out. And, you know, if you’re in the field still, or just getting really overwhelmed, it is tough, but it’s like, you just got to stick to it. It will get better, but the only way it’s going to get better is if you stick to it.

Misael: Exactly. Especially when firing people. I think some cleaners, some owners do not fire cleaners because, well, if I fire them, then I’m going to have to go back in the field and I’m going to lose some clients. You’re thinking very micro, which we need to think macro. Look, if I fire them right now, is it gonna suck? Okay, cool. But I can talk to my clients, see if they’re willing to pause. Maybe I can fill up someone else’s schedule, or maybe I could go out there and just get it done, knowing that it’s gonna take me two weeks or so of going back into the field. But I’m going to train people to get up to speed. Because what that does is that it shows your teams that even though we’re going to have to cancel cleanings or skip cleanings, this person is willing to fire people even if they need us, right?

Because I tell my teams, I tell my cleaners, look, you guys are all replaceable. You really are. You guys are replaceable. I can have any other cleaner come in, learn our systems and do our process. But what some of you guys have that is not replaceable is your reliability. The reliability is what we want. If you’re reliable and you’re coachable, we’re going to have a fantastic time here. But if you’re not, because that’s something that I can’t teach you, then you’re going to have a really, really rough time. So yeah, do not keep your cleaners just because you’re going to have to have skip services. Fire them. That’s the best thing you can do. And then that will show to everybody else that she don’t play around, he don’t play around. He will do the work. He will go back in there and do the work. His business is still running. But we’re not accepting unreliable people that are not going to be reliable.

Thinking Long-Term

Stephanie: Yeah, because it’s like, I’m so glad that you brought up, you know, short-sighted or micro versus macro of like, okay, but leaving them, what that’s going to cost you because you’re not willing to do the hard thing right now in this moment. The negative impact and the loss of respect from the rest of your team, it’s very hard to get back respect after it’s been eroded. And so it’s like, okay, is the decision I’m making right now something that my team is going to respect me for? And if it’s not, then we shouldn’t be making that decision. We should be doing the immediate hard thing. Yes, pausing services, communicating to clients, going out and cleaning your damn self. That will actually increase respect a lot because it shows, yeah, you have that low tolerance or zero tolerance for BS, and you will do whatever it needs to be done to make sure that the quality and the integrity of the business is still going to stand. And it’s like that, that will do so much more. So I’m very, yeah, we’re very aligned on that concept.

Misael: And you have to be, you know, and it’s going to get harder. There’s going to be seasons where it will be hard in your business, right? But if you think about it, like this is how it’s always going to be, then you’re the one affecting it because you’re not creating the right systems and processes. I’m not saying, you know, start making these decisions and you just keep moving on. You got to ask yourself, why are we receiving these types of results, right? Why are we getting people that are just not being reliable? Okay, well, I will look first at your pay. Are you really paying them well? Are you really training them well? Do they know the values that you have in your business? All of these things. And if everything does align and you’re like, no, they get paid well, good values. They’re respected here, they have a schedule, everything is smooth, everything is transparent. Then, okay, cool. You just hired a wrong person. Just fire them and interview more people.

It gets easier. Even through hard times, you learn. But those hard times, sometimes I miss it, to be honest. I miss solving big problems because that is where you truly grow. That’s when you get feedback about your business where it’s like, okay, this is not what we’re going to accept. This is not what we want. So we need to create a drastic change. And those are the fun times, truly.

Stephanie: It’s very exciting right now where it’s just like, everything’s kind of boring, but that’s, you know, which is good because that means it’s running well. But yeah, there is something quite exciting about that growth period, and it just changes and evolves.

Where to Find Misael

But Misael, where can people find you? Because I’m sure now after they’ve heard this titillating conversation we’ve had, they’re going to want to know more. They’re going to want to learn more from you. So talk about your podcast, your channel, and any other resources, coaching that you offer. Where can we find you?

Misael: So I have a podcast called The Cleaning Journey. You can find us on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. Stephanie is one of my episodes. I think you’re like sixth episode. Fantastic interview, I loved it. But I also Instagram at Misael.Avalos. I put a lot of coaching content in there, just more of value content of what I know about, what I’ve learned about my business. And yeah, you know, I coach people on, and I don’t even, I don’t like the word coach. I guess I like mentorship, right? I mentor people on systems and processes so that they could earn more and work less. So all of that stuff you can find it on my Instagram and my YouTube. And again, I’m a true believer of dumping content, so I try to throw a lot of content out there and really make it valuable. But those are the platforms that you can find me.

Stephanie: Awesome. We will definitely link all those in the show notes so you guys can go give them a follow and a listen elsewhere. But this has been amazing, Misael. I’m so glad we were able to connect again. It really is a joy to hear from you, and you bring such a, yeah, a very calm and beautiful energy to the space. So thank you for being you.

Misael: Well, I appreciate you for having me, and it’s been fun knowing you.

Stephanie: You betcha. And everybody give me some love in the comments and hit that like, hit that subscribe. We will see you guys on the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye-bye.

Note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• ZenMaid
• Listen to The Cleaning Journey Podcast on 🎧 Apple Podcasts, 🎧 Spotify, or 👀 watch on Youtube
• Misael Avalos on Instagram
• Business Network International (BNI)
• Trainual
• Atomic Habits by James Clear

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