From Burnout to Balance — Lessons from 16 Years of Cleaning Business Ownership

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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 fabulous guest, Molly Moran is truly an inspiration in the cleaning industry, both from her business savvy, but then just from a leadership perspective and who she is in the space. She owns a fantastically successful cleaning service in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has also now gotten into coaching over the past several years, podcasting and truly just being a force to be reckoned with. So Molly, thank you so much for the time today, and I can’t wait to have this conversation with you.

Molly: Oh, I’m so glad to be here, and thanks for that introduction. Steph, make me feel like a million bucks as we get started. I appreciate it.

Stephanie: Well, you make more than a million, I’m sure. So indeed, but you know, for a Monday, it’s not so bad to make another feel like another million, right?

Molly: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

From Corporate to Cleaning Business

Stephanie: So for our listeners who are not familiar with you, would you mind just giving us a little walk down memory lane of where you were at when you opened your cleaning business? What inspired you to do this, and had you ever done anything entrepreneurial prior to that?

Molly: Well, I love this question, Steph, and I would say I interestingly never wanted to be an entrepreneur, and now I have been for many years. I started my cleaning company in 2009 after a long stint in the nonprofit industry. The funny thing is, I didn’t want to be an entrepreneur because I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. My parents owned a country store, and literally, my bedroom was above the cash register, so I could hear as a teenager on Saturday mornings the cash register ringing and all of that stuff, which was pretty amazing in certain ways. However, it was seven days a week, 8:30am to 7:30pm and although it was a great business for my parents and for our family, ultimately, and they were able to retire from it, there wasn’t a ton of freedom. And so I thought, business means no freedom. And so for a decade, I was fully against becoming a business owner.

I was working in the nonprofit world. Didn’t love my trajectory. I kept kind of getting bored, and was like, kept moving around, and I was like, I’m going to become an executive director. I don’t want to do that. So I just didn’t like where I was going. And then I read The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, which a lot of us read many, many years ago. And I was like, This is amazing. I can make a million dollars and work four hours a week, this is gonna be so awesome.

And I remember exactly where I was reading the book, on the beach in Mexico. I was taking a hiatus from my working life and learning Spanish and traveling around and having a blast, and so I decided, Okay, I’m gonna start my own company. I don’t know what it is gonna be, but I do know it’s gonna needs to have low startup costs, needs to be customer service centric, because I’m really good at customer service. I mean, I grew up behind the cash register, right? So I knew customer service. And at that time, I was like, it can’t be heavily into technology, because I didn’t feel like I knew technology very well.

The Light Bulb Moment

So I came home from that trip and I wasn’t sure what the business was going to be. I had a few parameters, and had to bring my sort of personal values about being a good human into it. And I had hired a cleaning person to clean my house. I went back to work full time. I was working in the nonprofit world, but I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and had hired someone to clean my house. Had given her environmentally friendly cleaning products to use, and she didn’t use them. And I came home from work that day and I started sneezing and having a big allergic reaction, and I have a little bit of asthma, so I had an asthma attack, and I was like, and I had this light bulb moment. I was like, I’m gonna start an eco friendly cleaning company. Literally, that’s how it happened. So that’s how I landed here, 16 years ago, starting my Eco Friendly House cleaning company.

The Hustle Culture Connection

Stephanie: Wow, that I can so resonate with that as also a child of entrepreneurs and a business owner, and really correlating that you need to work like a dog in order to be successful in business and that. And I really took that into my young adulthood before I opened the company, of I’m going to just work so much. And because that’s that’s really not only the path to success, but I really correlated that with worth. Of well, that’s what my worth is, is being able to work like that, and it was, you know, there was definitely a lot of success from that, but I think a lot of burnout comes from it at all. And I’ve seen on your content, you talk a lot about burnout. And so when you were starting the cleaning business, what did that look like from an energy level? Do you feel that you had a season, or you’ve had seasons of I got to push, and I’m making that active choice versus balancing that is really interesting to me.

Molly: Yeah, I love this question, and it’s funny, because I think I used to tie worth and everything into being, as long as I work hard, I am worthy, right? And I can do anything, I can do anything I put my mind to, as long as I work hard and I’ve definitely shifted away from that in the last several years. And I think I contributed to this, to hustle culture and taking pride. And I’m now I’m like, F that. I am not into that at all.

Now, do I work really hard sometimes? Absolutely. And are there different seasons? Absolutely, even in a year or even in a month of work. Are there different seasons of working hard and resting for sure. And early on in my entrepreneurial journey, I was not aware of this. I was just the harder I work, the more successful I’ll be, the more money I’ll make, the more people I can impact, and it’s really just been in the last, I would say eight to 10 years where, well, maybe eight years where I’ve really started to look at it from a more holistic place, and recognize the value of rest and also, reframing what I think makes a person worthy and successful, and all of that too, right?

The Patience Factor in Business Growth

And I know that it can be really easy once you’ve made it to certain milestones. I remember thinking, Oh, that’s easy for that person to say they already have a multimillion dollar company, they already have the lifestyle they want. I have to push to get there. I definitely remember thinking that when I heard that, when I was in startup mode, and now I’m sitting here doing that because I’m not in startup mode anymore. And I would say that it doesn’t have to be the hustle. And I actually believe that you can get a lot more done when you take smart breaks and rest to recuperate, you’ll have a lot more energy and focus, rather than just burning the candle at both ends. So to me, does that make sense?

Stephanie: That makes perfect sense. So how does that correlate to patience for you? Because when I think about 22 year old Stephanie, if you said that to me, I’d be, I don’t got time for that. Do you feel your patience has grown as a person?

Molly: Yeah, I do. And 22 year old Stephanie, listen, 22 year old Stephanie is going to have different energy levels than 30 year old or 40 year old or 50 year old Stephanie, right? And so if you want to, if that’s what you want to do, then freaking do it right. But if you do it for keep doing it year after year after year, you know. But I think that there’s also a thing that happens. I mean, as a 50 year old, I would say I probably have a little less energy than I had as a 22 year old, okay, in all truth, right? And so then you start to think, Well, how do I want to spend my time? Where do I want to put my energy?

And I still have a I have a ton of energy, and I believe a lot of that’s around mindset and other things too. But there are certainly chemical things that happen to women’s and men’s bodies, around hormones and all kinds of things when they’re in their 40s, 50s, whatever, where you have to start to look at those things in order to maintain the same kind of energy levels.

So I would say that my patience in the past has come to me, has been forced on me. I didn’t just wake up and embrace it. It was definitely forced on me and that’s okay. We all have to. We all learn in different ways, right? But also, it would be forced on me. And I would also say another thing that happened is that the more successful I’ve become, in our industry and with my coaching and all of that, the more opportunities have come my way. And so really thinking, Well, how do I want to spend my time rather than just saying yes to this and yes to this. I’ve stopped saying yes to everything, because time is truly the most precious resource we have, right? That I think has also kind of played into the patients things I’m, I can’t say yes. If I say yes to everything, then it’s going to take this other thing longer to grow or to get to wherever I want to get it to. So it’s been kind of a balancing act in that way.

Learning to Say No and Focus

Stephanie: I love that you mentioned that, and kind of the opportunity cost of every decision that we make. And I would say, when I’m looking at newer owners, or even looking back at myself, that was, I was such a yes man, and it’s joked in my company, Stephanie, well, I wouldn’t be answering the phones anyway, but I’m not allowed to, because we would be cleaning gutters and painting apartments.

Molly: So yeah, we could do that.

Stephanie: Yeah, people in place that have are very, a lot stronger in that of, you know, whatever that and that worked in the beginning, but now I’m, Okay, we can’t be the best at every possible home service. And I see so many owners coming up and, I look at their website and they have 10 different things that they say that they’re experts. And I’m, No, you’re not, right?

Molly: Right. No. I think I love that you said that, you know, I will say when I started out. So 16 years ago, I started my cleaning company, and we said yes to anything commercial, janitorial and anything residential. And then I remember people saying, well, hey, I remember I had a customer that said, Hey, you’re already in our houses. It’d be great if you added pet sitting on. And I was, Are you kidding me right now? I was, no. I knew enough then to say no, but we said yes to everything. And I built my business for a lot of years, and we were 50% commercial, 50% residential, and then and I walked around everywhere with two cell phones. This was before cloud based phone systems. So I had the Green Sweep cell phone, and I had my cell phone. I looked definitely like a drug dealer everywhere I went, if only I made that kind of money, right?

The Decision to Focus on Daytime Work

And I went on vacation, and we had day crew, night crew, 25-30 people. I don’t remember how many people at that point in time. And we went, my wife and I went on a vacation, and I had such a hard time finding all the coverage that I needed for it was, because we were open 19 hours a day, right? And so even though I had a night manager and I had a day manager, but then I’d have somebody crossover, because I was in Italy, right? And so I was gone, and I came home, and I was, forget it. We’re done. We’re done with night work. And so I and even though we’re only doing two things, then residential and commercial, I was, we’re just gonna focus on the one. We’re just gonna focus on daytime hours, Monday through Friday, 8:30 to five. If somebody wants commercial and it fits in that world, fine, but or fits in that timeframe, fine, but otherwise, this is what we’re doing because quality of life became as important to me. I was, and there’s plenty of business during the day, let’s just do it during the day, right?

Stephanie: Oh, yeah. And there’s so much I’m so happy, because our revenue is 50% residential, 50% commercial, and we have gotten so discerning on which commercial, because it’s, it’s gotta be daytime, it’s got to be daytime, because we were having the same problem of either my managers or myself, because you have to be fair to the to your employee. You got to be there for them if something goes wrong. And I remember starting out and I was cleaning daycares, you know, at midnight, because, and it’s just, I so I learned a lot, but I so wish I hadn’t, again, said yes to things. I was, This doesn’t make sense from a life balance perspective at all. You’re not gonna have a life at all of your night in the day, for sure.

Molly: Totally. And I will say it’s funny, because a lot, and I know that a lot of the listeners probably they’re working to get out of the field, and you know, and for me, it was, and I started out cleaning. I didn’t, I wanted to know how to do everything. So I was, that was very important to me. And then I quickly hired people. And I did not, I made, I did not make much money at all. I definitely took a hit for my first few years. And if you can imagine, I went from the nonprofit world to the for profit world that I made a third of what I was making in the nonprofit world, right? But I because I didn’t know what I was doing. But anyway, the thing that kept me in the field, or made me slip back into the field, was the commercial work. Because I could always say no. I’m sorry, Mrs. Smith, during the day we can’t clean your house because somebody’s sick or whatever it is. I could always bump that cleaning or whatever. But the nighttime work was doctor’s offices and schools, and they had to be cleaned. They had to be done. And we didn’t have the right depth there. So I do recall cleaning doctors offices at nine o’clock at night and I had 20 employees at the time, right? And I was this, and that’s what was part of that whole decision making process as well.

Staffing Models: W2s vs Independent Contractors

Stephanie: Yeah, well, especially if you’re, if you’re that size of staffing, it’s what is going on? There’s some failure of your pulled back in and not some type of buffer or anything that. And just out of curiosity, because I to know when I’m speaking to our guests, do you run ICs, W twos or some combination, or have you switched over from one to the other?

Molly: Great question. No, so we are 100% w2 employees? Yes, absolutely, absolutely, yeah. So that’s been our model from the beginning. I supplemented. Early on, I supplemented a little bit with ICS, but now we are W twos. We pay by the job. We’re primarily a solo cleaning model. So that’s that’s how, that’s how we are.

Stephanie: Now we do solos as well. So I really appreciate the kind of interconnection there. And I feel that topic ties so well into your focus on, you know, you mentioned in your intake form that, you know, you’re in the business of managing people, and you’re a people company that happens to do cleaning. And I am so glad that you said that, because that’s a whole of possibility, of conversation. Because truly, once you get to this size, and really every size, it’s we happen to do cleaning, but that is the biggest, I would say, challenge of the industry is staffing, at least that’s been my experience. Has it been that your experience of just keeping up with?

Molly: Yes, 100% that is the biggest challenge. And turning it, I mean, it’s physically very hard work and it’s a bunch of remote workers that are not on, not in front of their computer. So you can’t connect in front of the computer, right? So figuring out how to manage a truly remote team that you might see once a week or whatever, as they’re coming in and out for supplies and staying connected and quality control and all the things and providing a great job, all the things are, of course, have definitely been a challenge for me as we’ve grown, without a doubt, yes.

Learning Management on the Job

Stephanie: So as the business has grown from, you know, just you to immediately starting hiring, and I’m assuming, had you managed people before in your previous work? Or Were you at a management level?

Molly: I mean, a little. I, you know, not. I’ve never had any formal management training. How about that? Or I had not when I started my company. I had, I had managed in the nonprofit world. Now, I think I know I maybe manage some volunteers, but not even that many. My parents country store, I definitely had a management role, but I was they bought it when I was 11 and sold it when I was 26 or something that. So, I mean, I was definitely in charge a lot there, but I was not managing, growing a team. No, I had no experience with that.

Stephanie: I gotcha. And I am curious when it comes to challenges with managing people and being that this was, you know, you hadn’t had this formal training. You’ve never done this before, and you’re also trying to do wear all of the hats of the of the business owner. Does anything strike you as some of the maybe mistakes or areas that you really had to grow when it came to leadership and, you know, managing this amount of people, looking back at your former younger self, Oh, I wish, I really needed to grow there, I didn’t handle these things correctly. Do any traits specifically stand out to you that you feel you’ve developed strongly here?

Trusting Your Gut in Management

Molly: Yeah, I think that’s such a good question. So the first thing I’ll say is that I’m still developing, because my team is getting bigger and bigger, and I’m, Well, I’m I’ve never led 20 people. I’ve never led 25 oh, I’ve never led 35 people. So it requires a new version of me. Every time we grow, it’s requiring a different or newer version of me. So I’m constantly, I shouldn’t say constantly, but I’m, I’m very, very regularly engaging in, growing my leadership, whether it’s through courses or mentorship or whatever. So I’m always growing there. You know, every day I’m working on that.

And I would say, early on I had, I had really good resources in my world. So I knew how to write somebody up, I knew how to fire somebody, I knew how to do the guilt unemployment stuff. Because I had, I had great mentors in my in my world, who could help me with that. What I didn’t always do, well, that I would say, is that I didn’t always trust myself, and I didn’t always trust my, my sort of gut feelings around people, and that’s gotten me into more problems than literally anything else, from a management perspective, I would say.

And I think that that’s ties kind of into the, you know, as you’re growing a company, you’re, Well, I don’t necessarily have training in this, and there could be a little imposter syndrome, I don’t know how to do this, or whatever. So you’re trying to, you’re trying to make sure you’re doing everything right. But you might have an actual feeling about a person who’s working for you, or whatever, but you’re, but you don’t necessarily trust it, because you think you don’t have the experience or or whatever. Is, and so that’s where I’ve gotten into the most problems, is not trusting what I just intuitively knew to be true, and then figuring figuring it out from there.

Stephanie: And do you, are you specifically speaking in maybe negative traits of you’re, I don’t think this person should, should be here on the team, but I’m gonna, I’m gonna go against that feeling and let them continue on, is that, is that

Molly: Yes, yes, that’s exactly what I’m speaking to and, you know? And that’s been, that’s been a, that’s been a hard lesson learned, that’s been an expensive lesson learned, for sure, for sure, that’s been, you know, so I would say that another sort of management or leadership, sort of earlier on thing that that we continue to work on in my cleaning company, obviously, honestly, but is, is sort of the really focusing hugely on the growth of the individuals that are working for you.

The Head Coach Approach to Leadership

And I have come to a place now where I’m, Okay, I am. I’m the head coach. That’s what I am. I’m the head coach of my team and so, and that’s kind of the that’s the energy I try to bring to it, rather than I’m the boss or I’m the manager or whatever. I’m, I’m the head coach. So what can I do to help, let’s say this person do better in life, do better at work, right? And so if I focus on that sort of development of the people, rather than just focusing on, I mean, the the numbers, the KPIs, those are all important too. They have to be happening, right? But focusing on the development of the person more than anything else, the rest tends to come. So that’s, that’s one thing I definitely didn’t do in the past that I’m doing now that’s been really helpful.

Dealing with Staff Turnover Challenges

Stephanie: Pouring into the people for sure, and, and what would you say about I mean, I’m a pretty half glass full person, but when we’re dealing with heavier turnover, for us during clean this summer, we’re literally saying, the summer 25 we’re not talking about this ever again, because the turnover has been and it’s been really kind of out there crazy things, somebody who’s worked for me for four years stealing, you know, and having to fly at a church, mind you, a wallet at a church. Oh, and, I mean, I loved this person that, I mean, truly, I care for that person so much. And so we’ve had, you know, just kind of obscene, I would say morality issues, as opposed to a quality or so, you didn’t clean it right, whatever it’s been. And so for us, it feels I’m in the ninth round of of a boxing match, and I’m, Please give me Aaron. We’re finally coming out of that. But when you’re when you’re butting up against an issue, this is the issue, and you keep hitting it. Keep hitting it. What kind of things do you go what that kind of things go through your mind, so that you stay positive, but also full of clarity, of not catastrophizing or anything. Because I’m sure you’ve ran into issues where it’s this, we keep hitting this.

Molly: Sure. Yeah, no. So it’s, I usually always am, Okay, this is if it’s the same issue over and over again, then I’m, I truly do think, Okay, this is a me issue, and this is a molly issue. What the hell am I doing wrong, you know, and I can’t always figure it out. And so I talk to other people, and I try to get feedback on from other people about, Okay, this is, this is the issue as it presents itself, so you’ve got stuff, you’ve got a issue with around integrity, it sounds right?

Stephanie: Which is one of our core values, mind you, that’s literally, and we’re just, Okay, why? Why now, you know, and just getting really discerning. Maybe it’s a filtering problem in the in the interview process of getting honing in even more so heavily. Of, okay, in this business, we are, people are presented opportunities to not act with integrity a lot because of the nature of the business. And so, how do we really discern and try to and not? People are really good at hiding that, you know.

Molly: They’re not going to tell you. They’re, please, all the prescription meds.

Accepting That Bad Things Happen

You know, I would say a couple of things. I would say, with stuff that, someone you just, you can’t predict everything. And so someone was just this shits gonna happen, and there’s nothing you could have filtered out somebody who worked for you for four years. Did they just recently develop a drug problem and they’re stealing because they’ve developed you can’t filter everything out. And I think that if you just recognize that bad shits gonna happen and that you’ve got the skills and the resilience to deal with it, and it’s just part of doing business, you know? I mean, it truly is. I mean, I’ve had, I’ve had people steal. I had somebody steal a diamond necklace one time, many, many years ago. And let me tell you, this was, this was before I I’ve, I’ve been with my wife now for I think I should know that 13. Years. No wait, 14, almost 14 years. So she’s been with me almost the entire time. I’ve had the business.

And early on, someone stole a diamond necklace, and I had no proof, but I was, Yeah, I think, I think they did, you know? So I was, so I went and I bought this client a new diamond necklace. And I was, I haven’t even bought my partner or anything yet. You know what I mean? I went and spent thousands of dollars on something because I had to. And it was just, this is and, you know? And with that, in that particular instance, we had really messed up with the hiring. That was 12 or 13 years ago. We completely messed up, with the background checking. That has never happened again, right? But, I think she had, a felony or something ridiculous, way back then. So that was truly, we screwed up. So it was very, you could point it out, but things are just going to happen that are unexpected too, right? And so it’s, if you just know, you have to develop a bit of a, I think you have to, toughen up a little bit you know, develop a bit of, a bit of a hard, a little hard shell to know that it’s not necessarily about you. You can’t predict everything. And part of doing business and growing a business is that you’re going to run into people who don’t treat your you with integrity, don’t treat your business with integrity, all the things. And just know and come up with a plan for how you’re going to deal with it when it happens. Because guess what? It’s going to happen, right?

Leaning Into Your Team for Solutions

Stephanie: Yeah, humans are going to human, and we’re not a bunch of Roombas, unfortunately, go clean the houses.

Molly: Right, right? Totally, I will say stuff. Can I tell you one other thing right now? So we’re have, we are having, we’re having an issue, and I don’t know exactly what the issue is right now with our with our field technicians, and so I’m getting together, I’m doing, a mini retreat with our HR manager and two of the leaders, a training two of our training manager and a deep, clean specialist from the field. We’re having, the four of us are, going off site for a day and a half to hash out a whole bunch of stuff, because there’s a bunch of things that I don’t I don’t even necessarily know at this point in my business, because I’m not in the day to day of it anymore. And so and they have their wealth of information, right? And so I think that if you can lean in and just be vulnerable they know more than I do, and this is my business, right? So I want to learn from them and you and utilize their knowledge to better the company. So if we can do that as leaders too, that’s also so if where you are right now with this holy shit, whatever, that would definitely be my recommendation for you to do that, just not in a one hour meeting, if it really is a sort of catastrophic kind of thing, lean, lean, hard into that shit, right? Yeah.

Business Structure and Team Roles

Stephanie: And I think that, you know, we’ve definitely, weathered it, and now, as with really, every negative thing that’s ever happened in the business, I’m so happy that happened, because, one, it allowed us to have a level of candor with the entire team of, look, this happened, and we fired this. I mean, my other staff members were in tears because they were so shocked by this. They knew her, you know, and I could literally feel the respect in the room growing, because it’s I respect you enough to tell you, this is what happened and, you know, obviously this is a good person, and they messed up. And let’s, let’s talk about it. And so I love that you said, of sometimes you just have to really lean into your people. And that make, that makes me very curious about your business structure. Could you describe what it looks like, obviously, field technicians. Man, Well, what exactly is the responsibility split in yours and even having deep, clean specialists? I’m very intrigued by that.

Molly: Yeah, so it’s, it is less than perfect. I’ll start by saying that, and it’s a work in progress. As we grow, it continues to shift and change, and I’m seeing the need for another change here soon. So we have, we have 31 field technicians, and of those a couple, we have three. We need or four training managers who do, who do our training of the new technicians as they come on, and then we have and now, and I say Training Manager, they’re in charge of the training. They’re not, and they have ultimate control over the training of whether somebody passes training or doesn’t pass training and that sort of thing. But they do not have ongoing management responsibilities to that person, just to be clear, in terms of what the role they are, full time cleaners as well. We have and we have deep clean specialists, and we have, that’s a newer role that we’re still working out. But I want to say we have four deep clean specialists, and they do the bulk of our deep cleans as the leads. And then they have support staff, you know, helping them with the details as well.

And then in the office, we currently there are four folks who support everything administratively. So we have Daniela, who’s our account manager, and she’s in charge of all the sales and all the customer service and she’s I’m gonna probably be peeling customer service off of her, because it’s getting too hectic with sales at our size for her to also be dealing with customer complaints excessively. So she’s in charge of all that, and everyone has a primary role and a backup role. So literally, everyone’s backup role is sales. In our office, everyone has that as a secondary responsibility. But So Danielle is in charge of sales and driving it. Taj is in charge. She’s a HR, HR and finance manager. So she’s in charge of the entire all of the field technicians at this point, so all of the hiring, onboarding, training, managing of the field coaching of the field technicians, as well as doing has some fun payroll and some financial responsibilities. And then we have two, and then we have Chris, who is in charge of the scheduler, and I don’t remember everyone’s title, so that’s why I’m hang on. So what are their responsibilities? She’s in charge of everybody’s she’s in charge of the schedule, which is not a full time job, obviously, or I shouldn’t say obviously, but it’s not a full time job in our in our company. And she’s also in charge of tech support throughout the day. So all the slack messages, hey, I’m locked out. Hey, where do I you know, that kind of stuff. So she’s in charge of that, and she’s also in charge of the inventory in the warehouse. And then we had Daisy, who is in a support role to all, but especially toward the HR and finance manager, so huge HR support and stuff that. So that’s where Daisy sits. And then I’m leadership. And of course, I’m, I’m the, I’m driving certain things, but I have no, I have no operational responsibilities at all. So and I’m in charge of marketing, which I can do from anywhere.

Stephanie: Obviously, I love marketing. And I’m, that’s what I’ve chosen to keep on as well, yeah, but moving from the operation. So when it comes to all of these roles, obviously, it’s pretty extensive, and I’m just, I’m so curious, did these folks start as cleaning techs, or did you hire them as management?

Molly: None of the people in the office started as cleaning techs, really, that’s amazing. Yeah, none of them did. And I’ve, I’ve done I’ve had a mix before. I’ve done it. Sometimes it works really well. Sometimes it doesn’t work really well. I’ve had it working and not working. So I’m very careful. I know some people only hire and elevate from the field, and that has not been our trajectory, necessarily, but yeah. So none of them have come from the field. They have. They’ve all been in the field. Well, with the exception of Daisy, has not because she’s a remote employee, but every all of them have been in the field and got, you know, done some cross some training so they understand the technicians experience and that sort of thing in the field. But they’re not from the field.

Stephanie: Got it when I know what you mean. Yeah, all my, all my managers, came from the field, but I think it’s more so, just so that they can continue to be backups, and it was so obvious that they were meant for, for more basically, yeah, there is, there is a host of issues that it can come from having, having that kind of path as well, because now they know how to clean and run the business.

The Challenge of Promoting High-Earning Field Staff

Molly: Right? Well, that’s true. That’s true. And, you know, I’ve got this amazing employee in the field right now who, I mean, he’s one, he’s gonna be one of the folks coming to that meeting we’re gonna have in a week, actually. And he would like to transition to the office, and I would like, and he has the skills and he is an amazing leader. And I would love to figure it out. He makes so much money as a as in the field with his tips and stuff, I can’t match his wage in the office right now. So it’s he’s, wait, what? I’m, Yeah, dude, I can’t that. You are the VIPs in the field. I can’t match that. I cannot match that level, especially if you’re making $500 a week in tips. I mean, which good technicians are? I can’t match that. So, yeah, right? The second, yeah, we’re

Stephanie: Till. I mean, it’s looking at pure overhead, right? As opposed to they’re bringing in that. Well, that makes a lot of sense.

When to Add Management and Avoiding Common Mistakes

So as these roles have developed, can you describe kind of because I think a lot of people wonder, when do I bring a manager and when, when? Like, what is the process, and how do you make the decision to add another, you know? And so do you feel you made any mistakes when it came to timing of managers?

Molly: That’s a great question. Early on, I would say no. More recently, I would say yes, as I’ve once since I’ve been bigger, I have definitely made mistakes early on. I mean, I think that, you know, there’s this, this. I believe it’s a fallacy, and I will say that in the past, I definitely perpetuated it, not realizing it was a fallacy, honestly, but that if you know, we could, grow our businesses to a million, million and a half, and then we just, be absent, and that’s BS, you know, it’s, come on. We’re not, this is not a $5 million company. And, you know, I’m not a $5 million company right, right now, so I can’t speak to what that looks like then. But we are the leaders of our company, and it doesn’t mean we have to be in them, but we do, and it’s, I think it’s hard to find somebody who can truly lead and inspire the team most of us can at the level, to be able to afford that level leadership, I can’t afford a $300,000 CEO at this point in time, you know? And I have a good-sized company, right? And so, I mean, I could, if I don’t want to make a huge paycheck myself, but I to make a huge paycheck myself.

So I think that when you’re under a million, you’re still, for the most part, probably, you’re probably working on and in your business, you’re, you know, and certainly up until about 800,000 anyway, you know, you can probably start backing up at that point in time. But you can have assistance and stuff. You can have somebody, you can have somebody who takes over sales. You can have somebody who takes over the schedule. Somewhere around 300 to 400,000 you definitely need support in the office. And then I would say, what you add another 300,000 you’d probably need another person to support you. So at six or 700,000 there’s probably a couple people working in the office full time, and you might be part time if you want to be part time or not, right? So, but for every three to 400 you need a person until you get to the bigger numbers, and then your systems can typically scale a little bit better than that, I would say.

But there’s no reason to add a, you know, I’ve, I’ve talked to business owners who are, Oh, I’m gonna, I’m gonna add a full time, field supervisor who goes around and checks work. And I’m, Huh? I don’t have one of those. I do want to make money because I do, you know, rely on your systems, rely on your technology, rely on your CRMs and your quality control stuff to to control quality. You don’t need to go check every job you know, or you don’t need to check every person every week. So I can’t say, early on, I don’t think I necessarily made a ton of mistakes in terms of hiring managers, per se, but I definitely made them hiring made mistakes and hiring people who weren’t the right fit or whatever.

Be Careful with Titles and Career Progression

One sort of piece of advice I would have is to be very careful with the word manager. Because I mean a manager is somebody who is, you know, typically supervising other people. And there’s not you want to be there. You want people there. You want there to be a place for people to grow into, and if you make them a manager, and you know that, then what? Then what’s up from there? There’s not a lot up from manager. So it’s, so it’s be, I would be careful with the naming and the titling of people, for sure, because there’s not a lot, there’s not a lot of upward mobility from manager once you’re a manager, right? So, yeah.

Traits of Long-Term Successful Employees

Stephanie: With the folks that have done really successfully with you, and have been, you know, been there a long time. What would you say if you were to say the three or three to five traits that it’s, Yep, this is why they’ve stuck with me. This is why they’ve been successful here. If you could, if you could pick a few things to describe these people.

Molly: They they really, they are really into our culture, the culture that we have. They really get it, and they are in alignment with, you know, our culture values at Green Sweep kindness, integrity, community, excellence and growth. So they get those, and so they’re aligned in that way. I would say they’re also aligned with our values as a business, which are not necessarily written out, but one of our big values is community and giving back to the community. So, you know, we do that in a variety of ways. So they love that piece of it, their account. Accountable. So they’re accountable to to their results, and they so and so they have integrity in that way. And with the people that have stuck have been around for the longest, there’s been a path for growth for them, I would say so having a path for growth. Now, if you’re just starting out there’s not, there’s not necessarily a huge path for growth. And even in my company at this size, with 35 employees, there’s not a huge path, but there is a path. our cleaning technicians have a path to growth, even in the cleaning technician role, right? And so a path to growth and a vision to where they’re going. So I guess those would be the things I would say.

Building Strong Company Culture

Stephanie: Oh, I love that. And, you know, I always jokingly to say, we’re the cult leader in the best way, and they need to drink our Kool Aid, right?

Molly: Totally make sure you’re acting, you know, with integrity. But it’s I love. You spoken kind of being the visionary of that’s our role, and we need to inspire. Because, you know, a lot of people can look at this industry or what we do as as not very meaningful work, or how do you get purpose? But it’s when I look at my any of my staff members who’ve been here a long time, they walked into that to our office and they said they saw we have this verbiage, I think that looks a cat just fell out of a tree in front of me. That was weird. The best, the best way to lose yourself is to best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. And when people walk, if they see that, they’re, yes, yes. I love

Stephanie: that. Oh, I love that. That’s really good. Yeah. So it’s just people who really love to serve others because you have to, but also, you know, want to be, want to be rewarded for their hard work. Because, actually, most of our staff has came from the healthcare industry because they were so DOM tried, and they can work their asses off, but they were just getting cold, told constantly, you’re not good enough. You keep messing up. You know what I mean around it’s not very much positive affirmation. So I love to hear that, you know, focusing on, you know, the culture. And has there been any times that you felt your culture was kind of drifting in a way that you didn’t want to and you had to correct?

When Culture Drifts and Leadership Gaps

Molly: I would say. So however, I wasn’t aware that it was drifting at the time. I found out afterwards that it had drifted. And I was, holy shit. So there have been a few times in my business where I’ve really stepped back. I’ve had managers. I was, Okay, I want to step back. I want to travel or and I launched a coaching I have a coaching company as well, so I launched that, and I was, I’m going to focus my energy here. And so I wasn’t focusing as much energy on my cleaning company. And unbeknownst to me, there were things happening culturally that really didn’t work and I and so I and it was totally unbeknownst, but then I ended up having conflict with the managers and yada yada yada, fast forward, then I have these horrible endings with I’ve had a couple of horrible endings with managers and I and then I start digging after they leave, and I’m, we’re doing what, wait what? And this is happening, hang on a second. And so there’s been some, some drift, I would say, mostly because there’s because those folks weren’t necessarily acting in integrity, and I wasn’t leading properly. So both things and but not, you know, we were honest, and then we weren’t honest. not that kind of drift, but just drift. Just drift. And, a lot of damage control, I’ve had to do a lot of damage control afterwards, around that stuff.

And I will say that in my in my absence, there’s at times, been a vacuum with the culture, and so then things are going to fill the vacuum. And so it’s just it is, whatever it is. And so I’m really focused on, never letting that happen again, I’ve learned, I’ve learned that. I’ve learned it hardcore and so systematizing culture has been a and making it a part of everything we do has been a huge part of what I’ve worked on for the last, year and a half or so, and we’re getting there. It’s not perfect. We’re still, we’re still, rolling it out and imbuing it into all the different parts of the business.

Systematizing Culture Through Appreciation

Stephanie: I love that you’re touching and alluding on what you had referenced earlier. Just that the thought process that you can completely step away and not be involved and not expect negative consequences to come from that. Because I think 100% that is put out there now, because everybody’s a coach, everybody wants to do the thing before, but they never did the thing. And so they’re talking about, they don’t even know, yeah, and so it’s, it’s interesting, I think. And I really push back on this being ever something that is considered passive income, or this, whatever it’s I mean, I think you’re gonna, you’re gonna hit a roadblock, and you’re gonna hit something, you’re never going to get past certain heights with the business, if that’s how you see it. Because you need to, you need to be in it. And I know what you mean. Of anytime I’ve, yeah, traveling a lot or whatever, and coming back, and it’s that, I love that you described it as a vacuum, because that’s exactly what it is. Of I bring the culture, I bring the vibes a lot of the time, you know, and just being that charismatic person who is, really seeing and noticing and things that. So when you’re when you’re talking about systematizing culture, can you give a couple little snazzy tidbits of, some examples of what that looks like?

Molly: Sure, so. And I will say, I do want to say, there are weeks on end when I’m not at my business, right? or even more, I’m not there. So it’s not you can’t step away, right, but you’ve got to have some systems in place. But so, so a couple things that we’ve done that have really worked. So I believe, I mean, and I’ve talked about this, and I’ve presented and coached and all. Kinds of stuff on this, but having a culture of appreciation is so essential. And people leave jobs typically not because of the pay, but because they don’t feel seen, heard, understood, appreciated, right? It’s a very basic human need is to feel appreciated and seen and so there’s this. There’s a book that a lot of people have probably heard of, called The Five Love Languages. And there’s a companion book called The five languages of appreciation in the workplace. And I read that several years ago, and I took it and I started to do it so everyone has a different love language. And so learning people’s love languages is really, really key. So for some people it’s gifts, some people it’s acts of service. Some people, it’s physical touch, but you got to be careful about that one in the workplace. Some people, right? Some people, it’s, it’s going to be verbal affirmations, right? And so, but then it’s how do they verbal information? Should they in front of a group? Do they it one on one? So learning that stuff so that you can really see and appreciate your employees has been a game-changer for me, for sure.

And here’s the other part of that, that is, I think, so essential, is that it can’t just be top down. You’ve got to make it you’ve got to make the whole culture doing it right. So peer to peer, other managers, whatever. So one thing I’ve done, and this is you asked for a tidbit, and I’m talking for five minutes. But one, one thing I’ve done is we’ve instituted we have we Slack as our communication, whatever. And we we have a program, oh my gosh, I just blanked on it. I can look it up, though, but we have a program that we use where people can, they we encourage them to do shout-outs. So we have a whole channel just for shout outs. And we and we actually give them, We fund them with coins to do shout outs that can then be traded in for actual you know, gas cards and all kinds of other things. So we, we invest in this, I can’t remember how much. I think it’s $10 per employee per month, or something that. And we, we, we expect them to give away all their points by the end of the month. So they’re the shout out channel. I can’t keep up with it it’s so awesome. And our shout outs are tied into our core values, kindness, integrity, community, excellence and growth. So they’ll pick one of the core values, they’ll be, Oh my god, Steph, I want to shout out Steph today, because she demonstrated kindness when we were dealing with old, old lady, Mrs. Smith, whatever this happened. This happened this. Thanks, Steph, here’s 20 points. And so they give each other points all the time. So we’ve created this culture of appreciation and seeing one another using that tool, using technology, because we’ve got this remote team. So that’s been, one thing that’s been really, really good for us that’s helped, I’m baking totally

Stephanie: Going to implement because, yeah, we use Slack. We have, obviously, the Autobot, Hey, did anybody do anything you want to shout out give, you know, whatever, right single week. And it works somewhat. But I love the incentivization aspect of it, of getting, literally tying it to to right? Yeah, rewarding them for that. So I’m totally going to use that. That’s a great one.

Molly: It’s called, I just looked up. It’s called Qarrot, Q, A, R, R, o, t, Qarrot. And it plugs right? It plugs into Slack. So look it up. It’s great.

Stephanie: Oh, definitely, yeah, and yeah, we’re such a fan of slack even, we just set up, you know, side note of, you know, even responding to the to cleaners of we set up this slack box so that if you know any, they use any of these trigger phrases, Oh, I’m locked out, or running late, or whatever, the autoresponder gets to them and is, Okay, did you do this? This? This, so that when we can get to them, they’ve already provided all the information. So using a lot of times there is a gap that could be filled by software where people think they have to fill up with a person you know right off sometimes, yes.

Molly: That’s great. That’s really great.

What’s Lighting Me Up Right Now

Stephanie: As for you know today and what you’re you’re up to, I know you have your podcast. I know you have your coaching. What’s really lighting you on fire right now as we kind of wrap up?

Molly: Oh, wow. That’s, I mean, I’m really lucky, because there’s a lot lighting me on fire right now. You know, I just spent some time last week at this mastermind and convention, and got so inspired to grow Green Sweep a little more. I heard Marcus Sheridan speak, and he wrote, they ask, we answer, or something anyway, and I’m just, I’m so, I’m so pumped up to continue to just scale up Green Sweep and to really all the ideas and the things I talk about and have done, but really, truly, to coach my team and up level my team and empower them. Because at the base, my whole, my in life, my passion, is empowering people. It’s empowering people to live their best life. And if, if it happens to be a Green Sweep as part of it, then fantastic. I want to coach them and make that happen and make Green Sweep an even better company. And then, of course, if it happens in my coaching program, which is called Live Bright, if it happens there, then fantastic as well. So I’m really or. The podcast by listening to other people and that sort of thing. So I’m just really about assisting people to, get, make more money, have more fun, have more freedom in a variety of ways, right? So that’s kind of my big focus. And I’m lucky because I get to do it in so many different ways.

Stephanie: So, yeah, I can definitely feel that in your energy and just the focus on joy and having fun in our businesses, because it’s it doesn’t have to be this torturous thing, it can be so fun. And

Molly: It can be so fun. Yeah, it really can. It really can.

Closing and Where to Find Molly

Stephanie: Yeah. Oh, Molly, thank you so much for joining me today. Where can the people find you if they want to reach out to you and learn more.

Molly: Yeah. So thanks, Steph, it’s been great being here. It’s always I It’s always so fun to get to reflect. So thanks for the time and letting me get to do that. So on the socials, I’m on Facebook, I’m on Instagram. Molly Moran live, that’s M O L, L, Y, M, O R, A, N Live. My website is mollymoran.com. My podcast is called The Live Bright Show, and in that show, I primarily interview other business owners in the home cleaning industry, and we talk about their journey and what they’re learning and what they’re doing and how they’re living bright. To live bright, I’m just gonna do one last little thing, but to live bright, I know we’re out of time, is to live a life that’s bold, real, intentional, growing healthy and thriving. So bright means something. And so I get to dig in and talk to people about what they’re doing to live bright and without the burnout. My cleaning company, if you want to check that out, is Green Sweep, NM, new mexico dot com, so those are the places.

Stephanie: That’s awesome. I could definitely, I want to talk about this Bright concept with you. I know next time we’ll have to chat again.

Molly: Love to. That’d be great. I would love to, I could talk about living bright and all that for forever. It’s my jam. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Steph, it’s been great. It’s been great being here.

Stephanie: We’ll definitely link all of your fantastic resources down below, and for everybody listening hit that subscribe. Give Molly some love down below in the comments. Go check her stuff out, and we’ll see you on the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye, guys.

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

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
• The Five Love Languages
• The Five Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace
• Qarrot
• They Ask You Answer by Marcus Sheridan
• Molly Moran’s Website
• The Live Bright Show Podcast
• Green Sweep NM

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