From $15 Intern to $84M CEO: Executive Coaching Lessons for Cleaning Business Owners

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Introduction

Stephanie: Hello everyone, welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie Pipkin of Serene Clean, and today, our special guest is Ayman Al-Abdullah, former CEO of AppSumo, and he is now a renowned executive coach for scaling businesses from seven to nine figures. How Ayman and I got connected is actually he is the coach to our friendly neighborhood CEO and my close friend Amar. So welcome, Ayman. Thank you for taking time out of your very full schedule for meeting with me.

Ayman: Thank you, Stephanie, really looking forward to being here.

Finding Balance as a Business Owner

Stephanie: One of the things that Amar really mentioned that he admires most in you is your ability to balance all of your responsibilities that you have in your life. I would love to hear what your thought process is on life balance, and is that like a luxury that you think is only obtainable for more of a CEO role? Because most of our listeners are truly in that startup or transition phase. So I know for myself, life balance was kind of a pipe dream when I started out. Do you feel that way?

Ayman: I think it’s a mentality. I think everyone is one hire away from cutting their problems in half and two hires away from a completely different company. Oftentimes, early stage entrepreneurs, and I know I’ve fallen for this, we think we got to do everything. We have to do marketing, we have to do sales, we have to do all of the work. Instead, we got to ask ourselves, well, where is the highest leverage for myself? Where can I be spending the majority of my time, and how do I get the other stuff off my plate?

For those that don’t know me, I was a former CEO of a company called AppSumo. I took them from three to $84 million in revenue. My very first hire was actually an intern from UT Austin, $15 an hour, who was just taking the lower level tasks, the checklist stuff off my plate, which allowed me to go and do more sales. So on day one, I didn’t have balance. But over time, as I slowly cleared my calendar and cleared my plate, I was able to open up more calendar to the point where I was working way less at 80 million than I was at eight.

Delegation and Growth Strategy

Stephanie: So really, it was just that slow delegation process and seeing what you could get off your plate to open up. Most of our listeners are owner-operators, or have come from that and have slowly gotten away from the field, or are constantly getting pulled back in. I’d love to hear the typical product or service industry that your clients are in. Is it service? Is it product? Is it obviously software as a service for Amar? There are some particular challenges I find in our industry that would be really interesting to get your thoughts on. So who do you serve currently?

Ayman: I serve everyone from SaaS companies like Amar’s to service providers such as fractional CFO firms to law firms to e-commerce businesses and CPG companies. So like a lot of the nice snacks and goods that are sitting in your pantry. A lot of them actually have very repeatable systems and frameworks.

I totally get it when it comes to service-based businesses, like the owner-operator businesses that ZenMaid services. It has to start with going, well, do I want to both focus on marketing and sales as well as providing the service? Or do I want to get one part of the business off of my plate? So maybe I’m hiring a quote-unquote GM that’s managing the daily cleanings, so I can focus on the sales and marketing, and then eventually I can hire someone like a VP of revenue that’s going to help me make sure I have enough leads. We can systematically start to separate ourselves over time. But with service-based businesses, there is a huge people element, and until we can get that off our plate, of course, we can’t clear.

The Three Phases of Business Growth

Stephanie: I had seen that you kind of, in your mind, break up business into three phases: startup, scale up, and then grow up, and that usually we’re not hiring in that startup phase. What is your definition of a startup? Is it truly founder? Or do you make that a little bit broader?

Ayman: My definition of a startup is a company that’s still trying to find product-market fit. They don’t know who they serve, they don’t know what they sell, and they don’t know how to get customers. When they’re still stuck in those three questions – who do I serve, what do I sell, and how do I get customers – that tends to be the startup for most businesses.

For service-based businesses, that tends to be under $500,000. But if you’re north of $500,000, you’re approaching a million dollars a year in revenue as a service-based business, you’re now starting to get away from the startup phase, because you as the founder are now the limiting factor for growth. You figured out who you sell to. You have more customers than you know what to do with. And chances are your calendar is super full. You’re probably working 50, 60, 70, 80 hours a week, and the only way you can grow is by working more.

That’s when we’re naturally having to graduate to phase two, which is scale up, which is now no longer about product creation, but rather about company creation.

The Staffing Challenge in Cleaning Businesses

Stephanie: I was thinking about another thing that Amar mentioned that he really loves about his conversations with you. He walks away from your conversation saying, “I know exactly what I need to do. It’s one problem.” And you bringing that focus for him is really appreciated.

Honestly, I feel like the one problem in our particular industry is staffing and team. Alex Hermosi says this isn’t a demand problem at all. There is such a demand in our industry. My business would be three times the size if I could get the staffing. We’ve been at $1.4 million and stagnant there for a little bit, and the staffing part is so hard.

I’ve been consuming a lot of your content, and it’s just been really interesting to think about you saying you envision the future being, instead of just a bunch of W2 employees, kind of this one-of-one mentality. The rock stars in my company that are cleaning techs, they truly are rock stars. But in the back of my mind, I’m like, why would they want to do this? How do I get rock stars and this one-of-one mentality in place in such a standardized role as a cleaning technician? Because if I could have a million of my rock stars, everything would be amazing.

Shifting Your Perspective: Employees as Customers

Ayman: Stephanie, I love the phrasing “I’m stuck at 1.4 million.” I’m sure a lot of your listeners right now would wish they would be stuck there!

It’s funny, once you’ve gone beyond a million-dollar business, you are actually no longer a cleaning business. You are a recruiting, training, and retaining business, and your actual customer is no longer the customers of the cleaners. It’s actually your employees. Your star cleaning techs, that’s actually your core customer. What you’re selling is what your company can provide over the myriad of other potential opportunities for them, including starting their own company.

The reason that Google did such a great job of attracting all these engineers is they had amazing offices, barber shops on staff, and handled dry cleaning. They let engineers do 20% of their time to work on their own stuff, and that’s how they were able to attract tier-one engineers.

How was I, when scaling AppSumo, able to pull engineers away from Google? By selling them something Google couldn’t do, which is, “This is a boot camp for entrepreneurship. This is an opportunity for you to see 1,000 SaaS companies launch, and when you’re ready to become an entrepreneur, you’ll have a better data set than if you just work on Google Drive, which is one product.”

You have to figure out what you’re doing that’s unique to us, that allows us to retain our employees over anyone else, and makes them want to stick around for the long term. That’s how at AppSumo we won Best Place to Work in 2021 in Austin. We retained our average employee for 7-8 years in tech, where the average turnover is 18 months. It was because we were giving individuals a unique path to grow within the company, and it only came from us deeply understanding, first and foremost, what our employees wanted.

Creating Value for Your Ideal Employees

Stephanie: That makes a lot of sense. I think that’s why I’ve done well in establishing that really strong culture. My ideal employee is most likely a parent who is the primary caregiver. They need flexibility that can’t be offered elsewhere. Just turning it almost into a career.

I’ve actually been working on a rebranding project with the ultimate approach of positioning us as the best place to work, and that means our employees take care of our clients. Having great employees solves everything else, because then the service is great. I’ve really been thinking in that manner – this is about the cleaners. It’s not, not about the clients, but taking care of employees takes care of everything else.

I guess knowing that a lot of our listeners, they’re not at a place where they can even afford to do that. In their mind, they’re thinking, “That’s great, Stephanie, but how do I do that at the small level? How do I attract the people that are going to solve these problems for me?” It’s very difficult at a small level, is it not?

Starting Small and Building Momentum

Ayman: As I mentioned, my first hire was that $15 an hour intern. Sometimes we do have to start either fractionally or at a lower hourly rate in order to slowly chip away, but I love what you mentioned – you’re actually selling that flexibility for that working parent. I guarantee you there are probably hundreds, if not thousands of working parents working in jobs that have no flexibility. They’re like, “I wish I could be home when my kids are home,” and they would much rather be working for you than where they’re currently working. The more that we’re able to actually go out and attract those individuals, they’re going to be like, “Thank you so much. This is a dream job for me compared to my previous job, which was inflexible,” because it allows them to better serve their family, which is one of their key priorities.

For those that are just starting out, unfortunately, it is tough. You’re going to need to slowly, systematically chip away at it. The only reason I was able to hire, eventually, multi-six figure engineers was because I started with a $15 an hour intern.

That $15 an hour intern cleared up five hours for me on my week. That may not seem like a lot, but that allowed me to close one extra deal. If you can clear five hours on your week, could that allow you to recruit another cleaning tech? Could that allow you to find another commercial contract, something that’ll actually end up increasing the revenue for you? With that extra revenue, you take that profit and then figure out how can we clear up another five hours?

Eventually, over time, there’s a flywheel that builds where it starts cheap. It was $150 a week that I was manually Venmo-ing out of my own pocket, and then eventually gets to the point where we’re having a $40 million a year payroll.

Overcoming Hiring Challenges with a Dating Approach

Stephanie: That’s juicy. I love that.

Also, I think we all get very impatient because it’s very painstaking. It’s really hard to go from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm when it comes to staffing. Even I’m a very enthusiastic person, and it takes a lot to get me down. But hiring, and then they leave and they leave and they leave. When you butt against a stubborn problem like that, how do you maintain your enthusiasm for attacking the problem and actually solving it when you know that this problem is going to be the problem for you?

Ayman: I think we all follow that person on Instagram that’s soft-launching a new relationship like every week, and it’s like, give it a few months, right? Let’s wait before we post.

Stephanie: “This is my soulmate!” And then you just posted that like three months ago. “What happened to the other guy?”

Ayman: Exactly. I think that oftentimes, as CEOs, we get that same feeling with new employees, and what we’ll do is we’ll end up soft-launching, “This person’s gonna change the world,” and they leave us, and then we’re like, “Oh, what is it? Me? Is there something wrong with my company?”

It’s like, no, sometimes we got to go on a couple dates before we get committed. My recommendation: I love hiring on a fractional basis. I’m only going to hire you for maybe one job, maybe a couple hours a week, and we’re going to go on a couple of dates. We’re going to test each other out. Do you like cleaning? Do I like you? And then from there we can graduate. “Hey, this is actually pretty good. Would you be interested in working part-time?” And then eventually, “Would you be interested in working full-time?” We slowly ramp up over time, versus announcing to the company “this is the person that’s going to save us” and investing all of this effort into this individual, and then realizing this was not a good use of our time.

For us, we used to have very clear two-week trials. For a new salesperson, close two deals in two weeks. For a new engineer, find 10 bugs in 10 days. What would be the cleaning tech equivalent? Maybe they can shadow you for two cleanings. “Did I enjoy working with them? Did they have the same standard that I have?” You’ll immediately, very quickly see if this person is worth investing and pouring into. If it’s not a good fit, we didn’t invest too much into them, and it’s okay if they leave, or it’s okay if we let them go.

But I think that’s the big mistake that a lot of CEOs make – they immediately jump right into marriage. We should probably go on a couple dates first.

Understanding Your Client’s Needs

Stephanie: That’s a really good analogy. I love that. And I think it can be applied in a lot of areas, most likely, where we just jump in head first, get over-enthusiastic, over-commit, and then burn our little hearts out because of it.

Ayman: I’ve been there. I’ve made those mistakes too!

Stephanie: And those ones are the most painful ones looking back. But I find you learn the most from the burning, if you will.

Another thing that I love is that you focus in your teachings on being married to your client, and by that, you mean knowing them as if they were your spouse. What’s really interesting about our industry specifically is that most owners in our industry aren’t married to their client – they ARE their client. Meaning, I know exactly who I’m selling to, because I’m that person.

When you’re looking at residential cleaning, for example, it’s very specific. Usually this is a female-led industry for the most part. Most owners are females, are mothers, busy, overwhelmed, all of these things. I’m not a mother yet – when I opened, I was 22 years old – but I could understand the stress and psychosis that having unannounced guests brings, because all of a sudden, all the shame of the household is now on me. It’s a very female-specific feeling, I think.

What I’m trying to say is, it’s baffling to me how in our industry, we are our client, yet for some reason, we can’t articulate their pain points in our marketing in order to say, “I can solve this for you, because I am you.” I’d like to hear your thoughts on why we should be the face of our companies in this manner.

The Importance of Effective Marketing

Ayman: Could you expand that for me a little bit? Are you saying that some of the owner-operators aren’t doing a good enough job of marketing their services or explaining the value of the services? Where do you feel like the disconnect is?

Stephanie: The disconnect, I think, is that when you go on the average cleaning company’s website, like every single one I go on, it’s the most generic. First off, stock images of cleaners and cleaning products – and the owners are not even on the website. Or it’s generic – “We’re high-quality cleaning, hire us.” It just doesn’t speak at all to the needs and the pain points. I would love to hear why it’s so important that we not only understand them, but then explain that understanding in our marketing.

Ayman: If you go to my website, it’s terrible! And the reason being is because that’s not the bottleneck in my business. No one’s going to my website and converting.

The question I have for these owner-operators is, first of all, maybe they have more than enough business and they’re not actually getting clients through the website. Maybe they’re texting them directly rather than going through the website. Where exactly is the bottleneck? Maybe that’s not even a need. Are you noticing that people are showing up to their website and not saying yes or not converting, or are they looking for Google reviews? Why do you feel like the website is actually going to be what’s going to convert them?

Optimizing Your Website for Conversion

Stephanie: I think because for us in our industry, most leads once you get to a certain size are coming from Google. They’re Googling for a cleaning service, a local service, and they’re coming to the website and they are bouncing. They’re, for some reason, not filling out that quote request form, which is truly our biggest lead mechanism when it comes to scaling.

Ayman: Then, yeah, this is really important. If people are coming to us from Google and they’re showing up on our website and then bouncing because we’re using stock imagery and we don’t have a clear CTA (call to action), then 100% that’s where we should be spending our time.

The best way to analyze that is to look at our traffic. What’s the percentage of our bounce rates? If 99% of our people are bouncing, that means there was high intent. They came to us from Google. They wanted a cleaning. They came to our website, and they didn’t see good reviews, clear pictures, a photo of us, testimonials, and more importantly, they didn’t see a booking link. We just didn’t make it easier.

An afternoon with ChatGPT – you wouldn’t even need to be the one writing the copy. Literally, you can just speak-to-text, and it’ll whip out something that’s 95% as good as what a copywriter would. Then take some decent imagery – even on my phone is better than most stock photos – take some decent photos, and you’ll be ready to rock and roll. An afternoon alone could potentially double an individual’s business if that’s the true bottleneck.

Being the Face of Your Company

Stephanie: That makes sense. For you in your own personal journey, when it comes to being the face of your company and things like that, since you just said your website’s terrible, obviously that’s not where you’re getting your clients for coaching. At least in your businesses, or the businesses that you have been in leadership roles in, did you introduce that concept of being the face of the company?

Ayman: I think every company is different. Some companies are definitely going to have a face of the company. At AppSumo, we had a very famous founder in Noah Kagan, and so he was the face of the company, which allowed me to focus on the company.

There’s only a handful of companies that actually need a true face. Service-based businesses, they probably need a face. People want to know who they’re inviting into their home. It’s important – do I trust this individual? Am I going to trust them? Can I leave and know that they’re going to be taking care of my house?

For tech companies, they don’t need a face. They probably don’t need a face until they’re at 50 million or 100 million, because at that point you need a celebrity in order to attract top-level talent.

But for cleaning service companies specifically, they not only need to know who the owner-operator is, but they also need to know what makes you special about the cleaning techs that you choose, what’s the vetting process, what’s the training process, what’s the 14-point quality control checkpoint. You’re ensuring that there’s a standardized cleaning checklist that’s happening, so you’re getting consistency, even if you’re getting someone brand new to come clean your house. The more that you can lean into those, the easier it will be for people to feel connected to the business, and as a result, trust it.

Differentiating in a Competitive Industry

Stephanie: That makes sense. It’s really good advice specific to our industry, because it is a big thing to have people trust you. I think we kind of take it for granted. People have gotten burned very badly by cleaners before, so it’s right that they’re gun-shy.

I remember you talking about what we uniquely have the ability to solve for our clients or in the world, and having that sense of purpose. I think this is where we may struggle answering that, because cleaning is such basic, dirty labor. How do we differentiate ourselves in this industry? I mean, I know my theories and how we’ve attempted to do this, but is there anything else that comes to mind for you on how to differentiate yourself in such a highly competitive, low-entry, frankly low-skill type of work?

Ayman: I’ve hired several cleaning techs in the past, and the ones that I stick with for years, they just hate dirt more than I do. They are moving furniture, they’re getting deep in there. It’s like, “You really don’t need to do all that.” They’re like, “No, I will not leave.” They lose sleep at night knowing that there’s a dust bunny hiding behind the couch.

So you’re right. In an industry that’s highly commoditized, the only thing that we can really separate ourselves with is the standard that we bring to our cleaning. I have a quote: “Be so good that nobody refers you.” I know this because when I lived in Austin, I referred my cleaning lady to everybody, and then she got too busy for me. Now in North Carolina, I refer my cleaning lady to nobody. I say, “No, I don’t have anyone. I’m sorry,” because I do not want the same thing to happen.

But that’s the ultimate goal – be so good that nobody refers you. If you have that higher standard where they come in, they know they can trust you, they know that your cleaning is going to be better than anyone else – and by the way, this doesn’t have to just be you, but anyone that you hire – you have that minimum standard and make sure they hate dirt as much as you do. When you can do that, that’s the ultimate goal. I come home to a spotless kitchen. I come home to a clean house. I feel like the home is brand new again. That, to me, is how you elevate and separate from an industry that’s been highly commoditized.

From Founder to CEO: The Transition

Stephanie: That makes sense. I’d love to switch gears and look into what you do now with CEOs. Obviously, our audience is not at that level yet, but definitely aspires to be there. Being a CEO versus a startup founder – those are two different roles. How do you differentiate those two things? Because a founder could turn into a CEO, but a CEO isn’t always the founder. Can you explain what that transition period looks like?

Ayman: It’s a great question. To me, the founder discovers flight. They’re the one that actually creates the business. This is the zero to one. They’re visionary. They’re thinking about innovation. They’re putting together the branding, the packaging, the offer. They’re finding the first handful of customers. They’re essentially creating life.

The CEO will come in at around 1 million and take it to 100 million and beyond. They’re no longer focused on product creation. They’re focused on company creation. The founder can become the CEO, but it’s a completely different skill set, because the founder is often focused on innovation. The CEO is focused on optimization.

That tends to be a trap that a lot of founders get into – they think that growth happens by creating new product lines, new services, new businesses. They’re always going back to creation mode rather than saying, “Hey, I have something that works. How do I optimize and get 10% more from three areas of the business, which results in 30% year-over-year growth?” That’s how we avoid stagnation.

The founder versus CEO dynamic – they are two very different roles. We can wear both hats, but we have to understand the difference between the two in order to get to the next level.

Finding Focus in Multiple Service Lines

Stephanie: If you have an industry where you service multiple different types of niches – for example, in the cleaning industry: residential, commercial, vacation rental – and they all are different, I find that things tend to fall apart when companies try to cater to more than they should. Do you typically think it’s best to literally only serve one, or if they’re close enough, like “this is all cleaning, it’s just somewhat different,” is that wise as we grow? Or should we focus on one and then differentiate later when we’re bigger?

Ayman: This is actually one of the biggest mistakes that I made as a CEO. When we stepped in at AppSumo, we were serving everybody. We were doing “Solopreneur Sally,” we were doing “Enterprise Ethan,” our marketing was to everybody. We were saying, “Hey, quit your nine-to-five and use this to scale your business.” And what we realized was that it wasn’t really landing with anyone.

I don’t know if you remember that scene in “The Notebook” where Noah’s talking to Ali, and he’s like, “I wrote to you. I wrote to you every day.” And then imagine if Ali went home, looked at the notebook, looked at all the notes and letters, and at the top it said, “To whom it may concern.” That tends to be what a lot of marketing is – it’s written “to whom it may concern.”

When we analyzed our customer data, we realized there was one customer segment that was purchasing from us significantly more than the others, and that was marketing agencies. We gave that individual an avatar – “Marketing Agency Matt.” All of a sudden, our products changed. Instead of serving everyone, we started doing multi-user licensing, white labeling. We made it easier for agencies to purchase our software to service their clients. Our marketing changed to be servicing marketing agencies.

Almost overnight, our customer lifetime value tripled, and all things being equal, our revenue tripled. The mistake we were making was trying to serve everybody, and as a result, we were serving nobody. Our marketing wasn’t really landing, our messaging wasn’t really landing, our product wasn’t best in class. The second we focused on one is when we started seeing substantial growth.

And ironically, we were worried we were going to lose “Solopreneur Sally” and “Enterprise Ethan,” but those markets grew as well because they were benefiting from the trickle-down effect that happened as a result of us closing better deals.

I’m not saying we never want to turn down business, but going back to the website example, if your true core customer is commercial, lean into that. If it’s Airbnb, say “We are the best Airbnb cleaning service company in the tri-state area.” That way, when people think, “I bought an Airbnb. Who should I hire?” they think of you. When you really lean into that, that’s how you’re able to separate from your competitors.

Balancing Multiple Service Lines

Stephanie: I have a dilemma then, because we’re literally 50% residential, 50% commercial from a revenue base. So I’m struggling with this whole rebranding of how do I talk to both equally?

Ayman: I’d ask you, of those two, they’re 50-50 in terms of revenue, but are they 50-50 in terms of effort?

Stephanie: In different ways. Commercial has its challenges, residential has its own challenges. The pickup of residential, meaning onboarding and all of that, is fast – I could get you today and get you in tomorrow. It’s very fast, from that sales process to everything. With commercial, it’s just so much more onboarding work. But once it’s set, it’s set – not forget, but it’s just a lot easier, and you’re not dealing with the emotions of a house. So I like them both, but they both have their challenges.

Ayman: One of my principles is really focusing on one. I’m not saying you have to say no to one or the other overnight. Obviously, with 50% of your revenue, we definitely don’t want to say no to one overnight. But there’s probably one of those two where you’re like, “I could be the best in the world at this.” I feel like if you were to really lean into that, the growth of that side of the business would far outpace where you’re feeling right now, where maybe you’re potentially churning as much as you’re gaining.

Stephanie: That’s really interesting because when I think of scaling, it’s easiest to do it with residential from a number of clients perspective. From revenue jumps, though, it’s commercial, because you get a big contract – boom, you’re up. They’re just harder to manage sometimes because of time of day, things like that. So I’ve definitely been grappling with that.

Ayman: Commercial may be one of those where it’s a little harder, requires a little more upfront work, but maybe they stick around longer.

Stephanie: Yes, it’s sticky.

Ayman: The stickiness, the consistency, the schedule – figuring that out. I know there’s an element there where we need to figure out how to layer that in with the flexibility that you sell to your employees, your cleaning techs. But figuring that out, I think it’ll help you from a strategic standpoint, going, “This is how we get to 2 million and beyond.”

Transitioning from Founder to CEO: Common Challenges

Stephanie: Now going back to this whole transitioning to CEO from founder, because that’s what most of our listeners are going to go through or they’re going to hit that point. What are some of the biggest bottlenecks, traits, or problems that we need to grapple with when we hit that transitionary period?

Ayman: The biggest, hardest transition is not feeling like you need to jump back in. It’s kind of like raising a kid – if you’re immediately helicopter parenting and jumping in and not letting the kid grow, it’s very difficult for the individual to be self-sustaining.

What we want to do is set proper touch points and double-check the work. We don’t want to do the work for them. I’ll give you an example: one of our team members came in as a copywriter, eventually she wanted to grow and transition into a marketing manager, and we hired a copywriter underneath her. She was a brilliant, incredible copywriter, but she found herself constantly jumping in and rewriting the copy.

I told her, “If you never let this new copywriter actually go through the reps, they’re never going to get to the point where they can take things to the next level. Instead of walking around with a black pen, I want you to walk around with a red pen.” Over a couple of cycles, she was using the red pen less and less, eventually to the point where she was just approving the copy at the final moment.

When you’re really good at what you do, it’s so tempting to just jump in and say, “It’s going to be so much easier for me to just do it myself. Let me just go do that cleaning myself. Let me just go write this email myself.” Instead, practice patience, recognize you’re transitioning to a coaching moment, and know it’s going to take a little more time putting that work up front. But for her, it got to the point where this individual is still writing copy for AppSumo four or five years later. She put in maybe four or five months of training to benefit for four or five years after that.

Being the “Laziest” Person in the Company

Stephanie: As you were making this transition as you grew AppSumo – I mean, you were already the CEO – but do you see any of those constraints that you had to work through? You’ve used coaches. How did you have those reflection points of “I’m the stopgap here. I’m the one causing the problem”? How did you work through those situations when you were the problem?

Ayman: My philosophy is the CEO should be the laziest person in the company.

Stephanie: Why do you say that?

Ayman: Because if you’re doing work, you’re not doing your job as a CEO. You have to constantly ask, “Why is this on my desk? Why am I doing this work?” If you don’t have that mentality of “I need to be the laziest person at the company,” it becomes really easy to do the opposite – “I am the hardest working person at the company,” which means you’re going to be doing everything.

I think it needs to start with a mentality. The mentality is that I am running the company. I am not the company. As a result, you’re constantly going to think about what software you can use. Obviously, ZenMaid is a huge component of that, where you’re no longer texting back and forth with clients to coordinate scheduling.

Number two, hiring the right cleaning techs to help manage the workload. Number three, automating marketing getting to the point where leads are coming in. Then you can focus on solving the problems two, three years from now. How am I thinking about getting more cleaning techs? How am I training the next generation of managers? What is the next phase of marketing? Strategic questions – am I going to go commercial or residential? If so, what does the rebrand need to look like?

You’re operating two to three quarters ahead of the business, rather than focusing on what needs to happen tomorrow.

Thinking Long-Term as a CEO

Stephanie: I think that’s so hard, especially if you are a founder coming from the chaos of day-to-day operations. So really thinking out – I’ve seen that shift in Amar in the past year, thinking much more long-term, like what is the 10-year plan.

For me, this was a side hustle that was supposed to be just me, a side job. So it’s very difficult for me to think several years in the future, because this was never even the vision in the first place. It’s been very fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, and here we are now. Do you have any suggestions for thinking more long-term and not that “I’m just trying to make sure the business survives” mentality?

Ayman: You have to take things in stages. Step one is, let’s make sure the day-to-day is handled first before we think about long term. 100% there’s no reason for us to think two, three quarters ahead if we’re worried about making this month’s numbers. But part of that is figuring out how we’re creating the systems, the people, the processes in place so we know if I went on vacation for two weeks, the business would be okay. With that space, then we can start to think more long-term.

Making Strategic Decisions with Limited Resources

Stephanie: That makes sense. When making decisions on things like hiring or which department to feed the beast first, when they all are screaming at you, how do you decide? Is it just who’s screaming the loudest? I need resources in every single area. How do you make decisions like, where do we feed first?

Ayman: It’s always focused on where we’re getting the most ROI. If you ask the team, they’re going to want to hire a million individuals, and as a result, we may end up having a team that’s twice the size and half the profit. That creates a doom loop where we become less profitable, we can hire fewer people, and as a result, we end up having fewer resources to go around.

Instead, what we need to do is analyze, what’s the one hire that’s going to maximize our likelihood of increasing revenue and profitability for the business? The way I do it is with a framework called Impact versus Ease. Stack-rank all the potential roles, investments, software – what has the highest impact on the company in terms of revenue and profitability, and what is the easiest to implement? We’re looking for things that are five out of five in both categories, so 10 out of 10 ideas overall. When we have those, that’s how we’re able to take things to the next level.

I like to roll this out as a “test and invest” framework. At AppSumo, we were exploring rolling out an affiliate program. Instead of getting software and creating a big marketing campaign right away, we simply sent a quick email saying, “Hey, for the month of October, if you send us any customers, we’ll pay you $10 once they’ve made their first purchase.” I was literally using a spreadsheet and manually PayPal-ing individuals. Our test was: could we get our top 100 referrers to send us more customers? The hypothesis proved true.

We used that profit to then invest in software. Today, affiliates drive multiple eight figures in revenue to AppSumo. We’re always analyzing – your team may have 100 different ideas, but it’s like, do these ideas actually move the needle? It’s your job and your responsibility as a CEO to stack-rank these ideas based on the impact on the team, because when you have the impact, then you can invest those profits into funding the rest of those ideas.

The Challenge of Focus

Stephanie: That’s definitely been one of my biggest challenges – focus as a company, focus as a leader. Unfortunately, I’m what is called “the CEO seagull” – I come in with all of these ideas, and because Amar and I are like the same person, both very ADHD, it’s like, “Oh, these are great ideas.” I have overwhelmed my management team so many times, and they’re like, “Stephanie, we haven’t finished this.” So I’m the problem. It’s me.

This year, we’ve definitely been focusing on focus, as silly as that sounds. “No, no, no, we can’t work on this.” And I think, to wrap up our conversation and be cognizant of your time, one of the issues I’m seeing is all of this because of the internet, because there’s so many wonderful resources and AI and tools and trends, the noise is absolutely overwhelming.

When everything seems like a good idea and you have all of these people yelling at you from the outside, as well as people who want to make money off of you specifically – coaching is a huge topic in our industry. I’m sure it is in every industry. “Which coach should I use? Which program should I use?” I see that conversation in the Facebook groups literally every day, with other people saying, “No, this is a scam. All you need is Google.”

Obviously, you are a coach, and a very high-level coach. How do you help people make decisions with discernment? Or what advice do you have for people who are looking at different ideas outside of coaching, but then specifically that as well?

Finding the One Bottleneck in Your Business

Ayman: This is a great question. Going back to the focus that Amar was talking about earlier, to me, there’s always only one bottleneck in the business. There’s always only one thing that’s preventing growth.

You can use a decision tree: it’s either sales or delivery. You either don’t have enough leads, or you can’t service the leads because you don’t have enough cleaning techs. Once we figured out which one of those two it is, we ignore the other half of the company.

Let’s say our bottleneck is we’re churning cleaning techs. Then we need to dive deeper. Is it because we don’t have enough people applying, or are we losing individuals in the first 90 days? “Oh, we have plenty of people applying, but then they churn out in the first 90 days.” Perfect. How do we fix the 90-day onboarding in order to increase retention?

I’m going to ignore all the noise. I’m going to ignore AI. I’m going to ignore marketing. I’m going to ignore coaching. I’m ignoring everything else. And for the next six months, or three months, or one month, we’re just going to fix 90-day onboarding to fix the supply problem, because we can’t grow the business if we keep churning cleaning techs.

If we fix that, then we can worry about the next thing. “Now we have a bunch of cleaning techs with an empty calendar.” Perfect. Let’s go to sales. What’s the issue? “People are not filling out the form on the website.” Fix the website. Done.

It’s your responsibility as a CEO. You’re kind of like screaming from the rowboat, “Left, right, left, right,” and your team is going, “Stephanie, focus,” and you’re like, “Zoom out. We’re actually going straight.” That’s the responsibility of the CEO.

The Pendulum Swing of Business

Stephanie: To iterate on that, I love that you made that analogy, and it feels like it just doesn’t stop. I’ve described it as the pendulum’s swing. It’s literally either cleaners or clients. When one is fixed, the other becomes the problem. We just keep going back and forth. Sometimes my managers are like, “When is it going to stop?” And I’m like, “Never. This is our business.”

Ayman: 100%. We are in a rowboat. We’re going left to right, cleaners to clients, cleaners to clients. And here’s the beautiful thing – if the pendulum is swinging, that means the boat is going straight. It’s when it’s not swinging that there’s a major problem.

Stephanie: Yeah, because it means that you solved that issue. And if it’s not going…

Ayman: You’ve never solved that issue, and you’re stuck on cleaners, and you’re staying there forever, and as a result, we can never go back to clients.

The Value of Coaching

Stephanie: Well, that’s a wonderful insight. I need to make an animation out of what you just said with the rowboat. And as for coaching, can you speak to that, please?

Ayman: I’m in a beautiful position where I get to work with clients like Amar, some of the best CEOs in the world. I get to hand-select the clients that I work with, and it’s been phenomenal. It’s an opportunity for me to really give back. It’s one of the reasons I was able to grow AppSumo – because of the coaches before me. This is my opportunity to give back to the next generation of entrepreneurs and really see the ripple effects that are happening as a result of incredible companies like ZenMaid.

As you mentioned, you’ve seen the transformation in Amar. I’ve seen the transformation in Amar. Even just rolling out incredible industry-leading features like the SOS feature – that’s phenomenal. The more that you can really serve his community, that’s where I get a lot of my excitement and pride – seeing those ripple effects happening across all of these industries.

Creating Lasting Impact

Stephanie: Absolutely. I’ve been a customer of Amar’s for six years now. I had ZenMaid set up before I even opened Serene Clean. It’s very cool to have come from this outside perspective – I was just a customer – to now being involved in the company and seeing the inner workings and watching it evolve. It’s a good company and it wants to do good and serve.

I’m sure for you, the power of that means that you get to soak in that goodness in all of these different areas because of all of your clients. That’s really cool. My favorite part of what I do is being a great boss – that’s where I get all my joy and pride. The cleaning is great, and we also give a lot to our community. But at the end of the day, I just want to be a place they’ve never worked at before, and that’s where I get that joy and pride, and it’s kind of my North Star. So it sounds like for you, the North Star truly is making that impact.

Ayman: 100%. Just working with individuals like Amar, and seeing how much he really cares about his clients and the maids that he’s serving, and helping them create an incredible life for themselves – I see how passionate he is about the clients that he serves. This is truly his life’s work, and seeing him elevate as CEO, to me, that’s my greatest joy.

Closing Thoughts

Stephanie: Well, thank you. This has been amazing. I appreciate your time. Where can everybody find you if they want to follow you? Where are you active on socials, mostly?

Ayman: Mostly on X, like Twitter. That’s where I post the majority of my content, but sometimes I’ll cross-post on LinkedIn, reluctantly. So you can find me on either one of those platforms.

Stephanie: But not your website.

Ayman: [laughs]

Stephanie: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. This has been a joy, and I hope that we could continue talking in the future.

Ayman: Likewise, Stephanie. It was great. Thank you so much.

Stephanie: Awesome. Thank you, everybody else. Hit that subscribe. Hit that like and I’ll see you in the next episode of the Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye-bye.

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

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• AppSumo
• ZenMaid
• The Notebook (movie referenced by Ayman)
• Find Ayman Al-Abdullah on X
• Find Ayman Al-Abdullah on LinkedIn