How to Know When You’re Ready to Hire Your First Cleaner

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Stephanie: 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 is Miss Brooke Kerstetter, and she is the owner and founder of The Neat Nest, and she is in State College, Pennsylvania. Brooke is saving marriages across the town. Do tell us, Brooke — I saw that in your intake form. I’m like, tell me about this marriage you saved.

Marketing to the Wife Who Needs Help

Brooke: I feel like every cleaner who’s done it for a long period always has the wife that is like, my husband’s not doing anything, or he doesn’t know how to do it right. And I’ve had a few, honestly — I’ve had like a few younger moms who are married and the husband’s working and they’re staying home and the husband just doesn’t understand. You know what I mean? Like, what it’s like being in the house. Yeah, you’re staying home, but you’re taking care of kids and things can get hectic, and you clean and then five seconds later it’s not clean anymore.

Brooke: And I even clean for a stay-at-home dad. I go in and I clean for them and the wife works full time and she’s just like, he does his best but his best isn’t up to my standards. It’s like one of the more rewarding things. You know, my husband and I have had tiffs over cleaning. He cleans, but we don’t clean the same way at all. I think women are just built differently most of the time. Not all the time, but most of the time when it comes to cleaning. I just think that we see more. We just have a better vision of what’s clean and what’s not. So I think that it’s a good approach for a business to reach out and, like, market to that side of things.

Stephanie: Yes, yes.

Brooke: Use that to your advantage. Like, you know, hey, I’m looking for the wife who needs help, or the mother who needs help — because I’m a mother, I’m a wife, so it’s something I can relate to on a different level. So it’s just easier, I think, to market on that side as well.

Stephanie: Yeah, I totally agree. And I also think, you know, it’s not just that we notice it more, but I think that because we are the ones who are going to experience the societal shame and pressure and judgment if the home is not in good condition. Meaning, if somebody comes over and the house is a shit show, who’s going to be looked at for that? It’s going to be the woman — which is messed up, and it’s wrong. And it’s like, no, we both live here and it should be a partnership. But “should” versus “is” are two different things.

Stephanie: And so, you know, working to change that, of course, and having more equitable household labor — I mean, there’s a whole book called The Second Shift, highly recommend anybody reading it, and it talks about this household labor not being equitable, even if both parents are working outside of the home, or both partners. It’s still not equal. And so I could go on a whole feminist rampage right now. I’m not going to, but yes, there’s a lot of resources. And the reason I’m so knowledgeable about this is not only am I a woman, but this indicates and informs the marketing and language that we should be using when we speak to our customers, right? Because it’s like, hey, this is the facts of the matter. Therefore, let me be the one to help you, because your husband ain’t gonna do it. So let him pay for it.

Brooke: Right? Like, how is it that my brother wasn’t taught to clean? You know what I mean? But neither was I, but I just did it anyways. And even my husband never had to clean — his grandmother always did it. But he luckily, thankfully, he still will pitch in. But yeah, we both work full time. So I feel like that also is a good audience to target. I think in the economy today, you will find more that both parties are working full time. And that is just going to lead to disaster at that point. I mean, if you have small children, the mom’s working full time, the dad’s working full time — you don’t have time. You know what I mean? There’s no time. So it’s good for marketing for me as well, to kind of get in those areas. Like, I’ll do anything to help you out. Whether it’s laundry, it’s organizing, cleaning — someone that I would love to have come into my house and do for me, I typically will always say yes to my clients to do it for them.

Stephanie: No, absolutely. And I’m really hoping that as time goes on, and the generations continue to evolve, that we will see this problem be more equitable, specifically between the genders. And obviously that starts with making sure we’re having our sons do as much as our daughters, because it literally starts with toddlers. It starts when they’re in middle school, with like, literally putting more on their girl children than their boy children.

Brooke: Anyone who can go get that Melissa and Doug little cleaning set — comes with a mop, the broom — go get it. Anytime my kids are pushing a broom around.

Stephanie: Yes, absolutely. So Brooke, tell me — I mean, you come from a very interesting background. I love that you were willing to open up about growing up in a less advantaged position. So I would love to hear about it. What was childhood like? What was home life like for you? All of it.

Growing Up Low-Income and Disorganized

Brooke: I grew up — so I’m actually right outside of State College. I typically say State College because it’s more known to people, but I’m actually in a very small community. I think our poverty rate is like number five in the entire state.

Stephanie: Really? Wow.

Brooke: Which has its own struggles for the cleaning business. But we grew up pretty on the lower income. I don’t like to say poverty, because we didn’t have dirt floors and everything, but we were pretty low income. And I grew up mostly with my grandmother, and she was a wonderful lady, but she didn’t clean. She would cook dinner and she would wipe the counters off after she was done cooking, but there was no mopping. There wasn’t dusting. There was never anything like that. And growing up, I never really paid attention to it that much. And then I moved into my own house and I was kind of like, oh, wow, we have baseboards and you’re supposed to clean those, I guess. And things like that.

Brooke: And then looking back and seeing — it was very disorganized. My entire childhood was very disorganized. Nobody went to college. No shame in that whatsoever. My brother’s the first person to go to college. Everyone worked, but nobody had a set career. You know what I mean? Nobody had big goals. I don’t want to say they didn’t go very far, because a lot of them have good jobs now and they’re doing pretty well for themselves now. But we were just surviving my entire childhood. So I think you see that frequently in families like that. It’s just like a generational thing. You know what I mean? My brother and I both could have gotten help from the government — and not shaming that in any way — but we could have just stayed in the place that we grew up in. And I kind of saw him get out of that. He went to college and he did very good things for himself and he moved away. And then for me, at 20, I was like, you know, there’s more for me. I feel like there’s more for me, and I want to give my kids better. So I made the steps that I could make to get there. But I think it would have been easier to just stay in that place and not do anything, or just go get a job at Walmart. No shame in that. Maybe don’t put that in there.

Stephanie: There’s no shame in it.

Brooke: There’s no shame in it. But I think, seeing this side of it, owning your own business really has opened my eyes more to — there is a whole nother world out there of opportunity and range of success when you own your own business that I just didn’t know existed before. And I feel very thankful. I still get this — I don’t want to say imposter syndrome, but like, can I really do this? Every decision I make, every advancement I make with the business or want to make with the business, I’m like, I don’t know. I just don’t think that this is possible. And I think it just comes from how I grew up. Nobody had a desire to make it out or tried to make it out. And I just feel like, just by a thin line, I was able to cross that, because I didn’t even know I was doing it when I did it. It feels like a blessing now to be able to see there’s so much more out there that I feel like there’s not enough time in a lifetime to try to achieve all of it. Hopefully it will get bigger and better as the years go by.

Identity, Role Models, and the Entrepreneurial Itch

Stephanie: Absolutely. And I think what you’re really touching on is identity. And I’m sure so many folks listening right now can relate to that. And please leave it in the comments below if this is something that you’ve struggled with, because I’d love to hear about that. Because I think how we identify truly shapes so much of our behavior. And it can be very self-limiting, right? Especially if we’ve never had any role models do it before. I do think that those of us who had entrepreneurs in our family have a leg up in that way, because it’s been modeled — even as an option. Not necessarily modeled that it’s the way to go, but that it’s even a feasible reality, where so many people would like it simply isn’t even something that they would consider, right? Because it’s never been modeled in their personal life. So that can really detrimentally affect somebody who would maybe be a great business owner.

Brooke: Oh, yeah, definitely. Even before I started cleaning, my old job — I was a medical assistant. And one of my co-workers’ husband, he’s like a pretty well-known entrepreneur in the area. And I think that was my first time seeing in that world a little bit of, you know, he built it on his own. So I don’t think he came from a generational entrepreneur line of people. And also seeing the struggles of it. A lot of people who don’t do it think that it’s just a walk in the park, you know, to own things or run a business. Be the boss.

Stephanie: Be the boss, yeah.

Brooke: Yeah, they get to do whatever they want, or create their own schedule. And I kind of got to see a little bit of the other side of it too. But I think that was where the drive came from. And then getting into the cleaning business — I always say my long-term goal isn’t to be a cleaner. I think I’m good at cleaning, but I don’t want to be out doing it for a long time. I want to be a business owner and an entrepreneur. So that’s the goal. And that’s the part of the business that I enjoy the most, is the entrepreneurial side of it. And meeting the clients and talking to the clients is a big part of running the business, and I love that part. If I could take a step back and have someone else get their hands dirty, and I can run everything behind the scenes — that is what I think is the main goal behind all of it.

Stephanie: And how old are you, Brooke? You gotta be just a baby.

Brooke: 24.

Stephanie: I love these young ones that we have on the podcast, because it’s so exciting. I’m just like, oh my gosh, in five years, where you’re going to be. I mean, I feel that way about everybody, but it is very cool when you pick up on it early. Because I think that possibility of a young person doing that — I feel like I’m talking like an old person right now. Like, these young whippersnappers who can open businesses. It’s very cool, and I love to see it.

Brooke: It is surreal to be young and just feel like so much overhead. In a way, most of the time — at least once a week — I’m like, I’m not equipped for this. Who did this to me? Who put me in this position? Because I feel like I’m too young for this.

Stephanie: It’s like that Spider-Man meme where he’s looking at himself and pointing at himself.

Brooke: Yeah, literally. Literally. That’s me any given day.

Getting Into Cleaning — From a Toy Room to a Full Schedule

Stephanie: And you’re fully cleaning right now, no staff yet. But I love to hear that you have this goal in mind of, this is the vision. And I’d love to take it back to when you did start cleaning, because you didn’t have this cleaning background growing up. So talk to me actually about the skill — how did you pick that up? How did you get your first customers?

Brooke: So I think, once I realized that I didn’t come from a clean home, and then I had my own home for the first time, I became obsessed. And I think it almost turned into, like, not a great obsession. My husband, it drove him crazy. He would get a glass out of the cupboard, set it on the counter, walk over to the fridge to get the tea out of the fridge, and I’d put the glass away. And then he’d be like, that! And it got really bad. So I was a medical assistant for two years, and I was like that pretty much the whole time. And then, honestly, it happened so fast that I can’t even remember exactly how I ended up really getting into it.

Brooke: I had a friend who asked me to come over and organize his daughter’s toy room. I’ve always loved to organize things. And I went over and it needed a lot of help. So I organized it, and I did take a before and after picture. And I remember looking at the before and after picture and I was like, wow, this is really cool. I really, really like this. And he paid me for it. So then I was like, you know, maybe I’ll just do it on the side, here and there. We just bought a house, so I was like, the extra money would be great. But I immediately jumped into creating a business page on Facebook and getting all the credentials and stuff, because it was like a subconscious part of myself. I feel like that was like, let’s see what we can do with this — but also having no idea where it was going to go. And no goal really for it.

Brooke: But I posted a before and after of the playroom, and things just took off. I was working Monday through Friday full time, and I was doing evenings and weekends from — oh my gosh — August 2025 to that following March. I was doing that every week, and I had a three-year-old and a one-year-old. So I was like, this is getting — I’m making more in essentially two and a half days than what I do in a whole week at a full-time job. But then, in the beginning, I took on another job. I’m a yes woman.

The Nightmare Job — Fleas, Hoarding, and a Deceased Cat

Stephanie: Is this the nightmare that you wrote about? Because I want to hear it. I want to hear it.

Brooke: Okay. So I had a family reach out to me and they asked me if I would be interested in cleaning a home. It was the mother’s — an elderly woman — and it was in rough shape. I could tell by the messaging that it was probably not in great shape. So I was like, let me take my husband. His head’s on his shoulders way tighter than mine, because I’ll say yes to anything. So he came with me, and we got there and the guy was standing in the driveway, and he was like, listen, I’m going to tell you all of this, and if you don’t even want to go inside, that’s fine. So he’s like, there might be some fleas. And she hoarded a lot of stuff, and there was a lot of animals inside. But I was like, yep, let’s go in. I didn’t have a mask on or anything. And I walked in — there was a flea infestation. My husband opened the one bedroom door and his legs were black. They were cut, because the fleas immediately jumped on him. And there was a deceased cat in that room.

Stephanie: Oh my God.

Brooke: And I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was like, let’s do it. I was like, I can do this. By the end of the week I was crying.

Stephanie: What did you do about the fleas?

Brooke: So they bombed the house, and then I went in and started working. It’s like the dead of summer too, so you can imagine the heat, the smell — there was like 14 cats. They all used the entire upstairs as a bathroom.

Stephanie: Oh my gosh. Ooh, that probably smelled delightful.

Brooke: Yeah. So halfway through the job I had to leave and they had to have pest control come in, because the mental effect it had on me — I couldn’t sleep at night because I felt like my skin was crawling. In hindsight, I would not do a job like that again. I don’t think I’m equipped for that kind of job. But it was like, by the end of the week, I was like, I’m never cleaning again. I don’t know why I started doing this. And then I got a regular house and I’m like, okay, wait, this is much better.

Stephanie: Yeah, like that was an outlier. It wasn’t the typical, for sure. Because those are the types of jobs, especially early on, where it’s like we’re saying yes to that type of stuff. And that’s what can be like, this — I can’t do this, I can’t do this — where it’s like, that’s not normal.

Brooke: Right. Yeah, definitely. And I love them. They were the sweetest people. I think that also is what helped me continue, because their appreciation for me went farther than just, hey, you helped me out, thanks. No, they were truly thankful for me. Like I had saved them from something. It was so sweet. And yeah, that for me was like, okay, this is rewarding in other ways than just a before and after picture too.

Learning to Say No and Setting Boundaries

Stephanie: No, absolutely. I think that it can teach us a lot. And those kind of “oh shit” situations of, I am way in over my head — I think it’s like, get the job done, and then it’s so useful to analyze that, find silver linings, but lessons, right? Like, what can I learn from this going forward? Did that help you say no in the future to anything? Or do you still struggle with that?

Brooke: So I haven’t had anyone reach out to me for a job like that again. I did have one lady reach out, and she was like — it was a hoarding situation. And I got photos, and then she was like, I only have a hundred dollars. And I was like, I did say no. And I think it’s because I had just done a job like that, and I knew that there was just no way that I could do that. Although, I mean, it made my heart hurt to say no, because I could tell it was from a place of desperation. But also, I’m sacrificing time with my kids, time off from my full-time job. I can’t do that for a hundred bucks. That’s just not possible for me. But I still struggle to say no, definitely. I think if I wasn’t the face in the house, you know what I mean — it would make it somewhat easier for me to be like, yeah, we’re not doing that. Or if it was me putting someone else in the situation, I could say no.

Stephanie: Right. Yep.

Brooke: But I just do struggle. I’ve run and got people’s mail from the post office for them, you know? But those are also things — I’m just in such a small town, and I feel like I can just connect with people. And if I have the time — if it’s just me and I have the time — it’s something that I don’t really mind doing. If I had employees, I think I would need to really set a good boundary with myself and with my clients on what we do and what we don’t do. I wouldn’t want my employees running ragged, essentially.

Stephanie: Yeah, no, absolutely. And there’s certainly jobs I can think of, so many, where it’s just like — there’s high-up ladder work. I remember we had this one, I guess a mansion, I don’t know what else to call it. And they had this huge, cherry custom staircase that was just massive, and they wanted us to oil it. And it’s this high-up giant foyer and stuff. So I’m on this 30-foot ladder oiling this staircase, thinking, what the fuck?

Brooke: That’s literally me. That’s literally me. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve done jobs outside that — I’m not a landscaper. But if you ask me to go pull some weeds, I’ll do it. You know what I mean? And that’s not what I do, obviously. It’s not what I focus on. But yeah, I do have a pretty tough time. I think it’s gotten a little better, very, very slowly.

Stephanie: Yeah. And I think, like you said, once you have staff, that typically whips that into shape really fast, because you know what’s fair and reasonable to ask of other people. And so when you can’t set boundaries for yourself — like, that’s for me. If you’ve ever read the book The Four Tendencies, it’s a very good one. I highly recommend it to anybody. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it on the podcast, but it basically categorizes you into how you deal with internal and external expectations. And I am an obliger through and through, meaning I don’t do great with internal expectations for just myself. But if it’s for somebody else, I will crawl across hot coals to do it, right? And so I use that to my advantage by using external levels of obligation and things like that. And not putting shame on it of like, oh, you can’t internally motivate — obviously to a point I can — but it’s much easier for me to accomplish things when there is some type of outer expectation to do the thing, right? Like even, I wouldn’t go for a damn walk, but my dog, she needs to get walked, right? So I think of it like girl dinner. It’s just like, if my man’s not here, I’m gonna eat some goldfish and graze on, I don’t know, wine for dinner.

Brooke: Yeah, I must be that way too, I would say. I definitely, people pleaser all the way, for sure. Which I think anyone that does this job — you have to be drawn to being a people pleaser. Most of the time you’re not doing it for yourself. You know what I mean? You’re doing it to please your client.

Stephanie: Service. Yeah, it’s an act of service, and an act of love. And that’s how, for me — again, coming back to love languages, which have kind of been completely debunked, but I’ll still use it as an example — if we’re gonna fall into that, acts of service is 100% my love language. And so, for us in our office, we have a vinyl quote on the wall that says, “The best way to lose yourself or find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” And so it’s just having that heart of service. I think it really lends itself well. And when I hear how you describe your upbringing, it makes a lot of sense why you’d fall into that — even the compulsive cleaning and organizing and picking up. I almost wonder if that is a bit of a trauma response, to have a semblance of order in a very non-ordered and chaotic childhood, from the sound of it. Not to diagnose you, but I do go to therapy a lot.

Brooke: Oh no, there’s some OCD tendencies over here that go way beyond being organized, per se. But even, yeah — so having kids was a big, I don’t want to say it was a trigger for me with cleaning, but it was always, like, I want them to bring their friends here when they get older. I want the space to be a clean environment.

Stephanie: Inviting, and be a home.

Brooke: Yeah. And I’ve kind of taken that to maybe a little bit of an extreme, I guess. But then I can help — I know what that feels like to have the constant pressure of, someone wants to come over and is my house clean? Or, what if I want to host dinner this week, I need to make sure everything’s clean. It has helped me for families I clean for. I am relieving that from them, in a sense. The people I clean for that have teenagers that are always running in and out — making sure that their house is always taken care of, they don’t have that pressure.

The Visceral Shame of a Messy House

Stephanie: I like that you just said that, and it’s such a visceral reaction to me, because that’s even what I put on our Serene Clean website — like, the in-laws just stopping by in 10 minutes. What you’re describing — I don’t have children, I live alone right now, and it’s still that crazy visceral reaction. Like, I’m maintaining my house pretty well, but if I’m in a bad place, or life is really chaotic — I remember back when I was married, and he’d be like, oh, so-and-so’s stopping by. And I would burst into tears, because I would be in immediate panic. And they’re like, what the hell is your problem? Because they don’t even think about it. And I’m just like, I am so ashamed if my house is not in beautiful order. It’s a huge source of shame.

Brooke: Yeah, exactly.

Stephanie: And so I know that, and I get it. I understand that they’re probably not judging me based on that. But again, I think it comes back to that obliger tendency of, because I care about that so much, I can’t relax and enjoy somebody’s company if my house is looking shitty, in my opinion. You know what I mean? And to other people it would probably be clean. I think that makes us good owners of house cleaning companies, because I think we understand. I’m really curious about — sound off in the comments, guys — how you feel about that. Do you relate to this, that panic or that anxiety? I’m really curious emotionally if we are more likely to feel like that, or is that just across the board how everybody feels? I don’t know.

Brooke: I’m not kidding, I’ve taken dishes out of my sink and put them under my sink quick. That’s like — okay, guys, I do this frequently. I think I’ve done it maybe once or twice. Like, oh my gosh, I don’t have time to do these, but they’re just sitting in my sink and they’ve got to go somewhere.

Stephanie: Yeah. It’s not that big of a deal. It’s really not. But yeah, me too, I totally get it. It’s funny, I’ve spent the past three days decluttering my house every night till like 11 o’clock. And so I’m riding that high probably for the rest of the year. Like, I feel so good. I keep walking around my house looking at the house and opening closets, because I’m a hidden hoarder. And what I mean by that is every closet, every drawer in here was just stuffed full of shit. And so it looked good, and then you open it and then everything — my kitchen, I was just like, oh my gosh, the kitchen counters. So I’m really experiencing that viscerally right now, because I just did this in my own home.

Pricing Organizing — Why Hourly Makes Sense

Stephanie: And, you know, we don’t really offer a lot of organizing services at Serene Clean. We’ll do like closet — we will do it, but it’s difficult to price, as you well know. So let’s talk about that. I’d love to hear how you handle the organization projects. I understand this might be a work in progress with your pricing model. But if you’re willing to talk about it, I’d love to. Because I think a lot of people who want to get into this — Libby DeLucian’s episode was really good, because obviously she owns a large organizing company. But I would love to hear from your perspective how that’s going.

Brooke: Yeah, so that’s one of the things — when I started cleaning, I was like, I really want to focus on organizing. That is just a hard area in this area, because like I said, it’s high poverty. So organizing is a little bit on the more expensive side than just cleaning. I don’t charge per hour for cleaning — I do a flat rate. I do charge hourly for organizing. I don’t really know why I came up with it that way, it just made more sense to me. Organizing is a lot more details, and it’s a lot harder to see exactly what you’re gonna do before you start doing it. So I think I would be doing myself a disservice by doing flat rate with organizing. And a lot of times I say, we’re gonna do this hourly, and then if it gets to a point where you’re like, okay, this is taking a little bit longer than what I intended, we can wrap it up where I’m at and we can stop.

Brooke: And then, most of the time, I would have gotten to a point of organizing a lot, and they’re okay with finishing the rest, because they now know where things are going, how they’re being put away, what the system is. So they already have an idea of all of that. So the rest of it is easier for them. A lot of times it’s the start, you know what I mean? People don’t know where to start. So kind of getting a system in place for that. It also is hard because a lot of times organizing can take more product. Like, you might need more things to be able to get this organized how you want it. You might have to go out and buy some things — you want organizing dividers. I don’t purchase those, the client will purchase those, and then I will put a system in place to do the work. And that honestly is — I’m in nesting mode all the time. They say moms nest when they’re pregnant. I’m always nesting.

Stephanie: Makes sense with your business name then.

Brooke: Yeah. But that’s kind of how that works. I don’t get a lot, not as much as I would like to. I have a couple people that — I love to color code their closets. Love that. Or putting their towels in certain places. A lot of people don’t have any system. A lot of people just have a linen closet and they throw everything in it because that’s what’s easiest, but they don’t realize there’s a much easier way to do it if you have a system. So I kind of come in and help create that system, and really they realize it’s much easier that way than to just throw it in the closet and then take 10, 15 minutes to dig it out later because it’s under all this stuff. But no, I definitely am very much an organizer. I probably organize when I clean more than what the average cleaner does. I think sometimes that’s my downfall too, because what could be a one-and-a-half-hour maintenance clean for me is like a three-hour, and then losing money. So it’s a downfall for me, but it’s a plus for my clients.

Underquoting and the $600 Lesson

Stephanie: And again, I think that as you grow and start looking at staff, that’ll whip you into shape when it comes to that type of behavior, or figure out what exactly — okay, because we’re selling on this, then I need to price higher in order to accommodate minor organizing during the cleaning. And as you said, that organizing — I really think you’re on the right track. I’m curious, anybody listening who does organizing — I would agree that hourly makes a lot of sense for organizing, because unlike cleaning, which can work very well on flat rate or, you know, whatever you want to do, the fixed price, et cetera. I think that it’s very hard to know how long organizing is going to take. Like, how do you know? It’s hard to estimate that, and sometimes things can take a lot longer depending on what’s going on, right? So I think you’re a hundred percent on the right track there for sure. Do you watch the Clutterbug content? Have you heard of that creator?

Brooke: Not off the top of my head, but I bet maybe if I looked it up, I might recognize some.

Stephanie: Her name’s Cassandra. She’s blonde, she’s Canadian, huge YouTube channel, as well as — I think she’s got pretty much the biggest cleaning podcast out there. Not cleaning business podcasts, but cleaning like for homeowners and stuff like that. And she’s about to start a franchise system, I think, for Clutterbug organizers too. So anybody who likes cleaning content in general — she really focuses on decluttering. And the reason it’s top of mind is what you do. I just, you know, decluttered my whole house — I put on her videos the whole time while I’m doing it. So yeah, I would definitely recommend her content, especially because of what you do. It’d be great for you. Also great for you to recommend to your customers.

Brooke: Yeah, I’ll have to look into that. I was going to say another thing — the flat rate and hourly. I said I do flat rate for cleaning. Trust me, I have found myself in some pretty bad situations, flat rate, where I’m like, man, I got to go to hourly. But then I’m like, no — this was my fault. I underquote way more frequently than I would like to admit. I’ve gotten a little bit better slowly, but I don’t know if it comes with time. I hope I’m going to get better with this.

Stephanie: It comes with production rate auditing, my dear. That’s what it comes with. And standardizing what you do.

Brooke: I can’t tell you how many times the end of the week comes and I’m crying to my husband and I’m like, I messed up, and now I have to eat it. And there have been times where I’m like, I’m not eating this, I’m going to say something. And I’ve only done it maybe twice, where I’m like, hey, this is what the quote I sent you said, this is what I’ve done so far, this has gotten a lot more in depth than what I could see in the walkthrough, and we can stop where we’re at now or I can continue and finish the job for X amount. And I hated doing it. It was very hard for me. But it was like two weeks that it went past. I’m working in this place, and I’m also keeping my regulars scheduled, so I’m going to them and then in the evenings I’m trying to get this house done. And it just got to a point where — I really did. I think it was over a 2,000 square foot house. It was mainly carpet. They wanted all the carpet shampooed. And then it was two bathrooms, four bedrooms, two big living areas. And I think their HVAC system went out or something, because there was the amount of lint — like around your dryer, you have all the lint — it was like that through the whole place, and the walls were wiped, everything. And I think I quoted like $600.

Stephanie: Oh no. Oh no.

Brooke: And then very quickly I was like, oh, I messed up. I messed up real big. So I did learn a good lesson there. That’s the one where I kind of stopped and I was like, this is what we can do. And they were like, just stop where you’re at. And I was like, that stinks, because I feel bad, and maybe they won’t return again, I’m not sure. But I had to do this for me.

Stephanie: Yeah. There’s only so much that you can eat in a job, you know, or so many jobs that we can do that with. So I definitely think that it would be a great move for you to start doing some auditing, and start looking at the data of what you’re — how fast do you clean? How long do jobs take? And again, all of this will be necessary if you want to bring staff on, right? Because we have to be able to schedule enough time for them, and we have to be able to charge what you need to charge so that you’re paying your folks. Because it’s easy for us as the owners to be like, yeah, I didn’t make any money today. But when you’ve got to pay people, it’s not easy. It’s less consequences, I should say, than when you have staff and payroll’s due. So yeah — but again, everything’s a lesson, right? And especially in this early business stage that you’re in, this is the ultimate learning time, because you are learning rapid fire every single day.

Brooke: Oh my gosh, yes. I mean, I think August 1st will be a whole year since I started, which is just wild. But I think it’s that imposter syndrome again of like, I feel like I’m ready to bring someone on with me, but can I do that?

What to Optimize Before Hiring

Stephanie: There’s so much that can be done to optimize before that. And I definitely recommend checking out Ken Carfagno’s content. We had him on the podcast, and he focuses a lot on solo cleaner optimization, with the goal of getting you ready for that. And obviously there’s a lot of policies and procedures and all sorts of things that I think you should attempt to have in place, regardless of whether you have staff or not. But before you bring staff on, having some things in place will really help you, because it’s going to be a new level of challenge that you are going to face when you bring staff on. So it’s like, how can we save ourselves as much pain as possible — knowing that we can’t save ourselves from any of it, because we can’t control other people — but can we put up some bumpers for this bowling ball so it doesn’t go in the gutter? You know what I’m saying?

Should She Bring Her Brother On as a Partner?

Brooke: I’m really interested to get your take on this. It’ll be really funny. So my brother just got to listen to this podcast, but he’s reached out to me — we’ve talked about it on several occasions. He wants to be involved. So he has a college degree, and he works with college football. So not even anything like this, but he has his degree in — goodness, something with like big event centers. So it’s like a coordinating degree. But he worked for Penn State football. Now he’s at Virginia Tech, and he pretty much coordinates all their practices, schedules all of their camps, all that kind of stuff. And he works with the financial side of it and everything. He wants to be a partner. So it’s an interesting take. He wants to invest in the business, but he also wants to do something with real estate. I’m just interested to see your take on a family dynamic. I know that’s a big no-no for you.

Stephanie: I mean, I guess — do you enjoy having a relationship with your brother? If no, dude, go forward. Just kidding, but not.

Brooke: Well, he has the brains, okay? He’s the one that’s going —

Stephanie: You have brains too, girl. Don’t say that.

Brooke: Okay, that’s fair. But he knows way more business stuff than I do. I don’t remember when it was, but I was so far into the business, and he was like, hey, do you have your business bank account set up? And I was like, huh? And he was like, what do you mean, you don’t know what I’m talking about? I didn’t. And he taught me essentially how to pay the business versus how to pay myself. At first, I didn’t know that there was supposed to be a difference. So I think it would be really good to have him handle all of that.

Stephanie: So I think that when we’re talking about partnerships — family, friends, otherwise — what needs to happen in a partnership is that both parties bring relatively equal but different skill sets. And by equal, I mean equal value compared to how much reward they’re getting, right? How much risk are they taking on, versus reward, versus responsibility? So we need to look at that, because a lot of people go into partnership with somebody and they are still the one maintaining most of the risk, and the other person possibly a lot of the work, and things can get discontent very quickly. And this is the fast-track way to ruin a relationship. I’m not saying that that’s going to happen. I’m saying you have to look at this just like anything else. Just look at it like you would look at a future marriage, right? We have to think of it in worst-case scenario of, what happens if this doesn’t work out and we need to exit and part ways?

Stephanie: So what I would suggest to you is, if you are considering this, you need to literally have an exit strategy in place. And anybody listening who’s interested in partnerships — you need to, while you are playing nice, have a prenup. That’s what I’m going to call it, a prenup for the business. Because it is a lot more amicable when everybody’s calm and likes each other, for you to come up with a plan when it says, this isn’t working anymore and I don’t want to do this anymore. When you have a plan in place proactively — this is what we’re going to do in that situation — all of a sudden things are a lot less volatile and less likely to ruin the relationship. So I am coming at this from a risk perspective for both of you. You need to think about leaving it right from the beginning. That’s going to be the biggest thing, is leaving it.

Stephanie: The other part is having very, very spelled-out responsibilities for who does what. So honestly, what you’ve described thus far, Brooke, is things that you could have figured out from Googling “first 10 things I should do when I open a business.” So I’m not saying your brother’s not a super smart guy, but what can he actually bring to the business other than that basic stuff? And I’m sure there’s lots of things, I just don’t know what those are. So don’t get offended, brother, whatever your name is — I’m not attacking you. I’m just saying what I would say to anybody, right?

Brooke: No, I’m like, please keep going. Let’s put him down a little bit.

Stephanie: And so my brain, when you describe this basic level of what he does — I could see him helping handle things like bookkeeping, the accounting side of things potentially, and the scheduling and routing side of things. I also think that, again, if he’s into the mathy stuff — this production rate shit is shooting you in the foot right now. And so you are burning yourself a lot financially, and this is not going to be scalable to staff. So I think that if he could help you culminate that data and help you with that estimating going forward — but again, anybody, you could do this with ChatGPT too. So there’s a lot of ways to skin this cat of these things getting done, and I’m sure that he could accomplish it. However, when he says invest in the business, what does that mean? What would that money go to exactly? What would that look like? Also, what would his time dedication look like to this? What could he realistically — because whatever amount of time that he puts in, it should be equal in ratio to what he gets back out. So if he can only do five to 10 hours a week, he is not a 50/50 partner with you, girl. Nobody would be. What does he get out of this? Is it a percentage of ownership? What are we talking here? And so I think a lot of people use the word “partner,” and they don’t spell out specifically. And I know this is your brother, but that’s even more so a reason to have a contract in place and having this all legally done. And obviously, there’s a lot of money to be made here and a lot of wonderful things that could come from it.

Stephanie: But I just — and even for you — really leaning on AI, like, hey, I’m thinking about this. Be a business advisor right now, please help me with the pros and cons of this and start asking me questions. Have a conversation with Claude or ChatGPT or whatever. I find that really — like, where are my blind spots? Ask it things related to blind spots. Give it the context of who you are, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and really just do a SWOT analysis, if you will, from my marketing days. So strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of what you’re describing here. And that is what I would do. So I would take any type of emotion out of it, and any type of, would you do this with a stranger? Do you need this, or does he just want in? And so therefore you’re thinking about it, right? And again, I’m not saying that that’s the fact of it. I’m saying this is how we have to think before we get into this. A lot of people fall into partnerships, and it is the death of them, and it destroys their business, it destroys their family, destroys their friendships. So yeah, we don’t hire family members at Serene Clean. We don’t hire immediate family members of any of my staff. And obviously a lot of companies go the exact opposite. But we avoid it — we just got burned too much.

Brooke: Yeah, that’s a good way to be safe.

Stephanie: No, 100%. So I hope that wasn’t too harsh. I hope it wasn’t too harsh. But that was me in consulting mode. I have some consulting clients who have heard that same exact spiel from me.

Brooke: No, not at all. It’s honest. It’s smart though. I’m interested, though, when you say production rates I’m shooting myself in the foot. Can you just —

Production Rate Auditing Explained

Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. So what I’m saying is, they are probably all over the place, because you are adding a bunch of random things. So you cannot standardize and know how to estimate going forward. And I doubt you even know what your production rates are, meaning how fast do you clean. And how you figure that out is, take the square foot of the house — if you clean the entire house — divided by the number of labor hours it took you to clean. There is your production rate, right? And you need to do this for different types of things, right? First-time cleans, move-out cleans — which I’m assuming are going to be like a deep clean for you, that’s how we do it. So the different types of cleans that you do, we need a production rate for all of them, so that we can then go forward and estimate correctly. Because this teaches us how we are doing on time and money, so that we can then, on future jobs, do better and be more accurate.

Stephanie: And then this organizational job — so make sure that when you’re doing these production rate audits, it’s strictly on cleaning houses, and then any extra organizational stuff, you need to separate that, because that should be an add-on service. It can’t be included in your base price. And again, I’m talking about standardized scope of work. And that’s something that you need to establish. And this is why I’m such a heavy proponent of cleaning checklists — for not only yourself, but mostly for staff members, and for the client to know what was accomplished. Because it’s very difficult to have staff members do organizing or any of these, because it’s going to throw your numbers off if you don’t know what was done in the house, right? So that’s where, again, coming back to the simple operation of scheduling enough time — if the cleaner is just going to do the cleaning, it’s going to be this much time. But if they decide to take on some more, that’s where there’s no standardization. So that is where I would start. So we figure out, what are you making?

Stephanie: We still do — now that we switched to flat rate, we’re still doing production rate auditing in the verbiage of hourly, right? Because that’s the language that we’re speaking. And I pay my cleaners hourly. So I want to know, on our first-time cleans, how much are we making per hour? And we literally do this every week. Now it’s part of just our — we look at our first-time cleans, we’re doing production rate auditing on it to make sure that we’re on the money. And we are — are we on target, or are we under target? And therefore, that means we’re estimating correctly. And if we are consistently over what you schedule, that should be the alarm bell going off saying something’s wrong here, I’m cleaning slower. And this isn’t personal for you — every single owner listening, and the one speaking right now, went through this process. Because I thought first-time cleans, we cleaned at like 250 square foot per hour. But it’s actually, on a first-time clean, we’re at like 150 square foot per hour. And on a move-out clean, meaning a vacant home, we’re at 100 square foot per hour. It’s slow going.

Brooke: It’s crazy too. That’s one of the craziest things — you’d think an empty home would be much easier to clean. And I am actually doing a move-out clean this week, and I’m like, man, I wish I had an employee right now, because I’m so busy. And how do you do it all? I mean, how do you, as a one — I just don’t get it.

Stephanie: You break it up, you have — yeah.

Brooke: Something has to give here somewhere, because doing it all is just exhausting. It’s also like, I always say, there’s one week out of every month where I’m just like, I don’t even have the drive. And it’s crazy.

Burnout, Raising Prices, and Buying Back Time

Stephanie: You’re burning yourself out, hon. And I think that with first-times, that’s what has to happen when you’re a one-woman show — you’re doing them across multiple days, right? That’s how it happens. Same with move-outs, because there’s no other option. And I do think everything you’re saying is indicating you need to bring somebody on. However, some things need to happen from an operations standpoint before you do that. And even figuring out, how much do you need to pay somebody in your area? What’s the going rate? Can we pay more than that? And then we have to look at, how much are we charging? Is that enough, right? Because our payroll cost should be hopefully 50% or less of what we are charging, all in, meaning taxes, all of that stuff. And it might be a little above that, it just depends on how you pay and what you can get. But let’s shoot for that.

Stephanie: So it’s like, okay, if you want to pay somebody — let’s just for ease say $20 an hour. Really, $40 an hour is still too low, in my opinion. We should be shooting for like $60 an hour, right? In that instance. Because when you pay somebody $20 an hour, unless you’re paying illegally, meaning cash, there’s costs on top of that, right? There’s payroll taxes, there is income tax for you as the business — there’s lots of taxes. So paying them $20 an hour is actually paying them all in like $24 an hour or something like that. I don’t know the exact math. So we have to keep that in mind, that we have to be charging enough. So that would be where I would start first — get your ducks in a row on how much are you making right now, to see how much can you pay. And then deciding, how do you want to pay? Do you want to pay per performance, meaning a percentage? Do you want to pay hourly? Both can work fantastically. And then also, how are you going to do the organization stuff, right? So there’s a lot to consider, for sure — getting employee documents in place, and do you have client guidelines? If not, we’ve got to get there too.

Brooke: Yeah, definitely. That’s like — it’s so hard because, doing it by myself, I have all these ideas. I started building a website, I started getting forms and getting everything, the standardized checklist, all that stuff. I do have a checklist, but I’m not carrying it with me to every job. It’s just something that I have and I can look at if I need it. But those are all things — I’d like to make a TikTok, I’d like to create Instagram. I just have Facebook right now. They’re all things that I want to do. But doing it all by myself, I’m running out of time. There are days where I am working 12-plus hours, 14-plus hours. And typically those are my good days, because those are the days that I’m like, yeah, I’m superhuman, look at all this. But then the next week I’m like, ugh, I just don’t want to do anything.

Stephanie: How full is your schedule, hon? How full is it?

Brooke: So I do Monday through Friday, and I’m pretty much eight hours every day. I’m cleaning.

Stephanie: Can we increase prices to try to get somebody to drop, and then save that time for admin? Because you need to create some space for yourself. And if you, by raising prices even slightly, one person drops — you’re making the same amount of money with fewer clients. All of a sudden you have a four-hour block of time. That’s what we’re shooting for. And protect it with your life. Be disciplined. Do not touch it, right? You, and/or get up earlier and stay up later. Those are your options right now. Because right now, what’s happening is not going to get you what you want, in my opinion.

Brooke: Yeah, no, I definitely agree with that. I would say, even in the beginning, I really, really did good with social media. And the past couple months I kind of fell off. Sometimes I’m posting once a week, twice a week, and that’s just not enough to get where I want to get. And I would love to go hand out business cards, I would like to get a hold of our Borough’s Commerce group of people, ribbon cutting — I would love to do all of that. I just don’t give myself enough time to be able to get everything together to successfully complete those things and get those things marked off my checklist. I think I could make the time without dropping a client, but I also think it would benefit me to raise prices. I probably price under — I feel like I’m in a safe zone. I’m probably under where I should be with pricing.

Stephanie: Well, what I’d love to hear you say is, this is what I’m making on average — and literally have a list of the clients, red, green, yellow, right? What are you making hourly at all of these jobs on average? Anybody that’s in red, immediate bump, right? And what does that mean for you? Well, what does the market bear in your area? I don’t know if you’ve done any price shopping. And that doesn’t mean everything, but it does mean something, right? But just as a rule, 50-plus an hour — especially if you are aiming for staff, 45 at minimum, at minimum, at this point in this day and age with what we have to pay people. And fair enough, it’s hard work, right? But we have to future-protect you for staff, right? Because when I opened, and I was charging $30 an hour, I could only pay $12 to $14 an hour. So now, starting wages are well above that, plus a whole host of benefits — that costs a lot of money. So we’re literally double in price. And so I want to save you the hassle of taking so long to get high prices. And if fewer people say yes, it’s okay, because the ones that do say yes are paying more for you. We don’t want to have 100 clients all at $30 an hour, we want to have 50 clients at 60, right? Or whatever the equal math is. I can’t do the math right now. So I’d love to see you get your ducks in a row a bit before we introduce another person. And don’t be afraid to have a waitlist too, and get some of these clients off of you. I think bringing somebody on is going to be incredible, but there’s a lot that needs to be done in order to prepare for that.

Brooke: Yeah, definitely. I definitely agree with that. And I think that’s why I haven’t done it yet. It’s just kind of figuring out, what are my next steps to get there? Because I want to get there.

Systems First — Bookkeeping, Guidelines, and Scheduling Software

Stephanie: Yes. And even just making sure, internally, is bookkeeping happening? Obviously you’ve got your business banking set aside. I would definitely listen to Profit First, if you have not listened to that book while you’re cleaning. It’s a good one. It’s basically how you manage your cash in a business. It’s what we’ve done from day one, and it means we never overspend, right? It’s budgeting basically for your business, which is really great. So I would start there. And then I’d start getting policies in place. Write client guidelines that are signed and agreed upon by all your clients — have them e-sign it. We use a program called Sign Request. It’s $8 a month, super cheap. And this way you’re not dealing with paper, right? We don’t want to deal with paper as much as possible. So have all of your current clients sign. If you want to see Serene Clean’s client guidelines, they’re literally on our website. Go ahead, look at them. Anybody listening — go to our website, you can check out our client guidelines, and you are free to copy to your heart’s content. If you would like to buy a template from me, you’re welcome to do so as well. Otherwise, it’s free right there. So I would suggest getting that in place.

Stephanie: And then we need employee documents in place as well. Figure out the cleaning checklist, because that’s going to help you train, right, and that’s going to help them be more successful. Checklists make everybody more successful. So those are the basic groundworks, and then the production rates — figure out your pricing, meaning look at all your current clients. How much are you making? Does anybody need a price increase? And obviously, getting your basic website up, if it’s not up already, and making sure that it’s easy for people to fill out a booking request. Oh, and scheduling software, of course. Are you using any type of scheduling software?

Brooke: I’m using a book.

Stephanie: A book. You know what’s better than a book? ZenMaid.

Brooke: Oh, I thought about this earlier. I was like, when she asks me what I’m going to — I literally have like four different notebooks. I have a notebook where I write down all the money stuff, I write it all down in one book. I write down all my scheduling in another book. I write down all my clients’ names, addresses, phone numbers in another. I was like, so old-fashioned. And I do need to get out of this. I should probably get some sort of software.

Stephanie: Yes. And I will tell you now, especially at your size, it’ll be very affordable. But doing this before you get a cleaner — introducing a cleaner while doing it the way you’re doing it right now is a fucking shit show. Okay? Almost didn’t say fuck the whole time, but this is worth a fuck, so I’m going to say it. And you need it, you need it. And the reminder emails and texts —

Brooke: Yeah, you’re right, because right now I’m the reminder text message. I’m the reminder. That’s why I’m so burnt out too. I think it’s because I’m not giving myself the help that I need.

Stephanie: The client notes, especially with how you’re doing your cleaning — if you want anybody else to be able to have a chance in hell at doing what you do, they need notes, and they need notes on their phone. It’s so worth the amount of time and energy. Those little things really start to add up. And even, how are you receiving payment? Is it all over the place — cash, Venmo, Cash App, blah, blah, blah, all of the places, right? Like, consolidating. So it’s like, how can we streamline your operation as it stands today, before we introduce another person and another layer of chaos, right, and stress in that? I would love to see you streamline. And yeah, the fact that you’re not using any scheduling — so that’s the first place to start. First place to start, no question.

Brooke: Get a scheduling software, yeah.

Stephanie: Yeah. It’s truly — I just can’t fathom doing what you’re doing. And the thing is, it can be done on paper and pen, but boy oh boy, are you going to hate your fucking life, girl, if you keep doing it this way.

Brooke: Yeah, it’s pretty rough. I’ve got like two thick books, one’s full and then the other one I’m obviously filling it up. But yeah, it’s definitely become too much.

Stephanie: Yeah. And when a client changes something, adds something, they need to reschedule — there’s so much headache that will be solved by that, and it just makes you look way more professional too, honestly. Because it really does do that. So yes, I would start in those places first, and get those ducks in a row. And then you can start taking a look at staffing, making sure your pricing is right, making sure you are ready to pay legally, and that you’re registered with the Department of Workforce Development, or whatever it’s called in Pennsylvania. That’s what we call it — I think it’s called that everywhere, but that’s what it’s called in Wisconsin. So you need to be there, you need to have a federal identification number.

Brooke: Yeah, yeah.

Stephanie: So I’m just spitballing all the shit I can think of right now, of like, making sure that when you hire people you’ve got workers’ comp if they’re going to be W-2. So, ducks in a row, legally speaking. So yes, I hope this wasn’t too bossy.

Brooke: No, no, I’m like, all the questions I’ve wanted to ask — I can’t believe I can finally ask these directly. I listen to podcasts and I’m like, your guests — I’m like, can you please ask this question? And I’m listening, and I’m like, they didn’t ask it.

Stephanie: Yeah. And that’s why I’m so happy. Anybody else listening — these more consulting-hybrid type episodes, this is why I love it, because it’s that type of shit right there where it hasn’t been said specifically in this way. And especially if you’re a newer owner, it’s like, how the hell would you know? You know what I mean? You haven’t done it yet, and you haven’t gotten burned yet. Or you’re not getting burned in the correct way to teach you that specific thing, right? And there’s just such a faster way, which is if you just ask. So I loved this. What else? Any other questions while I have you here?

How Stephanie Started — Building on Concrete, Not Sand

Brooke: I don’t think so. I think hopefully in like a year I can come back and I can be like, you know, a lot bigger, maybe have one or two employees even or something.

Stephanie: You could have five to 10 in a year, girl.

Brooke: I’m interested how you started. Did you start cleaning by yourself?

Stephanie: Yeah. So I had my full-time job Monday through Friday, and then I cleaned nights and weekends. I started in April doing that, of 2019. By June, I had my first part-time tech, right? And so then I started transitioning cleanings onto her. She sucked ass. And so then turnover, turnover, turnover, turnover. The episode that will be really fun for you, that would encourage you and prepare you, is the episode where I describe my first 10 employees, because I go through how awful it was. But I did get some gems — gems that are still with me. Crystal, who started in July, she is about to hit her seven-year work anniversary with me this week, right? And so I did get some absolute diamonds in the rough in that first 10. I got three staff members who are still with me in that first top 10. So it is possible, but it was just like, boom, boom, boom. And I was still working full time. So it was absolute chaos.

Stephanie: I’m so glad I had certain — I had ZenMaid from day one, I had employee documents, I was paying them with payroll correctly and legally. Everything was set up in a way. And I had a cleaning checklist. So why did that happen while I was still working the way I was? It’s because of all the structural things in place, so that when they were acting absolutely fucking insane and crazy and being the worst people ever — not all of them, but some of them — at least I had the skeleton there, right? Because if you’re trying to — or the foundation, I should say — otherwise you’re just trying to build on sand, you know? So it’s like, how can we build on cement and concrete? So, as your husband might say, the house builder.

Brooke: Yeah. I mean, it makes sense though.

Stephanie: So yes. No, absolutely. Well, Brooke, obviously my inbox is always open. And I would love to have you on in a year. And I hope that that would motivate you. And that’s what I want to do, is really just start having, as time goes on, re-touch base with guests, because I think it’ll be so fun, motivating, and exciting for you to be able to share what’s happened, the challenges and the big wins. So I would love that very much, if you’d be willing to do that.

Brooke: Yeah, that would be great.

Stephanie: Hell yeah, hell yeah. Okay, Brooke, where can the people find you if they want to follow you or your business?

Brooke: So I have Facebook currently, it’s The Neat Nest. Hopefully within the next month I’ll be able to be on Instagram and maybe TikTok. I feel like I’m young, but I really am not great with TikTok. We’ll see how far I can go with that. But yeah, so Facebook, it’s The Neat Nest. That’s where you can find me.

Stephanie: I’m not a TikToker. Not at all. Excellent. We’ll definitely link that below. Everybody, please leave Brooke some love in the comments. This is awesome to hear. Such a young, motivated woman who is killing it and who is going to explode in the next year. I can feel it. So thank you, Brooke, very much. I appreciate your time.

Brooke: Yes, thank you.

Stephanie: Awesome. Everybody else, hit that like, hit that subscribe. We’ll see you in the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye-bye.