How to Scale Commercial Cleaning Without Losing Quality

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Introduction

Stephanie: Hello, everyone. Welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean. And in this episode, we are going to be answering a listener question that I think is fantastic and hopefully gives you guys a little taste as to how to scale commercial without losing quality. That is what the topic of today’s video is going to be.

Guys, I have missed recording for you. Oh my goodness. So the past two and a half weeks, I have been in Barcelona, Spain with the ZenMaid team, and it was absolutely incredible. We did record an in-person episode, which I can’t wait for you guys to see. I think it went live this week — I’m pretty sure it went live this week if I know the production schedule correctly. And it was so fun. If you haven’t listened to that episode, please go give it a listen. It was a real joy to spend time with my really good friends at this point. I’ve made just incredible friends because of the ZenMaid team, and I am so grateful for the amazing time that we were able to have.

And truly, just the focus on making maid services successful — that’s the whole reason for ZenMaid to exist, and it’s just far beyond the software. It’s what we do here for you guys in this educational content, just putting out as much free value as possible, because as much as we can lift the industry up, that’s what we want to do. And it was just so motivating and inspiring and really practical. We dug into things, and I just, you know, selfishly absolutely love to be a part of it because I get to influence what I think is going to be most valuable for you guys. Like, what does that software need to do in order to make our lives as owners better and easier, being able to provide for our staff better, our customers better, like all of it.

So some really amazing things are coming out of it. I cannot wait for you guys to see all of the things that are coming out of the retreat. Very cool things — like things I selfishly, I’m like, oh my gosh, this is going to be great for me to manage Serene Clean. So I’ll save it until we get a little bit closer, but do know that we are just continuing to push the boundaries on what ZenMaid can do for all of us owners who utilize their software. So that’s my spiel on that. Otherwise, it was just such a fantastic time. All of the interviews that you saw the past couple weeks were pre-recorded, and so I haven’t done a solo episode in a while, so it’s fun to get back to it.

A Turtle Lamp Shoutout for Andrea

I also want to highlight right here, I see this little turtle lamp. Andrea, if you’re listening, which I know you probably are, thank you again for the turtle lamp. Okay, this was like one of the best things that ever happened to me, I got to say. Several months ago, I said in an episode that I’m on the hunt for a turtle lamp because I just like lamps — I love lamp, as you guys know. And I had one as a child and I wanted another one, and she literally mailed a turtle lamp to my office in Wisconsin. The gals just mailed it down to me, that’s why it took a little bit to get down here.

But I’m obsessed, and she wrote me the most heartfelt letter. I literally cried reading it. It was so sweet — Andrea, you’re amazing. I was blown away by that. So I just wanted to shout that out. So please leave a little turtle emoji, guys, down below to give Andrea her props, because that was so over the top. And I think I said to her in the email response, I was like, I can tell that you probably serve your customers very well if this is the above-and-beyond behavior that you do. Like, that’s crazy. So thank you again, Andrea.

This Week’s Question: Scaling Commercial Without Losing Quality

I just wanted to highlight that before we got into today’s topic, which, as I alluded to, long story long, guys — we’re gonna be talking about commercial today. And I actually do plan on doing my Maid Summit talk specifically on commercial. If you guys are interested in it, leave it in the comments below. I think I wanna do kind of like as much of a masterclass as I can on procuring commercial — talking about my thoughts on commercial and how to get it, how to maintain it, that type of thing. So if you’re interested in that, let me know down in the comments. Otherwise, I’ll hop on a different topic.

But I think, based on the emails I get, you guys are really interested in commercial, as well as anytime we have a commercial expert on the podcast, you guys really enjoy it. So let me know if I’m barking up the right tree there. This today topic is gonna be talking specifically about maintaining high quality as we add commercial. And this question comes from Mr. Cameron Russ from Virtuous Cleaning Services. Cameron, thank you for submitting your question. I apologize for taking so long to get to it.

So the question is: if you were running a cleaning company with 12 commercial accounts today and wanted to reach 25 accounts while keeping quality high, which specific strategy would you follow? Fantastic question. I love the focus on quality, and that’s not just about “let’s grow, let’s grow, let’s grow.” How do we grow and also give the clients what they deserve? And of course, that all benefits you, because they’re gonna stick around long-term if you give them that high quality. So let’s get into it.

I wrote down a couple notes on what I think has helped us accomplish this. So for context, we currently have 77 commercial accounts. We started out 2026 with 61. So we have added 16 commercial accounts this year, just over halfway through the year — I guess it’s August, guys. Oh my Lord, holy crap. So we are well over halfway through the year. But I’m very happy with that. I mean, adding commercial is much more challenging than residential. The sales process is typically more difficult, the decision-making process is longer usually. You just have to do a lot more work for them, but they are very attractive for a variety of reasons — again, I’ll save that for my Maid Summit talk, as to the pros and cons of commercial.

But let’s say, yes, you want to add more commercial — how do we keep it going so that everybody is pleased with the quality that they’re getting? I feel like I just spit all over my computer, please. I’m curious if you guys, audio listeners, ever go and watch the video, ’cause I’m just acting crazy. Anyways, I got my notes here, guys — perfectly legible, as you can see. You can’t see that. What am I doing? Okay, so I have one, two, three, four, five different areas that I want to talk about related to maintaining a high standard of quality while we add commercial accounts.

1. Walkthrough Videos and Cleaning Checklists

Okay, first one — foremost, so important in my opinion, the most important for making sure that you can onboard and keep those clients happy — is going to be walkthrough videos and cleaning checklists. This is not the first, or it is the last time that you’re gonna hear me talk about cleaning checklists, guys, but at this size, if I am saying that this is crucial, I dear Lord hope that you will listen to me when you are a smaller business and you are trying to grow. You have to use checklists, guys, you must. You must use checklists, especially when we’re talking about commercial.

Residential is a little bit easier, I would say, to fake it, if you will, because houses aren’t always that much different. They’re different, but not that much different. Commercial facilities — they could be, I mean, you guys heard, we’ve cleaned strip clubs, we’ve cleaned manufacturing facilities, we’ve cleaned normal office buildings, auto shops, hardware stores — literally we’ve cleaned it all, other than restaurants. We don’t clean restaurants. And so how can you possibly expect your staff to maintain and actually hit the scope of work if you don’t give them something to work off of, right?

Especially once you get into commercial accounts with higher frequency, they oftentimes will rotate tasks on days, right? Where you detail certain areas on certain days — so every Tuesday, we do all the dusting in this room, and it’s not something we’re doing every day. That’s actually really common, to rotate tasks. So for us, we must have a checklist for each varying day.

We also have — what are they called? Auto, places you sell cars — car dealerships. Holy fuck, the places that you sell cars — we clean some of those. Several of our car dealerships, they have light days and heavy cleaning days. So on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we only do certain things, and then the other days we’re doing more areas, right? So how the heck could you possibly accomplish that without very detailed checklists, so that the cleaners can succeed, okay?

So checklists is one half of it. And something that we’ve started doing in the past year is actually making sure that our checklists are arranged in the order that makes the most logical sense for the cleaner to move through the facility. And that takes some time until you start cleaning it. So we make the checklist in what we think to be logical when we take on the facility, and then we follow up after, you know, like a month or two of cleaning it. Okay, does this checklist make sense? What actually makes sense for how you move through the facility, right? Because there is probably a most efficient way to move through every commercial facility, and it’s completely dependent on so many things that are specific to that location.

So when you ask your cleaner that, and you arrange the checklist in that order, that makes it so much easier to make sure that you nail it — you get through that space in the most efficient way possible, and if anybody needs to fill in, they’re getting set up for success. Because truly, checklists — they are for the regular cleaner, but they’re really, really for the fill-ins, and for when you have turnover. That is where checklists are gonna become so crucial.

Because in the beginning, when I was still heavily in everything, at every commercial account and all of those things, I was taking the new person and showing them for several days to hand it off, right? When we’re having turnover, or we’re bringing on a new account, or anything — and that’s gonna be one of the things I’ll mention later on — but it shouldn’t actually be 100% necessary. It’s just a nice-to-have. So how can you possibly send somebody in sight unseen and have them actually do the dang thing without providing them with the tools?

And the tools are going to be really extensive, thorough cleaning checklists — where to find things, the proper order to do things, what do they provide versus what do we provide as Serene Clean — and all of this factors into making sure that cleaner is going to be successful in that facility. So that is really, really important right at the top. It’s like, how do you access the place? Actually, we’ve taken most of that stuff off, ’cause that’s now in ZenMaid. So anything to do with access, or things that they need to do before the clean, like certain products they need to grab or tools — we’ve moved that all to ZenMaid, because that’s what they should be checking before they leave, going to the office or whatever. Their checklist should only be: what do I need to look at while I am here? This is the work I need to perform. We should already have looked at everything in ZenMaid.

So having extensive ZenMaid notes — or if you don’t use ZenMaid, whatever software you use — if you’re not using a scheduling software, what the fuck are you doing? Please get out of there, especially at this time. Cameron, I know you are, ’cause you messaged in the ZenMaid internal thing, so I know this isn’t to you, Cameron — you’re lovely, you’re wonderful, you use ZenMaid. Everybody else who’s not using a scheduling software and you wanna grow like this, you must use a scheduling software of some flavor. And the notes are gonna be crucial. How do you get in? When can we go? All of the contacts. When a pipe bursts at midnight, who do you call, right? You need that stuff in there, okay? And we’ll talk a little bit about cleaning timing and stuff a little bit later in this video.

So cleaning checklists are just truly the most important thing. So I know I beat this dead horse, but it’s because every time I meet with somebody and they’re not using a checklist, I’m like, do you listen to the podcast? I’m like, please, please listen to me.

And then the other half of this point is walkthrough videos. Walkthrough videos, this in combination with the checklist, means that anybody on your team who has half a brain and can figure stuff out — and you’ve set them up well — they can go into a facility sight unseen and get by. Right, get by — maybe it’s not exactly perfect like the normal cleaner would have it, but the point is, when it comes to scaling, you’re going to have to send somebody else in there at some point. So when we have that reality — just like the reality that we’re going to have turnover, that’s going to happen in a cleaning business, in any business — if we just accept that reality, we can start building systems and processes around that reality instead of pretending it’s not going to happen. And then when it does happen, we panic, and you go back into the field, right? So we must build with the assumption that this is true. This is true because it is true.

And so if I know that someday this new commercial — this new shiny commercial account I just got — did I put… okay, I did put my earrings on. Idiot, sheesh, oh my God. You want to know how my brain works, guys? I put my hands up, I noticed I don’t have any rings on, which is not normal — I usually have rings on. And then I was like, do I have earrings on? That’s how fast my brain goes out of sync of where it should be. Okay, squirrel, holy fuck. It’s a Friday, guys. Maybe I still have jet lag, which doesn’t make sense ’cause it’s reverse.

Anywho, so when we get this shiny new commercial account, and we know that whoever I assigned to it today, they’re most likely not going to be the cleaner that goes there every single time, right? So if we know that, we can start thinking in a way that puts us in a place for success — like, okay, this person that I’m assigning and showing this, they’re not going to be the one who always goes there. So what can I build in order to make it so that whoever goes next is going to be successful? And that’s where these video walkthroughs come in. And that is where the cleaning checklists come in.

And you may be like, oh my gosh, video walkthroughs — how do you do that? We do that at the actual bidding process. So we do a walkthrough with the prospective client, and then we say, at the final part of it, like, great — now I’m just going to do a video walkthrough showing everything, so that anything I forget from this conversation, I can rewatch the video and make sure that the bid is as accurate as possible. And then, number two, for our cleaner, so that they can be successful when they are performing the cleaning.

And of the 77 commercial accounts that we have, only one wouldn’t let us film during the walkthrough. What happens after? I mean — especially since it’s not a high-security place, trust me, it’s just a normal building. And the thing is, these are all secure videos — it’s not like somebody could access these, right? And so we also do not show the access codes in the video. We show where you enter, but the access codes are in ZenMaid. So even if somehow somebody got these videos, they’re not going to be able to access the building. They’re just going to see, oh, they have a key — well, you can’t get to our key, or they have a code, you don’t know the code, that type of thing.

So keep that in mind when you are filming these videos. If you have anybody who asks about that, just explain that you keep things separate, so that even if somehow somebody could get this video, they’re not going to be able to get into the building anyway. So all of that to be said, there are some of our facilities where there are certain parts we cannot film in, especially when we’re talking about some of our manufacturing facilities. There’s one in particular that has a research and development area, and they’re like, no filming in there. That’s fine — the majority of it is filmed.

So we just do this at the end of the walkthrough, and then we upload that to Drive. We link that video in the ZenMaid notes, and we link the checklist in the ZenMaid notes too. They have a physical checklist, but if they forget, we want it to be linked. Now you could be wondering, why aren’t you using the digital checklist? Our cleaners still like a physical one. It’s just easier for them to not be on their phone. And especially if a facility doesn’t have good reception, we don’t want them monkeying with it.

So digital checklists are fabulous, if they’re working for you — that’s great. For us, we still are going to be using the paper checklist, especially for complex situations like this. This could be a 10-page checklist, ’cause we’re organizing this — I mean, that’d be crazy — but there are many checklists that are many, many pages, because you have to work through it and we want it to be easy to follow. I’d rather have it be many pages than trying to squish it all onto one page and have it be an absolute mess. It’s simply impossible to fit all of these facilities, in their nuance and their spaces, on one page. So it’s very likely going to be multiple pages. And some of our facilities, of course, are very simple, right — there are a couple of rooms and we go there once a month, that’s super easy. But other ones that are five days a week, with rotating tasks and 7,000 different types of rooms — we need to have an extensive checklist.

So this is going to be the first and foremost thing. That way, when we do assign somebody new, for whatever reason, they watch the video, they look at the checklist. Obviously we’re there to answer questions, but if you design those two things well enough, they should be able to succeed. And anytime there is a gap in knowledge, that is your trigger for changing the checklist, for adding a note, for doing something. And that’s how we continue to improve and make sure that we get better at every facility and make sure our notes are proper. So that’s gonna be first and foremost — the top thing I’m gonna suggest to you, Cameron, or anyone else who is interested in this — do walkthrough videos and have checklists.

2. Hand Off New Accounts With Your Field Lead

Number two is going to be handing off facilities with our field lead. Now, this is going to be Hannah, who is our quality assurance and field development specialist. So our ideal scenario, in a perfect world, is when we get a new commercial account, Hannah goes to that first cleaning — at least the first cleaning, if not the first couple, if it’s a big one, right? So if it’s just once a week or something small, she can go to the first one, not always, right? If this is an evening one, she doesn’t work evenings — but, I’ve told you guys this before, I know it’s shocking, we do a shit ton of daytime commercial. Daytime commercial is absolutely a thing. I wish I had the list — I’ll save this for the Maid Summit talk — of how much is daytime. You’d be shocked how much is daytime.

But the ideal scenario is that we have Hannah go in with them and go through that first cleaning. And that way, she can find any gaps in our checklist. She can find any gaps in the walkthrough. She can help organize the checklist, come back to us and say, no, we should rearrange the checklist like this. So she’s kind of the liaison of handing this off to the cleaning tech and holding their hand. It makes them feel more confident too, because there’s power in numbers. Hannah is an authority, and also, if it is stressful or they run into unknowns, then Hannah can help with that while the cleaning tech still is cleaning, right?

For example, we took on a commercial account that has a floor machine, which we usually don’t do. And we learned a lot from that, and I’ll get into that a little bit at the last point I’m going to make — so I’ll put a pin in that, I will come back to the floor machine. But the other cleaner could just keep working while Hannah monkeyed with the floor machine. So if you can — and if you don’t have a field manager or a field leader, whatever you want to call this, you can do this, right? Like I said, I used to do this, and I think it’s well worth the effort if you can manage it, because you’re setting up that account for success.

Once, when they change and get a new vendor or supplier or whatever — that is like the peak of when they’re paying attention, right? So if you can be there and help that transition between companies go really well, or if they’ve never had a company before — if you guys can just nail those first cleanings, they can ease back and not be so hypervigilant on you. That’s wonderful. And it also helps you understand where there are gaps. Also, it helps you understand, did you bid this thing correctly, right? And you can learn very quickly if you underbid — or, I mean, is there such a thing as overbid? I don’t think so. But if you underbid the job, then you can immediately notice that and course correct if possible, right? And you start to learn for future bidding procedures.

So — ’cause bidding is still one of the hardest parts of commercial, I’m not gonna… what, cherry coat, what am I trying to say? I can’t speak this week, guys, I’ve been putting off recording. What is that — cherry pick, sugar coat, sugar coat. I usually am so slightly more eloquent, but this week, after coming home from Spain, it’s like my brain melted out of my fucking ear, I swear to God. That’s why I’ve been putting off this recording till Friday, to try to just recuperate my intellect, because it is gone with the wind, guys. So I’m not gonna sugarcoat it — bidding is the hardest part of commercial. It really is. It can be so challenging to get it right, because every facility is a bit different, and how fast you clean and everything — it’s tough, right? So that’s not what this episode is about, though. It is about quality control.

So if you can have somebody do the handoff, specifically between cleaners, right? So if we have a new cleaner coming in — going in, especially like they’re brand new to the company, they went through training, but now they’re gonna take on this new commercial account, new to them, but they’re not new to us — like, we are transitioning between cleaners. As much as possible, we send Hannah with them so that it goes really well, and that the client doesn’t notice that there is any change in quality or systems or anything like that. We want it to not even be noticeable to them, other than if they physically see a new body in there, right?

I would say number two is going to be, do that handoff whenever possible, even with checklists, even with video reviews. It makes that new tech feel attended to, but it sets them up for success even further — answers their question, especially if they are a new staff member, ’cause this is gonna happen. I can’t tell you how many cleaners we put on one facility this year, because we just kept having turnover in that specific area, and the client definitely noticed. And what we did is we ramped it up — ramped up Hannah being there, quality checks, which I’ll talk about in just a second — and that smooths it over. So they’re very happy right now. So that’s gonna be number two: handing off with the field lead.

3. Monthly Check-Ins and Quarterly In-Person Walkthroughs

Number three is going to be monthly check-ins and quarterly in-person walkthroughs. That is right — we do a physical walkthrough at every single commercial facility, a quality check, every single quarter. This is part of our process, which I have made a video on, our quality control system — I know I’ve done a podcast episode on it too, so I’m not gonna spend a bunch of time here. Maybe we can link those down below. Nicole, love you — could we link down the quality check system video? There’s a YouTube video and a podcast episode, I believe, so that you guys can see my screen share. Things have changed a little bit, but for the most part, they stay the same.

And now we do a monthly check-in email. We used to do it like a manual email — now, on Mailchimp, we just do a monthly survey that we send out to them, and we just have it as a Mailchimp automated thing that goes out. It’s super wonderful. Veronica, my executive assistant, is the one who manages the Mailchimp side of things. And it’s great, because then that’s the space where they can provide any feedback. Of course, we’re still doing quality checks outside of that too, where needed, that type of thing. But this gives them that opportunity of touching base, like, hey, do you have anything? And we literally, explicitly say: if you don’t say anything here, we’re going to take it that things are going well — and just explicitly say that.

So then if they say, four months later, well, this has been bothering us for four months — it’s like, well, we’ve been checking in with you once a month, and you haven’t said it ’til now. There is a part of this relationship that includes you telling us if something’s not going well, right? And of course we’re checking everything like that, but it is unreasonable for them to expect us to pry it out of their cold, dead body if they don’t want to tell us, right? I’m sure you guys have experiences in residential too, where it’s like, something’s bothering me, but I’m not going to tell you what it is. Like, it’s infuriating, right? So we do this check-in on a monthly basis.

We do the quarterly walkthrough, and that is, if possible, Hannah can meet with the client, see them, and just have a conversation with them in person. It’s a wonderful opportunity to get positive feedback for your staff too — make sure you’re passing those along to your staff members as well.

4. Escalate Issues Immediately

Okay, number four is escalating when there are issues. Do not wait for another issue to happen, right? So this is all about proactive versus reactive. So if you must be reactive, make it once — don’t make a habit of being reactive. And what does that mean, Stephanie? That means that if you get a complaint, or you have any type of issue at any of your commercial accounts — this goes across the board, residential, commercial, everything, but we’re talking about commercial — if we have an issue with commercial, we don’t say, thanks for the issue, we let the cleaner know, and then that’s it, right? You don’t just leave it and hope that it fixes itself, right? You need to elevate it, escalate it, whatever — make it more important in your peripheral vision, like, I need to be watching this, right?

And so if we start having an issue at an account, we immediately start doing more quality checks, and we immediately start checking in with the client more often, right? We don’t just stick to our hard-and-fast, no, we only check in once a month, that’s the rule — no, we’re going to escalate and touch base more often. We’re going to say, hey, we did a quality check three days this past week, everything looks great to us, any other feedback? Like, we just want to make sure that we are handling this proactively. And it just shows that you are listening to them, and you give a fuck — because why do most people fire their commercial cleaners? It’s because they do a shitty job, and when they say there’s a problem, it might get better for a minute, and then it goes right back to the problem again. So we need to show them that we mean business. If you say there’s a problem, we are going to escalate and we’re going to take care of this, right? We’re not going to just wait for you to complain again, right? That’s when things get really frustrating.

Most people are very patient and very understanding if you mess up, as long as you fix it, right? You own it and you fix it. When people start to lose their patience, and start shopping around, and getting frustrated, and not trusting that you are going to do what you say you’re going to do and what they’re paying for — that’s when they say something, you say, oh my gosh, so sorry, we’re going to take care of this, and then a month later it’s the thing again, right? Like, that’s the worst. Same with residential, right? Just think of you as a customer in general — that is really, really frustrating.

So we want to make sure that we escalate issues and that we keep them on the forefront. We’re checking in, we’re doing more quality checks. So if you have an account that you had a complaint on, do a fricking quality check the next cleaning, perhaps, right? And make sure that it’s perfect, and then let them know, especially if it’s after hours — hey, we’ve done quality checks on the past two cleanings, things look great to us, we just want to make sure, how are they to you, right? Or whatever that looks like, because it shows that you took action, you took them seriously, and you fixed it. And that’s what that does. So, highly recommend escalating if there are issues.

5. Know Your Scope

And finally, the last, fifth item that I am going to say on this topic in this episode — at least, of course, if you guys have more questions, please leave them down below, and those could be the questions that I’m going to answer in my Maid Summit talk, so let me know any questions you have — is: stay within a certain comfort level of what you do and what you do not do, okay?

And as I mentioned before, with this floor machine at this commercial account, we are not used to running floor machines, right? It’s something that we’re open to, and we learned a lot from this experience. We got a how-to video on this floor machine, I think, and the manual and instructions. And then at the first clean, that’s when we tried to use it, and it did not go well. Like, the cleaning product that we had for it wasn’t right, there was all this stuff, right? And so this was outside of our comfort zone. And this is not a, okay, we’re never going to use floor machines again — that’s not the standpoint I’m going to take — but how can we set ourselves up for success at the first clean when there is something unusual that we are not used to? There’s a piece of machinery that we have to use, or a new tool or product that we’re not used to.

What we’re going to do in the future — because we’re going to know this at the walkthrough when we originally bid it — is, once we get that account, we’re going to set up a preliminary time for Hannah to go and learn that thing, document it, record it, work through all the kinks and problems, so that at that first clean, they can just execute, right? And even, especially if it’s another cleaner, we could assign them time ahead of time to watch those videos, so they’re not going in completely cold and blind on, oh, I gotta learn this new machine and I gotta get this cleaning done. Obviously we always add more time on first-time cleans at commercial, because it’s the first time they’ve ever seen it. But when it comes to things that are out of the ordinary for what you are used to in normal janitorial stuff, then I really recommend investing that time upfront, so that your cleaners are feeling like they can get the job done. They are not feeling totally overwhelmed by not only a new facility, a new checklist, but also a new piece of equipment that they’ve never run before, right? This is new for us. So that’s what we’re taking away from that experience that just happened in the past two or three months, I think.

So as you can see, we’re always learning, we’re always growing — this is never a done deal, we’re always looking to improve. So it’s not like you’re just perfect all of a sudden, okay? That’s not going to happen. You just continually grow and improve. So if there is something that is coming up in a commercial account that is outside of your normal scope or what you are used to — and I’m going to give you a caveat here — there’s so much overlap between commercial and residential, it’s stunning. If you can do a house, you can do like 98% of commercial facilities, in my opinion, of the ones that we do, at least.

There’s some we just simply don’t bid, because it’s completely out of our wheelhouse. Like I said, restaurants — we don’t want to do kitchen cleanings. Really, I can’t think of anything that we’ve turned down because of anything high up — that is going to be another thing with scope, like, we don’t climb on ladders. We don’t do exterior windows, outside of, like, our large federal facility — we do spray the windows down with a pressure washer, I get that’s out of scope for our normal. We also do carpet cleaning there — all of it out of scope of our normal, right? But that’s what was required of that federal contract, and we’re willing to do it. And our guys on that account are great — Pete and Kel, you’re the bomb, I love you, you don’t watch this for sure, but you guys are great. And they’ve been there for years now, and they know that place back and forward. That’s kind of out of the norm for us.

But in general, I’m not going to try to send a regular cleaner in and expect them to succeed with a bunch of new equipment or tools or chemicals, and you didn’t give them the time to be successful — meaning you didn’t set aside time for them to learn the thing before you go and ask them to use it. Like, that’s unreasonable, and that wouldn’t be fair to them. So put yourself in the cleaner’s shoes — again, setting them up for success as much as possible. And you’re just going to learn as you go, of course, but learn from past mistakes as much as possible. Now, if we ever come across a facility that requires a floor machine and they have it and we can use it, which is awesome, ’cause then we can clean the floors a lot faster, we’re going to make sure that we set aside separate time for us to learn that and set our cleaners up for success as much as possible, and document it for any future cleaners that need to go to that facility.

So I would also just say, don’t be afraid to turn down certain parts of scope that you’re not comfortable with. I think we get so horny for commercial that we’re like, yeah, I can do that, I’ll figure it out, I’ll figure it out — which I absolutely had that mentality in the beginning, but there’s certain things, guys, you should not commit to. If you are not a window cleaning company — which most of you aren’t, or your spouse isn’t, that’s kind of common too, like a spouse owns a window cleaning company, or you have a good connection with them — really think about what you’re bidding. Comb through the expectations.

I just had a consult yesterday with a future podcast guest — he’s going to be on in a few weeks, I believe. And they’re bidding this giant commercial facility that’s going to need three to six people a day, three at each building. And I was asking more details, she was like, it’ll be two housekeepers and then one groundskeeper. And she just kept talking, and I’m like, what? A groundskeeper? What the fuck does that mean? Are you going to be mowing the lawn? And she was like, oh, I don’t know, picking up trash around maybe. I’m like, we’re not bidding anything until you find out what that means, right? Because we get so — that is a perfect timing for a consult call. She’s fantastic, I can’t wait for you guys to meet her, very amazing woman.

And I think we get so excited about big commercial opportunities that we think we’ll figure it out later. But the problem is, when you lock in that bid, you could be literally signing away your profit and your sanity, I must say, if you do not comb through that thing really, really clearly. Now, with AI, guys, there’s no excuse — put that thing into AI, be like, what am I missing? What are some warning signs here that I’m not seeing because I’m so excited, right? Things like supplying the expendable items — there goes all your profit and all your money if you don’t realize that you are supposed to be supplying the toilet paper, paper towels, all of the things, the urinal cakes, for example. If you don’t realize that you’re supposed to supply that in the bid, and then you bid it and they take it, and now all of a sudden they’re like, we’re out of toilet paper, why haven’t you ordered any — you’re not gonna make any money, and you’re gonna feel stupid.

So please, please, please, just really pay attention to what is required, what is the scope of work, and don’t be afraid to say, we can do this part, but we can’t do that part. And a lot of times, the reason they’re putting it in is because their last company did it, but they don’t have any emotion towards it. Like, for example, supplying expendable items — a lot of times it’s because maybe the last one did it, and so they just asked for the same thing. But you can just say, we don’t actually do that part, we just do the janitorial. Most facilities like to supply it themselves, and they’ll say, oh, okay, cool, no problem, right? So it just sometimes means a conversation needs to be had. It doesn’t mean you’re gonna lose the whole account.

So don’t be afraid to push back on scope that you’re not comfortable with. It’s not that you can’t learn it, but just really, really understand what this is gonna look like when you say yes to all of these things that you’ve never done before. So I just want you guys to be very careful of that, because when it comes to maintaining quality, it’s making sure that you’re nailing expectations. If you bid this thing, they expect you to execute on it, and execute well. So if you can’t, that’s how quality falls, right?

Final Thoughts

So I hope that this has been helpful to you, Cameron. Again, thank you so much for the question. You guys, please, please, please ask questions — I promise I will continue working at getting to them. You have some wonderful questions, you guys are so smart, and I’m so excited to be able to share for you anything — I think you know I like to do that about these topics. And Cameron actually submitted his question right in ZenMaid, I think in the little blurb in the right-hand corner.

But you guys, if you’re not a ZenMaid customer, you can ask questions by joining the ZenMaid email newsletter, which we will link down below. It’s absolutely free, you do not need to be a ZenMaid customer. Every single week, they’re sending out really, really great advice, practical tips, and that is where you can respond back and ask questions. So we’ll definitely link that down below.

I also want to encourage you to join the ZenMaid Mastermind on Facebook if you are not a member. Again, don’t have to be a ZenMaid customer. That is how I got involved with ZenMaid at all — I was a customer, I joined their mastermind. If you click on me in there and you scroll all the way back, you can literally see where I’m asking about bidding my first commercial account. That’s crazy, that’s crazy. I recommend it — it’s very funny, actually, to look back and be like, oh my gosh, I was so nervous. So it’s really cool to scroll back and see how I’ve grown in the group. So yeah, it’s a great community, I really encourage you to be a part of it.

If you guys have not heard, Clean Con in Austin is coming up at the end of September. I am going to be there, I would love to meet you. The first Clean Con in Indianapolis was incredible in March, I learned so much, it was so fun connecting with so many of you. Please, if you have the ability to do so, I would love to see you there. It’s really valuable — it’s made for residential cleaning businesses, which is the first of its kind. Everybody focuses on commercial, there’s big conferences for janitorial, but for residential, it was always kind of forgotten. So I’m just so appreciative to Holly, Molly, and Drew for putting it together, and I would love to see you guys there. We’ll link the details down below. It would be a blast to meet any of my listeners there, it would, it’ll be a joy. We might go out on the town, guys, if you want, ’cause you know, your girl likes to have fun. So I would love to see you there, guys.

And I hope you’re having a great week. I’ll see you on the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye-bye.

If you enjoyed this episode of the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast, please be sure to leave us a five-star review so we can reach more cleaners like you. Until next time, keep your work clean and your business filthy rich.