How to Win Apartment Building Cleaning Contracts, with Nick Spagnolo

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From Banking to Cleaning

Stephanie: Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I’m your host Stephanie from Serene Clean, and today’s guest is Mr. Nick Spagnolo, and he is the president of Spag N Shine LLC, which is an absolutely spectacular business name, might I say? And he opened his business at a similar time to me; he’s been following along, and I’m so excited to have him on. He has grown his business from zero to around, what, 20 staff members so far, which is pretty darn fast! And he is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I can’t wait to hear your story, Nick. Thank you for joining me today.

Nick: Thank you for having me.

Stephanie: Absolutely. Tell me, Nick, what were you doing before you got into cleaning?

Nick: So a little bit of background about me: my family owned a chain of Shop ‘n Save grocery stores. I ran one with my brother in high school and a little bit after high school — of course, you know, going to work at a very young age as well. After that, my dad ended up retiring, and I ended up getting my paralegal certificate and working in the banking industry. After six and a half years of that, when COVID hit, there were no real fine guidelines in the banking world, so we were getting shipped home. Everyone — there were no guidelines in place. So my mom was actually cleaning a few houses, and she was always OCD when she did it. I was growing up sweeping the floor five times a day, doing the S-swipes, keeping the dirt with you, you know? So I kind of piggybacked off her, helped her with a few clients, and it just kind of skyrocketed. It just took off, and I really focused in on apartment buildings.

Becoming a One-Stop Shop for Apartment Buildings

Stephanie: Tell me more about that. Do you mean move-outs or turnovers? Is that the type of thing?

Nick: It’s a one-stop shop with that. It’s an endless tap of resources. I mean, from daily janitorial services — I mean, if you’re getting an apartment building that has 700-plus residents in it, they need cleaning on a daily basis. And with the way that apartment buildings are going now and the luxurious lifestyles that they want to bring to those complexes, I mean, they have outdoor doggy areas, you know, courtyards, grill areas for cleaning. So they need well-staffed buildings. And then with that comes the turnovers. With that comes carpet cleaning. With that comes floor stripping and waxing. I mean, it’s just a one-stop shop. So, even going along the ways of helping them with, if they need window cleaning, you know, we’ll go ahead and get a company for you. Don’t worry about that; we’re going to take that off the property manager’s plate. You don’t need to worry about the cleaning at all. We are your one-stop shop.

Stephanie: Really interesting, because I think a lot of listeners want to do that and be that one contact so that they can, of course, benefit from, you know, divvying out and brokering out that work. But I think in practice it can be difficult to do correctly, because now you have other people coming in and you’re putting your name on their work; you’re using independent contractors. So I wanna dig into that a little bit to go over how do you accomplish that? Especially, are you doing the floor stripping and waxing? Are you guys doing the carpet cleaning, that type of stuff?

Nick: Yeah, we’re not subbing.

Stephanie: Got it.

Nick: We’re doing it. They’re giving us the opportunity to do it, right? We built that trust. We built that relationship. They bring up, “Hey, we are looking to get our carpets cleaned. You know, is that something you’d be interested in?” Let me buy a carpet cleaner and see if I can make it happen.

Stephanie: And then now they’re turning you into a small carpet cleaning company.

Nick: Yeah, yeah.

Learning Carpet Cleaning Through Your Supply Vendor

Stephanie: What has the learning curve been on that? And the reason I ask is we attempted to get into carpet cleaning, and then I shut it down because I was like, “I’m not doing this right.” Nor do I want to invest the time to learn how to do it correctly, so we just stopped. And I’m like, that’s not what we’re gonna do right now. However, obviously, you can make a shit ton of money carpet cleaning, so I’d love to — we don’t talk about it a lot on the podcast — if you don’t mind, can we take a little bit of time? What was that learning curve like, equipment, all that stuff, for anybody who is interested?

Nick: So it all started kind of with the apartment buildings and then my cleaning supply vendor. He was trying to push us into trying different things for floor cleaning, and when we got approached with the carpet cleaning, I asked him if he can provide those tools and solutions. I don’t want to buy a machine that I gotta find a third-party vendor to come in and do maintenance on. Can you guys maintain this on-site? Does it come with a warranty? I don’t want to have to fumble and fool around with this on-site. Will you come show me how to use it?

Stephanie: Nice, yeah.

Nick: And all of that — you know, they will respond if you reach out to them and you talk to them. They will say, “Hey, let me come do a demo and run through a hallway,” and show your team how to use it. And we could do an orientation. Have a professional show us how to do it. I get trained on it now. I’m the professional showing you how to do it if there’s any errors on-site.

Stephanie: Okay. Now I’m intrigued. So is this a Pittsburgh-specific vendor, or is this a national line that does this?

Nick: Yeah, I don’t know. Which are vendors in your area? I don’t know if they’re kind of like the same as us. I have WB Mason, I have Pick Chemical, so they provide us like floor cleaning solutions. If I want to order Dawn dish soap off them instead of, like, Amazon or something like that — just their, like, cleaning solution vendor, I guess.

Stephanie: I got you. Yeah, because that really helps. Because the biggest concern I have with carpet cleaning is just, yeah, the equipment, the learning curve, having my techs know how to operate it effectively, so that is cool that they will provide that resource. I’m curious, if somebody was interested in getting into floor care like you are doing now, what are the biggest mistakes you think that they could run into?

Nick: Just like your recent podcast with playing with that floor scrubber machine — don’t try and use it day one.

Stephanie: You’re listening, Nick. I appreciate it, thank you.

Nick: Yeah, yeah, we actually have a floor machine as well, so I have an i-mop that I use to cut down time with those big apartment complex floors, lobbies. You know, you’re going to be mopping for days, especially in the salt season. You know, when the winter comes and the maintenance people are throwing salt everywhere. I mean, it’s a hurdle in itself. So that was a really good podcast, but just the carpet cleaning — you need to make sure that your vendor is there to help you, you have the support, you have the time to learn how. And you’re not rushing into it; you’re easing into it. You know, you don’t want to get 75 jobs and now on job one you’re struggling to get it done, because now you just — now you hate it. You already hate it before it even starts.

Train Before You Expand

Stephanie: Is there anything, looking back, that you would have done differently with taking on these additional pieces of work? Obviously learning the equipment, but looking at, like, even subbing out window cleaning — because do you go find a vendor for that, or are you doing that yourself?

Nick: No, no, we will hire if we get a window cleaning contract, or put it upon the tech there and just kind of train them on window cleaning techniques. I really strongly believe in training and prepping before the job. You know, you have to have the foundation before you jump into it.

Stephanie: I really appreciate that perspective, because a lot of times when I am hopping on a consulting call, I have gone on so many websites where they list out that they do everything, right — they’re doing all this one-stop-shop stuff. And they’re struggling even accomplishing the cleaning, so I’m just like, if you can’t even do the cleaning, which is, I would argue, the simplest —

Nick: Yeah, got to get the cleaning done first.

Stephanie: Yeah, the simplest. Like, you’re struggling to actually be able to maintain high standards in that. And it’s no offense, but it’s like all of these other things are much more difficult, right? We’re talking about more technical equipment, chemical know-how, all of that stuff. So yes, if you’re gonna hop into more things, the way to do it with integrity is to know the service in and out.

Nick: Yeah, and if you’re trying to dip your toe in it, you could even offer it to a residential client that you have as an add-on. You know, if you want to try it first, even ask your vendor that is supplying you chemicals, if you do have one wholesale: Do you provide the equipment? Do you provide the solution? Do you mind coming to give my residential client a demo? And they get a free carpet clean out of it. You know, and it doesn’t cost you anything.

Stephanie: That’s really good advice there. So do you have an actual truck-mounted system, then?

Nick: No, ours are all portable, because it hones in on the apartment buildings specifically, because we’re not limited to the length of the hose.

Stephanie: That makes perfect sense.

Nick: We do more hose, less suction.

Stephanie: Yeah, that makes sense, because we do have one — our one big federal account — that is part of the deal. We carpet clean there, so we have an on-site guy, and it works. It works pretty good, so I really should revisit it, because I know we can make a lot of money. I think I was just absolutely scarred. So I’m like, I’m not touching that for a while.

Floor Stripping and Waxing

Nick: Floor stripping and waxing is kind of like a lost industry now. A lot of people can’t find people that can do that, so that’s another untapped resource right there. But it is time-consuming.

Stephanie: Oh yeah, we’ve definitely gotten requests for it, and I know one guy who does it in our town who is older. But the problem, and why I don’t want to touch it, is it has to be done at night a lot of times, like for the stores, and I’m like, I don’t want to do it. If it’s overnight, I will probably pass on it.

Nick: We don’t do a lot of them. We just kind of offer it to our apartment buildings, just as we do with other services. They’re relaxed with us. We don’t have to do it at night. They’ll shut down that section during the day and say, “Okay, we’ll use this laundry room floor. Everyone else has to use floors five, six, and seven, and then you’re doing one, two, three.” You know?

Stephanie: Yeah! Oh, this is good stuff. I’m really happy we’re talking about it. I’d love to —

Nick: Communication is key.

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah.

Nick: With the client. It’s a mutual relationship.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm. It really is. It sounds like when you build these trusted partnerships with these apartment complexes, the sky’s the limit with the kind of money.

Gnarly Turnovers and Emergency Services

Stephanie: I’d love to hear — it sounds like these are fairly high-end apartment complexes. However, have you walked in on any gnarly ones? Like, I want to hear. Tell me the nasty stuff, Nick.

Nick: You know, I like that. Oh, I mean, we just had a problem today where someone rushed out, and the cleaners were going through the drawers, and there’s roaches crawling all through them. So now you got to go to the maintenance, tell him to shut it down, and then that kind of pushes that deadline for that property manager back, because they’re not getting their turn on investment either. Because now they can’t rent it out as fast, you know? It all works alongside each other. You know, I mean, I’ve had, you know, poo on the wall. I mean, over-clogged toilets, the water still running, and the floor damaged. But then there you go — we have a carpet cleaning extraction machine. We could pick up 23 gallons of water in three minutes. There’s an emergency service.

Pricing Turnovers and Working With Annual Budgets

Stephanie: That’s the thing, yeah — when you’re able to offer that, it’s like, “Hey, you got this problem, and I’m ready to solve it.” That’s awesome. Do you — you know, with turnovers like this, and say somebody wants to proposition or they’re trying to get these accounts — do you find it best to offer them pricing based on square foot, based on number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and be like, “These are the starting points”? Like, how do you do your pricing for these guys?

Nick: When you talked about your hourly — I always did a flat rate. I always did a flat rate. I always try — I’m very good at Excel sheets, so I try and make fun ones to make it very simple for me to do on the road. But I found that, in my head, I’m gonna do your hourly method, right? But I’m not gonna let anybody else know that I’m doing that hourly method in my head, and I’m only gonna come see what I see. Now, I’m not gonna give a blind estimate, because you and me both know how many times that bit you in the butt.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Nick: But like, I’ll do that $55 an hour, and I’ll say, you know, I know how long it’s going to take, and then that gives me that flat rate price, and then I might add a half hour on top.

Stephanie: Sure. Okay.

Nick: Just for the oh shit moments, you know what I mean?

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Nick: You know, “I didn’t see this baseboard was so greased up in the kitchen; now I’m scrubbing it for five hours.” You know, but with those turn services, they do a budget every year.

Stephanie: Oh, interesting!

Nick: So you get to increase that budget every single year, and after five years, that budget gets big. You know what I mean? So, if you do work with their budget, the first year they might give you three apartment buildings. Hey, they might be in New York now. You just expanded out of state because you’re that good and they trust you so much.

Selling at Apartment Association Trade Shows

Nick: I joined the local apartment association in Pennsylvania and went to the trade shows and sold Spag N Shine. And kind of just compromised the industry of the apartment building world in Pittsburgh, and kind of just honed in on all of that. And they recognized us at every single event that we went to, and just everywhere they looked, they saw Spag N Shine. You know, what I strive for is our customer service. My COO of the company, Zena, she is a golden goose. I mean, she will work night and day with me. We called it Spag N Shine cleaning at night three years ago. You know, doing the carpet cleaning, floor stripping, waxing, and trying to do the janitorial services all at once in one night. You know, we had 15 people running 17 different ways.

Stephanie: Oh my gosh! That’s amazing. That’s a great tip, having that good team. The trade show thing, like — I don’t want to gloss over that, because I’ve never heard of that before. What is this? Apartment buildings have, like, a trade show?

Nick: They have apartment building associations, so I guess you could kind of say it kind of is like, I guess, the ZenMaid of the apartment world, if that makes sense. But they help each other out with networking, so it’s just networking. You know, you’re meeting maintenance people, floor people, plumbing, electricians.

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah.

Nick: It’s a vendor show, you know what I mean? But it happens twice a year, and throughout the year they also have events, and you have the opportunity as a vendor that signed up for the association to come and partake in that. And now, I don’t think it’s for everybody; you have to have a very good, outspoken personality and can walk up to somebody in the corner of a room and say, “Hey, how are you doing today?” You know, you got to sell yourself. And with me doing all that stuff, I was able to sell a one-stop-shop service industry. You know, I’m your Walmart. You know, you could come buy groceries and get your tires done here. You know, but that’s kind of what the association really took us off from — getting stuck at that revenue spot. And thank you, Susan, for giving me the opportunity with the PAA. So I learned that with being involved at first with the apartment association, and them inviting me in and opening me up to the world of the association with the trade shows and selling yourself, and encouraging me to do it. And if you are, you really have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, or else you’re not going to grow. You know, it’s the way it is.

Stephanie: You seem quite extroverted. Do you feel like sales came naturally to you, or is that something you’ve had to work on?

Nick: Well, my father owned Shop ‘n Save, so anytime a customer walked by, you always had, “Hey, how you doing today?” You know, yeah, you know — “Here, next up on this Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast is apartment buildings.”

Stephanie: I was thinking, Nick, I’m gonna cross off and take a break. That’s great.

Nick: So, the voiceover and selling myself in the banking world — I was in collections when I started.

Stephanie: Oh my!

Nick: So, I had to be on the phone, you know, 10 hours a day on an automatic dialer, just going and going and going.

Stephanie: That sounds horrific. I’m not gonna lie; that sounds like an awful job.

Nick: I’m happy I got cleaning work.

Residential vs. Commercial and Cross-Training

Stephanie: Yes, yes. Okay, okay. So, you know, this has just been a really interesting, different conversation. So, I want to go back to earlier on. You know, you started, what, 2020, 2021, then, with COVID?

Nick: September, this month.

Stephanie: Okay! Oh, there you go, congratulations. And so, obviously, COVID was hitting. You did some houses with your mom. What is your guys’ split now with residential, commercial, slash the turnovers? Like, what does your business look like now? What’s it made out of?

Nick: Well, you know, at first — you know, we always go through the hurdles with insurance learning, right? I thought apartment buildings were considered commercial, and they’re actually considered residential. So, you know, going through that with the insurance — I would say we honestly have a mix between the both of them. And I cross-trained everybody; everybody is cross-trained. You know, there’s not, “I can’t do that. I’m not trained.” No, we’re not doing that here.

Paying to Play on Indeed

Nick: I really took part in your Indeed podcast, and, you know, I tried the not paying for it for the longest time, and I was struggling so hard with it. But I was sticking to what you were saying, and Andy called me one day and said, “Let me just talk to you and tell you what you got to do.” And I listened, and he said, “Pay to play. You know, get that listing up on that front page. Get those A+ candidates, and, you know, get through them quick.” And I kind of tied that in with my banking, with the collections and getting through the phone calls and getting payments on the phone. Because the faster you get through the call, the more chances you have to get a payment, right? So the faster you get through the cleaners — interviewing and trying them out and getting rid of them — I know it’s kind of cold-blooded, but you’re not wasting time, and your cleaners on staff are not seeing you waste time, because they get frustrated with that as well.

Stephanie: I’m glad you brought that up. Of like, yeah, I was just so pigheaded about, like, I didn’t want to pay because I didn’t have to before, but we can’t do that anymore. I had 17 ads going. I was — I know, it worked so good. Damn you, Indeed. Yeah, but it’s so true. That’s just not the world we live in now. You have to pay in order to get up.

Nick: Google Ads got me on $6K, oh my God. They captured — charging me and charging me.

Stephanie: Ah, good lord!

Nick: I was over it.

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah.

Nick: I was so mad.

Stephanie: So annoying. But yeah, we had a gal who started two weeks ago, and then six days in she quit, and she was like, “I don’t think I can hit this standard consistently. Like, you guys seem great, but this isn’t for me.” And it was like, that sounds like a failure, but it’s actually a good thing, because it’s like, great — we didn’t put her on a full schedule. We, you know — it was quick; we actually didn’t even get through all of training. She realized, like, this is not for me, and we were clear with it. So it’s like, people think they can do it until they go do it, and then they’re like, “Oh shit, I can’t do this.”

Nick: We had one this week show up for two days and then quit. So yeah, but I’d rather it be that. Oh, thank goodness I didn’t load them up on the schedule, right?

Landing a Hotel Contract Through HomeAdvisor

Stephanie: So true. Okay, so, you know, you started out cleaning with your mom. How did you start getting clients after that? Like, was it just word of mouth? How did you originally start getting clients? I always like to know what was working.

Nick: I was a part of HomeAdvisor when it was HomeAdvisor, and then they merged with Angi and things like that. But I got a whale at the beginning with HomeAdvisor. I ended up getting a hotel, and they needed about 10 to 15 cleaners a day.

Stephanie: Holy shit! Seven days a week? Oh my god!

Nick: Eight hours a day, eight hours a day.

Stephanie: Holy shit!

Nick: I went into this meeting, and the guy was telling me — he’s like, “So how are you gonna bill me?” And I’m like, “I don’t know how many rooms you got.” And he’s like, “What do you mean, rooms?” I’m like, “I don’t know. I’ll give you, like, a per-room clean.” He’s like, “No, I need people here all day long, man. I need people here doing housekeeping and getting through the rooms and vacuuming hallways.” And I said, “Would you be opposed to an hourly per-cleaner rate?” And he goes, “No, that’s what I was expecting.” So, I was kind of negotiating with him. And I’m all for — I’m all for transparency. I feel like that goes a long way when you’re upfront with people, and they won’t screw you over in that, and they’ll appreciate the outcome, and they’ll see what your worth is if you actually work hard. So he was like, “How about $25?” I said, “You know, how about $30?” You know? And he goes, “No, I can’t really do that.” And I kind of got up, and he goes, “Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, a couple dollars ain’t gonna make or break me.” And I said, “All right, let’s do $28 then.” You know?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Nick: So I shook his hand right there. So he said, “You need to get this done by this weekend,” and it was, like, a Wednesday, so I had to hit the ground running.

Stephanie: Holy shit!

Nick: I ended up emailing him and said, “You know, I got five cleaners for you. You know, just work with me. I’ll get them by the end of the week.” And he goes, “That’s fine. Just send them. I like your work ethic.” Because I was CCing him on all the emails — because coming from the bank, it’s an email game at the bank. You know, you’re CCing your boss, your boss’s boss, his boss’s boss. So, I was real good with the email game. So I just kept him on the emails, and he saw how hard I was working, trying to get cleaners and setting them up for interviews and showing them around the place, and working with their management. You know, because the manager doesn’t want to really do too much. He wants to make sure that as much is off his plate as possible.

Stephanie: Yeah, it’s the point of going outside of employees. Like, that’s the whole point.

Nick: Yeah, yeah. That’s the whole point. So I will take as much off your plate as possible; just let me do my magic. It’s just transparency.

Stephanie: Holy shit. How long did you have that account, or do you still have it?

Nick: I had that for about two years, and it was a solid foundation of the company, helping me grow the residential and commercial side of things. It allowed me a lot of time to make money while being able to work at night, because in the hotel industry, it’s 24/7. So, they had workers from, like, 1 a.m. to even 10 a.m., and so I’d be, you know, doing the invoicing in QuickBooks and hiring at night at 1 a.m. And I would still be getting that cash flow coming in, so I wasn’t really wasting time in order to grow the company.

Would He Clean Hotels Again?

Stephanie: This is insane! I’ve never heard somebody say they had a hotel or something like that.

Nick: It’s not something I would ever look at because of the money, obviously. I wouldn’t even look at that now, but to get started — it was COVID. So everything was shut down. So they still needed hotel people to work, but everyone was scared.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Nick: You know, and no one knew how to do hiring at the time. Because, I mean, it changed up the world — like the hiring and firing and employing people. People didn’t want to go to work, and they didn’t have to. You had to learn and adapt and find out new ways to hire people.

Stephanie: Do you think — I mean, nowadays, would you pursue hotels? Like, would you recommend this to people if they wanted to try it? Because I’ve never done it, so, and I’m like, I don’t know, there’s enough money.

Nick: I always say, you know, if you do the math off the top of your head right now: if you had 10 cleaners a day, let’s just say five days a week, 40 hours — you’re making, you know — let’s say you’re charging them $28, you’re paying the cleaner $18. You know, you got that $10 difference per hour per employee. It’s the volume. It’s good to have. It’s definitely time-consuming.

Stephanie: I mean, it sounds like an absolute bitch to manage. Like, I can’t imagine.

Nick: It’s awful, and the invoicing is awful. And, you know, you have to have timesheets, because you’re relying on the people there to make sure your people are clocking in, and then they’re saying they’re just signing in at different times. There’s so many hurdles that you have to overcome. So I would say, at this point in time, I’d probably not go back to it, but I’m grateful for the opportunity that I’ve had with it.

Stephanie: I can so relate to that sentiment of, like, wouldn’t do that again, but I’m glad I did it.

Nick: Yeah, yeah, it was fun. It was fun.

Stephanie: Oh, that’s crazy! What a cool —

Nick: I’ve had stories from my cleaners saying that they walked in and a whole pizza is shoved in the toilet, with it just running over the toilet.

Stephanie: Oh my god!

Nick: Vomit everywhere. I mean, you got it. You gotta think they don’t care about these places, you know?

Stephanie: Yeah, and I have talked to people, and we’ve actually hired people at Serene Clean who’ve done hotel cleaning before. I don’t prefer hiring people who’ve done hotel cleaning, frankly, because they were just pushed so hard to, like, fast, fast, fast. It’s not detailed.

Nick: Yeah, exactly.

Stephanie: And so it’s kind of hard to break that habit sometimes. Not telling you guys not to hire those people, but just keep that in mind: you’re gonna have to watch that. But yeah, they’ve seen some nasty stuff, some gnarly stuff, because obviously a hotel has got to be absolutely disgusting. So, okay, when it comes to bodily fluids and stuff — obviously, you have to clean that in a hotel. How do you handle that?

Nick: So the way that I managed it was, I kind of — I gave you the worker. You needed to provide the cleaning solutions, the maid carts, PPE, all that stuff. So it was all on the hotel to provide me with all their things that they’re used to, because I didn’t want to bring something in and then, let’s say, I just damaged a whole entire interior carpet.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Nick: You know what I mean? They’re expensive stuff in the hotels, so I don’t wanna — I’m not putting something on your cabinets and tables that you don’t want me to have. But I mean, it’s a fast industry, so you got to get in and out of that hotel room. So, I mean, there were times where my cleaner only got two rags for a whole day.

Stephanie: Oh my god! Everybody listening, please wipe down your hotel rooms — like, take a little cleaning kit with you — because that’s fucking disgusting.

Nick: The quality that I instilled in my company — when I would send my residential team down there, and not my — I called it separate teams, you know, because it was too deep.

Stephanie: Yep.

Nick: So when I would send my residential team in there, they would not want to go back. They would come up to me and say, “Don’t ever send me there again, and I will do whatever you want on this side.”

Stephanie: Yep, yep. But it’s like a recipe for failure, because you are set up to fail if you want to clean like we’re all used to cleaning in a house, right? Thorough, detailed, you know, all of that. You just can’t do that, and it isn’t really even allowed, which is unfortunate. You know, that would be really disenfranchising as somebody doing that job. I’d be really frustrated, like, I can’t even do a good job because there’s not enough time.

Nick: Yeah.

Stephanie: Interesting. That’s really fascinating.

Nick: Yeah, it took — the best employee that I found was somebody with a little bit of background in that industry. I had a girl that could do two rooms at once and just, like, do two beds at once with the sheets.

Stephanie: Oh my god!

Nick: I was like, this is wild.

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s amazing. Oh my gosh! So yeah, no wonder. That’s a really good start and a huge, colossal undertaking for management, for sure. But what a good leg up for you to get going.

Building the Leadership Team

Stephanie: So talk to me about the management side. You said, you know, your COO is incredible. How did you find her? What does the office look like now for you? And who does what? Do you have field leads? Tell me about your structure.

Nick: So I started from a garage. We actually have a commercial facility now, so we run out of that. And I would say, with that, I tied in — I wanted to, not only are you going to be working for me, I want to grow you as a person and employee. My COO of the company, Zena, is phenomenal. I actually got her through notary school, and now at our commercial facility, she has an office and she notarizes there, and she runs the day-to-day. I mean, I’m so out of the day-to-day that I couldn’t even tell you our clients anymore — you know, residential ones. So I have a COO, and then I have a director of quality control, and then I have two team leads. And right now I am fine-tuning all of those roles, because when you’re getting into the 20-plus employees, it’s not like you’re managing five anymore, with just filling up their schedule with that many clients. And I’m trying to explain that to the manager of the company, the COO, that we have to start delegating a lot of these responsibilities, because it’s now not just five invoices a day; it’s 35 invoices a day. You know, that’s very time-consuming. We’re getting five estimates rolling in a day. You know, then we got to fill them out. You know, it’s very time-consuming. It’s a lot on your mental health. And then, if you’re also — you know, she does have a handful of clients, like I do. My apartment buildings, the property managers — I’ll go ahead and clean their houses as well. Now, I’m not gonna send you my — I’m gonna send you my golden goose.

Stephanie: Yes, yeah.

Nick: You want impressive? Zena is my golden goose, and I’m going to send her to clean your house, so you are happy. And when it comes to budget time, she’s the one I’m going to talk to.

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s so smart.

Nick: Yeah. So, just fine-tuning the leadership right now is what I’m really working on, because, like I said, the last five months I’ve been out of the field, because at the beginning of the year I was doing, you know, third shift, fourth shift, growing the company, hiring, doing that different take on Indeed. And if we are short-staffed, you know, I’m in the field cleaning. I’m in the field. I’m after work checking the COO’s work, making sure no money is going out the wrong way possible. Making sure all the books are good, doing the meetings with the accountant, with the insurance, making sure none of those errors happen. So, just fine-tuning the leadership right now is what I’m really working on, because I feel like expanding those roles and delegating those tasks is the next level to grow Spag N Shine to the next level. To get 10 more cleaners.

Staffing Agency Nightmares

Stephanie: Absolutely! You put on your intake form some nightmare scenarios, like recruiting companies that you used, or something along the lines of — what did you say that was so intriguing to me?

Nick: Staffing agencies, and their employees threatened my actual employees. So what happened in the hotel at the beginning: I had five of my workers down there. They needed, like, let’s just say hypothetically 20. So I reached out to a staffing agency to help me a little bit in my time to get to where I have to be. And, you know, I told the staffing agency, you know, they need to wear a Spag N Shine shirt. You know, they’re representing Spag N Shine, but they’re also working for this hotel. And at the same time, hotels have unions. There’s a housekeeping union.

Stephanie: Oh, really?

Nick: Good — they’re probably current employees. Their current employees are not happy with us coming in. But a way around it is, if it’s COVID and you can’t hire people, you still need to fulfill the hotel requirements of the customers. So either way, we were coming in. But I needed help, so I hired outside, you know, a staffing agency to pick up my slack a little bit. And I get a call, and employees are yelling at me: “You know, the other Spag N Shine employee was here drinking on the job. He got all drunk on lunch and threatened me with a gun.” I said, “Oh my God! What are you talking about?” Now the hotel is calling me on the other line telling me that now they’re fighting in the parking lot, and now I’m running down there getting in the middle of these. The things that — you think you’re gonna get a call, you know, “Hey man, you know, day’s going good down here. Don’t worry about stopping down.” No, no, no. I got gunfights going on.

Stephanie: Oh my god! I don’t mean to laugh; that sounds horrific. But, like, I feel like that’s the quintessential, “Oh, you want to open a business? Well, here you go.”

Nick: So, like I said, we were with them for a couple years, and that could tarnish you hiring a staffing agency. That could put a bad taste in your mouth, or on your name.

Stephanie: Yeah, you know, I actually have never shared this on the podcast. I did use a staffing agency once, and they recommended, like, two people, and we didn’t hire any of them, because I was like, “This is so — like, you have to be literally, like, a cleaning god in order for me to pay this price.” Like, I just couldn’t stomach it; it’s so expensive. And I was like, “For how long?” And I’m like, “I get it.” The staffing agency — they’re providing a valuable service, but I simply cannot and will not. I would refuse to pay that; I’m not going to do it. I will do anything else. So I’m curious, anybody in the comments, if you guys have ever successfully used a staffing agency? Like I said, I tried it once. I was like, nope, this ain’t for me.

Nick: A little edge up: just don’t be super truthful at first, and then when you’re actually telling them your hourly rate, say $10.

Stephanie: Yep. Yeah, exactly, because — and that’s the problem — it was even when we were paying a lot lower than what we do now, and it was so expensive. I was like, we can’t; we’re not going to make any money, and there’s no guarantee these people are gonna actually work out. I’m like, it just didn’t make any financial sense to me. So that’s why we’ve never gone that route. But obviously, they exist for a reason.

Nick: When you find a good one and you want to hire them off them, I mean, they’re charging you their yearly salary, basically.

Stephanie: Yeah, it’s crazy. Yeah, it just doesn’t make any sense. So, like, if any staffing agencies are listening — exactly. I’m just like, it’s just such a high-turnover industry; no matter what you do, it’s just — I don’t know. It doesn’t seem worth it to me whatsoever.

The Company Vehicle Mistake

Stephanie: But okay. So you’re at about 20 staff members now. Looking back on the different stages of the business, what do you think has been the most challenging stage? Or even if it was a revenue number, a number of staff members, where you were like, “I am losing my fucking mind right now.” Like, tell me, when was that? When were you losing your mind? Is it right now?

Nick: No, no, good. I would say when I tried doing the company vehicles.

Stephanie: Ooh! Tell me about that.

Nick: That was awful. I mean, the insurance alone on having multiple — I had four company vehicles, I think, at one time — and one got totaled. Now that team was down; I had to pair them up with the next team. That car was broken down that day. The other cleaner crashed the other one. I mean, I was so stranded at that time providing company vehicles. You know, of course, things go wrong at the perfect times, right? So, you know, having all those cars down and all those staff members with no vehicles, because I didn’t — I didn’t hire only people with that requirement.

Stephanie: Yeah, of course. ‘Cause you’re like, why would I?

Nick: Yeah — “Hey, you could get here,” right? So I would say that was probably a really hard time, because that was, like, a good six months of — and I felt bad, too. I didn’t want to just fire the employees. You know, accidents happen. But I would really say that was a strong hurdle, and then getting over that, coming out of that, and hiring people with vehicles and mandating everyone has to have a vehicle. You know, having talks with the employees that didn’t have vehicles: “Hey, listen, I’ll put you in an apartment building where it only takes an A to B. That’s where you go for right now until your car situation gets fixed.” That’s another advantage. If you have apartment buildings, they can fill in hours, because they need a deep clean somewhere somehow, or a hallway needs vacuumed. So the way we got out of the vehicle situation: I mandated that you have to have one. You have to have a valid driver’s license; you have to have insurance. And, you know what, for you doing this, we’ll give you a $500-a-year car allowance. Now, with that, you can give us your maintenance receipts, gas receipts. We’ll pay 25 percent of it. It’s just so I’m not getting hit with a $500 bill by X, Y, and Z employees. And gas receipts, we’ll probably pay the full amount, just because, you know, gas is high right now. And we’ll do that as a courtesy of the company. So that’s kind of what we do, and I pay straight time through. So you clock in at the beginning of the day, and you clock out at the end of the day. You get paid all the way through, plus a $500 car allowance.

Stephanie: Nice. That’s very generous, and a great way to handle that. I’m really happy that you’re sharing this, because a lot of people aspire to do the same. And even my — Stephanie’s ego — she would love to be a part of this fleet of vehicles, but never is this going to happen, right? Because it just — take the money out of it alone, right? Take the cost of vehicles and all of that stuff. The amount of time when it comes to the maintenance. We’ve got two work cars, and there’s always something wrong. It seems like they gotta get taken to the shop. So one of my managers has to be running cars, and that costs me money and time. And then, yeah, if something happens — and yeah, we’ve totaled — employees go in and eat in it and make it dirty. All these things they want to do even though they’re not supposed to — or, yeah, they stop at the strip club on the way home, right? All of these things that they’re not supposed to be doing. And, like, you know, I mean, for us, that’s because we’re cleaning it, so they can certainly stop.

Nick: I heard you do strip clubs. I was like, that’s wild!

Stephanie: We did one; we did one, and they no longer have it.

Nick: It’s a little dirty in there, huh?

Stephanie: Yeah, well, it wasn’t even that — they canceled on us, not because they were unhappy, but one of the dancers wanted to make more money, and so he gave it to her. Yeah, that’s a lot of times when we lose commercial accounts — it’s internal, you know, that type of handoff. But that’s beside the point. I find, yeah, vehicles — we had two of them; we’ve had two vehicles totaled, and so we just — we always have two, because I need a car when I’m in Wisconsin, and then my quality control person — one of them is dedicated for her. And I love it for branding — it’s fantastic — but it simply, financially, it just doesn’t — it’s such a fucking nightmare. So, anybody listening, please really crunch the numbers — and not just the numbers, but the time. And also, yes, relying on staff members who do not have vehicles, which I know some of our listeners simply feel like they have to, or they have to have people carpooling or driving. The less you can rely on that — and you only hire people who have vehicles. We simply won’t hire a single person without a vehicle. You don’t even get to the interview.

Nick: I know it’s hard to think, you know, “Hey, I need cleaners, so I need to do what I got to do.” But the amount of time you’re wasting on that part of the company where you think you need that, instead of honing in on getting the good cleaners that are — you know, not saying they’re bad cleaners, but cleaners that are all-around contributing to the company, and you’re not just being stuck with one sort. You know, it will advance you a lot.

A Former Employee Poaching Clients

Stephanie: Gosh, you’ve had some really big lessons over the years.

Nick: I was just dealing with a cleaner — finding out about a cleaner I let go two years ago, and I’m still hearing that she’s stealing my clients, stealing out of clients. You know, and she’s wearing my shirt.

Stephanie: Ask for your uniforms back! Holy shit! Oh my gosh. Like, I don’t even — I mean, I guess you could file a police report for, like, theft, because that is technically — that’s insane.

Nick: So, I mean, I guess she took a few of my clients and has a few other clients, but she’s still wearing my stuff. So, I guess it was a Sheetz employee telling my employee when they were on lunch break, “You know, she’s a cleaner for my mom. Have you ever had a problem with her?” You know, yeah, we have — we actually had her, you know, cash a check for a customer that tipped her, a year later.

Stephanie: Oh my gosh!

Nick: You know, the mobile deposit, and take it to the bank. You know, so she’s like, “We’re having problems at my mom’s house; she’s 92, and there is jewelry and money missing.” You know, and it’s just like — if there are customers out there watching, you know, please don’t just go with the cheapest price. We’re bonded and insured. If one of our employees takes something, well, we could replace it. We could take care of it. That’s why we have insurance.

Stephanie: Yeah, it’s so true. And what you guys just heard Nick say is exactly how we should be educating clients when they’re like, “Well, I can get Sally down the street for cheaper.” And it’s like, you don’t understand. Not saying Sally’s a bad person, but what you are paying for is insurance and peace of mind that if we do something wrong, we can be held liable. Whereas individual cleaners are, like, dust in the wind, and they can just frolic and get away with things. Again, no offense to anybody who is an individual cleaner. I’m not saying you’re bad. I’m saying that as —

Nick: Respect the hustle.

Stephanie: Yes, exactly. We all — like, of course. And there’s lots of them listening. The point is that as a business, we pay for these things so that we can sell guarantees. We can sell peace of mind and protection for the client, right? And yeah, it’s just — gosh. That’s really frustrating. I’m so sorry that you’re dealing with that.

Nick: Hey, it fuels me. It fuels me. That’s what I like to say. That gives me energy to — I’m that one where if you’re gonna screw me over, I’ll put a billboard outside of your house with lights, and you’re going to see my name for the next five years. You know?

Stephanie: Yeah.

Nick: That’s me.

Stephanie: Yeah, the best revenge is personal excellence and success. So that’s how I see it — just be better. Just be better. You know what I mean? That’s what I try to do, because I have lots of former employees who’ve gone and started cleaning businesses in my area, and I’m like, hey, karma’s real.

Nick: Yes, it is. It is.

How the Cleaning Business Has Changed Him

Stephanie: Speaking of karma, obviously — personal excellence. How do you think the cleaning business has changed you, especially coming from such a professional background? You’re very professionally developed, it sounds like. How has this grown you?

Nick: The service industry is a completely different ballgame. I mean, it has made me really appreciate having a valuable team, and the team sharing the same vision as you. And without the Spag N Shine employees, I would not be where I am today. And I thank them so much for — I’m sure you’ve experienced employees coming back at the end of a day, and you’re still doing your office work, right? And they’re going, “Oh, about time! I get to sit back. Been a long day.” And it’s like, I got 10 more hours of work, dude. You know? Just sharing the same vision and allowing me the time to work and grow on the company, and not being stuck in the field next to them every day. And them just having trust in me to grow the company and give back to the company.

Stephanie: No, absolutely. I think that team appreciation goes so far. And even, like, we had one of our staff members at their year anniversary, and it’s like, “How are we doing? You know, what can we do better?” And her feedback today was just like, “I’ve never worked for such a generous company.” And, like, reading that — that made my whole day. It’s top of mind, like, okay, what matters to me is what they think of us, right? How do they actually feel about working for us? That’s what makes me feel amazing, because you know they’re gonna take care of the clients. If you just take care of them, they’re gonna take care of the clients.

Nick: You know, everything works together. It’s a perfect circle. You know, if you’re giving me time, I’m giving you time. Everyone’s getting happy. You know?

Stephanie: Absolutely.

Nick: And I will build any employee that wants to take a chance and try something. If they need help with something, I don’t mind. You know, your experience with growing Serene Clean and my experience with growing Spag N Shine — we could educate people that actually want to do something. That’s the value that comes to the table with me. You know, you could talk to the boss. You’re not another number in the corporate.

Stephanie: No, absolutely. And I also think that’s a really cool thing about being part of a community, too, is we can lead by example with how we treat our staff and how we treat our community, and hopefully have an influence on other businesses as well. So the results and influence can permeate much farther than just our companies, which is really, really cool.

Goals: A QuickBooks Integration and Expanding Out of State

Stephanie: So what’s the goal for this year, Nick? And what is the five-year goal? Do you have specific ones in mind?

Nick: So I would hone in on the numbers. Like you said, you’re working with ZenMaid to get that implemented in the program, and I cannot wait for that to happen. If I could have one wish, it would be that the ZenMaid appointment clicked completed and it linked up with QuickBooks and automatically sent the invoice.

Stephanie: Yes, the API. Yeah, mm-hmm, phenomenal. Yes, QuickBooks integration.

Nick: It wouldn’t be a separate audit check that I would have to do, because you’re paying an employee 40 hours a week. Whereas if ZenMaid made that, they could charge an extra $10 per person a month and make a lot of money. But I would say my honing in on the management, making sure that is all fine-tuned, and then I would like to get into expanding out of state to our other apartment buildings, since they are, you know, cross-state.

Stephanie: What state? I don’t know what’s next to Pennsylvania.

Nick: So, Pennsylvania — they have one in New York, Ohio. My other complex that I have has one in New Jersey. So just being able to — my accountant’s from Ohio, so I’d probably focus on Ohio first, just to do that one stop. You know, “Hey, I met you finally in person. You know, for real.” Yeah, that’s kind of — I would say getting out of state. You know, we do a few contracts out of state, but it’s not really steady out of state. I’m afraid; I’m nervous to tiptoe.

Stephanie: Well, I wonder how — how do you staff them currently? And how do you manage those people out of state?

Nick: Yeah, so it’s not steady. So it’s like once a year we’ll go up to the apartment building and do a deep clean, or do a carpet clean for a week, and, you know, I’ll pay for a hotel up there for a couple weeks and send a few staff members, like that.

Stephanie: Got it. That makes perfect sense. But yeah, I understand the nerves, though. Even just, like, you know, we don’t go across to Minnesota, even though we get tons of quote requests, just because the taxes and the laws and the insurance are very different than Wisconsin. And I’m like, I just don’t even want to open that can of worms, even though it’s literally the same distance for us compared to some houses we do. I’m just like — it’s right there! I can make — I can make, right?

Nick: That’s what always gets you. You know, like, “Look at all that money I could get!”

Stephanie: But yes, I’m like, nope, let’s not do that. So I understand your reservations, but clearly you’ve got these really great relationships, so it’d be cool to see you explore them.

Nick: I’m able to tiptoe. I’m tiptoeing.

Stephanie: Mm-hmm.

Nick: I don’t want to rush. Yeah, you know?

Commercial Accounts He Won’t Take

Stephanie: Yeah, no, I totally get it. I’m curious, when it comes to commercial — I like to ask when people do commercial — do you have any no-gos? You’re like, “Nope, don’t want to work with that particular type of account.” For example, for us, with restaurants, right? We’re like, “Fuck restaurants.” We’re not doing it.

Nick: Yeah, I noticed you said that on your recent podcast. So with restaurants, I set a clear expectation. Like, I’m not going in your hood vents.

Stephanie: Yes. Exactly, yes.

Nick: I’m not cleaning those, man. That’s a specialty service. I’ll explain what my range of scope is, because that’s why there are those specialty service companies — because they hone in on that niche. You know, they’re good at that. So I’ll do your walls, I’ll do your grease plates, I’ll do a deep clean on your oven. I’ll pull the stuff out, go underneath. I got the floor machines to help us out. But I just set clear expectations. There’s not really something I will not do. Yeah, there’s no limit. I’m not a big fan of salons, like hair salons.

Stephanie: What?

Nick: Those black mats suck. Oh, yeah, the hair mats — you got to pick up 19 of those and stack them up and go underneath them. And it’s just — and then getting between the leather chairs and getting all the hair with the crevice tools. I’ve had an employee do $3,000 worth of damage to a salon.

Stephanie: Oh, wow.

Nick: Scratching the leather chairs, scratching the kick plates, the mirrors — just using all the attachments without the guards on them. You know, because we have backpack vacuums, so, you know, the Atrix backpack vacuum.

Stephanie: Not familiar, no.

Nick: So they have, like, a metal pole at the end, and that can scratch. Now, if you’re trying to get in all the crevices of the chairs and stuff, you’re scratching leather. I mean, I had to pull out my handyman ways and figure out how to fix all of this.

Stephanie: So you avoided an insurance claim? Like, you were able to actually fix it?

Nick: Yeah, I was able to fix it. And, I mean, I even peeked in the morning to see them looking, and they were up real close, looking at the scratches. You know?

Stephanie: Yeah. Oh, what a nightmare! Oh my goodness, that sounds horrific.

Nick: I was very nervous.

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah, good job. That’s pretty — MacGyvering it. That’s amazing. I’m curious, how specifically did you — a stainless steel repair kit? How did you do all of these things?

Nick: When I bought the commercial building, the previous owner left, like, a car polishing machine. And I bought the parts for that and used that on — you know how the stands at the salon have the mirrors, and they can spin? So that black shiny part, that’s what they scratched, so I had to polish that and get that out. And then with the leather chairs, I had to use a Magic Eraser with leather repair cleaner solution, and just kept rubbing and rubbing and rubbing for, like, a good two hours on every single chair.

Stephanie: Oh my god!

Nick: It was awful.

Stephanie: That sounds —

Nick: It worked. It worked. It works.

Stephanie: Yeah, that sounds like torture. I bet you were just so thrilled to be doing it.

Nick: Yeah, I fired them. That was a staffing agency. Yeah, that was a staffing agency.

Stephanie: Another vote against staffing agencies?

Nick: Yep.

Stephanie: Stop! Don’t use staffing agencies. Oh my gosh! Uff da! That’s — that’s pretty crazy. Okay. Yeah, we’ve done — we have — I think we actually do some salons right now.

Nick: It was probably the fear of that experience that makes me not want to do it.

Stephanie: Yeah. No, I get that. I totally understand. We have that with dentist offices, even though, you know, they commonly reach out. We actually had one that we canceled on. They just reached back out to us, and we said no again, because we’re like, “No,” we don’t want these. It’s just — they’re so catty and mean and just ridiculous, ridiculous. And I’m not trying to stereotype at all. You know, obviously we have nasty people in all sorts of accounts, but it’s just been across the board at dentist offices; they are a lot of times cheap, and they’ve just been impossible to please. And it’s like, this is not worth it for us.

Nick: Hey, sometimes you got to fire.

Final Advice: Get the Right Insurance

Stephanie: Exactly. Well, this has been amazing, Nick. Any other words of wisdom? If anybody wants to get into what you do specifically with the apartment complexes, with the floor care, kind of being all-in-one again — I don’t have a lot of people on the podcast who do what you do, so I want to hear any further pieces of advice.

Nick: Honestly, I would say just what I said before: just make sure you have the insurances if you’re going to start expanding into those realms. Because when you start getting into the specialty services like floor care, carpet cleaning — you know, you can make a big oops. You know, the luxury apartments — if you have your cleaners jumping on the counters, you could really break an expensive marble counter. You know, or use the wrong product. You just need to make sure you have the insurances in place, and make sure you have a good broker for insurance. Because if you don’t stay up on it — I made a $30,000 mistake. I paid too much in workers’ comp, and I should have been way more on it than what I was that year. And that could have been a part-time employee. You know, it could have boosted me faster, not making that error.

Stephanie: Oh, I mean, I can so relate. I think I made a whole episode about me overpaying for years for insurance, and now we’re saving, like, $14K a year. And I’m like, that could have been so many things. So yes, lesson learned. Please, guys.

Nick: And take the time to watch Stephanie.

Stephanie: No, thank you, Nick. Ah, you’re so sweet. Thank you, thank you. I’m so happy that you find it valuable, and I appreciate your time.

Nick: I’ve been there from day one with ZenMaid.

Stephanie: Really?

Nick: Yeah.

Stephanie: Oh, that’s amazing! Day one. That’s incredible.

Nick: Yeah. Amar — you know, I remember his leadership team was talking to me at the beginning, as their workers, you know. So it’s nice to see how far all of us have come at the same time without even really knowing each other.

Stephanie: Oh, that’s amazing.

Nick: Yeah.

Where to Find Nick

Stephanie: Oh my gosh, that’s so cool. I didn’t know that. Obviously, I have been since day one, too. So it’s really cool that it scaled really well for you as well. So cool, Nick. Oh my gosh! If people want to follow you or your business, what are you comfortable putting out there?

Nick: SpagAndShine.com.

Stephanie: Hell yeah! Again, that brand name.

Nick: Come to our website. I took your advice on that, too.

Stephanie: Hell yeah! Oh my gosh, that’s amazing. Thank you so much, Nick. Please, everybody, if you got any questions for him, leave them down below. Leave him love. Hit that like. Hit that subscribe. And we’ll see you in the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye, guys.

Stephanie: 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.