How Yari Ising Called 2 Builders and Accidentally Built a Cleaning Company

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Introduction

Stephanie: Hello, everyone. Welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I’m your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and today’s fabulous guest is my consulting client, Yari Ising, and she owns a cleaning company in Pennsylvania, My Favorite Cleaning Co. And as soon as I had our first call together, I’m like, please come on the podcast. Her story is absolutely, incredibly inspiring, and I just wanted you guys to hear it. So, Yari, thank you for agreeing to this, and I’m just so excited to have this conversation today.

Yari: Yeah, same here. Thank you so much for inviting me, and it’s so weird being on the other side of the podcast episode, because, you know, I watch you all the time. So it’s really exciting. I can’t wait to get into it.

Stephanie: Yeah, me too. And for our listeners, Yari and I are matching and everything. I didn’t even plan that. So meant to be to have this conversation today. I love a sage green. You know what I mean?

Yari: I just thank you for repping my brand color here today.

Stephanie: It’s a good color. It’s a good color. So Yari, you have just such a fantastically diverse background, and you’ve had an incredible career and this huge pivot to owning a cleaning business, a mother of three young boys and just a very busy lady. So let’s jump into your backstory and your career. Let’s talk about that.

From PR to Museum Events to Federal Service

Yari: Oh boy. The road to get here has been long and winding, but to kind of, now that you’ve alluded to my vast experience in my career, I’ll kind of take you back to the start of my career. After I graduated from college with my degrees in public relations and advertising, I knew that that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be in front of people, and I wanted to do PR marketing type of activities. So after graduating from college, I moved up to New York City and took a chance, and then I started working in a museum. And I did some event planning for them, and I worked in their public relations department, so anytime anyone needed the space for events, I was their go to person. So during that time, I hosted events for, you know, if you’re a Real Housewives fan, hosted events for Lisa Rinna, for Kandi, and a bunch of really fun people. I also met Maggie Gyllenhaal during that time. So it was a really exciting period, especially me, being as young as I was. And so after that, I kind of transitioned into starting to work in television, and I had my first taste of that working with Snooki and JWoww at the museum. So if anyone is curious, yes, they are exactly the way that they appear on the show in real life. So that was a really fun time, and that transition was kind of seamless, because I did some production management and things like that, and I worked on the History Channel, and kind of had a lot of experience, you know, working on reality TV show and Discovery. So after that time period, I met my husband, who I love very much, and I moved to be with him in DC. And during that time, I started working with corporations like, you know, Intel and a few other, you know, like 3M and other Fortune 500 companies to help kind of staff up their creative teams. And so that was also a really great experience in that I learned how to manage personalities and manage people in a diverse kind of workplace where a lot of the work that we were doing, or a lot of the recruiting that I was doing was for creative professionals. So I kind of still got to have my hand in the creative world, while also learning and dealing with operations and things like that. And I think the most recent experience that I had, you know, throughout the trajectory of my career, which was really wild to me, is that I ended up working for the United States Air Force as a federal employee. And so there I worked with a two star at the time, and now he’s a three star, where I led a team of 13 people where, you know, we helped to kind of make sure that he was prepared for his speaking engagements. And we did the website, we did social media. So everything that you could think of from a public relations standpoint, my team was kind of in charge of.

The Pivot to Entrepreneurship

Yari: And so fast forward to January 2026, actually, before we get to January, this is a long and winding, I told you that it would be. So we found out that we were pregnant in December of 2024, and that was a total surprise to us. We were very happy with the fact that we were able to welcome our third boy during that time, and around about then, before I even knew that I was pregnant, I had just moved into a brand new community. So I moved from New York City to DC to Boston, and then I landed in Pennsylvania, and we made the decision to kind of be closer to home, and I was given the ability in my job with the federal government to work remotely from anywhere, because, you know, our team was successful. We were doing a great job. And so we built a home, moved into this new community, found out that I was pregnant in December of 2024 and all of our neighbors were like, hey, do you know of a cleaning lady? Do you have anybody? Can you make a recommendation? And I’m like, I’m new to this area, no one was getting back to me. And all the other people that I spoke to in our community, they were like, no one’s getting back to me, or there’s a wait list for three months, and I’m like, that’s kind of, I feel like that’s something. Let me go back a little bit, because we were, everyone was kind of asking around for recommendations, and, you know, no one could really get a hold of anyone, and no one had anyone reliable that kind of planted a seed for me that maybe there’s something there. So I, on a whim, decided, let me see if there actually is a need. So again, this is December 2024, before I even knew I was pregnant, just moved in, and I called our builder, and I was like, hey, do you guys by chance ever need cleaning companies to clean your brand new builds. And immediately, within five minutes of that phone call, I had my first client for a post construction clean. And I was like, okay, so my neighbors are experiencing this, my builder’s experiencing this need, and I’m like, maybe it’s a fluke, I don’t know. Let’s see. I made a second phone call to another builder in our community or in our area, and immediately had another client booked. And I was like, wait a minute. So not only is there a need for this, but I could get jobs fairly quickly. So I kind of let that kind of settle in, and I did some work, you know, on the weekends and, you know, in the evenings, as I was still working for the government at the time. So I didn’t really take it as seriously as I clearly am today. And so fast forward to January of 2025, the new administration came in and was like, okay, well, if you’re a federal employee, you have to come back home to your home base. And it was at that point that I was like, now I have to decide whether I’m going to stay here in this community that we’ve started to build close to family. Now I am pregnant. I had found out that I was pregnant, and I’m like, I don’t know that I want to keep moving. We’ve served our country, and we did the work that we were supposed to do, and I felt like I was being punished somehow. And I’m like, you know what? I’m going to choose myself. I’m going to choose to bet on myself and my family. And it took from January through July to actually make the decision to take this seriously and start the residential arm of our business. So technically, I’ve been in business for six, seven months now, and it’s been insane these past few months, which you clearly know about.

Making the Leap

Stephanie: I told you I was gonna take you on a long and winding road with my background and how I got to be where you are right now, but yeah. That’s what I wanted, so people understand that it’s not like this was something when you were 20 years old, thinking of this. You have had full and robust career paths, very diverse career path over the years. You’ve moved around and all of these things. And I’m sure many of our listeners can relate to that of the ones who came to this business, 30s, 40s, 50s. There’s listeners who are starting it out. And so that just goes to show that it’s like, you don’t need to, this business has so much potential for literally every walk of life and every background. And it really is, that’s a beautiful thing. So when it came to you guys making that decision, talk me through the emotional landscape of both you and your husband, of I’m going to actually do this. Was there a lot of anxiety? What did that look like?

Yari: Yeah, that’s a very good question, because it was a very emotional time for us. Not only was I losing my full time income, but my husband was as well, because he was a federal employee at the time too. And so, and of course, I keep going back to the fact that I recently found out that I was pregnant, and I’m like, oh my God.

Stephanie: Financial situation, right?

Yari: Exactly, and so not only the financial stuff, but the hormones that I had going through my body at the time, it was an emotional roller coaster constantly. But I will say that it was a little bit easier for me once I made the decision that this is the direction that we’re going to go, that it was just easy for me to be like, all right, decisions made now, how do we move forward? And I’ve always had a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit where, you know, I did my own events on the side, I did financial coaching on the side. And there was always a layer of I want to work for myself, and I want to do something for myself that it was always nagging at me in the back of my mind. And so when we made that decision, I’m like, all right, we’re going to take some chances. We’re going to burn the boats, and we’re going to do it. And, you know, we’ve been little by little growing every single month, and it’s been an incredible journey so far. I don’t regret it at all.

The First Post Construction Clean

Stephanie: I’m so happy to hear. And with that first interaction that you had with your builder, and I’m sure many listeners can also relate to how you just didn’t really, I don’t want to say think about it, but more so you kind of stumbled into this path of, oh, maybe this is a thing, because many of the guests have said the same thing, of this was just kind of like, well, you know, I’m stay at home mom, and I’m looking for this or XYZ, just like me. This was supposed to be a side hustle, right? There was no intention of it being what it is now. And so, point being is that’s really cool. And so with that first post construction, I’d love to hear, where was it? Very much, just try your best? How did you prepare for that first cleaning? And do you feel like you just have a good knack for it? Or did you start Googling ferociously? What the hell do I do here?

Yari: YouTube is my friend from, you know, figuring out, you know, how to quote, what questions to ask. Even, you know, I had a good idea, because I went through the building process, so I kind of knew what to expect, as far as you know, what the houses would look like at different stages and things like that. And, you know, I’ve always had a knack for cleaning and organization. If you go through my house, it’s like, I’m a minimalist at heart. So I’m always scrubbing cabinets, putting things in boxes, as you can see behind me. So it’s always, you know, it’s always been something that I’ve enjoyed, and I think it probably is a part of my childhood too. I was responsible for my brother and sister and making sure that the house was clean before my parents came home, which I know, you know, other folks on your podcast have had a similar experience with just the background, but yeah, I mean finding channels like this on YouTube, and just leveraging every free resource possible was kind of my go to strategy at the time.

Stephanie: And honestly, it just comes to the point of there really is, this is the best time in the history of the world to open a business because of the sheer amount of free content out there. However, that means that there’s also a lot of competition. So in the time that you have been open, has anything else, have you inspired any competition? I’m wondering, anybody else pop up?

Yari: Yeah, I think that there are always folks that are, you know, either they’ve been around for a little bit longer, or I find a lot of remote cleaning businesses are popping up left and right, and there’s always, you know, there’s always people posting on Nextdoor and individuals. So there is a lot of healthy competition in the space, and it just gives me the opportunity to really show our clients and show our community that we’re real people, you know, we’re a small, family owned business. And you know, people can see me on Facebook or Instagram, and I think that layer of personality and my background in being, I knew going into this that I would have to have my operations set up or buttoned up, you know, as we’re interacting with clients. I knew marketing was a really important part. I knew that opportunities, you know, to get in front of people would be super important. So it’s less about from my perspective, it’s less about competing with other people, but and more about showing us and our personality and who we are as a company, and that you can rely on us to have integrity, and you can rely on us to have all these different things that you may not get upfront from other people that you find online.

Early Wins and Growth Strategy

Stephanie: Absolutely, and that’s really how I view competition. I like to be aware. I like to be aware and not blind. However, it really just all it does is fuel me of this is, this means I need to work even harder to be the best that we can be, because that’s all that we can control, right, other than, I guess, you know, slash some tires, I suppose, but that’s probably not the most. So let’s stick to doing our best. So that being said, what kind of, I’d love to hear some of the early wins, and then we’ll go into challenges as well that you’ve had. So it sounds like getting clients has been a bit of a win for you, and that’s mostly been word of mouth. Or have you been going to networking events? What is your strategy been for getting clients?

Yari: Yeah, our initial strategy has been to go on Thumbtack and see, you know what business we can earn there, slowly but surely. You know, for a little while, we even turned off Thumbtack over the holiday season, just to see what kind of traffic we would get. And it looks like there is interest there, beyond just the leads that are coming in through Thumbtack, where, you know, now we’re getting, we’re finally getting word of mouth referrals, and, you know, our reviews are coming in every single, I don’t want to say every single time, but very often we’ll get reviews coming in, and people find it, and then they’re like, oh, we saw that you had really good reviews on Google. So we’ve had so many wins that maybe aren’t, you know, someone that’s been in business for six years, you know, your wins look completely different than mine, but the fact that someone called us because they found us on Google, and we ranked third, and I’m like, we didn’t appear on Google five minutes ago, so now we’re on Google. So I think those are really earning people’s trust and being able to leverage that, to have people come to us has been such an incredible feeling. So yeah, that’s what I can say about that.

Operational Challenges and Solutions

Stephanie: We’re getting leads on the challenges side of it. Does anything stick out where you really were a bit flummoxed on how to handle things? Obviously, we hopped on a call, oh, what was it a couple months ago for the first time? And I think it was a lot of kind of operational things that we discussed, if you want to get into some of those challenges that you’ve had.

Yari: Yeah, I think for us, the challenges have been time, because we have so many clients that we’re trying to service and things like that, and we want to grow and expand the business, and I’m a huge fan of stealing other people’s homework, as long as it’s okay. So if something has already been done for you, then we’ve been leveraging a lot of our resources, even you know, even your resources, to be like, okay, we know that we need this policy. So why don’t we just use something that, you know, that’s already been created, and then we can customize it to our specific needs. So that’s been one of our biggest operational challenges, is time and keeping up with the demand, and also, you know, with making sure that we’re fully staffed and, you know, people are available to take on the work. So, so yeah, from an operational standpoint, I think that’s been the biggest challenge, and just organizing all of that. And I’m an operations nerd, so we’ve been leveraging Notion as our home for everything. Because, yeah, so our CRM tools, one thing, but Notion is where all of our SOPs live. And we try to keep as much of it in there as possible.

Stephanie: I love having a hub, as you describe, and there’s a lot of different ways to do that, guys, whether that be even just simply Google Drive, right? It could be simple, but I know I’ve seen Notion before. It’s so cool. I love it because I was already a ClickUp nerd. I stuck with that, but just sticking with what you know. But if any of you have not heard of Notion, how would you describe what that is? In case people are interested.

Yari: Notion is of the most customizable tool that you could ever possibly utilize. So, for example, we keep all of our candidates in there, and it’s kind of like an Excel sheet. Or you can kind of create a page that looks like an Excel sheet, but there are pages attached to it, so you can see all the details for the person. You can, there are different tags that you can use. And I wish I could, maybe I could share my screen at the end of this, so I can kind of give you a tour, but it’s really just the place that we can keep all of our information. And when you create a page, there’s an infinite amount of ways that you can customize it so you’re not following one specific format everything. If you know if an SOP requires a different kind of view, or something like that, it’s something that you can customize based on your needs. So we have our social media calendar on there. We have all of our tasks even, and we can connect our task to the SOP that it belongs to, so it keeps everything kind of connected and consolidated in one place. I’m pretty sure ClickUp does similar.

Stephanie: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, you guys have heard me talk about ClickUp so many times, but point being, whatever it is you need a tool in order to organize what you need to do, as well as having a hub or brain of the business operations and Yari, that’s one of the reasons you’re going to be successful, is because you have a brain for operations. And I think the reason I’m pointing that out is I want to emphasize to you guys listening how important it is to be thinking about these things, but still taking action, even if things are not perfect, right, especially in the beginning of the business, a lot of you guys experience a huge fluctuation of demand and energy, and it’s all very chaotic, especially because most of us, we’ve never had staff before. We’ve never ran a business before, even if we have had experiences that lend themselves and have stacked our skills from previous things. But point being, it’s just, just take action. And would you consider yourself more of a perfectionist? Are you able to take out, what would you say your biggest weaknesses are when it comes to the business? Thus far.

Overcoming Overthinking

Yari: I think I am. I’m an overthinker. I tend to map out every possible scenario and every possible way that something could end up, until I get to a point where I’m like, okay, I’m overthinking it. I have to talk myself out of overthinking and just saying, you know what, we got to make a decision. We can’t just sit here and keep ruminating on it. So that’s something that I’m actively working on, is being a little bit more aggressive with my decisiveness, because you don’t know what you don’t know. And everything that we’re doing, I’m figuring everything out as we go. And one other thing that I didn’t mention before is now my husband also has his own home services business running a window cleaning service. So now we’re starting up two different businesses at the exact same time, and we’re partners, so not only in life, but in business. So we have so many decisions to make constantly that I’m like, I can’t sit here and ruminate and think about which direction to go, because I literally have to make a call, because I have to do something else. I need to put out this other fire, or, you know, make a decision on what uniform we’re going to wear, you know, so that’s been something that I’m actively working on right now.

The Window Cleaning Franchise Connection

Stephanie: And really glad that you brought that up, because I truly believe that being able to make decisions quickly is one of the biggest skills that the business has given me, because it develops you, because otherwise you simply cannot, you know, do what you’re describing, which is overthinking everything, because it’ll just continue to pile on and I think for our perfectionists out there, or overthinkers out there, it just, you will kind of over time get out of that, hopefully, because of the sheer mountain of decisions that are coming to you, and the faster that we can make those decisions to the best of our ability with the information we have at our time. Like you said, we don’t know what we don’t know. So there’s many times where I’ve made a decision, I’m like, and then a week later I’m like, shit. If only I had known that, I would have gone this other direction. But you live, you learn, and just you learn. And every single time that you’re making these decisions, so that’s just going to continue to hone itself. And also glad you brought up, because I did want to talk about your husband’s window cleaning company. And, and one, where did that decision come from? And was that, was it chicken egg, or was it very much so you open the cleaning business, you guys had demand for window cleaning, or what was that decision like? And side note, it is a window cleaning franchise Pinks Window Cleaning right, which has the coolest branding, if any. Definitely give it a Google guys, it’s very cool branding.

Yari: Yeah, we, so when we made the decision that we were going to part ways with our employment back in whenever it was, I guess we officially made a decision back in March. We knew that I always knew that I wanted to run my own business, and the cleaning company was always like, we have this thing. We’ve already set it up. We’ve got clients. We know that there’s a demand for it. But we were also exploring other options, like, you know, what if we bought some, you know, bought a business that was already established? Or, you know, we kind of weighed out our options. And, you know, it was also my husband’s kind of decision of whether or not he wanted to pursue a full time job or if he wanted to start his own business. So there was a lot of back and forth, and a lot of okay, where are we at today? How are we feeling about starting our businesses? And I always knew that entrepreneurship was going to be it. For me, I am not interested in taking on another full time job somewhere else. This was like divine intervention, I feel like, so I knew, you know, fairly early on, all right, I’m going to take this cleaning company to the next level. But, and for him, it was a very similar kind of, he came to the same conclusion where we have, looking at Pinks. We fell in love with the branding. We fell in love with the mission we want to bring back that sense of pride in work, pride, yeah, and so that was something that I had in the back of my mind, with the cleaning business. I want to actually respond to people. I want to take care of people, and, you know, I want to serve people. And so looking at what we were building with My Favorite Cleaning Co and the existing brand with Pinks, we were like, oh, this is a perfect fit for our values as a family. And so we, you know, made the decision to purchase the Pinks franchise, I want to say, around about the same time. So July ish and I was nine months pregnant at the time. I keep coming back to the fact that I was pregnant, because I cannot believe that I was able to do all of this.

Stephanie: Zyla, who is one of our guests that we had, also another one of my consulting clients. She literally was giving birth, and was like, oh, I had a cleaner quit. I need to go clean. And I’m like, I have not gone through the childbirth, obviously. And so when you guys describe these things to me, I’m like, how the fuck, I don’t get it. But you’re.

Yari: Exactly that’s why I’m like, I can’t believe that this all happened in that time period with two boys. I mean, I have a six and a four year old who were just as active, and I remember we were. I’ll share this story if you want to hear a little later. But while I was in the hospital recovering, my husband had to leave to do a clean because no days off, right? We’re the bosses, and we were in business for maybe three weeks at the time, which, in hindsight, maybe we should have planned it a little bit better. But we were like, it was one of those decisions where we were like, okay, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do this now. We’ve made the call. It doesn’t matter that I’m nine months pregnant. I’m about to go to the hospital. We’re going to figure it out. Everything is figure outable. So anyway, I keep going back to the pregnancy thing. But so yeah, when my husband made the, when we, collectively as a family, made a decision to move forward with Pinks, around about the same time, one of our very first clients asked me, hey, would you happen to do chandelier cleaning? And I’m like, no, no, but I can help you find someone, because obviously insurance and all that stuff.

Stephanie: Yeah, I would not touch.

Yari: So I was able to find someone for her. And, you know, it all worked out. And so around about the same time that we were making this decision for Pinks, I’m like, wait a minute, I think we inadvertently, or accidentally came, there’s some synergy here that we can make, or that we could have. So it just kind of all worked out. And, you know, he’s due to launch the franchise in March, so we still have a little bit of time to prepare and, you know, kind of get the business up and running, but it’s been really cool to see the opportunities that are now coming our way. It’s like, you know, and I’m sure we’ll touch on this little bit, because you know about this, but we’ve had two inquiries for, you know, a commercial client that’s 55 offices that are all windows and apartment buildings that are post construction cleans for 402 units. So they all have windows. And it’s like, I can’t do all those high windows, but I know somebody that can. So it’s kind of like, I mentioned divine intervention before, and I truly feel like there’s an element to that, but this is, it’s also been reassurance for me, because I went into this not knowing anything about how to run a business, and my family relies on the work that I do, and if I can’t produce, my family doesn’t eat, and the fact that I’m able to and you know, in these past six seven months, have opportunities like this, where a commercial client is like, yeah, come on over and let’s do an assessment for a 55 office building. And I’m like, okay.

Landing Major Commercial Opportunities

Stephanie: Yeah, we’ll figure it out. I’m totally down for that, and it’s just crazy to see our growth over the past few months, and it feels nice.

Yari: Absolutely you know, you and I, we had a call last week, and we were talking about these opportunities, and it just reminded me so the parallels between what you’re experiencing right now and what I experienced within my first year of crazy shit falling into your lap and being complete, that fear being there right, I am absolutely terrified of this and that I don’t know how to do this or whatever, but just having that confidence, using, everything is figure outable. Like, using, you’re an intelligent person, as is your husband, and it’s like, this isn’t rocket science, right? We’re not being brain surgeons here. This can be done. So it just is the scale of it. That’s scary, right? So it’s taking it down to the per unit. What would it take for one, right? And, and yeah, we can definitely dive in the one co worker space and then the other post construction that you were presented with. So you did the walkthrough on Friday. We haven’t even talked about this yet. How did it go?

Yari: It went really well. I mean, one of the things that I pride myself in, and, you know, we take pride in as a company is treating our clients and our customers the way that we would treat our neighbor. And so I knew that the client, the potential client, was traveling all the way from New Jersey, and we put together a little goodie bag for them. And, you know, with things that my kids eat for snacks, like beef jerky and Cheez Its and stuff, and as soon as they got there, I delivered them this basket and they were like, oh my god, we have been traveling all day. We’ve been traveling all over Pennsylvania. I didn’t know this, traveling all over Pennsylvania, and we have another site that we have to go to after this. You don’t know how much of a lifesaver you are. And I’m like, okay, good. It makes it reaffirms to me that we’re doing the right thing. We’re putting people first. So take care of your clients.

Stephanie: I love that. I so I love that. I actually just recorded a how to video for the YouTube channel here on my anniversary video process or whatever, and you’re just making me think of that. All of you guys listening, if you have an instinct that may feel like, is this over? Is this too much, right? Is this too much? Just if it’s coming from a good place, just follow it, because that probably made you stand out a lot.

Yari: Well, yeah, and that’s why I bring it up, not to be like, look at this awesome thing that I did, but it really kind of set the tone for our relationship to know, so that they knew. Oh, okay, so they’re not only good people, but they’ll take care of us in more ways than one, and so we did the walkthrough, and we froze our butts off because the apartments aren’t ready to be cleaned just yet, so there’s still some time for us to kind of get started. But it seems like we’re moving and grooving, and we’re ready to go. So next steps for that is to meet with their president, and then sign all the paperwork and all that stuff. So it’s practically been awarded to us. It’s just a matter of signing the paperwork. So that was a nice reaffirming moment where I’m like, you know what? They met us. Not only did they find us based on our reputation, but they, and we haven’t done anything this big. I mean, if you can’t already tell by the way that we’re talking about this, this is not something that I expected to fall on our lap this early on. But not only did our reputation grant us this opportunity to even be connected with this person, but we made a good enough impression that they knew that, all right, they’ll take care of us. And now it’s just now the, what’s the word I’m looking for, the formalities of signing the paperwork. They’re not meeting with anybody else.

Stephanie: Yeah. How did you, okay, practically. Well, number one, remind me, how did this opportunity come to you? Did they find you online, or was it word of mouth?

Yari: Google.

Stephanie: Google, yeah. So listen up guys. You know, I’m psychotic about this for a reason. My big, large manufacturing facility, the first one that I got right, that changed the trajectory of the business early on, they found, they Googled, they Googled, and I didn’t even have that many reviews or anything, but I had a nice website. So if you don’t have a website yet and you’re like, oh, I don’t need that. I’m getting all my clients word of mouth. You do not know what you are missing out on, because they aren’t even finding you, right? And so this giant opportunity.

Yari: Yeah, and I want to give credit to you too, because after our first call, you gave me tips and tricks, because we weren’t appearing on Google at all until, you know, we implemented some of those tips that we talked about. So now we’re posting regularly. We’re adding client testimonials. We’re doing things that aren’t, we’re not paying for ads. And, you know, or I guess we are kind of paying for ads, but it’s not, it’s not to the extent. Sorry, let me just go back a second. So we’ve implemented some of the tools and tips and tricks that you kind of recommended to us, that are free to us, aside from our time. So posting before and afters, regularly posting our testimonials and just sharing updates, I think that’s what boosted our ranking in general, and the fact that he even found us is a miracle, because that wouldn’t have been the case about a month or two ago.

The Power of Google My Business

Stephanie: Like you said, it’s all happening as it should. So yeah, there are some simple, free, effective things that we can do to our Google My Business Profile guys, that does not include, you know, paying for pay per click, or anything like that, which, of course, there is a place for that, but point being is the basics can absolutely make or break things, so you show up higher on the map results when people start searching. So now I want, you know, we had talked about last week when we met, maybe it’s different. I’m assuming you’re going to give them a per unit price, or a big bid. What are you thinking for pricing? Because we talked about a couple different scenarios.

Yari: Yeah, that’s something that we’re still kind of working through. But we are looking at a per unit pricing for this one. I don’t know what that’s gonna look like, but we’re working on it.

Stephanie: That juicy number, and that’s very exciting. You’re probably gonna be freaked out by sending it, but just send it because it’s, it should be a big, big number. And clearly, they’re not even talking to anybody else. So, you know, the ball is in your court to give enough time. But the nice thing is, with post construction, it’s dusty, but especially when they’re apartments or something, you can move through them pretty darn fast. Did you ask? Because I remember we talked about a little bit the different phases and what that’s going to include. Did you ask, is this final phase, or is this what does that look like?

Yari: Yeah, there are two phases. There’s going to be a rough clean and a final clean. So imagine 402 units times two.

Stephanie: I appreciate that you’re excited about it as we are.

Yari: My manager would be like, no Stephanie, we’re not doing because I’m always the one. But the thing is, especially in the beginning, you just gotta go for it. You gotta shoot your shot. And because those are the things that change everything you know, and it can be scary, but it’s like, you do have a lot of great processes in place. Really, it’s just getting the job done on the schedule that they want, and staffing it, and all of those sorts of things. So, yeah, this is so exciting. In real time, this is happening, so hopefully, and I mean, what is their timeline that they’re looking for, of is there an end date where it’s like it has to be done by then?

Yari: I am still working with them on that. I’m trying to figure out what that looks like. I don’t think that they know yet.

Stephanie: Oh, that’s good.

Yari: Yeah, I did some sleuthing, and it looks like the apartments are available starting in March. So I’m assuming it’ll, obviously, it’ll have to happen a little bit before then, unless they push out the availability dates.

Balancing Family and Business

Stephanie: And so with the window cleaning side of it for that, and the co working space that we mentioned, I’m assuming you’re working with your husband on, basically, you know, for most of us, we would have to get a subcontractor in this situation, because we don’t do windows. But for you, that’s why it is so beautiful. You can take on huge opportunities, because I mentioned to you in our call, I had gotten a post construction job to do a walkthrough on and the reason I said no was because it was going to need lifts and high up stuff that I was like, I could have figured it out? Yes, absolutely. But that was when we got that big government contract. Glad it didn’t get both. We wouldn’t have been able to do both, but for us, it would have been a whole big thing. And I was like, what about lifts? And you’re like, well, I know how to do lifts because of my production background, so it just, it’s so perfect.

Yari: Yeah, and, you know, right now we’re in the phase where we’re getting ready for my husband’s business to launch. So if we do this right before he even opens his doors in March, and the windows are ready to be clean, we could have his calendar completely booked. And so right now, we’re just kind of in a phase of getting him set up with recruiting and doing all of that foundational work so that when it’s time to go, we can go. And it’s funny that you mentioned the lift, and I was thinking back to the last time that I had to experience one. And I think you might appreciate this. We worked with Make a Wish. Want to say 2020, no, 2015 ish. 1718, and the kid’s name was Mason, and his wish was to be the director of his own action film. And so I was kind of in charge of putting all the crews together and getting all the team together. And I’ll have to share with you the link to his movie, but it was a really, really awesome experience. And he got to operate the lift, and he got to sit in a director’s chair and all that stuff. And it was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my career.

Stephanie: That’s so sweet. And I just feel like things like that. It just makes me think of a through line that I see very often with owners that I talk to, especially, why are we so drawn to this industry? For a lot of reasons. Obviously, you know, the financial stuff, of course, and you know, we see the opportunity, there’s a pain point that we can solve, but it really is that heart of service. We just like to make people’s lives better and we know, especially as women, what this does for us. And you know, for many of you that are mothers, what this actually means, it’s not just get the house clean, right? It’s not just that. There’s so much that goes into that. And that’s one thing I wanted to ask about, obviously, as you guys both embark on this entrepreneurship journey, I would love to hear, and again, coming back to you were pregnant. Logistically speaking, what does life look like for you guys with three young children, you know, you were postpartum? I’m assuming that was a, you know, pretty quote unquote smooth process, obviously, not for everybody that is the case. So how has been navigating postpartum with a brand new business been like? And what does your day to day look like with the kids?

Yari: Yeah, it was, I think after having had Noah, I took no days off. I literally went into the hospital unexpectedly, because I went into labor unexpectedly. While we were in the hospital, we were still doing cleans, and I was sending my husband out to jobs to clean and then immediately, when we came back, I was just sitting with the baby on my chest and was pounding away at the computer. So while I wasn’t doing the physical work at the time, and I was very lucky to have team members that were ready to go, and they were taking our clients on. It’s been constant, go, go, go. And I am so fortunate that I made the decision to stay in this area, because my mother in law is only 40 minutes away, and so, you know, while the kids are at school, she recently started staying with us five days a week so that she can stay with Noah while I work, and while Pete works too, because he’s got a lot of work to do too. And so I am so grateful for the support that I’ve been given. Because sometimes it can feel very lonely, and you’re like you want to, especially when you’re just sitting at an office all day and you’re dealing with fires constantly, and then, but then having to feed the baby, and then, you know, he’s a diaper change. And I did that for a while too, where I was literally working, and I can send you pictures of both boys sitting on my lap, and I’m working, but now I feel like we’ve gotten to a point where there’s a little bit of a rhythm and we have the support. I raised my hand and I was like, I need help. And you know, my husband’s been very good about, you know, because his business hasn’t opened its doors officially to the public yet. So he’s been, you keep jamming, doing what you have to do, and I will help you do everything. So he picks up the boys, he drops them off. He does, you know, he does everything else for the kids and for our house when I’m clearly in over my head about, you know, trying to figure things out for us. But again, recently, that transition is kind of shifted a little bit to where now we’re both just as busy as each other. And so it’s been wild. But the one thing, anyone hearing our story, the one thing I would want anyone hearing our story to take away from it is that ask for help. And I feel like I’ve heard this on the podcast before, where even if it’s just, can someone pick up my groceries? If you have a village, I don’t know, ask for help, because just as much as you help other people, and I know that there are people that are, you know, I had one of my neighbors, she had an unexpected death of the family, and she sent her boys over to my house, and I’m like, you just go do your thing. I will pick up your kids from school. Let’s do it just like I easily did that for her. I’m sure that she would do that for me. And so it’s all about giving back what you receive, and vice versa.

Building Community Support

Stephanie: I love that, that sense of community. And I was just watching something recently. I think it was on one of my favorite YouTube channels. It’s called The Financial Diet. Highly recommend to anybody watching. It’s fantastic, very, just amazing content. But we’re talking about, one of the, why is our generation so lonely? Or why are people so lonely? And it’s like we’ve fallen into this hyper independence, and not wanting to expect anything of other people, and therefore, then also not wanting anybody to expect anything from us. And so but then we’re having, so the sense of community has completely eroded compared to several generations back, right? So we have to be so intentional about building community and giving in that way, and then being, that is it? No, we shouldn’t not expect things from our friends. We shouldn’t not expect things from our village or community, because that’s what it’s all about, right? So I just love that you are, you’re leaning on that, but you’re also freely giving that so that everybody is benefiting. Because especially children, there’s a reason they say it takes a village, right? And even making the choice of being close to your in laws, all of this is lining up as it’s supposed to. And of course, you know, many of our listeners don’t have that. So it’s like, is there anything that you can do? Is there any communities that you can lean into, or even Facebook groups, right? For me, living in Savannah, I’ve made female friends now, finally, because I joined a Savannah girls group, and I go to the events, and I am going, I’m like, I want to have a game night at my house. It takes intention in our world to build that community and for entrepreneurship, it’s a lonely path. So anything we can do to help ourselves out, we need to be doing.

Yari: Exactly, yeah, I 100% agree with that.

Lessons from the Franchise Experience

Stephanie: I definitely want to, I’m curious, just because your husband has purchased a franchise, is there any particular lessons that you’ve gleaned from his experience now, or, you know, you don’t have to share trade secrets or anything. But has there been anything that you’ve taken from experience, his experience with Pinks, that you have implemented in your business?

Yari: I look at the way that they approach recruiting. I think one of the things that I see that Pinks does really well, that I’m like this, that’s something I can get behind, is the type of person that they recruit, you know, there’s and the same is true for us. Obviously going into it in the beginning, you know, I want someone that is that’s got experience with, you know, with cleaning and things like that. But the mantra and the thought is, you hire good people and then everything else you can teach them. So that’s something that I kind of tend to take with me. And what’s funny is that sometimes there’s a sense of, I don’t want to say resentment, because that’s too strong of a word. But I’m like, you know, to purchase a franchise, they have all the operations laid out for you. And I’m like, I gotta figure this out on my own. What do I want my thing to be? So obviously, I don’t use any of their, you know, their way of doing things and stuff like that. I try to make our business unique to us, because, you know, we’ve already been running, and we’ve already learned some lessons and things like that. So I, and I’m kind of hard headed in the way that I want to do things, so, and I’m sure you understand that. So I think, you know, other than you know, leveraging the resources that, you know, that exists already, and you know, picking and choosing and kind of making it exactly what I want it to be, I’ve just been okay with building everything from scratch. But there’s an element that’s like, oh, I wish that I had everything lined up for me like you do. So there’s that part, and, you know, obviously, the idea that you hire for personality and there’s a certain level of integrity and certain level of promptness that you expect from people and things like that, that I think is something that I’ve taken away.

Stephanie: Absolutely, and I like that we’re even bringing up franchises, honestly, because, you know, I’ve had, you know, like Neil Parekh. He’s the CEO of MaidThis, and I actually spoke at their franchisee event in Florida this last fall. And it really did open my eyes to, you know, honestly, I was a bit of a naysayer on franchises, because I’m like, I would personally do that, but not, as you’re describing. There is benefits to it, right? And it just maybe is a different type of person that’s looking for a franchise, or just in general, it’s like, yeah, there’s a lot of things that are laid out for you, but you know what I will suggest to everybody, please do your due diligence and really, really research into the financial side of the franchise stuff, what is the typical franchisee experience look like, and not just, of course, any franchise is trying to make you buy in, right? They’re only going to show you the good stuff, right? So, so if you can talk to even former franchises or current ones, what does that look like from the day to day? That would be my only note. But there is a certain appeal to that, of course, and but you’re going to have certain fees that we’re not going to have. So just keeping that in mind when it comes to franchises of if any of our listeners are considering this, you know, I’m not going to tell you no, it wasn’t my experience. It’s not Yari’s experience here, but there is a certain place for them, right?

Yari: Yeah, and I think I don’t know if we would have gone franchise, had I not already had My Favorite Cleaning Co because I knew, I knew the challenges that we were going to be facing, starting something from scratch, that it was like, okay, if we, because I was very much like you, where I’m like, nope, not interested. I want to build my own thing. But because Pinks as a brand, and Pinks as a, their reputation, and the way that they treat their people and things like that, their reputation, and the way that they treat their people and things like that, that matches with our overall family values and what, you know, it just matched really well with us. And I was like, okay, well, if we don’t have to build two businesses from scratch, this is great. So it ended up working out, and we’re happy with the decision that, you know, we kind of have a good mix.

Stephanie: I love that. You guys kind of get best of both worlds and experience the two paths, which is just really, really unique. And the nice thing is, I’m sure that you guys both reference each other. Obviously, you’re married, but the nice thing is you both are having your separate things, but they complement each other well. So you’re not stepping on toes. Because I, you know, anytime I do talk to a couple who works together, I always want to ask, all right, how do you guys handle decision making and what types of arguments have occurred, or anything like that? Have you guys had any issues related to that? If you’re willing to share, tell me about your marital problems. Well, no, I’m just kidding.

Working Together as a Couple

Yari: It’s, I laugh, because this isn’t our only endeavor with working together. It’s funny because we started working together when we were working for the United States Air Force back in 2020, so we were, you know, technically, his team reported to me, so I was the decision maker, and I was the boss, but obviously he didn’t report to me, but my decisions impacted his team. And so we’ve always had, or during that time, we had a lot of back and forth and a lot of disagreements and things like that. But honestly, I’ll say it made our marriage stronger, to be honest, because we were forced to compartmentalize in a way that I don’t think we would have been challenged to do had it been a different scenario. So, you know, once we were done with work, we were done. We were just Pete and Yari. And so that kind of, again, to your point about building on experiences led us to the point where we could confidently and comfortably say, okay, we can work together. But now it’s now we’re facing the layer of challenge where now our priorities are competing with each other. Because I want to work until, you know, late into the night when the kids are, you know, home from school, but he also wants to work when the kids are home from school. So we just, we’re still working through kind of striking that balance of, all right, you know, how is this going to work? So it’s been interesting.

Stephanie: Well, the reason I even ask is because I don’t want people listening to be like, oh, you know, we always have this illusion of perfection that we put out to the world, right? And it’s like, no, this is, this is challenging, right? You guys are doing something very challenging. And though things are, you know, just a brand new baby thing that’s happening, and it’s gone off so well. But you know, just knowing that you are a team and that you’re going to make it through anything life throws at you. But it doesn’t mean that this isn’t going to happen. Sometimes you just have to be able to communicate. Well, I would imagine, I don’t know, I’m not married with children, but I would imagine communication is important.

Yari: It sure is, and grace and empathy.

Three Key Takeaways

Stephanie: For sure, I love that. So, so would you say, if you could break it down to maybe three kind of takeaways or things that so far you try to keep in mind for our listeners who maybe they’re just starting out too, and they’re like, damn, she’s having a lot of success. What would you say to our listeners?

Yari: The first thing I would say is everything is figure outable, even if you mess something up royally. We’re not saving lives. People’s lives are not at stake. And obviously there are situations where, you know, you get your first negative review and it’s, it’ll probably throw you for a tailspin, which I’m kind of, in my mind. I’m like, it’s gonna come, it’s gonna happen. Fortunately, that hasn’t happened yet. But people, not everybody’s gonna like you, not everybody’s going to like your rates, not everybody is going to be your client because, you know, for one reason or another. So that, I guess that would kind of be a part of the second part of what I would want to say is that your business isn’t for everybody, even if you want it to be, you know, someone can say, I want you to work for $20 an hour, and is super offended, because, you know you charge more than that. So there’s, you have to be proud of the work that you’re doing and confident in the work that you’re doing and what you need to survive. And the last thing is, get your operations in order, and everything else will fall into place.

Stephanie: Absolutely. What a mic drop. Thank you so much for your time today. I’m so happy that you came on today and showed your wisdom and knowledge, because you are a very wise woman. And I’m just like, we’re gonna I really would love to circle back, as they say in corporate speak, we’ll circle back when this job is over, I would love to hear how it goes, takeaways, things that you learned, because you’re about to embark on something very exciting, and you’re about to learn a shit ton of stuff. And would love to have those lessons come back and hear from you. But this is just the beginning, and it’s so exciting. I love talking to people at this point in business.

Yari: Yeah, and I appreciate you giving me the platform to be able to share my story, because sometimes you hear from people that are, you know, a year, two years, three years into it, and they’re looking back on and reflecting on lessons when you know sometimes it could be helpful to know I’m in the trenches with you. We’re figuring this out in real time too, so you’re not alone, and we’re going to figure this out together.

Stephanie: Oh yeah. Where can the people find you? If they want to follow along.

Yari: You can find me on Instagram or on Facebook, and if you want to follow me, specifically, I’m on LinkedIn. And, yeah, if anybody has any questions, or I don’t know, wants to chat, I’m always open to it.

Stephanie: Yeah, we’ll definitely link your socials down below in the comments. So guys definitely give her a follow, hit that like, hit that subscribe, leave some love down in the comments for her, because this has been quite the conversation. So thank you so much, hon. And for everybody else see you in the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye guys.

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

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Thumbtack
• Notion
• ClickUp
• Pinks Window Cleaning
• Make-A-Wish Foundation
• The Financial Diet YouTube Channel
• My Favorite Cleaning Co on Instagram
• My Favorite Cleaning Co on Facebook

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