Live Coaching Call: She’s Ready to Grow… But Hiring is Holding Her Back

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Introduction

Stephanie: Hello everyone, welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I’m your host, Stephanie Pipkin from Serene Clean, and in today’s episode, my guest Anastasia is all the way from Washington, and she is the owner of Essence of Clean. We have been talking back and forth for months now, and she has been a loyal, avid listener to the podcast.

I invited her on because she is about to take the leap into hiring, and she has been in business for years now, very successful, excellent cleaner, and I want to help her through any sticking points or challenges she is still facing when it comes to about to hire. So it’s going to be a very informative conversation. I’m really looking forward to it. So Anastasia, thank you so much for joining me.

Anastasia: Yeah, it’s so good to be here.

The Journey to Starting a Cleaning Business

Stephanie: So tell us, tell us about how your business came to be. What did you do before cleaning? Just give us a little bit of background.

Anastasia: Before cleaning, I had just had my daughter, who is going to be 18 and graduating next month. So it’s been that whole journey. I had been a student, and I studied interior design in college, and then I had her a week after I graduated. I stayed home with her the first two years, and she was my last child. So I just wanted to make the most of every moment, not miss anything.

My husband is a school teacher at the time, and had been nursing her that whole two years, and weaning just wasn’t really happening. I really wanted to go with child-led weaning, where you don’t just rip the kid away. It’s supposed to be like they decide when to just kind of let it fall off. And it wasn’t happening. I was starting to feel a little trapped.

Then my husband got off school for the summer because he was a teacher. And I’m like, “Here you take the kid. I’m going to go get a part-time job, because I need a little space, and then she needs a little space, so that’ll help.” And so that’s when I started cleaning.

How Cleaning Became a Career

Anastasia: My mother-in-law had kind of talked me into it previously, because those couple years at home, my house was immaculate, and I was always cleaning. There was nothing left to clean, and I would go to her house and start tidying up when we’d be visiting, and she didn’t really like that.

She actually said, “Have you ever thought about doing this professionally?” And I’m like, “Oh, no. Why would I clean other people’s houses?” But she had a cousin, older lady, who was retiring from a long-time cleaning business that she’d had. She’s like, “Well, my cousin Joanne is getting ready to retire, and she just has a handful of clients that she’s kept and she’s looking for someone to hand them off to. I could recommend you.” I’m like, “I don’t think so.”

So she gave her my number anyway, and Joanne called me, and I’m like, “Okay, yeah, I guess.” So I took on only three or four clients that she’d had left. I’m like, “Okay, it’s a nice little part-time thing I can do.” And I started cleaning with them. That was in May, the month my daughter turned two. And by August, I was full-time. I didn’t even mean to be—it just exploded through word of mouth. And I was so exhausted.

Growing a Successful Business

Anastasia: I was making $1,000 more than my husband was in his salary. And it’s like, “Wow, this is crazy.” Once I caught up with the physical adjustment, it’s like, “This is pretty cool,” because we hadn’t had extra money ever in so long, because we were living off one income, a teacher salary. So you can imagine in Oklahoma at the time, it was the second-lowest paid state for teacher salary at the time.

Stephanie: So underpaid everywhere. I would imagine those states, even worse.

Anastasia: Oh, it was horrible. So the extra money was really great. We could finally do things, breathe a little, buy some things for the kids, go out to dinner. It was really great at first, and then my husband actually joined me a couple years later, because he was sick of teaching and just the bureaucracy and a lot of things that were happening in the state of Oklahoma. It wasn’t super friendly towards supporting education anyway. He was just tired of it, so he decided to join me so we could take on more work and make even more money.

That’s what we did, and we’ve been doing this together now for 14 years. We bring in a little over 100k year. We only work four days a week, so we have every Wednesday off. So we have two days on, a day off to rest or take care of appointments, and then work two more days and then have weekends off. So it’s a nice schedule.

Balancing Family and Work Flexibility

Anastasia: It really worked out when my daughter was younger and in school. At that time, we would be off at 2:45 every day, go pick her up and not have to work. That was part of what I loved about it—the flexibility.

But I didn’t always love the work. Cleaning other people’s houses isn’t as satisfying as cleaning your own. It has a certain satisfaction in a job that’s complete, but it’s different than doing your own. So I’ve struggled over the years, actually pulling into that pit of inferiority complex, like being seen as “this person’s just a maid” or whatever.

I’ve really struggled with that. And then comments from the family or my mom, going, “Are you still cleaning houses?” But then, on the other hand, it’s really helped our family. And it’s been so flexible and really great. We make our own schedule. Our clients are fabulous.

We’ve been in Bellingham nine and a half years, almost 10, and we have one client that’s been with us since the second month we were here—almost 10 years. And they’ve referred so many people to us, and we have lots of other clients who have been with us 3, 4, 5, 7 years. So it’s really been a blessing, and lately I’m trying to see it more as a blessing than a curse and not have those negative feelings. But I’ve really struggled honestly throughout the years of this business.

Restarting the Business in New Locations

Anastasia: There have been times I just wanted to close up everything and forget it. I tried to push my husband to go get a teaching job again, because in Washington, they make double what they made in Oklahoma. Of course, the cost of living is relative, but I’m like, “Can you just go do that again? And we can get out of this?” But here we still are.

Stephanie: When did you guys move to Washington?

Anastasia: Well, we were first in Tulsa for the first two years, and then we moved to Boulder, and my husband actually pursued a master’s degree there. We were in Boulder for four years, and then we moved to Washington because we came on vacation here and just totally fell in love. And I’m like, “We’ve got to move here.” So a couple years later, we moved here, and we just love it so much.

Stephanie: Yeah, good on you. That is something a lot of people want to do. So amazing. Kudos to you guys for actually following that.

Anastasia: Yeah, in each of these times when we went from Tulsa to Boulder, and from Boulder to here, we had to restart the business from scratch. But we made it.

Building a Client Base in New Cities

Stephanie: Out of curiosity, how did you get a full schedule based off of starting over in a new space where you didn’t have that social proof from other clients? What did you do for that?

Anastasia: Well, I did have a website, a different website at the time, which we thought was great. And then when I was redoing my website these last few months, anytime I had to go to her, I’m like, “Oh, it’s so cringy.”

Stephanie: I know! I’m doing a website redesign, and it’s like looking at haircuts, or like when I look at my pictures from high school, and that was when really heavy eyebrows were in, and I looked like I took a sharpie to my eyebrows. I’m like, “Oh my gosh,” that’s how I feel about websites.

Anastasia: We didn’t have the Google My Business. I don’t even know how new that is. I was dumb and never set one up until a couple of months ago, because I really didn’t plan on taking this further, and we had a core group of clients. We’re comfortable. It’s like, “I don’t need all that.”

So we had our basic website, and we had a little review feature on there, and we had collected reviews all the way back from Tulsa and Boulder. So each time we moved, we had our core reviews, which we would also print out a handful of them as reference letters. And we would show people when we would go to bid their house.

Finding New Clients Through Traditional Methods

Anastasia: So we had a little bit of social proof. We did start the Facebook page before we moved from Boulder to here, and had people review us on there. But we were only looking to get like 20 clients. So it wasn’t difficult.

At the time we would get our clients solely off advertising on Craigslist and maybe putting a few flyers on doors in neighborhoods that we liked. And it worked. And then talking to people at our kids’ school and stuff like that. That’s pretty much how we got our clients. And then word of mouth, once we had some clients, and they were really happy with us, inevitably, they recommend you.

Stephanie: I’m so happy to hear how that happened, because it’s a perfect instance of, there’s a lot of ways to get clients that don’t include paying for advertising or anything like that. Even I think people are like, “Oh, it’s such a saturated market.” And if you’re just trying to get your schedule filled at this time, there are some great avenues to do so.

And I’m so happy you said talking to the parents at your kids’ schools, like being a yapper and just talking about what you do—that works so well.

Dealing with Industry Perception

Stephanie: I’m also happy that you touched on those feelings of judgment or being seen as beneath because I think those feelings are super valid based on society’s views of the cleaning industry. And I would say that we all kind of have that chip on our shoulder of, “I’ve got something to prove,” because I know how cleaning is seen, and I don’t want people to see me as beneath them because of how they view this as menial, almost like servants work. Or “Why would you choose this?” type of thing.

And I think keeping in mind all of the things that you described, of why you love it, like the flexibility, just the ease, the satisfaction—there’s so many people who absolutely loathe their jobs, who are going to have an early heart attack because they hate their job so much. But the title is good, right? And we maybe respect that title in society.

Even looking at like doctors—they have really high suicide rates, and they have such high debts and all of these things. The reason I’m even talking about this is just to acknowledge that we all have that experience where we’re feeling judged. For myself, pushing the business has really helped kind of soothe my ego, because that’s what it is—my ego is upset that people view me in a way that I don’t agree with, meaning I don’t see myself as beneath. And obviously you don’t either, because we’re not, but it’s just how people see the industry.

Finding Success in the Cleaning Business

Stephanie: So that’s where really leaning into the professionalism, and frankly, there’s money in dirty work, and obviously, you guys have been able to make a really killer living. So kudos to you. I mean, you’ve done so many things well, just being your guys as only solo cleaners or just the two of you. That is truly impressive.

So I guess now that you’re looking at hiring, what’s prompting you to take it further? Because you guys are making good money, you have this life balance. Why do you want to hire? Just out of curiosity?

The Decision to Expand the Business

Anastasia: Like I said, I’ve gone through the back and forth of trying to be grateful for this job and everything that it gives us and wanting to just throw it out the window. And so it was actually my husband that stumbled across some videos online. I don’t know if it was ZenMaid videos or something else, but then quickly landed on ZenMaid YouTube videos, and saw about the potential of a cleaning business, like a full-fledged cleaning business.

He showed me, and he had been dropping hints for the last six months. And I’m like, “Yeah, I don’t think so. I have no interest in ever doing that. I just want to put in our time until we don’t have to.” And so he kind of started pushing me in that direction. And I started watching the videos, and I’m like, “Okay,” and then the more I watch the videos, I’m like, “Well, I feel really stupid now that I have carried this this far and not taken it for the opportunity it was and just putting my head down and doing the grind every day and waiting till the day it was going to be over somehow.”

So then I felt really dumb that all these years, I could have been a lot further along. But you know, when you know better, you do better.

Stephanie: It’s not stupid. It served you guys perfectly in your life. And honestly, like you’ve just over the past couple months, of us communicating—you have been doing this building of foundation, where a lot of us, when we start and immediately start hiring, I mean, obviously you have to pull the trigger at some point, but we make so many mistakes because we pull that trigger too hastily, and we’re not prepared.

Building a Solid Foundation for Growth

Stephanie: Even having all of the employee documents in place, which you already have, you’re doing these things. You’re thinking about training, you’re thinking about pay, where so many in the industry, I think, are like, “Oh, I’ll just get a helper. I’ll pay him cash. And whatever. It’s really casual.”

And I just don’t see—if this is our business, there’s nothing casual about it. If we’re going to do a business, I just don’t see it that way. So you guys, and I just love even how there’s several things that have been very teacher-coded from what you’ve described to me, of how you guys are setting things up. Your husband’s background is really influencing a lot of how you guys are doing that as well.

So I commend you for doing all of these building blocks. So can you describe some of the things that you’ve been putting into place in preparation for hiring? What do you guys have in place so far that you’re feeling good about?

Setting Up the Business for Employees

Anastasia: Well, I’ve done all the legal stuff already. I set up the business appropriately. We had never even had an LLC before, so I did all that, registered for an S corp, and then with all that, kind of just going down the line. I’m now registered with the Labor and Industry Department. The State of Washington does its own workman’s comp, you can’t get it through like a third party provider.

Then I’m registered with the unemployment security for all of those payroll tax kind of things. So I’m set up and ready to go with all of those, and then I have the account with Gusto. So I’m kind of set up in all those pay areas.

Creating Employee Incentive Programs

Anastasia: We’ve worked out the pay schedule and an incentive program for the employee, like a performance incentive, where they will get a base pay and then get extra bonus pay based on their performance, which will come in a couple of ways.

One, they would get $100 bonus at the end of the month if they had perfect attendance. So that’s something we always want to be able to encourage, because of the call-offs and no-shows and stuff.

And then we were going to put into place a quality control program, where we’re going to go out ourselves, once on every employee each month, and look over a house and do the rubric that my husband created of all of the areas, and they’ll have a score. So they can earn up to $100 bonus on that, depending on how they scored.

And then we were going to ask clients to do a couple of quality control assessments on an employee in a month. I’m not sure how that’s going to go over, like if clients will want to participate, but I’m still trying to figure out what best is the incentive for the client to put in that time.

So the employee can have an opportunity to have three of the quality control assessment bonuses, plus the attendance bonus, so that’s up to $400 extra in a month. And then other bonuses that they can have, whether it’s for referrals or for reviews that mention them and things like that.

Developing Training Programs

Anastasia: We’re still nailing down our training program. We kind of have the general idea, but we don’t have it all fully assembled yet, but we have all of our paperwork done, most of which is the stuff I got from you, and then we’ve modified. It just feels like so much—the orientation and everything.

Stephanie: Most people have none of these things in place when they start hiring. So this is amazing. And I’m so happy you’re really thinking of the incentive advising of the behavior you’re trying to encourage. Because obviously we can come down on them and kind of have negative reinforcement. That’s definitely a method, but positive reinforcement works in so many wonderful ways.

Quality Control and Service Ratings

Stephanie: So I’m happy that you’re really thinking about this, or even thinking, “Well, how would this benefit the client?” Even giving them a little cleaning discount, like, “Hey, would you be willing to fill out this survey?” So the service ratings would be useful as well.

But I’m almost thinking I would do a more robust—even a Google form of “check this, check this, check this,” because it is tied to their bonus. So kind of like you described it as a secret shopper program almost.

Anastasia: Yeah, the mystery shopper. The cleaner won’t know what’s coming, which is good.

Stephanie: They’ll never know what house they’re getting assessed at. So they’ve gotta be on top performance all the time, because they never know when it’s coming.

Stephanie: Exactly. You could ask things about professionalism. Are they on time? How is their appearance? How do they smell? Literally, all of those things. We want to check because, based on experience, cleaners will show up smelling like they just smoked a pack of Marlboros or marijuana or whatever, and it’s just not a good look for your company. Regardless of how we feel about those things personally, people don’t want smelly folks in their house cleaning. So these are perfect examples of things you could ask the clients.

A Funny Client Story

Anastasia: Funny story—my client that’s been with us for almost 10 years, her name is Lisa, and when she first called us, she didn’t know who we were or anything like that. But on the phone, before I even went out to her house (I still bid houses in person), she said, “Well, now I don’t know how to say this, but I know it’s legal now and everything here, but I would really prefer that there be no partaking on my property.”

Stephanie: Oh, that’s cute. That’s really cute. And also, yeah, of course. That’s really funny. It’s interesting. So in Wisconsin, it’s still illegal, and I know like most places, if a workplace incident happens, they do drug testing immediately, because if they’re under the influence, your insurance wants to know that, so it can definitely affect things.

So I think that you have so many mechanisms already put into place, or really thought out, like, “How are we going to handle XYZ?” So you’re kind of, I feel like, ready to go. So for hiring, what’s the holdup now? What is the internal blocker for you? Why can’t you do this?

Overcoming Fears About Hiring

Anastasia: Well, two things. One, just all the employee difficulties, the no-shows, and the quality, all those things. And having made a name and a reputation for our business, it’s really difficult to put that in somebody else’s hands.

A secret: we actually did take on helpers one time eight years ago, about two years after we moved here. We’d always had more inquiries than we could handle, and so we would keep a waiting list. We had our full schedule, and most people wouldn’t budge. So it’s like, “Okay, well, sorry, you can go on a waiting list.”

And there was a mom at my kids’ school who had just gotten divorced and really needed work, and I went, “Well, you know, you could work with us, and I could take on some more clients.” So I wanted to help. And we thought, “Well, this might be a way we can start expanding.”

Learning from Past Hiring Experience

Anastasia: We had no clue what we were doing, and so we had no preparation at all, none of this stuff. And we took her on, tried to give her a proper training. And we went ahead and hired another person too, so that we could launch them after training to be their own team, because we worked as a team, and we really liked that format.

So we took two people on, trained them for a couple of weeks. We did it around after Christmas time because we’d gotten bonuses from our clients. We thought, “Well, we have some extra money that we can put into the training, so let’s do this. Who knows what this year will bring.” It ended up being a nightmare.

We spent a couple weeks training, which was kind of a hassle, but whatever. And then we sent them out. The younger girl quit pretty quickly. And then the other lady, Claire, was on her own. She’s like, “Well, I didn’t sign up to be on my own,” and I couldn’t get another person quick enough. So she’s cleaning houses on her own, brand new and all this stuff.

And I think she was with us about a month, and then she quit and said, “You know, I just, it’s just too much, it’s too much work.” And then she claimed unemployment. And I went, “Wait, can she even do that? She only worked for a month.” But they approved it. I’m like, “How is that even possible?” And so then I’m freaking out. I’m like, “Oh my god, now we’re in all this paperwork nightmare, and I can’t believe this.”

Stephanie: You got burned.

Anastasia: I kind of feel like we got used actually. I think maybe it was a little bit of a plan, but we spent a couple thousand dollars training these ladies out of our own money and all this happened. And we’d had, of course, a few call-offs during that time that we had to scramble for. I’m like, “Oh my gosh, this just isn’t worth the stress.” That’s when I said, “We’re never doing that again. That’s just crazy.”

So having that first-hand experience and then hearing all of the stories from all of you guys and all of the podcasts and videos I’ve watched, I’m like, “Gosh, I don’t know if we can handle that.” Our life is pretty nice and just goes smoothly right now. I don’t know if we can handle the stress and the call-offs. So that’s a huge hesitation, just being scared to put our life into this whole different stressful level.

Financial Concerns With Hiring

Anastasia: And then the money, honestly, because we’re in the same spot now. We’re taking a few thousand that we saved from our Christmas bonuses again to set aside to launch this. And my fear is again, we don’t pick the right people, or they don’t stick, and we’ve spent money training them, and most of them leave. Then what happens? And we don’t have the money anymore to just go get a new batch of people.

So I’ve been trying to set everything up and do all the research and get everything perfect. And you’ll say I’m in analysis paralysis, and I know that, but I’m like, “Oh my gosh. I don’t want to make a bad impression on any employees we might hire, so I’m just trying to get everything perfect.”

Stephanie: Well, that anxiousness is really valid because my first hires were a nightmare, and it just is what it is. But I also didn’t have all of these things set in place. I also didn’t have a decade plus of cleaning experience, so I wasn’t training well. I was just like, “Here you go, sink or swim” kind of thing.

I had no ability to filter or vet. I had no systems in place for hiring, like group interviewing or anything like that, to see if people fit. I was super young when I started, so I just had no BS meter at all—anybody could just pull the wool over me and I’d be like, “Oh, you seem so great.” I was so easily wooed.

Strategies for Better Hiring

Stephanie: So I think that you, even though you’ve gone through that experience, hopefully it has allowed you to know what you’re looking for. And it’s such a cliche thing that we hear on all these podcasts about really getting clear on the core values, but I think utilizing ChatGPT to the fullest and saying, “These are the traits that I am looking for and that are really important to me. Can you please create interview questions that help me discern if somebody has these specific traits?” And then asking for examples on things.

Honestly, what I would say is I would do huge group interviews to vet people. Do not waste your time with any individual person until they can at least show up there. And then we do a second round of interviews to help filter down, because I think people are really good at BS-ing during interviews.

Training at a Lower Rate

Stephanie: And I also think in your case, because the finances are such a concern of losing money, I would train at a significantly lower rate, and then later increase it. You’re wanting to pay pretty darn high. Remind me what your pay scale you’re planning on?

Anastasia: In May, our minimum wage goes up to $18.66 an hour here. I know it’s crazy. It was literally only $16.66 in December, and they did a $2 increase this year, partly in January, and part in May. It’s gone up about $1 every year for several years, probably since COVID, when everything started going up.

So it’s going to be $18.66. We were going to start our pay rate for training at $19 an hour for basically the first 30 days, where our training period was going to be two weeks, like hands-on. But then the other two weeks were like a highly supervised period.

And then after that, we were going to jump it up a couple dollars an hour. We’re still solidifying exactly which number we want to land on, but something like $21 an hour until they hit the three-month mark. And of course, they’ve got to meet the other qualifications that they’re performing well and all that, before they automatically get a raise.

And then at three months, they might jump up to $22.50 or $23 an hour, something like that. But we were hoping to cap out around $25 an hour, if someone had been there six months to a year, and then they have the potential for all those bonuses on top of that.

So our literal pay rate out of our side might end up being up to $29 or $30 an hour. Then with all the payroll taxes, my husband has a whole chart he’s configured that would go up to $35 an hour, which is 50% of the $70 an hour that we would be basing our customer rates on. So we’re trying to pay them as well as we can.

Regional Pay Rate Differences

Stephanie: Oh my gosh. I just can’t believe—well, and all of these numbers, I’m so happy that we’re having this conversation, because all of these numbers are so highly specific to where your business is, because none of this would fly where I am. But also, our minimum wage is $7.25, so not that anybody pays that, but our starting wage is $16 an hour. Ours top out at $25 and we just increased it to that, obviously with lots of bonuses and benefits and things.

But it’s just so fascinating hearing what different parts of the country are dealing with. And even the rates that you’re talking about—that is amazing, because that’s what you’ve been able to do with new clients, right? That’s what they’re averaging out at?

Anastasia: New clients, averaging out at $70 an hour, yes. And that’s just very recent, just these last few months since I’ve been learning all of this, and went, “Wow, we are so underpaid.” And we’re veterans in the arena, and we were only making $40 an hour ourselves up until January. So it’s like, “Wow.”

Overcoming Underpricing and Mindset Issues

Anastasia: We carried that Midwest mentality with us and the prices of things. Especially my husband, because many times I would mention we need to do a rate increase. He’s like, “Oh, no, no, that’s so expensive.” Because he really had that Oklahoma prices mentality, and things are just so much less there. But yeah, we were underselling ourselves really badly for years.

Stephanie: You’re doing something successfully that so many people—I can’t even imagine giving that price. That’s inspirational to me, that you are doing that. You’re making me want to go back to my managers right now and say $16 higher, because we’re at $55 right now.

I had the same mentality as your husband, of “Nobody’s even gonna pay that.” That’s what I thought. So of course, if I’m not valuing it, nobody else is going to. And slowly doing those price increases over the year. So I’m really happy, because that’s going to allow you to actually be an attractive employer in your particular market. Because when the minimum wage is that high, why would somebody go clean?

So for you guys being able to offer those types of incentives, and then what you described in the beginning of our call of what attracted you—that flexibility that’s gonna attract a lot of people, and I think you have a really good plan in place. It’s just that pulling the trigger and picking the right people. You’re going to make mistakes. People bamboozle and, to get kind of esoteric here, everybody leaves at some point. So just, how can we make as much as possible out of them while they’re here?

Preparing for Hiring Challenges

Stephanie: So I totally understand that you’re nervous, but there are good people out there. We just have to see a lot of people to find the diamonds in the rough. So honestly, I feel like you are very, very prepared. It’s just nerve-wracking.

Honestly, what I would think to do when it comes to managing the call-outs that are inevitable—obviously, these incentives to have good attendance, good performance, that’s fantastic. But at the end of the day, sometimes it just doesn’t matter.

The goal is to get cleanings off of you guys so that you can be the backup basically, so that it’s not like you’re double booked in the manner of you have your clients, and now you’re booking cleaning clients on these new hires, and then they don’t show up. And now what do you do?

Anastasia: Because we have a full schedule right now ourselves.

Transitioning Current Clients to New Staff

Stephanie: You’re going to have some pushback on your current clients getting off of you, but just as long as you guys are being really psychotic about the quality control, they will get used to it. And just knowing that we’re training these people, and we are checking on them.

Your loyal clients are most likely to be the most honest with you. So I know that that’s going to be a struggle, but I would personally try to do that first before going to new wait-listed clients, because your current clients are going to be more forgiving than a new person.

Is there any clients at the top of your head that you think you could off-board, and if it doesn’t work out, you can always bring them back on? I had to do that several times with clients when my first employees were terrible.

Anastasia: Yeah, definitely.

Stephanie: Okay, so I think that that’s going to work really well. I know you had asked about your website, marketing, worrying about the lead aspect of it. Can you talk to me about that a little bit?

Recent Lead Generation Challenges

Anastasia: So here recently, we actually lost a couple of our own clients from having our nice stable base, which was a little unexpected, because usually the losses come in January and February, and we sailed through that. I went, “Wow, this year we didn’t lose anything. So that’s great.” And then we had one in March, and one right at the end of March, right days before their next cleaning—just their own circumstances.

And that was a really large client, our largest, so that was a big ouch. So now that unfortunately has shifted the focus away from the business at this most immediate moment into “Oh my gosh. We’ve got to fill these two spots, because our budget is dependent on it.”

And normally they would fill really quickly, but it hasn’t happened. So now I’m mildly freaking out, like, “Oh no, and maybe this is a sign. We’re not ready, and we’re trying to take on too much.”

But I’ve been a little surprised. Because now I do have the Google My Business, and I’ve been pushing for reviews. We only have 19, but they’re 19 five-star reviews right now. So it’s pretty decent.

Stephanie: Coming in. I checked before our call, and you’re doing a great job there. And just continually pushing any former clients, any current clients, getting character reviews. Since you guys are so entrenched in the community, anybody who just knows that you guys are good people, that’s a really great avenue. But you’re doing really good, considering you just got the Google My Business, so I love to see that. That’s gonna really help.

Anastasia: Yeah, that’s great. But on our website, we have the ZenMaid booking form, which we don’t do as an automatic booking. We do it as a request for estimate, and they get their little price on the form, which we put a disclaimer at the top, “This is a ballpark figure. We’ll come out and assess and give you your customized estimate.”

But I’ve wondered—that form is based on our new $70 an hour rate. And the prices still look so high to me because I wasn’t used to those figures, and what I would relate to this size house or that size house. So I’ve feared that maybe we took it too high. And now people can see the price without ever talking to us. And maybe that’s making it harder, I don’t know, because all of that is new from the way we did it before.

So I’ve been surprised that we haven’t gotten more leads recently. We got one lead that I actually turned down. It was one of the first ones I’ve turned down because we decided to make a minimum, 1200 square feet. And it was a lady with a really tiny place. I ended up going out because she lied. I think people do that a lot on the forms, but I think she said it was a little bit bigger than it was, but it was just tiny, and it was a little bit of a nightmare.

So I actually put into practice turning something down instead of taking every job that comes your way, which was very uncomfortable, especially in person, but she got a little perturbed. But I’m feeling a little anxious that we haven’t gotten more leads than we have.

I did just put an ad on Nextdoor. Are you familiar with that? They have it like everywhere, which seems to be really big around here. And I’ve actually gotten previous customers off of there, just from people talking to each other, so I ran an ad with them recently, so we’ll see how that goes.

But when we’re having trouble filling just two little spots ourselves, and then we’re thinking about expanding and needing to fill a lot of spots for employees, I’m like, “Well, gosh, I don’t know.” This time of year is when things start to pick up, spring and people are looking into that again. So I’m feeling a little bit nervous about that—about the reality of if we had already hired people and then we couldn’t get them work.

Website Improvements for Better Lead Generation

Stephanie: I totally understand. So I’ll make some suggestions based off what you just described. And I have your website pulled up. One thing I’ve mentioned before—I love your branding. For you guys who haven’t seen her website, or even your email signature, it’s like this ethereal, lavender color, and you just look like this fairy princess or something. It’s very pretty. I love your branding. It’s gorgeous. And very cottage core, calming. And your voice—gosh, you should do audio books! So your vibe is very much congruent with your branding, which is excellent.

So when I look at your website: number one, let’s talk about the booking form having pricing. Absolutely I would turn that off. I would turn that off because I think that what is happening when you’re saying you’re not getting leads, they’re probably getting to the website, they’re getting sticker shock, and you’re not capturing that email. We want them filling out the form so that we can actually sell to them. We can pursue them. We can do our follow up.

And if they’re seeing that price and getting scared, because that’s what happens with sticker shock, then you’re not having an opportunity to actually explain why what makes us different, and get them into your lead funnel. So the first order of events, I would say, is to turn off the pricing on the booking forms. This is basically just an intake form. And then at least you have their email and phone so you can pursue them.

Improving Website Design and Call to Action

Stephanie: Number two, I think that the website is pretty but when I first see it (above the fold), there is no clear call to action. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing, because it’s just this pretty picture of the lavender. It has your tagline, “Ecolux House Cleaning Services in Bellingham, Washington.” And I don’t know what I should do. There’s nothing enticing me. There’s nothing pulling me.

So I really think that you should have a very clear call to action here, which is “Get Your Free Estimate.” Even your top navigation bar doesn’t have a Get a Quote button or anything. You have Home, About, Services, Gallery, there’s a Contact button, but there’s no Get a Quote button. So even if I wanted to click, I’m not sure where to click in order to get a quote.

So I think that what people see right when your website loads, that’s super important. Scrolling down on the homepage, I like your little slogan. You’ve got some social proof in the form of testimonials. What you don’t have is you anywhere, so you need to be on that homepage, and your origin story is what’s going to sell.

Adding Personal Connection Through Video

Stephanie: And this is what I encourage us all to do, is really explore what our unique perspective is. The story you just told me at the beginning of this call—that is fascinating. It makes you unique, and it makes you understand and have empathy towards your clients. It’s going to make them feel heard. It’s going to make them connect to you.

So if you can—I mean, look at this, you’re doing this podcast right now—so if you can just record a quick “about us,” what they can expect. You put that right there on the homepage, that’s going to do things that your competitors are not doing. Because I’m just not feeling anything from the homepage, and it’s not really clear how you’re going to solve my pain.

So I think of this as a lot of copywriting things—it’s very pretty, I love the branding colors. I think that this is simply that there’s no strong call to action, and there’s no strong emotional response from the website visitor. So those were the things that I think you should really focus on for the homepage.

Website Structure Improvements

Stephanie: You have your core values, which is awesome. You have the difference, but I have to scroll down pretty far on the page to get to it. People don’t really like to do that—we need to think they have the worst attention spans ever.

The photos you do have are very beautiful. Even on your About Us page, when I click on that, I see a story, but further down. Gosh, you’re so pretty. You just look like an angel on this website. So your photo is further down. I would almost put that towards the top of the page, because I’m like, “Oh, this is here. I just had to really kind of search for it.”

From a services perspective, I love that you have all of your list there, which is great. You have some photos. So overall, the website really is pretty. I would just really hone in on video content. And if you can get any video reviews, as I mentioned, from your clients, get those on your Google My Business. You are going to start seeing a lot more leads, a lot more leads. Those things will sell like hotcakes.

As well as getting those on the homepage. Honestly, if you could get like three video testimonials from clients who have used you for years, and put those right when your website loads right under there, I think you’re gonna immediately start seeing more leads come in.

Strategic Approaches to Hiring and Growth

Stephanie: So I think those are super low-hanging fruits of why leads are not coming in. That’s the stop gap that’s happening right now. And I think if you solve those, it’ll help. And then you can wait-list. Like you said, you guys have had a successful go at wait-listing. And I think wait-listing is such a wonderful tool, because then you slowly bring people on, and you just trickle them a little more work as they prove themselves, and things just very gradually get better for you.

My biggest mistake is when I would hire somebody, and then I would give them a full schedule, and then they would ghost me. And it would just be the nightmare. So very slowly, like when you hire them, explaining, “This is a part-time role that can go up to full-time, as we see how things go.” So never hiring anybody who needs full-time in the beginning. Like, don’t even consider them. If you like them, put them on your list. Maybe in a year you’re ready to hire full-time. You’re not going to want to do that for a long time. This is going to help you protect yourself from all of the problems. Do those suggestions make sense?

Anastasia: Oh, yeah. And I’ve heard you say that before, and was definitely planning to go that direction. One of the things I was still debating when we hire is whether we hire two people or four people, because like I said, we’re trying to put them in pairs, because that’s how we like to clean and kind of how we know how to train—to divvy up the work and everything.

But I thought, “Well, if we hire four people and half of them fall off, then we still have a team.” But then if they all stay, I have to get work for two teams. So I’m still trying to figure out what’s the best way to go there, but if we only hired two people and they both fall off, then we start all over again.

Team Vs. Individual Cleaning Approach

Stephanie: Well, what you could definitely consider starting out with is preparing to have individual cleaners with the goal of working towards teams. I think that in this situation of trying to get enough—even if I needed to fill a team, like a part-time team schedule, it’s twice as many man hours, right? So that’s a lot more pressure to get two people consistent work compared to one.

And also that issue you had where your previous cleaner quit and the other one was like, “I didn’t sign up for this.” That’s going to happen occasionally. You’re always going to have one person quit at a time, leaving the other. If they’re expecting to work as teams, how are they going to be satisfied? Then you risk losing that other person because they feel overworked.

They’re not overworked. They’re working the same amount of hours. We just—it’s frankly, they’re used to working on a team, and so it feels like more, even though it’s not. You’re just giving them less houses.

I’ll let you know we run individual cleaners. And I know a lot of people love running teams, and there’s so many benefits to it. I’m not suggesting you not run teams. I think it’s making sure to communicate that sometimes they may have to clean houses by themselves. “We as a business run as teams, but it is the expectation that you may sometimes have to individually clean. You just clean half the number of houses.”

Benefits of Individual Cleaning

Stephanie: Most of our staff do two houses in a day. And they actually really like cleaning individually, because they don’t have to deal with anybody else. The accountability is there. But again, there’s so many ways to skin the cat of how many people we run. And you get some women in a room together, and things can go awry.

So we avoid a lot of drama, because there’s no finger pointing, there’s no issues, there’s no people getting on each other’s nerves, because the only time they’re working together is on first-time cleans or move-outs. So it really helps avoid a lot of the issues that we get from a frankly mostly female crew. Not saying the boys can’t be horrific too and drama queens, because I’ve had that as well.

But that could be something you consider—well, how do you train them? They all know how to clean the rooms. It’s just what order do we do things in, and that type of stuff. So maybe that would be a solution you could explore just in the meantime, while you’re getting going, until you have this kind of established flow.

Anastasia: That makes sense. I mean, I worked by myself for the first two years. And sometimes I liked it, but sometimes it felt so overwhelming to walk into a larger house and go, “Oh my gosh.” So when my husband joined me, it was like, “Oh, wow, this feels like such a relief,” even though we took on one more house a day.

I used to clean two by myself, and then we would go up to three, sometimes four, if they were smaller. But it would be the same hours in a day. But it would feel like such a relief, because it’s not all on me. So I just wanted to carry that forward—new people feel so overwhelmed.

Operational Considerations for Teams vs Individuals

Stephanie: You could tag them onto a team, as we mentioned—they train with teams and then give them smaller houses and kind of build them up. Sometimes they run a team, sometimes they don’t. That can work as well. That is how we do it. Sometimes they’re team cleaning, sometimes they’re individual.

I will note what you just said—you guys went from you doing two houses a day to doing three as a team. That means that individual cleaners in that system would each be available for two houses, but together do three—you’re missing out on an entire house that day because you’re not running individuals, because they both could have done two houses or together do three. That’s less money. So that could be something to consider as well.

I mean, it also depends on the size of the house. We’ve had some houses where it’s they got one house a day, because it’s a mansion, and this is what you’re doing today. But when we’re not paying hourly—that is the most financially profitable situation, when you’re in one house all day because it’s so big, or one facility.

But just some things to keep in mind—I think being flexible on the expectations, and then they’re not going to have this unrealistic expectation when their teammate quits or calls in sick, which is probably going to be the more likely situation. How do we handle call-outs if we run teams? How is that going to happen? Something to consider for sure.

So let’s see—any other glaring questions that you feel are “I don’t know how to handle this part”?

Anastasia: I don’t think so. I think that’s the core of it.

Final Encouragement and Advice

Stephanie: Well, and I mean, I’ve reiterated throughout this conversation—you guys know cleaning, you are truly experts at that aspect of it, which puts you in such a leg up compared to so many of our listeners who are just brand new at this in general and trying to hire for the first time, and haven’t put all this live work in.

So everybody listening, I hope that you guys are inspired by her, because truly, you guys have been very successful. You have run a successful cleaning company just without cleaners—just the two of you. So that’s pretty amazing. So you should be proud.

And I know it’s nerve-wracking, but at the same time, you just gotta bite the bullet and jump in. You’ve done so much toeing. Now it’s time to make the jump, and there’s going to be great people in Washington, right?

Anastasia: Wonderful. I appreciate your time today. This has been really great.

Stephanie: And like I said, you need to start getting video content out there for your business, because you’re such a calming presence. And your cat is fabulous too. But I think that I would trust you if I was in the market, I would trust you to handle it. You’ve got that vibe. So really utilize who you are and you’ve got something that your competitors don’t have, which is your personality and presence. So bring that to the forefront. Use what you got.

Anastasia: Thank you.

Stephanie: We will wrap it up then. Guys, leave a comment of any questions you had. Give her some props for coming on and joining me in this conversation. Hit that like, hit that subscribe, and we’ll see you in the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye!

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

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

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• ZenMaid
• Google My Business
• Gusto
• Nextdoor
• ChatGPT