Scaling a Cleaning Business as a Husband-and-Wife Team

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Introduction

Stephanie: Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean. And today’s fantastic guests are Anna and Stephen Rodriguez, a power couple out in Grand Junction, Colorado. They run Grand Junction Cleaning Services, and we actually met through my consulting services, and I just had to have them on the podcast for you guys because they are absolutely incredible, very inspirational. And I just love how they work together as a husband and wife team. And I want you guys to hear all about their inspiring story. So Anna and Stephen, thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate you guys agreeing.

Stephen: Yes, we love you Stephanie, so we’re big fans of yours. Thanks for having us on.

Stephanie: Thank you, absolutely, absolutely. Well, I’d love for you guys to give your background. Each of you, you both have very different backgrounds, and how this led to where you guys are today, and we’ll get into the fast growing company that you guys own. But tell us all about, well, how did you guys meet? We’d love to hear that. And then, how has your lives transpired to bring you here?

How They Met and Their Journey to Colorado

Stephen: Well, I could tell us how we met. So we each have different versions of the story of when did the first date begin. So we won’t bore you with all those details, but I was working in my corporate job, and this was 18 years ago I think. And I was working in a mall in Southern California, and the restroom was very far from where I was working, so I would have to run essentially to the restroom. And there was a certain kiosk that I would run by that had this beautiful woman in there that caught my eye. So I’d run past the kiosk to the restroom, and I’d stroll back on the way back, look real cool. Yeah, try to recover from running in my suit. But yeah, so we met and got married. We’ve been married for 18 years now. So this must have been 19 or 20 years ago when we first met. And so we moved from Southern California to western Colorado about maybe seven or eight years ago. I had at that time was with the corporate job, and I had a transfer that I had put in, and so that’s how we ended up in western Colorado. As far as our background, you want to share a little bit about your background?

Anna: Yeah, sure. So as soon as we got married, we had kids right away, and I had my teaching degree, but since I had kids, we decided that I would stay home with the kids and raise them, and I homeschooled them exclusively for 12 years. So shout out to all the homeschooling moms that are cleaning. It’s hard work, but we do what we have to do for our family. But so I was just homeschooling. I was stay at home mom, wife, homeschooler, and that’s what I did. And in 2020, COVID hit, and shortly after that, one of my homeschool friends, she told me that she was cleaning on the side, and I was really interested. And I told her, I said, hey, if you ever need help cleaning I’m available. I would love to do it. And she actually called me a couple months later and said, hey, I have a clean that takes too long to clean by myself. Do you want to split it with me, and then that way we can still go home in the morning, because we would do it really early, and then go home and homeschool our kids. And I did that with her for at least a year, and I loved it. I was just really interested in cleaning, and I was watching just cleaning videos on my own time, because it was just so much fun. I enjoy helping people, and that was really right up my alley, and I just loved it. So that’s how I got into cleaning. And then shortly after that, the client had asked if I would take on more clients because she had friends, she was in the medical field, and she had friends asking her who her cleaner was. So my friend didn’t want to take on any more cleans. So I took on the cleans, and that’s kind of how it blew up. Everybody was just sharing with, you know, who their cleaner was, and then that’s how I got to cleaning more houses.

Balancing Homeschooling and Cleaning

Stephanie: How did you balance that with the homeschooling, bringing on these other clientele? Because I’m sure it was kind of at odds with your responsibilities at home. So how did you guys handle that?

Anna: Well, some of our kids were older. You know, when it comes to the younger kids, you don’t really need to be homeschooling them the same way as in the public school. They’re there from probably eight or nine to two or three. And when you’re homeschooling, you don’t need all that time, because a lot of it is just standing in line, you know, going here and there, waiting for kids to finish work. But with homeschooling, they can get their stuff done in an hour or two. So I would schedule cleans based on, you know, my schedule, and it worked for us, for our schedule. And the older kids, they were doing a hybrid. So they were homeschooling at home, but they were also taking a couple classes at our local charter school twice a week. So I was in charge, and this is when they got older. My two older ones, they were in junior high. That’s when I started cleaning. And so they were, we’re teaching them to be more independent. So I would come and check their work, make sure they’re doing it. And so that’s how I balanced it. It was I was scheduling in the morning and be done by 12 or one.

Stephen: And one of the nice things too about cleaning was that she could schedule her clients around her. So I mean, and that’s one of the beautiful aspects. She didn’t mention this, but when you know she had around 2020 that she was going to get back into the workforce, had a degree and then had interviewed for other jobs and didn’t do so well, and kind of got discouraged, and then that’s when, you know, of course, that now is a, that was a blessing in disguise, because that’s how she ended up getting into the cleaning business. And so, yeah, scheduling was definitely something that was a pro for that.

Stephanie: I’m so glad that you guys brought, well that up literally, but also the kind of meta of it all is, is the point being, is so many times when we’re disappointed because the thing we think we want doesn’t work out. But looking back, how many times are we so glad that the thing we really wanted at that time did not work totally, exactly?

Stephen: Yeah, I’m a big believer in the blessing in disguise. So things happen, and you’re like, I’m sure this is a blessing in disguise, and a few years from now, it’ll become clear, I hope.

Stephanie: Absolutely, if not for the lesson that we learned from it, absolutely. And I also love that you highlighted just how difficult it is for parents, and a lot of times mothers to find a workplace that is actually going to work with the family, right? And that’s one of the biggest things that we can offer our staff now, being that most of them are mothers, is that flexibility that you guys were seeking out within the cleaning business. So love that. When it comes to actually growing and this, I guess a lot of times when people open cleaning businesses, they don’t really see it as a big, serious thing. They have no idea what it’s going to become, right? I’m sure you guys had no idea what it was going to become. Do you remember a turning point for both of you, where it’s like, oh, this could actually be a thing. It’s not just work for me. Where was that point? If there was a point?

Stephen’s Background and The Turning Point

Stephen: Well that I think that segues kind of perfectly to my background. So I was in the corporate world for 20 years, and I led teams. I had teams as high as 500 people that reported to me. I led 60 million in annual sales. And so hiring, you know, building systems and processes and marketing, that was all stuff that I did day in and day out for years. And so when Anna got involved with the cleaning business, initially it was just nice having some extra income, right? You know, she was her cleaning, we call her cleaning money, you know what I mean. And she would just buy, it’s your cleaning money. No, buy whatever you want, right? And so then, as I saw, we’d be out and about, and people would come up to, oh, I heard you cleaner, you know. And 100% of our business in the beginning was all referrals, right? So we had commercial accounts approach her. We had individuals approach. And so that’s for me, when I started to see, this could actually be something bigger. So I did my own market analysis on our county, where we live, to see, because candidly, I worked when I was a consultant for a corporate consultant for seven years. So I knew a lot about the grocery industry, the fast casual industry. I worked a lot with hotels, and so I knew those type of industries, but I candidly, I didn’t know anything about the cleaning industry. And so I began, as you know, I was curious about, how many people get cleanings every, you know, month? How much money is spent on cleaning? What percentage of households, what percentage of businesses? So I started crunching the numbers, and as I started running the numbers, that’s when the light bulb really went off for me, or I should say, went on. I guess in our area, right from our county, has 160,000 individuals people, and it has 70,000 households. So national average, 10% of households get cleaning, which I actually think the number should be higher than that, because it’s a service that people really value and benefit from. But the national average is 10%. And if you know, the national spend per month is, it’s way below what our actual spend per month is. Our actual spend per month is maybe three to $400 per household. But I think the national somewhere between 175 or 200, that’s, I mean, at least when we were doing the research, that’s where the numbers were. And so I did the math. And long story short, people are spending about $2 million a month on cleaning in our county, and that doesn’t include carpet cleaning, power washing and some of the other types of specialty cleaning out there. And so I had a conversation with Anna, and I’m like, this actually could be something big. And I didn’t love my corporate job, you know? I just, I was grateful to have a high paying job, and so I very, was very careful, but at the same token, it wasn’t something that I love, so I was always looking for a side hustle. And so when this came along, that’s where I started telling Anna, I think we could have something big here, a big opportunity.

Stephanie: That is, I think a lot of people have that kind of a light bulb moment of, of whether it’s just high demand and also the different types of opportunities that come. Because I can relate to that, of I never envisioned having commercial, that when I first opened, that wasn’t my goal. But then commercials started calling, right, because, for a variety of reasons, just like you growing through that word of mouth and the referrals. Well, people work at commercial accounts, right? And vice versa. Actually, we just got a residential lead because she goes to the church that we clean, right? And we do a great job at the church. So residential and commercial, they can fuel each other, right? And get leads from each. So I love that you guys highlighted the fact that one, it is all word of mouth and referrals. And I’m sure quality was fantastic when it was Anna doing all of the cleanings. And of course, that’s one of the biggest struggles as we bring staff on. But that’s why it can be really a bit of a wildfire in the beginning for a lot of people, because you’re doing great work, you care more than anybody else is ever going to care. So you’re going above and beyond, right? So it just culminates so quickly. So, you know, I know you guys are three and a half years in now, so very young, still in business. When did you, Stephen, make the decision to, and I know the story, but I want you to share with the listeners, when did you guys make that decision of, oh, this could be both of us working together. And what were you? And I would also like to now define your current roles together in the business.

Making the Decision to Go All In

Stephen: Sure, I would say early 2024 is when I started really getting involved with the cleaning business myself, and we hired our first person in 2024. And the story, I mean, it’s interesting too, because I’ve listened to a lot of your podcasts, but I had never listened to the first one that you ever did. I just yesterday I listened to your first podcast. And so some of those stories I had never heard before, about the first person that you hired, you know, and about, and also some of the other things, that the name of your original business was Blackberry Falls.

Stephanie: Cleaning Services. Yeah, really rolls off the tongue.

Stephen: So, I, you know, I write about that in one of the programs I do about how we came up with our name, because we’re Grand Junction Cleaning Services. We actually had a different name when we first started. It was Our Cleaning, which was Anna’s residential cleaning company, so that was our first name. But then we ranked 18 or something.

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s the thing doing it in the town. It’s great if that’s the town you’re going to be in, because yeah, SEO was so easy because it was literally in the name.

Stephen: Yeah, exactly. As soon as we changed our name, we ranked third. I mean, we almost did virtually nothing. But so for me, hiring was something I had done for many, many years. So that was kind of a no brainer. I’ll say, we got to hire somebody now. We got to hire the right person. And so we were very detailed. We had a great first hire, but we went through a lot of candidates, right? And so I scheduled interviews and just we went through a lot of folks, and I used some of my experience in my background in hiring people, because I knew how important it was to get the right person, especially that first person that can make or break, I think in many ways, of business. I mean, it sounded like you had a bad experience with your first hire. And I think that’s probably pretty common. You made it think about that. So I mean, but it is a great learning experience too. But I can say we definitely didn’t want that. And to your previous point about ownership, if we could get somebody that will have 90% of the ownership that we have, I mean, that’s a huge win, right? So, I mean, it’s unrealistic to think I want to bring somebody in that they’re going to love and care about this business as much as I do. They’re going to dedicate all the hours I do, they’re going to bleed, you know, cleaning. It’s just not the reality. So, but we had a great first hire. I do think we have an interesting story to share too, and I’ll let Anna share about when we first decided to make that first hire.

Anna’s Resistance to Hiring

Anna: He told me, hey, I think it’s time to hire someone. And I fought it tooth and nail for months. I really didn’t want to. I thought, what if, you know, we don’t make any money, you know. And I was just really nervous. I didn’t know how to hire. I mean, I know he did, but I didn’t know how to manage people. I didn’t know, you know, I think I’m the kind that, you know, kind of looks into the future and I don’t know all these things. I don’t know how, you know, the payroll, I don’t know how to do the taxes. And I think that kind of stops me, you know, from moving forward. And you know, it’s just easier to be a solo cleaner. It is easier. It’s much simpler.

Stephanie: It really is simpler, of course, the income level, you know. And it’s not just, I know solo cleaners who make great money, you know what I mean. And I’m sure you are making good money too. But then it’s just, okay, you’re, that’s what you’re doing, is cleaning, and your body is going to feel the effects and all these things.

Stephen: The fatigue, yeah, the wear and tear, you know? And so I think, yeah, we finally came to the point to where I said, because, you know, I want her to be bought in. It’s important for her to see the vision. I lost a lot of sleep, but at one point I say, we’re hiring somebody. And everything she can’t, I came in the next morning. I slept like a baby. I came in the next morning, and I could see the bags underneath her eyes. I was like, are you okay? And she was crying. She did not sleep a wink. And I was like, what’s going on, you know? And she was like, I think for her, the thought is, we are going to have somebody that’s depending on us, right. We’re going to have somebody whose livelihood is going to be dependent on us. We’re going to have their salary, their family, everything’s depending on us, giving them work. So, and I could respect that obviously, what if I don’t have enough hours for her? I mean, there was a lot that went into it. There was also the whole, how do you pay, these state taxes, FICA taxes. We don’t outsource our payroll. We do it ourselves. But there’s, that’s a very big learning curve to that. You can hire companies to do, as you know, right? You can hire companies to do payroll for you, and they charge you 30% or whatever. And I’ve worked with companies in the past, but I rather pay 15% less and do it. But you know, there’s, you know, the fear of the learning curve, the fear of being responsible for someone’s livelihood. So we hired our first person, and I mean, we went through quite a few people. I don’t know how many people we went through before we decided that person is still with us today. By six months, we had 10 people. Yes, we hired 10 people. Once you know, once you kind of get the system up and running, and you start to really, it’s like a well oiled machine, you just start feeding it, right? There’s, I mean, I don’t want to oversimplify it, obviously, but, I mean, there’s a lot to it. But once you get those systems and processes in place, it just becomes a matter of capacity for all the, I mean, we, in our, after our first hire, I think in eight months, we made $400,000 as a business in revenue. And so, but with that we had, we had to turn clients away. I mean, there were times where we just didn’t have enough people to meet that demand. There’s times we have to turn leads down, right. And so, I mean, we could chat about that. Our reviews were a big part of that. Our quality control was another, you know, big part of that. But, but I would say that’s kind of how it began.

Rapid Growth and Staffing Structure

Stephanie: Okay, well, we’ll double click into all of these. As my software bro buddies like to say, let’s double click into that. If Amar’s listening, the CEO ZenMaid, he’s gonna chuckle, calling him out right now. So I yeah, I want to talk about a lot of things that you just mentioned, because I think we need to dive a little bit into that first time period where you went from zero to 10 employees. Number one, just some quick facts. Were these all part timers, some full time? What did that look like?

Stephen: Yeah, great questions. So just off the bat, we’re not big advocates of 1099s. We do know that there are companies that can do that. When I look at the IRS requirements for that, and so I won’t name the companies here, but I just look at the history of some big companies that have gotten in a lot of trouble for misusing the 1099 program. I mean, there are ways around it, where you can, quote unquote, rent them their equipment, but you have to know what you’re doing, right? And so for us, the risks were too big. You know, I’m a big, my big thing is, even when, I mean, she had been cleaning since COVID, but when we finally did our LLC was 2022 or something like that. But I told her, I just don’t want people coming after our 401K, after our house. I just want, because I’ve been involved with lawsuits in my previous role, a number of times. I’ve sat in the courtrooms and I’ve seen the frivolous. So our big thing is risk, right? So for me, I said, you know what? I didn’t want to do 1099. I will say candidly that we did have to do it for a few weeks while we were getting everything set. Sometimes you have to do that, right? So, but it wasn’t a long term thing. So our employees are, they’re all W2.

Stephanie: I know how I feel about that. I’m in the same boat. And I think so many people think 1099 is easier. It’s easier day one, it is not easier day 90, day, you know, because you’re going to have to, just the rules are so hard to actually legally follow, because no matter what, we all want to treat them like employees, because we want the control of an employer to an employee. So whether you call them what you call them, the IRS doesn’t care what you call them. They are what they are, yeah.

Stephen: So I mean, again, and I do know that you’ve had guests that do 1099 and there’s companies that do 1099, so I’m not saying it’s the only way, but you got to understand the risks. You have to manage the risks. So we do W2 employees, you know, full time cleaners. We have people that apologize, I want to be, I want to do 40 hours a week clean. I tell, 40 hours a week cleaning is a lot. It’s a lot on your body, right? So, so we don’t, I mean, we have, what we, so we have our levels. We call our cleaners a detailed cleaning specialist, right? That’s what the bottom level cleaners call. And then we have a trainer, right? That’s the next level up. And then the level after that, we would call them quality supervisors. So it’s supervisor, and then it would be manager, and so forth. So it just comes with pay increases. It doesn’t come with, you know, 40 hours per week, right? So that’s just, again, that’s how we choose to do our structures. Not saying it has to be that way for everybody, but I would say we count 35 hours a week really as full time.

Stephanie: Yeah, ours is 30. If you’re over 30 hours, you’re technically, for us, categorically, full time.

Stephen: And we tell them too, we hired, your hands are gonna hurt, you know, you’re gonna come to me after the first week and say, you know, and your body will adapt. Okay? It’s not, you know, just don’t quit after the first week, right? Because, just give it some time. So, but cleaning, it is, I mean, it is very physically. It’s why we have such appreciation and respect for our cleaners, because they really are the backbone of our business, and so we want to make sure that they’re taken care of, that they’re appreciated. That’s a big part of what we do. But yeah, to answer your question, we do all W2s.

Stephanie: Love that, love that. And also it’s great that, you know Anna, you have this, you know, background of cleaning, and they know that. I think that’s definitely my philosophy is, you know, all my managers, they’ve been cleaners. I love that your guys’ hierarchy requires them to be cleaners before they can move up the ranks. I think that is well respected from techs to know that the boss is very willing and able to jump in. Maybe they don’t have to do it anymore, but they are willing to do so from a respect standpoint.

Anna: And you know, the cleaners, when I do have to come in and jump in on a job and help them, they actually really enjoy that. They’re always, hey, you’re here.

Stephen: Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, I think it’s part of, to your point, it’s good to see your face on the job site. It’s good to connect with customers. I’m in a lot of cleans myself personally. And so, you know, it’s the big thing, leading by example, right? And so probably just that, in the past, you’ve got to, you know, you’ve got to earn the buy in of your team. And so, and there’s also times where we’re cleaning because we have to, because we’re short staffed, or whatever, right? So we don’t love that, you know, being in that state, but it’s just the reality of running any type of business. Absolutely. Staffing is always going to be top of the problem. We could triple click into that one if you want to.

Anna: He’s really, he’s really good about, you know, saying, hey, I think it’s time we hire more people. I think we’re going to be busy. So well, yeah, take it from him. If we need to hire, then go ahead. So that’s, I mean, worry about giving them hours too.

Division of Labor Between Stephen and Anna

Stephen: But, yeah, no. So, because she brought staffing up, I’ll tell you. So I own advertising. So in our partnership, right? I own advertising, hiring, staffing. I oversee all of carpet cleaning. I own a lot of the back end when it comes to the books, except for QuickBooks. She, that she owns QuickBooks, quality control, QuickBooks, on the job type of work, field management. Basically, I’m sometimes scheduling. She owns everything in ZenMaid, right? I mean, I pray she never passes, because ZenMaid, yeah, I would have to get trained on ZenMaid. So I said, you own that 100%. And so sometimes I’m the big guns, if I have to fire cleaners, you know, or write them up, and I, you know, make sure you know that we’re following the correct process. Or even with hiring too, there’s protected classes, and state, federally protected classes. So, you know, you can’t. It’s funny because some of the times where she sat in with me on interviews early, she’s like, well, you know, they’re pregnant, I don’t think maybe we should. And I’m like, well, we can’t not hire. Exactly. I’m like, you know what, dear, I’ll handle.

Anna: I don’t know what I can, I cannot say. Yeah. So he does.

Stephen: So I teach her about that later. So it looks like you had a thought.

Legal Compliance and Understanding the Law

Stephanie: Well, I was just listening to Alex Hormozi’s 26 lessons for 2025 video earlier today, while I was walking Lily. And one of his comments was he had eight lawsuits that were happening in 2025. And one of the things that struck me that he said was, you know, ignorance of the law doesn’t mean we’re not going to be held accountable to the law. And I think that, I like what you just said, Anna, of, I didn’t know that that was illegal or that was discriminatory. And that’s exactly what every single person listening right now, there are things you do not know, and it’s our responsibility to know them as the business owner, which can be really frustrating. Sometimes I’ve absolutely ran into troubles because I was ignorant about laws or regulations, but that it’s still my responsibility to know that, right? And you learn them, you certainly learn. Same with OSHA, for example, OSHA compliance, right? I didn’t know the first thing about that, until I got reported by some employee for violating OSHA, and so I learned real quick. But I’m glad that you brought that up, because it just really highlights of, we unfortunately, and me saying that, I’m sure can be very overwhelming to our listeners, of, oh, I gotta be an expert on law as well. It’s like, no, I’m not saying that, but we need to go into those things. So how did you guys, I mean, was that kind of in your mind, your responsibility, Stephen, of, I need to understand regulatory practices and things like that?

Stephen: Well, both really. So I wanted to make sure she knew what she can and can’t say. Again, this is where my previous background came into play quite a bit. I’ve said, I’ve sat across the table from litigators, from judges, having to explain why I fired somebody, or why we, you know, there was an injury to a client, or, you know, there’s been a number of those cases where I’ve actually, and, you know, in the corporate world that we had legal, a team of lawyers that I would consult with, and they would tell me, you can’t say this, you know, you can’t say that. And so, I mean, this happened a number of times. It’s just the, it’s just the world we live in. And so over time, you learn, you’re just like, okay, I can’t, you know, there was formal, I mean, I’m not a lawyer, okay? But I had formalized training in the process about, here’s the things you can do this. I mean, so it shows up in many aspects. My advice to somebody out there, I think you hit the nail right on the head. Ignorance is not, I mean, the judges, oh, you didn’t know.

Stephanie: Okay, you didn’t know the law. Yeah, just when I get pulled over for speeding, and I was like, I didn’t know it was 55 officer, they give a shit.

Stephen: Yeah, you know, tell the judge. So it’s, yeah, you have to know. And if you don’t know, then you need to get coaching from somebody, or get consulting, or, you know, do a Google search, you know, or actually hire a lawyer. We have a lawyer that we work with on cases that are really for employee, you know, employee related cases. So get an attorney, you know, ask them the questions, right? We have our employee handbook that’s been reviewed by an attorney, right? Because, so that’s a big piece to running a business. It’s the not exciting part of running.

Stephanie: That’s sexy, and that’s the stuff that’ll bring you down 100%. And, and also, not even what you’re doing wrong, but people are going to try to take advantage. You know, I’ve had plenty of attempts of workers comp fraud, time theft. Also, you know when COVID was happening, COVID fraud, you know where they were trying to get the COVID wages or whatever. So it’s you run into new things, and it’s you can’t expect yourself to know everything. You’re not going to, because then you’re going to be paralyzed and not do anything, right? But just a lot of times, it’s before we act, do a quick Google search. Yeah, Google’s our friend. So is ChatGPT.

Stephen: Exactly right? There’s lots of AI, there’s Gemini, there’s everything else out there. So you know, although I will say the AI sometimes gives wrong advice. It’s something very wrong, yeah, so just be careful with that. It’s, where did you hear that? Well, ChatGPT said, I’m like, really, no, we can’t do that, you know? So, yeah. So that was, I own those pieces right now. And so my, I mean, a big my approach really, when I think about developing people like Anna, and I think this is the career path for me in the, from what I’ve seen in the cleaning, we have a term called career path in the corporate world, it’s which path did you take to get to the leadership position, right? And so in the cleaning business, a lot of times, the career path is from solo cleaner all the way up to cleaning business owner. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but rarely do you see somebody as a marketing, you know, they ran a marketing firm, then they decided to start a cleaning business, you know. So it can happen, but typically it’s coming from the solo cleaning. And so there’s just so much to running a business that you just don’t know, right? So for me, I think, I want, I don’t just want to own it and tell Anna the Cliff Notes. I want her also to understand what we’re doing. God forbid, if I should pass away, or something, so there’s been times where, okay, we’re gonna have to fire this cleaner. You’re gonna fire. She’s like, oh, I really don’t want to do. And this is what you’re gonna say, you know. So a lot of times, you know, that’s, and I’ll ask her to, what do you think is the correct approach in this situation, right? So my approach really is to help develop her as well. So, and I think she’s been out of her comfort zone for probably two years straight. So, you know, God, I wanted to quit several times, but she didn’t have anybody to quit to. So it’s, well, you’re the owner. Who you gonna call to quit? To you, yeah.

Anna: So, yeah, let me quit. Yeah, no, but I’m good now.

Working Together as a Couple

Stephanie: I’m sure. But just even having each other for that encouragement, I think that is something really beautiful and unique, obviously, working with your partner or friends or anything, there’s a lot of challenges and most, a lot of failures related to that. So it’s really cool to see that you guys have been able to, and obviously you have a very long marriage, very successful marriage, so I’m sure that has contributed greatly to the success is that you guys make a great team. I would imagine. Is there any times where there was decisions in the business where you guys were like, no, or was it, I’m deferring to you because that’s your area. Or what has that been like when you have had disagreements?

Anna: We’ve never fought once? Have we fought? You know anybody out there that, you know, they’re a team, a couple team, there’s gonna be disagreements.

Stephen: Yeah, you’re gonna, yeah, not agree on, you work with your with your beautiful wife all day and all evening, there’s gonna be a time or two where you have a different opinion. And I would say, I mean, that’s one of the things that we actually wrote down, because we didn’t want to come on and make this, oh, everything’s perfect, right? No, I think especially in the beginning before, I mean, the best advice that I would give to somebody, the things that have worked for us, and number one, have clearly defined roles. Number two, have a mentor that is not your spouse. That’s probably one of the best things, because I have my ideas and I have my experience, but she doesn’t always want to hear from me, right? So that’s why I say, well, what does Stephanie say? I mean, she says the exact same thing. It’s like, oh, Stephanie is a genius. So, so that’s why I say, yeah, but Stephanie knows. So have your own, you know, have somebody that you coach with, that you consult with, that you could take, you know, you could take advice from that you can sound off. Because even if what I’m saying is right, it’s not always necessarily delivered in the best way, or it’s not, it’s just she doesn’t want to hear it from me. Now she’s.

Stephanie: So funny. I’ve definitely had partners where they’re like, if I tell you the thing, you don’t listen, but if anybody else does, you know, I’m like, I don’t know what it is about that dynamic that I don’t want to be told what to do.

Stephen: Exactly right? Yeah. So the other piece, and I touched on it, but I think it is definitely you have to divide the responsibilities up and then trust the other person. Anna is, I’m going to make my mistakes, and she’s going to make her mistakes, and that’s okay. You know, she did it differently than I would have done it in a particular situation. I mean, I think some of the experiences, because we put, you know, some of the cues that we’ve had here is about defensiveness, or dealing with customers, or doing employees too much, right? Some of those things, it’s, you know, I hear it and I’m myself, I wouldn’t handle it that way. And this is the reason why. Let’s see what, you know, let’s see how you do it, and then she’s gonna make a mistake. I mean, you want to share some of your thoughts about that?

Anna: Yeah. So, as he was saying, I do have this thing where I get defensive, and he’s told me that before, and you know, I don’t like hearing it, and especially from him, you know. So I have it in my mind, but you know, it’s kind of like a bad habit, you know? And you might, somebody might say something, and then, you know, I get defensive again with another customer.

Stephen: Defensive of, defensive of, I’d like to clarify. If a customer calls and says your cleaner didn’t do X, Y or Z, she’s quick to defend her cleaners.

Stephanie: Which makes sense. I mean, so one of your core values, I would imagine, is loyalty. I can just, I can feel that from you. And so the flip side to that is perhaps loyal to a fault, right?

Stephen: And that’s, you know, so, and I would say, if customers are going to dramatize, they didn’t do anything, they were there for hours. Sure they did. I’m sure they did something, you know. But I mean, I had to tell her, I was like, look, we don’t need to go through that. Just, what can you?

Anna: And he had to teach me exactly what to say. So, you know, if they start saying things, you know, they didn’t do a good job, they didn’t clean. Then he told me already to think about, what am I supposed to say? I’m sorry. What can we do to make it right? So I’m already thinking that in my head, instead of, you know, wanting to say what I really want to say, you know, or, you know, that your house was really dirty.

Stephen: Or, yeah, or we sent our best cleaner, or, you know, we’ve never had any complaints about, you know.

The Importance of Customer Service Recovery

Stephanie: All that stuff. It doesn’t matter to them. And I’m so glad you guys are giving specific examples right here, because the whole concept of, are we trying to be right, or are we trying to come to a solution, right? Because we probably are right in a lot of this. It doesn’t matter to that customer. And I have, we have the same thing happen, actually, while I was up in Wisconsin, where we had a customer, literally, I mean, she was near tears, shaking, she was so upset. And we knew that we were right in a lot. And I was just like, give her her money back. Blacklist it. She’s, we’re never working with her again, and just make her feel better right now, make it as painless as we can, despite her being right. It doesn’t matter.

Anna: And you know, he’ll want to give full refunds. And I’m like, no. And he’s like, no, do it. Just listen to me. Trust me. Trust me.

Stephen: I’ll just do it. We had over 125 star reviews in one year, right? Something like, I don’t know how many was, but that is. And the question I always say, and I think it’s important, your reviews matter, and they matter in a big way. There’s a great book. It’s called Absolute Value, and it talks about, back in the day, what determined customer loyalty and brand perception was based on big marketing departments, you know, the infomercials and everything else. Well nowadays, I don’t see very many of them, but every now and then, I’ll see an infomercial for, oh, that, you know, Slap Chop, or whatever, I don’t know. And it looks so cool. And then I go, and then I go to, yeah, ShamWow. And my son saw a Chia Pet. I was like, son, Chia Pets have been around since I’ve been a kid. But then I go and look at it on Amazon, and it’s got two stars, you know what I mean. And so the book Absolute Value talks about how the advent of reviews really changed, it changed marketing. It changed how customers perceive your brand. And now the power of your brand is determined by your reviews. And there’s a whole game to that, a whole system to that, is probably a better term. And so for me, when I think about reviews, especially in the industries that I was in, how much is a five star or a better question, how much is a one star review? If you have a one star review, and you have 25 reviews, you’re going to be at a 4.2 or whatever. It’s going to impact you. And the customers are going to, they’re going to read that one star review, right? And they’re going to think, oh, you know. So how much would you be willing to get rid of that? If you could pay, you can’t ethically pay to get rid of, but if you could pay to get rid of a one star, how much would it be worth your business? 500, 1000, 2000, at least the cost of that appointment that caused it.

Stephanie: That’s for sure.

Stephen: Exactly right, you know. And how many silent people that didn’t book you because they read that, you know? So it’s a compounding effect. So that’s why I tell Anna, let’s keep the bigger picture in mind. Here we have a whole, it’s called HAPPY, right? We have a recovery service model, H-A-P-P-Y. And I write about this, but the first really is make sure the customer feels heard. H is heard. The second one is apologize. You always, because sometimes we want to jump to just, okay, here’s your refund. And they’re like, I don’t care about the money.

Stephanie: You’re right. I’m so happy you’re talking about this, because it’s, they need to bitch. That’s what needs to happen right now. They need somebody to bitch to.

Stephen: Yeah, they need me to say, I’m so sorry. I understand. I’d be mad about that too. I can’t believe that happened. Let me look into that. You know, that doesn’t make sense, but I definitely understand your perspective. They need, you know, to feel validated. So we say heard, and second step is apologize. You know, apologize. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re owning everything. You just, I’m sorry you had this experience. Then the second P, we have is called pose the question. And the big question is, what can we do to make you happy? And then the third, the second P, which is fourth letter, is perform the reclaim. So it’s usually whatever they need, just perform it. And then the last, the Y is yield compensation. So if we have to, which might be partial refund, a couple hours off, it might be a full refund, it’s whatever is appropriate to that situation based on what’s sitting in front of you. And so you have to be willing just to let go of those things. And so for us, I mean, we have had customers that have called us many times that have said, I read all your reviews. They’re raving reviews. I don’t care how much you cost, you know. We just want, you know. We just want to book with you. We want that five star experience. So it’s, you know. They say no good deed goes unpunished, right? In other words, now you have to live with the expectations. You have to deliver on that five star experience. That’s almost more pressure. We saw a cleaning company the other day that was called Four Star. It’s in another state, Four Star Cleaning. And listen, they might be listening. They might be a great company. So I have nothing bad to say about them, but the name, when I was reading the room, I thought maybe that’s a lot less pressure because five star, we said we were four star, you know.

Stephanie: Pretty good. We are pretty good.

Stephen: I might even take some of the pressure off. So, but no, we have the pressure of building a five star brand and delivering on those expectations. But, I mean, we’ve booked a lot of deals, big deals and multi $1,000 residential cleanings, just because they saw we’re currently the highest rated cleaning company in our market right now, and we plan on keeping it that way.

The Power of Reviews and Marketing

Stephanie: So you know, that’s definitely been my experience too, and the one of my biggest regrets is not knowing how important reviews work, because I didn’t realize until a year in when I did hire a business coach, and they’re like, we got to get those numbers up. Those are baby numbers. And so then started hitting the reviews, and the immediate effect was absolutely shocking when it came to the demand and the readiness to buy, right? Because they’re like, I’ll have what he’s having, please. And they don’t care what the cost is, right? And that’s what, you can charge more when you have that social proof. And really, as a service based company, a local business like us, it really is everything. And so we don’t want to be afraid of a negative review. We have to be able to stand on business sometimes, if somebody is, you know, sometimes that does happen, right? It has, you know, we have, I think for us, we have 500 reviews, and we have, perhaps, two or three one stars, you know, some of them former employees, right? But point being is just, you know, but we’re, how can we just absolutely obliterate those small losses with so much positive? It doesn’t matter, because if you have perfect, it seems almost too good to be true and fake, right? So, but we’re trying to be as, you know, just sheer volume of reviews, it’s so important. And then I mean coming back to you guys’ pretty explosive and fast growth, zero to 10 employees very, very fast, right? Okay, how do we do that? We have to have high demand. So, yes, that was, would you say, if you could narrow it down to three things, what made that demand happen?

Stephen: Well, I write a lot about this in a program that I offer. So, you know, a lot of times when I was new to this, I thought, well, we need to do ads. You know, that’s the fifth step, or sixth step, right? First of all, you have to have quality in place. You have to have, I mean, before you decide to move forward, you have to have all your systems and quality in place, right, when you’re ready to start expanding. We did a lot of old fashioned door knocking in ours. We didn’t have the big budgets early on. So we would go door to door. We printed out some really, I mean, if you’re a professional company and you look professional, right? So we print out really nice trifold flyers on Canva. I designed them, and Anna had, you know, influence on them. And so we went door to door, we went business to business. And then as demand started growing, and we started to develop a budget, right, then we started to invest in advertising. And so, I mean, we had some weeks in the summer, we’re doing 14, $15,000 a week as a business, and we’re turning down two and $3,000 deals because we didn’t have the staffing for it.

Stephanie: Oh, I can relate to that. My entire year.

Stephen: So, so creating that demand, but it really, it starts with the right foundation. And I think that would be the big point that I would have, you know, I think it was Mark Twain said it was, it’s gradually and then suddenly. And so that’s really what you have to think about. You have to lay the right foundation. Again, we were 100% referrals. When you start getting to the point that you’re starting to get referrals, right? That’s when you start to, if you’re not getting any referrals, then you have to ask the question, well, why not? Why aren’t people referring me? Especially if you think about, because we started off at $25 an hour. That’s what Anna’s rate was. I’m not excited about that now. I really, it’s, I mean, $65 an hour or higher, right? We have things that we do that are definitely higher, and there are some low cleaning companies out there that do $75, $85, $100, you know, $125 an hour, right? So, but, you know, if you’re, if your rates are below market value, and you’re not getting referrals, then that’s where you need to problem solve first. You need to ask yourself, well, maybe you’re not asking for referrals, or maybe my cleanings aren’t as great as I think that they are. You know, maybe I don’t have a good process for following up with clients, you know. And so once you start getting to the point to where it’s people are starting to refer you, then that’s when I would say, you really just start, you know, start good old fashioned door knocking, going businesses. I sold vacuum cleaners door to door for three years. I used to be a Kirby salesman, and so that was one of the hardest jobs that I ever did.

Stephanie: Oh, I can’t imagine. I just cringe thinking about doing that job.

Stephen: I show up at your door and I have to convince you to let me in the house. You had to get five no’s. That was what we said. You get in after the fifth no. You say, oh, come on. I’m just trying to stay out of trouble. No, no, no, come on. Let me come in and do some free house cleaning. No, no, definitely not. I promise, you know, won’t be here very long, you know. So eventually, by the fifth no, people are like, okay, come on in, right? So, yeah, we learned some things about people when you door knock for that many, you know, for that many years. So I did old fashioned door knocking. And then the other thought too. And I know some of your guests have talked about this, but the world of advertising is massive. You can do, there’s two types of Google advertising, there’s Facebook, there’s billboards, there’s van wraps, there’s everything right. You can send out direct flyers, and you can waste money quickly and easily. So I would say you have to know how to advertise correctly. We found a system where we advertise, we use Local Services, Google Local Services, right? And we have experimented as well with Facebook, and we’ve also, Facebook is more kind of top of the funnel. They’re curious about it, window shopping.

Stephanie: Yep, you got to get them, you know, in the system, right?

Stephen: And then also just pure Google, you could go YouTube, Instagram, you can go just Google search, you know, but we like to do Google Local Services, and so those people are red hot. They’re searching for cleaning company near me, right? We also have relationships with a lot of the businesses in town, you know? We’ll set up brochures there with our trifold flyers, right? So I think it’s an everything approach, but really it just depends. And I think Hormozi says this, when you, if you’re a bad business, and you advertise, you will just multiply that. That’s not his exact words, you know. But if you have a good system and a good product to offer, advertising will multiply that. So it’s really about just thinking about, all my systems and processes in place. But what I would also caution is, don’t get analysis paralysis. So on the other side of the coin, it’s like, well, I’ve been working on getting all my systems and processes for two, three years. No, it shouldn’t take that long, right? So for us, when we finally got to the point to where, I mean literally, because Anna takes all the bookings. She’ll take the booking, she’ll do the calls. And so I’ve seen her book seven clients in an hour. I mean, the calls just, they’ve turned down leads before, you know. And that, oh, that always, you said cringe a minute ago. That makes me cringe, because, what is the demand? Where could we be at, right? And so this year, I mean, we really, we have a clear plan about hiring, plan about what we’re going to be doing to really maximize that. Because I told her this year, I don’t want to turn any clients away, you know what I mean, not because we couldn’t, not because of scheduling availability, yeah, capacity. So we’re really just, we’re in this season right now. There’s kind of a slower season. I’m sure it is for many cleaning companies, this December, January, you know, those are kind of slow, or we tried to have a slow week, you know, this week. It turned out to be a pretty big week, but, you know, so, but really, when it starts picking up as tax returns start coming in, you know, spring cleaning, everything like that, it’s, so we’re ready to just kind of ride the wave with that. So I would say, yeah, those are some of my kind of thoughts from a high level.

Learning Lessons and Growing Pains

Stephanie: For you, Anna, looking back and, you know, really opening this to both you guys, obviously, we’ve had a couple meetings together and we went over different situations and stuff where it was, you guys got to do this right? This needs to change. Looking back, do you have any moments that stand out where it was a huge learning lesson of, or, I don’t want to use the word regret, maybe, but you wish you would have acted sooner, whether that be a staffing situation, a customer situation? And the reason I ask you, Anna, is because you highlighted in the beginning of this conversation, anxiety and fear being a huge part of what held you back into hiring, right? So now, knowing that about you, looking back, do you feel like you have gotten a lot better in that area of just pushing through that fear, or what kind of things stand out to you in the past three and a half years?

Stephen: Think about the person we just lost. Yeah, don’t say her name, obviously.

Anna: I think, you know, not firing quick enough, and there’s always a risk of, you know, them filing for unemployment. And that, he’s taught me that we need to be documenting. And so, yes, documenting everything just in case. So I think sometimes we keep people on longer than we want to. We have, I give them too many chances, and he’s already seen all of the red flags. But, you know, maybe I don’t have enough people, so I’m just trying to hold on to them longer, but in reality, you know, it would be better to let them go, because they just caused me so much stress and anxiety. I lose a lot of sleep over it. They’re calling me and canceling, or, you know, saying that, you know, they got a migraine. Their kid is throwing up and, you know, but it was always constant.

Stephanie: So, yeah, the reliability was just not there at all.

Anna: So in one month, in the month, in one month, she took off about 20 to 25 days. That was ridiculous. And, you know, she had her reasons, and we couldn’t, we couldn’t get rid of her for some of the reasons she gave us, but he said, we need to start documenting her, because this is a pattern. So he was teaching me, you know, early on, you got to see these patterns. If they’re calling out, then they’re going to become a problem. So nip that in the bud and start documenting them, and then getting them on a plan, a corrective action plan, so that eventually we might need to let them go.

Stephanie: Yeah, they’ll quit themselves when they start being held accountable, right? Yeah, yeah.

Stephen: Well, yeah, yeah, this one did quit eventually. But, oh, there’s a saying that I had a leader that used to tell me, it’s better to go short than ugly. And so in this particular situation, there was a point at which this employee wanted to leave, and my mindset was, have a great life, you know, but Anna, I was stressed, you know.

Stephanie: You’re looking at the schedule in front of you and you’re like, damn, this is gonna be rough.

Stephen: I mean, she wasn’t a bad cleaner, so that was the, that’s kind of, obviously, if they’re bad cleaner, they’re getting complaints, it’s a no brainer, you know? What they’re actually getting five star reviews, you know? So it’s a mixed bag, right? So, but then at one point I had to tell Anna, in particular I say, okay, let’s take a step back. Okay, let’s look at all the cleaners we have right now. Who’s giving you the most stress? Matter of fact, all the stress that you’re having is this one particular. And so we should have acted three months ago, right?

Anna: But did you mention that she was wanting to quit already?

Stephen: Yeah, at one point she wanted to quit, but then Anna really wanted her to stay on. And again,

Anna: So, you know, I think you went through it too, Stephanie, but when school starts again, then the cleaners are quitting, they just drop off opportunities. And so that’s kind of what happened. And she also was offered another job, of course, at a lower pay. And so we offered her a little more to stay on.

Stephen: Against my better judgment, yes. But what I will say is, to the point I made earlier, everyone’s got to learn their own lesson, right? So, and I just, so we had the conversation after that, and I said, okay, well, you can only learn through reflecting. And so what did you learn, you know, and that’s, what did you learn on this? How long are we gonna allow this in the future? And how could we have done something about this particular situation? But I do think it’s important, you can’t take away everybody’s learning experiences. Anna needs to learn these lessons herself. Otherwise, well, remember that one cleaner, you just let her go. I think she would have been great, you know, it’s, let’s let it play out. And so it’s, no, she wasn’t.

Stephanie: Well, you know, it occasionally does turn, you know, I have a cleaner that absolutely turned everything around this year. Very rare for that to happen. People change rarely, right? And so I totally agree that you just sometimes you have to let things play out. And yeah, it is very hard, because a lot of times it isn’t black and white. It’s shades of gray, of, well, they are a good cleaner. But there’s something about the value mismatch is not there, right? And I oftentimes jokingly, every week with my managers, who is it this week? Right? Because we get rid of the, it’s, it’s, who’s the problem child this week? I say that literally every week, yeah.

Stephen: And I think that’s a key point too that you say there, because I think you can’t fear that. You have to be at peace with that. You’re going like that. I say, if you’re going to lead people, you’re going to run a successful business. It’s not for the faint of heart. You’re going to have these problems every single. We sat down yesterday and for our personal development, and one of the things we talked about was managing ambiguity. It’s about becoming comfortable with uncertainty. As a business owner, that’s just the reality, right? And so it’s extremely profitable, but there’s also a lot of uncertainty. When you run a business, you’re going to get a call tomorrow. I don’t know what the call is going to be, but it’s going to be what you don’t expect, and you know, you’re going to have employees that things are going to throw curve balls at you, you know, there could be lawsuits. There could be angry competitors. We get that all the time, you know, people, they’re mad that we’re doing successfully, you know. And so there’s always going to be something. So I think you just have to be, you know, leave a little bit of bandwidth, a little bit of mental bandwidth, for something that’s going to happen unexpected tomorrow and next week, otherwise, you’re going to live in this kind of endless stress cycle. It’s never going to be perfect. It’s never going to be, oh, I’m at peace. I have no stress. There might be some seasons like that, but that’s just not the reality. And I think if you come to expect that, you’re doing yourself a disservice, right, because you’re going to set yourself up for failure long term. I think that’s the other piece, because there’s the thing that we see on the surface, but then there’s also the underlying, you know, and I think if you have the right perspective, it really reduces stress.

Building Stress Capacity

Stephanie: Yeah, I oftentimes say that my stress capacity, or stress management, the things that happen on the regular and Serene Clean would have me in a ball in the corner crying as the first year owner, right? So, the capacity to handle things just grows as you experience more. And I think the whole, the only way over it is through it kind of is what’s standing out in my mind. Of, you can’t, unfortunately, shortcut that growth capacity. Do you feel now, Anna, that you have a much higher capacity for stress compared to the beginning?

Anna: Yes, totally. 100%. You know, since I hadn’t worked in over a decade, maybe 15 years, I didn’t feel like I had a lot of these business skills. But, you know, having to deal with this, all the different things that pop up, things like angry customers that used to keep me up at night. I couldn’t sleep the first time it happened. And now, if there’s an angry customer, then it’s, you just deal with it, and then I still get rest. Now, so, yeah, definitely. Wouldn’t you say, yeah, I think so.

Stephen: You know, you said, I think you said drinking by fire hose or, you know, trial by fire. I’ve had my stresses too, as well. I mean, we work, you know, as business owners, work a lot of hours, you know. I think it’s funny too, because I think if there’s something like, well, can I buy this cleaning business and be low touch, no touch. I’m, not in this business, you know. You know, this is a, excuse me, very profitable business, you know, but you’re gonna be extremely involved. You’re gonna work a lot of hours. So, I mean, when you get to that point, too, you’re fatigued, you know, you’re hungry, so those things can all contribute to your stress level. But I’ve seen Anna grow a ton and things that used to bother her, sometimes you tell me, oh, I had an angry customer, and we would talk through it. Right now it’s, a few days later, oh yeah, I find out that the customer was upset and resolved it, and she never even brought it up. You know, it was, it is what it is. Cleaner missed something. We apologize. We gave him an extra hour on the next clean, or something like that. Or we went and fixed it, and then that’s all there is to it. So I think her capacity, that is one thing I think that you could look forward to as a leader, the situation that I call inherent complexity of running a business. There’s the lowest level of complexity, things that absolutely have to be done to run a business. That inherent complexity is going to be constant, but your capacity as a person can grow. And so what used to be stressful to you may not be stressful at all anymore. You might actually be able to sleep through a storm, you know. And so I think that’s, the first time somebody gets sued, you’re not going to sleep, you know, the 15th time, you probably sleep just fine, you know. And so it’s just kind of the way it goes.

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. And for our listeners, I hope that this encourages you that, whatever feels overwhelming right now, it’s not going to in the future. You are going to change. You are going to grow. And I think I just did a solo episode recently that kind of talked about, every new level that we unlock is a whole new mountain of uncertainty, because you’ve never experienced it before. Regardless of what backgrounds you do have. You may have gone through things that are similar, which is great, but this is new, you know, especially, you know, the leadership role. We wear so many hats, you know, we wear so many hats. And you’re not going to be an expert on everything, but you, kind of, you get thrown into the deep end, and you have to become at least proficient, right? And that means that you are going to have to be very comfortable with discomfort all the time. You’re just gonna have to be comfortable living in it, you know.

The Reality of the Cleaning Business

Stephen: Totally, yeah, I think the threshold for entry in the cleaning business is low. You know, you can really get into cleaning business with no money, right? Or very little bit of money. So that means, you know, there’s going to be constant, there’s going to be constant competition, constant people coming into the industry. So it’s, I don’t want to make it sound like it’s an easy business, it’s a hard business, you know, it’s a hard business to be in. And so I think that a lot of times, people think, I’m a great cleaner. I could get in there, and that’s all I really need, just have good quality. It’s, no, there’s a whole business side to it that you’re talking about. And so, yeah, I mean, the side that we really didn’t spend a lot of time talking about, which I think is, you know, it’s worth noting. You know, as in the corporate world, I made six figures, you know. We have months that I make, our profit is three or four times what I made in the corporate world. It is, honestly, it has shocked me, how profitable this business can be. And there’s no guarantee that it’ll be that for everybody, right? So I don’t want to sound like an infomercial, right? But if you’re willing to work, and if you know how to run the systems and processes, a lot of people in the cleaning industry, we read reviews for other cleaning companies, it’s part of our process. We do it pretty regularly, and the things that other cleaning companies will fight about with customers in public, it really is shocking. And I say, those are our competitors, right? So if you can get a good system and process, systems and processes into place, you can, I think you can really dominate your market. You’re a prime example. I mean, I just heard yesterday, 22 years old, when you started your cleaning business. And so I think, I mean, it rewards those that are willing to work hard.

Stephanie: Yeah, and you got, well, what you’re talking about, you know, one of the first books that I read before I opened the business was The E-Myth, and the concept of, you know, there are different types of people. We have the entrepreneur, we have the technician, we have the manager, right? And a lot of people that are in our industry, I would say the majority of people that are in our industry, they’re individual cleaners, right? Very low barrier to entry in this industry, which is wonderful, right? But most people should be baking cakes, not opening a bakery, right? And that is no shade on the bakers. It’s great that they’re amazing at that, but it takes the not the know how, and there is certain characteristics that make you able to own the bakery rather than just bake the cakes, right? And so again, there’s no moral connotation to that. It just is, right, where, for me, I’m meant to own the damn bakery, right? Not to bake cakes. I can bake the cakes just like Anna can bake the cakes. But it doesn’t mean that she’s just going to be the baker. So if you just hang your hat on, I’m the best cleaner ever, great. And you need to be an amazing business owner, or have the capacity to become that person, right? And some people, yes, they get stuck in that. Well, I know I’m a really great cleaner, and that should be enough. And it’s not enough. It’s not enough to be a great cleaner to have a successful cleaning business. Those are two separate things. You need that to have this, but it’s not, you have this and you’re going to become this automatically, right?

Stephen: 100%. Yeah, it’s completely different. We find, so if we had leaders that would move from managing a restaurant, and then they would move to multi management, oftentimes the highest performers have to be the lowest performers in the next role, because they would be over leveraging skills that they use in the first role in the second role. And it’s completely different skill set. The beautiful part, and it’s the same thing too. What made you a successful cleaner is not going to make you a successful business owner or, let’s say we move up the chain, made you a successful trainer, may not necessarily, you have to be kind, you have to be willing to show them multiple times, right? That might not necessarily translate into being the best manager, right? Because you might be firm and you might have to lay the law down. And so over using the skills that made you successful at one level can often lead to failure at the next level. But I would just want to, you know, every listener, you know, are you born a leader? All that stuff. You can learn these skills. So if you teach yourself to be a leader this year, how much you’re investing yourself, how much you learn about leadership. You can get formalized training in business school, right, and or you can go, there’s hundreds of programs online. You can learn these skills. You know, you can have a mentor or coach, somebody in accountability, somebody that owns a business, somebody that has tough conversations with you, but you definitely learn the skills to run a successful business. Maybe not everybody can be the CEO of Tesla, maybe that is, but to run a successful cleaning business, you can definitely learn the skills.

Stephanie: Yeah, and that’s so true. And that’s yeah, I’m glad that you’re saying that, because it’s, yes, though you may be just a cleaner now, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have the capacity to become an incredible business owner. And also that makes me think of so many techs that I was like, oh, maybe they’d want to be the trainer, or maybe they’d want, they’re my future manager, and then me straight up asking. They’re like, I would never want to do that. I want to do this. I’m excellent at this, and I don’t want to manage people, right? And just, I’m not a good trainer, right? I’m not patient. I get really frustrated when people, I need to repeat myself. Not a fan of that. So it’s, you know, we all have, I mean, I could become better at that, for sure. Outsource that to somebody else.

Stephen: Yeah, that’s, it’s funny, you say that too, because I’m not the greatest trainer personally. I lose patience. I’m very, my development plan is patience. I’m always trying to grow patience. I’ve been trying to do that for 20 years. But, and on the other hand, she’s, she’s fantastic developer, you know, great mother, all of those things, yeah, yeah.

I got everything that I’m not. There’s this thing, StrengthsFinders, have you heard of StrengthsFinders, yes, I think, you know, in a previous career, and I taken the test, and I made, you know, my wife, I made my children take the test, you know. And so Anna has, you talked about loyalty. One of hers is includer. So she’s an includer. She’s also developer. For me, one of my top one is competitive and Maximizer. You know what I mean? So we have different strengths, and so I think it’s important for your leaders, especially they can run these, because to know those. You hit the nail right on the head. We sometimes, great cleaners are not, and they’re not good supervisors. And then it’s gonna take a year or more for them to get to that level. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s just they don’t like having difficult conversations. They don’t have leader courage, right? They, you know, they’re not great with delegating, right? And so, and they live in their kind of, they’re great with customers, or they do great job of cleaning, and that’s okay. So I think, if you see a great cleaner, you also have to assess, are they going to be great at these other skills? So you have to have those clearly defined before you suddenly, otherwise you’ll end up putting, and we made the mistake, put somebody in the leadership position that wasn’t great. They didn’t have leadership courage. They weren’t able to address issues. When she was on a clean, other cleaners, right? It’s, well, you know, that fell on you, and she just wasn’t comfortable, didn’t want to learn. So I think that’s an important element as well too.

Adding Carpet Cleaning to the Business

Stephanie: Yeah, I love that. Go ahead, Stephen, because.

Stephen: We have it on the list. I don’t know if you want to chat about it, but carpet cleaning.

Stephanie: Yes, I know. I wanted to talk about the whole floor stuff, because it’s obviously a huge revenue driver for you guys.

Stephen: Yeah, did you want to transition to chat about that?

Stephanie: Yeah, let’s do it, because I think a lot of our listeners are probably interested in that. I unsuccessfully tried to get into carpet cleaning. So let’s hear how you guys successfully have handled carpet.

Anna: Told me that yesterday. She said, you know, Stephanie tried carpet cleaning. Really, I did not know that.

Stephen: Give me the carpet, right? With carpet, right, so you could, and there’s lots of risks with it. So rather to get into the details about carpet, I’ll just kind of go high level and share that the thought of cleaning houses personally didn’t excite me. You know, when I thought, well, I’m gonna leave my corporate job and I’m gonna go clean toilets and everything else. Anna enjoyed it. I didn’t necessarily get that excited about it, but what I did know from years ago was how to clean carpets, right? Kirby, from the Kirby days, right? Because, you know, there’s a shampooer on those. I use the term shampooer loosely, but and I used to shampoo carpet for people, and they would love the before and after. So when I started happening to help add some revenue channels, we added auto detailing. And so I became a master of auto detailing. I want to say master.

Stephanie: So I mentioned that to my managers, and they’d be like, shut up, Stephanie, we’re not doing that. But I’m like, that would be so good, yeah.

Stephen: I mean, yeah. So we get, I mean, it’s not as profitable as our other channels, but we do quite a bit of auto detailing as well. And so out of that kind of came the idea, to add carpet cleaning, right? So let me just say, up front, you can ruin carpets. Okay, I don’t know your story personally, and I think Anna probably knows more of it, but so you have to, you can use the wrong type of chemical and damage the fiber. You can turn your $100 per hour rate into $10. I mean, I’m exaggerating. You can, you know, there’s lots of risk from running on the side. It’s extremely profitable, very much so, if you have the right process. Average 150 an hour. That’s what I average when I’m cleaning carpets. I also have my floor certification. I went and got my IICRC certifications for carpet, floor certifications, stripping and waxing floor business is extremely profitable. The equipment for buffing, for pushing for deep cleaning. The industry is moving away from carpet towards LVP. They’re moving away from the squares called VCT that you wax, they’re moving away from that towards, you know, LVT or LVP. So as the industry is changing those surfaces, you have to, know how to clean them properly. But we charge $1 square foot for cleaning floors, for carpet. I mean, it ranges, right, but it can be as high as 75 cents a square foot. So you think, I mean, we’ve made several $1,000 in a day just on clean.

Stephanie: Practically speaking, you just said you charge by the square foot for rooms. How do you actually figure out how big that are? You literally having the clients measure?

Stephen: No, so that’s a great question. So if we want to get into the details, we don’t do it by the square foot for residential, we do it by square foot for commercial. So for residential, we would charge, we just do it by room. So, okay, yeah, so we do an average of square foot. And we’ll just tell people, you know, we get some of them, the McMansion now, where they have the really big bedrooms, you know. So then that would be two, but it’s, there are companies, carpet cleaning companies that do pure square foot and you have to go measure it on site and get them a general idea, but it’s just too confusing. So we’ll charge, if it’s a residential customer, say, $65 per room. They want pet treatments, additional $35 per room. I bring in the black lights, will detect all the urine. I’ll treat every single urine spot. I have a reputation in this market for really good with pets.

Stephanie: Oh, you’re the pee guy. Call me all the time. I pee all over the place, and I told, that’s why I left the corporate world, those bad apartments.

Stephen: Yeah, those are, and I say, drenched in pee, yeah. So I’ll tell you when we got into the carpet business, and I said, same format, can we get the phone to ring for carpet cleaning, right? So I invested in the portable units. Got, it’s a really good portable units, seven grand for everything, right? We started, and I’d lug that thing around, right? And so phone starts ringing, right? I’m cutting out a lot of stuff, just cutting to the chase, right? They were, okay, there’s a business. So then I told Anna. I said, I want to invest. I want the biggest, the baddest. You know, Tim the Tool Man Taylor.

Stephanie: Let me tell you, right here, this is where my mistake was. I did not invest the time to learn, and I did not invest the time and proper equipment for carpet cleaning, and that’s why right now it’s off the table, because we’re not in a place that I have the ability to do that. So I tried to shortcut it, and that’s a big one, don’t try to do.

Stephen: Well, exactly. So for us, this is a question, when we add any channel, how are we going to make it brand compatible? So we have a, we have a five star brand. So for us, it was, if we’re going to do it, we’ve had this conversation, we’re going to do it right. We’re going to be, and so we add the equipment. It’s TexVax. So we, you know, you can write it all off, by the way, so we actually had great tax savings in that year. But we purchased what’s called a slide in truck mount that goes into a unit. We bought the biggest slide in truck mount unit that you can get. And that thing, I mean, the result, we tell customers, you’re only as good as equipment that you use. That’s back from my Kirby days. We call that a sales clincher. They say yeah, the more times you can get them to say yeah, the more they are to say yeah when we go to close the sale. And so we would, you know, tell customers yeah, and they love our equipment. It gets such great results. And so now we’ve built a relationship with the big floor companies, big carpet cleaning, big carpet distributors in town. So then they’ll get a lot of clients that call, and they’ll just refer them to us. And so that business in of itself. I mean, the numbers are phenomenal when you, the, you know, if you add floor, you could have another million dollar business just with carpet and floor, maybe not necessarily with just carpet. I don’t know, I don’t want to overstate carpet. You could run a couple $100,000 per year carpet cleaning business pretty easily, but once you start adding in the floor care, you get the stations. For us, we do, we have commercial accounts. We’ll have floor as well. We’ll do their cleaning, and we’ll also do their floor care, and we will upsell all the time on a move out clean, they will add carpet. So, I mean, it really adds, you know, three, $400 to a move out, or it might add, you know, a couple $1,000 to a commercial clean. And so, and here’s the other thought too, because I was thinking about this before, I was, husband and wife, want to do this? Maybe the husband, he’s, I don’t want to clean toilets, but you can do carpet cleaning, and you can make a lot of money doing it, right? And you can hire carpet cleaners. We have technicians, right? You know that can help you. It’s just one of those things, though, that you can’t let go of it as easily as you can with cleaning houses, because they’re.

Stephanie: A higher skill. And that was one of the things that scared me, too, that was, this is, there is more risk involved in carpet cleaning, that way, where I’m just, okay, to get techs to know how to do this. Yeah, the training, it’s a longer training, I would say, more difficult training, right? To get them proficient, to not, again, damaging things is a big deal.

Stephen: Yeah, that’s why, the other reason you want to have a great relationship with the carpet manufacturers in town, because you might need to replace somebody’s carpet in their house for free or whatever, right? And they might be more willing to say, well, you know, I had one where I scratched the floor, and I thought I scratched the floor. And I went into full blown panic mode, because I was like, oh man. I lost track of time. Oh. And I try to see if I could polish this out. And so I called one of my, one of the carpet, or actually he’s a floor person, and we work with him, and we got him deals on, we do his carpet for him, and his techs, yeah. And I was, oh man, how much you charge me, you know, he’s, you can’t afford it, you know? But he’s, he wasn’t gonna really charge me much. He was just pulling my chain. So at the end, you got to be honest with the customers, and that’s what we always tell you, break something, you own it, right? So at the end, I said, hey, you know, I’d like to show you something over here. Granted. So I’ve been in panic mode for an hour, and so my heart rate, my watch is saying I’m abnormally high heart rate. And so I go, and then they’re, oh no, that was the dog. The dog did that. I thought I scratched the floor. And I was like, I’m pretty sure I did that. But they insisted it was the dog. And so the point is, is that, have good relationships with, because you will sometimes have mistakes that happen, and you might have to replace, you know, or polish something out. So, but I would just say the profitability, so it’s extremely profitable once you have trained technicians. And, I mean, it brings in, it can bring in a lot. And so that’s what I would say. They don’t, I mean, and I know your case, you tried to, you know, and you sound like you have some valuable lessons. What I would say is, add to your business smartly, right? Don’t just do, I do power washing and I do carpet cleaning. I do everything. You’re gonna, that’s recipe for failure. But if maybe, I would say it gives carpet cleaning a second thought.

Stephanie: Oh, I definitely, it’s definitely a not right now, not a no forever kind of thing. It’s more so when I am willing to put in the effort and time to do it correctly. And that’s really what the big lesson of, and I love that you said, you know, just aligning with your business’s reputation. And that was my issue, is that, you know, basically the instruction that I got on carpet cleaning and kind of my guidance on it was not the best. So the person that I was listening to when it came to, oh, this is how you can do it, the quality. I didn’t feel good about it. We weren’t getting complaints. We weren’t having issues there. I knew in my heart that I was, okay, one of our core values is integrity, and it does not feel like we are providing the best, which means full extraction, right? We were going the, I guess, dry route, if you will, exactly. And that, again, customers were happy. I wasn’t, because I’m like, this can’t possibly be as clean as full extraction. It can’t be right?

Stephen: Yeah, you’re exactly right. And we tell, I mean, that is an option that we offer to customers, but we tell them, good, better, best. You know, if you want to dry quick and narrow, and you don’t want it 100% clean, but you’re in the office and they’re gonna be gone for lunch, yeah, this is a great option. But if you want carpet manufacturer recommended processes, hot water extraction, right, there’s a certain rate, PSI at a certain rate, heat at a certain rate. So we offer, but it is, it could be a part of your repertoire, you know. The other thought, too, I just want to share too, right now, with all the trades in the world, that everybody wants to be a YouTube star, right? I tell my kids the same thing, too. But that’s how we have family members that own a multi million dollar development business, and the trades, electrician, HVAC, plumbing, for every one plumber that’s entering the market, there’s seven that’s leaving. Well, the other big trade that’s being impacted is carpet cleaners. I mean, the carpet manufacturers will tell you that if everybody right now that owns carpet got carpet cleaned at the manufacturer guidelines, which is once every 12 months, that number fluctuates depending on the number of people in the household. Could be six or it could be 18 months, but once every 12 months, there is not enough carpet cleaners around to service every single person. And so it’s in, and there’s less people going into it. It’s a physical job. I sat at a desk for years.

Stephanie: Very satisfying. When I remember when I did do the jobs, nothing more satisfying than carpet cleaning, I think. And it is, you’re right, the before and after, all that nasty stuff come out of the carpet, oh god, yeah.

Stephen: I would tell people, I’m the business owner most of the time, but, you know, they think I’m just, you know, Johnny on the spot technician, right? And they, you know, and when I’m in there, I will tell people, I love this. This is 45 year old dude that loves carpet cleaning, you know. Don’t you want more from life, you know? That’s kind of the look. But they give me a big tip.

Stephanie: My favorite, when they think you’re just the tech, and I’m, you end it. And it’s, by the way, I am the owner. And they stumble over themselves because they probably said something dumb.

Stephen: Well, yeah, I mean, so one of the things, there’s a whole spectrum that we look at in my previous life about, what type of person, what drives you? One of the things that drove me, I realized, was status. And so I, and I wasn’t actually happy when I learned that about myself, because I don’t want, I value humility as well. And so this has been great as far as development, because as a manager with 500 other people, you walk into the room and it’s, you’re the big dog. She comes with me on business and Tuesday, oh man. And people say, you’re somebody, you know. It’s, I’m nobody, you know. It’s just the role. Well, now I go into a carpet cleaning and they think I’m a technician, and I’m invisible, and I actually embrace that. You know, I’m 100% okay with that. Matter of fact, I get worried when people ask me if I’m the owner, because usually, so it’s.

Stephanie: Well, yeah, I actually, if I do have to clean a house, I get real nervous because I’m, they’re gonna expect way more from me, and what if I do a bad job? I know I won’t, but if I do go back in the field ever, I freak out because I’m like, yeah.

Stephen: So I oftentimes tell people that I’m the owner, because it’s just, I just want them to judge me based on the quality of work. And the other piece that I wanted to tell you a moment ago about carpet cleaning, we get a lot of our reviews come from carpet cleaning because of.

Stephanie: I’ve heard that before. That’s one off jobs. And yeah, they’re really happy. They’re happy.

Stephen: They love it. They love the before and after. And so it’s just another thing to think of. Is you have another, the other thing is revenue streams. So there are times when our cleaning business will slow, but our carpet cleaning will go gangbusters, vice versa. And there’s seasons when both are just off the charts. So, but it’s nice to have both to rely on, because you know, when one’s slow, the other might be busy.

Stephanie: So, yeah, I mean, I can attest to that, 100%. Even just for residential, commercial, there’s been periods of the business where I’m, thank goodness we have commercial and other periods. I’m, oh my goodness, thank goodness we have the residential. They balance each other out. And obviously that’s something we talk about heavily on the podcast, is, yeah, the whole master of all or jack of all trades, master of none. We don’t want to go down that route. But sometimes it does make sense to diversify, and it’s not to do it blindly, but in a smart way. And I tried to do it blindly. When I try it again, maybe, maybe 2027 will be the carpet cleaning Renaissance for me, but I’ll be calling you.

Stephen: I mean, I have a follow up program that I’ll send to you, but it’s all about how to add carpet cleaning to a cleaning, what kind of, charge your rate, how to do the whole, I’m trying to put together a whole package. It’s almost, it’s in the process of being put together, that if you own a cleaning business, you want to add all information to add it, because I think it’s a business that I personally enjoy a lot, and I think it’s a great revenue stream for our customers, you know, so for our business, part of me. So yeah, I’ll send it to you.

Stephanie: Yes. Please do. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Well, this has been amazing, guys. I just knew I wanted you on the podcast since our very first meeting together, because your story is so inspirational. But really, you know, we’ve highlighted this multiple times in the conversation. You guys complement each other so well when it comes to your various strengths, right, and that you need both in order to survive. And for a lot of our solo owners out there, it’s going to be a lot harder, because, you know, introducing another person as an equal in your business, it does open up a lot of risk, but if they can complement you in the things that you don’t have, which you guys do, it really can be a game changer. Just like, for me, my managers, they have things that I absolutely don’t have, and I have impulsivity and vision and balls, right, to do stupid things sometimes. And but that’s, I’m always pushing and pushing and pushing, and they’re pulling back the reins on Stephanie. And we need both, right? And so I just love to see that highlighted so viscerally within a couple. I think it’s really, really cool to see. And I just, I mean, you guys are going to be a million dollar business very, very soon.

The Power of Shared Ownership

Stephen: Well, I’ll tell you, one last thought on that too, because we had this conversation yesterday. Anna cares about the business more than I do, and I care about the business more than she does. You see what I mean? The level of ownership that we each have, and to think, what you could bring somebody else into the business that cared about the business as much as you. What would that be worth to you, right? And so when you have a husband and wife couple, right? Or, you know, two partners, then how can you, it’s worth it if you can get that level of ownership. So I just say, so think about that, right? If you frame it in that way, and if you approach it that way, it can be highly successful.

Stephanie: Yeah, and that’s exactly what you guys are experiencing. And I just, I’m very excited to continue watching you grow and succeed at the new levels. And, I mean, obviously we got, we can talk for hours. I think a part two will definitely be in order at some point after you guys, you know, come back down from this high of this conversation. We’ll have to schedule, right? So what is 2026 goals looking like, and where can the people find you? I know Stephen, you offer several things, and you are getting more in depth with that side of things, meaning consulting, etc. So talk about 2026 and where people listening to us here, where can they find you?

2026 Goals and Where to Find Them

Stephen: Yeah. So cleaningbusinesssuccess.com. So if your listeners want to go and they want to learn more about some of the services that we offer, I just finished the first book in the program, which is How to Build a Million Dollar Cleaning Business. And it basically, it’s the book that I wish that I had when I first started. And so it’s the first book in a series of books in our program. And so as far as, I mean, I think my heart really is to help people that are either new in business, or maybe they haven’t made that step to hire their first person. Or maybe, I mean, we have some business owners in town that they’ve been in business for years, and they never heard the term CRM, you know, or they heard the term sticky path, you know. So those categories, and you’re wanting to learn, you’re wanting to, we offer, we do offer coaching services. And 2026 I think from the business standpoint, right, we have big goals to continue to grow the business. We’re excited about the year. We have big hiring goals, big revenue goals, but we also want to continue to help those. I think a lot of times too, about Anna, it’s the struggles I’ve seen her have firsthand. And I know there’s a lot of great cleaners out there that are kind of in the same situation that Anna is in, and if I could help them, then, you know, that gives me a sense of contribution and a sense of satisfaction. So that’s where I would say. And then if you’re just interested to learn more about our cleaning company, you go to grandjunctioncleaningservices.com, but if you’re interested in coaching services and the links, go to cleaningbusinesssuccess.com.

Stephanie: Yeah, we’ll definitely link all of that. For you, Anna, what about for you? How do you see your guys’s goals?

Anna: Well, I think this year, how much we made, kind of blew our minds. So I think we’re just going to continue to grow it and try to staff it correctly. And, yeah, just continue to grow the revenue. But I wanted to mention about the book. I’ve read it, and it’s easy to understand. I know when I read books, and if I don’t understand it, then I’m not going to finish it. But I’ve read it, and if I can read it, I think anybody else can read it too.

Stephanie: I started listening to it on my drive back from Wisconsin Friday, and I’ll need to finish it, but I can attest to that, very actionable, very, this is what you need to do. I definitely agree. So highly recommend to you guys. We’ll make sure everything’s linked in the bio below, but this has been amazing, guys. I’m so grateful to have met you and to have the relationship that we do. And yeah, I’m really excited to see what this next year brings for you. And thank you so much for your time today.

Anna: Thank you for having us on.

Stephen: Thank you, Stephanie. We love you.

Stephanie: I love you guys too. And everybody leave some love for Stephen and Anna down in the comments. Hit that like, hit that subscribe if you have not done so. Go sign up for ZenMaid. We got a couple of successful ZenMaid users right here in front of us. So highly recommend. You know that’s the best way to have a successful business is just use ZenMaid, right? And we will see you guys in the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners.

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

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• ZenMaid
• Cleaning Business Success – Get Stephen Rodriguez’s book, “How to Build a Million Dollar Cleaning Business”
• Grand Junction Cleaning Services
• Absolute Value by Itamar Simonson and Emanuel Rosen
• The E-Myth by Michael Gerber
• IICRC Carpet and Floor Certifications

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