Taking a Heartfelt Approach to Cleaning, with Kim Crockett

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Introduction

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I’m your host Stephanie from Serene Clean and today’s delightful guest is Ms. Kimberley Crockett from Evans, Georgia and she is the owner of Clean Keepers. Ms. Kimberley and I, we had a conversation a couple of weeks ago in a consulting call that she booked with me and I was like, I need you on the podcast. You are amazing. And I want everybody to experience you. So Kimberley, thank you for joining me for this podcast recording.

Kimberley: It is absolutely my honor. I am beyond fangirling. Thank you.

From Bartender to Business Owner During COVID

Stephanie: Well, I feel like we have so much in common. I feel like I’ve known you my entire life. And that’s why again, I just wanted to record a conversation with you. I feel like a lot of our listeners will really be able to relate to you. You started your business not too long ago. I mean, 2020. And it was out of necessity. Correct? Can you tell us a little bit about your story?

Kimberley: That is, yes, that is correct. I had been cleaning prior to that. I was a bartender and I’ve been bartending for probably about 26 years. And I cleaned a little for friends and family off and on, but not anything that was substantial enough. My bartending was what paid my bills. And then in March of 2020, they shut our restaurant and bar down.

And I didn’t know what I was going to do. Single mom, three kids, no savings, a mortgage, a car payment, typical high school stuff for my kids that needed taking care of. And I started getting some calls from some of my patrons that were from the bar and they couldn’t get their cleaner to come.

Their cleaner just absolutely said absolutely no way. And I have a strong faith in God and I prayed about it. And I just said, Lord, I’ve got a couple of options here. I can trust, go do some cleaning, put on all the PPE, take every precaution that is needed. Because at that time it was terrifying. It truly was.

Stephanie: Yes, I remember. I remember that March of 2020. I literally remembered recording a video for our clients. And you can see it in my face the anxiety.

Kimberley: So scary, so scary. And it was just almost, and I hate to say this, because so much tragedy took place during that period. But I was on a ledge where I kept going back and forth with going full time with cleaning. And I was like, no, this money, I can’t walk away from it. We have the Masters Golf Tournament here. And I mean, the money that you make as a bartender is absolutely stupid. And I was like, I can’t walk away from that. And we have several other things that we have throughout the year that bring in an extra amount of money. But it’s wild. It was like I had to get off the ledge and I had to make a choice. And when I did, it just went as good as it could have possibly gone during that horrible time.

Stephanie: Just took off. It just took off.

Kimberley: It did. I mean, it didn’t take off. I was real slow and I had some savings. I was very, very slow at first. But once this friend told that friend and they all knew me, then they just started calling more and more and more. And so I was a solo and I just hunkered down and done what needed to be done.

The Power of Word of Mouth Marketing

Stephanie: And I mean, that’s such a universal experience for many of us who opened up and just that word of mouth is truly, I mean, to this day, do not discount word of mouth. We have this big cleaning company now and still a third of our leads are coming from word of mouth.

And that’s especially in small towns or even in big towns, it absolutely is such a big deal. And we actually have not even had a referral program until now. I’m about to make an actual legitimate referral program. And I’m like, why have I not done this before? Because we get so much word of mouth. So by end of 2020, are you full by this time or where are you at when it comes to your schedule?

Kimberley: Pretty strong at that point. I’m pretty busy and things are moving along at a pace where I can’t really push the envelope too much because I can’t sacrifice quality for quantity.

The Biggest Challenge: Staffing

Stephanie: Yeah, and that’s what we talked very heavily about in your consulting call. And I kind of wanted to go over a few of the things that we discussed during our first call and really your biggest struggles right now is staffing, correct? I mean, for all of us, right?

Kimberley: Dear Lord, it is unbelievable. It truly is unbelievable. I’m not a quitter. I know that beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’ll all work itself out at some point. I wish the point was yesterday. That point is what I’m looking for. And I do wish it was yesterday. It wasn’t. But I’m striving for it, for sure.

Stephanie: Tell me about some of the unsuccessful hires, if you don’t mind. Any fun stories? Because I know our listeners love when I share my nightmare stories.

Kimberley: My, let me knock on some wood. I have been so fortunate. I’ve not had any true nightmare stories. I have had a 6:45 text message that has said to me, I’m not going today. This is not for me. And that’s the gut feeling inside where you go, how am I going to make this work? How am I going to make this work? And then you just kind of go, this is too much, I can’t do this. But then you wash your face and you’re like, whatever, this is just a small little bump in the road and we’re gonna make it happen and we just work through it. But I’ve really, honestly and truthfully, never had any real bad behavior. No, I haven’t.

Setting Boundaries with Staff

I did have one girl in a property and I was doing a walkthrough and I noticed there was some furniture that the base of the furniture had not been dusted properly. I could see where it had been dusted and you know when you dust something and you can see where somebody kind of hits it but they don’t get all of it. And I just mentioned to her, I said just make sure go ahead and get this, but just make sure going forward when you dust it, it’s just as easy to do all of it as it is just to swipe it. It really is. I mean, it is a matter of it. And you don’t have to go back. There’s no going back over it. It is one and done. It’s over. And apparently when I walked away, she rolled her eyes and did some little attitude. Well, the homeowner caught it on their camera and sent it to me.

Stephanie: Loyal clients to be sending you that.

Kimberley: They’re wonderful. I couldn’t have asked for better. I don’t even know. I honestly think that they have been handpicked much like my children. But the homeowner laughed about it. I’ve known her for years. And she said, just so you know, this took place. And I did say something to her about it. I said, you can’t do that. I said, I don’t care if you get upset with me. And that’s okay, because cleaners are going to absolutely despise me at some point. I can’t do my job and have them love me 100% of the time. It’s just not possible. It’s like I tell them with my children. I will be my children’s very best friend until they make it where I can’t be. And then I have to be their mother. And it’s the same way with my cleaning techs. I will be their very best friend, confidant, whatever they need until they put me in a position where I don’t have another choice.

And then I can’t, I have to do what the business requires because the client is the one who we are trying to absolutely make them 100% happy 100% of the time, not 99% of the time, 100% of the time. So I did talk to her about it and I said, you can get mad at me and that’s okay. I don’t mind if you’re mad at me. You can be as mad at me as you want to. Please do it in your car.

The Maternal Management Style

Stephanie: You are such a mother, a very maternal presence, because what you just described is a conversation I could not imagine happening for literally four years into my business, because I started so young. That is a mom energy. And that honestly is a great energy to have because when I brought my management team on, they’re all mothers and they’re very used to that energy with your kids. And I feel like that is sorely needed in a management role because you have to be okay with that sensation of, okay, you’re pissed off at me right now. And that’s okay. It doesn’t change anything. The feeling’s going to pass.

Even when my managers handle the negative feedback, we get a complaint, they’re going to pass that on to the cleaner and get feedback from them. And when the cleaner gives that thumbs up emoji, which is basically the middle finger of emojis. My heart just races. I’m like, how do you guys handle this? Even to this day, it’s so hard for me to think about an employee being upset with me. And I’ve obviously gotten a lot more tolerant and okay with it, but it still bothers me greatly. But I just love that you bring it back to this is for the client and this moment will pass and just having that hard set boundary of we are here for excellence and we’re here for the client. And that means I’m gonna have to check you.

For us, we tell all of our cleaners, every single person gets feedback at some point that they don’t like, including us. We have gotten issues before. And so it’s not personal. So stop taking it personally.

Dealing with Client Complaints

Kimberley: Absolutely. You can’t wear your heart on your sleeve and have a job. I mean, you can’t. You just cannot do it. You can’t wear your heart on your sleeve and own a business. You can’t. When people will send me a message and say, hey, I think this got missed, and I can have a picture, I can have a physical picture, and I will be looking at the picture and I’ll be like, mm-mm, mm-mm. But you know what we’re gonna do? We’re going back.

Because if in her heart and in her eyes she feels like that was missed, that’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna make sure that she’s happy. Because she’s gonna tell Sarah Beth that we do care about our clients and we will come back and we will make sure it’s okay. And that’s just how we handle it. Now I’m not gonna do it if somebody is obviously unpleasable. And I’ve never had that either, knock on wood, thank God, where they’re just trying to be unpleasable, except for one client that I’ve had in all of my years that’s just unpleasable. And I had a very good conversation with her and I said, I love you to death. I think you’re a wonderful human being. I can’t work for you. I can’t. I said, there’s no matter how I do it or the way I do it or any of the way that the cleaning techs do it. There’s always a caveat. There’s always something that just isn’t right. And that’s not fair to them or me. It’s stressful. It’s stressful. But I still love you.

The Art of Letting Go

Stephanie: That is such a masterclass in customer service, but also just human relation. And I remember one time, somebody told me about how one of the most loving things you can do for somebody is let them go if it’s not a right fit, because you are actively holding them back from finding that right fit, whether that be a client or an employee. And so that really shifted my mindset about firing people. There is a place for you. It’s not here and I’m stopping you from finding that place. So it just really helped me because firing is so hard, especially when you the person. That’s terrible when you somebody. It’s just heart wrenching, but it’s this is not a good fit for you. And you just have to be able to really have that mindset. I want the best for you and it’s just not a good fit. And even from a client perspective, I have had grown men throw absolute tantrums when we fired them as clients.

Kimberley: Did he give you a bad review?

Stephanie: Shockingly no, he did not.

Kimberley: Thank the Lord on that. But you know, that reminds me, I had a girl that was an awesome cleaning tech, not too terribly long ago. Absolutely fantastic. I mean, she was on time. She presented herself very nicely. She knew how to interact with the clients. She loved animals. She never complained. I never got a complaint from her, but she always loved to have her fingernails done. She always loved to wear makeup and she would say, I think I’m gonna do this for maybe three or four months but I don’t know if I can do this for a long time. And the bar that I worked at, I messaged the owner and I said I’ve got somebody I want you to meet. He said, send them my way, I trust you 100%. I said, well, she’ll be there tomorrow at four, because that’s usually when he goes in. He hired her on the spot. And I knew that she would do better in that industry for right now. She’s still in school, in college. But I knew what was best for her was not this cleaning, because although she didn’t complain about it at all, I knew that she was going to go, but why not help her in a way that I would pray somebody would help my children.

The Reality of Business Ownership

Stephanie: You’re such a good person. I love, first off, I think that business ownership can make a bunch of cynical assholes out of people because we just get burned so many times. And I think it’s very easy for us to say, I want to remain an individual cleaner. And a lot of people, they dip their toe into hiring and then it’s this is what people are and no thank you, no thank you. But it’s that’s where, and that’s why you reached out to me. You have gotten burned, you are in this frustrating spot. But as you said, when you emailed me, you’re this is made for me, I am supposed to be successful. You know it, you know it. We just have to tackle it.

Kimberley: I know it. I know it. I know it. I feel it.

Stephanie: And I love that absolute belief in yourself because it’s true, this is what you’re meant to be doing and this is what so many of us are meant to be doing. But sometimes having employees is not what somebody is meant to be doing because they can’t tolerate this level of consistent disappointment. And for me, this is going to sound bad, but business ownership equals consistent disappointment in human beings.

Kimberley: I want to get a t-shirt with that on it. Consistent disappointment. My word. I love it.

Stephanie: Not to be a Debbie Downer or anything because I’ve seen absolutely beautiful things from people and I have an incredible staff. But I have gone through at this point hundreds of employees, literally, I’m not exaggerating at all. I have hired hundreds of people. And so I really had to check my expectations at the door and not that I have insanely high expectations for our staff, but more so when somebody does quit without notice or whatever. As I told you before we started recording a couple of days ago, we had a full-timer quit without notice because of the physicality of the work. She had gone through months and months and months. And then all of a sudden it was nope, that’s enough. And honestly, I literally had, it was that sucks. And then moved on because I’ve now trained myself that if I stay in that rumination, it’s a recipe for disaster because then you can’t go and solve the problem. As you just said in your first story of getting that text, you’re right. It’s that feeling in your gut. Dang it. I thought we had it. I thought we were getting traction. Here we go again, we gotta hire again. It really does suck, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is the problem that we need to solve as the owners.

Current Staffing Situation

So in our first conversation, we talked about group interviews, we talked about having nonstop listings on Indeed so that you can start getting a lot more applicants and not waiting till something bad has happened to start hiring. So what’s been going on since the last time we’ve talked because when we talked, you had what? Three cleaners? Okay, so how’s it going?

Kimberley: I mean, they’re doing well. I can’t really complain. Two of them are absolutely fantastic and I couldn’t ask for anything better. They are absolutely wonderful. And the feeling that I will feel in my gut in the event, God please not now, that would happen, that they decide they need to do something else. I will probably get in a fetal position on the floor and I’ll probably have myself a good cry for about 10 minutes. I’ll get up and wash my face and figure it out.

Stephanie: Putting a time limit on the sadness is very helpful. I’m going to cry about this right now. And I got 15 minutes. Cause we just got to go solve the problem and it sucks. Especially when the clients really love them because when they’ve been with clients for a consistent amount of time, then you’re getting it from the client too, oh, another new tech, another. And it’s you think I don’t know this customer, you think I’m happy about them leaving? Trust me, if I could force them to continue, I would.

Kimberley: Right. Or if I could clone myself. I could clone me? I’d be a bazillionaire.

Stephanie: You would be. I say that about all my best staff. I’m like, if I could just have 700 of them, you’d be decimated, but you can’t.

Dealing with Fake Leads

Kimberley: Let me ask you this real quick. Do you find, and I know this is going to sound absolutely crazy and it even sounds crazy to myself, but I’ve thought about it and I’ve looked at different things. I’ve kind of researched. Do you have people who call you for estimates that are absolutely bogus and they have no desire for your service? They just want to kind of know what it is that you’re doing or either they’re just trying to kill your time.

Stephanie: Well, we’ve had people kind of who are interested in opening cleaning businesses shop us basically to get pricing. To me, that’s the name of the game because I would do the same thing. I would tell anybody listening if you are trying to get a feel for pricing in your area, get estimates from your competitors. I don’t know if we’ve ever had people just trying to waste our time.

Kimberley: And I’ve never gotten an estimate from any of my competitors. Never, not one time have I done that. Maybe I should, I don’t know.

Stephanie: We’ve done it, so we absolutely have done it. We’ve literally done it because we’re trying to get a gauge on where are they at? Especially when we opened our third location, we were not really sure on how is pricing in this area? So we wanted to see what is appropriate here before. The best you can do is to start giving estimates and seeing what happens. But are we in the same range here? Because they’re very popular. They got lots of good reviews, but when we do that, it wasn’t about the cleaning, because they have great reviews on their cleaning. This particular competitor, it took them over a week to get back to my manager who filled out with her personal name and stuff. So it’s an operations problem. They don’t have enough administrative support.

The Importance of Quick Response Times

Kimberley: Who’s waiting a week? Who’s waiting a week that wants cleaning? Nobody’s waiting a week. When somebody texts you or emails you or calls you, I don’t understand it, but they’re they wanted their house cleaned three hours ago.

Stephanie: Especially if they’re Googling. Google reviews are so important and having that online presence because when people are actively searching for cleaning companies and getting quotes, they are ready to make a decision. They’re sitting in their house and they’re screw this, I’m ready to hire somebody. Whereas if somebody’s passively finding you on Facebook, we get a lot of Facebook leads, but a lot of times they’re just window shopping, right? But if somebody is Googling and doing research, they’re trying to make a decision. So if you wait literally a week to get back, that’s gone. Your competitor took them.

Kimberley: Right and I’m the same way if I call to see pricing for my roof or if I want to find out how much some windows to replace and I think about it now and that’s kind of rotten, but I’m waiting

Stephanie: Well, I mean, but it’s reasonable and you expect a professional company to have the ability to get back to you in a reasonable amount of time. And for us, we set that time as one business day and we set that expectation from the start of when they fill out our booking form, it says, hey, we will get back to you within one business day. And we try to be as fast as possible, but at least that way, we nail our promise, right? And so I know a lot of people have call centers or whatever. But even if you’re out in the field and you can just send a quick templated email, say, Hey, I saw your call or text or however they reached out and said, I’ll reach back out to you at this time. Just to show there’s somebody out there on the other side.

Moving Away from In-Home Estimates

Kimberley: And I do have that set up, especially with calls or text messages. I can automatically hit it and send it to someone. But I probably need to do the, do you do any in-home estimates or do you do all online?

Stephanie: All of it’s online for us. We do not go and see it unless it’s a hoarder situation. And I know we talked about this. A lot, and when I started, I was going and looking at homes for the first two weeks, three weeks, and that was literally, so just a couple of weeks to get my feet wet and make myself feel more comfortable, because I was brand new. And I was still brand new after that, but at that point I’d got my production rates down, and because we charge hourly, that’s why I feel so confident in doing that. We’ve honed our production rates. And a lot of times I find when people are still going out and doing in-home estimates, it’s because they feel they can’t close any other way. Is that what you feel?

Kimberley: I don’t necessarily know if I can because I’ve never tried it.

Stephanie: I can’t believe you jumped off that.

Kimberley: I I’ve listened to your podcast and I know that that had to be absolutely wild.

Stephanie: Oh, yeah. I had my full time job and then I was cleaning every nights and weekends. There was no time. It was forced and but I’m happy. That’s the thing is when you have a lot of time constraints, you’re forced to find solutions to make it work. So it’s okay, how do I feasibly go about closing and getting all of the information I need to confidently give somebody a proper estimate without seeing the house. And so that has dictated so much behavior that has made SereneClean really scalable because I was forced to make that solution. And so that’s why when you look at our booking form, it has a million questions. And that’s why when I look at other folks’ intake forms and it’s literally just how many bedrooms, bathrooms, or what’s your name and phone number, it’s no, we need more information. We need to get as much information as possible. One, to be able to appropriately price, but two, to be able to empathize and sell to them. Because one of our questions is what’s stressing you out about your house? And that’s so that we can have that level of empathy when we do get ahold of them and say, I totally can understand that. I’m super busy and I know how the kitchen can be. And I see that you got three kids and two dogs. My gosh, that must be so hard. And that’s true, that’s why I opened the business.

Understanding Your Customers’ Pain

Kimberley: It is true. It is the truth. Taking care of a home, especially in a substantial size home, is literally, if you do it properly, a full-time, everyday-something job. It is. It truly is. That’s not any type of foolery. It’s the truth.

Stephanie: Yeah, and absolutely, especially considering most of our clients are dual income families, both parents are working outside of the home, yet what used to be a full time job, homemaking is now expected to happen around a full time job, and caring for children. So it’s something’s got to give. And so even just what I just stated, what we’re talking about right now, that’s your marketing message guys, is connect with your customers. Tell them this, put this out there and they will feel seen and heard because they’re already feeling ashamed and they already feel a failure, which is stupid because, I mean, it’s not stupid how they feel, but it is stupid that that expectation is even placed on anybody to begin with. It is a recipe for disaster. You can’t expect that of yourself. So really putting that message out there and this is where I feel that that human connection is the key to selling our services. I see and I feel your pain and I’m gonna solve it. That’s literally all we need to, that’s the brass tacks of marketing of a cleaning business for residential. I see your pain, I’m going to solve it.

Kimberley: Yeah, give me that opportunity to show you what relief I can bring inside your home. Just give me the opportunity.

Building Trust Through Personal Connection

Stephanie: Yes. Absolutely. Even, that’s where, so saying that, okay, and all companies can say that and then marry that with the human element of your personality or listener, your personality. Put a name to the face, Kimberley. Put that beautiful face on your website and say, I see your pain. Me, Kimberley, I see your pain and I am going to fix it for you. And that’s why we highlight our staff so much because people, it’s such a delicate thing to let somebody in their house. We want to give my team very public accolades for their work, but also what it does for our clientele and future clients. When they come to our Facebook, they’re seeing who’s actually potentially going to be in my house. It’s not just cleaners are not to be seen or heard or fly by night company, or just a bunch of independent contractors. So I know we’re kind of talking about marketing right now, but so all of that to be said of how do I not do in home estimates is a really robust intake form and then just constantly iterating on our production rates and looking at, okay, we did that house. It took us this long. It was a typical home. Okay. That’s how fast we did that. And you just start compiling that data over time and saying, okay, at initial cleanings of a typical home, which are usually pretty dirty. This is how long it takes us. And then that’s our production rate. And then we take that number and we’re able to give it forward.

And remind me, you charge flat rate or do you charge hourly?

Creating Pricing Systems from Experience

Kimberley: I flat rate. But I go, I’m the one who has done every single meet the person estimate from day one. I’ve gone to every single house. I’ve talked to every single potential client and looked at everything. But let me just throw this in here real quick. There was someone who made a post on one of our local posts here. I think it was Connect to Augusta or something that was local on Facebook. It was a friend of a lady who had a child in ICU and she had four other children at home and a husband and she was torn back and forth and the house had gotten neglected and bless her heart, just my heart was just breaking for it. Well, the lady who made the post, a lot of different cleaners, because this area is saturated with cleaners who literally, and I’m not discrediting a single one of them, more power to them. There’s plenty of homes for everybody in this area, in surrounding areas. But she had made a post and so many people were saying that they would come and give an estimate or they would offer their services. And I just messaged her on messenger and I said, listen, let me come, let me bring my techs and let us come in. We’ll spend two and a half hours and we’ll get the house back as tidy as possible and it won’t cost you a dime. It won’t cost you a penny. And we went and it was a strong clean. I will say that, but I have never ever done a clean, a deep, and we did a deep in two and a half hours in a house that size before. And somehow another, I don’t know, we knocked it out of the water.

Stephanie: The energy.

Kimberley: Was it absolutely perfect? Did we do the inside of the oven? No, we wiped it out, but we didn’t do that. But her house was beautiful when we walked out of it. And she was so gracious and so thankful. You could just see how it just made her feel she could literally take a deep breath for a minute. It was wonderful, but I don’t know how we did it so quickly.

Stephanie: I know how you did it either. That’s amazing. That’s, it’s so, I love that you highlighted that because it touched on anytime you’re feeling pulled to give, just, I follow that immediately. It’s we’re doing this, we’re doing this. And it’s not in a chaotic manner, it’s just we are supposed to help this person. And for us, we created the, we have something called the Fresh Start Project and anybody can nominate anyone for a free cleaning. And we started that about a year ago, I think, and it’s gone over very well. And so we literally just advertise, hey, if you know somebody and maybe they can’t necessarily afford cleaning services or haven’t even thought about it, they can nominate and then we how we dictate what we do with those is what you kind of set of giving a time limit. We kind of this is how much time we got in the schedule. Maybe somebody canceled. Hey, can we come in? We got five hours. Let’s do what we can in that time. What’s the priority list? And anything is better than nothing for sure.

The Impact of Giving Back

People are going to remember that. And I know that’s not what you’re doing it for, but it does have the side effect building culture internally for your staff because they are seeing, I’m sure you made it, did you tell your cleaners that this is free? No, I know, no, no. But the, did the cleaners know that you were not getting paid for it?

Kimberley: Yes, I explained the situation. I said, that’s why we’ve got to really, and I always try to stress timeframes, not just for a payroll aspect, but because homeowners wanna be able to be in their home. And I find that most of the time, they’re worried that they’re in our way and they’re never in our way, thankful for them, thankful for them. They’re never in our way.

So I do try to stress time to my techs. Let’s try to get in there. We’ve got this time frame. Let’s try to get that done. And then how we managed to do it in that time frame. I mean, talking a full master, a full double vanity upstairs bathroom, a downstairs bathroom, dining room, kitchen, a breakfast room, a living room, a library, stairs, and four bedrooms.

Stephanie: My goodness. And it was all three of your techs and you, or how many were you guys? Okay, yep. Okay, got it. So yeah, you just tackled it.

Kimberley: There was four total, three techs and me. But that shows you how wonderful the ones that I have are because they did. They were their little hearts were in it. They were in it just as deep as I was.

Stephanie: And that’s why I’m so happy that you told them that. And it’s not a bragging thing. It’s those cleanings are so impactful for my staff, and clearly your staff as well, everybody, because it feels so good of we are making such a difference. This has nothing to do with finances. This is literally we are doing good. And that’s why we really we always put in our Zenmaid notes this is a free cleaning. This is a fresh start cleaning. And also it kind of tells them this might not be our typical home that we go into meaning it might be more cluttered or things that we would usually tell people to pick up more but it’s do what you can, anything is gonna be a huge impact for them. And it literally makes their whole week, meaning the cleaning techs, obviously the client as well. And then that feedback that we received too is hey, this changed my life. This literally gave me that reset that I needed. I love that you did that.

And I would encourage whenever is feasible, and if you even had a list of people and telling your current clients, hey, we offer this or coming up with a more established, I said, we have a whole program for this and basically it’s if we have the availability, I want to do at least a couple a month if we possibly can and fitting them in because then it just creates this really wonderful team atmosphere because your cleaners definitely appreciate it. But then from a community standpoint, it’s this company cares about this community and that’s what I love about it. So I wouldn’t be afraid. I know that you did that privately and I don’t think we should always highlight things that we have been generous about publicly. So we don’t really tell people how many free cleanings we do or anything. But to make it aware that you are open to doing this, I don’t want you getting taken advantage of. Use your judgment, but honestly, that was something I was worried about when we started. I was are people gonna just take advantage of this? Not once, every single person that has been nominated was an absolute they needed this and they were probably too proud or embarrassed or ashamed to ask for it themselves. It’s always their family members or friends who are asking.

Kimberley: What a wonderful thing. And you know, I think the lady that we did it for left me a Google review before we even got out of the neighborhood.

Stephanie: Yep, yep. And you know she’s gonna tell everybody she knows about that. And again, we’re not doing good things for people just for people to talk about. That’s not the point, but it is a side effect.

Kimberley: When I saw that post, my heart was just, you know, I remember with my children, in times that were tough or hard to handle, I couldn’t imagine having a child that was in ICU. I just immediately just sent a message. And I just knew, I don’t know what we’re not fixing to change the world, but we can help her out for a couple of hours.

Stephanie: Well, and that’s just being members of cleaning for a reason. It’s those people are going through cancer treatments. We are not solving the world for them, but we are giving them a peaceful space and we are giving them a clean space and your environment absolutely dictates your mindset as we all know. And our clients know that. And that’s why, again, all of these things that you and I are talking about, these are the things that we all should be putting out there publicly because I think there is a stigma about having a house cleaner still to this day. That’s what my clients told me early on is this was really hard for me. I didn’t want people to know I had a house cleaner because I didn’t want them thinking I was above cleaning my own house basically. And it’s no, this is the smartest thing you can do because your time is valuable. This means that you are more present with your family and really building your clients up too is a big part of what we want to do.

Reassuring them that it’s okay to outsource the cleaning. We love doing this for you. And the more they feel good about it, the more likely they’re gonna talk to other people, yeah, I got a house cleaner. It’s great, instead of not talking about it. So I know that this was kind of long-winded and not about intake forms, but that’s the point of this conversation. It’s more just a free form.

Moving Away from In-Home Estimates

So what I will say, and coming back to you doing all of those walkthroughs, so that is a wonderful thing because you know what that means you have? You have probably hundreds of data points on, okay, this is how long bathrooms take us. This is how long living rooms take us. This is how long kitchens take us. And you could even rank it small, medium, large, or not very dirty versus very dirty so that then when you get, you can actually literally create yourself a little pricing sheet of almost a la carte pricing of, and piecing together to get an actual estimate. So you know how to price. You have all the information that you need to not go to the house. It’s just, what do you ask them or what’s on that intake form? And then literally just look at your sheet. Okay, you got this many full baths, you got a half bath, you got this many bedrooms. You say moderate level of buildup.

And this is one of my other consulting clients. She told me long ago, she’s done flat rate for years on her first time cleans. And I was tell me, what’s your secret? How do you not totally screw it up basically? Because that’s always been my fear. How do you do a flat rate clean without seeing it first? And she said that she has the clients self-evaluate and self-rank them. So they say, scale of one to 10, what’s the dirtiness level or whatever you wanna call it, to not offend them basically. We use the word build up a lot. And so if they say five or less, she does her pricing as is, but if they say five or more, she automatically adds $200 to that initial clean price. And she says they’ve never lost. They’ve never eaten it basically on that initial cleans because that gives them that wiggle room. And the thing is about pricing is just try one.

Can you go do an initial clean, give them a price over the phone, see how it goes? It’s not we haven’t all lost money once or twice before. Why not try it again? But this time you didn’t have to go do a walkthrough. And then learn from it and adjust basically. It’s just, you have so much data from years now of going and doing and walkthroughs. This is where I’m such a proponent of a scheduling software, because I can go back and look and see how long did that take us. How big is that house? How many bedrooms? How many bathrooms? Because you have that data. But either way, I know you have that information and I know you can look up the square footage of those houses. I would say.

Kimberley: Yes, and I usually keep it. Actually in my contact information I usually keep that information, the square foot, the bedroom, the bathroom, 50-50 carpet, upstairs, hardwood down, that kind of thing. So I do keep the information.

Stephanie: So yeah, I mean, there’s patterns in that information and it’s all at that point, it’s math. It’s okay. Sally’s house and Amy’s house are practically the same. They took us this long or if they didn’t take the same amount of time and they were the same square footage, what was different? And that tells you that, okay, if somebody has three dogs in the house, then I need to add $50 or whatever it is. It’s just an if-then function. I was in robotics back in the day. A lot of if-then functions. And it literally is just, it’s formulas. And I think that it could be a little bit overwhelming. What I would do is take the past two months and look through all the first times that you guys did and take a look at there and just slowly wean yourself off of or even what you could do would be really interesting is if you revamped your intake form, and you figured out what your price would be if you didn’t go do the walkthrough and then go do the walkthrough and check yourself and see, did I actually come in where I thought I would be? And what changed it? And that way, because I know that would be your security blanket, I’m still gonna go do the walkthrough, but that kind of hones your estimating muscle. So maybe that would be something fun to try.

Kimberley: Brilliant. I love that.

Stephanie: Well, me neither till right now, so.

So once we get in that, it’ll get some of your time back too. And that was, again, the necessity for me was I did not have time to go do in-person estimates. And my business is in such a rural area, our homes are so spread out. You could drive, but for us, driving 30 minutes is driving 30 miles. So that is the nice thing about not being in cities is we don’t have to deal with traffic. It’s literally, you have to deal with hitting deer, basically. That’s the biggest risk for us.

So that would get a lot of your time back. What else? What else is going on? I know we talked about scheduling software. Have you made any progress on that?

The Scheduling Software Dilemma

Kimberley: There’s a problem in my brain. I’ve got to just, I can’t, I don’t understand me. I think I should leave my brain to science. I just don’t understand. I’m not kidding. I’m serious. It’s I look at all the different options and I’m my goodness, I love that. And then I’ll look at this one and I’ll that is so fantastic and I wish that I could copy and paste and just have my own. I’ve got to come, I’ve just got to get one and I’ve got a trust that it’s going to work. I get so tied up and just in worry that I’m going to make a wrong choice where that is concerned.

Stephanie: No, I totally can understand that because, that’s why, honestly, choosing a scheduling software, basically it’s basically an operation software for your whole business. And so if something goes wrong, we know the ramifications of that. And I actually have told Zenmaid that of we are so gun shy of administratively. So we leave ourselves a ton. They’re why do you add all of these tasks at the top of the calendar in the software? that’s already taken care of. And I’m we are so paranoid that something wrong, and it’s not on them, it’s just we wanna double check is that we’re gonna make a mistake. And so we’re Jamie is off after this time or whatever. And it’s just well, you didn’t schedule on they’re off, but we just wanna make sure that we don’t make a mistake. So I will say being that you are there’s a lot of software is out there.

Obviously I’m biased and I’m gonna push you towards Zenmaid because that’s what I’ve used since day one. But from a technical standpoint, it’s the easiest one to implement 100%. And they would help you bring in all of your contacts too. I think that give something some free trials and don’t utilize it at all. Just put in some fake appointments and see what you think. Download the app yourself and assign yourself to an appointment. So it’s super low risk. Don’t have your cleaners use it at all. Just have you use it. It’s not even, it’s almost a, operate your business as you currently are, but then just add it and kind of give it a test and see what you think of, okay, if I was a cleaner, okay, here’s my appointments for the day, I clock in, I clock out. They got that appointment reminder text and things. Because I know that’s gonna be a big one for you is not sending reminder texts and emails manually. Because I can’t remember, are you doing that now manually? Yes, yes. How much time Kimberley are you spending sending reminder texts?

The Problem with Manual Customer Communication

Kimberley: I don’t even really know exactly how much time, I mean, not only do I just, and it’s not even a copy and paste. It is a full fledged little, I can’t wait to see Clarice when we get back. And it’s the cat with the black nose that is just the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen. Or we can’t wait to see y’all in the morning and love on Loki. I mean, it’s all, all of them are just because it’s the truth. I mean, Clarice is the cutest cat I think I’ve ever seen.

Stephanie: Well that is the least scalable thing I’ve ever heard in my life, Kimberley. So it’s funny that you say that because what you’re doing is amazing customer service and that could be done in other ways outside of the reminder test. So for us, we put those types of notes on the checklist. So my cleaners are leaving behind their physical checklist and they have a little note section and they’ll write sweet little things there. So I think that you can still impart those things in a scalable manner, but build it into the systems or when you send the bill, add that note there. was so great. So I think that I love, I love that energy and I want you to keep it, but I want you to build it into a system where you aren’t having to do additional work basically. So that would be a great one for sure.

And it’s just, it’s a lot, and this is what I guess, this is where software can be a beautiful thing. I know it’s overwhelming, but it’s all of these micro actions that you are having to do, because it’s not automated. I mean, there’s probably a hundred things a day that you’re doing that literally could be gone. It could just be taken care of. And that when those little things are taken care of, it gives you the mind space of okay, how do I solve this problem? Because you can actually be really focused because yeah, you’re getting pulled in a million directions every day. Because you’re doing, okay, you have no other administrative help, right? Or somebody answering your phones or what, how, you, and you are cleaning. You’re cleaning a lot still, right?

Finding Balance Between Cleaning and Business Management

Kimberley: Not cleaning as much as I was, but I’m not gonna not clean because A, that’s another mental issue. I just, I love it.

Stephanie: Yeah, and there’s no reason not for you not to, I don’t think that if you love it or you want to be involved in it, it’s just more of being strategic about everything else then so that you can have the space to really love it and not hate the rest of your life. Not saying you do, but I know how it is.

Kimberley: I don’t want to detach from the cleaning. I mean, I would to be able to 100% confidently know that the people who are taking care of my clients are doing it in the same kind of loving from their heart, you know, I do it. I know that’s going to be a difficult thing to find, but I’m trying.

Building a Heart-Centered Team

Stephanie: And I, and I would, when I think of, a bunch of the episodes that are about to drop are going to be of my staff members who have been with me for years and they all have that heart of service. And so there are people out there who, and, interestingly enough, and I make a point in those interviews to highlight this, they all come from healthcare. Actually 75 plus percent of Serene Clean’s workforce comes from healthcare because they typically have some heart of service. They’re used to long hours. They’re not afraid to get their hands dirty. And they have been absolutely beaten down mentally by the system. It’s never enough. They’re never good enough. It’s always something. It’s always more work. And they’re never appreciated when they do their job right. So when we take those types of people and put them in an environment where they can get appreciated, get accolades, and feel their work is actually being it matters, my gosh, they just, they flourish.

And I remember in my interview with my one cleaning tech, Ashley V, who’s been with me for over four years, she’s amazing. She is a heart of gold. Literally she is baking cookies for her coworkers on her day off. She made me a custom apron one time. That spoon right over there, that is hand wooden carved. Because my staff knows I love SpongeBob. And so she carved a SpongeBob into that wooden spoon. And that is a gift from one of my, and it’s so meaningful to me because she’s just, she’s such a good person. And she walked into our office and saw the vinyl lettering that we had on our old office. We’re getting on our new one too. And it said, the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. Right? So you walked into our office and you saw that quote. And she said, I need to be here. I need to be, this is where, this is my type of people if they believe that, because that’s what she believes. That’s just who she is.

So I think just being so strong on who Kimberley is and the core values that you want to embody in your business, you will scare away people who do not feel that way. That’s the goal. We want to actively scare away people who do not fit that, who are not ethical and filled with that love and that part of service is really what we’re going for. Because there’s tons of people who feel that. They want their work to matter, but they also want to get paid well and they also want to feel appreciated. And once you do those things, it’s actually not that hard to keep great people because you’re already doing it. You already have great people. You just need to find more of them. And so that’s why we talked about the interviewing process and getting more people in front of you so that you can get to the right people. Yeah, 100%, I think that getting in front of more people is going to help you and then just being very clear of what’s important to you.

Creating Systems for Excellence

And then from how do we have that consistent excellence? That all comes down to training and a quality control program and just doing frequent QCs, asking your clients for feedback on a regular basis, encouraging and giving accolades when you see your cleaners doing things. So for us, our cleaners, some of them will put, they’ll take all the stuffed animals with the blankets on the kids beds and they’ll put them in hearts or little shapes and stuff. And when the clients love it, right? And so then they’ll send us an email and then in the group chat in front of all the staff, we highlight that. And what that does to all the other staff is say, the boss when we do things that. So you get, it’s, I’m not trying to call anybody dogs, but if anybody knows of the Pavlov dog experiment, when you ring the bell, when you feed the dog, they start to drool and anticipate, right? And then when you take the food away and you ring the bell, they still start drooling, right? And so what we want to do is Pavlov Dog, our staff, so that they have this positive association with when they do heartfelt, sweet things for their client, they’re gonna get publicly praised in front of their coworkers and in front of the public if you put this on social media, and that feels good.

There’s the reward, it feels good. And anytime we can make our staff feel good for doing the things that we want them to do, it’s going to make them do it more. And so if that’s important to you of loving, caring things, give them concrete examples of what that looks like. So you’re not just saying, hey, be more loving and giving to clients. Don’t say that, but give them specific examples, these are the types of things that our clients love and that is really important to me that we do these types of things. And I want you to come up with ideas too and then bring them to the team. And that will just encourage this really creative environment of how can we be even more loving and giving to our clients? And then talk about that as a team and really, I think people think that an atta boy or an atta girl every once in a while is enough. It’s not.

We need to constant, every single week should be praise, praise, praise, praise, praise. Because they’re going to, even they showed up all week and they didn’t get any complaints. Oh my gosh, you were so consistent. It’s amazing. Just find ways to praise them in front of each other. Not, and then privately too, but it’s really important to do that in the group setting, I think emotionally. It makes you feel proud. And so with you being that that’s so important to you, build that into your training system, give them the concrete examples. I would even quiz them on it. I did just release our training program. I finally put that together. I might’ve emailed you about it. I can’t remember. It was in my newsletter. And so that’s something that we literally build into the training program is quizzes on retention. So that’s the information that we want them to understand and comprehend. So they do their in-person training and then we’re quizzing them periodically throughout it. And so for you, could be having that quiz or asking them verbally, what are some examples of, whatever you wanna call it, extra little loving touches that we could do in client’s home and just let them freely talk and see if they can come up with it.

And then every week, I’m a big fan of weekly team meetings. I don’t know how often, how often are you meeting with your team?

Building Culture Through Small Gestures

Kimberley: Well, we’re together almost every single day at some point. And you said about the stuffies, that’s kind of, I’ve always told them, if we’re doing a kid’s room and they’ve got stuffies, think about how when you were a kid and you come home, if your stuffies hadn’t been looking towards the door to greet you, that would just be so heartwarming as a kid to see that. So I do try to, and if there’s magnetic letters on the dishwasher or the fridge, we make a cute little saying or a crossword puzzle or just something from Mother’s Day on one of them. I think one of we come up with. You’re the best mom, and left it just little things, but it also makes, you said, the cleaning techs feel really good because it does make you feel good to know that it isn’t, it’s not something huge, but it is something that makes a little difference.

Stephanie: Yeah, and it just it feels good to make people feel good and so that’s the beautiful thing about our work and I think that people really until you do it for a living you don’t understand how good it can be and that’s our job to educate the public or your potential employees on hey, this may not be something you ever considered for a career but you are gonna feel so good every single day because you’re first of all it’s such a visceral you’re taking something dirty and making it clean and tidy. That feels really good. It’s very satisfying. But then to know you’re making a positive impact on people, just constantly saying that. And so I feel you have such a strong ability to communicate purpose to your team. Use that. That is your strength is we have this purpose. That’s, I feel I also have that strength of we’re not just clean, we’re changing lives. And we have to have that kind of visionary behavior. You’re the visionary, you are the leader. And think of ourselves as a very healthy cult, right? That we’re trying to lead people and behave in a certain way. But the thing about cult leaders is they, all of the members feel so strongly about it and they’re happy about it, right? And so without all the connotations of negativity, how can we be this is our purpose, this is our meaning.

And get everybody, as I say, rowing in the same direction on the boat. And so for you of taking yourself out of the field, and then that’s what quality control is for, and touching base with your clients and let your cleaners prove themselves, right? And with a newbie, just because they make a mistake, doesn’t mean I need to go do that or whatever. So I feel you’re really right on the precipice of a lot of greatness.

I mean, you’re already doing so great. You have this really solid cultural foundation, which I feel is one of the cornerstones of art. Is Kimberley’s business going to be successful? Yes, because she’s got this cornerstone of strong culture and strong belief. And so, because then your staff members are going to feel it. And then they start, when you bring a newbie in, they get that vibe too. And they realize that they’re going to be found out if it’s not a good fit. They almost out themselves with their behavior.

Team Dynamics and Individual vs Team Cleaning

Stephanie: I’m curious just, this is a no judgment because teams can run beautifully and flawlessly. Have you ever considered doing some individual cleaning? I found it to be typically, we don’t deal with drama ever, hardly. And I know, you probably haven’t had too much of that yet, but it is it. I’m curious as to why teams.

So, and again, I’m not trying to put any sort of judgment because you saying you should do solo, I’m just asking because people are listening and as I always say, there’s lots of ways to skin this cat and a lot of companies exclusively run teams. So clearly, it can work beautifully. From a safety perspective, teams is superior 100% of the time. For us being so rural, that’s one of the reasons why we run solo because we got cleaners going all over the dang county and additionally, for us, it’s an accountability thing. There’s no one to point fingers at. And that’s a big thing for me is I don’t to have to go to a couple of cleaners and say, play the he said, she said game. I don’t wanna deal with it. And being that we are mostly female industry, I worked, I wait just a long time, you bartended, you know.

That literally, and it’s a hornet’s nest that you kick almost sometimes when you get a bunch of women together. And so that actually, my experience coming off of waitressing was one of the reasons I was very adamant about individual as much as possible cleaning. And so that is just from my experience of I was so tired of dealing with the cattiness of a bunch of women together, frankly, and I’m not saying it’s always that, but it can be that. And I just wanted to eradicate the possibility. And so that literally dictated from day one, we run individuals, right? And also I just, one thing I’ve seen in folks who run teams is those cleaners feel then if they have to do a home by themselves, they’ll oftentimes quit or say, refuse. I will not do a home by myself. It’s too much where it’s the same. Yes, cause they’ve been conditioned.

So somebody calls in, it’s what do you do with that if they’re used to doing teams and you go clean? And so for us, it’s just from a carpooling perspective, coordination, even things person wants to smoke in the car, this person’s driving, there’s just a million micro things we don’t have to deal with because we don’t run teams. And so. Oh, wow.

If I tried to do that, I’d have nobody in myself. I’m just kidding. Not all of them smoke, but yeah, that’s amazing. Good for you.

Fresh. That’s what, that’s why we, and so caveat with the smoking or vaping thing, they must not smell it. They will get, they will get in trouble if they smell it. So really that really kind of limits the ability of smoking, driving between jobs or anything. Yeah. Cause they can’t smell it, but I totally attest to, we had started getting, because we only use essential oils for scent.

Creating a Signature Experience

That sometimes does not stick around very, very long, at least just when it’s in our all purpose. So this past year we got a local company to develop a custom room spray and custom candle blend. Yeah. And so every cleaner, when they are done cleaning, they spray the room spray and the comments on the scent has really skyrocketed because that’s what you just said. And we literally, we were smelling samples. We blended three different scents. Because I’m this is the Serene Clean Custom Scent. And now what we’ve done is on somebody’s first maintenance cleaning. So it’s really their third cleaning. So once they have their first two out of the way and they’ve kind of committed to we’re gonna be getting regular cleanings, we actually have the cleaner pick up a thank you card and one of the custom candles and give it as a gift on that third cleaning. And so even that, it’s those little things that can be systematized. And so for us, it’s in every office, they just have a stockpile of those supplies. And it’s in the Zenmaid notes, up these things and write a nice little note or whatever. And the cleaners really love it too, because it’s kind of fun. It’s they’re giving a gift. And yeah, we actually, just had one of our clients asked to buy a bunch of the candles because they’re we love this smell. Yeah, smell is so important in creating that experience. And I had had a call, a call with a company who just started in Atlanta not too long ago. And they, they were we really want to go in on the scent aspect of cleaning because people really, really associate with scent with cleanliness. It’s very important, right? So yeah. Yeah.

So I, I, so again, we’re, we’re of jumping all around, but coming, coming back to the team’s thing. It can be a great thing. It’s just, you need to have a lot of things put into place to avoid kind of the problems of it. And so what I would say is going forward, you need to switch the mindset that, or I would suggest that you work on the mindset of, can somebody clean a house by themselves? Because clearly they can. Our staff, they do on average two houses a day by themselves, unless it’s a larger home, of course. But that’s a typical house, is two appointments a day. And they really it because, they can just show up. It’s their work. They don’t have to honestly, obviously they’re communicating with the, with the homeowners at times, but it’s just very chill. And what I’ve found with teams, oftentimes the most likely mistakes to be made are where common spaces connect. Other areas will get forgotten because it’s you’re doing the living room. I’m doing the kitchen, but the hallway in between those two things will get missed or, those types of spaces will happen or just the inability to communicate effectively sometimes will really come out in teams where they’re talking a lot, they’re chattering and we don’t even want them in the same room, because it’s so distracting to their ability to work fast. So, yes.

I know. Absolutely. Yeah. And so so I think that it’s definitely it’s not a wrong way to run the business. I think again, there are, when you look at any of the franchises, they all run teams. So clearly, it can work beautifully. You just need to really watch, watch certain things where I have to watch other things with individual cleaners, so it really is. Pick your poison or do a blend. We do a blend because some multiple times a week, have people working together, but it’s just basically after that initial clean, one of those cleaners that was on it, that is typically going to that that’s their house now. That is their client now. And so because they’re already familiar with it. So that’s just how it goes for us. So that could be something just to monitor. But I really feel you have so many amazing things going for you. So I just and I just I love the company.

You’re gonna, you are gonna be successful. I mean, you already are, but this thing’s gonna blow up. It’s just, yeah, putting your head down and getting some of these hiring systems in place, we talked about in our first call, getting the group interviews in place, having Indeed listings going at all times and getting some software in place to make your life easier, 100%. But is there anything else? Yeah, and your website. Yeah, it’s pretty, but it just needs, it needs a little jing up.

While you have me, any other questions since we last talked that you wanna hash out?

Personal Connections and Future Growth

Stephanie: Yes, yes, my gosh, Luis Chacobar. Yes. They have in, literally, I’m not exaggerating at all. They have the best ice cream I’ve ever had in my life. They home make it there. And Derek and I, my boyfriend, we went and got Lulu’s, gosh, it was a few months ago. And he was okay, let’s just get a couple small desserts, because we had already gone out to eat. And then I was okay, and he orders this piece of cake. And I was I completely changed my mind. And I ordered the giant chocolate. It’s a bowl made out of chocolate and it has all of these ice creams and then shots of drinks with it. And we, I swear you needed a forklift lift to roll us out of there. I’m I can’t walk somebody get me a wheelchair because I’m so full of ice cream. Yeah, it was amazing. It was amazing. So anybody going to Savannah Lulu’s Chocolate Bar is, yeah, definitely. Next time you’re in Savannah.

Hit me up Kimberley or anytime I’m up, you we travel all over Georgia all the time. So I would love to, have a meal with you. That would be so fun.

I feel some, and I’ve definitely been told I’m very lucky and I do feel very lucky in many of the opportunities that arose. And I think just setting yourself up to be able to take on opportunities and just having that belief in yourself that I don’t know how it’s going to work, but I’m going to make it work. And I think that, yes, and that you have that belief in yourself and it’s going to work and everything comes at the time it’s supposed to for all of us.

Awesome. Yes. Well thank you, Kimberley. You know how I am with a fellow redhead. We have to stick together. Yes, gingers unite.

Closing Thoughts

So thank you, Kimberley, and thank you to all of our listeners. Of course, leave some lovely kind words for Kimberley in the comments below. Hit that like, hit that subscribe. If you’re listening on Spotify or any of the podcast players, go watch on YouTube. It’s fun to watch, guys. That’s where I always watch my podcasts, actually. So if you didn’t know, this is also a video if you’re just listening. So definitely go ahead and give it a watch on YouTube, and we will see you in the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye, guys.

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

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Clean Keepers
• ZenMaid Scheduling Software
• Cleaning for a Reason
• Fresh Start Project