The 3 Traits That Built My Cleaning Business

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Introduction

Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and today’s episode is inspired by a conversation I had yesterday with a fellow cleaning business owner. He had asked me, we’d been talking about my journey as a cleaning business owner and an entrepreneur, and he was curious how I would categorize some of the top characteristics or traits that I possessed over the years that have made me successful in my journey.

Obviously there’s been a lot of mistakes made, and you guys know that because I tell you all about them, but I thought it would be perhaps interesting for you guys to hear how I kind of self evaluate my business journey and what has allowed me to continue to persevere and be someone you want to listen to.

The Foundation of Business Success

So I thought I’d break things into different categories, and truly, there’s three different areas of my personality and behavior that I feel have really set me up for success and the ability to persevere and continue pushing through when things get incredibly challenging.

As anybody listening knows, and I will continue saying this, and probably every episode, business ownership is not for everybody. It is not for the faint of heart. It is one of the most difficult journeys and paths that people can choose when it comes to their employment. I also think it is one of the most potentially rewarding types of work that we can do, but it truly can be a prison that we shackle ourselves in if we are not careful.

It’s very easy for everybody to look and see, oh, Stephanie, look at, she might go have a margarita after this. I don’t have to be anywhere I don’t want to be and that’s a cool thing. And that’s not to be said in a bragging way. It said that that is absolutely possible to go and have that eventually, but I had to trudge through a lot of shit to get to the point that I am here, and we still deal with a lot of problems.

Why These Traits Matter

You never get away from having problems in your business. You kind of just graduate to new problems, or the same problems keep popping up in different ways, and you have to continually adjust from there. So all of this whole episode is definitely in no way, shape or form me trying to brag or say I’m all that, or anything like that. It’s more just so I feel a very frank analysis of why the heck have I been able to do this where others maybe are not able to.

The point being of these are characteristics that I hope that you guys can take on and know that this isn’t anything special about me. It’s more so a skill set that we can all develop, and everything that I’m about to describe anybody can have. It’s not only Stephanie is capable of things. I mean, literally, anybody listening is capable of these things. It’s a lot of mindset.

My Experience with Motivational Content

I don’t talk a lot about mindset on this podcast specifically because I never want to be just a podcast that is here to basically blow smoke up your ass and make you feel good. I really want this to be a place that you learn and I give you very practical advice. However, honestly, looking back at the beginning of my journey, when I was cleaning a ton and it was just so overwhelming, I watched motivational content all the time, not just, I actually rarely watched cleaning business content. It was all entrepreneurship stuff and reading a lot of books on personal development.

That’s why I thought maybe that you guys would enjoy this, because I really enjoyed motivational content. I really enjoyed hearing about what sets somebody who is successful apart from those who fail.

Trait #1: Grit and Resilience

Honestly, I think the first thing with not even getting into these three categories here is what I just said of I’ve failed at many, many things, and then I kept going, right? And so I guess that is the number one bucket – grit and resilience.

There’s some great books on this topic, and one of them is called Grit, and it is by Angela Duckworth. It’s a bit of a read, and I listen to it while cleaning, as I listen to everything cleaning. I would definitely recommend it. It just talks about the importance of grit and tenacity and just continual perseverance in the face of challenges.

Absolute Confidence in Problem-Solving

For me, in that conversation yesterday, this was the big trait that I saw in myself, is that I have absolute 100% confidence in my ability to figure anything out. And that is not 100% confidence that I know how to do everything. In fact, I would argue that I know next to nothing, but I am so confident in my ability to figure anything out.

The reason I’m so confident is because of all of the evidence I have in my entire life. And the beautiful thing is, for you, you’re in the same place. You have all of the evidence of every single challenge that you have gone through in your entire life. Look at the success rate you have. You figured everything out because you’re still here, right? You’re still here, and whatever challenges you’re facing right now, you’re going to figure out.

Learning Through Action

Specifically in my business, I could give you 1000 examples of I didn’t know what I was doing, but I was very confident that I was going to figure it out. My very first commercial walkthrough at that giant manufacturing facility. 23-year-old Stephanie walked in that place literally having no idea what she was doing, no idea what she was doing, blustered and just bluffed my way through it. I had my polo, I had my clipboard, and I was just taking notes, and they totally knew. They were like, what year did you graduate? They were trying to suss me out.

And I was just, I’ll figure it out. I’m going to bid it. I bid it. They didn’t take the original one because I didn’t know what I was doing with bidding. But then they’re like, what about the front offices? What would that be? I guessed. And they took it and there we were. Off to the races.

If I was, I don’t know how to do commercial, but I don’t know how to bid, I might as well not do this walk through at all. Right? I didn’t know how to build a website. I didn’t know how to do estimating. I didn’t know how to talk to customers in their houses. I didn’t know how to do any of these things.

The Fort McCoy Example

Just over time, looking at the large opportunities that we have taken on, the Fort McCoy job that was a million dollar project that my business took on, I literally got the call. I went and did a walk through at a barracks at our local military base, and they’re like, okay, we’re about to have 15,000 people show up here, refugees that we need to clean barracks and all of the admin buildings. Ended up being, they just kept adding more buildings on, more buildings on.

I again, I was, what 25 when I went into that. And I had never done a military contract before. I had never dealt with anything. I was completely shooting from the hip, but it was showing up.

Ready, Fire, Aim Philosophy

One of the core things about this is being biased towards action, just try things, do things. I think one of the biggest things that I want you guys to take away is the more action we take, the faster you’re going to learn. Because I really feel that if I were to have a motto, it would be, ready, fire, aim. Okay, ready, fire, aim, so shoot and then recalibrate. Shoot, recalibrate. Shoot, recalibrate, because the only way to learn as efficiently as possible is you need to try things.

I’m talking to my analysis paralysis listeners right now. Stephanie may be very impulsive and chaotic, but you bet your ass I’m going to take action, and then I’m going to figure it out from there. I truly think that that is such an important thing for entrepreneurs to understand, is you just got to try shit, you got to fail and you got to learn, because the faster we fail, the more we’re going to learn rapidly.

I truly feel that the reason I grew so fast is I was learning so fast because I was just saying yes to everything. And I was, I got it, I’ll figure it out. I’ll figure it out. I’ll figure it out. And just, even I’m speaking quickly, because this is how my mind works, just go.

Experimentation Mindset

Now that we’re settled in, we’re more mature company, and we are really much more now, seasoned at taking measured risks and challenges, being slower to act and behave now, because we do not need to be so all the time. It’s more so, okay, let’s dig into the nitty gritty of this problem that we’re having and think through every single detail. I couldn’t do that in the beginning.

Honestly, all of these large opportunities that we’ve gotten, we’ve gotten. It said, oh shit. Okay, time. Figure it out. Let’s just show up and do our best in at the end of the day, every single situation that you’re coming from, you’re learning from, right? So now that I’ve had those, the first commercial account, I was, well, I figured that out. Now I can do other commercial, right?

Then there’s some commercial that we have totally failed at, and that we’re, okay, we’re never doing that again, and that’s okay, and I really just don’t see that as a failure. It’s more just honing on who is our ideal and likely buyer, right?

Evidence of Success

Maybe I never have an opportunity come across again that military contract, but we have done other government contracts now, and so once we got our largest account currently, which is a federal research facility. We bid it. Didn’t think we were going to get it. We got it, and then it was literally, my management team being like, oh my God. How are we going to do this? Because the background checks are so extensive and all of this, and how are we going to staff this? And blah, blah, blah. And here we are, a year and a half into that account. Guess who figured it out? Us.

So that’s why I’m so freaking confident in myself and my team, and truly everybody, because I’m, I know you can figure this out, and that may come across as almost dismissive to whatever problems that you’re having, but 100% of our problems other people have had, they figured it out, and they’re not better than me, right? So, and nobody’s better than you, that means that you have the capability to figure out whatever’s happening, especially in the day and age of ChatGPT and the internet, and you literally watching me right now. It’s extra figure-outable. Everything is.

The Confidence Factor

So I just have this extreme confidence, I’m going to figure anything out. I figured Fort McCoy out, right? So anything out? If you’re not about to throw 15,000 refugees at me, and I need to be literally squeegeeing human feces down drains, I can figure anything out. Okay, I did that. So why wouldn’t I be confident, right?

Think of all of the situations. I know you guys can think of 10, even small examples of, oh, I walked into that space and I didn’t know what to do, and I just experimented. And now I know more right, because I learned from that.

Learning from Past Experience

That’s why I’m hammering in this so much is that being adaptable, being resourceful, taking a look at all of the experiences you’ve had prior. You may not have ever done this, but have you done something similar? Right? I never ran a business. I waitressed, though, right? And I was a damn good waitress, and waitressing taught me so much about customer service and dealing with a lot of things at once, and having a very fast-paced environment, and again, being biased towards action, we need to move and do things, right?

So I really feel, when I if I were to encompass me as a person, that’s it, right? I’m going to take action, I’m going to try things and again, coming back to one of my other favorite quotes, moving from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. Okay, that didn’t work. I’m not going to sit there and be super upset about it, because it’s, well, what can we learn from it?

Finding the Silver Lining

We’ve had multiple failures this year that I have described to you guys, what some people would consider failures, where I’m just, look how much we learned from that. I’m so happy that happened, and honestly, I have such a glass half full or looking for that silver lining of every bad thing that has ever happened in the business, there has always been something to take away from that, right? There’s always something to learn or adjust so that that thing doesn’t happen again, or when it does, because we can’t prevent it from happening, we are much more prepared and ready to go, and it doesn’t shock us.

Normalizing the Struggle

If you are in the first year of business, and especially if you are in the first year of having staff members, you are about to be shell shocked, and you probably already are. And just, I want you to know that this is normal. This is completely normal what you’re going through. It’s literally what every single successful cleaning business owner has gone through. And truly, every service based business owner has gone through these things because we’re all dealing with the same problems, right?

We may be doing different things. They may be pressure washing and we’re cleaning houses, or they may be doing oil changes and we’re cleaning businesses. It’s all the same, right? We’re all running service based businesses, and so we’re going to run into the same things over and over, and that’s why I highly recommend learning from the other industries, because at the end of the day, we’re really doing all the same stuff, right? We are providing a service and we are managing employees, right? So everything else is just semantics.

Learning from Experience

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Remember, it’s free. Okay, now back to the video.

How can we learn from others? And again, it’s not about getting hung up on, that didn’t work. It’s, okay, well, after action report, what could we do differently if that happens again? What are we going to try next time? Okay, what policy needs to be put in place? What do we need to adjust on the checklist? Maybe it’s training. Maybe it’s how we communicate. There’s so much to be taken from it.

I guess I just don’t get hung up on this didn’t work. It’s more, ooh, be curious. Have that natural curiosity of, okay, why? What do we need to change here that’s going to make it better next time?

Taking Action Over Analysis

So I just, I really, implore you guys, I guess it’s, don’t give up. That’s the synopsis for this section of the video is, don’t give up, but it’s more, if you are just hemming and hawing over something, please just try something. Just try something. And think of it as an experiment. And say, for this week, I’m going to try three new things in my business.

And this is why I think it’s like, I really look at it, this is my hypothesis of what’s happening, and maybe it’ll be good or not. So for example, something fun we’re doing is, I’ve seen this before, is we’re having an issue with cleaners not reading their notes properly on maintenance cleans, right? So maybe a client requests something different, and the cleaner has been there a lot of times, so they’re not reading their notes, especially in commercial.

So what we’re doing is we’re hiding deep in the notes, a little note that says they need to send a particular emoji to their manager chat, and they’re going to get a bonus because of that. And so we’re literally going to do this across the entire team. And I’m, my hypothesis is, a third of them are going to get this at most.

And so I’m, this is so cool, as opposed to me being, oh no. What’s wrong? Clearly, we’re failing because our cleaners aren’t reading the notes. It’s, okay, this is a fun experiment. Let’s see how many don’t read the notes. And then we’ll go from there, and we’re going to put things into place, more of these kind of rewards and bonuses to make sure that they’re doing what we want. It’s, it this is fun. Now, instead of it being a stressful thing. It’s a fun thing.

Growth Through Challenge

And I think just really looking at every opportunity for what it is, of this is a huge growth opportunity. And I really, I really look at those giant things that have come my way, that may have felt incredibly stressful at the time, but I look back at them, I’m, those are the things that made me grow so much, so much, even the terrible things right when, when employees steal, when they leave without notice, when some of my best cleaners have left, when I’ve been betrayed by managers, when I went through my divorce and all of a sudden my entire business needs to get evaluated and potentially close down, because somebody is trying to take something from me that they didn’t deserve.

But whatever, I’ve been the episode for another day, but I’ve learned so much. One, get a prenup, but two, about what makes a business valuable, right? So that was really fascinating, and there’s so much to learn from that, not only just from a professional standpoint, but from a personal standpoint.

Building Confidence Through Evidence

And I think just having this relentless optimism and confidence in myself is just so valuable, I figured out every single thing in my life. And so have you, so have you, so it’s you should be confident, and just it doesn’t mean be cocky, there’s totally a difference of you have proof, right? You have proof that you’ve gotten through this.

And it just, it really lowers your, I guess, aura of, I guess desperation or anxiety, because it’s just, meh, we’re going to figure this out. It’s okay. It’s not the end of the world, even if it feels like it. And I know that a lot of you have gone through some horrific things, but you have persevered through those, and you’re going to persevere and learn from anything that you’re going through right now.

Everything is Figureoutable

So whatever that problem is, it’s figureoutable. Other business owners have gone through it. So go, access those resources, ask those questions, learn, but then, most importantly, implement and try and then revamp, revise, try again, try again, try again, and do just keep making it better and better, right? So that is grit and resilience, I would say.

Trait #2: Vision and High Standards of Excellence

And then the secondary area that I would say is one of my strengths, is having vision and just a really high standard of excellence, of what it is that I want from my company, for the business culture, and just my expectations related to everything so the brand, how I want people to feel when they interact me.

Building a World People Want to Join

And I think it’s I it’s not just building systems, right? I’m building a world that other people want to be a part of, and I know that you guys feel that from me and what I was talking about yesterday. I know I’ve mentioned it before, of I really think it’s our job and our responsibility, and truly, the only thing that’s going to make you have a really strong workplace culture is that you need to be the visionary in your business.

You need to not only believe in what you’re doing so strongly that it causes you to act. You need to be able to communicate that to other people so much so that they want to follow you. Right? They see the vision. You need to paint a picture, and it’s just the whole what we’re doing. It’s not just cleaning. We are literally changing people’s lives every single day.

Painting the Vision

My team goes out there and affects hundreds, if not 1000s of people, because of the commercial accounts, because of the families we’re helping, just all of the things that we’re doing that is impactful. It is important. And I truly feel that. And it’s, this is my life purpose is to affect people in this way, and so I’m painting that vision, and that allows other people to see that vision and be, I want to be a part of that. They want to drink my Kool-Aid.

But if you’re not able to paint that picture for them, of course they’re not going to follow you. Because when I look back at that first year business. I had nothing. I didn’t have an office. I was a kid. I had no experience running a business. Why the hell would people believe in me and follow me? Why did customers hire me? Why did employees who started then? Why are they still here today? It’s because I had a vision, and I was able to properly communicate that to them and show them with my actions that I meant business.

Starting Without Proof

Even though what they saw was just, this kid is, I had no proof, I had zero proof that this thing was going to work. But it’s, I just, I knew what I wanted, and I definitely didn’t think it was going to be what it is now. Obviously, that’s going to change and shift, and it’s probably going to grow beyond your wildest dreams at some point, because that’s what’s happened for me, and that’s the goal, obviously, right?

But at that time, that didn’t really matter. It didn’t, it wasn’t, I was, I want to have this cleaning empire that wasn’t it at all. It’s, on an individual basis, I want to for people to be cared for by me, and I want them to feel, loved in acts of service. And I want them to be able to trust that I’m going to take care of their home or their business at the highest level of excellence. And if I mess it up, I’m going to make it right.

Core Values as Foundation

So this just comes back to our core value of integrity. And, I just had these, this really, high standard that’s never changed, and I could see it, in the work that we performed. And I put things in place that have been, the cornerstone habit, cleaning checklist, right? That allow that standard to be across so many staff members, and then combining that with, the the creative vision and the branding savvy, I would say, of, okay, it’s not just about you having this in your head. It’s about how you communicate this, both verbally, but then all of your marketing, your website, everything needs to be very cohesive.

Emotional Connection Through Branding

And I feel I’ve just always had a good eye for making people feel things through those mechanisms, through those avenues, not just in the words that I say, but in the the social proof that we use, in the videos that we create, in the types of terminology and verbiage that we’re going to use and talk about so much of the emotional side of having a house cleaner, right? Because there’s just so much there.

So it’s for us, the branding vision has always been we are an incredibly community oriented company who really cares about the work that we do, and that is true, and I’m sure that’s probably true for literally every single one of you that is listening right now. But is that being communicated with what everybody can see, right?

Defining Your Brand Personality

And that really is what the brand is, is putting out what you want, the personality that you want your company to have, and if that’s not clearly communicated through everything that you do, then it’s just not going to be as effective. So I think that, though I was very inexperienced in all of these areas, I just I knew what I wanted. I knew what was and what wasn’t, serene, clean, right? And I and just using, your core values as your north star of life for us, integrity, positive and grateful attitude and family first. And then, showcasing that both of my actions, but then broadcasting that in my marketing and branding and just being really, really, really consistent, I think so, just having vision and having a really high standard of excellence and and being proud of that and communicating that effectively.

Trait #3: Leadership and Connection Skills

And then finally, I think the last area that’s made me really successful over the years is, having a knack, but then also cultivating leadership skills, as well as having a high level of connection with other people.

The Business vs. Connection Approach

And I think that you can absolutely have a cleaning business where you you don’t connect with with staff. This is truly, this is a business and, it’s reoccurring revenue and blah, blah, blah, all of the stuff I just talked about last week on KPIs and metrics, right? All of that, just hard line facts and whatnot. But I feel that having a high level of connection and empathy has served me so greatly.

It’s absolutely burned me, because I’ve got a bleeding heart, right, and I sometimes get taken advantage of, and I absolutely have over the years, but I still don’t regret it. I don’t regret ever helping somebody. I don’t regret lending an ear to somebody or lending a hand to somebody. I’ve never regretted donating money. I’ve never regretted donating cleaning. I’ve never regretted getting to know anybody.

Creating a Culture of Care

And all of these things have created a culture where my staff feels heard and seen and respected, where other workplaces have not done that for them. And I think with leadership, I think we can make a whole episode just on the traits of leadership, because when I say you need to be a good leader, if you say Stephanie’s a good leader, what does that mean? That’s probably 50 things that we’re talking about within that one word, that leadership is truly just a lot of skills put together.

Understanding Charisma

I know I saw Alex Hormozi talk about this one time, or many times, where it’s, okay, that person is very charismatic, right? I would consider myself a highly charismatic person that people want to connect with. What is that, though? What are the things that make people feel that way to me, right? Well, it’s even just in my body language. It’s making eye contact with you right now, it’s being very expressive, using my hands, having a loud voice that is typically, I project, there’s so much things that make me feel a peer confident and seem charismatic, being silly, not taking myself too seriously, and being okay with messing up.

Embracing Imperfection

For example, you’ll notice whenever I mess up my words. We typically don’t edit that out. And I’m, I that because I want you guys to hear that I don’t speak perfectly, as some of you comment in reels and to make fun of some of the non words that I say, Okay, that’s cool. Because I know when I started this podcast, or even just started speaking on on videos I was I was so hung up on if I would, stumble over my words or anything.

But now I’m just, but everybody stumbles on their words. Just move on or poke fun of it, and that makes you seem charismatic and likely. And I’m not. I’m not some narcissistic robot who is hyper, analyzing everything that I do. But when you’re on camera you start to notice behaviors that you do, and repetitive things or whatever, and you can really get down on yourself. And I know if any of you have tried to record anything of yourself, you realize how hard it is to do that.

Focusing on Connection

And it’s just truly throwing that, that need for perfection, out the window and focusing on connection of, how can I make the person looking at me right now, feel I’m I actually in conversation with them, or I really feel strongly about what I’m talking about, just right now, you can tell I’m fired up. So how can you put that into your day to day interactions with clients and employees in your community as a whole?

Because people need to feel coming back to your vision. They need to feel that you believe so strongly in what you’re doing that they can’t help but be, wow, if they believe it then maybe I should too. And then obviously you need to back it up with action. But having that faith in yourself and then being able to communicate it is so, so important.

Balancing Friendship and Professional Boundaries

And there’s been so many times when it comes to connection that I have definitely, gone way too far with employees, of not having firm boundaries of being their friend. And I don’t think that, that’s, that’s what we’re aiming for, is necessarily being friends with our staff members. But I want them to feel so highly respected. I want them to feel so incredibly cared for and seen as a whole person, and don’t dismiss them.

And, and you can do all of these things while having an incredibly high standard of excellence in your business. It’s just a balancing act. And, and I think what’s really important is communicating the why.

The Power of Why

Start with why, is one of the books I read right away as well. And I think, that’s where a lot of this, visionary and leadership skills, skills came from. Is, I I think it’s important to always explain the why and to understand your why too. Because I understand completely my why, of why I’m doing all of this right. And it’s not just to make a lot of money, even though, we’re Filthy Rich Cleaners. That is a good reason, but it’s not the main reason, right?

So I think that it’s I’ve always known, why I’m doing this and to them, to be able to communicate that effectively, and then just taking that and extrapolating that to other areas. So, every time we are getting, really hardcore on no no complaints. We’ve, we’ve had, tons of great success this year of long streaks of no complaints.

Tying Performance to Purpose

And I always want to tie back all behavior back to the why, right, and for our employees, that means to serve them and to be able to be the best workplace possible for them. So that’s one of my biggest whys is I want to be the best workplace anybody has ever worked, ever right? I want them to come here and be, holy shit. This is amazing. I’ve never been treated this way before positively. I’ve never, I’ve never had benefits this before, in a job where I didn’t have to have a degree all of these things that I want, I want them to have the life balance. I want them to have all of these things.

And so tying a high standard of excellence to that why has been very fruitful. Of, listen, guys, you know how we just had 11 weeks of no complaints? That’s why we are able to grow because people leave us reviews. People have great word of mouth. They’re telling their friends and family this company is great because we have such high standards of excellence, and are very strict on that. So that grows the business, which grows the revenue, which grows the benefits and grows the wages.

Direct Correlation to Success

We just did Christmas in July bonuses while I was up in Wisconsin, and me saying that, hey guys, this Christmas and July bonus is directly because of your strict level of excellence and the high standards that us as a team maintain. So we want them to, directly correlate their financial gain and their happiness at their workplace to having high standards, so that when they’re pushing through a hard day, even subconsciously, it’s, we have to do the best job we possibly can so that the whole team benefits.

Creating Team Unity

And really just making it about the team, despite us being a very independent workplace, obviously running individual cleaners a ton, it’s just it’s so important to continually remind about why. So don’t just set it and forget it. Don’t just be, why am I doing this and labeling that and putting it in a binder somewhere, you need to keep reminding yourself and your team and your community and your employees and everybody, you need to be shouting it from the rooftops why you care so much about your business, why this work is so important to you, and why it should be important to everybody, and they’re going to drink your Kool-Aid, right?

Elevating the Industry

And the nice thing is that when we do this and we talk about the importance of cleaning specifically, it elevates the entire industry as a whole. Because if we can say this is a respectable, important, essential work that we are doing, it becomes more respectable in the culture, right? Which means higher wages. People understand why they need to pay more for a professional company. And again, that’s on us to communicate that.

Being Proud of Our Work

So don’t just be quiet. Use your platform as a business owner to communicate why this work is so important that there is nothing to be ashamed of to be a cleaner. In fact, we should be darn proud of what we do, that we can do something so seemingly simple to the highest level of excellence across multiple people, I’m so fucking proud of that, and I will, that’ll be on my gravestone how proud I am of that.

And so don’t be afraid to be really, really proud and loudly proud about the work that we do as cleaning businesses. And it helps instill that pride into your staff members and instill a level of respect and commanding that respect from the community, from everybody in our country and all of the other countries that are listening right now we need to be elevating the industry, and that’s part of our responsibility.

Collective Responsibility

Is that every single company that’s listening to this podcast right now, we are all collectively, part of the cleaning industry, and it’s all of our responsibilities to be good stewards of that title and elevate the entire industry. Because every time we, do something unprofessional or don’t handle things correctly, we are hurting the industry as a whole, and we are justifying lower prices and people treating us poorly, and so keep that in mind.

I mean, that feels a lot of pressure. I know maybe don’t keep it in mind if that stresses you out, but I’m just saying that I really start to think about things globally in that way, that this is so much more than just Serene Clean, it’s all cleaning businesses and being a beacon of, what it means to be a professional service based company. It falls across all sorts of industries. It’s not just our industry.

Natural Leadership Tendencies

So I think that I’ve always been what some would call bossy. I’ve been called bossy since I was little, and it’s not that I feel that other people can’t do it. It’s so funny how I just itch to jump in and start and so people see that as bossy. Because if I’m in a group and everybody’s just kind of milling about, and we have this task, you bet your ass, I’m going to be the one that be, all right, this is what we’re going to do. Okay? I literally cannot help myself.

So yes, do I think I have natural born leadership tendencies? 100% but I think that that’s been cultivated over the years of being, frankly, bias towards action. And then that means that, over time, people see me as the natural leader of they look to me for that of, oh, what should we do? Stephanie? Because I’m so likely to be the first one to start jumping, let’s try this. Let’s try this. Let’s try this. Where other people are not so don’t be afraid to put yourself out there.

Leading Your Employees

And if you’re going to own a cleaning business. This, you’re going to have employees or staff, so you need to be the one that they look to for that. And I just think it’s not a bad thing. And if you’ve ever been called bossy before as a girl, it’s not a bad thing. It just means that you’re quick to jump in and want to get started.

And I think just always be respectful, of course, consider of other people’s opinions. Don’t be afraid to make fun of yourself. I think, obviously you guys all know that I will be the first person to be very derogatory towards myself. Well, that was dumb, blah, blah, blah, but I don’t I’m not dumb. It’s just more in a silly, light hearted way of, oh, that didn’t work. Let’s move on to something else, right? And try something else.

Embracing Failure as Learning

So don’t be afraid to for something not to work out, because if we don’t try things, then we’re not going to learn, we’re not going to advance, and you should just go work for somebody else, frankly, because business ownership is 100 different things coming at you at once that you need to deal with.

And so all of these traits that I’ve talked about have led to me being to where I am today, and just, I’m really happy that that young girl who started the business did not give up when, my first employee was a shit show, my second employee was a show. You’re just all of them really, other than the ones who have stuck, stuck with me.

The Reality of Business Ownership

And so I just want you to know that, you’re going to run into stuff, and it’s okay. I probably ran into it before too, and I’m okay, right? And you’re going to be okay as well. So, but maybe this motivated you. I don’t know. It’s Friday afternoon, so I guess I just felt ranting and raving about why you’re going to be successful. You just need to not quit. You need to not give up.

I know this is hard, and there are solutions for every single problem that you are dealing with. Right now it’s going to be okay. Just don’t give up and try new things, right? Try something, do experiments in your business and see what works.

Creating Space to Think

And at the end of the day, stop booking yourself so solid that you have no time to think about these problems, right? Make sure your prices are high enough that you can have administrative time. Okay, be very disciplined, and don’t book your cleaner solid so that you have to be getting pulled into the field all the time, so that you can think about these things and we can make improvements on our business.

So side note, because that’s what I see a lot of you guys doing, is you’re just, you’re cleaning so much, you know who I’m talking to right now. I can think of five of you that I talk to on a regular basis. You are cleaning so much. Raise some damn prices so clients drop and do not fill those spots. So you can actually think a leader and you can think a business owner.

Making Strategic Decisions

All right, be disciplined. Don’t just look at this dollar today and think, well, I need this right now, if you want to be, a cleaning business with employees, and build your empire, or whatever it is that you want, you can’t be cleaning 70 hours a week. Okay, it’s not going to work. So do what I just said, raise prices, get some clients to drop, don’t fill those spots, so you have the time and the space and the bandwidth to actually think and and be the leader that you were meant to be.

Closing Thoughts

So that’s riled up Stephanie, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Give it a like give it a follow emoji. Let’s see, will you? I don’t think there’s a Phoenix emoji, but you know, this is, this is a good embodiment of who I am, of you rise from the ashes again and again and again. I know that’s super white girl in Harry Potter of me, but it’s true. That’s truly how I feel. So I got this tattoo, so I don’t know, give me a star, star emoji down below. Let me know that you listen the whole way through. Let me know if any of this resonated, guys, and I will see you in the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye.

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

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Grit by Angela Duckworth
• Start with Why by Simon Sinek
• The Maid Summit 2025
• ChatGPT