The Biggest Mistakes Cleaning Owners Make and How to Stop Them, with Cheryl Hajjar

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Introduction

Stephanie: Hello everyone. Welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and in today’s follow up episode, I have Miss Cheryl, and she is going to tackle with me mistakes that we see commonly amongst our consulting and coaching clients, that we ourselves have made we see time and again. And I thought that this would be a great thing to hit Cheryl up for, because she does so much coaching and training of other cleaning business owners. So Cheryl, for the folks who did not hear our first episode, go back and listen to that. Guys, what are you doing? Give a little background on yourself, please.

Cheryl: I’m from the Boston, Massachusetts area. I tell everyone in 40 minutes north of Boston. So if you hear that accent, you know, sometimes it comes out a little bit here. I started my own cleaning company by myself, a solo clean called Made Bright Cleaning. I made a ton of mistakes. I let a ton of clients treat me like crap until I learned that I didn’t want to be treated like crap anymore, and so I solo cleaned for a long time. My son was little. He was five years old, six years old. Now he’s 23, so I didn’t really scale the company until 2018, so I started growing it. And my husband at the time, and now he is, and he’s, hey, this is really doing something. So after a couple years, he jumped in. So we grew the cleaning company up to a certain point, and then we added power washing about three and a half years ago. So now we’re just under the verge of hitting seven figures. Four years ago, I decided to coach. I always wanted to help people. Years ago, I was an aerobics instructor. This is where I think it comes through. I was an aerobic instructor, a step instructor, a fitness competitor, but I always helped people. So I knew when I got my own success with my cleaning company, I wanted to help people, because a lot of people just don’t have the support, right? In my opinion, it’s easy to clean, it’s difficult to build a cleaning business, especially with managing people. I think managing people is one of the hardest things, the whole thing hands down. So that’s my background. I still am an active owner in my business. I work in the morning, I go see my staff. I do roll call. They go out for the day. In my afternoons and evenings, I spend my time dedicated to helping other cleaning business owners across the country, in Canada.

Stephanie: So inspirational. And yeah, we go in depth on Cheryl’s journey and even the pressure washing, all of that stuff we talk about more in depth in her first episode here, but I asked her back on because she has so much experience working with others, but also the fact that she still is an active owner, and I really love that, because I think that it’s important to have the pulse on your business, even if you are going to be doing other things, or you have the ability to be more hands off. I think it’s really good to stay on. Obviously, I’m a remote owner, but I know what the hell’s going on every day. Otherwise, things can take a turn for the worse, even just culturally, you won’t notice that things are kind of going awry until it can be too late. So obviously, you’ve had, you know, you mentioned or alluded to lots of mistakes, specifically around boundary setting and things. But truly, every area of our business is just ripe for the picking of making a bunch of terrible mistakes. And I think a lot of times we have to touch the hot pan. We can’t be told it’s hot. We got to touch it and burn ourselves. But the goal today is to try to let people know, the pan’s hot, if you know what I’m saying.

Underpricing and Setting Boundaries

Cheryl: So when I first started, I under priced, very common, but it was me, right? So all that money was going in my pocket. So I was, well, that’s okay, I’ll go clean this little apartment for $75, you know. To me, I was, well, I’m getting the whole thing, you know. So that’s before I had any systems. I had no scheduling. I didn’t have ZenMaid CRM, I didn’t have any of that stuff. I had a cell phone. So I would text people, and people would, no boundaries, right? People would cancel last minute, oh, I can’t do tomorrow. And then I was a single mother at the time I’m dependent on that money coming in. And I hear that a lot with solo cleaners, they’re, well, I was dependent on that money. I’m, well, that’s, it’s not really yours until you do the service.

Stephanie: Correct, spending it before it’s even in your pocket, kind of thing.

Cheryl: Exactly. That was a challenge for me, you know. And just people expecting, oh, can you do this while you’re here? I hate that while you’re here. Can you do that? Because I didn’t have any communication skills. They weren’t that great back then. I didn’t have, here’s what’s included in a basic reoccurring cleaning. Here’s what’s included in a deep clean. Everything was just mishmash. And so that’s when the homeowner was the one in charge. So fast forward, years later, I created all these systems and a sales package and everything. So you know, when I go to the house, I say, this is what’s included in a reoccurring clean. This is what’s included in a deep clean. I give them specific things to pick from. Now, there’s no boundary crossing, and homeowners just, they just don’t know. They just figure, oh, well, you’re here. Can you throw in a load of laundry?

Stephanie: It’s not really what we do. That’s a really great example of something I see inexperienced, new owners do, especially when they’ve come from I’m an individual cleaner, and I will do literally anything that the customer asks, right? Because they want to impress the client. They want to stand out. But all that’s doing is, when you do start bringing on staff, it is just shooting yourself in the foot, because that is not scalable. There’s no way to systematize that, and it’s making your new cleaners look bad in comparison to you, even though it’s not their fault, right?

Managing Staff Expectations

Cheryl: As an owner, I always tell people that I coach, that you know, no one’s gonna clean as good as you in the beginning. So you’re looking for 95%. If you bring 100%, if you can get your staff to bring 95%, you need to be happy about that. And another thing I see with owners struggling is that they’re so afraid to, well, they’re not going to clean like me. Well, that’s good. Your body’s going to be broken down in about 10 years. You’re not going to be cleaning all those houses anyways.

Stephanie: Yeah, even things, you know, getting hands and knees scrub, if you sell yourself, I get on my hands and knees and I scrub the floors. Well, that’s not particularly sustainable on the body. And I would never ask my cleaners to do that. Is it probably the best way to get a floor eat off of it clean? Probably. I don’t care, because I can’t ask people to do that. You know, there are some companies that have done that.

Cheryl: I don’t know if they still do it. I’ve had some staff with me that have come from some larger companies, and that’s how they used to clean the floors. So when they come to work for me, they’re, oh, my God, that’s so awesome. I don’t have to get on my hands and knees.

Stephanie: So hard on the body. I mean, I’m not saying I won’t still clean a bathroom floor on my hands and knees, because it’s faster I can get, you know, I can do everything. But so I’m not saying I wouldn’t do that. I’m saying that is not the rule in the business, right? If you can get it with a mop, get it with a mop.

Cheryl: Get it with a mop, get it with a mop. But then sometimes, if you’re in a bathroom and you’re going to do around the toilet, it’s better to get on because, yeah, there’s, you know, trickle drop. It’s the people. Just people struggle with a lot of things, but they struggle with having to come to the reality that your cleaners, you’re hoping they’re going to clean and be as detailed as you, but don’t think it’s going to happen all the time.

Stephanie: You said, I think that relinquishing of control is very difficult because you’re so afraid. It’s a very anxiety inducing thing, especially if you haven’t had staff and those first disappointments of those first staff members, they hit a lot harder, where now, I feel, you know, I joke, dead inside, you have to really do something bad to disappoint me heavily. Because I’m, it’s good. It’s all good. This is what people do.

Cheryl: I have no, and this is gonna sound bad. I don’t expect a thing. I just say, come in the door. Let’s, you know, whatever. Do the onboarding, go out with all my trainers, and let’s see how you do. We don’t do videos. We just do, let’s get out there and see if you can clean. We know in two or three days, we know if they’re gonna make it or not. I don’t have any expectations in the beginning you get emotionally attached, oh, my God, my company can’t go on without this person. And then you realize that it can. And then you just get so, you said, dead inside, you just get so emotionally unavailable.

Emotional Management and Self-Protection

Stephanie: You know, I want to give kudos to that and also a warning to those listening is, be careful about getting so numb. Obviously, you will develop that thick skin and need to protect yourself. However, there are times when you do also need to be there for your staff, if something is actually deeply wrong. And so I just want to make sure when she says emotionally unavailable, it’s not that we have to be total robots, but it is really self protection to get to this point where you’re, I’ve seen it. It’s okay. We’ll work through it. But also we can celebrate the wins. We are allowed to celebrate when you do something really well. Definitely let your staff, your clients know. Show them that you are an actual human, but just not allowing yourself to totally burnout and ruin yourself from getting to some of these challenges. So a number one mistake: No systems, no boundaries, not having a sales package. Talk to me about that sales package, because I saw you had posted about it.

Cheryl: So, I mean, yeah, I’ve had that sales package. I mean, I’ve been perfecting it for the past two or three years, but essentially it’s a booklet. It’s a sales presentation in a booklet. So basically, when someone comes up on my calendar, I go, I try and meet them, go out to the house. First impression, eye contact, all that stuff. The booklet, I give the booklet to them. Here’s Made Bright Cleaning. Here’s all about my company. Here’s what’s included in a deep clean. Here’s what’s included in a reoccurring clean. Here’s some options or add ons. Here’s referral incentives. Here’s some reviews that we have. And the booklet is so clean and so well done that they don’t ask a ton of questions. I mean, the whole thing is laid out there.

Stephanie: That’s amazing. And then you’re packaging it, you’re providing the booklet and an estimate during the walkthrough?

Cheryl: They get the estimate afterwards in the evening. I have my estimator, actually a couple of them, they email it later on that evening, but the booklet is actually just the presentation. So when I sit down with them at their kitchen, at their table or whatever, I just literally flip through. Hi, this is me, this is my company, this is the type of cleaning, this is the kind of cleaning we do. Here’s some options if you’re interested. And they don’t actually book that day anymore because I built up so much business that I created a waiting list. So they’re, oh, I love this. I want it. I’m, well, send them a request to join the waiting list through your customer profile, because now they have to log in, create a customer profile, they go to their requests, and then they request to join the wait list.

Stephanie: And what platform do you use to set up those user portals?

Cheryl: ZenMaid.

Stephanie: Perfect. So you can do the customer portal. I think that’s on pro, but anyways, so they can request, basically it’s almost a form of, I don’t want to say gatekeeping, but it’s almost making sure that, hey, we’re the ones in control. You have to come to us in order to get on, get in the door basically. And also it gives them something to look forward to. If you make, there’s something about desire and wanting and having to work for it a little bit, that makes it just feel more special. This is not an accident. You have worked years and years and years and put a lot of money and infrastructure into your business, and so you have the right to do this. You don’t just have to take anybody in off the street and do whatever they want, because that’s where I see a lot of people hurting themselves, is saying yes to everybody, no matter what. And that has its place in the beginning for sure. I’ve taken on clients I never would take on now just because I needed to, I got to keep the machine going. I got to get that in and then things start to go bad and then I can make a decision to work with them or not. But in the early years, sometimes you got to do some things that you don’t necessarily want to do in order to stay afloat. And now you have a luxury of not having to do that.

Cheryl: I have a good friend of mine who has about six figures in his cleaning business. He also does it. And I keep telling him, you know, you’re so valuable, you should really delegate those estimates. And maybe it’s me. I know some people do like going out and doing the estimates. They love being face to face. But I’m at a point now where there’s so many estimates and so many clients that I just, I’d rather have someone else go out. I do the calls, I do the follow up afterwards, I do that communication, but I personally don’t go on all the estimates. And sometimes just when you’re starting out, yeah, you might have to give concessions here and there until you build up your quality of clientele.

Stephanie: And obviously, if you have fantastic staff that you can train to do that, then fantastic. That is a wonderful position to be in. A lot of people listening may not have a person that they can truly trust to send out to do estimates, especially good estimates. It’s a skill that does need to be honed and learned. And so it’s, just meet yourself where you’re at in your business. No need to try to outsource that if you can’t trust the person. You do it yourself. And if you are in a position, hey, train up and keep training people. That’s one of the things I think about my managers, is I think all of my managers can do estimates, but there’s only a couple of them that have the customer service excellence that is important at the estimate stage.

Hiring Friends and Family

Cheryl: The other thing, another mistake that I had, and I see a lot of cleaning business owners do this as well, is in the beginning, I hired my friends. And I know it works for some people, and great if it worked out. But for me, I had a friend who I thought, oh, she’s a friend, we get along, but there was no boundaries between friends and the boss. And I think that’s probably a reason why a lot of owners get chewed up, is they have no boundaries between, I’m your boss now, I’m not your friend when we’re at work. And so I unfortunately had to let go my friends. And you get in that situation where I’m the boss, no, no, no, no, you need to leave. You’ve done enough. And so that was a very difficult decision for me.

Stephanie: Yeah, I’ve had that a couple of times. Not necessarily with friends, but with family. And that is one of those mistakes that, oh my gosh, just never ends well in my experience. I know there are people that make it work. Hats off to you guys. For me and my personal friend group and the family dynamics in my family, it was terrible. And I would never do it again. And I tell people all the time, absolutely do not hire your best friend. Even friends, honestly. I would say it in general. Because the complications and the fallout can be so much worse than just a regular employee that you have. However, I think there’s a distinction, and I would love to hear your take on this.

I think there’s a difference from my managers, who yes, they are my employees, but I have become very close with, and I do consider them friends. But I wasn’t when they got hired. They became it over time. And so now, obviously, I have close relationships with my managers because we spend a lot of time together, and they spend a lot of time on the phone and texting, and I don’t know if that’s necessarily the best, I’m sure a HR person would be no, no, no. But I do think that, in a smaller business, having close relationships that are positive and you know you can rely on and work through problems is okay. However, you got to remember, in a position of power over somebody, like we are, we got to keep this professional.

Cheryl: When I call my staff members, I call them family. They’re family. Whenever we go on an outing, a holiday party, whenever I throw those big, we call them pizza parties. In the middle of the summer, we just do a pizza party. I care about my staff members, but I do have that line drawn. At work, I’m your boss. Outside of work, I’ll give you a big hug and I’ll tell you about my mom, my sister, or my whatever. So I do have that line drawn, but I do care about them as, they’re my family. I definitely would say avoid in the beginning, hiring your friends.

Stephanie: And what’s the worst that can happen? In my experience, it can go one of two ways: They’re taking advantage of you because you’re their friend, and they’re thinking, oh, you know I’m good for it, or it’s gonna be fine, I can do this. And you get into a really bad situation where they’re abusing your good nature. Or what happens to me is that I become a micromanaging, asshole boss who cannot separate being the friend and being the employee. And it’s not fair to them and it’s not fair to me.

Cheryl: And the thing is with me, it got to the point where it was actually more favoritism. I’d be, oh, I’ll let her, you know, slide on that. Oh, I’ll let her slide. Oh yeah. And then it got to a point where other staff members realized, oh, she gets to do what she wants. So unfortunately I had a talk with her and let her go. And if it works out for you, that’s great. But I just would recommend avoiding that in the beginning because it does get very muddy, especially when they start to overstep their boundaries and expect that, hey, can I have an advance? Or can I, there’s so many situations.

Stephanie: The expectations are just different, and it can turn for the worst because they’re expecting to be treated as a friend and not as an employee. But you also have a business to run. That goes too for family. That can go even worse because, well, it’s family, there’s all of those dynamics. We have two staff members at Serene Clean who are sisters. And boy is that complicated. They literally just came to me the other day, one of them crying, and that’s never happened. And it had nothing to do with Serene Clean. It had to do with their personal dynamic. And they came to me and they’re, Stephanie, we don’t want to ever bring our business into your business, but we just need to tell you what’s going on. And they did, and I really respected them for coming and being transparent about their personal issues so that if there was friction or tension or whatever, I’m not blindsided. Because you guys will notice at your work, who isn’t getting along with each other. And that’s going to be a problem if you have two people that are not getting along, or if there’s gossip or any of those things. So just constantly trying to keep the peace.

Not Knowing Your Numbers

Cheryl: You have to, where you’re not going to make it. So there’s so many ups and downs in this business, in any business, right? It could be cleaning it could be something else. There’s so many ups and downs, and people are going to come and go. You’re hoping for the best. You’re hoping they stay a year, two years, three years. If they do, you’re totally blessed. I mean, you and I know the average is what, three months.

Stephanie: I’m happy because I’m, I got my return on investment into that person. One year.

Cheryl: We hired, and either they quit or fired 27 people. This was pre covid. This was before, and we sat there, oh my god, it’s a lot of people to process. So, we came from a place where we failed miserably, right? I didn’t know how to create a company culture. I didn’t know how to motivate people, you know? I didn’t know. I mean, I knew how to motivate people from in a past area, but in the cleaning business, I’m, how do I motivate these people? Because they’re not making $100,000 salaries, right? So you’re dealing with something totally different. So it’s not money. If that’s another thing I see owners will say is they want to pay the cleaner so much money. And I’m, well, you know, what is your state? Say your minimum wage is, what are your costs? What are your gas, all that stuff? And they just come from a place where they’re working so hard they deserve to, you know, get this amount of money. I’m, you can only pay as much as your company can afford, and they have a hard time figuring that out, because everyone that starts a cleaning company has a servant’s heart. We like to hire people. We like to make people feel good. So that’s that’s a really hard transition for someone that wants to give and give and give, and then you’re going to put on your hardcore it’s black, it’s white, it’s numbers, it’s business. That’s super hard for people to be, oh, my God, I can only pay them this much, or else I’m not going to take a paycheck.

Stephanie: And also starting, yeah. A lot of times I’ll do a call and, what are you paying your cleaners? 25 an hour. You’re paying employees who just started two months ago, 25 an hour. Where are you going to go up? You’re only making about 40 an hour, so you’re already paying them too high. As a rule, you know, for our listeners, we do not want our W2 employees to be pulling in at an hourly rate even 50% of what we’re charging. 40 is probably appropriate because of all of the costs. And you got to leave room to grow for them so they have something to climb for, right?

Cheryl: And every state is different. I’m in Massachusetts, the joke is, it’s taxachusetts. So anyone who runs a business in Massachusetts, we have fees up the butt, you know, I mean, for everything, payroll and everything, is higher for us. I mean, some states don’t have state income tax. We do.

Stephanie: Sales tax in Wisconsin on services. So, yeah.

Cheryl: So it’s all kind of different. So the biggest thing is that nobody knows their numbers. Very few people that come to work for me know the numbers. I say, what are you making for profits? They have no idea. No clue. So that’s super difficult. And then when the reality hits that, okay, we figured out the profits and that you’re making a 10% profit margin, you’re, oh my god, I’m not making any money. I’m, correct? So you have to raise your prices, you have to lower your wages. And I think that’s it’s difficult for people, because business is nothing about emotion. It’s all math.

Stephanie: It is math that’s exactly right. Anytime we’re doing audits or anything. It’s the math doesn’t lie. But if you don’t even know the facts, I would agree 100% is that one of the biggest things that I work on when I’m on calls with people, is getting to the point where they even just have all of the numbers in one place, because they’re collecting money all over the place. They’re not bookkeeping properly, so they legitimately, all they know is, if there’s money in the checking account or not, and that’s what they’re basing their decisions off of. And it’s, that’s not how, and again, no shade, because I know a lot of our listeners are right here, and I know you guys are working on it. I know you’re working on it because I’ve been calls with you. But it is, is so important, this is so important that we figure out what’s a PNL, every month, every week, every week, I’m looking at that.

Cheryl: I do, you know, I have my coaching, and then I do, once a year, I do an in person retreat, which is so much fun. It’s awesome. So this year I did a challenge. So I created, it’s called Sisters Empire Builder awards. And the challenge was, is they needed to, you know, try and increase their numbers. Write all their numbers down, write all their profits down, and everything, right? And so I had 10 people that, you know, that won an award. It was based on pure revenue, you know. And so everyone’s bringing me their numbers. And then, you know, some people were okay, right? They’ve been working with me for a couple years. Some people had their numbers all organized in their CRM. They sent it to me. Was fine. And then I had some people, well, I’m getting two dozen a month from this client. They’re sending it to me on Venmo, and then this one’s giving me cash in an envelope, and then they have these over here, and everything was everywhere. And I was, well, here’s the bottleneck. I’m, nobody knows they’re not. No one. I would say probably 75% of cleaning business owners, in the beginning, they don’t know what they’re making.

Stephanie: Totally agree, totally agree. And because of that, then you’re making decisions without all of the facts in line. So when you’re making advertising you’re spending money on this or even what you’re paying your cleaners, you’re guessing. We’re guessing, and that is your recipe for disaster when we start guessing, right?

Cheryl: Yeah, and people, some owners, will think they have to pay for ads, and then you don’t have to pay for ads for a long time.

Stephanie: Yep, that should be years into the making. We should be able to grow obviously, you know, we talked about that in the first episode, some with Facebook, obviously, word of mouth, Google, reviews, that should be the focus. All of those things are free, you know.

Cheryl: It’s people will just throw a bunch of money and be, oh, I don’t know. And I said, well, what’s your acquisition cost for a client? I have no idea. You know, they throw $1,000, two, $3,000 a month, and I’m saying, oh.

Stephanie: Paying somebody to run ads for them when they don’t even know, you don’t even know how the sales process. So that would be something too with, can you handle those types of leads? Do you know how to handle that yet?

Cheryl: Right? They don’t. They don’t, they just don’t have a breakdown yet. You know? I mean, it could be, I mean, some companies will throw a bunch of money at ads, they know who their target market is, and that’s great. But then when they go to do their real numbers, their profits, because the gross number doesn’t matter. Yes, it looks impressive, but what really matters is the profits and what you put in your pocket, right? So when they go to do the numbers, if they’re, you know, they have an ad spend of 50, $60,000 a year, your profits aren’t as high. So I’m just, what’s the sense? Yeah, you need a little bit. We’ve done some ads before for our power washing. That’s a completely different business model, different animal, whatever. But cleaning, we haven’t, I have not, but I’ve worked really, really, really hard at not giving up, you know, diving in, going, you know, in the beginning, I did all those home days, the booth, and all that stuff, I’m sure you did, or whatever. Yeah, it’s scrappy thing. I don’t do them anymore, but I just worked super hard on the brand, on the community, community groups, all that stuff. So I built the reputation where I didn’t need to do all that stuff.

Stephanie: I really like that. You just use the word scrappy, because that’s a really great descriptor for how you need to be in the beginning when you don’t have the money to be doing these things and it. And if you do have the money, say, you know, you’re coming at this of, this is my project. I don’t need this income right now to live off of. Then you can come at it from a different perspective. But if this is your income, you got to be creative. You got to be scrappy and it’s when you have a limited budget, or no budget for marketing, it makes you creative, because you have to put nose to the grind and figure it out.

Commingling Funds and Bookkeeping Mistakes

Cheryl: I didn’t have any money in the beginning. All the money that came in was going into my funds and I commingled funds. Oh, that’s another mistake. Funds. Everyone does that in the beginning. Oh, I’ll just send myself a Venmo out of the business account. You’re just, my husband came in and goes, and my husband’s an anomaly at some point, maybe you’ll meet him, because he’s starting to help me in the coaching business and stuff. But he’s a finance guy, a tech guy and a blue collar guy, all yourself a green man. He will go out and he does, you know, the power washing, but then he can sit there and do numbers and do tech and stuff. So he’s, you can’t send yourself Venmo from the business account. I’m, why not? That was years ago, but we don’t do the same, yeah.

Stephanie: Well, and I would just say even that bookkeeping of, you know, people not knowing how to pay themselves, or even, I’ve had conversations where people are, I’m not paying myself at all from the business, but they’re paying their personal expenses out of the business account. I’m, no, you are. You’re just not doing properly. So you’re taking a paycheck, you’re just using it to buy groceries from the business, basically.

Cheryl: In the smaller, if you’re, I don’t have 1000 or whatever, you know you’ll be okay, right with the government.

Stephanie: Is most likely not going to come after you, but they can audit years back, and it just makes it hard for you for taxes, and it’s kind of hard to shift the boat in the right direction if you’ve been doing that improperly. So the sooner we can get proper bookkeeping in place, proper payment of yourself. And that can be, it can literally. It doesn’t have to be even you on a paycheck, necessarily. You can just take owner’s draws, but you have to document it. You have to document it.

Cheryl: You have to document everything, and I haven’t, I haven’t worked with anyone that’s gotten audited yet. We could literally talk for hours about this, because now that, what our owners went wrong. I’m, this.

Stephanie: This is a great topic, because I’m, there’s we can talk about this for hours, literally.

Misclassifying Workers

Cheryl: So people misclassify their workers. They’re paying them 1099, and they’re really W2.

Stephanie: I bring this up so much on the podcast, and there are people who can do ICs properly, and I’ve had them on the show. They’re doing it correctly. 90% of companies that are running independent contractors are doing it completely illegally, and they don’t even know it. And you know, the amount of risk that you guys are putting yourself under, and your staff members too, because they are your employees, you’re just calling them independent contractors.

Cheryl: Every state is different. So your, your business is in is it Wisconsin? What is it? What does it say for 1099 workers in Wisconsin?

Stephanie: So in Wisconsin, they have something called the ABC test. And basically, if any one of those three things are true, you cannot have a 1099. And the main one that gets a lot of people is you can’t be doing the same type of work that your business does. So I can’t hire 1099 cleaning people and call them ICs. They have to be an employee. And they also can’t have the same hours, and you can’t have control over how they do things. But if we are a cleaning company, and they’re coming and cleaning for my cleaning company, they’re an employee. Now I can hire independent contractors to do my bookkeeping, because I’m not a bookkeeping company, right? So Georgia has really strict laws. In Georgia, which is my other location, you can hire a 1099 if they’re under a company name. So it literally has to be, they have to have their own LLC, and you hire them, and they can bring their staff. But you’re not hiring an individual as a 1099 as a W2 or as a 1099 in Georgia.

Cheryl: So Massachusetts is strict, and it’s a three part test. So you have to have your own business entity. You have to not doing the same exact work as the, you know, the other person. And then there’s like a third, I can’t remember the third, but there’s three, and I’m pretty sure if anyone violates any one of those in Massachusetts, they’re classified as an employee, but everybody’s getting away with it. And I’m not saying that, I mean, I’m not trying to be a whistleblower or anything, but I’m just, it’s, it’s illegal.

Stephanie: We’re just concerned, when you get caught, you’re not just gonna have to pay fines and penalties and taxes, but you are going to potentially be responsible for unemployment that they should have had access to. Workman’s comp that you should have been paying into. This is years worth potentially. And that’s going to absolutely bankrupt a lot of people. And I’m not trying to be, doom and gloom. I’m trying to, I’m not trying to scare you. I’m trying to let you know, hey, be careful out there. And I did a whole episode where I kind of broke down what 1099 versus W2. But always, always reach out to a CPA and a lawyer in your area to understand what you can legally do, because it is very dependent on the state.

Cheryl: And another thing is like, I think the workers get mad when they realize they’re not actually a 1099 and they get hit with these taxes. This is like another red flag where it’s, hey, I owe $4,000 in taxes from last year. This isn’t right. And that’s when they come back after you. You should have been paying into my Social Security. You should have been doing this. You should have been doing that. I’ve heard cases of owners getting sued for this. So it’s super dangerous.

Stephanie: Yeah. And that’s, and typically, if you’re going to run an IC model, your ICs should already have their own business. They already have their own clients. You’re just supplementing. And you’re not training them at all. They come with their own tools and everything. That’s when we’re talking. So you basically hire them as a subcontractor basically. To do work that you’ve contracted for, and you’re subbing it out. But even still, be really careful. Consult with an actual lawyer and CPA in your area, because I’m not a lawyer. Cheryl’s not a lawyer. And so we’re just letting you know what we know to be true.

Cheryl’s Origin Story

Cheryl: So how did I get into cleaning? Well, I was, it was a side hustle. I stopped waitressing, and I just wanted to clean on nights and weekends, maybe have a couple maybe have a couple part timers. That was truly how big my vision was. I was making $12 an hour at my family’s company. That was my full time job. So I always had a second job so I could survive. I stopped waitressing. And so I was, well, I’m good at cleaning. I’ll do this, right? And so there was no, certainly not grand.

Stephanie: My mother used to tell me when I was little, when I was a kid, I would just go through my room and I would deep clean my room at 12, I would just get into and I’d be cleaning jewelry, and I’d be cleaning everything. I would just go spaz and clean the whole thing. But I started, I needed extra money, I was a real at that time. I’ve done a lot of things. I went to college for and I graduated with criminal justice, and I worked in an office, and I wanted to hang myself. I was, this, isn’t it? And then I fumbled. I waitress, I bartended. I was, I’m a musician too. I was writing songs. I was going back and forth in Nashville. I got a couple things published. I’m, I want to make it as a songwriter, not AI, you know, tech came in and ruined music or whatever. So, I bounced around, but I always wanted to do my own thing. I was super creative, but so at that point, I was selling real estate. I wasn’t making enough money, because real estate was super hard, because you had to go out and do showings at night. It was just me taking care of Dylan, and I said, you know what? I’ll just, I’ll just clean. A friend of mine had a cleaning company one summer when I was younger. I worked for her in the summer, and I’m, this is easy. I’m gonna start my own. That’s just how my mind is. I’m just, no, I’m gonna figure everything out. So that’s what I did. And I think I was probably bringing in maybe $1,500 a month. It was money, it was paying for stuff. And I’m, okay, cool. Here it is. So what? But it wasn’t years later that I started so this was probably before Facebook community groups were popular, and then in 2018 I’m just gonna throw, you know, a post up on Andover moms see what happened. And I got bombarded. And now, just before everybody caught on, the way to do it. And so that’s how I started doing it.

I was waitressing. The first year I started to grow my cleaning business. I was waitressing and cleaning. I worked, I worked seven days a week for a whole year. I’m crazy. My body has taken a toll since then, but when I was a little bit younger, I was, nope, gonna do it myself. I’m gonna go out in five houses, then I’m gonna pull a waitressing shift. That’s just how I was, until my back blew out and in my back, no, not happening. That’s how it happened. So I was waitressing three, four nights a week at this little market or whatever. And then I started. I had 10 clients. I had 20 clients. And I want to say I quit the restaurant. I had about 30 clients and and then I hired that first person, 1099, and then there we rolled. We rolled from there. I was scared to death. I’m, am I gonna be able to do this? And Jay was, you can do it. And he’s, here we need a CRM. And then he’s, look at this. I found something called ZenMaid, so but he’s been a huge help at that. I’m really good at I love branding, I love marketing, I love sales. I’m good at customer service. He’s good at the tech stuff. He’s good at Tech. He’s good at operations. I think I’m good at managing and motivating people. He’s good at managing and putting more structure. I think it would be looser if he wasn’t actively involved in the business. And so that could be a good thing. That can be bad thing. It just seems to, it seems to work, but it’s an interesting dynamic, working with your husband in the business.

Stephanie: Oh yeah, I know, I know several couples do, they excel at it, and others…

Cheryl: When’s the divorce, because, this is not working good. We’re pretty good. He’s starting to teach. He teaches at the in person retreat, the rise, which he’s starting to have a mastermind. I have a fundamental group called drop them off. Then I have a sister’s elite, which is the graduate program, the mastermind. People want to scale that, you know, 20, 30, 40,000 a month, or whatever. So they go to that. So he’s starting to come in and help me with that, because he’s just, he’s got a knack for certain things that I may not be as good at. Sure, I can teach them, but I think he’s, I think he comes across better. And for a techie, he doesn’t explain anything techie. He explains it in real layman’s terms. So and the ladies that have met him, they love him. So that’s awesome. More of him.

Learning Every Aspect of Your Business

Stephanie: That’s fantastic. And what you’re making me think about is the fact that, you know, coming back to the concept of wearing hats in your business, and so, you know, we’re coming from, you know, both of us, we were the cleaner, and neither of us have this business background. You’ve never owned businesses. I’d never managed people ever before, and so now all of a sudden, you’re thrown into this world of it’s all on you. And I think that one thing that I oftentimes see is the, I would I would call it this, identity fallacy of I’m not a techie person. I’m not good at sales, I’m not good at math. These are things I hear constantly in calls, and it’s you may identify with that. It doesn’t change the fact that these things must be done. I’m sorry that you feel that way. I’m sorry that you had, and that may be true at this moment, in this very moment, you may be not the best at this thing. That doesn’t change the fact that this shit’s got to get done.

Cheryl: Yeah, I tell everyone that I work with. I’m, I don’t care how much you want to hand off your schedule to a VA. I’m, you need to learn every single piece of your business before you delegate it out. Because if you go and delegate something out and then that person disappeared. You’re hiring a VA from the Philippines, let’s say, for example, so I have someone that helps me, and they just had a massive super typhoon. What if that wipes the internet out and they’re not able to do your schedule, then you’re screwed. You don’t know how to…

Stephanie: And you’re completely reliant on it.

Cheryl: Yeah, they tell you, in any company, if you’re a CEO, the CEO needs to know how to do everything, not extremely well, but they need to know how to function, just in case they have to do it one day. And also so that you can can do the verification that it is not being done improperly, but sometimes, sometimes you are getting embezzled from. Sometimes you are getting stolen from. Sometimes these things happen, and the reason it goes on so long is because the owner is absolutely blind to how it’s supposed to be getting done. So how are you supposed to know, if you don’t know how, even how to do it, that it’s getting done wrong, or that whatever is not being done properly? Same with sales. You know, they pass off sales, they pass up the sales calls, and then you know you’re not making any closes, because it’s you’re not listening to the calls. The calls aren’t recorded. Potentially, there’s no way to verify. Basically…

Stephanie: That’s so true. And I don’t know. I love, I love talking with people. So for me, when I go in, I still do my estimates myself, because I just feel that I’m not cleaning anymore, so I have to be in touch with the clients. I firmly believe in being in person relationship building, you’re going to have a higher closing rate if you go or if you send someone that can close like you can, right? You’re going to, you just have to. I mean, especially with residential, the majority of our business is residential, it’s 85% residential, 15% commercial. We have a small commercial division at night, and then the power washing. I don’t know what you’d call that, if that’s commercial area.

Cheryl: It’s a mix, but you have to be able, you have to be able to build that relationship. Otherwise your sales go in the in the dumps. It’s no good.

Understanding Employee vs. Owner Mindset

Stephanie: Well, and I think that that’s that I like that you brought that up of nobody’s probably going to sell like you. And so when you do hand that off, it’s most likely going to be affected a little bit, just like cleaning, just like when we hand off the control to the cleaning, they’re probably not going to be able to clean just as you are. They might be able to, but most likely, the majority of your people, we want them to just be, you said, as close to you as possible. But we can’t have that expectation necessarily. You can’t expect them to be you. I mean, I don’t care us, you know, or it’s not their job to care. If they wanted to care that much, they go open their own business. And I think that we get really offended when our staff members don’t seem to care as much. And that’s where, you know, the culture building and the motivation and that type of stuff comes in. So we give them purpose and meaning, it’s our job to inject that rah, rah, we’re changing lives people kind of mentality I feel because otherwise, well, most people are not particularly intrinsically motivated. I mean, it’s not the money, like you said, so we have to help with that.

Cheryl: And I think that the owners will get disappointed when they realize that the employee, they clock in, they clock out at the end of the day. They don’t want to be bothered. They don’t work 14 hour days like us. There, there’s an employee has a completely different brain than an owner, and that is hard for them to realize that. You know, why did you make this decision? Why do you do this? Why did you do that? They just think totally, totally differently. They want to just go to work. They want to like their bosses, they want to like their teammates, and then, you know, turn it off at the end of the day.

Stephanie: And that’s several of my staff. You know, actually, a ton of my staff, majority of it, actually comes from some flavor of the healthcare industry, where they are overrun, underappreciated, just a nightmare situation, basically, from a work perspective. And so so many of them came in, when I’m done at the end of the day, I don’t have to think about this anymore. It’s just, and that’s, that’s great. That’s fantastic, because that’s their job, and their role is to come in, kill it at what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s our job to handle the rest right? That’s the benefit. They don’t have to find the customers, they don’t have to deal with all this stuff. They just show up and clean.

Hiring People with Experience

Cheryl: Well. And so I like to hire people that have some sort of experience. I’ve always found that we can train them faster, you know, we can get them off training pay, you know, usually within a week or whatever. Sometimes quicker. If they come from the major franchises, which I’ve had some, they’ll be, they’ll be off training pay in three days. And then I retroactive, they don’t even get training pay. They get regular pay or whatever. I just find that they they know the rules of engagement, they understand the customer service in the homes and stuff, they get it so I don’t really, I mean, unless someone is that has a rock star resume, or they write me a cover letter, if someone doesn’t have any cleaning experience, and they write a cover letter and it impresses me, I’ll interview them. Otherwise, I just hire all cleaner or PCA CNAs, because they’re out there doing some type of cleaning anyways. I just find that I don’t, we don’t have time anymore to take two, three full weeks to train.

Stephanie: Because where my business is, it’s so rural, there isn’t people with cleaning experience. Because there’s no cleaning businesses hardly. So everybody’s coming in, totally no experience for us, because you have so many, I mean, Boston, heck, I mean that you got, you have so many people who have done it before where that’s not really just the market for us. So we kind of have to deal with it.

Cheryl: I’m in a suburban area, so there’s a lot of people, there’s a lot of people that think they can clean. There’s a lot of solo cleaners. So, you know, the thing that I hear when I’m out in the field doing the estimates is that, oh, they weren’t reliable, oh, they didn’t have the detail. Oh, they just, you know, the language barrier, there’s all those things or whatever. So, you know, I tell everyone we’re not a major, major franchise that has a ton of money behind them. We’re not small. We’re right in the middle, we have insurance, we have everything, but we’re sort of, I don’t know we’re just different.

Stephanie: Yeah, no, I understand. And, and, yeah. And that’s and that’s what I it’s so fun for me to talk to people in such different markets, because where I started my business town of 5000 people, that’s literally how big it is, really, yeah. And so the second location, which is about half an hour away, is 10,000 people. Our third location is another half hour away, and that’s about 50,000 people. So that’s my market that I’m working with, both from a client perspective and then the employee perspective. So it there’s so many benefits I love, because it’s really easy to stand out because there’s so little competition.

Cheryl: I win so much competition here, and then people will will go and clean for a couple years, and that, oh, she’s not cleaning for me anymore because she decided to get a job. So, you know, we get stuff like that. But I don’t know. I mean, things come and go. I think, I think a lot of people will start cleaning businesses, not realizing how much work it is.

Stephanie: Thinking it’s easier because the cleaning, quote unquote, is simple. And it’s, you know, how, how hard it is to do something seemingly simple to such a level of excellence and consistency. That is the challenge. Everybody can get a cleaning done well, once in a while, everybody can get five cleanings done in a day. Once in a while, but when you’re having 20 plus appointments a day, and all of these people have to coordinate and hit the same level of consistency again and again and again. That’s where you start to stand out. Is the consistency, right?

The Importance of CRM and Systems

Cheryl: The consistency. And so having a CRM that you can send reminders to people, that was a game changer. So we were at about, I would say, this is 2018 we were probably 10,000 a month, right? Didn’t have a CRM. I was doing it out of a Google Calendar and my cell phone. So, you know, I would be texting people on a Sunday for their Monday appointment. Oh, I forgot you were coming. So we were at about 10,000 a month. And then we got ZenMaid, and then that was a game changer, because I was able to just communicate with them and look professional and be reliable and then pull the map up. So I’m not guessing where we’re driving, right? Because if you don’t, if you’re driving where you don’t have that map optimization tool, you’re spending a ton of money, if you’re paying by the hour, and labor you until you get really, you know, solidified with, okay, we’re in Georgetown today. We’re going to schedule six houses in Georgetown, then we’re going to shoot over to Andover and do you know, five houses here that that was a game changer for me, and that was, you know, obviously my husband had some influence in that. But I was, wow, this is amazing efficiency.

Stephanie: Of it all. And honestly, for me, you know, I chose, I actually had it since day one of the business, and when it was just me and once I started hiring, that was one of the things, because I was at job sites, and cleaners were at other job sites, and I was psychotically checking the GPS tracking. Are they there? Are they clocked in when they’re supposed to be? Because otherwise, I know clients are texting and saying, are you at the job? And then are they, totally you need the GPS.

Dealing with Employee Theft and Dishonesty

Cheryl: There was one time where we had this girl, she wasn’t with us long and she she was driving her own car. Now we make teams go in one car, but back then we were, sure, you can take your own car. She ends up falling off the trail, not going to the job, she’s somewhere else. Then she calls us and says, oh my god, I got into a car accident. Blah, blah, blah, blah, we were getting nervous because we couldn’t get in touch with her or whatever. And so Jay, my husband’s, you know what? I have GPS here. I’m gonna go, I’m gonna go see if she’s okay. He pinpoints it, finds her at a gas station. It was a complete lie, and her face turned white, and he’s, you okay? Did you get in that car accident? You know? I mean, if we didn’t have that GPS thing, we never would have known. And of course, we fire her on the spot.

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah, no, yeah. We’ve had multiple instances of time theft that we were able to pin down because of the GPS, clock in and clock out, because we were having people actually. This happened fairly recently. We clean a police department, actually, and so what she was doing was the cleaner was because you have to at a lot of our commercial accounts, you have to sign into their logs, right and in and in and out, basically, so they know who’s in the building if a fire happens or whatever. And so she was signing in and out an hour ahead of when she was supposed to be, but then she would clock out when she was supposed to clock out. So we didn’t necessarily, because we don’t charge commercial accounts daily, of course, we weren’t necessarily catching it, or even though we had the data to catch it. So then the police station was, hey, she’s leaving at these times. And then we realized, oh my gosh, she’s been committing time theft for, you know, several weeks.

Cheryl: Now, that’s bad, yeah, no. I mean, you have to have systems for employees, and employees do really well with systems. They do really well, which show up to the office at this time. Here are your three houses for the day. Here’s what you’re going to do. Here are the instructions. They work really well. They don’t have brains like us, where they’re just, oh, I’m gonna do this, and I’m gonna do this, but you have to give them structure. But that’s mind blowing, that she would actually have the nerve.

Stephanie: Yeah. I know, pretty ballsy, right? Actually, that’s still my only, I think one of my only one star reviews is her, because then she reached out for a quote, and she used their boyfriend’s name, and I’m not gonna lie, one of my bigger regrets is I kind of got sassy and clapped back, and I emailed, you will not be getting cleaning services from us. And I know you’re just fishing. Because I was, I don’t know if you’re opening your own business and you’re trying to get prices. And she was, I was going to be a customer. I’m, no, you weren’t.

Cheryl: We had someone work for us about a year and a half ago. This is a crazy story. So she stole a bottle of perfume, Paris Hilton perfume from a client who was a lawyer. I’m, could you have picked a worse person steal from? So he calls me, we had a good relationship. And he’s, I think your new person stole one of my daughter’s bottle of perfume. And I’m, okay, whatever. She had gone in with one of my team leads that had been with us for six years. I’m, I definitely know it’s not that one. She didn’t take it. So he goes, okay, here’s, he goes, I love your company, you know, I love your team leaders. Here’s what I want to do. He goes, let’s put the same exact bottle of perfume, put her on the schedule next month with that same team leader, and we’ll see if she steals it again. I’m, okay, let’s have a little fun. He was being cool. He wasn’t going to cancel us, which was great. Did that, sent her, she stole it again. I was, can you be that stupid?

Stephanie: Really interesting is that when they say things, you know, it’ll affect my family, it’s, well, you weren’t thinking about your family while you were stealing. Were you stupid bottle of perfume?

Cheryl: We’ve had a couple of theft, you for the amount of houses we’ve done, the amount of years we’ve been in business, it’s been minimal. Knock on wood. It’s been nothing big, nothing where I had to pull insurance claim or anything like that. Just stupid things, don’t do that.

Stephanie: Yeah, and that’s, and I think, yeah, just for our owners listening, it’s just these types of things are going to happen. You really have to be able to roll with the punches and just go into a very active and problem solving mode and again, coming back to the emotions, I know we talk about that ad nauseum, but being able to manage your emotions is going to be one of the most important skills that you guys get as an owner. And a few months ago, I had to literally drop, walk out of the room and cry, because I completely lost it on somebody, and I lost my temper on a crazy employee, and I was so disappointed in myself, because I’m, damn it, damn it. Let that happen.

Cheryl: You can’t you have to lead. You have to, leave your emotions at the door. You need to lead as an example, because if you go, you know, crazy on employee, it says an example for the other employees, then they think you’re crazy, but it’s, it’s super it’s super hard to do that because they test you. But that’s what it was. She was poking the bear.

Stephanie: She wanted to get fired because she tried to get unemployment. Then she had broken so many policies, and so she had acted very unprofessionally. And I started saying, hey, this is really unprofessional. You can’t be speaking like this. And she saw me typing on Slack, and because you can see when somebody’s typing, and she’s, how about a fucking phone call, you coward, you know, blah, blah, blah, and she said. And so I was, oh, you want a fucking phone call? And then I and then my manager, Crystal messaged me, and she’s, Stephanie, stop, stop texting, stop, knock it off. And I just, I mean, I was already having a day, and I just had to go cry. And it was a Monday morning.

Managing Difficult Clients

Cheryl: Sometimes the clients, I mean, we’ll, we’ll get to make, I I I just try my best here. I’m super nice and polite, and I’m very patient. I’m very patient, but sometimes people have just jerks.

Stephanie: Well, they’re used to being and it really just depends. I’ve seen it in all, I guess, salary levels, because sometimes you’re, all rich people are like this, or whatever. I have seen all different types of people have a really large superiority complex over the fact of what we do. We’re the hired help, and so it I oftentimes experience where it feels condescending or disrespectful or we break up with them. I’ve had grown men throw absolute temper tantrums because we broke up with them, and they’ve never had that happen before. They’ve never been rejected by a company, you know?

Cheryl: Well, it’s just, I most, I mean, 99% of our clients are great, so, I cherry picked the clients, you know. But, every once a while, that superior complex, because, back in the day, right? 100 years ago, right? Let’s talk about 1900 Gilded Age, all those people had servants. They had maids. They had servants. They did everything in the house. So sometimes they get a little lost, or they get a little confused, or maybe the person they had before did so much more for them. So it’s our job to educate that person. But there’s still that feeling. I mean, I don’t know. I’ve often thought about, how can we get rid of that in the community? And honestly…

Stephanie: I don’t use the word maid because of it. I’m not a maid service. We are a cleaning company. And so even, you know, even that word feels a bit old fashioned to me. And so I just, I try to even our cleaners, they’re cleaning technicians. That is the job title, you know. So even in the verbiage that we use can help, kind of influence that, I think.

Cheryl: See, I started my company with the word maid in it. Years ago, so it’s late now. It is what it is, exactly. But at least everyone knows what we do. But no, I mean, I would say for the most part, I mean, the stats say that in 2026, 80% of two parent households will all have a cleaning, for us, right? Super exciting. It’s more difficult to educate a person that hasn’t had a cleaning service. You have to be super specific, here’s what’s included, here’s what’s not included. If you have a question or want something added, please communicate. You know I and I always tell everyone I can fix anything I know about. I’m not a mind reader. If you need something added, or if you think something is included, or whatever, just ask me and fix everything. And that’s the biggest thing. That’s another thing that new companies will just they don’t have their communication skills down yet. So then there becomes that issue with the clients expecting something, you’re not delivering something, but you don’t know that they’re expecting. Yeah? So you have to figure that out and have constant, constant communication.

Stephanie: Yeah, I would say that, 70% of situations in a home or with a customer could have been avoided with better communication and being proactive instead of reactive, meaning explaining things from the front and having these things in place, and even something as simple of, okay, we need to get more time approved. Don’t wait to the end of the appointment to do that, you know, have your cleaners checking in ahead of time so that we can do that right or the person that asks to do 27 windows the hour before they’re cleaning.

Cheryl: I’m, I’ll pull it off if I can. If they have a lighter day, I will ask that actually happened? I will ask them, and I’ll be, hey, you guys have a little bit of a shorter day. Do you mind if I add 27 windows? So this person, they were, no, cool. We want the hours. I’m, cool. We made everyone happy. But I try and tell clients, and you can, you can talk to clients, sometimes through your blue in the face, and they’re not, just tell them 10 times to be, here are the rules of engagement. You know, our cancelation, you know, if you have to reschedule your appointment or whatever. But I feel like sometimes you’re just, you’re constantly repeating yourself 100%.

Managing Vacation Rentals and Property Managers

Stephanie: We’ve kind of experienced this with our specifically our vacation rentals. You know, we don’t take any more vacation rentals on. We have grandfathered, I think, five or six of them in. And even still, we’re just, screw these vacation rentals, man, because they constantly want us to be their property manager. Literally always, they keep asking for things that are things that are property management behavior, and we have to constantly be, no, no, no, we don’t do this. And it’s just really frustrating. They’re there. It’s good money, and that’s why we’ve kept the ones that we have, but eventually they’re all gonna be gone.

Cheryl: He was saying that I’m actually, next week, I do a Live at Five on Wednesdays every week in my group. Next week, I’m doing doing a training on residential versus Airbnb, exactly what you’re talking about. But we only have a few. We have four that are just seasonal for us. So we’re, we’re heading into winter. Unfortunately, we are. So it’s just, you know, in the summer. But I mean, property managers do they? Can you put the batteries in the lockbox, the toilet? Can you do this? And then companies are starting to charge property manager fees. But, I don’t want to charge a couple 100 bucks a month and have to go over to a house, but yeah.

Stephanie: Snow removal or, I remember whatever owners, I guess, you know, if guests leave stuff, we’ll, we’ll take care of them, you know, we’ll mail shit back, or whatever that’s we’ve done it before, but one of our owners was, a guest left a fishing pole, and we’re, oh, okay, we go, look. It’s in the lake. It’s in the lake. It’s literally floating in the lake and and the owner was, why didn’t, it was right off the shore. Why didn’t you guys get that?

Cheryl: Pets, they think you’re gonna babysit the pets. Are you gonna be careful with the pets? You pets, you know, picking up the dog crap, right? It’s not fun.

Stephanie: No? It’s just not our job. And, I don’t want to ask my cleaners to do something that they didn’t sign up for. You know, it’s…

Cheryl: I don’t know. I mean, if it happens an accident here or there, and it’s in our service agreement, but people just…

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah. I know you got to constantly. They’ll push the boundaries and that, I think that’s what it is, is just, again, not instead of getting frustrated, just stay calm, hold the line and and remember that at the end of the day, we can make the decision at any moment to not work with somebody, and just always keeping that in the back of my mind. This needs to be a mutually beneficial relationship.

Training Clients and Setting Expectations

Cheryl: It has to be. I mean, we haven’t had to fire anyone because they were obnoxious in a while. I try and start to, quote unquote, train them at the beginning of the estimate, the communication of this, any questions, follow up all that stuff, because I, you know, I do all that stuff. But every once in a while I would say, maybe one out of 50 people are jerks. But I have noticed, so I started solo cleaning years ago, I’ve noticed it changed a little bit. I have noticed that the clients have more respect now that I have all these systems and all these safeguards in place than when I was a solo cleaner. I think when you’re a solo cleaner, you get beat up a little. You get taken advantage of a lot more, because they just…

Stephanie: That’s so true, is that even from the very first interaction that they’ll have with our company, they’ll realize that that’s not going to fly. They can’t be like that. We’re not an individual cleaner. An individual cleaner may come across more as desperate or needing the work potentially, or being easier to take advantage of. And that’s very unfortunate because I wish that wasn’t the case, and it may not be the reality. It’s just the perception, right?

Cheryl: It was how I felt in the beginning, man. I had a couple property managers stiff me, not pay me, you know. I was just, you know, just, obviously…

Stephanie: I actually dressed up as Dog the Bounty Hunter one time before I had credit cards on file, and I went and knocked on doors to get my check.

Cheryl: I met him. You know, I met him a couple years ago. There was, they were trying to catch some criminal. And I happened, me in Florida. I was in Clearwater, and he was at a restaurant, and I got a picture with him.

Stephanie: Crazy. I was just in Clearwater Beach a month ago. If you got the picture, send it to me. I’d love to see clients. You just have to educate, have to educate the client. You can’t just assume that they know how to do business with you. That’s another thing that you know cleaners will make the mistake or cleaning business owner, is that they think that the client understands where they’re coming from. No, you have to teach them beyond reasonable doubt. Hey, this is how to do business with my company. As soon as you do that, everyone starts to respect to act right, because they understand what the rules of engagement are right, and that’s what we want. We just want to work with people that are, you know, on both sides, employees and clients. We’re all trying to just work together to get the thing done. And, you know, just be very judicious when we have to make the chop, you know, yeah. Yeah. Well, awesome. Well, this has been amazing Cheryl. I know we could talk. I can’t believe it’s already been, it’s been an hour, 12 minutes.

Closing

Cheryl: 12 minutes. I don’t even just go and go and go here. I’m gonna call you. You’re my sister from another…

Stephanie: Yes, now I am. I’m your redheaded stepchild.

Cheryl: I loved talking with you anytime.

Stephanie: I know. Sure. Well, we’ll do a part three, of course. Where can the people find you? We’ll drop it down below, but let us know if somebody’s interested in coaching with you.

Cheryl: Sure. So you can visit my website. It is sisterswhoscale.com. I also have a free community group site on Facebook, and it’s just ask Sisters Who Scale easiest. Great.

Stephanie: We will definitely link that below with all of the other resources. Guys, yeah, thank you so much again, Cheryl. Thanks guys for watching. I hope you enjoyed it. Leave some love down below for Cheryl, hit that like, hit that subscribe. If you’re not subscribed to our YouTube or our Spotify, leave a review on Spotify as well, so more owners can hear all of this fantastic knowledge, and we’ll see you on the next episode, guys. The Filthy Rich Cleaners. Thanks so much. Bye.

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

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• ZenMaid
• Sisters Who Scale
• Sisters Who Scale Facebook Community

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