The “Free Cleaning” Strategy That Grows Your 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 in today’s episode, I want to deep dive into one of the quote, unquote, secret weapons that Serene Clean has used throughout the history of the business to have an incredible impact in multiple areas of the business, and that is going to be free cleanings.

Free cleanings, when you use them strategically, have been one of the most valuable tools that I have used at Serene Clean. And I want to highlight four different areas or buckets of the business that I would say have been incredibly impacted by this concept, because I know a lot of you guys, you might have just tightened your purse strings or pocketbooks or wallets or whatever, at the concept of giving away something for free. I know that that can sound crazy and absolutely maniacal to do something that. But let me tell you, it has been such a fantastic learning tool, marketing tool, all of the tools, and that is what I want to talk about today, and how I have specifically used the concept of giving away free cleanings in all of these different areas.

Using Free Cleanings as a Learning Tool

So the first area that I want to talk about that I utilized free cleanings for is to learn, a learning tool in the early stage of the business. In fact, before I even opened Serene Clean six and a half years ago, I was doing free cleanings, and this is not a concept that I can exactly say was my own at all. That was something that I learned from Melissa Maker when I took her Decision Makers course, which sadly is not available anymore, I’m sorry to say, because it was so useful. But this was one of the things in the course that she suggested that we do in order to learn. And I did just that. I followed exactly what the course said to do to the letter, and it was amazing.

And so what I did, and you guys have heard me talk about this before, but I want to talk about it more in depth is I went to my local community center where I worked out. It’s called the London Community Center in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, town of 5,000 people. You guys all know the story of how rural Serene Clean’s locations are located at, right. So super small town, but we have this beautiful community center. I think the London family, they’ve donated all of this money to the city. They own several businesses, all of this stuff. So gorgeous, fancy, fancy community center, and so that is where everybody would work out, would hang out, go take classes, that type of thing.

And so what I did was I just started striking up conversations with the women there that were in my target market. And my ideal client profile or avatar, or whatever you want to call it, is going to be most mothers, right? People who have multiple children, perhaps dual income, perhaps a stay at home mom, but either way, people spending time at this community center. So I just went up to different women that seemed to fit that bill, and after talking with them, or perhaps it was people I had already chitter chattered with because, spoiler alert, Stephanie the chitter chatterer, as you guys may not be very shocked to understand, and I just said, listen, I’m opening a cleaning business. I’m really looking to do 10 free house cleanings. Do you or any of your friends want me to come over and do this? It would be so helpful to me so I can understand how fast I clean, and just to get an idea of what I’m doing. And if you are willing to provide a Facebook review in exchange for this after you’ve had this service, that would be amazing.

And you can’t say necessarily that you are doing the free cleaning in exchange for reviews. We don’t want to say that because legally you cannot do that, but we can say if you are interested in leaving a review after, you certainly can do that. And so that is what I did. So I did 10 free house cleanings, and I did not even think at that time to limit it to a certain number of hours. I just said I’m going to clean your house for free, not knowing the absolute can of worms I was opening because I didn’t know shit about shit, right? I didn’t know how fast things took, or how long first time cleans should take, especially homes that had never been cleaned. I also moved at a glacial pace. I’d never hustled trying to clean before, right? I’d only ever cleaned my own home. That is the only cleaning experience that I had. So of course, we dilly dally in our own house. We’re doing laundry, we’re organizing, we’re putting stuff away as we clean, right? But never have I attempted to methodically move through a space.

So I got several just from that, and then they started talking and talking to their friends and saying yeah, she’s looking for more people, giving my number out, that type of thing. So I did free cleanings. I did 10 of them before I even opened the business, and I think I cried at at least half of them. I am not going to lie, because the sheer realization of what the heck I was doing and just feeling so overwhelmed hit me at those cleanings specifically, because I did not put any parameters around that free cleaning. There was no guardrails. It’s I’m going to go clean your whole house, right? And so some of these houses were massive. Most of these houses had not been professionally cleaned or deep cleaned, or anything that. And I wanted to impress them, of course. It felt looking back, it felt the stakes were high, and they were in some aspects, but in others they weren’t. Because the pressure was low, that it was a free cleaning. That’s why this whole concept is so useful, is that the pressure is low. However, I wanted to knock it out of the park so that then I got that momentum. I got that review, and they were just absolutely thrilled, and they started talking about it to their friends and building that momentum. And that was kind of the marketing side of things, but right now we’re talking about the learning tool of it all.

What Free Cleanings Taught Me

So what this taught me right away was, holy crap, initial cleans take way longer than I would think. I was thinking there’s no way a house could ever take more than eight labor hours. There is no way it could take longer than that. And here I’d be 10 hours in, just sobbing because I didn’t have any food with me, and I’m freaking out, thinking, what am I doing? What am I getting myself into? My body is just aching. Again, remember, I have my full time job on the side of this. So this is on nights and on weekends that I’m doing these free cleanings, and I’m just so completely overwhelmed. But that taught me so much. It was so invaluable.

So I literally, what I did was I had a physical notebook with me, and I started taking notes on how long each space took me. And I’m so slow, right? I don’t know what I’m doing, and I am working off of a cleaning checklist. This is why it’s so important, so that they had a clear scope of work as to what was expected, and I had something to go off of, what am I even supposed to be doing right now? It’s get this stuff done on this checklist. That’s what they’re going to be held accountable to. That’s what you’re about to leave behind and communicate clearly the scope of work. So the scope of work was very clear. It was more just I didn’t put any guardrails around how long I was going to spend.

So if I were to redo that, and how we do it now with free cleanings is we set parameters, up to six labor hours of cleaning, up to eight hours of cleaning. So my advice to you guys, set some limits there. I will come and do eight hours of free cleaning for you or whatever it is that you want, and I will get through as much as I can in that time. What is the priority list of areas that you would like me to focus on? And that way, then you can work through that list as far as you can go, just we do a limited hour clean now.

So that is my advice to you, is if you are going to use this concept, especially if you are just starting out and have never cleaned before and have no idea what your production rates are, right? And so what I would suggest in those notes is also rate on a scale of one to 10 or one to five next to each room. How you would consider that both in dirtiness and clutter. So that again, this is all about data collection. We’re trying to see for you and for the type of work that you are going to do, the scope of work, the tasks, all of that, how long does it take, and how long does it take in different scenarios, in different levels of clutter and different levels of buildup? We want to just compile this data. Consider yourself a scientist right now, and we are just experimenting and we are learning, and these free cleanings teach you so much.

Learning How to Clean Efficiently

It also taught me a lot about how to move through a house. What was more, I was learning in real time. Well, that didn’t work. I had to redo my work here, because I started here. When you’re how do I clean fast and efficient? This is a great opportunity to try out on multiple houses and being exposed to a lot of different surfaces where I’m I don’t know how to deal with this. Okay, make a note. Figure out how to do these types of showers. How do I deal with hard water? You’re learning in real time, and it is overwhelming. But the point is it’s very low stakes learning, where if you’re just doing it in your own house, and it’s not super dirty. Or you have never dealt with, I don’t know, a copper sink. You’ve never dealt with really fancy showers, you’ve never dealt with natural stone countertops. You’ve never dealt with different types of flooring, right? All of the different surfaces that we’ve never dealt with. Or maybe you have a single story and they have multi story rooms, or they have a movie theater, or a bar, and all of these. You guys know all of the different scenarios that we run into houses, and it’s so overwhelming.

So this can be a really great learning tool for anybody starting out. It just, it really is just so fantastic to practice methods, order of operations, how long things actually take versus me just guessing, as well as how am I physically handling the work? If I have to do a bunch of first times, basically is what this is. How am I physically feeling? How much food do I need to bring? All of this stuff, right? Just all of the little nuances. There’s nothing throwing yourself into the deep end in order to learn a bunch of stuff in very quick succession. I will say, though it is deep end, but you got floaties because it’s free, right? The floaties or the freeness is what makes you float there and be okay, the pressure is off, right? This isn’t just a paying customer. And I know it’s just yeah, but my labor, my time, yeah, consider this research and development, because that’s what it is, and it allows you then to sell more effectively and more confidently, because you know that your pricing is more accurate. You know the scope of work that you can accomplish, and you just feel a lot more confident because you have all of this data that you’ve gone through and practiced and learned from.

Building Confidence Through Experience

So now, when we start selling, we’re alright, this is how long it’s going to take. This is what we’re going to do for you. You just feel more confident. And of course, for those of you who have been cleaning for years, this is totally irrelevant, perhaps to you, I understand, but there’s a lot of people listening who are just opening and who have never done this before. So that would be what I say is my first core reason for doing this is using free cleanings as a learning tool.

Free Cleanings as a Marketing and Visibility Tool

Okay, all right, bucket number two as to why we should be using free cleanings, and that is as a marketing and visibility tool. So as I alluded to in the first point, I also asked these folks to leave me a Facebook review if they were pleased with my work and want to share honest feedback, right? We just, we’re just asking for a review. We’re not saying we’re exchanging this for the free cleaning we’re just saying, if you feel so inclined to leave a Facebook review, here is a link, and looking back, if I were to do that again, what I would get out of these cleanings to get the most bang for my buck is, would you be willing to do a Facebook review, a Google review and a video testimonial? Right? Just get as milk everything you can out of that free cleaning from a review and social proof perspective, especially when you’re opening or you’re still trying to get that traction.

When you guys know how I feel about video reviews, you guys know how I feel about social proof, but this is the prime time. They are just absolutely primed to leave you a glowing review, because they didn’t have to pay anything. So it was free, and you killed it, right? You killed the cleaning. It was perfect. Everything, every little detail, was as good as you possibly could get it. So they’re just going to be so dazzled by you, and they’re going to want to talk about it. So looking back, I didn’t know the power of Google reviews back then, so I just focused heavily on Facebook, and that worked for me, of course, within that first year. But where I really started getting traction was when we started really laying into the Google reviews, which obviously you guys listen to this podcast. You know how important Google reviews are, but I’m just going to keep hammering at home. I wish that is a regret of mine. And if I were to start over, I would have started asking for those things right away from these free cleanings. And I would have grown even faster, and would have started building that huge foundation of social proof, even from day one or prior to day one, I should say. So that is a huge asset when it comes to the marketing side of things.

Cleaning Giveaways as Marketing

Now going into cleaning giveaways, just in general, as a marketing tool. You know that we do a lot of cleaning giveaways each year to our clientele or to our market. And so what that looks like, it has evolved over time. But the core principle is the same. I record a video explaining the rules of the giveaway and what we’re celebrating. Typically, we will celebrate the business’s anniversary, or some certain holiday, cleaning in July, that type of thing. Just something festive to celebrate. But it really could be anything. It could be, you know, starting school up. So beginning of fall, we want to do a giveaway, and maybe you can specify, we have done it before, where people nominate teachers only, or you could do it healthcare workers or something that. You could get more specific, and you could do this concept way more frequently than we do, because the point of it is not just that single cleaning that you’re giving away. The point of it is everybody who sees you giving it away, and the eyeballs that you’re getting on your business. It is so impactful.

Just the amount of branding that we have gotten from this and the amount of likes and followers that we have gotten to from this to our Facebook page or filling out estimate requests because they see us and are exposed to us because of these giveaways, is so positive it pays for itself tenfold every time we give away a six hour cleaning or several six hour cleanings. We hit our six year anniversary. So we give away six free cleanings, so three of them to current clients to reward them, and three of them to new clients so that we can reward new clients coming in, right? So the point being is people have to like and follow us in order to see this happening. So we get more eyes on our social and that’s always good, because then if we do have openings last minute we post, the more eyes, the better, the more chances and opportunities we have to fill those openings. So just in general, having a big following is always more positive. More emails is more positive. So we can send out email estimates. So it’s just overall, there’s so many wins from this particular thing.

Because I’ll give you an example on that six year anniversary video. I think we got something crazy. I know I just looked it up. It was 70,000 views on it. So what I do is I post the video, and then I boost that video. So people, one of the prerequisites to enter is they must share and comment shared underneath the video. So they’re sharing it organically. And then we are also spending money in boosting it. So if I spend $100 or $300 and I get 70,000 eyeballs on this thing, that’s really, really good. That’s a very good thing. We get more likes, we get more follows. And just long term business wise, it’s fantastic. Also, people are very likely to rebook with us. If they win, they are likely to rebook. And then, from a client retention perspective, if you are offering this to your current clients as a reward, well, that feels really good, too.

So it’s just so positive in all of these aspects, and again, the expectations of that free clean typically are lower. Of course, you’ll hear horror stories where it’s I did a free clean, and because they weren’t in my ideal clientele profile, maybe they would never pay for this. Typically, they complained on the free clean. We did have that happen one time where they were not happy with the free clean, and that really sucked, and we went and fixed it still, because we want to show okay, we messed up and we still made it right, right. Treat that just you would treat any other client, right. Obviously that little bit of risk is there, but the reward for me has completely outpaced it in so many ways. So from a marketing perspective and from a branding perspective, which we’re about to get into a little bit more. It is such a win win.

Free Cleanings as a Values and Culture Tool

So bucket number three is going to be free cleanings as a values and culture tool. And what I specifically mean about this is when it comes to nomination programs or Cleaning for a Reason. So many of you guys are already members of Cleaning for a Reason. For those of you that are newer to the industry and are not familiar with Cleaning for a Reason, it is a nonprofit organization that, by signing up to be a member, you pledge to donate up to two free house cleanings a month to folks going through chemotherapy treatments in your area. And what that looks like internally, from an operational standpoint is you are allowed to set the parameters around that clean. You can say, for us, it’s three hour cleans. So we are pledging to donate up to six labor hours per month to folks going through chemotherapy treatments, and they can get a maximum of two cleanings from us. And that’s set by the organization itself, not just us. That is the rules through Cleaning for a Reason. And then, of course, you can choose to continue donating cleanings to that person, if you want. It just won’t be through Cleaning for a Reason.

So for us, that is much more manageable than just yeah, again, blank checking it. We don’t want to blank check anything. We want to set parameters around things. And honestly, I would say, 90% of the months that pass, we are not actually fulfilling that because nobody fills it out. But the point is, we can promote that. We do this. It is a good thing. We want to do good things with our business, absolutely. And this is a fantastic marketing tool and it is a fantastic values tool to showcase to your clients, your community and your staff, that giving is very important to you, and you want to use your business for good and give to people in your community. So all of those things are positive.

Creating a Nomination Program

And then for us, we have taken that a step further, and we have a nomination program that we started, I believe, two years ago, and what I did was create a ZenMaid booking form, a third one, so we have a residential one, a commercial one, and then we have our nomination cleaning booking form. And you guys can check this out, sereneclean.com just click on the nomination program button, and you’ll see what that booking form looks like. But it is really nifty to be able to make multiple booking forms so we can organize our questions that are specific to that type of client. So very nice. Love our booking forms. And so we put that there, and we just send people to fill that out, and it’s typically somebody, you know, obviously nominating somebody else, or typically not nominating themselves, and they just put the details in, and we take it from there.

And again, you don’t have to fulfill everything that comes your way. You can see what makes sense. You can still qualify people. So, for example, we still don’t clean people’s homes that have been smoked in, even if it comes through the nomination, even if it’s a Cleaning for a Reason client. We still have our boundaries and our rules of engagement with our business, and you can have that so you don’t have to be free for all. I know I’ve experienced that with a couple consulting clients where they’ve implemented this, but they didn’t put any rules in place. So now they are doing free cleanings for really rough houses that they would never want to clean for normally. And I’m not saying don’t do that, but just know what you’re getting into, and you can still set the boundary there in the line as to what that’s going to look like. So remember guardrails. We can put guardrails around free cleanings. It’s not a free for all, including this type of thing. So don’t be afraid to set that so it still feels a positive experience.

I don’t want my cleaners going in and having to clean a house with nicotine all over the walls and their clothes reek and we have to throw all of our supplies away. That’s not a positive experience for my staff, and I’m not going to put them through that. However, if it is a more cluttered space or just a lot, I would say, rougher than maybe our typical clients, absolutely, that’s totally fine, in my opinion. And again, we’re not necessarily doing this every single month. But the point is, it’s there. People can nominate, and we can promote this heavily, and it also makes the person doing the nominating feel really good about us. It makes the person receiving the clean feel really good about us. It makes everybody who is exposed to that concept feel really good about us, and it makes our cleaners feel really good about us because they’re doing something good, and they know that they’re working for a place that actually gives a shit about the community that we are in.

The Power of Corporate Social Responsibility

So there is so much goodwill related to this thing. So it creates this culture of we give, we help people. Our services are valuable. It just slams that home again and again. It really is just such a morale booster. And so I would highly recommend for you guys to join Cleaning for a Reason, and or consider this concept of a nomination program. And remember, you’re the one who gets to say how often this happens and how much cleaning. On our nomination program promotions, we don’t say how much cleaning we’re going to do. We will decide that based on our availability. Alright, we have three hours available. Let’s do this one, right? Let’s reach out and at least get them three hours. Because, you know, what’s better than no cleaning? Three hours of cleaning for free, right? That is enough to get a decent amount done, maybe a kitchen, maybe two bathrooms, or something that, right? Or we could do up to six or up to whatever you are comfortable with, because it’s your budget, right?

So if you’re Stephanie, how can I do this? I don’t have any money, right? Well, you got a two hour block. You can’t book anything else. You need to get your cleaner some hours and create some goodwill. And see it as marketing, see that as you buying or paying for marketing, right? So all of this stuff I see as part of our marketing budget, that labor that we are donating, it truly is marketing and branding. So that is how I categorize it in my mind. And so I’d much rather give away free labor as a marketing tool, because of all of the positives that come out of it, because it really creates our brand identity. When people think of Serene Clean, they know that we give, not just monetarily, with our monthly donations that employees are choosing, and we’ve done that for years, right? So that’s part of our brand identity, by the way we behave. But then the other side of that is donating labor through free cleanings, and that just gives people a very positive impression of our brand as a whole, and just consistently promoting that over time.

So that’s definitely something I haven’t promoted much of this past year that we do this because we have been struggling so much with staffing, but now that we have really gotten a good role on that and kind of handled that problem for the most part right now, that is something I want to do my due diligence and promote more heavily in 2026 is our nomination program and Cleaning for a Reason.

Creative Marketing with Free Cleanings

So that is something that I also wanted, one idea that I had, and I know that we’ve done it in the past, and it’s something I want to come back to, is instead of creating posters or flyers and putting them up at gas stations or community centers about your cleaning services, trying to sell you, why don’t you sell your free cleaning programs? Right? We did this one time, and it worked really well. I actually have it. I remember I got them printed off. I think at Vistaprint or Canva, and it just says, did you know there are free cleaning services available in these parameters? And I explained it all. And then we posted that around town at, yeah, convenience stores, gas stations, anywhere that we could put a poster up, because it doesn’t feel you’re selling yourself at all. You’re trying to help people, right, which you are. That’s legitimate.

So could you put that type of stuff up? Could you also record a video talking about your free cleaning programs, or being a member of Cleaning for a Reason, and promote that. Don’t even talk about the fact that you’re a normal cleaning. I mean, you can mention it. We are a house cleaning business, and we have these programs available, and we want to spread the word and help more people in our community. Don’t you think that that would cause people to, I don’t know, give your page a like, leave some nice comments below, increase engagement. Talk about their friends. Yeah, I heard about this company. Maybe give them a try, because they do all these good things, right?

So I’m not telling you to do these types of things as a totally cold, mechanical thing. This, for me, is one of the reasons I love business is I have the capacity now to give away free things, and it makes me feel good, and I get to help people through that, and also I get a benefit from it, so it’s not, don’t feel icky, guys. I think a lot of us feel bad when we feel we are benefiting from the good things that we are doing, no matter what we’re going to be benefiting internally. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing to say the good things that you are doing as a business, because people want to work with companies who have corporate social responsibility, right? There’s plenty of studies out there. I actually did a project on this topic in college, and I think that that’s why I had such a strong pull towards this from a very, actually, really, from the beginning of the business. I just had this gut instinct of go hard on corporate social responsibility, which is businesses giving, right? And that has always been a part of our brand identity, and it’s worked really, really well for us.

And so people want to work with companies who give back, but if you aren’t telling people that you give back, how can they intelligently make that decision? If you’re not vocal about that? So do not feel bad about being loud and proud about the fact that you do free cleanings. Okay. Don’t feel bad about it. Don’t feel that you’re being icky or wrong or nefarious or anything that. It is okay to talk about these things. You don’t have to talk about all of the good things that you’re doing, but wouldn’t you want to know as a consumer what that company is doing? So you can make the choice between two companies, right? If that’s something that’s important to you that when you spend money, that that money is supporting your community in multiple ways. Well, there you go. So don’t be afraid to talk about this, guys and promote it. It’s only helping people. It’s also helping you. Yeah, that’s okay. Your business is supposed to help you. Don’t feel bad about that.

Free Cleanings for Risk Reduction and Data Collection

Okay, all right. Final bucket, and the one that actually caused me to want to make this topic a video in the first place, this podcast episode is using it as risk reduction and data. So, yes, a learning tool, but taking it one step further, because this is something that just on Wednesday, we unlocked in my weekly operations meeting, and I’m going to describe it to you, okay?

So as you guys may remember, if you are a regular listener, one of our largest accounts that we got in 2025 and then subsequently dropped in 2025 was a school, and it was a private school, a little bit unorthodox, huge, large, and we massively underbid it for a variety of reasons, but short story is we underbid it and we ended up dropping it because we also could not keep the dang thing staffed, right?

So what came up this past week is we were asked to quote. We had a quote request from what used to be an old school, but now is actually kind of an apartment complex. They’ve turned it into apartments or something along the lines. I didn’t do the walkthrough. I’m in Georgia. My business is in Savannah. My business, the business is in Wisconsin. So I did not do this walk through. But Katie did. Katie, my customer relations manager, and we were all in talking about the bid and just what we were thinking for time and all of that.

Using Free Cleanings for Commercial Bids

And a concept that we had discussed the previous week was utilizing our free cleaning strategy to procure walkthroughs for commercial. And so what we are also going to be doing, before I get back to the school example, is in the new year, we’re going to be trying to get, you know, more business. We’re in a place now we’re okay, we fixed a lot of our problems. We can now push and start going for more accounts. And one of the ways we are going to go after commercial accounts is reaching out and asking if we can do basically limited areas, come in and do a deep cleaning of a bathroom, deep cleaning of a break room for them, show them our work. Not just tell them how great we are, but show them and ask for the opportunity to bid their facility.

And so that is something that I’m going to be working on, creating a system for in the new year, and I will share with you guys exactly the semantics of that once I figure it out. I just haven’t started yet. And so what we’re going to do is anytime we have little blocks of time that we’re not able to fill, but it’s a really competent cleaner, we’re going to reach out and get these times scheduled. So everything else is full. Say we got two hours with the cleaner to wrap up the end of their day, perfect opportunity to again, donate that labor as a marketing and sales tool, because they’re much more likely, at least, my assumption, this is an experiment. My assumption is that I’m going to be testing, they’re more likely to allow us to do a walk through and provide a bid if we do something this. Because, I mean, who does that, right? That’s unusual. That is a no brainer offer, right there.

So let’s do that, and let’s invest that time. Additionally, it’s going to be a risk reduction and data tool, because we are going to be using that time to time ourselves in those spaces and just get more clarity and more data related to commercial. Because commercial production rates are still one of our weakest areas in the business, because all of the commercial facilities are so different, right? And square footage of the facilities just doesn’t tell us shit, because each type of building, even if it’s the same size, it doesn’t tell us the full story, right? So we’re just trying to collect more data here.

And this ties back to okay, so that’s what we’re going to do for client procurement. So stay tuned for future episodes, and I will be describing how that goes, guys, because again, just having an experiment, seeing what happens, and adjusting from there. But my hypothesis is it’s going to work really well and get our foot in the door for some commercial accounts, which is really, really exciting. So I’m very excited to try that out, and I’ll be sharing it with you.

Overcoming Fear Through Free Cleanings

But coming back to this other example that I’m talking about, we all were kind of hemming and hawing, and just we kept bringing up that account that we lost or dropped. But, you know, it was on us, right? We were just, we’re gun shy. We’re gun shy around this. We’re traumatized. We’re oh, we don’t know. We are not confident in our ability to bid correctly, and we are horrified of bidding below, right, or just not bidding accurately.

So I was wait a minute, why don’t we just offer to come clean for free about the common spaces and a hallway or a section of each type of space that we are attempting to bid? Because it is common spaces and hallways and a bunch of staircases, basically, and they side note, they reached out to us. They are very unhappy with their current quality. And the current contract that they are on is set to end at the end of January. Literally, a golden opportunity. I mean, oh, that’s a great, great, great account to get. Great location, we can come anytime of day, all of the things are perfect, except we’re afraid we’re going to bid it incorrectly.

So we’re let’s send Hannah, who is our basically Field Manager, quality controller, fill in, lead trainer, all of the things. Hannah’s amazing, as you guys all know. Let’s send her next week, if they will have us to do this and literally send the email, no strings attached. This will just allow us to ensure that we give an accurate bid, and also show you our quality of work. So of course, Hannah’s gonna kill it, right? Because one of the things that the lady shared with Katie was there was a spill of soda on a staircase, and it has been months, and they had not cleaned it up, right? The current cleaners. And so we’re gonna make sure we clean that damn soda spill up, is what we’re gonna do, and just show them the level of quality that we can provide to them.

And the most important thing, give us the data so that we feel very confident on this bid and it’s actually accurate. And in a month from now, when hopefully we get the dang bid, we’re not oh shit, we totally underbid. And of course, we know that initial cleans of a space that has not been properly up kept are going to take more time, and we’re going to keep that into consideration when it comes to bidding. And typically we do not do first time clean prices on commercial accounts, because the way I see it is we’re eating that in order to procure that, you know, juicy, juicy commercial. If it was a once a month one, I could see doing that, because that’s just not a very high frequency. But if we’re talking about a weekly or daily or three times a week account or something that, I just see that as cost of procurement of that client. We bring it up to snuff, and then we go on to maintain it from there.

So I know other people have different thoughts. We’re just a little bit on the high side, usually price wise, for commercial, so I prefer just to eat it. And so far, that hasn’t been a huge problem for us. And a lot of times, you know, it’s just not, it’s not a house that hasn’t been cleaned. It’s usually they just had a shitty service provider previously. And so a lot of details just aren’t there. We just schedule a bunch of extra time the first cleans, or the first week or whatever, and get it up to our maintenance level.

Building Confidence in Commercial Bidding

So I am really, really excited about this. I’m also excited for us to get our confidence back in relation to this, because it’s going to give us everything we need, the actual information that we need to be able to make proper pricing decisions. So I highly recommend you guys giving this a whirl. I know it seems a little bit unorthodox, but especially if you don’t know how to price that, or you’ve massively underbid. Again, put guardrails. We’re not saying we’re going to clean the whole place for free, which that would be ballsy, and you guys could totally do that. We want to clean one of each of the spaces, because in this particular place, it’s all identical. It’s just a maze of hallways and stairways and common spaces and stuff that. So if we just do one of each of those, or a couple of each of those, we’re going to get the timing of it down pretty darn pat, and then just extrapolate that for the size of the facility.

So we are really, really excited about that. And you know, why would they say no, right? This is a no brainer on their part. Just for the commercial accounts, yeah, they might be suspicious, but for us, it’s okay, how do we make the risk as low as possible? Well, we’ll provide them with, this is our business. We’re an established business. And these are all the reasons. We’re going to lay this out really well, and that’s all the stuff I still have to build of why should they allow us to do this? But even for you guys, if you never have any commercial accounts, this can be a great way to get the foot in the door, show them what you got, because maybe you don’t have any social proof yet. And this is something that is unexpected. People don’t do this type of thing, right?

So how can we delight them and surprise them? Be damn, they really want my business. They’re willing to clean for free. That’s how badly they want my business. They are very motivated to do a good job. They’re very motivated as a business owner. They’re gonna, they’re trying to prove themselves, and I respect that. As a business owner, if somebody does something that for free, for me, I respect that. I can respect the hustle, right? So therefore, I would also imagine that other accounts are going to and other businesses are going to appreciate that as me wanting to be their service provider.

Growing Commercial Accounts

So I’m really excited to delve into this side of things. Obviously, I already have a lot of commercial accounts. I have what, 65 commercial accounts. But I want more, and I want stable commercial. And I want to talk to you guys about that and share my findings for that, because I know that some of you had requested to learn more about commercial, and I really want to find some guests too that are experts in commercial. People are just less loud about that typically. So if anybody does have any guest recommendations on commercial accounts, people who understand commercial really well, obviously I feel I know a thing or two about commercial for sure, but there’s always more to learn.

So if anybody has experienced somebody who you feel has been a really good mentor in that area, or you’ve gotten a lot of value from their conversations with you, or their content. If you know of somebody who already creates content specifically about commercial and not just creates it, but does it. I’m not going to name names, but there’s a lot of people who make content about shit that they don’t know about because they’ve never done it, right? They’re just hypothesizing. So I like to talk to people who have actually done it when it comes to experts, I would say, not just self proclaimed experts, right?

So if anybody has recommendations, leave them down, and I will try to get them on the podcast. We’ll do our best. But otherwise, I’d love to just talk more about commercial in general for you guys, so you understand why I love it, what the positives, what the negatives are, and how we go about getting them. And so this is something new for me. Previously, we’ve done, you know, the donut drop offs and all of that good stuff. So this is kind of just taking that to the extreme of giving to them without any strings attached, but just trying to show them.

And the beautiful thing is, you know, who works at commercial accounts? People who own houses, right? People who own houses. And so for us, a lot of residential clients come from our commercial accounts. And a lot of our commercial accounts come from our residential clients. So when you build one, you typically are building the other too because they’re seeing your work. And you’re dang you guys do houses too. Let me get in on that. Or dang you do commercial too. Let me get in on that. So make sure that you make it very clear to both sides of your clients, if you’re trying to get more of the other that you do the other thing too, right? So we’ve got lots of our accounts because of one of those situations.

So that is a wonderful thing too, and why it’s so important when you’re doing commercial to not let the ball drop, because those could be potential house cleaning clients that you are dropping the ball in front of. So we don’t want to do that. But, yeah, I am very, very excited about that. It’s just, you know, we’re not afraid of the work, we’re not afraid of the account, we’re afraid of guessing. So this free cleaning is going to eliminate that risk, eliminate that fear, allow us to bid the dang thing. Hopefully win it. I’m hoping, in a month from now, I’m coming back and saying we got it, and we also are getting data for future accounts this. This space is this, and this is how much we bid, and we’re making this there, so therefore we can make it here too, right?

Additional Uses for Free Cleanings

So all in all, free cleanings are just so incredible in a variety of ways. I would also suggest it’s great for testing new cleaners. For us, my best friend, Maddie, she is actually one of our training houses. So all my managers houses are training houses, but then we also use Maddie’s house as the fourth day of training, because now it’s a real customer, but it’s not really, right, so it’s easing into that. So you know, obviously that’s my best friend too. So it’s just a little perk there, but it pays to be Stephanie’s friend, and I love her so much, and she deserves every good thing in the world to ever come to her. So that includes free cleanings for me.

And then for us, we use it as a wonderful learning opportunity for new cleaners and a training grounds. So it really lets us evaluate the quality without a bunch of client pressure. It also can be used for testing new systems. If you want to test a new checklist, or you want to test maybe you’re diving into a new service like grout cleaning or floor refinishing or carpet cleaning, again, use this as a testing grounds for anything new that you’re adding, or add that concept onto a paying client. So if you have a regular client, you’re hey, Miss Smith, can we also do a free carpet cleaning at your house? We’re testing this out, and they’re going to be so happy to do it, right? Because what’s the drawback? Obviously, you ruining their carpets. Don’t do that. But the drawback is very, very low. The risk is low, the gain is high, for both of you.

And anytime we can reward our current reoccurring clients with little specials that, they’re more likely to stay, right? So I am just so excited to delve deeper into this strategy of free cleaning in these new and exciting ways, and I just wanted to describe all of the different positive benefits that you guys can get from the same concept. And remember this, it’s not just throwing money away.

Closing Thoughts

I want you to squeeze every single ounce of value that you can out of free cleanings, you as the owner, as well as to your clients as a retention strategy. So do not see this as wasted money. See this as an opportunity for growth and education in a variety of standpoints.

So I hope this has been valuable to you guys. Let me know in the comments, have you used free cleanings before, and in what capacity and what benefits did you realize from this? And is there anything that I forgot to mention here that you saw as something we need to watch for? So obviously, put those guardrails in on time and scope of work. Is there anything else that we need to watch for, for all of us friends here talking about free cleanings. What other things do we need to worry about that maybe I did not mention? Put it down in the comments below. Make sure you hit that like, hit that subscribe, guys, and let’s see what little emoji shall we leave? Let’s do a little present. I am wearing, actually, two presents I am wearing. These are from my cleaner Ahata, and then these SpongeBob socks from my cleaner Jill. Because, as everybody knows, I like SpongeBob. So yes, leave a little present emoji down below for the engagement and for the algorithm.

Join the ZenMaid Mastermind if you have not done so on Facebook. Love to see you there. It’s a great group of people. You don’t need to be a ZenMaid customer to join, though you should be a ZenMaid customer. What are you doing? All right, it’s 2026, time to join ZenMaid free trial, guys, and I will see you on the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye, bye.

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

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Melissa Maker
• Cleaning for a Reason
• Serene Clean Nomination Program
• ZenMaid Mastermind Facebook Group
• ZenMaid Free Trial

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