The Mother-Daughter Duo Running Two Cleaning Companies

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Introduction

Stephanie: Hello, everyone. Welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean. And today’s very special, unique episode is with our ladies here, Lisa and Kyleigh — a mother-daughter duo. And they have a very inspiring and unique story. I can’t wait for you guys to hear it. Ladies, thank you so much for joining me today.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Thanks for having us. We’re so excited.

Lisa Temple: Thank you.

Stephanie: I’ve never had a mother-daughter duo. I’ve had lots of couples on, that type of thing. So I wanna hear from the beginning. Kyleigh, you have this tech background. Lisa, you’ve been doing this for so long. Take me back to the beginning, Lisa. What inspired the start of The Blissful Clean?

Kyleigh Lipsitz: So sorry, Stephanie, really quickly — I mean to interrupt. We actually have separate cleaning companies. Lisa is the founder of Maid in Michigan. And I started The Blissful Clean based off of a lot of the hard work and things she’s tried, about three years ago. So we operate cleaning companies about two hours from each other, but I’ve learned everything I know from Lisa, my mom.

Stephanie: I didn’t know that. Okay, that makes a lot more sense, because I was just reading the intake for The Blissful Clean. That also makes sense why you’re far apart. I was like, how is this working? So where are the locations here?

Lisa Temple: So I am in the South Lyon area, more of the southeast Michigan area. And Kyleigh is in —

Kyleigh Lipsitz: And I’m in West Michigan.

Stephanie: Got it. Awesome. Well, this is even more intriguing. Two businesses and one podcast, guys. So, Lisa, tell us about the start of your business.

Lisa’s Origin Story: Building Maid in Michigan

Lisa Temple: Yeah, absolutely. So I had also kind of worked in the corporate world in sales and on the road all the time. I was a single mother, which I know a lot of stories start from that aspect. It was a perfect type of thing that I did, being a single mother and having two school-age children at home. So I needed to find something where I was making a good income, but also had the flexibility of being at home when I needed to be home. That’s how it all started. I started cleaning myself and just getting jobs, doing the solo type cleaning.

But I knew right from the very beginning that I did not just want to create a job for myself, rather a business where I could step away and run it — but not clean myself. I knew that it would never reach the potential that I wanted it to reach by essentially just creating a job rather than a business. So I did that with intention when I started out. I also dragged my two sisters along with me — just temporarily, just help me get started, help me get the customer base, and then you’ll be in and out.

Little did they know, one of my sisters is still working. She got into it and realized the money was just too good. She couldn’t go anywhere else and make the hourly pay that she was doing while not having weekends, holidays, or evenings. So yeah, I just started it. It was about twelve, thirteen years ago. And it just grew from there. There was a lot of trial and error, going from being out in the field to running it from the other aspect of it, but it just grew and grew and grew. And it’s doing unbelievably well right now. As I mentioned to you before, I’ve kind of stepped back to where I like to classify myself as semi-retired. Maybe I’ll do about an hour or so a day, but I’ve hired other people to kind of handle the day-to-day.

Stephanie: That’s so inspiring. So what year did the business start?

Lisa Temple: It started in 2014 officially. Before then, I did a lot of the cleaning myself with my sisters, but officially it started in 2014, where I was able to kind of step back.

Stephanie: And how many team members do you have, Lisa?

Lisa Temple: Right now we have about eighteen. And we don’t do cleaning teams, we do solo cleaning. So they each have their own schedule. We’re also ready to hire our third office staff. We ran this out of my home-based business, but we are officially graduating to an office space in the fall.

Stephanie: Oh my goodness. So you grew it to that size from your home. That’s amazing. You’re gonna love having that other space. So are you fully residential, or what is the split for you of type of work?

Lisa Temple: We are about ninety percent residential. We do a few small offices, but nothing huge in commercial — mainly a couple law offices. Nothing where it’s the big machinery or any big commercial accounts, but mainly residential and then a few small offices.

Kyleigh’s Origin Story: From Corporate Tech to The Blissful Clean

Stephanie: So we’ll put a pin in that, Lisa. Kyleigh, I wanna ask the same of you. Let’s hear your origin story — heavily inspired, of course, by your mother. Work-wise, what did you do before?

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Yeah. So I remember I was cleaning houses for you, mom, when I was in college. That was like 2009, I think. The business itself, Maid in Michigan, probably started earlier but was officially registered later. My mom has always had quite the entrepreneurial spirit. It’s definitely something that is in our family. And so I watched her build this business, from cleaning houses herself, having me help, my aunts help — and I made some extra cash in college by cleaning.

After I graduated, I left Michigan. I moved to Chicago for about 10 years, moved to New York for a few years, and was in the software implementation space for the most part. I was a project manager — migrating people to use new software, tech support, project managing, implementing software at different companies. So a lot of my work in the corporate world was using software and building process specifically for businesses to get things done in a more efficient way.

And COVID hit. I had gotten married. I had two children now. So we moved back to Michigan, my husband and I, about four years ago, and settled in Grand Rapids, which is a little bit west of where I’m from and where Maid in Michigan is based. I was working remotely, working for someone else, working on products and projects that weren’t my own and that I wasn’t really invested in the same way as I would be for something I had a lot of passion for.

And around the same time, my mom had been expanding and growing and scaling. Part of that process was implementing software to allow her business to scale. She used ZenMaid for a long time. I started using ZenMaid based on the work that she did there, and just saw a huge difference in how effective you can be when you have automation in place to follow up on communication with customers — create process around whatever you can to just make it as smooth as possible.

So I helped her a bit with modernizing her operations over the years and consulted a little bit from my software experience. And three years ago, I was still working in corporate remotely and I just really was not loving it. I wanted to be more involved in my own community, meet people in my own community, and do work that I was really passionate about — something that I knew could help a lot of people in my area. So The Blissful Clean was born. We started as Maid in Michigan Grand Rapids, and then it evolved into being a sister operation to Maid in Michigan.

It’s just been really wonderful and exciting to build a business with all of that background knowledge around how to start things from a really solid place — software-wise, process-wise — in the very beginning, and really see how it takes off once you have all of that stuff in place. You’re adding more technicians, adding more customers, and kind of seeing the flywheel effect of things really take off. We’ve been in business for three years now in Grand Rapids and it’s been wonderful. I love it.

Stephanie: That’s incredible. Kyleigh, how many techs are you up to at this moment? I know it changes every day.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: So we have six cleaning technicians, and we are hiring for our seventh and probably eighth position on the tech side this month.

Before ZenMaid: Paper, Notepads, and Carbon Copies

Stephanie: That’s fantastic. I’m curious, Lisa — before you implemented ZenMaid, how were you handling all of that? What did that process look like?

Lisa Temple: It did not look good. It was all old school. It was notepads and paper and quoting sheets. It was a lot harder, I will say that.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Handwritten. Carbon copies of things, right?

Stephanie: How many techs do you think you ran up to on that process?

Lisa Temple: It was a lot smaller. I maybe had five or six, but at that time I was using teams, teams of two, which I completely got rid of. And honestly, you were the one that inspired me. It was one of the ZenMaid events where they have different speakers. I listened to you — this was several years back — and you instantly caught my attention. I loved your energy, I loved your vibe, and you had such great information. But you had said that things really started turning around for you when you got a mentor, even a business mentor. So I decided to do that, and things just turned around. I was able to make some changes where they needed to be. One of them was going down to solo cleaning.

Back when I was running calls and running estimates — which I don’t do anymore, everything’s over the phone now, through our software — I was really running from morning until dusk, writing everything down, coming back, filing it. So yeah, it was a lot more difficult.

Stephanie: The chaos and the room for error, too, because you’re always second-guessing. Somebody calls out, somebody cancels. When you’re doing all that by hand and then having to communicate it to the techs — a change happened, and every day changes happen because cleaners do be calling out, right? So how do you pivot quickly? I cannot fathom the amount of work that must have been.

Lisa Temple: Yeah, it was. I remember I printed out calendars of each month and I would fill them in and give them to each of the cleaning techs, and I would hand-write the customer’s address. It was a nightmare. But yeah, we don’t do that anymore.

Switching From Teams to Solo Cleaning

Stephanie: Oh my gosh. It’s just impossible to scale without losing your mind. Interesting about transitioning from teams — obviously there are pros and cons to each. How did you go about that, and how did your team take it? Because when I give people that advice, they’re like, my cleaners have worked teams, they don’t want to go to solos because they’re used to having somebody with them. Can you talk through that process? What was the reaction like?

Lisa Temple: Yeah, it was definitely a mixed reaction. I was nervous, because you know how hard it is to find and keep good help in this business. There’s a huge turnover. But then I just started looking at the numbers and how much more efficient it would be, and how it would allow me to grow my business as well. I think the key takeaway that made it a huge selling point was the fact that they were going to make quite a bit more an hour.

So rather than paying them an hourly rate — which really ended up not working out well for me, because sometimes you’ve got cleaners that are faster than others, and you never know how much you’re gonna make off of each job because the pay fluctuated — when I switched over to solo cleaning, I paid them a commission on each house they did. It gave them the option of pay-per-performance pay. And that was through Debbie Sardone. That’s who my mentor was. I signed up for her class, which again, I was like, my gosh, should I do this? This is expensive. It was a big investment, but it has paid off, let me tell you.

Once I showed everybody, “this is what it’s gonna look like, this is what your pay is going to be, this is what you have the opportunity to make,” that was really the selling point — being able to give them a huge increase in pay. Another thing I’ll mention: when you have teams, you tend to have your weaker cleaners. So I think the ones that were really strong cleaners, the ones that realized they did the majority of the cleaning on the teams, they really welcomed that.

Stephanie: Yeah, because it feels fair. It feels like you’re getting what you deserve. Kyleigh, did you follow suit? I imagine there was a lot of communication between you and your mom about structure. I’d love to hear the decisions that you made when you set up the business.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Yeah. So I have the benefit of getting to reap the rewards of all of the trial and error that my mom has had. I was in a really great position three years ago when I decided to start my own business, because she’s really gotten it down to a science, with help from others who have great experience. So I was able to take her framework and just put it into my own market in Grand Rapids and do much of the same that she does.

We’ve done solo cleaning from day one. We’ve done performance commission pay from day one. That’s really how I built the team and built the business on my end. And then, similarly, implementing software from the very beginning — being able to see where the specific challenges were for her around quoting, around communication that needs to be really on point in order to convert leads and help as many people as you can. Having those systems in place to scale is just so important.

I cannot thank her enough. I would not be a business owner today if I didn’t see her do it, and see how she struggled and kept going, time and time again. You just get up, you see what else you haven’t tried yet, and you keep going. So I feel really grateful every day that I got to benefit from all of her learned experience, and now put my own flavor on it and help where I can on the tech side with her operations as well, so we all grow together.

Lisa Temple: Yeah, I’ve definitely learned a lot from her too.

When Software Doesn’t Work: The AI Phone Assistant

Stephanie: Your background, Kyleigh, has gotta be a gold mine — being able to think about where software is useful and where it’s not. Being over-softwared is definitely a problem we can run into. Has there been any software you’ve actually cancelled? No shade to these softwares, but where can we avoid?

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Yes, actually. The technology I worked in in corporate was a mixture of financial software — I worked with large financial institutions — and the tail end of my corporate career was in AI, LLMs, machine learning stuff, which is very topical right now. From having a solid understanding of how AI works, and how it’s changing so fast all the time — that’s like a full-time job in and of itself, just keeping aware of the trends.

One of the things I tried to implement that we’ve backtracked on is an AI virtual assistant to answer phone calls. I know there are many pieces of software out there that do this. We use Quo for our phones —

Stephanie: Quo, yeah. Terrible name. I’ll say that to the day I die. It’ll be on my headstone. I don’t like that name.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Quo, formerly OpenPhone. I agree — it’s hard to say, doesn’t make sense. So one of the selling points of my business, and my mom’s business too, is that we always have someone on the phone nine to five, Monday through Friday, to answer calls, questions, and concerns for customers and for techs. There’s always someone available to help. But people put in quote requests on the weekend or the evenings, and we obviously are not answering phones at two in the morning, and we don’t currently have 24-hour VA support.

So I tried to implement, okay, just after hours, I’m gonna put this virtual assistant in place so it rings through to a virtual assistant who can try to field their requests instead of going to my voicemail. I spent a ton of time configuring it — here’s all the questions people might ask, here’s all the answers you can give, so much context about the way my business works. And people got so frustrated with the experience, because it just can’t currently pick up on pauses when people are trying to have a conversation. You’re talking, and then the AI starts talking, and it needs to think and spin for a minute.

I had such a visceral reaction from a few customers, like, “If I didn’t love you and if I didn’t love the technician that I have, I would cancel your service because I hate talking to this robot.” So we got rid of that fast. Not to say there may not be another tool out there, or that with more time this side of things could develop and become more intuitive and better for humans to interact with — but we just said, okay, in that case, let’s just leave a voicemail, we’ll call you back, it’ll be a real human tomorrow. And it’s just better.

I can sort of understand it more if you were calling during normal business hours and you’re not talking to a human. But you’re calling at like 10 p.m. and you’re talking to a robot and you’re still mad about it. So it’s really not a good experience. That one, we got rid of.

Stephanie: That’s really interesting. And it’s funny, I just had a meeting with ZenMaid this morning, because they’re in the works on an agentic AI that can go through your specific account data. So it’s very topical and very exciting. But you paint a good picture — it’s not for everything right now. When I was at Clean Con in March, there were several vendors talking about softwares that do this type of thing. On one of the panels, this one guy was like, “If you’re not using this, you are so bad, how could you not do this?” And I was not the only one who was like, uh-uh, I’m not doing that, because of what you described. I’m not saying never, but certainly not now — because so many people are so fatigued by this, and any frustration point, like getting spoken over, “sorry, didn’t quite catch that,” I’m already annoyed. Could we just keep that interaction neutral?

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Yeah, it made it way worse.

Stephanie: Right — make it neutral and excel at the next interaction. So I’m really happy you shared that, because anybody who’s thinking about those types of softwares, it could go poorly for you. People might not like it very much.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Yes. Proceed with caution.

What They’ve Taught Each Other

Stephanie: I’m curious for both of you — what do you think each other’s biggest strengths are, and the biggest opportunities you’ve been able to help each other with? Lisa, looking at Kyleigh, what do you believe some of her biggest strengths are as a person or a business owner?

Lisa Temple: Obviously the tech side of it. I also have to give her credit, because I don’t believe I would be where I am without her, and my other daughter who also helps. Definitely getting the systems in place, the tech side — she’s very knowledgeable on all of that. She always has been. But also her ideas. She’s come up with some great ideas I never even thought of, in regards to building the business and creative ways to advertise, or things she’s done with her techs and her cleaning methods. I may have started the ball rolling, but we’ve punted it back and forth quite a bit. She’s definitely added so much to my business as well. So I’m very grateful and very proud.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: A little teary-eyed over here, Ma. That’s really sweet.

Stephanie: This is just so special. What do you think you’ve been able to teach her, Lisa? Anything stand out?

Lisa Temple: What I hope stood out — with any business, a couple of things. First of all, I have always found that working for yourself and creating your own business and your own way is not only so much more rewarding, but financially, as long as you stick with it, you will always find a way. Especially in this business. It was always in the back of my mind — maid service, cleaning houses, low overhead. It was always a no-brainer for me. And what I’ve realized is that as time goes on, people are busier.

Three things: people don’t shovel their own snow, cut their own grass, or clean their own house. It amazes me. So what I hope she takes away is that truly, if you keep with it and keep going — you might have your bad days. I remember one time before I switched over to all of this, I was down to one tech. I had lost everybody else and I thought, my gosh, what am I gonna do? And I managed to turn the corner, and here we are today. So I hope she takes that with her — that you don’t give up, and you will find your way.

Stephanie: For anybody listening who is just starting out or hasn’t opened a business yet — it is a shit ton of work. None of us are gonna say this is easy. However, this is a beautiful business to be in for so many reasons. What Lisa just said — people are busy, and this is only gonna keep getting worse when it comes to people being able to pay to get their time back. And it’s a recurring business model, more frequent than haircuts or oil changes. House cleaning is one of the most frequent recurring business models. So the sky’s the limit on the income. There is no limit, compared to a normal job where eventually you’re gonna hit a ceiling.

Lisa Temple: Right. It truly is as big as you want it to be and as hard as you’re willing to work. The sky is the limit.

Stephanie: What about you, Kyleigh? What do you think about your mom’s biggest strengths, and areas where you’ve been able to teach her some stuff?

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Continuing on this — starting a business, entrepreneurial spirit. I would never have started a business if I hadn’t seen this modeled for me with my mom. Over the years she’s tried different business ventures. Maid service was the last one, because it took off and here we are. But it’s really so much trial and error to figure out where you can make an impact, where you can find that intersection of really hard work that you don’t mind doing because you’re so invigorated by it. That’s been my experience — I’ve never been happier in a job than doing this work, because it’s really given me an opportunity to make people’s lives better.

I’ve seen her do that for so long — whether it’s technicians, giving primarily women a space where they can be respected, make great money, have consistency, and know that there’s another woman in charge who understands their perspective, who was a single mom and built this as a single mom. Just seeing the opportunity she’s created for her techs. And then think of all the families she’s helped over the years to have one less thing to think about — coming home to a clean home so they can spend time with their kids or their own hobbies. So the impact she’s made on all of these people’s lives, because she decided she wanted to start a business and put all of her energy into it.

But also getting knocked down and getting back up again a million times. Now that I’ve started my own business and I absolutely love it — I think about work when I’m going to bed at night. I can’t wait to work tomorrow and get all these things done, which is insane to say out loud. I’m in my late thirties, and I talk to professionals who have their moments when they don’t love the work they’re doing, and I’m like, start a business. Why don’t you start a business? Trying to help people see themselves in that entrepreneurial space, because I’ve found so much confidence and capability in myself as an entrepreneur that I never would have had if I’d stayed in corporate. But a lot of people have not seen that modeled for them.

I was so fortunate that I got to see my mom do that over and over again and see what her persistence built. Truly, just deciding to do it and actually doing it is the hardest part. I toyed with the idea of starting a business for a while, sort of almost started and then didn’t. And then finally I was just like, all right, here we go — I’m gonna do this at night while I’m working my nine-to-five during the day.

In terms of what I’ve taught her — my tech experience and software knowledge has absolutely helped, but a lot of it has just been… I’d have a bad day and I could call my mom and be like, it was a bad day today. Not so many of those anymore, but in the beginning — I remember being on a call when I’d just started, trying to get my first customers, and I got a phone call. I talked to this older gentleman for a while; his wife had passed away and he really needed help. I was just like, heck yeah, this is perfect. We get through this 30-minute conversation and then I’m like, “All right, I just need your credit card to hold your spot on our schedule. You won’t be charged until after your cleaning.” And he was like, “I’m not giving you my credit card, no way,” and hung up. And I burst into tears. I knew it was one of those days, but I called her and I was like, I just need to cry about this for a minute, can you listen to me? And of course she did.

So with owning a business, there are ups and downs, and certain things hit you harder on certain days. Having someone who understands the business you’re in, and also understands you as a person because they happen to be your mother, is just amazing. I think we do push each other a little bit when it comes to how to do things differently. I’ve been really interested recently in how we position ourselves for technicians — how we’re advertising what we do, not only to our customers but to people we want to bring on to work for us. We’ve been doing all of these things all along — we’ve been woman-owned, creating great opportunities for women to clean and make great money for years. But we haven’t really sold ourselves as doing this as much.

My mentality up to recently was, well, we’re just gonna do the work and people will see it. And that’s not true. You have to tell people the work that you’re doing. You have to position yourself as an employer, and as a service you’re offering to your customers. Tell them the value you bring and the outcomes you can own for them. That has changed the way we hire and the way we procure new customers — really being open and honest about the fact that we pay our techs really well, and that means they stay around for a long time, and that means we can put the same person on your doorstep every other week. And so that’s why you should pay us the going rate. We have a lot of these fun conversations — “listen to this new sales thing I’ve got,” or “let’s think about it slightly differently” — and she’s usually open for it. We kick things around a lot and it’s just really fun.

Facing the Stigma Around Cleaning

Stephanie: That’s amazing. It’s a very special thing to have that mentorship, being able to bounce ideas off another person — because entrepreneurship can be such a lonely road, and misunderstood. People see it as, “they own their business, so they must automatically make this much money,” when it’s the absolute opposite for a very long time. I’m curious — especially you, Lisa — have you experienced any negative stigma because it’s cleaning? Any dismissiveness? Or have people for the most part been pretty great about it?

Lisa Temple: For the most part, yeah. It’s been a while, but I will tell you, in the beginning — maybe 15 years ago — I had one person who did not turn into a customer. When I told them the price and what it was hourly, they were very insulting, and said, “You didn’t even go to college to get that hourly rate.” And I thought, well, that’s right, that’s right. But for the most part, no, I don’t run into that anymore at all. I think people genuinely appreciate the fact that number one, it’s hard work, and number two, it helps them out a ton.

Stephanie: Then clean your own house.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Yeah — not my customer.

Lisa Temple: So there’s an appreciation for sure. But I can’t say I’ve never run into it.

Stephanie: Anytime we get pushback like that, it’s always, “That’s what a doctor charges. That’s what a lawyer charges.” Or, “I am a doctor and I don’t get paid that much.” And it’s like, well, I’m not getting paid that much — maybe open a cleaning business, have you thought about that? Business cost is very different than take-home hourly. How about you, Kyleigh? Have you had anything like that?

Kyleigh Lipsitz: I think when I decided to leave my job in corporate, some friends and colleagues were like, “What are you doing next? What company are you moving to?” And I told folks, put it on my LinkedIn — I’m the owner of The Blissful Clean, this is what I’m doing now. Some people were a little bit like, “You have kids now, so you’re not really working,” or “it’s not quite the same as having a nine-to-five.” And also, I’m married, my husband is still in tech. So in starting a business, you’re not taking home much, if anything, in the beginning.

I cleaned for Lisa’s business back in the day, but I maybe cleaned a few houses in the very beginning of my business three years ago. I told myself I can’t be the cleaner, because I’m not going to be able to answer the calls, I’m not going to have the energy to focus on what the business needs to scale. So when people were asking, “you’re cleaning houses now,” I’m like, well, I’m actually not cleaning, I’m building a business and I’ve hired technicians to do the cleaning. So there was a little bit of confusion around what that was — “you got a little cleaning business, your husband’s paying all the bills, and you’re just, you know, got your little business.”

But then there were some people — honestly, some of the more successful people I knew in my network who had built businesses themselves. Specifically, I’m thinking of an older boss who had built a business, sold it, started another business in the tech space. When I shared what I was working on, they were like, “That’s great. Home service industry — that’s such a good place to be.” They see the business side of things and they understand the opportunity there. He was like, “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about wanting to invest in other areas, similar home-service business type stuff.” There’s so much opportunity in our industry, because you cannot automate cleaning your house. There’s not going to be an AI agent cleaning your toilet. So replacing that job is not happening. Now that we’ve been in business for longer and we’re growing and growing, it’s becoming more obvious that it’s a real thing that’s succeeding. That’s really gratifying — to be able to say, this is what I’ve been working on, and it’s working and it’s getting better all the time.

Stephanie: They always use the word “little.” Your little business, your little side hustle. How cute. We have a lot of guests who come from white collar to this — it’s blue-collar work, even though we’re running the operations. But it makes so much sense. There’s a million businesses — who cares what the business is, if it’s a sound business model and you get a lot of personal satisfaction out of it? That passion will come through to the clients and the staff. This is such a beautiful business to be in.

Nightmare Client Stories

Stephanie: So I’m curious, Kyleigh — do you remember any stories Lisa would come home and tell over the years that were nightmares? I love to hear the juicy ones. They don’t have to be safe for work.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Gosh, I’m trying to think. I know there’s definitely been a few over the years.

Lisa Temple: You mean nightmare houses, or just nightmares?

Stephanie: Could be anything — a nightmare employee situation where they did something insane, clients being crazy. Would love to hear it.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: I have one I’m thinking of. Not my first, maybe first year of business. I had a customer who asked me on the phone when they signed up, “Does the cleaner speak Spanish?” And I was thinking, okay, they’re Spanish speakers, they prefer that. And I said, “Unfortunately, no, I don’t think she speaks Spanish.” And they were like, “That’s good.” And I was like, “Pardon?”

I had a little bit of a red flag, but I was also like, okay, I need customers, so I’m gonna let that one slide. And it turned out it was not a good customer. They were following their technician around, taking photos of them while they were working — “you’re not working fast enough, I’m paying whatever an hour.” And at the end, they somehow got her phone number. They were like, “Can you text me something?” So they got her phone number. And then she let me know, “Hey, I was super uncomfortable, this is what happened.” And I told her, leave, immediately leave, get yourself safe. Our policy has always been, if there’s any instance like that, get yourself safe first, then call the office, and we’ll take care of it from there.

So I let him know, hey, we’re not gonna be able to clean for you anymore, our technician was made uncomfortable. And he called her and tried to harass her — which is why we never give out our technicians’ contact information, one of the many reasons. So that was a hard-learned lesson. I was like, I’m gonna sue you, how dare you, I’m calling the police. I was so fired up, because they made someone feel uncomfortable that I’m responsible for. It really makes you realize that most people we deal with are lovely and so grateful for the help we give them, and they love their technicians. It’s very much the exception to the rule, but you do get some people who feel so entitled, who have preconceived notions about what they’re owed.

The best course of action I’ve found is just to not go off on the phone anymore. I really try not to do that — that was something I wish I’d handled differently. You just need to say, okay, I’m never gonna talk to you again, so have a great day. Enjoy the rest of your life. Enjoy that attitude you got, sir. Goodbye.

Stephanie: It’s tough sometimes to bite your tongue. Especially when it’s not worth it — I gotta hold myself to a higher standard. But it also incites that mama bear over all of your staff. If you don’t feel psychotically protective of your staff, you should.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Yes. They’re the heart of our business. We couldn’t do any of this without them. Building that space of trust — that tech is still with me today, she’s the longest tech I’ve ever had. It’s so special, because I know we are creating a culture where people know I’m gonna have their back no matter what, and that their safety is the number one priority. That’s a good place people want to be and want to continue to grow in. It’s just so important.

Stephanie: A hundred percent. What do you got, Lisa? You got something crazy — I can see it in your eyes.

Lisa Temple: I’ve got a good one. This was back when I was doing the cleaning with my sisters. We got this house that we were going to do — she wanted it essentially every week, but the initial cleaning was going to take us every day over a week. The house was bad. She lived on this farm. The house was gigantic and it was just grueling. Back then my sisters would always say, “You’ll do anything. You’ll tell them we’ll do anything. You’ve gotta have your limits.” So at one point I’m like, “Sure, we’ll put your groceries away. Sure, we’ll do your dishes.” And they would always just look at me, because you want to build your business in the beginning.

But this one particular house — she lived on a farm, she had a ton of animals, a ton of dogs, alpacas, birds, and had not cleaned up her house in forever.

Stephanie: Oh my goodness. Were the alpacas inside?

Lisa Temple: No, they were outside. And she also had horses. So my sisters were getting so upset with me. We were going there every day, it was grueling and gross. Every day I could see it in their eyes, until finally one day we’re in one of the rooms, and the woman comes down and hands my sister two buckets of slop horse feed. She goes, “And I need you to go feed the horses.” My sister looks at me, sets the buckets down, turns around and walks away. Finally I had to tell her, “I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta draw the line. We are not feeding your horses.”

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Also — what a high hourly rate to pay someone to feed your horses.

Stephanie: Right, exactly. You could get that a lot cheaper.

Lisa Temple: So we’ll never forget that one. I get reminded of that one all the time.

Stephanie: If I was your sister, I would never let you live that one down.

Learning to Delegate

Stephanie: So, coming towards the end here — Lisa, you said you have office staff. Kyleigh, I assume you’re doing all the administrative work in your business?

Kyleigh Lipsitz: I had part-time office staff, and I’ve just hired full-time office staff. So I’ve outsourced much of the administrative work, yeah.

Stephanie: Excellent. So what does delegation look like in the history of the business, Lisa? Was that ever hard for you to let go?

Lisa Temple: Yeah, it was very hard. And that’s another thing she has helped me with. She made me see that when you get to a point where you don’t need to be dealing with this part of it, find somebody who can do it. That was hard for me, because I was doing everything — I still do the payroll, but I was answering the phones, physically driving out to quote jobs, which we don’t do anymore, it’s all over the phone. I was doing the scheduling. If I had known it would be so much better once I was able to hire it out and find qualified people, I would have done it a lot sooner. When you’re wearing all these hats, it’s hard to focus and do a great job at all of them rather than just getting it done.

So we’ve got someone — my other daughter also does a lot of the administration work, managing the cleaning techs. We’ve got someone who answers the phones remotely, but like I said, we’re moving to an office space in the fall. Someone that does inspections, someone that manages the techs’ questions throughout the day, customer relations. So honestly, other than overseeing things and doing payroll, that’s pretty much all I do, which is great.

Ditching In-Person Walkthroughs for Phone Estimates

Stephanie: That’s amazing. So this is something I’d love to touch on. Kyleigh, did you, from the beginning, not do in-person walkthroughs, or did you do them at all?

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Great question. I did in the very beginning, for recurring cleans — I never really did them for one-times. We offer one-time cleanings as well. And then I think we stopped pretty soon. I just couldn’t manage it myself, and I found that my walkthrough estimates weren’t really any better than my over-the-phone estimates anyway. So very early on. We’ve got our calculator down and we know which questions to ask over the phone.

I do remember my mom and I had many conversations where I was like, “You need to hire someone to answer your phones. Please hire someone to answer your phones.” Because she would be doing it all herself — and she’s the best salesperson you’ve ever heard, because she knows it in and out and can really speak to the value. But she can’t answer every call, especially when she’s watching her grandchildren, my children. We tried a VA in the Philippines and it didn’t work out — they had a hurricane right after we got started. So there was a little bit of trial and error, but once she got someone working her phones, things just got way easier for her. The calls you miss by not being able to answer the phones — it’s really unfortunate when you can’t answer a call and then that lead calls somebody else and moves on.

Stephanie: As you grow — you’re doing QCs, you’re doing walkthroughs — even if you can’t answer the phone in the field, you’re driving, you’re distracted, doing a million things. The reason I bring up in-person walkthroughs is because I guarantee there are about 200 people listening right now who are terrified to give them up. They’re like, “I’m not gonna be able to sell as much, I like seeing the job ahead of time.” What would you tell those people? Some have a death grip on in-person walkthroughs.

Lisa Temple: I will tell you this — I was that person. I went to every single quote and did the walkthrough, left them with the quote. And I was terrified, thinking I’m never gonna sell these jobs. What I didn’t realize is that I sold more jobs. Not only did I have to set up an extra step to schedule a time to come out and do the quote, which was an inconvenience for a lot of people — but more and more, I realized people just wanted to book it and get it off their plate. They didn’t want to have to work for it. So it’s been a godsend. If you’re that person who’s afraid to let go of the in-person quote, don’t be — I was that person, and I definitely saw an increase in business by just booking the first call.

Stephanie: How do you protect yourself from bad jobs?

Lisa Temple: We have an email after booking — a confirmation that includes some verbiage explaining it. We ask several questions when booking the job: square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms, how many levels. But we also ask them, on a scale from one to ten, ten being the cleanest, what would you rate your home right now? Most people are honest, but they might not gauge exactly what stage their house is at. Once they book with us, they put their credit card down to hold the cleaning. We send out a follow-up email stating this is your quote — however, if we get into the house and it is not the exact description you described, or if we find we need more time, we’ll let you know. And it’s protected us.

I just did an inspection today on a house where it was estimated to take seven hours, and it looked like we were gonna need an extra hour. We give them a call, let them know it looks like we’re gonna need an extra hour to finish, and make sure they’re aware it’s gonna be an extra charge. Sometimes they say no, I want a hard stop at the estimate. So we give them enough time to say, okay, this is what we’ve got done — what would you like us to prioritize to finish? Honestly, I feel like it lets us off the hook more. Because, just like Kyleigh said, there were many times where I went in to give an estimate face to face, said “this is the quote,” and then I’d get the cleaners in and they’re like, “This is gonna take way longer.” I felt it was harder for me to ask them for more time, because they saw it.

Stephanie: Me going in person would make me worse. I’ve had so many times where I’ve seen the house ahead of time — I’m like, it’s gonna be easy — and then we start cleaning and it’s hidden dirt and grime. No, this is way worse. Even though I know, I still would misquote it.

Lisa Temple: I remember I saw one of your videos once — I think it was when you go into pantries and they have those wire shelves, and you said, “Okay, these are filthy.” Remember that?

Stephanie: Yeah. When I was like, this is why I charge hourly — well, I’m flat rate, but it’s so funny. It was terrible. You wouldn’t have even noticed if you did a walk-in, but that closet took me like an hour.

Lisa Temple: Exactly. It kind of lets you off the hook, because when you’re in there face to face, then they’re like, “Well, you saw it. This isn’t what you said.”

Stephanie: I never thought of that angle — doing it blind allows you that wiggle room. Kyleigh, anything on in-person versus over the phone?

[brief pause for a mic issue]

Stephanie: Lisa, if your close rate does go down once you switch over to phone estimating, it doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It just might mean the process needs tweaks. Most likely you’re going to have to tweak your script, tweak the process. It’s not gonna be perfect. So don’t use that as “no, see, I gotta do it in person, I’m not selling as much.” That could just be an over-the-phone sales problem, not that it’s inherently wrong.

Lisa Temple: Absolutely.

The Sales Mindset: People Want to Say Yes

Kyleigh Lipsitz: I was gonna echo what you said around inconveniencing the customer by needing to come out to do a walkthrough. One of the things I’ve really learned recently, and it just keeps being reaffirmed — I think of the service I offer, and I’m sure many people in our industry do, as a premium service. Your scarcest resource when you hire a home cleaner isn’t money, it’s time and energy. So for those premium customers we’re servicing, they don’t have extra time to have me come out and walk through their house and tell them how much it’s going to cost. And again, it’s not more accurate than what we can give them over the phone anyway.

Stephanie: Especially if you don’t work at home. Most people still do not work at home. You’re telling me I need to take off work? It’s wildly inconvenient.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Yes. And I’ve found that people want the easiest path to saying yes to you. They’ve called you, they’ve reached out to you, because they’re already interested in your services, already interested in having a house cleaner. Depending on your rates, sometimes when we tell folks what our cost is, there’s a little bit of, “Okay, that was more than I was expecting. That was more than the person in my Facebook mom’s group is charging to come out and solo clean.” The way I like to explain it is: this is the value we’re providing by having a consistent cleaner. We’re gonna communicate everything, over-communicate — you’re never gonna have to worry about being ghosted by us. The easier you can make it for people to see the value you bring, the more they don’t want to say no to spending money with you. They want to say yes. You just need to convince them that their inkling of calling you was right — that they’re going to get the value they want to receive from working with you.

Sometimes that means giving them less information, or the right information at the right time, and not overloading them with “here’s how we do everything, we’ve got all the bases covered, we thought of everything.” People want it to be easy to say yes. So if you can talk to them over the phone, ask the right questions about their home to get a good sense of what it should be, how long you think it’ll take, what it should cost — and you’re able to be a confident subject matter expert — they want to say, “This person knows what they’re talking about. I can see why they’re charging that, because of the value I’m going to get from these competent people who are going to send the same person every time and communicate with me. I trust them, I’m ready to sign up.” They don’t need to meet you in person. They don’t need to know all the finer points of why you got to this estimate. They just want to know that you understand what their struggles are, that you can provide the value they’re willing to pay for, and that you can be trusted.

In my earlier days, I would try to sound like I had authority by over-explaining everything. And that doesn’t help — it can honestly derail a conversation. So picking and choosing when you provide detail, addressing specifically the concerns they mention, and not going into all the other things you could do for them. For instance, if a prospect says, “My kitchens and bathrooms — I’ve got teenagers, it’s disgusting,” when I talk to them, I talk about what they care about. Your bathrooms are going to be so clean, you’re never gonna have to worry about your disgusting teenagers peeing everywhere. We hear your concerns, we’re gonna address your concerns. If you have specific questions, we can get in the nitty-gritty, but we don’t need to overload the conversation with all the things we could possibly do for you and why you should trust us.

Stephanie: I feel like everybody needs to re-listen to everything you just said. They want to say yes. If they’re reaching out, they’re hoping that you’re the one. A lot of people have issues around selling and feeling like they’re annoying people by following up — calling a second or twentieth time because they didn’t pick up. It’s like, they want you. Talk to them. They want the solution, they want this problem solved, and you could be the one if you just communicate effectively. Especially if they’ve been burned by previous cleaners before. If they said the last cleaner would always cancel, or didn’t communicate and just no-showed — talk about how you solve that problem, because that’s what they’re trying to buy.

When I hired my house cleaning company for my house here in Savannah, I looked at the Google reviews, reached out, she got back to me, she came out. She’s a little old-fashioned still — I just got her on ZenMaid, and she doesn’t know who I am. So, Favi, if you’re ever listening, she has no idea. I was like, this is great software, maybe you should try this. I was so glad I only had to reach out to one company. Favi’s Cleaning Services in Savannah does a great job. The inconvenience of me having to hunt and shop — if she didn’t work out, that next person I bring in, I’m already dealing with the frustration of having had a failure, and I’m gonna be even more skeptical. So you may be overcoming skepticism. They’ve got baggage from the last relationship that you need to overcome.

Following Up Without Feeling Annoying

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Yeah. And those are the questions to ask, too. When you get on a call with somebody, the first couple of questions give you so much information about what you can do for them and what they need help with. One of the questions I ask in my quoting process is, “When was the last time you had your home professionally cleaned?” That might have been from you, Stephanie — I heard this recently. It’s been helping a lot with getting a sense for their appetite, whether they’ve had a house cleaner before, what their experience is. And when you ask, “What can we most help with? What are you most struggling with that led you to give us a call?” they’ll give you so much good information about what they’re looking for. That’s what they care about. Just focus on what they care about.

As long as you feel confident that the value you can bring matches what they need, you are helping them by selling. You are helping them by calling them and texting them and reminding them that you’re here. A lot of this can and should be automated to follow up with people, because everyone is so busy with kids and work and everything going on in their lives. You’re not actually annoying people, for the most part — it feels counterintuitive. Keep going, keep calling people. And you can always say, “If you don’t want to hear from us, just let us know, and we’ll stop.” But follow up, follow up, follow up. The worst they can do is say no, I don’t want to buy your cleaning services — at which point, one less person for you to call.

Stephanie: Exactly. And make sure you’re asking, if they’ve had a professional cleaner, what was that experience like? Because that’s going to give you the information on what you have to sell on. There are things in their mind that, because you’re not asking the right questions, could help you make the decision easy for them. Also, you want that context so you don’t accidentally shit-talk their neighbor who was doing it, or at a commercial account — that’s definitely happened, where it’s like, “This looks disgusting in here,” and it’s like, “Actually, that’s my sister cleaning.” And I’m like, shit. So do ask before you start commenting on things.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Yeah, right. And it makes the relationship go so much better in the long term. The more you know about people’s pain points — and especially keeping good notes when you get people’s preferences. Take great notes, have your techs take great notes, and then continually touch on this thing, or make sure this specific part of their home works better for them because you understand their ongoing needs. That’s how you build longstanding trust with people. That’s how you get long-term recurring customers.

Goals for the Year and Scaling Profitably

Stephanie: Gosh, I could talk to you ladies for literal hours. This has been so fun. What’s the goal for this year for both of you?

Lisa Temple: My goal — I’m almost there — we should hit the million-dollar recurring this year. Which I can’t believe I’m saying. I never in a million years thought I would get to that point, but we’re just about there. So that’s my goal.

Stephanie: Congratulations. That really is the biggest milestone. That’s freaking awesome. How about you, Kyleigh? Million as well?

Kyleigh Lipsitz: I’m aiming for a million. I don’t think I’m gonna get it this year. But it’s fun, because I like to look back at the trends — okay, what did her business do in recurring revenue this month versus what mine did — and see myself get a little bit closer percentage wise. So my goal is to continue to scale. I’ve been spending a lot of time recently thinking about hiring, because hiring is such a big problem in our industry — finding great talent and keeping them is so important. That’s been my main focus over the last few months: not really changing much about how we interact with our technicians, but just speaking on it more when we’re looking for candidates. And we’re finding a lot better people when you just say, we’re woman-owned, and we’re the best-paid maids in Grand Rapids. I’m pretty dang sure that’s accurate for us, which is amazing and something I’m really proud of. Selling myself more, selling what we’re building here more — the right people find you when you share that and really broadcast it.

One of the fun things about the stage I’m at is that you hit a certain point with a number of cleaning technicians and an amount of revenue where you break even. You’re managing all your operating costs, you’re able to afford all of that with the techs you have. And then you add one, and you add another one, and it’s just not much more overhead. It compounds so much faster once you get past a certain point. We’re at the cusp now where every new tech we add just adds a significant amount more profit every month. So for those listening — continue, just keep going. You will get to a certain point, as long as what you’re scaling isn’t chaos — as long as it’s sustainable, you’re paying your techs well, and you’re building a culture where people want to stick around. Once you get to a certain number of techs and a certain amount of revenue, the more you add, you’re just making significantly more profit with every tech you add. So keep going. It’s really worth it.

Stephanie: I may recommend something to you guys around staffing and advertising your company in that manner. Last time I was in Wisconsin, I met up with probably five of my techs and did long-form interviews while they were cleaning — asking about their work, what they did before, really highlighting the benefits of working here. I’m gonna turn that into marketing assets. I need a fresh round of employee interviews. I want to shout from the rooftops, “This is the best place ever,” and it’s real staff members saying it, not the owner. And then we also get Indeed reviews from our techs, because that helps buffer future potentially negative reviews. I always think, we gotta protect ourselves from future negative reviews. We don’t have any on Indeed, but if we do, we already have 15 five-star reviews. It’s definitely harder to get them to do it, and sometimes they don’t show up on Indeed, but it does make you look more attractive on Indeed. So that could be another thing to work on.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Yeah, we have not done any of that, so that’s a great idea.

Stephanie: You know why I like giving unsolicited opinions — it’s kind of my job.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: We’ll take it all. We’ll take it all.

Where to Find Them

Stephanie: This has been amazing. Where can people find you if they want to follow along with either of your businesses?

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Yeah, so theblissfulclean.com, or our handles are The Blissful Clean. We’re on Facebook and Instagram. And then, mom —

Lisa Temple: Like I said, we’re in southeast Michigan. It’s madeinmichiganllc.com. And we also have all the things — the social media, Facebook, Instagram. So we’re out there.

Stephanie: Heck yeah. We’ll link all that down below. Ladies, this has been an absolute pleasure. You should both be so proud of yourselves and so proud of each other. It’s very special what you have.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Us too. This has been really a dream for us, because like she said, you really have inspired my mom, and I discovered you through her.

Lisa Temple: And I told her, before you get started, find Stephanie — you gotta go back and listen to all her things. So you’ve definitely been a part too.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: You’ve shaped our journey from afar. We really appreciate it, and we love this podcast. So this is kind of surreal. Thank you.

Stephanie: Well, here you are. Thank you so much. That’s really sweet. Every time I hear things like that, it’s like, hell yeah, this is why I’m doing this. So thank you, ladies. Please, guys, leave Lisa and Kyleigh some love in the comments. Hit that subscribe, hit that like. We’ll see you on the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye, guys.

Kyleigh Lipsitz: Thank you.