The Real Mental Side of Running a Cleaning Business, with Kala Pomeroy

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Meeting Kayla Pomeroy

Stephanie: Welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host Stephanie from Serene Clean, and today’s guest is an absolute delight — I cannot wait for you guys to meet her if you haven’t yet. This is Kayla Pomeroy, and Kayla is in a very unique position because she is a cleaning business owner herself and she also works at ZenMaid as a customer success extraordinaire.

I am incredibly excited for you guys to hear from her because of her unique perspective. She is interacting with many of you on a very regular basis and gets to see so many of the same struggles, and she can connect because obviously she’s an owner herself. So Kayla, thank you so much for joining me today.

Kayla: Hi, thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited — I’m really excited to just see what it’s all about and share what I’ve gone through. I’ve been with ZenMaid for seven to eight months now, and in just that short time I’ve talked to thousands and thousands of you guys. I just can’t wait to let you know that you’re not alone. We’re all pretty much on the same boat in some way, and yeah, it’s really exciting.

Stephanie: And Kayla, you are in beautiful Texas. Have you lived there your whole life?

Kayla: Yes, I’ve been in Texas my whole life. I’m moving to Virginia in a couple of months, so still kind of in the Southern cusp but getting up there a little more — getting four seasons, I’m excited. I’m in Southeast Texas for my cleaning business and I’ve been there for, gosh, like the last 25 years of my life.

How Pretty Neat Cleaning Co. Got Started

Stephanie: I want to get into your backstory. What did you do before your cleaning business? What inspired you to open it? And of course we’ll talk about the transition to working with ZenMaid. Tell us your story, Kayla.

Kayla: I started cleaning about 10 years ago, starting off with friends and family, because you have to get your name out there through word of mouth. I told them I’d clean for them and they just had to let me post before and after pictures. I took the before and afters, used them to advertise, made a business page, and everything took off from there. I got a lot of referrals from that. People were interested because they actually got to see what I could do.

I think that really set me apart because a lot of businesses in the area weren’t advertising very much, especially with proof of their work. It was more like, here’s what we do, hope for the best — but I was showing you physically what I do. And I think that made it stand out a lot.

Stephanie: What was it like in the beginning? From a scheduling perspective, was this incredibly flexible for you? How much were you working?

Kayla: I started off with just one or two actual paying clients — it was a slow burn for the first month or two. But after that it really took off. I kind of feel like I blinked. Because I live in a really small, close-knit area, there is a lot of competition, but if you do a good job word of mouth is extremely powerful. I was running promotions — 20% off your first cleaning if you signed up for recurring — and by maybe month two I had 15 to 20 clients. By Christmas, I couldn’t even tell you. I was working about 14 to 15 hours straight, six to seven days a week. It was bad, but I liked the money. I paid for Christmas and then some in a week. It was nuts.

Stephanie: Yeah, the money can be really addictive once you start seeing it flow in. And I like that you mentioned there is competition in your area but you were able to stand out despite that.

Kayla: I just feel extremely lucky and blessed to be in the position I’m at. I know there’s a lot of competition and a lot of people are out there trying to make their name. I just got very lucky to have such amazing customers. In the last 10 years I think I can count on one hand how many complaints I’ve had.

Hiring for the First Time

Stephanie: Obviously at this point you’re probably full steam ahead toward burnout because you’re cleaning so much and it’s so physically demanding. What did it look like to bring people on?

Kayla: That was a whole other ballgame. I went with my sister-in-law and a couple of people I knew — kind of another word of mouth situation — and had a team of two or three at a time. I remember the very first time I brought someone in with me. I called it my tenants from hell. It was an empty move-out clean and I was like, I definitely need help. This was my very first day, and I only had one other person with me. They had poop on the walls everywhere. I was like, she’s never going to come back.

Stephanie: You know, those are the fun little mysteries we get in this industry.

Kayla: If there’s a dark handprint in the bathroom, like is this from makeup or something more questionable? Let’s just wipe it and pray. But she did come back. She stuck with me for a while before going to nursing school. I ended up with a couple of other people too, part time — I’d call them in for deep cleans and big jobs. It just made my physical life so much easier. My back was hurting a lot less. Jobs got done faster. Clients were happy because things were getting done faster. I had more availability.

It took me forever to really swallow that and hire people. I was nervous. I think a lot of us get nervous because it’s our baby. We don’t want anyone to come in and do something wrong that falls back on us. But I’m so glad I got over it because my knees were thankful, my lower back was thankful. It really took off.

Going Back to Solo and Finding Balance

Stephanie: So this is still the first year you’re talking about. How have things evolved since then?

Kayla: Since then, everyone honestly kind of grew up and moved on — nursing school, staying home with kids, moving out of state. So right now I’m still solo. Ever since I started at ZenMaid about seven or eight months ago, I paused the cleaning and now I’m in hiring mode because I’ll be running my business remotely when I move to Virginia. I finally found my groove. I learned how to say no to jobs that weren’t a good fit, even when the money was good, knowing it was going to hurt. I found that healthy balance and those boundaries, and it’s been a lot smoother.

Stephanie: I’m super excited to do another episode after you move and we start seeing the challenges of running it remotely and growing it remotely. That’s going to be a really fun conversation to have.

How Kayla Got the Job at ZenMaid

Stephanie: How did you end up getting the job at ZenMaid? Where did that come from?

Kayla: I had been using ZenMaid in my business for a while, especially when I had a team. That’s how I learned about the software. I joined the ZenMaid Mastermind and the ZenMaid Inner Circle, and somewhere in one of those Facebook groups they posted the job listing. I was like, this is right up my alley. I messaged them on DM and was like, hey, I love the software, I use the software — and I just stayed persistent. Anyone who’s talked to me knows I’m going to message you a lot. I messaged them persistently and we got the interview set up.

Funny story — I was actually on vacation the day before my interview. A homeless man broke into my hotel room. I didn’t sleep the night before at all. And then I got the job. I didn’t even tell anyone until Ryan called me with the offer and I was like, thank God, I need to tell you what just happened.

Stephanie: You could have used that as an excuse and you didn’t!

Kayla: I was like, no, I’m making this happen. I wanted this. It kind of feels like a natural next step — I’ve been cleaning for 10 years, I love the industry, and to be part of a team that is trying really hard to make other cleaning businesses successful is beautiful. I love being a part of it.

What Kayla Sees Talking to Thousands of Owners

Stephanie: I’d love to hear the patterns you’re seeing amongst all the cleaning business owners you’re talking to on a daily basis — the behaviors, the questions, the fears and anxieties.

Kayla: The biggest thing, no matter what level — people who haven’t even started cleaning yet, or owners who’ve been established for years with 20 to 50 team members — they all have some kind of anxiety around am I doing this right? Am I doing this wrong? And one of the most common ones is pricing. Am I overvaluing myself? Is nobody going to pay my prices? Or am I undervaluing and missing out on all this profit? That uncertainty shows up constantly.

If you’re feeling anxious about any of that, message me. I will walk you through it. You are not alone. Everybody is going through this in some way. I think a lot of people forget that mistakes are how you learn. They want it right and ironed out perfectly from the gate instead of being like, let’s try something small and make tweaks as we go. They get caught up on perfecting it instead of just trying something and learning from what happens.

Stephanie: I was just watching a video from Leila Hormozi and she was talking about how business owners are very afraid of wasting time — and the paradox is that wasting time is sometimes the way. You’re going to build something and scrap it. You’re going to try something and realize you don’t want to do it that way. The only way to know is to do the experimentation. I had a conversation just yesterday with an owner who was beating herself up so hard — I just wish I knew, I should have, I could have. And I was like, you know now, and now you can do something. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.

Kayla: Analysis paralysis. You’re wasting time by doing nothing. It’s better to do something, try something small, make up your mind on it, and if it doesn’t work out maybe make some tweaks or trash it. But doing nothing because you’re so worried about it being perfect — you’ll never get off the floor.

Stephanie: And the imperfect system you actually do is going to make more progress than the perfect fantasy one you never build. Anytime we put a new process in at Serene Clean we know we’re going to make 20 changes to it because we have to see it in action first. So especially for new owners — get out there and get some cleanings under your belt. If you read 20 books and watch basketball for 10 years instead of actually playing, you’re going to learn more from two games than all of that theory.

Comparison Is the Death of Happiness

Kayla: Comparison is a huge one too. Baby maids — the little ones just getting started — we compare ourselves to the big guys who have been doing this for years, who have a bigger team. And then if we can’t get there immediately, we don’t even start. I think a lot of people get so caught up on where they’re wanting to be that they don’t even try to get halfway there.

Always be looking to grow, but if you’re looking through the lens of where am I failing, what if you shifted that into what am I doing right and how can I amplify it even more? Give yourself a pat on the back. If your customers love you and you maybe don’t have a huge team or a huge income, but you have nothing but positive reviews — dive into that. Make that what you focus on. Maybe you’re known for being flexible and offering custom packages nobody else does. Don’t worry about what the other guys are doing. Worry about you. Dive into what you’re good at and appreciate it instead of trying to take a little bit of everything.

Stephanie: And comparing yourself to yourself is tricky too. Right now if the business is doing worse than it did last year in this very moment, that feels like crap — but last month we did better than the month before, and there’s a million things that are better than they were a year ago that don’t necessarily show up in the revenue number. Better processes, smoother systems, a happier team. Don’t just laser in on the dollars. And life is not in a bubble. You can’t always compare apples to apples when before you had kids, or before you were caring for aging parents. Your circumstances have changed. Give yourself that grace.

Kayla: It’s like I won’t allow myself to feel proud unless I reach a certain benchmark. And then sometimes I reach it and I’m like, okay well I actually need to do something bigger now. No — breathe, sit, and bask in the glory of what you just accomplished for a minute before you take the next leap.

Stephanie: The goalposts always move, for sure. But what we’re getting at is allowing yourself to be proud and not just immediately finding the next thing to pick at. And especially for the smaller and newer owners — there is so much self-doubt, so much shame and embarrassment sometimes. I get it, I feel it too. But most people cannot and will not ever open a business and be able to run it. That’s worth something.

Kayla: A lot of people — if you are listening and you’re trying to start your business and you’ve got people in your circle asking, “are you still doing that little cleaning thing?” — those are people who will not and could not be their own boss. Don’t take advice from someone you would not want to trade places with.

This Industry Deserves More Respect

Stephanie: People still look down on our industry. It’s not seen as respectable work. One of my managers ran into a parent at her kid’s school years into working for me — “are you still working for that cleaning business? When are you going to get a real job?” And I’m sure my manager makes more than whatever that lady does.

Kayla: How many people say, “you’re still cleaning toilets?” I’m like, I make more than you and you’re a nurse, but okay.

Stephanie: That was honestly one of the big reasons we named this podcast what we named it. Like, you can judge us, you can look down on us, and we’ll enjoy our money. Thank you very much. And the satisfaction you get from this work — you’re genuinely helping people, you’re moving your body. Once you start hiring, it’s really cool to be able to offer a great place to work that is flexible in ways other workplaces simply cannot be.

Kayla: We’re providing people with peace of mind. We’re giving working families the few free hours they have back so they can spend them with their family instead of cleaning. We create jobs. We create opportunity. I’ve donated cleans to people who just had a loss in the family. We’re making safe spaces for elderly people who need a clean home to get around in so they don’t trip and fall. It’s so much more than cleaning toilets. There is no such thing as unskilled labor.

Automating the Right Things

Stephanie: From a systems perspective, what are you seeing owners struggle with operationally?

Kayla: Right now with technology booming, a lot of people are really focused on automating everything. That does come with a lot of perks — especially at scale, automations lighten the load so you can focus on more meaningful work. But I see a lot of owners struggling with over-automating and trying to find that balance between what is safe to automate and what should stay human.

It really comes back to your brand. Are you a business that’s focused on personal touch? Or are you one built for efficiency? There’s no right or wrong. But a lot of newer owners are trying to figure that out and defaulting to automating everything — while also knowing their customers like talking to them. So I try to reel them in and be like, maybe we automate X, Y, and Z, but keep the phone calls and outreach human.

The easiest win is appointment reminders. If you are still manually sending those out — remembering to do it, actually doing it day in and day out — that is a massive mental load. That should be automated. Everything else can come later when you have that free time. Find the first thing that’s going to save you the most time and start there.

Stephanie: We have ours set to email three days out and text the day before at 2 p.m. We used to send the text at 7 p.m. and were dealing with people cancelling after hours when we couldn’t do anything about it. Little things like that — making your systems work with your life — make all the difference. I have never once in the history of my business sent a manual reminder or text. That’s thousands of appointments. And it dramatically reduces same-day cancellations.

Kayla: I didn’t think about that — if you send an automated message at 7 p.m. and it’s outside your office hours, they might need to make a change but you’re not there to deal with it. I’m writing that down.

Map the Process Before You Build It

Stephanie: One of the biggest mistakes I used to make was jumping straight into automating something without fully understanding what the end result should even be. What’s been incredibly helpful lately — especially using Claude — is having it map out a complete flowchart first. For our commercial prospecting workflow, the goal was to have the whole thing laid out on paper before I touched a single software. What is the V1 of this from start to finish? And then you build it step by step. When you skip that and just start building, it becomes a mess very fast.

What I also like about Claude is it asks clarifying questions — what should happen here? What if they say yes here? What if they’re not interested here? — and it was so useful because I wouldn’t have thought about those edge cases on my own. It’s boring as hell to do that work before you jump in. It’s not fun, it’s not sexy. But taking that time to fully scope out the process first saves you so much pain later.

Kayla: I learned that the hard way trying to get my own outreach process automated here at ZenMaid. When you’re trying to automate something you’ve been doing in your head, writing every single step down is really hard. But you have to, because you might be building an automation that has a flaw you didn’t even know was there. I was going back and forth with one of our tech team members six messages before I finally just got on Zoom with him. Write everything down. Lay out the process. Then build.

Don’t Pay for Software You’re Not Using

Stephanie: Before adding any new software, the first question should always be: can something I already have do this? I have a tendency to see a cool new software and immediately think we have to have it. What Crystal, my head of HR, has taught me is to pause and ask — is this necessary? What are the negatives? A lot of the time we don’t actually need it.

Kayla: I see owners all the time who are paying for a separate invoicing software when invoicing is built right into ZenMaid — they just didn’t know it was there. One optimization call can save you $40 a month and a login you didn’t need. If you’ve been using a software for years, it’s worth checking in because things change and get updated. Get on a call and ask.

Stephanie: And if you do add something new, set a reminder for yourself in a month. Is this really important? Are you actually using it? The shiny new software is exciting for about a week, and then you get busy, the novelty wears off, and it’s quietly billing you on autopay. Be intentional. If something you already have can do the job, use that first.

Kayla: Be intentional. Don’t get it just because it’s new and shiny — do it with intention, because that makes you a lot less likely to forget about that subscription. And if you’re going to start automating, don’t try to automate everything at once. It takes a long time to automate even one process properly. Find the first thing that will save you the most time, focus there, and let everything else come later.

A Story From the Field

Stephanie: I want to hear some crazy stories from your time as an owner.

Kayla: Okay. So I had a client hire me to clean after his divorce. I showed up at 9 a.m. and his garage door was open. He was sitting in a lawn chair right in the middle of the garage, facing out, wearing basketball shorts, drunk, beer in hand. Not my circus, not my monkeys — I’m here to work. He followed me around the whole time I was cleaning, just talking about his divorce, how she left and took the kids, how he didn’t know how to clean and that’s why I was there. I felt bad for him.

When it came time to pay, he handed me an extra wad of cash — way more than a tip. I was like, I’ll keep 20 bucks, you keep the rest and get yourself some help. Then he went into a drunken tangent about how he likes to go to casinos and invited me to come with him. A few days later, I’m doing a follow-up with people who hadn’t rebooked. He was on the list. He drunkenly replied thinking I was his ex-wife, sent back a three-paragraph message about how much he misses her and loves her, mentioning that he hired this cleaner and she did great — but she’s just not you. I didn’t reply. I never went back.

Stephanie: Maybe he knew it was you and was just trying to say something in a not-so-subtle way.

Kayla: You know what, you might be right. But yeah — I think almost all of us in this industry, if you’re a woman, have had some level of experience with some guy following you around being a little too comfortable. Which actually feeds into why I haven’t fully automated my booking yet, because I want to know if someone’s giving me a weird feeling before I commit to being alone in their house.

On the happier side — I ended up dog-watching on the side because I got so close with so many of my customers’ animals. Weekends when they’re out of town, I get paid a little extra to dog-sit. It almost happens naturally when you build real relationships with people.

You’re Not Alone in This

Stephanie: Where can people find you and follow along with your journey, Kayla?

Kayla: I’m on Facebook and TikTok both under Pretty Neat Cleaning Co. I’m also opening a domain soon as I go remote — prettyneatcleaning.com. And if you’re a ZenMaid user or just heard something today that sparked a question, email me at Kayla at ZenMaid — K-A-L-A, Kayla without the Y. Message me. I will get back to you. I promise you are not alone and everyone is going through this in some way.

Stephanie: And just as a reminder, guys — that’s what makes ZenMaid really special. Many of the people who work here actively own cleaning businesses. So we’re all working together to make the software serve you as well as possible. All right, we will see you on the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Give Kayla some love in the comments, and leave a tomato emoji down below if you made it this far.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

ZenMaid

Pretty Neat Cleaning Co. on Facebook

Pretty Neat Cleaning Co. on TikTok

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