The Sh*t Stephanie Didn’t Expect Owning a Cleaning Business

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Introduction

Stephanie: Hello, my friends. Welcome, or welcome back, to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and in today’s episode, Halloween edition, we are going to talk about shit I did not expect before I opened my cleaning business, and as the business went on, all of the other things I didn’t expect.

So obviously, I had to dress up, because that’s what I do here. And I just — it had been too long, guys. It had been way too long. For our audio-only listeners, I don’t know why you are just listening and not watching, because I look so cute right now. This costume smells like chemicals. Yeah, this is going to be interesting. Also, every time it, like, does this on my head, it kind of looks like a dick instead of a poop. So, whatever. It is what it is.

I’m gonna talk about shit I didn’t expect, okay? And please, right now, put a poop emoji down below, okay? Ideally with no context, so that people don’t understand, if they don’t watch, why there’s a bunch of poop emojis down below. So that’s really funny.

Okay, guys, let’s get into it. I have a whole list. I actually made, like, a full list of things. Let’s get into it, shall we?

If you are new here and you’re like, “What is this insane redheaded lady doing? And who is she? And why should I listen to this podcast?” I’m so glad you asked. My name is Stephanie. I own a cleaning business called Serene Clean in western Wisconsin. I run it remotely from my lovely home here in Savannah, Georgia. And I love to share all of the vast experience that I have had in the past seven and a half years, where things have not always gone to plan, as I have grown my business from zero to between $1.4 and $1.5 million this year. And I just love talking about it.

And, like I said, I like to dress up sometimes. You know, you gotta keep it silly, guys, right? I’m definitely gonna wear this to my team meeting next Monday too, because I need to get multi-purpose out of my costume.

Let’s get cracking, guys. What are the things that I did not expect? The shit. I need to keep remembering to say shit. Oh, Jenny. Look at Jenny, she’s like, “What the fuck, Mama? What are you doing?” No, there she goes. She is not interested in whatever’s going on in here. That’s hilarious.

Okay, so I’m just gonna kind of do stream of consciousness as I’m looking at my list, guys. I’m curious to hear down in the comments below what you didn’t expect. What is the shit that you did not expect before you opened this business? Especially if you had some preconceived notions about it, perhaps of like, “Oh, this isn’t gonna be that hard,” or whatever, right?

Free Cleans and How Long Initial Cleans Really Take

So the first thing that came to mind when I was coming up with this list was, literally before I even opened the business, I did free cleans. As many of you guys know, I highly recommend doing free cleans when you first open your cleaning business, in order to do several things, right? To get practice, figure out your timing, get some positive feedback from folks — and hopefully that looks like online positive feedback, so that you can get some momentum going right when you open — and even get some clients, typically, as well.

So I did those first free cleans. I did 10 of them, and they were all on, like, nights and weekends around my full-time job. This was in, like, February and March of 2019, because I opened in April of 2019. And when I say I absolutely did not expect cleaning to take as long as it did on first-time cleans — like, I had absolutely no bearing on how long an initial clean took. And when I say I literally cried at multiple of these. My body was in pain. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was slow, but also, just the reality is, it takes a long time at the initial cleans.

And this is something — it hit me across the face like a big pile of poop. Like a cow pie, maybe. Maybe, yeah, a big old frozen cow pie. It hit me in the face like a frozen cow pie. But I had to keep getting hit by that same cow pie again and again, because for the first several years of the business, we were still not estimating enough time for the initial clean, and we continually had to ask for more time. So this is where things like production rate auditing come into play, of what is actual fact as opposed to what I think it should take, right? And so even the homes that it doesn’t seem like they’re bad, and then you start cleaning them.

That was shit I did not expect at all: how long professional, like, top-to-bottom cleaning takes, and just being realistic on initial cleans. And then also, because I didn’t expect that, it is also worth noting that clients did also not expect that. They did not know how long it would take for initial cleans, and a lot of times they would push back on it, like, “No way that this is going to take that long,” et cetera, et cetera. So that was really unexpected, how many clients would get, like, offended by the proper time estimate. So that is another one, I would say.

What I Didn’t Expect From Employees

I did kind of group this into chunks of, like, employees versus clients versus myself, of shit I did not expect. So let’s start with employees, right? And I would say this was the biggest category. It was hard to, like, narrow it down, because there was so much shit I did not expect when it came to having employees.

So, as background, I had zero management experience when I started the business. I was 22, about to turn 23, and so I was not prepared whatsoever to deal with employees. I had no idea what was coming down the pipeline — what was coming down the plumbing for me — when it comes to employees. It was just shocking. And I know that, like, everything I’m about to say is going to, like, scare you guys away from hiring, and you’re like, “Oh my gosh.” But I think there was nothing that could have prepared me, frankly, other than just going through it, right? Going through the shit. That is the only way that I could learn and evolve. Even if I had, you know, listened to other things or listened to podcasts or tried to educate myself, nothing can prepare you until you’re dealing with all of the different situations firsthand.

So obviously, as you guys know, in my episode a long time ago where I talked about my first 10 employees — if you haven’t listened to that and you’re, like, scared, or you’re having a rough time when it comes to staff members, that would be a good one to listen to or re-listen to, just because it’s not just you. It is not just you. That is universal. You are going to have some crazy shit happen. Okay, so that would be a good one to listen to.

But just as a refresher, my very first person that I hired, she ghosted me on her first training day. And, you know, spoiler alert, there are a lot of crying references in this episode. A crying poop, can you imagine? Gosh, how pathetic would that be? I do not feel like crying right now, but, you know, just so you know, there were a lot of tears along this pathway. So I remember crying that night and being so disappointed and, like, questioning myself, like, “What am I doing?” Like, I can’t even get somebody to show up to training, right?

That was my first hire. And then my first actual hire, who ended up showing up, she was awful. And she, you know, did time theft, and she just was lying all the time. And, like, I had never experienced that before. And, like, trying to hold somebody accountable who simply refused to be held accountable, right? Like, that was really, really shocking. And then to experience that again and again and again — I had absolutely no way to expect what it was going to be like when it came to managing staff members.

Turnover and the Never-Ending Hiring Cycle

I certainly did not expect their turnover. And again, like, I was new to the industry. I really didn’t do a lot of, I would say, industry research. I did take, you know, a course when I first started, like, before I started the business. I did take a course, but I just didn’t realize quite how common it was for people to either ghost, quit without notice, all of that type of stuff.

I also, I think, did not work in a lot of workplaces before I opened my cleaning business. I worked at a restaurant, or a couple of restaurants, for a long time. I waitressed. I worked as a bank teller, and that certainly was nothing like what I experienced owning the cleaning business. And I worked for my family’s company, so that was, like, totally not — that was with a very small amount of staff. So none of my prior work experience allowed me to see how often people just quit without notice, or ghost, or anything like that. And I did not expect that, and I think I took it really, really hard.

And when I have conversations with so many of you guys, if you’re just starting to hire or you’ve attempted to in the past, this is one of the biggest areas that I think we struggle with the most: having to repeat again and again and again the process of hiring, of recruiting. Like, it’s mentally exhausting, right? It really is. And this is where we’ve run into, I would say, burnout the most in Serene Clean: this particular topic of people quitting and just having to start over and redoing the schedule for the 10th time. Like, it fucking sucks. It sucks. And I just didn’t expect that to be, like, the recurring thing, right? I don’t remember thinking about that at all, like, “Oh, this is going to be the big problem,” right? It just wasn’t something.

And so when I talk to you guys, I say this — I talk about this so much — not to be like, “Oh, this problem can’t be solved,” because it obviously can be managed. It can be improved. We’ve done a lot to do that, but it still happens. Literally, the past two folks that we hired, one is doing great. The other decided it wasn’t for her and quit without notice last week. Like, that just happened.

And you don’t really hear me talk about it as much anymore, because it’s so normalized, and I’m so desensitized to it that it’s just, like, whatever. It just is expected. Like, if you hire a couple people, one’s probably not going to work out. And so I’m so much more desensitized to that now. It really just doesn’t affect me emotionally anymore. Whereas before, it was really devastating. And I mean, even last year, it was devastating, because we were having such kind of crazy, bizarre turnover in a lot of situations. So I certainly did not expect that to be the big challenge of owning a cleaning business, but it is.

Longevity, and Why You Can’t Get Cynical

And I want you guys to know, one, you’re not alone, because this is something that I would say is universally the most challenging part. But I also didn’t expect that it could be improved. You could have longevity. I did not expect to have managers and cleaning techs stay with me now for seven-plus years. I did not expect, when I hired them, that they would be standing next to me today. This poop-emoji-covered CEO boss-ass bitch. I didn’t expect them to be standing next to me today, and yet here they are, and that’s incredible.

And that is, like, the flip side I want to talk about with shit I did not expect: just actually how wonderful so many of my staff can be. Really, all of my current staff are wonderful, I should say. But I was not expecting how much people would give, how much people would be wonderful from, like, a team member standpoint, and from giving to the clients, and being willing to rise to the occasion. I did not expect that level of devotion to something that, you know, a lot of people look down on. My nose is hurting. So that was really unexpected, and it’s wonderful.

And it’s something that, you know, I say all of these things to prepare you, to kind of brace you up. But also, I just don’t want any of you to get cynical. I think that can happen really easily when we continue to butt up against the same problem. Ha ha. When we keep hitting that same wall, it’s really easy. I would say the easiest option is just to get cynical and be like, “People suck. This is what they do. Blah, blah, blah.” And it’s actually the more difficult path to take to not, and to still be like, “That was that person. Doesn’t mean it’s this next person,” right? And not get that, like, hard exterior.

So I want you to — it’s almost like you need to detach. That is the best advice I would say: just have a “we’ll see” attitude, and just watch their actions, and just know, no matter what, I’m going to have to hire again. Regardless of what happens with this person, if the business grows, if somebody — I’m going to have to hire again. And so I just have to, like, have that complete acceptance of: this is what you need to do when you own this business.

And if you are not willing to be hiring all the time, well, then you shouldn’t be trying to grow the business. You should either stay an individual cleaner, or you should go not own a business, frankly. And that’s not to be rude. I’m just saying the reality of the situation is, this is what we’re going to have to be doing till the end of time in our cleaning businesses: hiring people, for whatever reason. I certainly did not expect that reality to be truly just forever, and that it never goes away.

Long-Term Staff Leaving and Trying to Buy Loyalty

Other things with employees, shit I did not expect employees to do: long-term staff leaving and it turning sour. What I mean by that is, like, folks that I thought I was really close with, and that I had built a beautiful relationship, or even, you know, friendship with. You know, joke’s on me, right? It went really sour at the end. And I did not expect, when you introduce money into a relationship, how much it will alter that, and also that those folks are going to have opinions about you and about how you handle the money in the business, right? And so that was a tough pill to swallow.

And some of the feedback that I have received when people are on the way out, it was really tough sometimes to hear things said that I did not feel were accurate or true. So that was really tough. Sometimes people want to have a grand exit when they leave, and they will say some cutting things in order to try to hurt you on the way out, for whatever reason. Did not expect that from certain folks.

I also did not expect that the staff members that I was most generous with, that I gave very significant donations or gifts to — I did not expect them to be, frankly, some of the worst ones when it came to behavior. And so what was really interesting, and I think this topic is a good one, is just, like, the concept of boundaries. They are so good for you, but they’re also so good for them, because they know where the line is. They know what is going to be accepted and not accepted within the business. And so I did not expect boundary work to be one of the biggest skills that I would need to grow as an owner to be a successful leader and business owner. So that was quite shocking, and I just didn’t think that was going to be a thing.

But when I look back at the ones who were like — I mean, some of the things that I’ve done, I just don’t, you know, publicize them, because they’re not for public eyes necessarily. But I’ve definitely given, you know, some pretty significant gifts or donations, whatever you want to call them. Like, any time I give money, this is a gift, right? I’m not doing loans. Like, this is a gift. And, like, going out of your way to be as flexible as possible, and just so understanding and permissive, and just, like, allowing things — allowing things that you maybe don’t think you should be allowing, but you’re doing it because you’re like, “No, I’m gonna give this person the benefit of the doubt. I’m gonna be lenient.” And the amount of times that bit me in the ass and only led to my resentment.

And so how I have had to deal with this topic of, like, giving to staff members is just really coming to terms with it. Like, before I make that decision: if they were to quit tomorrow, do I still feel good about giving this thing, whatever it is? Like, I ordered a custom wheelchair for an employee’s son, and she then left shortly thereafter. And I think it was, like, an $800 wheelchair or something. And I’m not saying this to, like, be like, “Oh, Stephanie’s so good.” Like, no, no, that’s not the point. I’m just trying to illustrate this fact. She left shortly after, and I felt nothing negative after the fact, because I was like, “Yeah, and now a kid has a wheelchair that’s going to allow him to go through his school day more pain-free,” right? Like, that’s a win, regardless.

And so I’m telling you this example so that you can start working through these proactively when a situation comes and you feel called to give. If you feel that calling, I want you to ask yourself, like, “If they leave tomorrow, am I gonna have any negative feelings?” Because they literally could, right? They owe you nothing.

This is gonna sound maybe bad about myself, but I’m just being honest here: I thought I could buy loyalty. I thought I could buy somebody being by my side, right? And you simply cannot, nor should you want to do that, because that’s not the relationship that you should strive for. If you’re giving, give because you want to, and not because you think that they’re gonna stick around longer because you did that thing, right? Because I think the motive there is wrong. I think it’s a bad way to go about things. So keep that in mind when you’re giving.

I did not expect that, and just especially with the leniency, and people, you know, I guess misbehaving because I allowed it. I did not expect that every time I would, like, give an inch, that they would react necessarily — or even, again, coming back to how they represent you to others, or in their minds. If people are intent on twisting or putting you in a bad light so that they can play victim, that is going to happen. You could literally wipe their ass and hand them over a gold bar, and they would still be like, “Yeah, but she didn’t use two-ply toilet paper when she wiped my ass, so therefore she’s a shitty employer.” Like, that is literally how some people behave.

So, that being the case, you cannot place your value or your ability to lead on people who are intent on misrepresenting you. You simply cannot. And so when I look back at the ones where I’m like, “Gosh, that’s not at all how it was,” and they said this, and blah, blah, blah — like, your guts are gonna be all torn up, guys.

Can you believe the amount of puns and poop references I’m making in this one? I am so sorry if you guys don’t like talking about poop. Well, I mean, we’re now, you know, 20 minutes into this episode, so I don’t know why you’re still here, but that’s the episode. I’m so sorry. And also, if you’re a cleaner, I feel like you should be able to talk about poop, because we be in poop, okay? We be in poop, guys. So yeah, I did not expect just that, like, emotional turmoil kind of thing.

Firing Gets Easier, and Clarity Is Kindness

Another thing, shit I didn’t expect: that firing would get easier. The first time that I fired somebody, I was literally shaking. I remember I was, like, broken out in hives. I was so nervous. I had April with me, my manager, and she was sitting there, and I fired her. I even recorded it, because I was just so nervous, and I was like, I didn’t want to do anything wrong. And I thought that it was always going to be like that and just so awful. And it’s really not.

And that sounds bad, but again, if somebody needs to go, they need to go. And the more efficient that you can be — like, don’t draw it out, because that’s not good for them. You know, that’s not good for you. That’s not good for them. And so just being able to have really matter-of-fact conversations, that is not something I expected to improve so greatly.

But I’m still getting pushed on that. Like, even today, we had gotten some negative feedback in a client email. It was prompted by — she had had her regular cleaner, and then somebody had to fill in for her regular cleaner, and she was like, “Oh gosh, this cleaning was so much better.” And we got that negative feedback, and she was like, “I’m so sorry. Like, I really like my regular cleaner,” like, blah, all of these things.

And so with my managers this morning, after our team meeting, I was like, “How should we talk about this with the cleaner?” Like, blah, blah, blah. And Crystal was like, “Well, let’s just screenshot the email and send it to her.” And I’m like, “Oh yeah, clarity is kindness.” And, like, “What do you have to say about these things?” right? And I’m repeatedly having to be reminded that it’s okay to be direct. And, like, you need to be direct, because, you know, pussyfooting around the issue isn’t going to help them. It’s not going to help you. It’s not going to help the client. It helps nobody, literally. It doesn’t mean, like, being an asshole, though. That’s not what I mean. But just being direct about what the situation is, so we can get to solutions and problem solving.

So that was something that I didn’t expect, that firing would get easier. Sometimes there are still ones that were really tough for me, but it’s not always going to be awful. And I did not expect the amount of relief after certain firings. When I say the second it happened, just the wave of relief that would wash over me — that is something I did not expect either, because I didn’t realize how much that stuff was weighing on me. And so it is such a relief when you finally rip the Band-Aid off and let it happen.

The Policies You Never Thought You’d Need

Other things I did not expect: the biggest shit I didn’t expect as an employer was that I would have to tell my staff members to not masturbate at the job site. Yeah, that’s a shocking one. I know, I know, guys. If you listened to the episode — let’s see, I don’t remember what episode, but, like, the top five craziest things staff members have done — that is still number one. I had a cleaner caught red-handed — or white-handed, guys — at a job site. He actually didn’t get caught. Well, he did get caught. He didn’t know that he got caught. So the guests at the vacation rental showed up, saw him through the glass door jerking it in the bathroom at the vacation rental, and then they called the owner, and the owner called us, and all this stuff, right? Like, I never expected I’d have to be like, “Hey, don’t do that at the job site.”

So when it comes to, like, just behavior — shocking, shocking behavior that I never would have anticipated I would ever even have to be dealing with, right? That’s not something that I expected to have to deal with. So that was crazy. When it comes to what you need to put into policies explicitly, now we do not have it in our employee handbook. Don’t masturbate at the job site, and don’t try to fuck the clients. That’s another one. I didn’t think I’d have to say that. Some of my male house cleaners, I swear — in the past. Nobody here currently.

But, you know, things you don’t think you have to say, just when it comes to professionalism and appropriateness. Like, explicitly stating, “Hey, you are expected to have, you know, professional behavior at all times. No lewd behavior, et cetera, et cetera. Just no inappropriate behavior.” And I think we all know that is inappropriate. So I never thought I would be dealing with that.

I know that not all of you are going to have those same scenarios. However, every single one of us — every single one of us, and especially after I went to CleanCon and we had our little confessional booth of, like, cleaning business crimes, that just reiterated to me that we are all going to have situations that are batshit crazy. Literally. Because some of the stuff that you guys told me, it was wild. It was wild, and it was awesome, because it’s like, yes, it’s not just me that these things happen to. And some of you have had, I would say, way worse things happen to you, frankly, than that.

So that is one of the core tenets of why I love this podcast so much, why I love this community so much: because it just allows us to talk about these things. Because, like, who else are you going to talk about this with? Sometimes there’s nobody, and nobody’s going to understand, or they’ll tell you, “Oh, you should have dealt with it this way,” or whatever. And sometimes they simply cannot understand unless they are a fellow cleaning business owner. So I certainly did not expect that.

When Your Team’s Stress Level Is Different From Yours

How I want to phrase this is: I did not expect, when people come into my business as a tech, that people’s level of what is stressful and what is not — like, their barrier — would be so vastly different than mine. Because of the amount of times we have had people quit because they found the cleaning too stressful. Like, they’re like, “It’s too stressful.” Like, they could not handle it. And we have done everything to dig into that, making sure that, you know, expectations — we’re easing them into training, all of that. We’ve done the work, and it is still something that people simply cannot handle, and it’s just not a good fit.

And this is gonna sound callous, because I’m like, well, in comparison to other jobs, it’s not. It’s so chill. What do you mean? You get to, like, be hanging out in houses all day and making people happy. But it can be very fast-paced. You know, the schedule changes. That happens when people call out. And it is different than going to just one job location every day, and, like, this is what you’re doing, and it’s the same thing, right? That’s not what it is.

And so I didn’t expect that to be a recurring thing. And for me, I had to really check myself, because I would get frustrated and be like, “Why are they saying this is stressful? I don’t understand.” But my stress management ability, and what I think is a big deal, has changed so much — so much so that it is very hard for me to relate sometimes when people are getting really stressed out about what I consider to be minor. And I think that this can make me very dismissive at times, because I’m just like, “Dude, this is not a big deal.”

But that is one of the things the business has built in me. I would say the biggest muscle that the business has built is my ability to just manage, like, roll with the punches. It takes a lot more to get me all frazzled up in the business and, like, freak out, if you will. It doesn’t mean that I don’t stress. I’m going to talk about that a little bit later, when I talk about, like, internal shit I didn’t expect. But I think that’s one of my biggest growth areas, and so then what that means is sometimes it can make me very unempathetic to what I consider to be, like, “This isn’t a big deal.” And it’s something I just need to be aware of. So yeah, I did not expect that.

So I would say that is a good place to end with employees. If I think of anything else, we can hop back to that.

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What I Didn’t Expect From Clients

Next section is going to be shit I did not expect clients to do. One of the big areas is, I did not expect that grown adults, typically grown adult men, would throw literally a hissy fit when you end services with them. And it’s not always the guys, but it is mostly the guys. I’ve had multiple times where we have ended a cleaning relationship — it’s not a good fit, for whatever reason — and they throw a tantrum. Like, they throw a tantrum. They’ve never had anybody say, “No, I don’t want your money.”

So I would say I just didn’t expect the level of unprofessionalism sometimes coming from people. Like, it’s shocking, right? And I did not expect how difficult sometimes it would be to maintain the professionalism on one end when it is not coming from the other end. And so I think that it’s something to keep in mind: we are the professionals, and sometimes people are going to act crazy, especially as time goes on and people are getting a lot more used to just, like, talking shit across the screen or over the phone or whatever.

I just wasn’t really prepared for the customer service side of things, despite being a waitress for so long and having people being ungodly horrific — I mean, just terrible. I mean, I would say I had way worse experiences from a customer perspective in serving and in waitressing. Like, people were way worse, but it still is here, and I think it has to do with, like, the kind of business that we’re in. I just didn’t expect that to continue on in the business. I certainly thought that people would, like, meet me at the professional level, but that is not always the case. And especially when you’re telling them something that they do not want to hear, they react very poorly. So I did not expect that.

Scope of Work and Why Your Checklists Need to Be Granular

Shit I didn’t expect from a client perspective, and just in general, is scope-of-work understanding — even when you spell it out explicitly, just how people can interpret things. And this is why I’m so hard on you guys if you don’t have checklists. Because when it comes to what you’re gonna get from the client, I have experienced it firsthand, even with checklists, of there being a completely different understanding of what is included in the work. And so, especially with the word “deep clean” — like, you use the word “deep clean,” I use the word “deep clean,” and we could mean totally different things.

And this is why it’s so important to have it explicitly laid out, and not just, like, “dust the whole room,” or just very vague things. Like, some of you do have checklists or lists of tasks that you’re going to complete, and they’re not particularly granular. And we want it to be granular, even to the point of, like, wiping the door frames versus wiping the door fronts. You know, like around there — those are two different things, right?

And that was something, you know, we had forgotten on our newest checklist iteration. We had, like, accidentally skipped the door fronts, and so it wasn’t on the checklist. So all of a sudden, you know, it’s not getting done because it’s not on the checklist, or it wasn’t getting done every time, right? Or we couldn’t hold our staff accountable to it.

I did not expect that, like, interpretation gap, and how much this is a common problem. And I understand it, though, because every single cleaning business offers different things. What you offer versus what I offer are two different things, and it’s not the customer’s fault for not knowing, because every business is different. So it is our responsibility to educate and let them know what is included.

Commercial Accounts and Learning to Say No

Okay, shit I didn’t expect when it comes to customers: I would say how much commercial was going to be a part of the business. When I first opened, as many of you guys know, I was strictly going to be residential. Like, I was like, “Nope, I’m only going to do residential. I’m going to do houses,” because commercial was so intimidating to me. I was like, “Oh my gosh,” like, I didn’t even want to think about doing businesses. And so I didn’t when I first opened.

However, within the first month, I got a, you know, quote request and a request to bid a huge facility — a manufacturing facility, a big plant. And I was like, “Well, fuck it, we ball, I guess,” and let’s go do this walkthrough. And I totally, you know, bluffed my way through it and tried to seem like, you know, hotter shit than I actually was, because I was terrified. And I ended up getting the account, and that took us off to the races for commercial, and things started going. And then actually, our first account was a hardware store, which I just walked into.

So I just changed my mind. Like, I didn’t expect myself to change my mind, and I certainly did not expect that seven and a half years later we would be at — what are we at — 80 commercial accounts. Like, that’s certainly not what — and they were going to be the biggest, you know, revenue builders for us. So I did not expect that.

I also did not expect myself to turn away business so much. This was, I would say, one of the biggest ones: the Stephanie that started the business versus who is standing before you. This one says no a lot, and this one is a lot more comfortable saying no. And I don’t know why I didn’t expect that, because this was such a problem for me in just my general being: being able to say no, and not people-pleasing, not fawning, all of that stuff. So I said yes to all, as you guys know. Like, I wasn’t allowed to talk to customers, because we’d be painting the ceilings and cleaning the gutters.

That was not something I expected that I would be able to do. But honestly, it’s something that I’ve kind of delegated, and my managers are always steering me the right way on what is included, what’s not, like what we’re willing to do, what we’re willing to ask our staff to do. And then just in general, like, taking out whole types of accounts, like vacation rentals. I never would have expected that I would turn down all of those opportunities, because we simply don’t take them on anymore, and we ended up dropping a bunch.

So I think younger Stephanie could never have comprehended turning down money. I don’t think that she would ever expect to do that, because it’s like, “Why would you do that?” But now I understand that focus, and being really, really good at a few things, is so much more valuable and easier to manage and scale than trying to be the Jill of all trades. And so that was a really great lesson that I’ve learned over the years.

And it’s like this constant temptation that’s going to try to pull you away from it. And it’s something, when I am talking to you guys, I’m always cautioning against, because I can relate. It’s so tempting, like, “Oh, I could do that.” Window washing, carpet cleaning, all of the things, right? Vacation rentals, post-construction, just, you know, everything. Especially as I’m having these conversations with people who do offer these things, and how lucrative they are. I didn’t expect, one, that I’d be able to say no to money, but two, just that this was going to be one of those constant things too. It’s always going to be there. Like, “Oh, but you could do this, you could do this.” And just being able to say no to opportunities to just continue on the path that you need to be on — that is the easiest path to the business that I want, right? So that was not expected.

What I Didn’t Expect to Cost So Much: Insurance and Workers’ Comp

Next section is going to be shit I did not expect to cost as much as it did. And the biggest category is definitely going to be insurance. Because when I first started the business and it was just me, I got, you know, an online insurance policy through Next Insurance, and I think it was $42 a month. And so I never really anticipated how much it was going to cost, especially when it comes to workers’ comp. That one was totally unexpected. It’s shocking. The audits piss me off every single time. Every year, I’m just like, “Man, I need to pay more money for this.” And how much it can bite you in the ass years later, because they keep auditing.

And that’s what happened at the beginning of last year. I think I told you guys about it. Or the end of 2024, going into 2025, we had an audit that was, like, from years and years prior, because of a case that took a long time to close. And we ended up having a $30,000 bill that I did not anticipate. And again, it was for a situation that happened years ago, where an employee got in a car accident. She was going too fast, but she was driving between jobs, and so it was on our workers’ comp. And I thought, you know, we had paid for it all, but her medical bills, like, spanned over multiple years. It was just this whole thing, and I think I made an episode about it.

And I just had no idea how much insurance was going to cost, and especially to be properly insured. And so now we do go through a local broker. We’ve shopped around. We got different quotes. We switched over insurance companies last year, and that saved us a ton of money — I think $12,000 to $14,000 a year. I never shopped around before that, and that was one of my biggest mistakes: I was not shopping around for insurance every year and making sure that we had the best rate.

So, but yeah, I didn’t expect that after our giant Fort McCoy job — which was a huge job, admittedly — the workers’ comp audit, based off of payroll, and our payroll was huge for that. So the workers’ comp bill was like $80,000. Didn’t expect that.

I would say just understand that the reason we need to charge a lot is because there are all of these expenses that you simply would have never imagined, if you’ve never, like, been in a business before. Just keep that in mind. And it doesn’t mean to not run your business legally or not have insurance. It’s just that’s why we charge more, right? Because we’re insured, and that’s what we can offer our clients — and obviously protecting our staff members. It’s a legal requirement.

So just keep that in mind. And it’s not going to necessarily break the bank, but this is why we need to be shooting for $50, $60 per labor hour, because these things, these costs, go up every single year. So therefore, our rates need to as well. So everybody who hasn’t done a price increase in 10 years and wants to start hiring — I can think of, like, 12 of you off the top of my head — this is why we need to do price increases, because these costs certainly go up.

The Administrative Workload

Outside of costs, I would say this is a time cost of shit I didn’t expect. One of the most difficult parts of running the business is the sheer administrative labor that it would take. Even if you can clean well, even if you can manage staff members well and lead them well, even if you are good at sales, it’s still not enough for your business to be successful. The administrative bullshit. Oh my gosh. There is so much work that goes into making sure that those three cornerstones of a successful business are actually built on a solid foundation, and that you are able to scale without all of the shit falling through the cracks. There is so much.

And obviously, you guys know my love for ClickUp. This is why we have ClickUp. It is why we have ClickUp: so that we do not miss anything. Because that is a task management software. And everything I just mentioned, those three areas — employees, clients, and sales leadership, all of that — all of those things have stuff you’re not supposed to forget related to them. Everything, even as simple as having your employees’ driver’s licenses and their car insurance on file. And what if it expires? You know, you have to check that every year, because it’s going to expire, and you need to make sure you have that on file. Little things like that get you. Okay, when you’re onboarding a new client, did they pay their down payment? Did they sign their client guidelines? Right? Like, all of these things.

And I mean, I could give you about a thousand other examples that happen every single week in Serene Clean, and the only way that it’s getting done and not getting forgotten is we have these task management programs in place in order to make sure it doesn’t happen. Like, I set reminders for everything, but it’s recurring, and it is a process, and that makes it easier to delegate. So I just did not expect that to be one of the biggest parts of the overwhelm.

And I definitely realized this very early on. Oh, I cleaned all day, and I dealt with all of this stupid stuff with staff members or with customers, and then at the end of the day, I had to do all of this billing and invoicing and maintaining the website. And, “Did they do this?” And blah, blah, blah. Like, all of that stuff — I know that this is why you guys are, like, pulling your hair out, and especially the ones who are still sending out manual reminder texts and emails.

Get ZenMaid. Here is my ZenMaid blurb. If you do not have a scheduling software that can send out all of the reminders for you, even if you are a solo, okay? Like, this is the time that you optimize, before you start hiring: get all of those client notes that are in your little noggin and get them into your scheduling software, so you can hand these people off to your staff members and they can be successful. But I digress.

Okay, Amar, have you ever had anybody try to sell ZenMaid in a poop emoji costume? I don’t think so. Okay, the things I do for you, Amar. The things I do for you. Anyhow, send that to your entrepreneur friends. Okay, this is what you need to get ahead as a SaaS company.

But yeah, I just did not expect that to be one of the worst parts of the business, honestly — just the admin stuff. Getting something in place to manage yourself. And obviously, AI is making things so much easier, but you need to understand it, right? Like, I certainly did not expect AI to get invented when I opened the business, and it’s changing our life. And we’re making all of these agents and, like, employees in the business. Didn’t expect that. But at the end of the day, we still need to understand the process. We still need to know what needs to get done, so then we can start to automate that. So I certainly did not expect that.

How Rarely We Break Things

I also — this is a good one — I did not expect that we wouldn’t break more things. Like, knock on wood. It’s a weird one, I know, but I would have expected more, considering we do hundreds of appointments a week. I think we had 170 appointments last week. We didn’t break anything. Like, I would have thought that we would break things more. Honestly, actually, I don’t think we broke anything. Usually I don’t know about it unless it’s really bad, because my managers just handle it. But yeah, I thought that would happen more. And honestly, I was the one who broke the most stuff ever in the business. Yeah, that was, like, a pleasant surprise. I was so scared of that being, like, a recurring problem.

But just so you guys know, it’s going to happen. Just make sure that — the number one thing is honesty. Not literally or figuratively sweeping it under the rug. Shine a light on it and have a process. So as soon as it happens: photo to the managers, explanation, find the client, talk to them, let them know that we’re going to come to a solution, right? And just have a process, because it’s going to happen. It’s just the cost of doing business. But I am pleasantly surprised that it does not happen more.

What I Didn’t Expect to Feel

When I opened the business, it felt very much like a carefree decision. It was a big deal, for sure, because I spent money on this course, and I was putting all this pressure on myself. But I just thought it was fairly manageable, because I had such low goals for it. And so I truly thought I’d maybe have a couple, like, up to five part-timers, and I would maintain my full-time job. This was just going to be a small side hustle, especially because of the town I was in. As many of you know, I started the business in Black River Falls. That’s still where our main office is, and that is a town of 5,000 people.

Oh, this is Bassie. If you guys haven’t seen Bassie yet, this is my newest kitty, and she is so sweet. She’s probably like, “Mom, sit down so you can pet me,” because she always likes to sit on my lap while I’m working, and she’s so sweet.

But yeah, I really did not think that there was ever potential like there was. And so I did not expect it to get overwhelming in the way that it did. Especially that first year, I would say it was absolutely overwhelming, because things were growing. And, like, you’d think I would be excited, and I was, but it was such a survival mode that I was in. I really thought it would be more carefree, I guess.

And because if I’m gonna do something, I’m gonna do it, like, to the max capacity. Like, I do not like to half-ass things at all. I want to be the best, and this is a good trait and a horrible trait. But I just can’t stand putting something out into the world that is not the best, or, like, the best capability that I have. And this is something, you know, perfectionism — like, I’ve definitely worked on it, and I’m much better at, like, just a “send it, good enough” kind of thought process. But I hold myself to a level of excellence with this. And so I thought this would be more carefree, but then it really mattered to me, and I really wanted it. It was so important that I put out quality work, and so when staff members were not doing that, it was gut-wrenching. It was literally gut-wrenching. And so yeah, I just didn’t expect that level of uncertainty.

Fear, Self-Doubt, and Doing It Scared

And leaning into that: shit I didn’t expect to feel is fear and uncertainty. I thought that would be done, like, after I would start hiring and I got managers. And you keep thinking it’s going to be gone, and it’s never gone. It’s just the state of being that you come to accept. Like, “Yep, this is my little buddy, fear, and this is my other little buddy, uncertainty,” and they just come along with me on this ride. Okay, they’re still here.

I still feel it all the time. Because even last week, I was kind of thinking — like, you know, for me, what feels not possible is, like, $2 million a year, right? I just can’t conceptualize having the business at that size. And, like, this fear hit me of, like, “I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know how to run a $2 million company,” right? I’ve never done it before. And that’s something that’s hit me again at, like, every single stage.

And I’m sharing this so you know, if you’re feeling that, we’re all feeling it, especially if you’ve never done it before. Most of us have never done it before, and so I still feel that fear. I’m still afraid, because I’m like, “Can I do it?” It’s really a fear of, like, my abilities. Like, “Am I going to be the person that can do that?” And I’m gonna promise you that you will become that person, right? Because obviously, in order for it to get to that size, you have changed. You have grown. And so I just thought that the self-doubt would go away.

And it’s funny, because I’ve mentioned many times that I’m a very confident person, because I’ve built that confidence through trial by fire. I’ve built that confidence through competence, right? Through errors, and trying, and doing it, and trying again, and getting better. So it’s this kind of strange juxtaposition. Perhaps “dichotomy” is the word we want to use today. It’s a strange juxtaposition that, on the one hand, I feel so confident that I’m like, “I can figure anything out. I know I can. We are gonna make it through.” But then, on the same hand — well, not really. On the other hand, I feel such self-doubt sometimes. I’m like, “I don’t know how to do this. Am I making the right decision?”

Especially — it’s interesting — after going to CleanCon, my self-doubt actually increased, I would say, over the past couple weeks. Like, “Am I making the right choice? Am I doing the right thing? Is this a sound investment? Should I be doing it this way?” It’s tough to sometimes just pick a path. It is really hard, because, you know, there are so many options available.

And so I just want you guys to know that I still experience that, and it’s never gonna go away. You just have to come to terms with that. The biggest thing is, it can’t run you. It can be there, but you can’t let that fear and uncertainty dictate your actions. It can exist, and you still don’t have to take action on it, right? You can still say, “I am afraid, and I am still going to do my due diligence. I am still going to walk this path, because I know it is a path worth walking. And I’m still afraid.” And then you do the thing. Because doing the thing scared, you’re still doing the damn thing, right?

And that’s where that confidence will start to come from: doing the damn thing, especially when you’re scared. You don’t build confidence doing easy shit, right? I don’t build confidence because I brush my teeth every day. Okay, that didn’t happen. When I do hard things, when I show up for myself and do the things, even when I’m scared, that is where your confidence starts to build. So I just did not expect, one, that I would change so much, but two, that there would still be these constants here, all these years in — that they still exist.

The Biggest Hits: My Divorce and the Fort McCoy Job

I did not expect some of the biggest hits in the business, for sure. I didn’t expect my divorce to be so awful when it came to the business. I really didn’t expect, like, how strongly I would fight in that. I just didn’t expect any of that at all. But that experience showed me how much I cared about this and how much I took pride in it. Like, “No, this is mine, and nobody else is going to take it from me.” And, like, this is so important to me. And it just really affected me in a lot of ways, like how I see the business and relate to me.

I also didn’t expect — one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had in the business was after, you know, that big Fort McCoy job. We were a subcontractor on that job, and we showed up on a Tuesday, and Tuesday night I got a text from our contractor saying, “You guys are done. We don’t need you anymore.” And that was it. Like, here’s your 10-day notice, or whatever the hell it was. And that was fucking awful. It was terrible. I felt horrific, because I did not have jobs for these people.

And this is a good example of Stephanie being a fucking pussy: I did not have that conversation with them explicitly, that not everybody is going to have jobs after this, because I did not want to have that uncomfortable conversation of, like, there is going to be an end date to this job. I just didn’t know when it was, because we had no idea. And so I had been, you know, having conversations with some of the staff, like, “Cool, let’s get you trained into residential,” blah, blah, blah. But a lot of them, I didn’t do that, because I didn’t want to tell them, “No, you’re not going to have a job after this, and this is temporary.”

And so I did not do a good enough job. I still, like, shudder thinking about how awful that was. And that is one of the reasons — like, if I ever take on a large contract like that again, that’s, like, a temporary big job, it is going to be explicitly stated that this is temporary and there is an end date to that. So I would say that was one of my biggest failures, 100%. I had my head in my ass for a lot of that job, honestly, and I learned a lot. And I learned a lot of what not to do, let’s just say. So that was awful.

How the Business Changed Me

I would say, you know, moving on to, like, just shit I didn’t expect with how much the business would change me as a person, how much it would grow me as a person. Not to get all, like, heartfelt and really, like, you know, emotional here, but nothing has changed me more than owning this business. It has completely changed who I am. I should say it has evolved me. I’ve had to evolve to continue doing what I do.

I’ve also had to evolve what I thought this would have to look like. I thought I would have to be in it every day, especially in that first year, first and second year, when I was just so involved in the day-to-day. I thought that was going to be forever, and it’s not. Like, obviously, I’m not even in the same state or region as the business. I certainly did not expect that was possible. I did not expect my managers, you know, to still be standing by me today, and everything to be running so beautifully.

Like, it is possible. And, you know, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t take a shit ton of hard work to get here and to set it up. But it can be done. There are, you know, a lot of steps that you can take to make this happen, if that’s what you want, right? And even if you don’t want to be a remote owner, but you want to be an owner who doesn’t have to be in the day-to-day every day, that’s 100% possible.

So yeah, the business has changed me in so many ways. I love it so much. I’m so proud of it. I’m so proud of my team. And I never expected it to reach the level it is now. It’s so much bigger than me and what it can do, and this would be, like, my legacy that I would hang my hat on. I never would have expected that when I opened it.

Wrapping Up

So yeah, I think I’m gonna end it there, guys, because I’m starving, and this poop costume stinks — not like poop, but like chemicals. And I feel like I need to get it off my body, because I’m probably, like, soaking in toxins right now from the formaldehyde that was used to make this, or whatever the fuck.

But yeah, let me know down in the comments below: what’s the shit that you did not expect before getting into this business, or even, like, now versus three years ago? I would love to hear that down below.

I would really love it if you hit that like, if you hit that subscribe, and you hit that hype button if you’re watching on YouTube. If you are on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, if you left us a review, I would so love that. That is what allows other owners to find us and to hear, you know, these fun, silly, and hopefully helpful episodes. That would be such a help. If you found this one amusing and you want to share it with one of your cleaning business friends, I would love to introduce myself, at this moment in time, to your friends.

Join the ZenMaid Mastermind if you are not a member yet. It is a fabulous, fabulous group to be in on Facebook. You don’t have to be a ZenMaid customer. And also subscribe to the newsletter. You also don’t have to be a ZenMaid customer for that.

And then finally, I must show you guys — I haven’t even mentioned them. Look at my nails. Okay, let me try to zoom in here. Let me do, like, the makeup thing. Okay, are those not fucking insane? They are SpongeBob nails, the best set I’ve ever had. She hand-painted them, right? We have the Hash-Slinging Slasher, Gary, little jellyfish ghosts, “the walls will ooze green slime,” a floating shopping list. And on the other hand, we have the ghost on the other side of it. Oh, come on, focus, focus, camera. There we go. We have Patrick. Can you believe she hand-painted that? Is that not insane? We have some pretty flowers, and then we have SpongeBob as his little ghost. So you all know how much I love SpongeBob — my staff all knows — and I just can’t believe I have this literal art on my hands. So I’m so excited. I had to show you guys.

But anyways, thank you so much for listening and watching. Happy Halloween to all of you that celebrate. I’m going to a Ren Faire. I’m so excited. I’m not wearing this to the Ren Faire. No, no. I will have a fabulous costume on. So I’m super excited for that. And I will see you guys in the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye.