The Truth About Running Your Cleaning Biz on Independent Contractors

Brought to you by expert maid service owners

Tips and advice shared here, have helped us grow our own maid services. With eight current and former cleaning business owners in our team, including our CEO and founder Amar, we know the maid service industry inside and out.

We partner with amazing leaders in the cleaning industry like Debbie Sardone, Angela Brown, Courtney Wisely and Chris Schwab and more, to provide you with the latest industry insights.

We’ve built the easiest-to-use scheduling software, built specifically for maid service owners! Check out ZenMaid

Listen on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube

Introduction

Coming up next on the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast: “Most people do not legally run independent contractors in the cleaning industry. 99% of companies that run ICs are doing it improperly.”

From your first dollar to your first million, welcome to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast presented by ZenMaid. Join your host Stephanie Pipkin, founder of Serene Clean, as she shares proven tips, tricks and hard earned lessons. Whether you’re just starting out or ready to scale, get ready to discover how to build your own cleaning empire. Let’s roll up our sleeves and dive in.

The Remote Cleaning Business Question

Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I’m your host Stephanie from Serene Clean, and in today’s solo episode, I want to explore a topic that has been broached many times over the years to me via my consulting as well as just talking with different friends who learn what I do and that I own a cleaning company. Obviously a lot of people, once they hear what I do, are like, “Oh, maybe I could do that,” especially if they’re not competitors in my area, then I’m like, “Yeah, you go for it, girl or boy.”

The topic at hand that I want to discuss today is: is it feasible to open a cleaning company if you do not plan to do any of the cleaning or in-field work? This is something that a lot of folks want to attempt to do because, well, for several reasons.

Why People Want to Avoid the Cleaning

It could be that they are working full time at their current job and cannot be in the field while they’re working. Obviously, for a lot of people, it does not make sense to quit your day job and follow your dreams as a small business owner. I certainly did not. I did not quit my full time job for, I believe, at least a year, year and a half in, or I kind of started tapering down hours. But I could not afford to leave my full time job and just go into the cleaning business because I did not have enough clients to support myself yet. So I think that is a very wise thing to do.

Depending on your situation, everybody’s situation is different. Some people can do that, or maybe they aren’t working. So this makes perfect sense to then start the business. But if you already have a job, just my two cents, it’s not always the best idea to just go all in, as in burn the boats kind of concept of quit your other job and just go all in on this. It can work, but it’s really stressful to make sales when your next meal is relying on it. I know that can be very motivating for people, and on one aspect it is, but I personally do not like that stress, especially in the beginning. I don’t think I could have handled that level of stress.

So it was really nice to be able to be coming from a place in the business of not having that stress of like, “Can I pay my rent if this cleaning thing doesn’t work out?” And I could, because I still had my full time job. So that is one aspect of why people might want to go down this route of they are not going to be cleaning.

Number two is it could be that they physically are unable to do the cleaning, whether from disability or what have you. There may be physical reasons that you cannot do the work, and that is completely valid and understandable. But you still want to pursue business ownership as a cleaning company owner, because it’s a great business to get into. As all of us know, there’s very low cost of entry, typically, and there is an abundance of work to go around, as long as your marketing is sound.

Then there’s the third reason, which is you don’t want to. You’re like, “I have no interest in cleaning. I’m going to be the business owner and not the operator, if you will.” So that’s another third and valid reason. All of these reasons are valid reasons why you are not going to be doing the cleaning.

The Reality of the Challenges

That does not change the difficulty of what that does and the challenges that that brings up for the owner. Because when you are not willing and or able to do the cleaning yourself, or to do any cleaning yourself, you are going to be opening yourself up to a can of worms that an owner who is willing or able to do the cleaning is not going to encounter as much. That’s what I want to talk about in today’s episode.

What are those specific challenges that you’re going to face if you are not going to be doing the cleaning yourself in the beginning, or really at any time, and how you can possibly go around those problems, or the things I want you to think about.

I think this topic, for those of you are literally cleaning right now saying, “Oh, well, this doesn’t pertain to me, this information is not going to be relevant.” I still think that this episode will be relevant, because it’s going to bring up areas that we all are going to struggle with. Us literally being able to hop into the field makes it less so. But all of these areas are areas that if you want to eventually be out of the field, which most of you guys most likely want to not always be cleaning at some point, then these are all things we need to grapple with.

It really just depends on when in our business ownership journey we are going to deal with this problem. Are we going to kick the can down the road, or are we going to be the ones to actually solve the problem by physically doing the cleaning? These are the things that we need to talk about, come up with a plan for, and depending on where you’re at in your business, it will depend how much these problems cost to solve.

The Investment Required

The reason I was just messaged by a good friend, asking about this and looking for this to be potentially a part time supplementary income thing, and she’s wondering if this is feasible, or if she’s crazy to think that this is even a possibility, knowing that she will not be doing the cleaning, and she also would not be able to dedicate a ton of time every week, very part time.

First and foremost, everything is possible. It just depends how much money we’re willing to throw at a problem and how ingenious we are willing to get and creative with the solutions. A lot of things can be circumvented with today’s technology and or outsourcing, but outsourcing costs money, and that’s what I really want to focus on. How much money are we going to spend to solve the problem that we are discussing at the time?

For a lot of us who start out and are willing to do the cleaning, we are paying in the form of sweat equity, so we are not having to pay somebody else. We’re paying with our time and labor. So you’re going to be paying somehow, whether it be with your blood, sweat and tears, or your blood and tears and money. So pick one. I guess the sweat is going to be the thing that we can pull the lever on, which way we go.

For me, I did blood, sweat, tears. I did not do money. The money was not there, and so simply, I did not choose, nor was it really in my mind, to outsource the cleaning to whether that be an employee right away and or to independent contractors.

Challenge #1: Training and Being a Backup

I’m going to list three different areas in this podcast episode that we need to solve if we are going to be going this route of you’re not cleaning from day one. The first area I want to talk about is training and filling in or being a backup.

Day one, let’s say I open a cleaning business and I am not going to be doing anything in the field. I’m not going to be doing any of the training. I’m not going to be doing any of the cleaning. Who is – we need to answer this question, if this is even going to be possible. I would argue this is the most important one of the three things, because training is so integral to the success of all of the future staff members.

There’s a couple ways to go about solving this, and then the other side of it is the fill ins when somebody inevitably calls in or quits on you, or you need to fire, or all of the other issues related to staffing that we are all going to run into as cleaning business owners. It is foolhardy to think that this is not going to happen to you, because at some point somebody’s going to call in. This is what we need to plan for.

If we are not going to be cleaning, we need to pay somebody to train, and we need to have somebody available to fill in. Because one of the most important things that we can offer as cleaning business owners is consistency, and the fact that we are going to show up. One of the differentiating factors between us and individual cleaners is we have more than one person to do the cleaning, or that should be the goal, so that we can offer reliability to our cleaning clients.

The Reliability Factor

As opposed to an individual cleaner – not saying independent individual cleaners cannot be incredibly reliable 100% – but eventually they are going to take a vacation. They’re going to need time off, they’re going to get sick, their kids are going to get sick, and they are going to have to cancel or reschedule. Whereas when we have multiple staff members and or us as owners, we have a backup system in place. The cleaning is going to get done.

Of course, that’s not 100% of the time. Obviously we still sometimes have to cancel or reschedule on clients, but 98% of the cleanings we’re showing up when we say we’re going to. We’re not going to cancel, we’re not going to reschedule. So being really reliable is one of our biggest assets as a cleaning business. If you cannot offer that, whether in the beginning or long term, then it makes it a harder sell. Like, well, why should I pay company prices if I’m not getting the perks of a company?

So we need to have a plan in place for what that’s going to look like. If you’re thinking about opening a cleaning business, or you are wanting to get out of the field completely, who is going to be doing the training and who is going to be doing the filling in?

The Solution: Having a Buffer Person

Really, the biggest solution for this is you need to have somebody in between you and the field. That could be a manager, that could be independent contractors, that could be a dedicated trainer, but you need someone. For us, in Serene Clean we have one person who kind of fills this role, and that’s going to be Hannah, who you guys all met in last week’s episode that just went live. So if you’re just watching this one, go watch my interview with Hannah Sutton, and you’ll see what her role entails.

But training quality control, which is the other thing we’re about to talk about, and then also being the fill in when somebody calls out, or we have a job come up last minute, or somebody quits, or we have to fire, that is her role. She is the buffer. What I am describing is a buffer to protect you, owner or manager, from the field.

Most likely you are the owner or you’re somebody thinking about it. So we need to have somebody to do that. In the beginning, I did not have that because I was that person. So that meant I didn’t have to pay anybody else to do these crucial, critical roles. So if you are not going to be that person, you need to pay somebody else to do that.

You may be wondering, how do I find somebody? How much do I pay them? What do I do with them when I don’t have work? Well, there’s a couple solutions that you can go about.

Creating Flexible Staffing Solutions

One, you can hire somebody part time for this, and that will mean that you will not have 40 hours of availability, but you will have wiggle room that you can push appointments to where you do have availability and you just do not book them. You’re going to have to have some money to invest into this and pay them that salary when they’re not cleaning. So that is something that’s nerve wracking. They need to be available enough that you can train newbies when you’re hiring staff members.

But at the end of the day, you, from the beginning, have overhead that Stephanie never had in the beginning. So this is a specific challenge that you’re going to have to face that I did not have to face. I didn’t have that overhead because I was willing and able to jump into the field. So if that is not the case for you, you’re going to have to pay somebody to do this.

For those of you that are looking to get out of the field, you’re going to have to pay somebody to do this, but you already probably have clientele, you have staff, so you have a little bit of a buffer. What I would suggest for those of you who are in the field now, it doesn’t need to be everybody. This doesn’t need to be a full time position. We can always start part time and move towards full time. This person could also be part cleaner, part this stuff, part trainer, part fill in.

What you could do is have them clean 20 hours a week, and then the other 20 you dedicate to being on call and training. Then for us, with Hannah, say we don’t have anybody training that week, and Thursday and Friday, we have a ton of availability. Well, we will reach out to clients and tentatively schedule saying, “Hey, if nobody calls in, we can get you in Thursday and Friday.” This works really good for one offs, whether that be move out or first times, that kind of thing.

That’s why having a wait list is so delightful, and why marketing and sales is so integral to having a successful cleaning business. We need to be able to have people that we can put on the schedule last minute, because then we can get as much money out of that person as possible. Because if they’re cleaning all of a sudden, they are not overhead, but you cannot fill their entire schedule, because that defeats the entire purpose of what I’m talking about right now.

So training and having a fill in on call person is going to be the number one thing that you need to have in place before you’re able to open a cleaning business, whether this be remote or in person, but you are not doing the cleaning.

The Independent Contractor Option

The other option for this, of course, is going to be independent contractors, and so I do not run independent contractors at all, as you guys know. I never have for cleaners. However, we’ve had many conversations with people on this podcast who have had incredibly successful goes at running independent contractors. Now, there is pros and cons to both, but the nice thing about having a bunch of independent contractors is basically put out a job and say, “Who wants it,” and you have that coverage. Also, you could hire an independent contractor to do your training.

Potentially, the biggest challenge to this, I could see, is them, frankly, what is stopping them from taking that person that they just trained and having them – meaning taking them for their own cleaning business, because every independent contractor, technically, is their own business entity. That is legally what they are. So if they train somebody up, they like them, they jive well, say IC decides, “You know what, I really like that person. I’m gonna take them,” and I’m not saying that’s going to always happen. But if that was me as the independent contractor, of course that’s going to go through your mind. Like this person’s great, well, I want to grow my cleaning business. I want to go further than just me as an individual cleaner. Here’s a great person. Bing, bang, boom. Now I have my own little crew.

So you have to be cognizant and think about these things as to the risk we’re opening ourselves up to. There’s a lot of other reasons why I personally would not go independent contractor route.

A Hybrid Approach

A really good method that could get you around this is kind of a hybrid model, as I’ve discussed, where you have W2 employees as your core and then you have ICs to kind of help with this gap. So I personally would not have an independent contractor as my first hire for this training and filling in, unless you really know them and they have no interest in hiring and managing their own staff. Also remember that if they are an IC, they can’t work full time for you. Every state is different with how much that is.

But I’m just gonna be honest with you guys, most people do not legally run independent contractors in the cleaning industry. I would say 99% of companies that run ICs are doing it improperly, against the law. If they got found out, they would be fined up the ass, and they would probably be out of business due to those fines. Additionally, you’re putting so many people at risk because those people are probably not properly insured as they should be, or you are not properly insured as you should because you’re running them under all intents and purposes, they are your employee, but you’re calling them an IC to get around the tax liability and the insurance liabilities.

So I’m not a fan of the IC model, because it’s done illegally so much. However, you can do it legally. You just need to know the rules. So Google’s your best friend when it comes to your state and the laws and regulations. For example, California, it’s pretty much impossible to do it because they’ve smacked down so hard on ICs, because they ran so illegally, mostly in that state. Or that’s what that state’s experience has been, and most states are probably also the case, they just haven’t smacked down on it.

Keeping that all in mind, the training and the filling in, we need to have a solution in place before we open our cleaning businesses, if it’s not going to be us. Because you get all these leads, you get all these clients. Well, who’s going to do the cleaning? We focus so heavily on the marketing and sales that then the actually getting the cleaning done is kind of a side note in a lot of people’s minds when they are opening the cleaning business as this kind of side hustle, or side income, or passive income, which you guys know how I feel about that.

So that’s going to be a big struggle. So number one is going to be training and filling in.

Challenge #2: Quality Control and Consistency

Number two, kind of what, I’m just bleeding into that a little bit, but quality control and how things are getting done consistently is going to be the number two struggle that we’re going to be facing if we’re not doing the cleaning ourselves, if we’re not doing the training ourselves, and if we frankly don’t know much about cleaning or what it means to have it at the correct level and detail and standard.

A lot of people who are wanting to open a cleaning business, but do not do the cleaning themselves, they may not know even what quality standards should be, how it should be done, and because a lot of times they’re handing this off to independent contractors, it is 100% at the mercy of that independent contractor. Say you got four of them and you’re not training them at all because you legally cannot train them. You can’t even use the word training if we’re talking about independent contractors.

So all you know is that your customers aren’t really complaining right now, but you don’t know is your crew of ICs doing things in the exact way that you want them to be done? Really? You can’t know that because they’re ICs.

The way to fix this is having very explicit checklists and standards of work that is in their independent contractor agreement with you, because you can hold them up to certain standards 100%. This is the job, this is the job specs of what is passing, what is failing. You can 100% do that. But it’s all of the other details surrounding how the clean is done that can get iffy if you don’t have those explicitly spelled out in the IC agreement. Again, we’re always toeing that line of are we treating them like an employee?

Implementing Quality Control Systems

Quality control is the next area that I want you to brainstorm around. How are we going to handle this if we are not in the field? A lot of you may be able to actually choose – it depends, are we talking you’re remote, or are you in your area? Because if you’re in your area, you can definitely do quality control yourself and make sure things are getting done the way that you want them to do. But if you don’t know what the standard is, then that’s very difficult.

This is where that first person that we’re talking about in problem area number one, they can also be doing quality control for you. And again, so the investment here is in the payroll of that person who is not cleaning, or not cleaning very much, or only cleaning sporadically. So this is where that money investment is going to – it’s going to stress you out, frankly, where you’re dumping money into this thing, and if they’re not cleaning, they’re strictly overhead. So that is what the situation needs to be.

Where I didn’t have that stress of cover, I didn’t have any overhead hardly when I started out, because I was cleaning and I was the one doing all of these things that I’m talking about. So you’re gonna have to have some money to invest if you yourself are not going to be doing these things.

Additionally, you can get around this by having your cleaners QC. But in the beginning, I wouldn’t have trusted my cleaners to really QC, because I was a terrible trainer. There’s so many things related to that, so I was doing the majority of the QC. Once I got some good staff members in, they could also help me with that. But that’s going to be a problem.

The Importance of Standardization

When it comes to scaling, and again, one of the reasons I don’t like ICs is because, as I’ve alluded to, or just straight out said in so many episodes, is standardization across the entire company. Is one of the biggest reasons Serene Clean has been able to be so successful is we have incredible consistency between techs. If I send one tech versus another tech, they’re going to nail it.

So if you’re sending in independent contractors, or you’re not having the standard training, or you’re not having quality control in place, well then you’re going to have inconsistency, not only between clients, but between techs. If you need to send another tech.

One of the things that we do to get around this is really extensive notes at each client that’s going to be added into ZenMaid to ensure that whoever is going in next is going to be successful, whether that be on the commercial or the residential side. That’s something that our cleaners are trained to do is be adding notes after each appointment if necessary to make the next person successful, because at some point you’re going to call out, at some point the schedule is going to have to change, or at some point that person is going to leave.

So we want to have really good congruency and continuity, good word, between every single tech and every single appointment, because that’s how we nail having really high standards and consistency across, because as I’ve said, if every fourth cleaning you do for somebody it’s not the same, it’s not as good. Well, that means that 25% of their cleanings suck, and they’re probably going to leave to somebody who maybe is just slightly worse at all of them.

Consistency Trumps Perfection

Say you can hit seven out of 10, and every single cleaning, what company A or company B can do a 10 out of 10 every three out of four cleanings, and then the fourth cleaning is a two out of 10. Which company is that client probably going to stick with? I would say Company A, because they’re going to be so pissed off at the administrative labor of reaching out and being disappointed and explaining and showing pictures and all this stuff. I’d rather have a slightly less good cleaning but it be consistent, and they show up every time, and I know what they’re going to be doing.

Ideally, it’d be 10 out of 10 every time. That’s what we’re shooting for. That’s the ideal. But if we’re looking at these two options, which are very realistic and probably happen to a lot of people there, I would choose option A. So how can we make it closer to Option A than closer to Option B, or make option B to the point that it’s always 10 out of 10, or nine out of 10? And that is going to be putting things in place to have continuity between all of the cleanings, between all of the techs. So that’s what we’re shooting for the moon, and hopefully we will aim or land in the stars.

So quality control is going to be a big problem that we are going to have to solve and come up with workarounds. That may mean investing in somebody to be doing those things if you cannot and you are remote. But if you are not remote, and you can take some time, even if you’re part time, just be doing those quality checks.

Virtual Quality Control Methods

Another thing is, of course, virtual check ins of your cleaners, of your clients. So we do something called compliance checks, where at a random time every single month, I believe every cleaner of ours is getting compliance checked. We have them send a picture of their uniform while around the job, their supplies, their shoes, their vacuums. Because for us, being compliant is also taking care of your supplies. So we want to make sure that they are in dress code, they have all the supplies that they need, and everything is being taken care of as it should be. So that is one aspect when it comes to the cleaners themselves.

When it comes to the clients, that’s where a feature like the service rating features from ZenMaid is so valuable, because you can be asking for service ratings on an automated and very regular basis for all of your clients, to give them that space to provide that feedback. Personally, that is a reactive thing. Quality control, in my opinion, is a proactive thing. So we need to hit both sides of this problem. So that’s going to be reactive, asking for feedback from clients, but the proactive is catching it before the client even notices. And so that’s going to be that quality control side of things. So we want to hit both sides of that problem head on.

Challenge #3: Communication with Team and Clients

Then the third and final area, well, that I could think of right now, I’m sure there’s a bunch of other stuff that we can cover, but that would take an hour, is going to be communication with team and clients. So this is something that 100% can be done remotely. Of course it can be. But the problem is, if you are not going to outsource this, you’re gonna struggle with having prompt communication with the clients and the staff while you’re at your other job or while you have your other responsibilities.

Let’s say you are considering opening a cleaning business, but you’re going to work your full time job that you are not going to be able to be messaging people on the side, and when it comes to your cleaning staff and your clients, prompt communication is so crucial. I would say on the cleaning side, the cleaner side is actually the more crucial part, because if your cleaner has a question on the job, they need an answer quickly. Or they’re calling in, and you need to operationally deal with that. You need to be Johnny on the spot, or Juanita on the spot. What’s the female version of Johnny on the spot? Jonia, I don’t know. That’s still kind of a guy name.

My Personal Experience

Now, that’s still, sorry. ADHD ramble, so how can we work with that? Being that we are probably at our other job, and literally, I’m not gonna lie, guys, I was at my full time job going to the bathroom and texting with cleaners and clients. So unless you are willing to be unethical at your current job, you’re gonna have to come up with a solution here. And I wasn’t getting paid shit. It was also my family’s company. I went to the bathroom and texted a lot to get my side hustle going. I’m not telling you to do it. I’m just telling you what I did.

So I would suggest, if you are not able to have this communication, you’re gonna have to have some type of virtual assistant. Or this person who you’re going to be putting a lot of responsibility on is going to be basically in a management role and having to do all these other things, the training, the filling in the quality check and the communication. Bad idea to put it all in that person, unless you know that – you’d be putting all your eggs in one basket is what I’m saying.

Virtual Assistant Solutions

I would be more apt to have a virtual assistant handle the communication for all of the techs and all of the clients in the beginning, especially. This is a very strong likelihood in the beginning, you hiring somebody, and they take all your stuff, meaning they take your clients, they take your cleaners, because there’s no loyalty built yet. You’re brand new.

So if you do have somebody in person who is doing these things, just be warned and be very cautious who you trust. And I’m not saying that for you to be cynical. I’m just saying it because I’ve seen it so many times of you guys in your businesses being absolutely destroyed by somebody you trust in your business. And so that, again, not to say you shouldn’t trust or love. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just trying to tell you that this is a strong possibility. Whereas a virtual assistant, they’re most likely not going to be able to even do that, and it’s really hard to build that loyalty as easily with a virtual presence, as opposed to somebody being loyal to you in person when it comes to the techs and things like that.

Team Communication Requirements

So when it comes to the communication with team, we need to have somebody who is available during your cleaners work hours to answer their questions at least at a reasonable pace. This is where, obviously having training and cleaners who do not need hand holding that much is really important. That’s why if you talk to Chris Schwab, his ICs, that’s a huge core value of his business, because he runs independent contractors, is they need to be highly independent. If you want to learn more about this concept that I’m talking about, which is not being in the field at all, go listen to that episode with Chris. I think it’s in the first six episodes of the channel. And then, just in general, follow Chris Schwab. He’s a pioneer in remote business ownership, and it can indeed be done, but these are the types of things that he focuses on.

Most of the people I talk to are in the field cleaning. You’re probably cleaning right now or driving in between jobs, but for those of you who are interested in this, or at some point we’re all trying to get out of the field. So these are all problems that we’re going to need to solve somehow. Whether you’ll be doing these things, or somebody else be doing these things, but that means you have to pay somebody else. And so that’s really what we’re talking about, is who is doing these things, and are you going to be paying them, or is it going to be you, and you’re paying with your time? But it means you’re not paying somebody else, and you could pay yourself then for these things.

Client Communication Expectations

When it comes to the communication with clients, also important, especially for newer folks. If you can’t answer the phones, if you can’t text, if you can’t get back to people in a timely manner, because you’re at your full time job, or you have a lot of responsibilities, well, then you’re going to run into people not hiring you because they want a really communicative business that gets back to them in a reasonable amount of time. That could be one business day, but if a client has a problem or needs to cancel or reschedule or something, they expect prompt communication.

So if you do not hire somebody to do this, and you are at your job and it’s 8:30 and they’re trying to cancel or reschedule, and all of a sudden the cleaners show up, because you are not able to get a hold of everybody, that’s a huge problem. And you are going to lose business because of that. So we need to have a solution in place, which is going to be another person if this is your situation.

The Three Key Areas Summary

So these are the three areas that I really want you to think about preemptively. If you’re thinking about opening a cleaning business and you are not wanting to do any of the cleaning, then these are the things we need to look at, and it’s all going to be solved by basically another person. Or there are some software related things that you can do, but at the end of the day, somebody needs to be touching the thing.

Most people I find who want to open this type of business in a remote manner or a hands off manner, they’re really good at sales and marketing. But sales and marketing is not the only aspect of running a successful cleaning business. I would argue that a lot of cleaning businesses who are opened by people in this place, they get stuck. They’re never going to hit a million and that may not even be the goal of everybody, I understand, but if you’re trying to make enough to live off of, you’re going to need to have a high revenue and pay all of these other people who are going to run this thing.

If you’re going to run ICs, you’re going to be paying them more than you would pay a W2. And so then we still need even more sales volume to cover all of the pieces of the pie that are being taken out. So these are all areas that we need to think of.

It Can Be Done – But There Are Different Challenges

It absolutely can be done. It can be done. You’re just going to have different challenges. For those of you that are already in the field and you are wearing all of these hats, I know that you want to take those hats off and give them to somebody else. It’s just going to cost money, and it’s going to be finding the right people and putting the right systems in place, and all of these areas.

These are the makings of a successful cleaning business – training, sales and marketing, which we haven’t talked about in this episode, but that’s probably less of the issue here, if you’re going to be running this thing remotely, quality control and communication with team and clients. So really the issue is the operations side of the cleaning business, not the back stuff, like the sales, marketing, bookkeeping, all of that stuff, kind of the back stuff. Like the in the field, that’s the problem. That is the problem that you’re going to need to figure out and solve before you hopefully jump in, or maybe you’ve tried to jump in and you’re realizing that this is a huge problem.

Focus Areas for Success

So these are the things that we need to focus on. If you have any questions on any of these three topics, I know I kind of was just glazing over some of it, be happy to deep dive into any area. Obviously, Serene Clean has heavy systems in all three of these areas, and I could ramble on for hours and millennia about any of them. So just let me know what you guys are interested in. Where you’re at. How many of you have started from not cleaning at all, or is that just a “must be nice” kind of thing? Because it’s just totally different.

But remember, for those of you who are cleaning in the field, that just means those people are going to be paying for it in some way. So there’s pros and cons to each. Lots of ways to skin this cat. I skin the cat by getting my hands dirty and getting in there. You can also peel the apple. Can we say it that way? I hate saying skin cat. Can we peel the apple in another way? Absolutely. It’s just going to have its own unique challenges to overcome.

Wrapping Up and Final Thoughts

So let me know what you guys think, what questions you have, and if you watch the whole way through, can you put a, let’s see a blue flower? Perhaps, is there a blue flower? Put a flower down below. It doesn’t have to be blue. I just got this new dress yesterday, and I’m really digging it. It’s super cute, right at my style.

All right, guys, that’s it for this episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Hit that like, hit that subscribe, leave us a comment, leave us a review and rate us in any of your podcast listeners so other people can discover our wonderful educational content we have here. And if you have not registered for the Maid Summit yet, please go and do so. It’s completely free, and gonna have some pretty kick ass speakers this year, if I do say so myself. So all right, guys, see you in the next episode, bye.

If you enjoyed this episode of The Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast, please be sure to leave us a five-star review so we can reach more cleaners like you. Until next time, keep your work clean and your business filthy rich.

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

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Watch Episode 59: Why This Healthcare Worker Ditched Her “Real Job” for Cleaning (And Never Looked Back)
• ZenMaid
• The Maid Summit 2025
• Chris Schwab
• Cleaning Tech Bootcamp by Courtney Wisely

QUICK TIP FROM THE AUTHOR

Simplify and enjoy your scheduling with a scheduling software made for maid services

• Have a beautiful calendar that's full but never stressful.
• Make your cleaners happy and provide all the information they need at their fingertips.
• Convert more website visitors into leads and get new cleanings in your inbox with high-converting booking forms.
• Become part of a community of 8000+ cheering maid service owners just like you.

Start your FREE ZenMaid trial today and discover the freedom and clarity that ZenMaid can bring to your maid service! Start your FREE trial today