Why Ryan Williams Started a Cleaning Business From Working at ZenMaid

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Introduction

Stephanie: I asked you to be on this podcast again because you own a cleaning business now, which is crazy. And I want to hear about it. I want to talk about it. I want to hear why you opened it. I do recall early on when we met years ago in Amsterdam, and you’re like, “You know, this sounds really cool. Your life seems awesome, Stephanie, and I want to be you. I should open a cleaning business too.” And I was like, “No, Ryan, don’t do this. Your life will be hell. You don’t understand.” And here we are today. Is it, Ryan?

Ryan: I don’t know if my life’s gotten better or worse. I’m still figuring that out. But a bit of backstory — so yeah, I joined ZenMaid in January of 2024, and obviously being part of the company, I was thinking like, “Now that I’m working in the software industry for cleaning businesses, why couldn’t I just start my own cleaning business and have all the resources of ZenMaid and access to people like you and consultants and industry experts?” And I also have another business, which is a marketing agency. So I was like, “How hard could it be? I can do this.”

So I literally bought the domain Hot Springs Cleaning two weeks after I started at ZenMaid, and I even told Amar, I was like, “Hey, I’m going to do this one day.” So it was in my GoDaddy account for like two years. Anyway, fast forward to the end of 2025, I started talking with my business partner, who is now my business partner, Maria. And we co-own The Villages Maid Service.

So I’m not a full owner. I did not start from scratch. I was very fortunate to kind of piggyback on something that was already established. And essentially, as part of me coming on, instead of me launching Hot Springs Cleaning, I launched The Villages Maid Service Hot Springs location. So we now have two locations.

It has been completely eye-opening. It’s one thing to just show people ZenMaid on a daily basis. I quite literally give demos all the time. I lead our customer success team and our marketing team. So I’m like, “I got this. I know how to operate it.” But when you have to deal with daily callouts and recleans and staffing — which I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff with there because it’s a very similar market to Black River Falls, you know, Hot Springs. It’s a small town and there’s not a lot of jobs. It’s just such an eye-opener for me.

So I personally love that it’s happened. It’s really been kind of a passion project, and we’re growing, which I’m obviously grateful for. But there have been a lot of day-to-day things that are complete fires on a daily basis that I’m very fortunate I don’t have to completely deal with because I’m not the operator. But I get a first-world glance into what it looks like to operate a cleaning business. And it is one of the most difficult businesses.

I mean, like I said, I have my own and I’ve seen and worked for other businesses and consulted with hundreds of small businesses. Cleaning is a different beast. And I’m so glad that I kind of have this insight, but at the same time, I kind of wish I didn’t have this insight. It’s completely changed my perspective.

The Hiring Reality in Cleaning

Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely. What do you think the biggest thing is? It’s blue collar, and I think compared to your other business, the marketing agency, you’re working with white collar workers. So what do you think contributes the most to the differences that you see between your two businesses now?

Ryan: I don’t want to say that people just don’t want to work, because that’s a very generalized statement. But I see that with the marketing agency too. We’ve had people that outperform, we’ve had A players, and then we have other people that just want to do the bare minimum and coast by. That’s true in any business, even in a software company.

But I think what’s really hard is that you find really good people, you take them through the interview process and onboarding and orientation, and they do a great job for a couple of days or a couple of weeks, and then something happens. And this is not everybody, obviously — when you find that one cleaner or that second cleaner, protect them with everything you have. But what has shocked me is that the people that you are willing to bet on very early, sometimes those are the ones that burn you. I have never seen that in any other industry.

Prime example — so our first true cleaner that we hired, she was fantastic, great, was even talking about wanting to move up in the company and have more responsibility. She loved getting to work with us the first few weeks to the point where she was like, “Hey, I want to get more involved in what you guys are doing.” And then I think it was a Monday and she just called and quit. “Hey, I got another job. I got to start Thursday.” And I was like, “Okay, what do we do now? We’re putting all of our eggs in this basket.”

And this is our second location. So we kind of need somebody before we can go get more jobs. If it was our Florida location, it’s not as big of a deal because we have eight, nine, ten contractors that we can pull from. So this was kind of a big fire at the time.

It just boggles my mind that hiring is as difficult as it is. It’s hard to find good people. It’s hard to find people that know what they’re doing. And the way that we operate is more of a remote business. Even though I am here in Hot Springs, I’m not the operator. I’m not doing a lot of stuff in the field because I have ZenMaid and my marketing agency. But you kind of have to trust in the skill set a bit more when you are remote.

So it just boggles my mind that you can find good people and everything is going well until it isn’t. Here is another story. We had another cleaner do a test clean, and that morning at 9 AM she called Maria and was like, “Hey, making sure I’ve got all this stuff,” asked for directions, made sure she had everything in the app. And then just didn’t show up. And it’s like, how could you call the morning of? I don’t understand. At least just no-show us. Don’t get our hopes up that you’re going to show up. I just don’t understand that type of behavior.

And again, I didn’t get to see it firsthand. I heard it from you and other people that I talk with via ZenMaid, but I now get to see it firsthand — how truly hard it is to hire talent in this industry.

Stephanie: One of us, one of us. That’s all I want to scream because it really is — I don’t know if I want to call it an initiation rite or hazing, whatever we want to call it. But it’s literally — it’s shocking to experience it. Yeah, you’ve heard it described as, “This is how it is.” The ghosting is insane.

And I like that you described that second one — they’re like, “Yep, I got everything right.” And then it’s just… Those are the situations where — I just had that happen actually last week. Somebody who used to work for me, she came back and was going to start on Thursday. We talked on Tuesday, all was great. She was awesome, doing great. And then she completely ghosted Thursday.

You just can’t understand. And that’s why you have to have the funnels of applicants, because you cannot be lulled into a false sense of security that this person is going to stay. Because even the ones that you’re most sure of sometimes are the ones that’s like, boom, gone. So you almost always have to be not on guard, but more prepared of like, “This is going to happen. This is the inevitable.” It’s just the way it is, no matter how much you pay, no matter how much you treat them well. It’s a very flaky industry at times, you know what I mean?

Ryan: It’s a very flaky industry, for whatever reason. And again, that’s not to generalize anybody.

Stephanie: No, it’s just our experience.

Ryan: There are great people that work in this industry. But it’s crazy. Another thing that I’ve experienced firsthand is the droughts that you go into. You either have too many cleaners and not enough appointments, or you have too many appointments and not enough cleaners. Especially with our new location, which we just launched in January. There was a week where we’re doing some short-term rentals and we have a partnership and we’re starting to get those recurring clients. But there was a week where just nothing was really on the schedule. We had a couple of appointments. And I remember one of the cleaners, who’s fantastic and doing great and we want to protect her at all cost, was like, “Hey, I may have to go get another job.”

And it’s hard because you’re a contractor, and we’ve set those expectations that we would love to hire and give you more, but this is what we have to give with this location. And I just felt so bad. I was like, “We’re doing everything we can.” One week, it’s like a time of plenty, but then the next week it’s like famine. And there’s nothing you can do about it other than just pick up the phone and start calling people, or calling dead leads and stuff like that.

You know those things in theory, but when you actually have to deal with it, like you said — replacing that appointment or replacing the cleaner, or just figuring stuff out — that has given me so much insight into how difficult this industry is. And it gives me more appreciation for the work that we do at ZenMaid too. I was on that side of the fence, on the software side, on the marketing, on customer success, having these conversations with cleaning business owners. I don’t want to sound hypocritical or anything, but now I can kind of speak to like, “Hey, I actually do understand what you’re going through.” There was just a bit of a disconnect, and that’s why I wanted to start my own business or be in the industry. Not really motivated for financial gains, but really just so I could understand and be better at my job as a software marketer in this industry. So it’s been very enlightening, and I could go for days.

Stephanie: Yeah, well, that’s obviously why I’m in the design calls. So it’s like I can be like, “No, this feature needs to be like this because of this, this, this.” And if you’ve experienced it and you’re running a cleaning business, you are able to give a lot more targeted feedback on what we actually need to be building in the software.

The Feast or Famine Pendulum

Stephanie: So I also like that you highlighted the feast or famine, and I always call it the pendulum swing. And it literally could be week to week or day to day. For example, especially with first times, we had four or five first times scheduled last week. And if one cancels, okay, that’s a huge chunk of time. All of a sudden we were so booked, and now it’s like, “Oh God, we have to get hours for these people right now.” You’re always in some type of panic, but it just depends what flavor of panic.

Ryan: Exactly. Oh my gosh, I can’t even imagine. Again, I’m very fortunate that I get to work with Maria, who is the operator. I don’t have to deal with those, but I still wear that stress, but on a totally different level of somebody that’s having to actually put out the fire. So again, I appreciate this industry, and it just gives me more appreciation for everybody I’ve talked to. I’m like, “If you’ve made it this far and you’ve had to deal with this stuff…” I don’t even have to deal with it to the degree that our customers do in this industry, but kudos to everybody that’s ran a business successfully in this industry for, I mean, like you — six, seven years.

Stephanie: Six, seven? Six, seven, Ryan, really?

Ryan: My seven-year-old, he doesn’t even know what it means, but I was like — he was like, “Yeah, the kids at school are saying six, seven.” And I was like, “Well, what does that mean?” He was like, “I don’t know.” So he doesn’t even know. So hopefully it just all passes before he gets old enough to understand what it means. I thought I was dodging that by having young kids. Nobody’s safe.

Stephanie: Nobody’s safe.

I think what you’re highlighting is how you can stand out. Even though it’s really hard, it’s also what all of our owner customers are experiencing — flaky cleaners. So if you can get on top of that, you can really set yourself apart, because when they go and hire an individual cleaner, well, those individual cleaners are the staff that we have that are flaking and saying, “I could go do this better” or whatever. They’re going to be flaky to their customers too.

So as hard as it is to make everything covered, that’s where you can really stand out in this industry. Because it’s such an industry-wide problem, if you can even be moderately good at having coverage or being able to rearrange your schedule and get the appointments covered, it makes you stand out.

But I think what you’re touching on is that kind of mental — I would say burnout — it feels like Groundhog’s Day sometimes for us where it’s just like, literally last week, I think I had two people — we’re bringing multiple people on, and then somebody puts in their two weeks because they’re graduating college or whatever. And it’s like, great, now that person that was going to get us ahead — now we’re just breaking even again and covering what we have. It’s literally this constant… it’s mentally taxing.

Obviously, I’m very blessed and fortunate to be out of that. Amy had been handling everything, of course. But in those first couple of years, it was really hard to stay positive and not want to give up because of that. Especially that first year when people are ghosting, I’m getting pulled into the field all the time, and I’m still working my other job and all of these things. It makes you cynical. And that’s been one of my biggest goals — don’t become a people hater because of some people, you know what I mean?

Ryan: Yeah, that reminds me of — I don’t want to say people look down on owners that kind of work themselves out of the business, because I think in many ways, a lot of us want that. From the outside perspective, it may feel like, or it may be observed as, someone abandoning their team. Thinking about the other business and other companies I’ve worked for — I think the reason that’s so appealing for owners is that you’ve worked your butt off, quite literally 24/7. It’s not a Monday-through-Friday thing. It’s 24/7. It’s like having homework, like in college. You always have something on the back of your mind. You’re always checking email, because it’s your livelihood.

So when you do that for six, seven years —

Stephanie: Stop it. You got to do the hand thing if you’re going to say it. Weird thing to die on, but okay.

Ryan: I want to be a cool dad, not a cringe dad. That’s my dreams in life. Anyway, if you’re doing that for that many years, you daydream about that because you just can’t imagine. Like you said, you’re almost giving up frequently. And then you want to have that relationship and that passion towards people and the service. I think it just drifts into having that passion for people and service at the leadership level. Now you’re not having to deal with these individual fires, and you can still step in and help with those things, but now you get to coach your team leaders, your techs. You get to influence the strategy, the vision, the culture.

So not to say that anybody that’s working — I don’t think that’s a stigma on the industry or like people trying to work themselves out of the business. But that’s why it’s so appealing to owners. And honestly, that’s why it was so appealing for me to partner with somebody already doing this. Because if I were to do this on my own — and that’s a side story too, because I did do this on my own for like two weeks before this opportunity came up.

I had launched hotspringscleaning.com. I had the domain. I built a website. I used my marketing expertise. I started networking. That’s actually how we got one of our partnerships with a property management company. I was already kind of seeing if demand was there before I went and did it, after hours, early mornings, just to kind of see if I could do it, like prove the concept.

I remember — I think I told you this story — I had a cleaning booked. All the signs were positive. There’s a person that cleans houses in our neighborhood, highly recommended. I talked with her on the phone multiple times. She’s even like, “Hey, I can swing by and we can just meet in person because I’m in your neighborhood.” And I was like, “Yeah, come meet my wife.” And anyway, the morning of the clean — and this is not anybody I know. This is somebody who called me, I booked them, quoted them, went through the whole process, scheduled the clean. And then she calls out.

That’s where I was like, “Okay, I don’t know if I want to do this on my own.” Just because I knew I could do it and figure it out, but again, full-time at ZenMaid, a lot of responsibility, full-time dad, I’ve got three boys, and then have another business that I don’t operate but I’m still active in. I was like, “I just don’t have time to do this.” So I’m very fortunate that I can sort of step back and focus more on the strategy, vision, marketing — the things that I love.

But that was a real taste of, “This is what you’re going to have to deal with.”

Stephanie: So that was your first clean — your first clean.

Ryan: That was my first clean. Yeah, first clean. And I was like, “This is not…” Just a totally different type of stress, and then a sickness in your stomach. If it was a marketing problem — and that’s why on the marketing agency, I’m like, “I can figure that out.” But I was like, “I don’t think I can figure this one out. This is different.” So again, kudos to everybody that has to deal with this stuff, because for me, I really learned quick what to expect.

Stephanie: Yeah, I think it’s interesting because the pit in your stomach — I so can relate to it. It is a very special sense of anxiety. Flavors of anxiety, right? But I know what you mean, because what’s mixed in with that anxiety is also like, “Am I being stupid right now? Should I even be doing this? If I can’t even get this thing done and this obstacle comes up…”

I remember with my first cleaner, who just clocked in and sat in the driveway for four hours and then clocked out. Second house she goes to, fills out the checklist and just leaves it on the counter and leaves. Didn’t touch the house. Thank God I went and checked the houses that day. And I was clocked in at my other job — don’t tell my parents — that I was going to town. I was like, “Hey, I’m sick.” And then I ferociously cleaned this house for like a couple hours. And just that sense of, “What am I even doing? This is insane. You can’t rely on people.” Just this complete overwhelm of, “What the hell am I even doing? I have no business trying to do this.”

Ryan: I’ve had that feeling before, and typically that’s where you have to listen to your gut. But I actually had that feeling when — so before we had the marketing agency, I had my own little LLC and I was working nights. I was taking calls. I was working full-time at this company, and I won’t even say where or who I was working full-time for. I had to drive to the office. It was your typical — they had a gym, free espresso, ping pong table. I was there and I had to be at the office, I think three or four days a week.

So those three or four days, I would have people calling my business. I would step outside — I’m not a smoker — I would just step outside awkwardly, walk the parking lot on the phone, taking quotes for people on my phone. Then I would get back to my house. We lived about 30 minutes away at the time. We had our two older boys. So at the time, we probably had a three-year-old and a one-year-old. And my office was in the garage, and it had an AC unit in the garage.

There was one night where I’m doing like $150-per-month WordPress websites, which is stupid. Don’t ever do that. It makes no sense. It’s not worth the work. And I had agreed to this person I used to work with to do a Shopify website and help manage it. We’re talking tens of thousands of products that had to be changed and uploaded and spreadsheets and all that stuff. And it’s like 2 AM in the morning — which, I go to bed at nine. That for me is crazy. I’m trying to fix this Shopify website, and I’m like, “What the heck am I doing? Why did I sign up for this?”

In your head, you’re like, “This makes a lot of sense and I can do this and I want to be an entrepreneur.” But you hit those moments where you’re like, “What did I get myself into?” And I never want to get back there again. So sometimes, unfortunately, I have to learn by doing that. And I think with this cleaning thing, I had to learn — can I do that myself? And I did validate that idea.

We were walking through Costco — I think I told you this too — on Halloween. And I got a booking form, a ZenMaid booking form lead text. We’re in the frozen, like, frozen chicken section. And I’m like, “Hey babe, we got a lead.” So I validated the idea, but the fulfillment was something that I was not prepared to do. Even though I thought I was. So again, validated the idea, but now I’m grateful that — best of both worlds — I get to kind of do both.

Standing Out in a Flaky Industry

Stephanie: It’s funny — you just reminded me of when I was building my website and before I announced my business. I was doing that at my other job, right? My dad was my boss, and he literally blocked ZenMaid. I couldn’t access ZenMaid at work because I was using it so much. You know it’s a problem if ZenMaid gets blocked by your employer because you’re working on your side hustle at work.

Ryan: Oh my god. We need to — I’m going to tell Amar and our dev team to create a system circumventing things. Like college students — if you’re working at your other job, if you’re working at a corporate job and you can’t access ZenMaid, we need to play into that. That would be an awesome — get it to the people.

Stephanie: Exactly. Get it to the people. The underground ZenMaid.

Ryan: The back-alley ZenMaid.

Stephanie: The dark web ZenMaid. Yes, oh my gosh. If we tell Amar that, he’s going to have that vibe coded in like 12 seconds.

The Contractor Model

Stephanie: So obviously you mentioned you guys are using contractors. So walk me through that. How are you finding them? What’s working, what’s not working? Because obviously some of our listeners go the contractor route, so I want to make sure we give them plenty of information on how to go about that.

Ryan: Yeah, we’re always hiring, as I think everybody that’s sane should be, because it’s a service-based business. So you have to always be hiring. We have Indeed posts and sponsored Indeed posts live all the time. And we’re quite literally doing screens and interviews for both locations pretty much weekly at this point. We still do a one-on-one interview. I think we do a group orientation.

We have to balance it right. In Florida, we’ve got, I think I mentioned, nine or ten contractors. And so that’s a good enough pool where we don’t have to scramble as much. We’re just really facing the availability issue. If all of our cleaners are booked and we need someone to clean or take on an appointment, that’s the issue. It’s not really a bandwidth constraint, more availability.

With Hot Springs, we’ve got two cleaners, and really it’s filling their calendars and their schedules. Right now we’re rock solid. We found our people. We’re going to keep hiring because we know stuff happens and people move on and take different jobs. But so far it’s worked for us.

We’ve talked about going the W-2 route, especially in Florida, because we’ve got enough appointments where we can justify it. But it feels stable. It feels like a lot of the stuff we want to focus on right now is not really making that leap. It’s making more operational improvements. We’ve been doing a lot of coding, custom apps to kind of do quoting and stuff. And obviously getting ZenMaid 100% where we want it to be for both locations. So we’re really focused on that side, and we’re going to keep doing the 1099 route until we have a reason not to.

Stephanie: So it’s interesting that you’re finding them on Indeed. Do you just put in that this is an independent contracting job, or how do you list it?

Ryan: Yeah, I don’t know the specifics. But we’re definitely calling out that it’s not a full-time job. You’re working for yourself as a contractor. So as much as Indeed will allow us to, but we do set those expectations on the front end. And obviously they have to have their own supplies, and we can’t dictate what they can and can’t use and all that stuff. So that’s difficult in its own. But it’s the trade-off with using individual contributors versus full-time.

Stephanie: It really reminds me of the conversations that I’ve had with Chris Schwab, because he does independent contractors very well. It’s a different vibe of a company, I would say. If you want it to be a bit more hands-off and people very independent — obviously with all the legal stipulations and stuff — but it feels simple to get it off the ground. Whereas W-2, you have the ability to have a really tight-knit culture, but there’s a lot more. It’s pros and cons to both.

So as long as you’re doing it legally — you guys all know how I feel — I’m a W-2 girly, always will be. But in these types of scenarios where you want the owner to be a bit more hands-off, maybe you don’t have the ability to do certain things, I think it’s not a bad idea, honestly.

Ryan: We had to have that conversation, and I’ll be honest, it’s something I kind of wrestled with because I’m a go-all-in kind of guy. I want the culture, I want the brand, I want the branded vehicles. I’m very much a brand and a marketing guy. That’s really been my trade.

But we had to have that conversation: what do we really want for this company? And I think long-term we do want those things. We want to have the culture and the community feel and everything. But it really comes down to the bandwidth of the owners. How can we be a good steward of what we have in the time that we have? And we both have other things going on. So we want to do that at some point, but we’re just not quite ready for that.

So we do talk about that. And again, it’s really fun to kind of talk about culture and vision and strategy. We talk about that almost weekly, and it does come up. I think there will be a day where we kind of switch. But it’s going to require more commitment from us as the owners.

So I think that’s probably what I see. And I’m curious what you see. Is it more people that are operating remotely that use ICs? What do you typically see the trends being?

Stephanie: Yeah, I think that if you’re going to operate remotely, the ICs are probably simpler, I would say. Though I do think that there is a revenue ceiling that you’re going to run into because of lack of culture. There’s nothing really gluing them together — loyalty obviously can happen. I think it’s just more difficult because they’re their own islands, if you will. So it attracts a certain type of people.

So I think it’s not bad to get started. And I also think that with Maria, especially as your co-owner, the beautiful thing is she has a ton of experience as an owner. I believe she’s had multiple businesses and some of them have been W-2. So she had a lot of know-how of, “Okay, which direction do we want to go here?” So that’s really nice too.

Ryan: Yeah, I really defer to her. I give my recommendations, but she’s done this before. She had her own cleaning business for, I think, fifteen-plus years. So I defer to her, and I think that she would probably prefer to have W-2s. But it’s really a time commitment with both of us. But like I said, I would love to do that one day. And I would love to have an office, which is controversial — some people think that might be a waste. But I very much think that culture is very important, and what better way to fuel it than being all together in person and giving your full energy towards it.

Stephanie: Yeah, I was up in Wisconsin just — whatever — two weeks ago. Last week? Time is meaningless right now to me. I don’t understand what day it is. But we had a baby shower for one of my cleaners on Monday, and that was so special and sweet. Those are the types of things that make me really happy that we went the W-2 route. Not saying you can’t throw a baby shower for anybody — a stranger, if you will. But in that instance, it just feels like we’re a team, you know? We really are. Yeah, I’m pleased with my choice.

But I also think where I’m from, finding people who are willing to get insurance — I think that would be very challenging. And I think you could run into a lot of issues potentially of them not wanting to pay for insurance, or saying that they do, and all of these things.

Ryan: Yeah, that is a common thing, especially here in Hot Springs. It’s probably a very similar market to Black River Falls. The same thing. A lot of these cleaners are operating already without insurance as individuals with their clients. And then they interview with us, and they’re like, “What is insurance?” They think it’s car insurance. They quite literally think it’s car insurance.

And I don’t blame them, because there’s no playbook for how to be a freelancer or a contractor or whatever it might be. But we’ve had to quite literally walk them through and give them recommendations: “No, this is not car insurance, and this is to protect you and to protect us. And we can’t hire you unless you have this. So if you’re not willing to get it, I’m sorry, but it’s just a non-negotiable for us.” So stuff like that you just don’t think of until you’re in the weeds. And again, I’m grateful I have Maria because she has had to do all this at scale.

Stephanie: It makes me think we should almost make a solo model playbook. Of like, if you’re going to be a solo, here is our suggestions on optimizing for that. Because you absolutely can optimize as a solo cleaner. And that may lead to you hiring and having a full-blown company with staff. There’s always things that can be done. One of our recent guests, Kai — they are a solo cleaner, but they’re optimizing their business in preparation for the long-term of wanting employees or staff or team, whatever frame we want to give it.

It’s not me wanting to bash those individual cleaners, but those are sometimes what we’re competing against. So being able to differentiate — they don’t have insurance, they don’t know these things. So when you’re going the IC model, it’s almost like you have to educate them. “Hey, this is onboarding. Here are some suggestions for insurance. Make it easier for them to onboard with you and have what they need.” Even suggested supplies — I don’t know how you go about that as an IC. I don’t know.

Ryan: Yeah, it’s tough, because that even fuels your marketing. You almost can’t claim to be eco-friendly or whatever, because it’s just a completely different business model. And again, I would love to have more control over those things, but we can’t. There’s things that we can’t control.

So yeah, I think just making it as easy as possible and educating them. And at some point they have to make the decision: “Do I want to go work with them and get more steady jobs and not have to market myself, or do I want to just do it myself and not have to worry about half of this stuff?” Like before-and-after pictures — they probably don’t care about those things in their own business, because they have had these clients, or it’s their neighbor, or who knows.

The Dream 100 and Marketing Through Brute Force

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s really interesting. So what you’re selling — for those who want to run the contractor model and be attractive to them, what you are selling to them is getting jobs so they just can show up and operate, right? So you have to be good at going and getting jobs, which obviously your background’s in marketing. I hope — you are the head of marketing, I would hope that you know a few things. So what types of things do you know that have applied well for the marketing side of things, Ryan? Do you know anything about marketing? I’m going to ask that first.

Ryan: I’ve been faking my way the last ten years, and I’m just waiting for somebody to find out.

Stephanie: I know. I’m calling it out right now. We’ll cut this part.

Ryan: It’s funny because I could probably joke with Amar and he would laugh. You know, it’s actually not a marketing tactic — it’s actually a thing that Alex Hormozi — we should definitely hard-pivot into talking about your Hormozi appearance, because I’m clearly a fan of his. Not that I have the books dangling right over my head.

Stephanie: Yeah, I’m literally on my desk right now. I got all my shit from the conference still.

Ryan: Marketing — that’s why I hired really good people, and they just make me look good. He talks about — it’s really the concept of the Dream 100. That’s from the Ultimate Sales Machine book. It’s the concept that when you start a company, the best thing you can do is be the champion and get your first 100 customers. And the best way to do that most of the time is just cold outreach, people you know, your network, or cold calling, being persistent with that 100.

That’s honestly what Amar did. I don’t know if people know this, but he did that a lot with ZenMaid in the early days. He was working a full-time job, and then early mornings before people were awake, he would just cold call people, cold email people. And that’s how we really got traction with ZenMaid. That’s how the mastermind got started.

I really love that approach because you’re kind of controlling who you get to be in front of. As we know, as business owners, we don’t always want to just work with everybody.

Stephanie: I’m so sorry — this is why the intro took so long. You were trying to destroy my drinking water.

Ryan: I was like, let me just cover it up because you said “network” and now it’s like “neck work.”

Stephanie: I swear I’m sober. This is insane. Oh my gosh, I cannot get it together.

Ryan: Okay, we’re going to get it together. So back to the Dream 100. The concept of — it’s actually not a marketing approach. You are just trying to brute-force your way into getting your first 100 customers. Which for a cleaning business, that sounds like a lot, right? But really the concept is, how can you get in front of the people you want to work with? Typically you just want to get traction with your business. You want to start getting revenue in so you can reinvest it into marketing, you can hire people, contractors, whatever.

That’s one of my favorite approaches for any business. I kind of did that with the marketing agency. I did that with Hot Springs Cleaning before I kind of merged. And those relationships are still true today. So I just love that approach. It’s not even really a marketing one. It’s one that Alex Hormozi calls out, but it’s an Ultimate Sales Machine reference. So that’s one of my favorites, and I’ll continue to die on that hill.

Stephanie: I agree. It’s funny, because I just had a consult on Tuesday where she’s solo right now and she’s looking to hire. She’s like, “I went to a BNI, they don’t have a cleaner yet because you can only have one of each type of business. Do you think I should join right now? I don’t have any availability for commercial, but it’s something in the future I want. ChatGPT told me to wait.”

And I’m like, “No, do not wait. Go start marketing now and networking now, because you don’t know what opportunities you’re going to miss because you’re not in that room talking to them. You don’t know what opportunities are coming down the pipeline.” Because every large opportunity for Serene Clean, I was not ready for, but I sure became ready because I wanted it. So you just figure it out. And if you can’t figure it out and you can’t take it, that’s fine. But I’d rather you be there and figure it out if you need to, or if you desire to.

Also, it tells you what kind of demand you have, or what you need to hire for. Because it’s that chicken-or-egg of, “Well, I don’t have any need to hire because I don’t have any leads coming in.” So one has to come before the other. Pick your poison.

The Power of Brand

Ryan: Yeah, it’s a momentum thing. That’s what you’re trying to get is momentum. It doesn’t matter if it works out or it doesn’t. You’re just giving yourself more opportunities to be lucky. That’s just how I operate in general. I’m just going to put myself out there. Even if it’s a bit embarrassing or cringy, if I believe in something, I’m going to go after it. It’s the same approach.

And another marketing thing I really believe in — honestly, I appreciate this more further in my career than I did earlier — I’m just a big brand guy now. Brand being like, how does your company make people feel? How do you talk in the office? What is your culture? What is your logo? What do you convey with your brand presence?

I shared this with Maria, but also Spencer, my other business partner, and probably a ton of people at ZenMaid, just for inspiration. I went to Bend, Oregon in February. I got to go ride snowmobiles and got to go up there and spend time with some friends. And I came across this company — they’re called Bigfoot Garage Doors. We’ll link to them. I think they’re a cool brand. I almost cold-emailed the owners just for fun.

For one, the Pacific Northwest — there’s rumors that Bigfoot is up there. But then also Bigfoot is potentially in the Carolinas and stuff. The play on that — their brand is bright yellow and black. Like, black and yellow, very bold, “Bigfoot.” And one of their marketing strategies, which I think this is what they do — so if I’m exposing their marketing strategies, sorry guys — I think they quite literally wrapped all of these vans, and I’m pretty sure they just parked them around downtown Bend. And they’re beautiful.

I’m like, what better marketing? They probably don’t have to spend a dollar on paid ads. They probably have an SEO presence, but I don’t even live in Bend, Oregon, and I remember these people. So I’ve grown to really appreciate brand. It’s something that we’re really thinking about at The Villages, but also with everything I do. I’m like, “How can we just invoke this and just be clever?” I really love AI, and I love automations and all that stuff, but I think we’ve gotten away from that as a craft.

Stephanie: Yeah, we’ve lost the plot, it feels like, where everything is just so AI-generated. I was just talking to Amar last week and I was kind of talking about, when it comes to the brand and vision and what do you want it to embody — and he was just like, “Human. I want ZenMaid to feel human, and that there are real people working there.” I was like, that’s the strength of the podcast. We can really highlight, we’re real people that exist and are silly little critters. So I love that.

When I was in Las Vegas — do I say “Las Vegas” weird? Everybody — it’s Vegas. You say Vegas? Vegas. I also say Oregon. Is that weird? Or — yeah, I also say bagel. Bagel. Yeah, sorry, Nicole, eat it. I say bagel. It’s not just me. Other Wisconsinites say this. Not that many. It’s still not normal. So I can make everybody upset about my pronunciation.

When I was in Vegas, I saw they were doing the Mummy promotion for a new Mummy, and they literally had a giant trailer — a huge trailer — and they had a sarcophagus mummy on the trailer, and they just drove around the strip. They just drove around the strip. I took a picture actually, because I was going to send it to you, and then I forgot because I was in Las Vegas. I was like, “I got to show Ryan this.” Because I’m like, “Yeah, that’s how you do it. Just drive around.”

Ryan: I just love those crafty brand plays, because AI can’t do that, right? AI is not going to create the trailer. I was at a marketing conference in Vermont — this was last summer. I got together with some team members. Kylin was there. Anyway, it was awesome because I saw another really great brand play.

Any of these industry events, they have sponsors, right? They have people that kind of help them put this together. Well, there was this company — they were not able to get on the list because there was another company that was already in that industry. So what they did is they rented an LED truck, and they basically paid for the entire conference for that LED truck to just drive around the event, park outside the event. I know the owners of the event and the organizers were mad about it, but it went completely viral. And this is like a LinkedIn virality, so it’s not the same, but that to me is brand.

I really try to embody that with a lot of stuff that we do, and it’s harder than it looks. But gosh, that’s something I do appreciate more as a marketer. So I think anybody listening — if you have not really thought about what your brand is, or if you just kind of halfway threw it together, that’s okay. You’ve got to get started. Branding is the logo and the colors, but it’s also all the other stuff we’re talking about.

I encourage you — if you’re in a good spot and you don’t know what your bottleneck is, go work on brand. Go think about what your mission is, what your vision is. Even though that stuff sounds cheesy, go focus on those things. And then just think of things that you can do to delight your customers. Like leave-behinds, or just unique stuff that you do. I think we’re just losing that in 2026 with all the AI nonsense. And again, I love AI. We’re very pro-AI here at ZenMaid. But you can’t replace Bigfoot Garage Door truck wraps.

Stephanie: No, it’s so true. I’m very passionate about branding as well. I think that’s one of my biggest strengths with Serene Clean. We have a super consistent, strong brand — being a local Wisconsin community business. It just smacks you across the face who we are, what we care about, what we believe in, what we do. That’s what it should be — when people come across you, it should be very consistent.

Even, you know how on brand we are, Ryan? We’re teal, the teal ZenMaid color right now. We’re both wearing it — that deeper color and the logo. Did you know that?

Ryan: No, I didn’t know that. I didn’t do this on purpose.

Stephanie: Hey Kylin, I need you to pop the logo in to show how we are so on-brand at all times.

You know what’s funny is that Serene Clean’s colors were chosen because of the colors that I myself look good in as a clear spring color palette season. So here’s the thing — it’s your business, guys. Pick the colors that you want to wear. I like blue and green, so therefore those are the Serene Clean colors.

Ryan: Smart. Just don’t choose like a — I mean, if you want to be neon yellow, like a highlighter, that’s fine. I’m not going to judge. But have some intentionality around why.

Meeting Alex Hormozi

Stephanie: Oh yeah. I’m really hungry right now. Can you tell I haven’t eaten all day? Maybe that’s why I can’t stop laughing. I’m just delirious. I had a fig bar and a bag of beans today.

Ryan: If you guys don’t know, Stephanie lives on beans. Like the chocolate beans?

Stephanie: No, they’re not chocolate beans. They’re called bada bean bada boom. Link in the comments, guys. I have them on Amazon Auto Ship, just boxes of beans. They’re crunchy broad beans, otherwise known as a fava bean. And they’re super delicious and I love them.

Ryan: I always thought they were chocolate beans.

Stephanie: No, no, they’re not chocolate beans. No, no, no. These are good for you. Good for you beans. So I don’t know. This is like an ADHD side effect. I’ve been just in the zone today, and then I get to — it’s 4:46 PM, and that’s all I’ve had to drink.

Ryan: Wait, we have to talk about two things before we go. One is Alex Hormozi. I know that you’ve got something coming out about that, but what was he like in person? I know you didn’t get to get that close, but is he —

Stephanie: Yeah, it was kind of crazy. Just seeing — I don’t know if he was tall, actually. I don’t know. As expected, very muscular, obviously. I mean, that’s like real. So yeah, just a presence I would say. But seems very chill and calm. Very calm. And just chill. Commanding the room, of course, because all of us are just like, “Holy shit.” That’s the whole reason we’re there. He has such a strong brand. He literally had us all paying $5,000 to be in a room with him. That’s a brand for you.

It was pretty crazy. And then obviously I didn’t realize until like 10 minutes prior that I was going to be talking to him myself. And so when I say I was shaking, my legs were literally shaking. It was insane. I was so nervous.

It’s been like this weird experience after — now that they just posted that clip and it hasn’t been super fun, I’m not going to lie. I literally couldn’t sleep the night that they posted, because all I could think about was how I could have said literally everything that I said differently. Just all of it. Hyper-analyzing every detail. Because I’ve never experienced something like this before. And then to be perceived by literally now millions of strangers and them arguing in the comments over everything I’m doing wrong, and they don’t know me — that’s really hard.

I’m not like “poor Stephanie,” right? Like, “poor fucking Stephanie.” I know, guys, I’m sorry. But it’s as if I’ve never experienced this before. So it’s quite unpleasant in a lot of ways. I didn’t expect that. And I know it’ll die down. This is literally happening right now in real time that we’re recording this. But yeah, so that was kind of crazy.

Ryan: Well, yeah, you’re — I hate to say it — but you’re probably still going to be getting comments three years from now, because he has such a big audience. The hype will die down. I’ve never been in that situation, so I don’t know what’s appropriate, but I think just being confident in yourself and how well it’s been received on this end. And also within your circle.

Stephanie: Yeah, but the people who know me, who know — even just our audience here — the ones who are responding well are the ones who understand that this 60-second clip cannot give context. Everybody being really aggressive about me not paying high enough without them knowing how much I pay. Or it’s just like, “Well, maybe if you didn’t pay minimum wage.” It’s like, I’ve never paid minimum wage. What are you talking about? You know what I mean? But that’s the type of comments — just really aggressive negativity when they have no idea about anything.

And it’s very hard to bite your tongue. I keep telling myself, “Stephanie, don’t go rolling in the mud with the pigs. Don’t comment. Do not comment.”

Ryan: Very tempting.

Stephanie: Yeah, it is tempting because you want to defend yourself. And honestly, it’s brought out a lot of feminism in me, for sure. My feminism is just screaming — a man would never get the response that I’m getting on there. It’s actually disgusting. So if you guys do see the comments, it’s disheartening to see, when people are like, “Oh, there’s no need for, you know, women have, blah, blah, blah, equal, whatever.” It’s like, go look at those comments.

Ryan: Yeah, I like to think that there’s good people in those comments. But it’s like people that leave reviews. The vast majority, unfortunately, are the people that were so fired up that they wanted to go out of their way to leave a review unless prompted. So don’t let it go to your head. I think it was great. Everybody else thought it was great. And what an opportunity to kind of get in front of somebody that we all look up to. By the way, I think if people don’t like Alex Hormozi, it’s because they haven’t listened to his stuff. He’s not going to be the right flavor for everybody, but I think he has such good frameworks. And like you said, he’s really calm and level-headed, but honestly, just being able to break through the noise and seeing the root of the problem. For you, he was immediately like, “This is your issue.”

Stephanie: This is your issue. And obviously I’m going to take some of it with a grain of salt — am I going to role play? Because they’re cleaners, right? We don’t necessarily need to role play things. But we do need to run through things multiple times.

I literally met with my trainer this morning in our ops meeting. We talked about — she watched that video, and she was like, “That really clicked for me — the immediate feedback. Because I was waiting until after they got done with the whole section of a room cleaning or something, and then I would be like, ‘Okay, this and this and this,’ instead of stopping it in real time.” So this is actual feedback that in real time we’re improving from that. So yeah, it is valuable.

And for everybody who’s like, “Oh, he’s a grifter, blah, blah, blah” — I mean, obviously we can all be bamboozled, but he has done what he said he’s done. The proof is in the pudding. The hours and hours, literally hundreds of hours of valuable business education that I’ve personally watched of his and taken and applied. It works. So if he’s a grifter, okay, cool. I’ve gotten value. So consider me grifted.

Ryan: I’ve never seen him do a Tai Lopez style, like, “I’m here in my garage with my Lamborghini.” In my mind, he’s completely different. I think it’s just because he wears tank tops and has the bulging muscles that people maybe judge him a little bit.

Celsius, Mexico City, and Brand Loyalty

Ryan: But we also have to talk about Celsius, because I have been trying to organize — I drink one a day. And I’m going to Mexico City, and I don’t think they have Celsius.

Stephanie: I don’t think so. There’s an empty can right here. No, I don’t think so.

Ryan: I don’t know what I’m going to do. I may have to bring the packs or smuggle some cans.

Stephanie: Ryan gets arrested for smuggling Celsius into another country. When are you going to Mexico City?

Ryan: I’m meeting up with Amar and some other members of the executive team. He’s already down there, but we’re going to have a little executive offsite. And thankfully it’s not like a Barcelona flight that’s 13 hours.

Stephanie: It’s got to be not that far for you, huh?

Ryan: I think it’s like six hours total flight time, which isn’t bad. But anyway, they don’t have Celsius, I don’t think. And then — I don’t know if you’ve heard of Grüns, the greens, the little gummies, the little supplements.

Stephanie: Yeah, you were talking about those, I think, in the marketing meeting today or something. And you like them?

Ryan: Yeah. Everybody has to go get those, and I’m not paid by them to say that. I just got them this week. I would love to get sponsored by them, but no, they’re amazing. It’s like eating gummy bears, but they have their greens. So I’m going to try to smuggle some of those.

Stephanie: They’re going to be like, “Those are drugs.”

Ryan: And then Chomps beef sticks. I’m going to smuggle some beef sticks so Amar can try some. I’ll post a video if I made it through with Grüns and Chomps.

Stephanie: From jail. Yeah, posting from jail. Live, go live stream. Mexican prison. Okay, well, any of our listeners who live in Mexico — let us know in the comments, is there Celsius? Please let us know, so Ryan can be prepared.

Ryan: Yeah. And if you’re in Mexico City, let me know what we should do.

Stephanie: Yeah, heck yeah. That’s awesome. How exciting. That’s super cool. But yeah, it’s been a crazy couple of weeks for you. You were just on vacation, now you’re back, then you’re leaving. Feels like that’s how my year’s going.

Ryan: That’s what I told the team. I was like, “Hey, I’m getting caught up this week, but I have four days, and then Friday I fly out.” So very thankful that when we have in-person ZenMaid stuff, we get a ton of stuff done. So there’ll be a lot of stuff that comes out of it. I’m excited. I just hate leaving my wife and kids, but they’ll do great. She’s very supportive. She’s like, “We’re going to be fine.” But three boys, three on one is a lot.

Stephanie: I know. I’m curious if we have any other all-boys parents listening — leave it in the comments. Or if you’re all girls — my manager has triplet daughters, but she has a son as well. So do we have any all-boy parents? Leave them in the comments. I can’t fucking talk. Leave them in the comments, guys. I’m wilting like a plant. You can literally see my energy. I’m just like, “Leave them in the comments.”

Ryan: Leave them in the comments. All right, we’ll go eat something. So you need to eat something first and then go feed the cat.

Stephanie: I’m going to go eat cat food at the cat shelter and then bring a cat home.

Ryan: Enjoy your beans.

Stephanie: Hit that subscribe, guys, because this quality content, you can’t get this nowhere else, so don’t you forget it. Hit like, hit the hype button as well. It’s good for small creators if you hype this video, that we can be found. Say nice things to Ryan, and we’ll see you in the mastermind too. See you on the next episode, guys. Bye-bye.