{"id":17447,"date":"2026-06-23T13:16:42","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T13:16:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/?p=17447"},"modified":"2026-06-23T13:16:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T13:16:48","slug":"why-ashley-my-longest-tenured-cleaner-has-never-quit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/why-ashley-my-longest-tenured-cleaner-has-never-quit\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Ashley, My Longest-Tenured Cleaner, Has Never Quit"},"content":{"rendered":"    <div class=\"zm-post-first-section mb-24\">\n        <div class=\"first-section-img-wrapper\">\n            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/themes\/zm-theme\/assets\/images\/first-section-img.png\" alt=\"first-section-img\" width=\"40px\">\n        <\/div>\n        <h3 class=\"zm-post-first-section-title mb-10 w-80 w-md-100\">Brought to you by expert maid service owners<\/h3>\n        <div class=\"zm-post-first-section-text-wrapper fs-16 mb-10\">\n            <div>\n                <i class=\"ph-bold ph-check text-primary\"><\/i>\n            <\/div>\n            <div>\n                <div class=\"zm-post-first-section-text\">\n                    <strong>\n                        Tips and advice shared here, have helped us grow our own maid services.\n                    <\/strong>\n                    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.\n                <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n        <div class=\"zm-post-first-section-text-wrapper fs-16 mb-10\">\n            <div>\n                <i class=\"ph-bold ph-check text-primary\"><\/i>\n            <\/div>\n            <div>\n                <div class=\"zm-post-first-section-text\">\n                    <strong>\n                        We partner with amazing leaders in the cleaning industry like Debbie Sardone,\n                    <\/strong>\n                    Angela Brown, Courtney Wisely and Chris Scwap and more, to provide you with the latest industry insights.\n                <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n        <div class=\"zm-post-first-section-text-wrapper fs-16 mb-10\">\n            <div>\n                <i class=\"ph-bold ph-check text-primary\"><\/i>\n            <\/div>\n            <div>\n                <div class=\"zm-post-first-section-text\">\n                    <strong>\n                        We\u2019ve built the easiest-to-use scheduling software, built specifically for maid service owners!\n                    <\/strong>\n                    <a class=\"text-primary2 text-decoration-underline\" href=\"https:\/\/zenmaid.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Check out ZenMaid<\/a>\n                <\/div>\n            <\/div>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/div>\n    \n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Listen on: <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/150-why-ashley-my-longest-tenured-cleaner-has-never-quit\/id1791590022?i=1000773873354\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/4tbLy5k9fQqFnasGMo8zRk?si=b6d37f3525b64cf7\">Spotify<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1LIxaazLbbM\">YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-spotify wp-block-embed-spotify wp-embed-aspect-21-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Spotify Embed: #150: Why Ashley, My Longest-Tenured Cleaner, Has Never Quit\" style=\"border-radius: 12px\" width=\"100%\" height=\"152\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/episode\/38RoNHP783yazVrkXV1p0x?si=98a2a63603344b2a&amp;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-1\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Introduction<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and today&#8217;s special episode is in person with my fabulous cleaning technician and friend, Ashley Seekamp. Ashley has worked for me since literally the first couple months of me opening Serene Clean, so I thought it would be a wonderful conversation to have, to share her perspective. I really respect Ash&#8217;s opinions, and she has been there literally, like I said, from the beginning when it was a fucking shit show. Sink or swim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yes, very much sink or swim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;We threw her in with the sharks, wolves, whatever carnivorous animal you wanna choose, and she has absolutely shined and excelled. So I think it&#8217;s gonna be incredible to hear not only your perspective, but your story, Ash, because you are a very impressive woman overall, and inspired me, so thank you for agreeing to be on this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;m glad to be there. Yeah, thank you for having me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;So tell our listeners \u2014 now, just so you know, the listeners of Filthy Rich Cleaners are cleaning business owners, or people who wanna open a cleaning business. So from that perspective, over this conversation I really want to hear, as a long-term staff member, just your thoughts, opinions, why you&#8217;ve stayed, what it&#8217;s evolved like over time, et cetera. But first and foremost, I want you to tell the listeners about yourself. What do you do, what did you do before? &#8216;Cause you do a lot of things, not just for me at Serene Clean, but just in general \u2014 you are one of the busiest people I&#8217;ve ever met in my life. So talk about what you were doing before Serene Clean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-2\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Ashley&#8217;s Background<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, so before Serene Clean, I was actually a stay-at-home mom and produce farmer. Me and my husband operated a produce farm \u2014 we had 14 acres in operation, a 50-member CSA, baked during the wintertime, things like that. Then my youngest went to school full-time and I decided to go out into corporate America again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My first experience with corporate America \u2014 because mostly I&#8217;d worked for my parents, they each had their own businesses, or I grew up on a farm \u2014 it wasn&#8217;t as lenient as I thought it was. That&#8217;s why I became a stay-at-home mom, so I could raise my babies and have that interaction with them. And then obviously the summer hit, &#8217;cause the first winter was like, ooh, this is awesome, and then the first summer it was like, I have to find something to do. So growing produce and going to farmer&#8217;s markets three days a week was something that I could do with my children. I could feed them right then and there, I could take them with me, they&#8217;d have that exposure, &#8217;cause I was exposed to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Like Stephanie said, I was pretty early on. I thought cleaning was great. When I was younger, I did cleaning hotels, really loved that, pretty meticulous on that. Grew up in fast food, so cleaning-wise \u2014 anyhoo. But yeah, needed a spot to start planting roots down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;So do you remember what attracted you to come with us? Obviously, I believe you interviewed with me \u2014 it&#8217;s been so long ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, it was the day after Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Okay, yeah, clearly you remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, it was the day after Thanksgiving, and I started that next Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, &#8217;cause we were probably \u2014 I mean, Ashley was one of my first 10 hires ever. So when I say just experiencing chaos was absolutely what was happening \u2014 I was still working full-time at my parents, or maybe it was like four days a week, but very little availability on my end, and I was just very much like, okay, whenever you can start, let&#8217;s go. I definitely remember you just standing out, very professional-seeming, you know? Until we got to know each other. And then it&#8217;s like, oh, Ashley&#8217;s different than I thought, actually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Exactly, exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;And so I just remember you being very competent from day one of just catching on, that type of thing. What was it like, if you remember those first couple months, or first six months? &#8216;Cause obviously the business was brand new. Did that make you nervous at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I wasn&#8217;t nervous. I think it was just \u2014 I didn&#8217;t realize how much we were just learning and growing together. I don&#8217;t know. I was good at faking it, like, basically, like, we&#8217;ve got it together. I wouldn&#8217;t have \u2014 no, if I wouldn&#8217;t believe in you, or your strength, you know, I can see it, I can smell it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, yeah, &#8217;cause obviously I was 23 at that time. So honestly, that is something I have experienced \u2014 hiring people that were older than me, that was definitely a drawback. People \u2014 I got some, I guess, I don&#8217;t wanna call it prejudice, but people were like, nah, I don&#8217;t take you seriously because of your age. Do you remember anything along those lines?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;You came off really strong \u2014 not strong as in a negative, but confident. Not necessarily fake it &#8217;til you make it, but you almost have to have that. And I think I see myself in you a little bit, too, where it&#8217;s like, I was young when I started a new business, and I come from a background of really strong women that just like, we&#8217;ll figure this out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, go-getters recognize go-getters kind of thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Right, right. And that&#8217;s why I stayed. It wasn&#8217;t because, oh, this thing is gonna be huge one day. It was just, this works for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;This works for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I can be solo independent, and just roll with it, and we were learning together. I don&#8217;t ever remember going, oh my gosh, this train is gonna go off the tracks, what are we doing? I was built for chaos. I knew what it was to build something from the ground up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-3\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Adapting to Change<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;And to be very good at adjusting as things fly. That&#8217;s definitely \u2014 when I look at the people who have lasted and who excel at this, it&#8217;s the ability to transition very quickly and adjust very quickly, because things need to change. Even to this day, schedule changes, shit changes. So you have to be able to adapt, for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;That was a little difficult, &#8217;cause I&#8217;m a Virgo, so there&#8217;s a lot of things where it&#8217;s that consistency. But there is also that change in schedule kinda gets you out of that rhythm of \u2014 makes the day kinda go faster, too. So yeah, you just kinda have to roll with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, and at this point, you have such a regular clientele list. You&#8217;re going to these regular clients, you&#8217;re pretty much booked up, so it&#8217;s nice and routine at that point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;But it&#8217;s fun going different places, &#8217;cause it&#8217;s like, ooh, something new today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, something dirty, actually dirty, right? Like first times are actually gonna be dirty cleans. I mean, they can be dirty, but for people who like cleaning, I personally find first times incredibly satisfying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, I agree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-4\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Growing Pains and Structure<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;So obviously, you started before we had anything really in place. So from your perspective as a staff member when we were changing and implementing new things, do you remember any particular growing pains or situations where you&#8217;re like, oh, this is a big change, that type of stuff?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, obviously, since I was hired \u2014 so, April \u2014 everybody in the office was actually cleaning. So it&#8217;s that transition of like, Stephanie&#8217;s not the person I go to anymore, Stephanie&#8217;s not my cheerleader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, it&#8217;s different, &#8217;cause you and I were cleaning together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;So getting used to the dynamics \u2014 like who to reach out to for scheduling, who to reach out to for the billing department, like every single need. So there was a little bit with that. It&#8217;s like, oh, shoot, I reached out to Crystal for this, I don&#8217;t need to reach out to Crystal for that, I should reach out to somebody else. So that was the learning curve. We got corporate. There&#8217;s structure, there needs to be structure, and I knew that going into it, but every change for humans is hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;No, absolutely, and I think that&#8217;s a really good thing \u2014 the growing pain. It&#8217;s good to highlight that as you guys and your businesses start to adjust and add more structure in place, you need to be patient and explain what this is, because your cleaning techs have to be able to understand what&#8217;s expected. And also, you might have to say something multiple times, you might have to explain things. Same with, for example, today we introduced a new product to our kit, which we do not do very often. We don&#8217;t expect everybody to immediately know exactly \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Ooh, this&#8217;ll be fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, exactly, so it will be fun to get a new product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;m so excited, a new product. It&#8217;s rough at first, and then you&#8217;re like, oh, I really like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yes, exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;At least that&#8217;s what my brain does, but I just like, okay, give it some change, give it some time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, for sure. That structure was kind of the roughest part, making sure who to go reach out to, &#8217;cause you&#8217;re so used to the free-for-all of it. You&#8217;re cleaning next to &#8217;em, and then the next day it&#8217;s like \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, it is an adjustment. And then also making sure that you&#8217;re respecting them, too, because they&#8217;re in this role now. So making sure you know where you&#8217;re at on the team, too, and everybody&#8217;s role. And explaining it was helpful. Like, hey, you can&#8217;t reach out to me here \u2014 and not getting butt-hurt about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, no, 100%. And we even ran into that now \u2014 we just ran into that last week, where we provide our cell phone numbers, but it&#8217;s like, no, don&#8217;t text us, don&#8217;t call. That&#8217;s what Slack is for, you know? And there&#8217;s such a reason for it. Like, okay, if one of the managers is off \u2014 this literally happened last week \u2014 somebody, a newer person, reached out to a manager who happened to be off that day, so they didn&#8217;t get an answer. We&#8217;re trying to get you guys the answer quickly. So explaining boundaries in, like, the most loving way possible. Like, nope, this is where you&#8217;re supposed to reach out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s separating work and personal time. And I knew that part. I had that with my own business, where I&#8217;d catch myself answering on odd times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, and then you&#8217;re teaching them to walk. Not necessarily walk all over you, but your energy is going towards that, versus bringing it back and getting to them, like, how urgent is it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Is anything burning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yes, and that&#8217;s truly how you have to look at it. And honestly, for me, as the owner, it was very much like, I would answer customers and stuff all the time, too, and then I had to put that in place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;At first, you have to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, and that&#8217;s the thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;We needed to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, so anybody who&#8217;s just starting out, like, yes, I would suggest answer at all times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;She&#8217;s gonna have seven hats on her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yes. And then now it&#8217;s like, okay, we have auto-responders that say, hey, it&#8217;s the weekend, we don&#8217;t watch this, you can expect a response on Monday. And I really just \u2014 not saying you can&#8217;t have responsiveness all the time, but that&#8217;s just what&#8217;s worked for us to have that balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-5\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Was This a Long-Term Career?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Okay, so I wanna ask some questions, because I wanna make sure I \u2014 and I always ask questions while I \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Squirrels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, so that I&#8217;m \u2014 I wanna be very specific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Two squirrels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;In this particular conversation. So did you think this would be a long-term career when you started? Or did you think about it at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I had no expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;You&#8217;re like, this is what works for me right now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, I mean, getting back into corporate America, I didn&#8217;t wanna put any expectations on myself, I didn&#8217;t wanna put any expectations on a place. What really drove me to it was, yeah, you starting up a new thing where it&#8217;s like, okay, cool, being part of a company that&#8217;s at the bottom \u2014 you get to feed the culture, you get to feed little ideas here or there. But I had no expectation. I really didn&#8217;t wanna go back into factory work, or fast food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Which in our town, that&#8217;s all you have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;That&#8217;s all you have, yeah, so that&#8217;s what we were. So that was another thing \u2014 well, this is flexible, I get to pick and choose my hours, how much I wanna work. That was the best part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-6\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why She Stayed<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;You&#8217;ve seen a lot of people come and go over the years. Why have you stayed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I stayed for the flexibility and the other things \u2014 you&#8217;ve incorporated so many other great things now. It&#8217;s like, I never really thought I&#8217;d have a 401k. The flexibility is just huge. And just being able to go into a home and know that I&#8217;m the only one there to be held accountable for it. I think that&#8217;s the biggest thing. In other places that I&#8217;ve worked in corporate America \u2014 obviously, we&#8217;re all judged when we work on a team, we all have to check our work and make sure everybody&#8217;s following everything, I get that part \u2014 but there&#8217;d be some instances where management wouldn&#8217;t back up whatever you were saying. So I know that&#8217;s the reason why I&#8217;ve stayed, because they were always backing me up. If I seen something, say something, and I&#8217;ve always been supported that way. So I think that is definitely another reason why I would stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;So this is interesting, and a lot of people run teams \u2014 so you like being a solo cleaner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;What is it that you like about it, other than the accountability of it&#8217;s my work? What else do you like about it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, I&#8217;m solo responsible for it. So obviously, we check each other&#8217;s work, but I know that when I do it, it&#8217;ll be done correctly. But when we work in a team, everybody knows the standards of Serene Clean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;And I always find it&#8217;s a treat then to work on a team. It&#8217;s not like you work with them enough to get annoyed with them, you know what I mean? Sometimes that&#8217;s where a conflict can happen, is when you&#8217;re working in close quarters with the same people every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;So I like that you&#8217;re just not regularly working with anybody in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;m self-driven already. I think that&#8217;s when you were doing those little interviews and that phase, like, what would be great, who would be good for a cleaner? You have to be self-motivated. You can choose what you&#8217;re gonna do in that moment and go for it. If it was the wrong thing and it comes back, where management&#8217;s like, no, we probably could&#8217;ve did something different \u2014 cool, learn from it. It doesn&#8217;t really affect your self-worth. So just learning and growing that way, thinking of myself as a professional in this situation: what would I do? And I hope that little independence of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-7\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Standards and Accountability<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s interesting that when I asked, &#8220;Why have you stayed?&#8221; you didn&#8217;t mention money at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;m not motivated by money, that&#8217;s bad. I need to. But I know what money does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;This is fascinating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, it&#8217;s a tool, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s a tool. But you&#8217;re saying, even if we paid you twice as much \u2014 which we can&#8217;t, &#8217;cause that doesn&#8217;t make sense in the numbers \u2014 but say we could, or just take that out of it. Let&#8217;s say that you were paid twice what you are now, but it was a shitty situation. You&#8217;re saying that wouldn&#8217;t be enough to keep you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Okay, that&#8217;s really interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Safety, freedom, just these core human needs that you need, and support, would be huge. Because I found that in a lot of other places the support is not there. They&#8217;re wishy-washy. You hold standards \u2014 these are standards that we all abide by.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;What do you mean by that? Can you give me some examples of wishy-washiness? Or how do you feel that we&#8217;re not that way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Because there&#8217;s no \u2014 I don&#8217;t know, there&#8217;s no elite. We&#8217;re steadfast and this is what it is, and you like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, you don&#8217;t need it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;You can&#8217;t stay. Or if you don&#8217;t wanna learn and grow, then you don&#8217;t stay. You&#8217;re not keeping people for hot bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;We love hot bodies, we keep showing up. But you can only produce so much with a hot body. So it&#8217;s like you&#8217;re not just hiring to \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, to fill the spot. And just be okay with whatever work they produce. Mediocre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Because that&#8217;s a reflection on, if we do work on a team \u2014 and I&#8217;m willing to help and teach any new one that comes on, but you can&#8217;t teach the independence of owning your work and the \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Responsibility, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;There&#8217;s a bigger honor in it, honoring your work, the work that you put into something. Like, leave it better than you found it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;I really love that, because what this is highlighting is why it is so important that we do not just allow people to get away with things in our company, because then the really good people see that. And if you see us being permissive on things like quality, standard, integrity, how we do things here \u2014 even though in the moment it&#8217;s hard to be disciplined and hold people accountable \u2014 what you&#8217;re seeing then is us doing that time and time again, and that makes you feel safe, I would imagine. Like, oh, they&#8217;re gonna take care of things. If something&#8217;s wrong, they&#8217;re gonna take care of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Right, &#8217;cause I don&#8217;t wanna feel like I&#8217;m doing the best of my ability and then somebody else gets a little touchy slap on the wrist. And it&#8217;s not the tit for tat. I don&#8217;t wanna be like that, but if you&#8217;re gonna be excellent, if you&#8217;re gonna have good people, they have to realize that the standards are across the board and everybody holds themselves to those standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;I mean, obviously we have bad days or stuff happens, but you&#8217;ve had to make some really hard decisions that I&#8217;ve seen that I was like, damn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-8\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Hard Decision: Letting Someone Go<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, I&#8217;d love to talk about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;ve shared on the podcast, obviously, last year when we had to let a long-term staff member go, and I remember your reaction. I mean, you burst into tears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Instantly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Can you talk me through that if you&#8217;re comfortable?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;And this is something I also wanna ask you, too, because when we have to make those decisions, I shared that with you guys \u2014 the reasoning, what happened. It wasn&#8217;t in a shit-talking way, but in my opinion I was like, you guys need to know. And it&#8217;s not just this person&#8217;s gone, was here one day and gone the next, and you guys don&#8217;t know it. I think it&#8217;s important. That&#8217;s one of my things \u2014 transparency is definitely my style. So I&#8217;d love to hear from your perspective. Take me back to that day, take me back to that meeting, how you felt after it. And actually, you even shared with us after the fact that you heard around town that this news got out, what had happened. And actually, that validated me so much when you shared. So yeah, talk me through that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;That just goes back into how you hold yourself as an employee, as a person out in the community, making those hard decisions. They&#8217;re not easy, especially when you love somebody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yep. And we love this person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;That&#8217;s \u2014 I will easily say that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;We really cared about this person, and that&#8217;s what made it even worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s so hard, it was so hard. It&#8217;s like, no, I don&#8217;t wanna have to do this, but I have to. I was crying \u2014 it was because I was shocked. Complete shock. A couple stages of grief real quick. Shock and utter, like, no way. Out of character, nothing you have seen over these past years that would even initiate that. And it&#8217;s just \u2014 people be peoplin&#8217;. And don&#8217;t take it personal, it&#8217;s just a way to do business, is making sure that integrity comes first. And those are the things that your good employees are gonna see. Making sure that you do have a backbone, but you are so kind. But you can be kind and still have a backbone, and knowing what your standards are. And for you to make that decision, especially \u2014 if you get asked about something, and you make up a lie, and there&#8217;s already evidence of that, and you deny it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, where do you go from there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Come be honest and be like, hey, actually I lied. I would rather have you say, hey, actually, no, I lied about this, because I felt like this, this, and this. That would be more honorable. And just making sure \u2014 &#8217;cause no lie is gonna try to get you out of anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, and I really wanna highlight here, even the words that Ashley&#8217;s using \u2014 like honor, integrity, respect, doing the right thing. This is what you&#8217;re looking for in team members, and this is why you&#8217;ve lasted so long, is because of core values. Ashley&#8217;s a great cleaner. She absolutely is. But the more important thing is she&#8217;s a great person. And she has these very strong morals, and she aligns with us on those morals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And so let&#8217;s reverse it, and say that that did not happen, and you heard word on the street. &#8216;Cause to give you guys context, basically later that week, Ashley was \u2014 what, playing bingo? I think you were playing bingo or something. And a person she did not know came up, &#8217;cause she was wearing her Serene Clean shirt, and said, &#8220;Hey, I heard so-and-so got fired for stealing there.&#8221; And so here is somebody in our town. We don&#8217;t know them. Nothing. They heard about this, and that this person got fired for it. So could you imagine if that person came up and said, &#8220;Hey, I heard one of the employees got caught stealing, but did not get fired.&#8221; Like, what would that have been like for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;That would have been awful. Bad word goes around faster than good. So just be patient on the good, make sure \u2014 &#8217;cause that travels fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;That traveled so fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;And I was just \u2014 I sat there with my jaw open, like, okay, so back to bingo. Because, you know, just because somebody gives you something doesn&#8217;t mean you have to make it your own story. Anyhoo. So yeah, if people are seeing it, saying it, and you&#8217;re not \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Doing the thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;And then our customers, our clients would have heard it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;So then you&#8217;re bringing people into the homes that are not trustworthy when the word on the street is already \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, yep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s such a big deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;That&#8217;s the biggest one, because you cannot have somebody in your home who&#8217;s already been caught in a situation like that. Even if she would have come to the truth, you still couldn&#8217;t keep her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, and that was the hard part when she finally did, you know, beg for forgiveness kind of thing. The lying, but then it&#8217;s just like, even if she did fess up, I still would have had to fire her, because that&#8217;s the one thing. The one thing we cannot do in this industry, in this business, is permit any type of theft. &#8216;Cause that&#8217;s our name, that&#8217;s our reputation. It&#8217;s just a non-negotiable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Non-negotiable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;And luckily, we&#8217;ve had so few instances of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, that was odd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Very. That was crazy, and that&#8217;s why it hit us so hard. Like, oh my gosh, we&#8217;ve been lucky that we haven&#8217;t had to deal with that very much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-9\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Spotting Who Will Stick Around<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;d love to hear \u2014 obviously, you&#8217;ve seen at this point hundreds of staff members come through these doors. What are your opinions on that? And I&#8217;d love to hear other traits that you see in new staff that maybe you&#8217;re like, they&#8217;re not gonna work. Because you used to train quite a bit before Hannah got the training role, and still sometimes you&#8217;re with new people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, I was with last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;You&#8217;re with new folks, so I&#8217;d love to hear your perspective, because you&#8217;ve got the eye of, like, what do you think makes somebody who&#8217;s gonna stick around versus not stick around?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;That is so hard, because some of the ones that I think are gonna stick around don&#8217;t. The ones I hope do, don&#8217;t. The ones I&#8217;m like, oh, I love her personality. So that&#8217;s just a hard one. I don&#8217;t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, it&#8217;s hard to \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;You&#8217;d like to say that you can pinpoint that. You&#8217;re like, oh, yeah. And sometimes it is obvious, if they&#8217;re not picking up stuff or whatever. That&#8217;s hard to say, even too. Because a lot of girls that come here, or guys, they&#8217;ve never learned how to mop. They&#8217;ve never learned how to clean something \u2014 we always say, like, properly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, but professionally, exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;A brush, professionally. Nobody cleans their baseboards at home, like, what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;That&#8217;s why they hire us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;So just think of them as a clean slate. But you can&#8217;t train attitude. You can&#8217;t train just that positive outlook of, hey, it&#8217;s gonna go good. Today&#8217;s gonna work out. Or if you run into a problem, like, I&#8217;ve got it figured out \u2014 I don&#8217;t know, reach out if you need help with it. I can&#8217;t pinpoint what everybody stays for. It&#8217;s been so interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, no, for sure, I totally agree. And sometimes it is obvious, other times we look back and we&#8217;re just like, everything seemed right. And it&#8217;s interesting that you used the word personality, because you are very extroverted, just like I am. We are very personable people. We&#8217;re loud, we&#8217;re boisterous, that&#8217;s our personality. And so when we meet other people like that, we&#8217;re attracted to it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, I&#8217;ve trained myself out of that, knowing somebody who is stoic, they just take a little bit to open up. So I don&#8217;t judge it all at once. I just neutralize it. Cool, let&#8217;s just see if they&#8217;re \u2014 maybe they are having a bad day, or maybe that&#8217;s just the way they are. And gosh, every girl in this world has always been trained to be smiley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, you make more money if you smile and you&#8217;ve got \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Beautiful hair. Even though I&#8217;m not money motivated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;That&#8217;s why I haven&#8217;t \u2014 no, I&#8217;m just kidding. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m not a billionaire by now. You gotta smile more, Ash, that&#8217;s the secret.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;No, I smile. It&#8217;s the not looking like a lurch coming off the farm. But yeah, making sure that I know that if I meet somebody who&#8217;s not like that \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;You&#8217;re not judging them negatively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;m not judging that part.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, or judging everybody opposite positively. &#8216;Cause that&#8217;s been my problem, or I&#8217;ve had to overcome that problem of \u2014 I am attracted to other extroverted people, so therefore I think that they&#8217;re going to be a good person, where it&#8217;s like, it has nothing to do with that. When I look at some of our longest-term staff members, they&#8217;re very reserved. Quiet, keep to themselves, and they&#8217;re awesome. So that is not an indicator at all that they&#8217;re gonna be good at this job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s something fun for me to crack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Let&#8217;s see if we get &#8217;em. Get to know &#8217;em.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;And opposites attract, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s like, I love working with the more stoics, &#8217;cause it is fun to get them more curious and to open up a little bit. But I think, not necessarily personality, a little bit the mindset too. Like, this is figureoutable. I don&#8217;t really enjoy hearing the victim mindsets, like, oh, I had a bad morning this morning. Well, yeah, I know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;We all do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;We all do. But we don&#8217;t bring that to work. You almost have to \u2014 I don&#8217;t want you to shut it off, but I just want you to say, okay, be able to still do what you need to do. We need to be able to do this. Even some of the EMS or police department, I don&#8217;t know how they could shut off some of that stuff. But there is some of it where you have to keep it at home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Compartmentalization, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Nobody wants to hear about something. I mean, they do, but pick and choose your crowd. I don&#8217;t think you wanna fake it all the time, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-10\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Boundaries with Clients<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, having that discernment \u2014 because we&#8217;ve had that happen, too, where staff members will vent to clients about what&#8217;s going on in their life. And it&#8217;s like, that&#8217;s really not appropriate, because \u2014 and it&#8217;s not because it&#8217;s wrong, it&#8217;s more so they&#8217;re hiring us, not for them to do emotional labor for us. You know what I mean? They&#8217;re not our therapist. If anything, they can vent to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;They do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;You know what I mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;They do, they do. They&#8217;ll sit down, have coffee with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Exactly. So it&#8217;s not like, don&#8217;t connect with them, but it&#8217;s like having discernment of knowing when and where to share what, and not just explode and word vomit on somebody, on your coworker, on that type of thing. So I try to keep in mind, like, as managers, that at times is our role. We need to know what&#8217;s going on with you guys. We need you to know that we are there for you. But like I said, for your coworkers and for your clients, well, you can&#8217;t really do that to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Otherwise it&#8217;s enmeshment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I don&#8217;t want to get therapy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, if we want to get therapy, so we could just enmesh it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s just enmeshment. So just separating yourself from that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;But yeah, I want you to show up and have a good attitude, a smile, even if you&#8217;re not extroverted like me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;You have to be a little bit personable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, of course. You can&#8217;t walk into a home and \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Be cold, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Hey, like Eeyore or something. I don&#8217;t even know if you guys would hire Eeyore, but \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, no. I mean, you never know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, and one of \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Are we gonna start giving personality tests?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, one of our core values is a positive and grateful attitude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;We have to start having classes on how to be positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, but we just literally hire for that. If somebody seems like \u2014 that&#8217;s gonna filter them out, if they just seem pissed off all the time. I&#8217;ve even had, in interviews, people be like, oh, so I have to be happy all the time? And it&#8217;s like, no, that&#8217;s not what we&#8217;re saying. We don&#8217;t want an ice queen. It&#8217;s more like, do you have a generally positive outlook? And it really is \u2014 I hate to use the phrase, but a can-do attitude, or like a get-&#8216;er-done attitude of, I&#8217;m gonna show up and get it done. And I would say, again, looking at our top staff, that&#8217;s exactly \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;They&#8217;re just quiet and fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;They get &#8216;er done, they show up, they do the thing, and in general have a positive outlook. And also just on the work that we do \u2014 we know we&#8217;re helping people, so if you can&#8217;t get that enjoyment out of it, it&#8217;s probably not gonna last long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I think maybe that&#8217;s another reason why I stayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, you get a lot \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Because you get the reward from the fulfillment of helping others. If you need something, it&#8217;s always better to reach out and give it. Because if you&#8217;re not getting it \u2014 not necessarily giving from an empty cup, but it&#8217;s that fulfillment of helping, making lives better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, well, that&#8217;s why one of the quotes we have is like, &#8220;The best way to lose yourself is to find yourself in the service of others.&#8221; I feel like a big ethos around here is we pour ourselves into giving because it makes you a better person, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s a ripple effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;No, 100%, 100%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-11\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Guest Applications<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Quick little break here. If you have ever been listening to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast and thought, &#8220;Oh my gosh, Stephanie would die at this story&#8221; \u2014 well, guess what, guys? I wanna hear that story, okay? We are looking for guest applications for the show. And I know many of you have never been on a podcast before, but those are my favorite episodes, to be frank \u2014 the owners who are just here to share their story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So if you are an owner who wants to share their story, or perhaps you would like to have a free consulting call with me and ask me your questions live for everybody else to learn from, that is also an option. And then finally, if you know somebody in our industry \u2014 you have a friend or somebody that you look up to and have learned from, who you think would be a great guest option for us \u2014 please go to the link down in the bio and we would love to see you apply or nominate them, and we will take it from there. And I would love to have a conversation with you and get to know you more closely. Back to the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-12\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Appreciation and Check-Ins<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Let&#8217;s talk about appreciation. Obviously, that&#8217;s a huge part of our management style, and that&#8217;s very intentional with the affirmation, both publicly and internally into the business. So what do you like about that? What ways could we improve that? Does that affect you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, I think you should be appreciated everywhere you go. In other businesses that I&#8217;ve been, or corporate, I would say, you&#8217;re just a number. And I&#8217;ve been saying that for how many years? You&#8217;re just a number, you&#8217;re just a number. So just reassuring me \u2014 thank you, I see you, I appreciate you. That appreciation has been great, because I feel like a lot of people work a job and they don&#8217;t feel fulfilled in the other ways. People are different. Some people like words of affirmation, it&#8217;s just their style. So words of appreciation, especially for women, is huge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You guys are great at it. I&#8217;m excited about the boards, Monday meetings. Those are those little things that you give the appreciation to. Now you&#8217;re starting to do shout-outs \u2014 huge. Oh, another thing \u2014 Stephanie would call me after a clean. Or I had to call you, I can&#8217;t remember. But just being able to talk to her through what we went through that day, what challenges we had. And that was a big one. Now I didn&#8217;t have that, when we were growing so big, Stephanie wasn&#8217;t able to call me. Just that reassurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Checking in, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;By checking in. Those have been huge ones lately, too. It&#8217;s that reassurance. Like, hey, Ashley, this is not a big deal, chill out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, okay. Or just kind of be the North Star of, okay, you&#8217;re doing good. Reassurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;And some people believe it&#8217;s like, oh, they&#8217;re just doing their job, they shouldn&#8217;t have to get that. But we all like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, we all like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;That&#8217;s so ew. That&#8217;s so unhuman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, and especially if we&#8217;re being noticed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Then go work in a factory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, exactly. This is a people-people business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;People-people on all sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-13\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Challenging Situations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Talk me through some of the challenging \u2014 either cleans or coworking situations, if you can recall any. I mean, it&#8217;s been seven years, so there&#8217;s been situations. If any of them come to mind, like, this was a really negative experience with a client or anything. You can say whatever you want here. Just don&#8217;t use employee or customer names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, I think the biggest one for me was when I had a coworker have somebody in their vehicle when we all showed up to work. I walked by the vehicle and noticed that somebody was in there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Meaning at the job site?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Mm-hmm. And I didn&#8217;t know if maybe it was their child or something. So I asked the employee, I was like, hey, you know \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Who is this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Who is this? Because this is a safety concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Obviously, when a client shows up, you don&#8217;t need to have people that aren&#8217;t \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, at the job site. Safety concerns, liability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Customers want to know who&#8217;s gonna \u2014 who randomly \u2014 like, you can&#8217;t just bring any who&#8217;s. That&#8217;s why we&#8217;re in the daycare room. There&#8217;s ways to \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;So I asked the employee about the situation, and come to find out it was somebody that they had brought with them who couldn&#8217;t be alone in their situation. I said, well, you will either have to find somewhere to go, and then reach out to management. Otherwise, if that&#8217;s not something you wanna do, I&#8217;ll be reaching out to management and letting them know the situation. So that&#8217;s a hard place to be in when you are an employee, it is hard. But I feel like that would compromise all of our values as a company. Client compromise \u2014 I don&#8217;t know who it is. Is it your drunk boyfriend in the back seat? Is he gonna get sober and then come in the house and murder us? I don&#8217;t know. No, I&#8217;m just kidding. But you have to think that way. There&#8217;s all these different scenarios where it was just not safe either way. And I was just calm, collected, no drama, just blunt to the point. It&#8217;s like, well, you&#8217;ll have to reach out to management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;And so that&#8217;s what integrity is, right? What would you do in that situation where it kind of puts all of us into a situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Mm-hmm, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah. I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s other scenarios \u2014 have you ever had a bad client experience where \u2014 if I do remember one, I think this was you, where the client was asking you to get, like, soda out of the fridge for them or something. Do you remember? They were sitting on the couch and kind of \u2014 so what happened was, if I remember right, you were at a client&#8217;s house and they were kind of asking you to be like a server to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, can you reach and go grab me a soda? And I was kind of like, okay, sure. Those little things \u2014 I&#8217;m a mom too and I&#8217;m a caring person. So some of those things, but just making sure that boundary doesn&#8217;t get kind of blurry. I don&#8217;t mind you getting a soda, but I thought it was a funny request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, I just remember you bringing it up, because it was such a good example of, it is a slippery slope of, where is this line of what we do and don&#8217;t do? And of course that&#8217;s a minor thing. You can get a soda for somebody, for sure. But I remember it so viscerally \u2014 okay, we need to protect our staff from having that line get crossed repeatedly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Somebody else would just probably \u2014 I don&#8217;t know. I&#8217;m just happy I brought it up, &#8217;cause it makes you guys think of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, think of things like that, for sure. So employees, bring up anything. And obviously, for us, we wanna know these things. We&#8217;re not at the job site. It&#8217;s important that we&#8217;re aware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-14\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Safety and Intuition<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;I can think of other situations. I&#8217;m just thinking through the years of other situations that you&#8217;ve had. Like, we had the one clean that you were on with one of our youngest staff members at the time. And that guy waited until you left. Do you remember?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I hated that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8216;Cause my intuition, my woman intuition said, no, you should stay, or I should have just called. I should have, should have, should have, would have. You can shit all over. Sorry, I&#8217;m shitting all over now. &#8216;Cause it was just so \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;So the situation, to give you guys context: Ashley was at a cleaning with one of our \u2014 she was very young, just freshly 18, I believe our staff member was. And you had to go to another clean. And the customer was like an elderly man \u2014 or how old was he?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I don&#8217;t know. Mid-age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, so middle-aged man. And he ended up sexually harassing the cleaner after you left. And of course it&#8217;s not your fault, there&#8217;s nothing \u2014 but I&#8217;m really happy that you brought up the intuition of feeling like something was off. Can you describe what was going on that made you feel that way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I thought it was just odd, &#8217;cause he was asking me so many questions that a guy doesn&#8217;t ask. Like, a guy wouldn&#8217;t come back up to the house and be like, so are you leaving soon? Or how much, who do I give the tip to? Trying to discern what was going on. He was just kind of picking for details that are unusual for a man. No offense to any other gentlemen out there. It&#8217;s just not something that they really care about. Most of our gentlemen clients, they&#8217;re just like, hey, have fun, I&#8217;ll be in the basement. They&#8217;re not really coming up into the house and be like, hey, how long are you cleaning for? Is she staying? And I talked to her about it. I&#8217;m pretty sure I did. I said, I don&#8217;t like the feeling he gave me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Just watch it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Just watch it, pay attention, just put it on it. Because I don&#8217;t want us to go into clients&#8217; houses and feeling scared at every single second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;And I don&#8217;t want my spidey senses to really just be like, huh \u2014 and then come to find out that that actually happened. So that was very difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, and obviously it wasn&#8217;t \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;But I did communicate to the cleaner. Like, hey, this is my spidey senses, they&#8217;re going up. If anything comes about it, you can leave at any time you need to leave. No questions, no ask. Push &#8217;em out of the way and run out the door or whatever you need to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, we got the SOS button now on the ZenMaid app, so that was huge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, and that story literally inspired that to be created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;So at least something good has came out of that situation. Obviously, we fired that client immediately. I&#8217;d shoot him a new one \u2014 he wouldn&#8217;t pick up. I was just fucking raging over this, because that could have been so much worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, it makes me tear up thinking about what could have happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;And so, yeah, I just like to bring it up, just reinforcing the safety and how it&#8217;s so important that we talk about it. And also, you have good intuition, listening to it. You did everything. You did what you need to do in that situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;The nice thing is now we can use it as an example of, hey, any reason and I&#8217;ll get the fuck out of there. Maybe somebody you&#8217;re cleaning with doesn&#8217;t feel it or see it. So if you are feeling it, seeing it, thinking it, just go have a chat in the bathroom really quick. Like, hey, these are some of the things that I&#8217;ve seen so far, these are things that are kind of making me uncomfortable, I&#8217;m not really sure. Or just plain and simple, we don&#8217;t feel comfortable, we&#8217;re headed out. You don&#8217;t have to justify it, explain it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8216;Cause I think even Nona was put into some hard situations. And that really hurt because she was the youngest on our team. And as a mom \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Very protective, yeah. As a woman who&#8217;s a built farm girl, brick shit house, I wanted to \u2014 yes. Put me in, coach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;But I think also how you carry yourself, very confident, very self-assured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;And I&#8217;ve never had those instances happen because I do carry myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, people who are \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Head up, swivel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, talking about that situational awareness, and also talking through, especially with younger staff, of how you carry yourself will oftentimes determine \u2014 if they&#8217;re gonna pick you to assault. So how can we prepare our staff members for those situations? And it&#8217;s not to \u2014 we&#8217;ve all had to live through this life, and yes, some kind of fear is gonna pop up, but you still have to brush on. But you don&#8217;t have to accept all of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah. Or just roll with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, and just prepare your staff members for this. If you only said one thing, you&#8217;re like, no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, no, I totally agree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-15\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Duffel Bag Story<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;On a lighter note, tell me the story of the duffel bag that you found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Oh, jeez. Of course you guys want the duffel bag story. I tell this every time I meet new friends. I tell this story all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Don&#8217;t use client names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I won&#8217;t. Oh, Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;So explain, set the scene. What&#8217;s going on, Ash? Set the scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, you were at a maintenance clean. Just a maintenance clean, but it was also the first time clean \u2014 so getting to know these folks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Oh, so it was your first time at this house, but it was a maintenance clean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;No. It was the first time clean that I was the first-time client there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;I see, okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;So I&#8217;d been cleaning there for how many years? A lot of years. And I just filled in for somebody who had already been there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;I see, okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;And I needed a garbage bag. So I looked in most logical spots \u2014 above the washer and dryer, thought that would be a great spot. And I found a duffel bag, and it was open, so all the content \u2014 so I&#8217;m not digging through duffel bags. I&#8217;m not digging through people&#8217;s stuff, we don&#8217;t. It just so happened to be slit open. And there was some questionable-sized toys in there. Questionable-sized toys. And I was giving birth to children, and some of these toys \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Impressive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Impressively. Very impressive. And I just sat there and thought, who leaves this open when they have children in the house? And in \u2014 this is not a discreet location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;No, it was like \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Like, does nobody do laundry around here? None of the kids \u2014 personally, I have children that are \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, doing laundry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Doing laundry. And a big old, and it&#8217;s unzipped? Like, what \u2014 you didn&#8217;t have time to zip that up or put a lock and key on it in the closet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Busy people, Ashley. They don&#8217;t got time to \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;That was the weirdest thing \u2014 I mean, not weird. Hey, to each their own. Sorry, maybe not the right word to use. Whatever floats your boat, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Do the float. Fly the flag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;But it changes your whole \u2014 you&#8217;re like, oh, ew, hi. And then you&#8217;re at a wrestling meet and you see them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;You see them, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;And you&#8217;re like, hi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;That&#8217;s amazing. So I just love that story, because you&#8217;ll see all sorts of stuff in houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, I cleaned hotel rooms, so there were some times when we were doing deep cleans, we&#8217;d remove the bed and there&#8217;d be lingerie underneath the beds and dirty mags. But that has really topped the cake on most of the things. There might be something underneath the bed or something like that, but a whole duffel bag was a little extreme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, that was crazy. Good story to tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah. Good party joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;So happy you get to use that now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;There&#8217;s several of my go-tos that I use, actually, from different cleaners&#8217; experiences and what we found at houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Oh my gosh, that&#8217;s funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-16\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Working Through Difficult Cleans<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Talk me through difficult cleans, just in general. How you handle it, how you coach other, maybe newer staff members through it, when it&#8217;s just tough, it&#8217;s dirty, it&#8217;s clutter, that type of thing. How do you work through that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, at first, when you first start cleaning \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s very overwhelming, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s very overwhelming. So just keep teaching that mindset, section by section, take your time. That cabin \u2014 I think I called Stephanie when I was cleaning a cabin one time, I just started crying &#8217;cause I was a little overwhelmed. Like, I won&#8217;t be able to finish this. And then I think Crystal showed up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;We all showed up. The camera. We all showed up to the live shoot. I remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Come to find out, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;You don&#8217;t accept any clients now that have heavy smoke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8216;Cause that&#8217;s really what it was, is just the buildup. So that communication has been the learning curve. Because obviously, you just kinda wanna suck it up, get &#8216;er done, put some Limp Bizkit on, that&#8217;s my favorite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;You need some Limp Bizkit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;ll reach out to management too, and I&#8217;ll be like, it&#8217;s a Limp Bizkit cleaner. I didn&#8217;t know I was really into that until about halfway through. But yeah, now almost seven years in, it&#8217;s like nothing really scares me anymore \u2014 just that communication piece. But overwhelmed, give yourself a buffer. That&#8217;s easy said and done when you&#8217;re about six months in, a year in, but when you&#8217;re first starting \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;But we have buffers in place for our new girls, which is awesome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;And by buffer, you mean \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Let&#8217;s say that you&#8217;ve made it through the kitchen, the two bathrooms, and you&#8217;re not sure if you&#8217;re gonna finish, and just reaching out to the client: here&#8217;s my expectation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Even at almost seven years in, I did this with a client. I&#8217;ve made it through the kitchen, the two bathrooms, and I&#8217;m not sure I&#8217;ll be able to get the whole thing done. What are your expectations? Where do you want me to go? Or yes, I can step in and be like, I&#8217;m the professional cleaner. Let&#8217;s get the main areas done, the walkways, where we eat and snack. Being able to work through the priorities, for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;And I think that, as time goes on, you get better at that. We finally have done that, though. &#8216;Cause otherwise, yeah, we just sink or swim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;ve called her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, we&#8217;ll throw you in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;The first clean I was at, Stephanie showed up. She&#8217;s like, what are you still doing here? That&#8217;s another reason \u2014 &#8217;cause I was scrubbing these knick-knacks, and they were just so thick of buildup. And I&#8217;m just thinking, this is what we&#8217;re doing. I don&#8217;t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-17\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Benefits<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;What&#8217;s been your favorite, I guess, benefit that we&#8217;ve added?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Spin the wheel is fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Spin the wheel, yeah, that&#8217;s what everybody says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I was born in Nevada. That&#8217;s a little city in me. I don&#8217;t gamble, &#8217;cause I&#8217;ve seen people ruin so many lives. But spinning that thing was pretty fun. The last couple times, I hid $100 of cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Hell yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, both times I was headed out that weekend to a trip. I can&#8217;t remember the first one. Oh, we were going to a Brooks &amp; Dunn concert outside of Chicago. So it was helpful money for a couple drinks. And then the last one was a girls&#8217; trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Oh my gosh, okay. So if I haven&#8217;t explained this before \u2014 I think I&#8217;ve mentioned our spin the wheel benefit, guys, but this is definitely one I would recommend. Staff have historically said this is their favorite benefit, which is crazy, and could be implemented at any size business, because you can just scale back the prizes to whatever you can afford. Basically, every quarter, we calculate, based on their behavior, if they qualify for the spin the wheel. It&#8217;s just a wheel we have in the office. We got it from Amazon, and it just has a bunch of prizes on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s just dry erase. So the girls wrote the prizes on there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;So let&#8217;s say Ashley has zero complaints, or perfect attendance, or whatever the stipulation that you guys want to implement. If you get a couple video reviews, if you get a certain number of Google reviews or online reviews, all sorts of stuff, it will qualify you. And then they get to spin even more than once, depending on how many times they qualified. So yeah, as you heard, $100 cash, that&#8217;s very exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s fun, and I&#8217;m not money motivated, but it must mean you&#8217;re playing the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;A little competitive, maybe?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I don&#8217;t know. No, it&#8217;s just the thrill of it. The thrill of it, tick, tick, tick, tick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, and it&#8217;s just a nice reward for good behavior. So what do you think of the new career path? Have you had a chance to review it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I haven&#8217;t gotten a chance to review it, but I think it&#8217;s great. I think it&#8217;s really motivating for others, too, that don&#8217;t maybe want the whole responsibility of some of the upper roles. &#8216;Cause there&#8217;s a lot of folks out there that \u2014 roles come with responsibility, and you have to chew on that. So if you&#8217;re gonna do it, do it. So I think this is a great way to give that a little bit more empowerment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, and it was kind of like \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;And give out almost like official names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yes, exactly. No, I&#8217;m happy to hear from you, since obviously you are my longest cleaning tech, and you were definitely top of mind when I was coming up with this. Like, how can we show Ashley, and folks who have been here for a long time, or just are showing up excellent time and time again \u2014 give them a better title, more bonuses, those types of things, for their good behavior. So I&#8217;m really excited about it. We went to that conference in Las Vegas a couple months ago, and that&#8217;s kind of what they said: you need to have a career path for your technician.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;So you like to spin the wheel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Any of the other ones stand out to you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, I&#8217;ve already mentioned the 401k, &#8217;cause saving for your retirement is super important. Medical, those are fine. What other ones?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;We have, let&#8217;s see, bereavement pay, holiday pay that we&#8217;ve added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Oh, yeah, holiday pay was awesome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, definitely. And so we do that on a tiered system, so depending on if they&#8217;re part-time or full-time, we&#8217;ll determine how many hours they get. What do you think about the drive time? That&#8217;s what I wanna know, because obviously drive time is paid differently. We pay lower, we do the tiered gas stipends. As time has evolved, any opinions on that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, my husband has brought up the point that I use my own wear and tear on the vehicle, but you guys have buffered that with \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Car care benefit, yep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Car care benefits, and now the clothing one, too. Huge for somebody just starting. Anywho, just the wear and tear on the vehicle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Mm-hmm, yeah, it&#8217;s the reality of it, and obviously that&#8217;s why we have the gas stipends. We&#8217;re paying them &#8217;cause it&#8217;s their time, but we added, in order to acknowledge that, a car care benefit where they can submit for vehicle-related expenses up to a certain amount each year and get some money back. But yeah, it&#8217;s definitely one of the biggest drawbacks of the entire way we do it. However, we&#8217;ll never have a fleet, because we can&#8217;t afford a fleet. It would be a poor financial decision to have a fleet of vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Right, and that&#8217;s what I keep telling my husband. He&#8217;s like, you should get your \u2014 I was like, well, I did make the suggestion about the car. &#8216;Cause when you go to a mechanic, you get a rental. So if you got the cars, and then if your vehicle is down and out, at least you have a work car that an employee can use. Because when I was doing farmer&#8217;s markets, I never really understood why there weren&#8217;t so many young moms coming to buy vegetables. And it was because a lot of folks only have one single vehicle homes. And I was like, oh, you mean I&#8217;m lucky to have a backup truck, my husband&#8217;s work vehicle, and the farm truck that I could use, or my uncle \u2014 you know, I don&#8217;t have an uncle in Wisconsin, I don&#8217;t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;This is how Monday meetings go, in case you guys wanna know. I don&#8217;t really have an uncle, she&#8217;s got an uncle, she&#8217;s been saying his name twice. So my reticular activating system is like, eek, eek. But yeah, just to have that benefit, I think, is huge, because a lot of women going back into the workforce, I think that would be the hardest thing \u2014 having a reliable vehicle, and that&#8217;s something we acknowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Not equal to have. And you have to have insurance in Wisconsin now, which \u2014 odd, you&#8217;re about 10 years behind Nevada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, isn&#8217;t that crazy? But I think the vehicle is a big one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;No, that makes perfect sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-18\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Physicality of the Work<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;What do \u2014 and this you might not be able to answer, we can skip \u2014 what do cleaning technicians wish owners understood about their day-to-day work?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;You guys have all cleaned, so that makes it \u2014 you find that important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;I do find it important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Because you guys know the physicality of it. Some of the girls in the office that clean for an hour are like, ugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, I&#8217;m just fucking with you. I gotta clean for an hour today, and I&#8217;m like, ugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;We&#8217;re going to a clean together. The physicality. Forget about the physicality of it. Just letting you know, I think that&#8217;s one thing I do mention to new cleaners. My physicality was pretty much up there when I first started, and I was still pretty sore for the first, I would say, first two months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8216;Cause you&#8217;re absorbing so much information. So your brain is like, tch-boop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, and also it just is very physical work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, it&#8217;s tough work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;And that&#8217;s why a lot of people don&#8217;t make it, is because they think they can do it. And that&#8217;s why even in our interviews now, we ask, how do you take care of your body? How do you recover? If you&#8217;re having a hard day &#8217;cause it&#8217;s a hard clean, how can we work through that? We really want to get to know, can they physically do this work? Are they gonna burn out?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Maybe that&#8217;s \u2014 well, and that&#8217;s another reason why I stayed, because I wanted a physical job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;You like the movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah. &#8216;Cause I knew if \u2014 I like cake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;It keeps you moving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah. Oh, yeah. I like the physicality of it. I do. It&#8217;s more of my drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;No, I totally agree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-19\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Skill of Professional Cleaning<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;What is harder about this job than people realize?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, everybody knows how to scrub a toilet. But there&#8217;s no skill involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;There&#8217;s no skill, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;The skill of \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Professional cleaning, yep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Managing your time. You only have so much time on a clean. So the skillset is knowing how long it takes you personally to do something. Having the awareness of, oh, maybe I should time myself on this. I think I even timed myself doing blinds. And then sent it to Katie. A screenshot. I was like, hey, it&#8217;d take me 10 minutes to do each blind. Like, you guys expect me to do \u2014 da, da, da, da \u2014 you know, expect. Maybe not, you know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;No, but the communication, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;It is expectations. Like, how long is this actually gonna take me? No matter what the skillset, but the skillset is knowing which area you&#8217;re at, where you&#8217;re walking through, which area you&#8217;re gonna hit next. What product you gotta use on what.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, there is a skill to it, and I think that&#8217;s what I say. Yes, everybody can technically physically clean. If you are physically able, you can clean. But to manage yourself and to get through a home efficiently and systematically, and then to do it multiple times a day for days on end \u2014 that&#8217;s the skill. Most people, they could never move through a house the way we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;No, &#8217;cause you get squirrely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Mm-hmm, like, look at how we act in our own house, like, jumping all over the place. We&#8217;re at work right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, how we&#8217;re acting right now. But you put me in like a box \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, it&#8217;s like, boom, robot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;m like a racehorse, whoa!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Exactly, Ashley the Clydesdale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;They&#8217;re not racehorses, but I just saw the Clydesdales, actually. They were at the Budweiser horses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Oh, they&#8217;re so pretty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, they were at the Savannah Banana game I went to last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;I wanted to mention that, but Leah was curling my hair. I&#8217;ve always wanted to go to a Savannah game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, if you come to Savannah, we&#8217;ll have to go. My niece loves baseball, and she actually was dating a guy that was on a professional baseball team. And I wanna take her because she loves baseball. Now she&#8217;s into hockey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, you know. Girls gotta do better than girls. Needed rivalry, is everybody into hockey?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Her name is Savannah, and I&#8217;ve always wanted to take her to a game because it&#8217;s just hilarious how the game \u2014 but yeah, those guys started it up during COVID, and they just threw it all together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, well, if you ever come to Savannah, you should definitely \u2014 we&#8217;ll go to a game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, oh, I have the hookup! I can bring my niece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, she would love that. Absolutely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Got too excited about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Oh, no, it&#8217;s a good one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-20\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">How Far the Business Has Come<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;What are we doing today that would have blown your mind when you started?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;The different locations. Yeah, having the multiple offices, the bigger region. Getting up to La Crosse instead of staying \u2014 oh, and then your name changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;That was a big one, yeah, &#8217;cause she started with us as Black River Falls Cleaning Services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;What a mouthful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Too humble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;It was such a mouthful to say it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;And the projection of that. So I think you could start with loving your ideas, but if you can&#8217;t break your idea down and see \u2014 I mean, that was pretty cool. I never took offense to it. I was like, sweet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;If you think that you&#8217;re gonna \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Get bigger, yep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Get bigger and be more versatile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Mm-hmm, yeah, no, definitely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-21\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Rapid Fire<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Okay, rapid fire. What&#8217;s your favorite cleaning product that&#8217;s in your kit?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Oh, that stone that I can take the hair off the back of the couch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yep, the Furminator \u2014 you can use a pumice stone, any type of stone. You can rub on furniture and get pet hair off. I use mine all the time in my house, like on my couch, it&#8217;s great. Least favorite thing to clean, like in a home?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;That&#8217;s pretty bad, I don&#8217;t have anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;For me, I mean, I wanna say oven, but it&#8217;s not that I don&#8217;t \u2014 it&#8217;s very satisfying, but sometimes if it&#8217;s giving us trouble, it&#8217;s just taking too long, and then I get frustrated, I would say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I don&#8217;t really like cleaning fridges, &#8217;cause all these parts, and I have to take a picture, so I put it back together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;I like putting shit apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;ve had it where I&#8217;ve almost cried and have to Google how to put together a fridge, &#8217;cause I&#8217;m like, I don&#8217;t know where everything goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;m a farm girl, I need to break shit to fix it. Most satisfying thing to clean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Refrigerators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Refrigerators, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, especially if there&#8217;s, like, nasty sludgy things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Oh, fun stuff, like goo. You&#8217;re scraping up the goo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, I&#8217;ve had goo, yep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;The easy one \u2014 residential or commercial?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Residential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Do we ever send you into commercial?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;That face. It&#8217;s funny, &#8217;cause some people would never wanna go into a house, but this is exactly what I&#8217;m talking about \u2014 you have to find the people for each type.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I like commercial, &#8217;cause yes, it strains it out, but in commercial, I wanna do the baseboards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, too much detail, yeah. Sending a house cleaner into commercial is kind of tough, you know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, it&#8217;s hard to be \u2014 you can&#8217;t think the way you need to in commercial. It&#8217;s hard, okay, that&#8217;s not a detail that&#8217;s on the list, but I wanna. Sometimes I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Just for funsies. Make it nice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Why not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Make it better than you found it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Kitchen or bathroom cleaning, what do you prefer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;ve always loved kitchens. Just &#8217;cause I&#8217;m a baker, and I love that, and it&#8217;s easy peasy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Where I&#8217;d pick a bathroom any day over the kitchen. I don&#8217;t know, I just find kitchens to be like bottomless pits of time, and I get frustrated. Music, podcasts, or silence while cleaning?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Ah, all of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, we know this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;No, not silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;The voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, the voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;So music and podcasts, you would \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Correct. When I first started, I couldn&#8217;t do podcasts, &#8217;cause there were so many moving parts and skills that I was still \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Too overwhelming, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Figuring stuff out, so music just in the background to keep it \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Keep the pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Now I could easily do, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;ve already answered weirdest thing you&#8217;ve found in a client&#8217;s home, so \u2014 funniest cleaning moment? Anything funny that&#8217;s ever happened? I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s probably lots of &#8217;em. I feel like you&#8217;ve found a lot of, like, dead animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;That&#8217;s not really funny, but \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Oh, a dead bat?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah. That&#8217;s terrible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;It is funny, it&#8217;s &#8217;cause you never know what you&#8217;re gonna get.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, you never know what you&#8217;re gonna get. You never know what you&#8217;re gonna walk into. A dead bat in a bathroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Oddest thing ever is a dead bat. Funniest thing \u2014 never had a client show up naked or anything, so that&#8217;s good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Nothing crazy like that, that&#8217;s good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Otherwise you guys would know about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, we would know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-22\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Closing Advice on Retention<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;What have I done as an owner that makes your job easier? You&#8217;re like, nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;No, well, just having your vision \u2014 that&#8217;s the most important part, is to separate yourself from the \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Day to day, yep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, your vision for it. Doing all the fun magic on this side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;I&#8217;ll have to read you the letter I got from a podcast listener, it made my whole day. But yeah, it&#8217;s really cool to be able to share what we are learning here, and letting other people learn from us. And it&#8217;s cool because, even for you guys, I hope that you know by this existing, we&#8217;re helping other owners treat their staff better, and it&#8217;s a far-reaching impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s a ripple effect. And then those communities \u2014 it&#8217;s just exciting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;&#8216;Cause you&#8217;ve brought it up a few times \u2014 it&#8217;s 2026, there&#8217;s no such thing as looking down on somebody who cleans your home. And I think raising the bar on that, where it&#8217;s like, it takes skill, it takes \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;It&#8217;s a respectable career, and yeah, we deserve respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;And that&#8217;s why I even transparently tell the cleaners, I&#8217;m like, hey, we need to have really high-quality standards so that we can charge as much as possible. Because if we can charge really high, then we can afford to do all these things, we can afford to do donations. I mean, we&#8217;ve done donations literally since you started, right? Every month. We choose every month, so for seven years. Giving money, the benefits all cost money, it costs a lot of money to do what we&#8217;re doing. And so that means we have to be great, and that&#8217;s where it all ties together. We have to be great in order to be able to command this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;But that&#8217;s how you find clients that&#8217;ll meet those expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, by being great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;By being great. Great equals great.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;High prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Sword sharpens another sword.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;100%, 100%. Let&#8217;s see. If every cleaning company owner listening here could change one thing tomorrow to improve the retention of their staff \u2014 whether they stay \u2014 what would it be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;That check-in process that you did with me. I think that was huge. When you first started, just checking in on you. So if you&#8217;re just starting out, just checking in and seeing what they went through, because otherwise, if you leave &#8217;em to their own demise, they can make up stories in their head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, or that you don&#8217;t care, you&#8217;re too busy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;They don&#8217;t care, too busy. So just showing that care, and then go up from there, &#8217;cause now we implement other ways of recognition. Because I feel like you&#8217;re not just a number, if they&#8217;re checking in on you, especially when you first started. That was huge as a support system. Making sure that you are doing good, because you can have that self-worth \u2014 I know I do a great job, but just that little reassurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, you can&#8217;t ever do too much of it, honestly. I don&#8217;t personally think. If somebody&#8217;s doing a good job, they should hear it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-23\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Wrapping Up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, that&#8217;s all I have. Ash, anything else you wanna talk about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, we&#8217;re gonna \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Donkeys?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, donkeys. No, I&#8217;m just kidding. You should see us drinking together. That&#8217;s what you should really see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;Well, now that that duffel bag is in my head, I was like, donkeys? On that note, we have to go clean. We&#8217;re gonna go clean together at one of the giveaway winners from our anniversary clean giveaway, so we&#8217;re gonna hop in there, get that done. But yeah, Ashley, thank you so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Yeah, I appreciate you having me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong>&nbsp;I appreciate you joining us. Everyone, please give Ashley some love down in the comments. It takes a lot of guts to come on your boss&#8217;s podcast and answer questions, so I appreciate you. Please hit that like, guys. Hit that subscribe. Hit the hype button if you&#8217;re on YouTube. Leave us a review if you are everywhere else, and we&#8217;ll see you in the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye, guys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Ashley:<\/strong>&nbsp;Bye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube Introduction Stephanie:&nbsp;Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and today&#8217;s special episode is in person with my fabulous cleaning technician and friend, Ashley Seekamp. Ashley has worked for me since literally the first couple months [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":17448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"Why Ashley, My Longest-Tenured Cleaner, Has Never Quit","_seopress_titles_desc":"Serene Clean's longest-tenured cleaning tech, Ashley Seekamp, on why she stayed seven years, handling unsafe client situations, standards, and staff retention.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-podcast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17450,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17447\/revisions\/17450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}