{"id":17687,"date":"2026-09-01T13:04:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T13:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/?p=17687"},"modified":"2026-09-01T13:05:40","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T13:05:40","slug":"behind-the-scenes-of-shaquille-richardss-luxury-high-rise-cleaning-biz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/behind-the-scenes-of-shaquille-richardss-luxury-high-rise-cleaning-biz\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Scenes of Shaquille Richards&#8217;s Luxury High-Rise Cleaning Biz"},"content":{"rendered":"    <div class=\"zm-cta\">\n      <div class=\"zm-cta__head\">\n        <div>\n          <div class=\"zm-cta__eyebrow\">ZenMaid<\/div>\n          <h2 class=\"zm-cta__title\">Brought to you by <em>expert cleaning business owners<\/em><\/h2>\n        <\/div>\n        <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zm-cta__mark\" src=\"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-content\/themes\/zm-theme\/assets\/images\/zenmaid-logo.png\" alt=\"ZenMaid logo\">\n      <\/div>\n\n      <div class=\"zm-cta__list\">\n        <div class=\"zm-cta__item\">\n          <svg viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"21\" height=\"21\" fill=\"none\" stroke=\"#01676c\" stroke-width=\"3\" stroke-linecap=\"round\" stroke-linejoin=\"round\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><path d=\"M20 6 9 17l-5-5\"><\/path><\/svg>\n          <p><strong>Tips and advice shared here have helped us grow our own maid services.<\/strong> The ZenMaid team currently has 5+ current and former cleaning business owners on our team, including our Founder and CEO, Amar. We&rsquo;ve been in the maid service industry for 10+ years and counting.<\/p>\n        <\/div>\n        <div class=\"zm-cta__item\">\n          <svg viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"21\" height=\"21\" fill=\"none\" stroke=\"#01676c\" stroke-width=\"3\" stroke-linecap=\"round\" stroke-linejoin=\"round\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><path d=\"M20 6 9 17l-5-5\"><\/path><\/svg>\n          <p><strong>We partner with amazing leaders in the cleaning industry,<\/strong> including Debbie Sardone, Stephanie Pipkin, Angela Brown, Chris Schwab, and many more &mdash; all to provide you with the latest industry insights.<\/p>\n        <\/div>\n        <div class=\"zm-cta__item\">\n          <svg viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" width=\"21\" height=\"21\" fill=\"none\" stroke=\"#01676c\" stroke-width=\"3\" stroke-linecap=\"round\" stroke-linejoin=\"round\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><path d=\"M20 6 9 17l-5-5\"><\/path><\/svg>\n          <p><strong>We&rsquo;ve built the easiest-to-use, comprehensive cleaning business software, built specifically for the industry!<\/strong><\/p>\n        <\/div>\n      <\/div>\n\n      <div class=\"zm-cta__actions\">\n        <a class=\"zm-cta__btn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/\">Check out ZenMaid<\/a>\n        <div class=\"zm-cta__chip\"><span><\/span>Easy 5 minute setup<\/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\/170-behind-the-scenes-of-shaquille-richardss-luxury\/id1791590022?i=1000787167956\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/episode\/6lAJUV9lsVy1CzvH8COwMe?si=cf677905b3584291\">Spotify<\/a>, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Rbwqq6Q-QqI\">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: #170: Behind the Scenes of Shaquille Richards&amp;apos;s Luxury High-Rise Cleaning Business\" 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\/6lAJUV9lsVy1CzvH8COwMe?si=cf677905b3584291&amp;utm_source=oembed\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-1\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">From fraud investigator to cleaning business owner<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and today&#8217;s fantastic guest is Ms. Shaquille Richard. She is the owner of Miracle Cleaners of Georgia in Atlanta, Georgia, and I am absolutely thrilled to have her. I cannot wait to dig into the luxury high-rises, the move-out cleaning from hell. I can&#8217;t wait to hear about that. So Shaquille, without further ado, thank you for joining me. I&#8217;m so excited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, thank you so much for having me. It&#8217;s literally a dream come true. I can&#8217;t believe I&#8217;m looking at you right now. Yes, I&#8217;m super honored, thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh, the pleasure is mine. And Shaquille, tell us, where are you from? Are you from Atlanta? Have you always been in cleaning? What&#8217;s your background like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, so I was born in Virginia, but I&#8217;ve been in Georgia since I was three. So I&#8217;m basically from here. My background is in fraud, fraud management. I&#8217;ve been working in that for the past 15 years. I&#8217;ve been in business for three years. So I would say three years ago, I lost my job. I had a contract position and it ended abruptly. And, you know, I thought to myself, I was like, what can I do that no one can take away from me? Like, what can I physically do that I can possibly multiply? And yes, it may be a very humbling experience in the beginning, but I was willing to, I guess, like be broken in a sense \u2014 like ego, mentality, everything, just be broken to start from scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> So I said, okay, I&#8217;m just gonna start a cleaning business. I&#8217;m literally gonna start a cleaning business. There was no luxury branding in mind. It was just strictly boots on the ground, literally just trying to make it. So I was cleaning. And then I will say after a few appointments, I did some further research and I was like, okay, well, there&#8217;s an audience of customers that would love luxury cleaning services. So why not? They need someone who&#8217;s gonna be trustworthy, on time, great with communication, all the things. And so I was like, okay, well, let me step into that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> So I started cleaning for this one company. They specialize in luxury high-rises. And I was doing that for a while. And then I just began to network. I said, &#8220;Hey, I have a team,&#8221; because my schedule was getting piled up. And I was like, &#8220;You know what? I&#8217;m gonna go back into fraud management and I&#8217;m gonna try to get out of the business and try to work on it on a regular basis.&#8221; And so it&#8217;s been, let&#8217;s see, this is about like a year and a half since I&#8217;ve been out of the field and it&#8217;s been going pretty well. Business is still going well, still five stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, it&#8217;s just a lot. It&#8217;s a lot, as you know. You have the corporate side, then you&#8217;re working, running your business. You have all 15 million different personalities. You&#8217;re their therapist, you&#8217;re their best friend, you&#8217;re their lawyer, you&#8217;re sometimes their pay-me-back type of person. Okay, I got you, pay me back. So you just learn to \u2014 I&#8217;ve evolved so much where like, hey, I&#8217;m here. And then I&#8217;m here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> And then even with that, Stephanie, I legit was \u2014 I would say three years ago, I was literally in my tub, body super sore from cleaning. And I found you on Google. I&#8217;m not \u2014 Google. I found you on YouTube, I apologize. And I&#8217;ve watched your videos hour to hour. And I was like, oh my gosh, this lady is amazing. Like the free game you give out, like just \u2014 you don&#8217;t have to do what you do. And I&#8217;m so appreciative of that, you know? Like, and just know, &#8217;cause I feel like in the cleaning business, we kind of go unnoticed, like unrecognized. I just want you to know, like, I give you all your flowers. Thank you so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> No, I just \u2014 well, it really is so rewarding because it&#8217;s like, there is a way, right? Like everybody listening right now, there is a way, it is possible. This can be a very lucrative, wonderful business to be in. It&#8217;s just like how do we make it there? Because almost always owners have \u2014 they&#8217;ve got huge hearts, they know how to clean, they are hard workers, right? But those are not the only things that are gonna get you there. &#8216;Cause if that was the case, every single person would be up here revenue-wise, so if that&#8217;s what your goal is. So just like getting that tactical, how do you do this thing? That&#8217;s where I really like to hone in on. So thank you for being a listener. I really appreciate that. And I&#8217;m happy to hear that I&#8217;ve been able to have an impact in any way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-2\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hiring the first cleaners and setting expectations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> And so tell me about hiring and what that was like. I always like to hear what the first hiring experience was like for owners and what that transition from you doing the cleaning for your clients \u2014 was there any pushback there? What was that like for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> So my first hire was from Indeed. I saw the video and you were like, you need to do Zoom calls and group calls. Okay, so Atlanta is kind of crazy, right? Atlanta, where everybody wants to make a fast dollar. They want to do all the things to get quick money. So I think just over time \u2014 and I have to upgrade this \u2014 but I have personal one-on-one interviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> That&#8217;s okay! I think there&#8217;s a lot of ways to skin the cat and it really is based on your market. Like I share what works for us, may not work for everybody, but if it&#8217;s working, you know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah. So I mean, it&#8217;s a slow process, but good thing I keep my cleaners for a very long time. And I think that&#8217;s because I build those bonds with them where, you know, they&#8217;re texting me, &#8220;Hey, good morning, Shaquille. I&#8217;m on the way. I spilled my coffee,&#8221; or &#8220;I have to go to the gas station and use the bathroom.&#8221; I hear all types of crazy stuff all day. And I&#8217;m just like \u2014 I feel like a pad of just, like, craziness that comes all day. But the first experience, it went pretty well. She stayed for a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Your very first staff member? That&#8217;s kind of crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah. Actually, I have two. Yeah, I have two. They stayed for a very long time. I would say just getting to know them in the interview process \u2014 but you really can&#8217;t like know somebody in an interview process. It takes, you know, some time, but just kind of setting those expectations. I try to come off very serious on the first day of meeting them. I meet them first, like first things first, right? And then, you know, I tell them, &#8220;Hey, if you steal that Chanel bag, you&#8217;re going to jail. I have your ID.&#8221; So I really keep it really like raw and to the point where they&#8217;re not seeing me as like, I guess a boss that&#8217;s like detached, you know, hands off. I know eventually I&#8217;m going to have to become hands off, like, you know, more so. But yeah, just let them know. I said, this is the customer&#8217;s expectations. Here are the previous after photos from previous cleanings. Make it look just like this. This is what you&#8217;re paid for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> And so, you know, I think that \u2014 so I&#8217;m serious on one point with the business, but my personality, I&#8217;m still, you know, the bubbly, you know, you can relate to type of person, where I think that&#8217;s what has allowed them to stay for the longest period of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> But the first cleaner did very well. I would say she broke a refrigerator shelf one day by putting it on \u2014 I think she put it on hot water or something like that. I don&#8217;t know. Yeah, and at that point I wasn&#8217;t at the place of like having procedures and protocols on how to clean things out. I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Just clean it. Just clean it, girl. Make it look like this.&#8221; But over time you have to develop those, you know, policies. Yeah, but we were able to get it fixed. I just told her to go down to maintenance, go down to the concierge desk and tell maintenance that she made a mistake. She&#8217;s terribly sorry and can they replace it before the customer comes home. And so thank God they were able to replace it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Wow! Nice!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Good deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Like, I&#8217;m so grateful there hasn&#8217;t been any broken items that I&#8217;ve had to like physically pay out. Like, yeah, I know it&#8217;s gonna come. It&#8217;s gonna come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I know, I know. I alluded to an episode I think that went live this week about a sink that is destroyed, which I still don&#8217;t think that we did it. But it&#8217;s like $2,000 to fix it with the plumbing. And I&#8217;m like, is this sink made out of gold? Like what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Right? And why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> When we show up \u2014 you know, I know, but it was kind of like a crazy miracle of God, because the client canceled like this week just because they&#8217;re having financial whatever. And so we were gonna cancel on them after the sink thing, and I was just like, okay, this is the universe saying like, take it, take it and run, like get rid of this client.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-3\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Matching the after photos in luxury homes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Okay, okay, you just mentioned something that intrigues me. You said that you tell your cleaners match it to the after photos. Do you have after \u2014 like what each client&#8217;s house should look like at the end, or what do you mean by that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, so at that time when I first hired my first cleaner, I had the after photos because I personally cleaned the home. So I&#8217;m like, okay, we need to make it look \u2014 we&#8217;ll use like the stainless steel cleaner. So there shouldn&#8217;t be any streaks, any hair. And I explained to them, I&#8217;m like, these customers are paying about $10,000 in rent. So if they&#8217;re paying for a cleaning service on top of that, it darn sure better look well, you know? Like it has to look top tier. And also think about the customer&#8217;s profile. Like they \u2014 you know, think about what they do. Normally they&#8217;re doctors, lawyers, people in entertainment. And so therefore, number one, you have to look the part. Number two, you have to clean the part. And then you just have to be fully the whole thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-4\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Looking the part<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Wow. Okay. That&#8217;s very intriguing. Talk to me about looking the part. Talk to me about looking professional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Looking the part. Okay. So I have had a few run-ins where it&#8217;s kind of sad, but at the same time I was trying to work with her. So we received one complaint about body odor, which I had to talk to her about. And I asked her, I said, &#8220;Hey, if you have any issues, if you can please just ensure that you don&#8217;t \u2014 number one, you can&#8217;t smell like cigarettes, marijuana, or anything like that. Just going into someone&#8217;s home, that&#8217;s offensive.&#8221; &#8216;Cause how dare you clean the home and leave it smelling like cigarettes? It&#8217;s crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> So her body odor \u2014 at that time I called her, and she said, &#8220;Shaquille, I have to be honest with you. I don&#8217;t tell my business to everyone, but you know, I haven&#8217;t taken a bath in six months.&#8221; And I said, &#8220;Why not?&#8221; And she said it was because she couldn&#8217;t afford her water bill. She fell on hard times. I guess she had a water leak in her home and it just got worse and the bill just continued to climb, so her bill is a couple thousand dollars. But she was like, &#8220;Shaquille, I really need my job.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> And I told her, I said, okay, well, you know, I can go to a Dollar Tree, Dollar Store, get you some soaps, deter\u2014 like, everything that you need so that you can get on track. I can even buy you the polo shirt, you know, because we all wear all black. So I can get you a polo shirt, like, you know, just whatever you need. And so she corrected her behavior \u2014 but, you know, her conduct. Don&#8217;t say behavior, but you know, her conduct. But at the same time, I think life just got too hard for her overall, and she couldn&#8217;t keep up with the standard, so I had to part ways. And that&#8217;ll bring you to the move-out cleaning from hell. That&#8217;s her, so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh, wow. Well, definitely, yeah, we&#8217;ll transition into that. And you know, it&#8217;s interesting, we have not ever talked about this on the podcast. Maybe we have, just about smelling good, because we have had multiple instances over the year of staff members \u2014 yeah, like, B.O., like bad B.O. And obviously, we&#8217;re sweating, we&#8217;re cleaning, right? But that, you know, there are ways to make your smell not, you know, stink. And especially like you said, the cigarettes and things like that. And so it is a delicate \u2014 I have actually, I think, gotten this question before, an email of like, how do I talk to staff members about this? And it&#8217;s just very matter of fact, like what can I do to help? Like, do you need X, Y, Z? Like exactly how you handled it was wonderful, of like, let me help you solve this problem because we have to make sure we&#8217;re presentable for the clients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-5\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The move-out cleaning from hell<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> But yeah, okay. Well, I wanna know. I usually would save this for the end, but tell me about this move-out cleaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Oh my goodness. So I think she was fed up just like in \u2014 like I said, in life itself, &#8217;cause she just didn&#8217;t care. I know she didn&#8217;t give a darn. So she went into the home and common sense \u2014 so with our move-out cleans, all items have to be removed from the home. There&#8217;s no like exceptions. However, this customer decided to leave her items on the counter. It was barely anything: a can of vinegar, like a jar of vinegar, some Ezekiel bread, an iPhone charger, and some like, you know, like some beat-up Uggs in the corner and blanket. And so, and then she had like two empty shampoo bottles in the shower. The cleaner went in to clean and she took it upon herself to take everything that was in the home with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I mean, not the \u2014 not the Ezekiel bread!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, and the vinegar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> And the vinegar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> And I&#8217;m like, oh my goodness. So yeah, so after she threw everything in the trash, she told me the cleaning was complete. I checked the after photos, &#8217;cause we have a process where they can&#8217;t leave the house until I see the after photos. I don&#8217;t know if that&#8217;s like prison mentality, but you can&#8217;t leave until I see it. So I had to check the after photos. I checked everything, everything looked great. I said, &#8220;Okay, looks good.&#8221; I didn&#8217;t think twice to say, &#8220;Where&#8217;s the shampoo in the corner?&#8221; Because she told me that it was basically almost gone. So I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Okay.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> So then I would say about 30 minutes after she left, the customer called me and she was like, &#8220;Yes, where are my belongings?&#8221; And I said, &#8220;The cleaner thought that they were items that she was discarding because there were random odd and end items. And so she discarded those items.&#8221; And she was like, &#8220;No, there is a 15 carat \u2014 15 carat ring.&#8221; This I know was a lie. &#8220;It was a 15 carat ring underneath the shampoo bottle that was in the shower.&#8221; So, you know, I studied those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> No, no, there&#8217;s not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes. I&#8217;m like, what is going on here? So it went from &#8220;Where are my items?&#8221; I&#8217;m telling her it&#8217;s discarded. I said, we could reimburse you. She&#8217;s like, no, there&#8217;s a 15 carat ring under the shower, the shampoo bottle. And so she hired somebody to come in and do a move-out clean and left \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> A giant ring under the \u2014 no, that&#8217;s bullshit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Exactly. But I say the positive thing about my corporate career is, &#8217;cause I&#8217;ve been an investigator for 15 years, is that I was able to investigate everything. And I&#8217;m like, there&#8217;s literally nothing. There was nothing under that. It&#8217;s a flat surface, there&#8217;s no space for a ring to fit under there. And yeah, she was just trying to get over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Wow. Because that was \u2014 yeah. It&#8217;s like, you give me an inch, I&#8217;m gonna take a mile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, literally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> You took my \u2014 you took my vinegar and you also \u2014 you know what&#8217;s funny? Because that is a pattern I see. Is like, once they, if they feel that they can have anything \u2014 so if you do, like you said, you give them an inch, right? Like, so acknowledging, yes, the cleaner did do this part. Like we had one guy who was accusing of stealing his like toenail clippers and a blanket and like crazy shit like that. And we&#8217;re like \u2014 because I think we threw some things out. And now for us, yeah, any items that are left, we just pile them up in a corner and take a picture. And like, this is what&#8217;s left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes. Yes. Because people will run with it, especially \u2014 they&#8217;ll say, you know, what&#8217;s your cleaning business name? You know, like what&#8217;s the cleaner&#8217;s name? And they&#8217;ll go run with it. She came back to me and she said she spoke with a lawyer and the lawyer said that, &#8220;Yeah.&#8221; So I reached out to the self-contracting \u2014 well, the company that provided me with the lead \u2014 and I expressed, you know, everything that happened. And they told me, they&#8217;re like, &#8220;Hey, we send out an email, all move-out cleans have to be \u2014 the home has to be completely empty, so you&#8217;re not technically liable for it.&#8221; But I just paid her $200 in good faith. I said, &#8220;Here you go.&#8221; And she was just like, &#8220;Okay, thank you.&#8221; Apple Pay&#8217;d her. And I said, &#8220;Hey, after this, you don&#8217;t know me, I don&#8217;t know you.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, get rid of the problem kind of thing. Wow, that&#8217;s crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-6\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">How the luxury high-rise work comes in<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> So you mentioned that you would get jobs from basically a company that then would sub out. Like, can you explain this structure to me? &#8216;Cause I&#8217;ve not really heard of this before for like high-rise. Yeah, I don&#8217;t know anything about high-rise. Like this is always interesting to me when I talk to folks who do a lot of like, I guess apartments in very, very large cities. So it&#8217;s just fascinating. I wanna ask about supplies and stuff, but yeah, talk to me about how you would get these jobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, so I&#8217;m connected to \u2014 okay, so the high-rises that are in Atlanta primarily are, the residents go through a resident app. The cleaning company is technically the owners of that app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Mm-hmm, okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they hired me as their cleaning company for Georgia for their high-rises in like the Metro Atlanta area. So, and the way that started out was I was cleaning for them and then just over time I built a relationship and I said, &#8220;Hey, I created a cleaning business. Would you mind? I have a small cleaning team. I plan on building.&#8221; They said great. They are expanding to like other states like Texas, Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Wow! Sure, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> So just over time, it literally has been a relationship and just building trust. Anytime they send me a lead, I let them know. I check my ZenMaid, see what the cleaners&#8217; availability is, and just \u2014 and from that, my cleaners let me know like what their schedule is. I&#8217;ll just pop that on their schedule. And once they arrive, we have the whole concierge process of checking in, getting the key fob. You know, that&#8217;s a little process in itself. But so yeah, and then of course, word of mouth. I haven&#8217;t ran any Google ads yet. And I feel like it&#8217;s because I&#8217;m comfortable with being a no-face type of business, but I know I need to like get out there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> What is your split on types of cleans that you do? &#8216;Cause clearly you do a lot of move-outs, but you&#8217;re doing a lot of just recurring apartments as well, I imagine, or what does it look like for your business split?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> So it&#8217;s high-rises, so it&#8217;s condos, penthouses, apartments, some townhomes, and then regular houses. But very rarely is it like a standalone house. Like out of 100 appointments this month, we&#8217;ve only had one like standalone home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Wow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah, yeah, they&#8217;re all just high-rises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-7\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Parking, concierge check-ins, and the daily logistics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s interesting. I&#8217;m sure that there&#8217;s some interesting challenges that come from that. As I mentioned, supplies would be something fascinating, of just like getting your cleaners to and from parking. I&#8217;d love to talk logistically speaking. How do you solve these problems? Because I&#8217;m sure we got a lot of listeners who are in big cities who are like, how do I do this part?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, yes, absolutely. So okay, so the cleaner would send their text message 30 minutes prior to their arrival to let me know their ETA. I have a three-hour window that I tell the customer that the cleaner will arrive, but the cleaners don&#8217;t know that \u2014 give an inch and they&#8217;ll take a mile. So yes, &#8217;cause all of a sudden you&#8217;ll start hearing all kinds of excuses as to why they are two, three hours late, and then I don&#8217;t want anyone to ever miss that three-hour window and it just look horrible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> But so they send a message 30 minutes prior to arrival. I also notify the customer at the same time. It&#8217;s more manual, which I know I have to go to all \u2014 it&#8217;s all manual. So yeah, if I have 10 appointments, I&#8217;m literally shooting out messages all day while I&#8217;m working. But I&#8217;ll notify the customer and let them know once the cleaner arrives, I will reach out to you to validate parking. I then send them the link. Yeah, I send them the link from the parking deck so they can validate parking, the license plate, the amount of hours and the state of the license plate. And then at the bottom it says, please send me a screenshot of the parking ticket. So once the customer validates parking, sends the screenshot, I send that same parking ticket to the cleaner and I say parking pass three hours, four hours. And so they literally know that based on the time that that expires, they have to manage their time. Should it go over, they need to notify me about 20 minutes prior so I can have the customer extend the parking. But the customer pays for the parking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> There&#8217;s a couple of high-rises where they can just park in future resident parking. But I&#8217;m gonna say like as far as like issue with parking, in the very beginning, when I first started, we used to get booted here and there just simply because we thought that we could park in Future Resident, and because we are an extension of these high-rises, we thought that \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, you&#8217;re a vendor basically, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, no. And so, yeah, it&#8217;s up to the customer. And we&#8217;ve had our experiences where a customer that&#8217;s paying $10,000 in rent has told me that they can&#8217;t afford to pay for parking for the cleaner. So we had to charge them same-day cancellation. And then it was so weird. And now, rich people be weird sometimes &#8217;cause like \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah. Like, yeah, like, you need to get your priorities straight, Mr. It&#8217;s like, what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> I said, the parking&#8217;s $13. He was like, yeah, no, can&#8217;t pay it. I said, but the cleaner is downstairs at the front desk. Yeah, no, okay. And so I called my cleaner. She was like, that&#8217;s a sign. You know what, I&#8217;m gonna just go home. And I was just like, so sorry. But still paid her for two hours of cleaning. So give her at least like a standard, you know, one bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> No, that definitely adds a layer of complexity. Because otherwise, yeah, &#8217;cause we very rarely have to pay for parking for my business. And so what we will do is just bill and reimburse the cleaner, but that&#8217;s a whole nother, you know \u2014 they&#8217;ll pay and then they, you know. So no matter what, dealing with parking is kind of convoluted, and you have to deal with it a ton, like all day long it sounds like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> All day long, all day long, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> And then checking in to the front desk, &#8217;cause some people, they&#8217;ll say, &#8220;Oh, concierge will let you in.&#8221; And then they&#8217;re not answering the phone. That&#8217;s one thing that&#8217;s common too. So with rich people, they don&#8217;t really answer the phone like that. So I&#8217;m calling them and I&#8217;m telling them that the service that they booked yesterday, the cleaner&#8217;s downstairs, can you answer the phone?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah. So wow. How frustrating. And this is why I wanted to ask, because I&#8217;m like, this is so foreign to me, of having to deal with like this extra layer of complexity of just even getting to do the dang cleaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-8\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Google reviews and growing past word of mouth<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah. So I feel like I&#8217;m trading Google reviews for what I currently have. So let&#8217;s say I will go to Google, my ads and things of that nature. Now people have like all this access to leave reviews versus me kind of working. So it was like, I&#8217;m trading one pain, one risk for another in a sense. But I know again, I have to come out of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Well, I think it just, you know, again, it depends on your goals. Like what is your goal for the business? What do you want?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> I want to expand outside of just, you know, doing subcontracting and, you know, word of mouth, and actually go full force. That way I can totally get out of that corporate job, which, you know, I love it, but I need to totally branch back into this. It&#8217;s where my heart and soul is at, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> How are you managing your day? Like, I&#8217;m assuming you work remote for the corporate job. So like, you&#8217;re just balancing both right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Balancing both, meetings \u2014 sometimes I&#8217;ll be on camera speaking and I&#8217;m texting a customer to send a screenshot of the parking pass. Yeah, and I mean, there&#8217;s times where I haven&#8217;t been able to answer, but I always answer my phone. So even if it&#8217;s a three-minute hold, like, you know, wait, I&#8217;ll call you right back, like literally. So I just try to always be on it. And I think that mentality started from cleaning, you know, always being on it from \u2014 let&#8217;s say you&#8217;re cleaning and you&#8217;re getting some sort of criticism. So I think just that, just not wanting anything \u2014 I wouldn&#8217;t want any stone to be unturned, I guess. So it was like, I&#8217;m just always on it. So whether I&#8217;m working a fraud case, checking QC, like for the houses, it just is what it \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh, damn girl, that&#8217;s very impressive. I would almost think a VA would be very useful for you, even just to handle the parking stuff. That would be something that I think could be a worthwhile investment when you&#8217;re ready to make that move. Because I think you&#8217;re \u2014 I mean, you gotta be glued to your phone all day long. Like just managing, getting people in, getting the parking passes, like that alone is a lot of complexity, especially when you&#8217;re working full-time on top of it. Like that&#8217;s \u2014 woo girl, you&#8217;re busy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Plus the cleaners that call and say, what do I do in this room? And what do I do in this room? And I&#8217;m like, ah. Yes, yes, definitely. I think that that would be a move for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> So you wanna grow. I think, you know, the fear is valid of, you know, if you open up your Google, that means people can leave you bad reviews. But unfortunately, like, I think the risk is lower than the potential reward. Meaning if you want to get out of working in this manner, meaning getting business in this manner, that&#8217;s the way to do it, is just getting your Google My Business going. So I know it&#8217;s scary, and then you just have to hit it. Like, just get reviews, just do it. Because yes, you will eventually get a bad review. It will happen, like it can&#8217;t not happen. I mean, that would be very impressive. For a lot of people, we&#8217;re all gonna get a bad review eventually, right? We just got our first one star in years, actually, a few weeks ago. And it was like, oh, okay. And you just, you deal with it, right? You deal with it. But because we have hundreds of five stars, you just can&#8217;t let that fear stop you, because you&#8217;re stopping yourself from getting a lot of potential business for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> So how much, like how many, I guess, what is the ratio for you of like one-time cleans versus recurring clients?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> I would say my portfolio is currently at 60% reoccurring, 40% new customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Awesome. That&#8217;s good. Okay. Gotcha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-9\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Supplies, grooming, and working with independent contractors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Do you guys bring all of the supplies? I&#8217;m just like, I&#8217;m so intrigued by like how you run your business. Like cities are just so tough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, they&#8217;re subcontractors. So yes, they provide all their supplies. When they start with me, I send them a supply list and I tell them to get these exact supplies. And I&#8217;m telling them that this will be very beneficial for them, you know. So don&#8217;t \u2014 like I understand you want to use your own supplies, but please don&#8217;t use any vacuum powders or anything like that, because you could easily oversee some powder on the rug, or the customer may not like the scent, or it could be anything. The dog can lick the powder and the dog gets sick and it&#8217;s on you. So I just try to simplify everything. Stainless steel cleaner, the window spray in the aerosol can, some Febreze, surface spray, mildew cleaner, just different things that will provide a five-star experience as cleaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> And then like back to the grooming, I just said, just be well-groomed. Just, you know, you don&#8217;t have to have a face full of makeup. You don&#8217;t have to be super dressed up, but just wear a black shirt, you know, black pants, possibly black sneakers, or just have them be like, you know, nice sneakers or just black, you know, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> But pulled together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, just be pulled together. That&#8217;s it. I don&#8217;t ask for a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> So you run ICs. Talk to me how that works, because you are a ZenMaid customer. I&#8217;m curious how that works for you using independent contractors. Since I&#8217;m W2, I like to hear the other side of what does that look like in ZenMaid. How do you \u2014 you know, do they give you their availability every week, or what are you doing for the schedule?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Okay. Yes, ma&#8217;am. For scheduling, they give me their schedule when they first start and it never changes. Okay, this is their availability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes. This is your availability. Now, if you have to make a change to your schedule, please let me know a few weeks in advance. Just be courteous about that. And I tell them that verbally: be courteous, let me know, like don&#8217;t tell me at the last minute, an hour before the appointment, because you&#8217;ll get less appointments, because I won&#8217;t be able to trust the fact that, you know, you&#8217;re managing your life outside of work. So I need to be able to trust you, you need to be able to trust me. And, you know, so once they give me their availability, I just add it to their schedule. And yeah, and I just continue to hire and just have people on hand, have people on standby. Wait, did I answer your question?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, no, that was good. I was curious. So pretty much the same, you know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, got it. Okay, cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-10\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Pricing luxury clients<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> All right, I want to talk about the fact that you are cleaning luxury spaces. These are for luxury clients. I think a lot of people are intrigued or want that type of clientele. Do you feel that you&#8217;re able to charge a decent amount more because of that? Or I&#8217;m curious how you feel the lay of the land is for pricing for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Because obviously if they can&#8217;t pay for parking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Right, exactly. It&#8217;s crazy. But yeah, they&#8217;re actually willing to pay more. I find that you have to be very descriptive, of course, when explaining the services offered and ensure that they don&#8217;t have anything to worry about. So even if \u2014 let&#8217;s say for example, they have a standard clean, but there are a few deep cleaning features to be done, I&#8217;ll tell the cleaner to still do those things, that way we can get the best result. And then moving forward, I&#8217;ll tell the customer, hey, we did some deep cleaning add-ons today. It&#8217;s typically not in the standard cleaning package. But as far as pricing, yeah, they&#8217;re actually able to pay with no problem. They want to pay, that&#8217;s the thing though. Customers, they wanna pay a good price, not too high, something that&#8217;s reasonable, but they don&#8217;t mind paying that extra dollar to have that peace of mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-11\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">What surprised her about high-end clients<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Is there anything about \u2014 would you say these higher end clients that is surprising potentially, or that surprised you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> I would say that they&#8217;re more simple than what you think. You know, if you do a really good job, you know, you&#8217;re cleaning from top to bottom, corner to corner, they&#8217;re not that difficult. It&#8217;s only when you don&#8217;t do something. I find that a lot of my clientele are honest people. They&#8217;re literally surgeons and people that have, you know, of statuewear \u2014 they live honestly. You know what I&#8217;m saying? So it&#8217;s not \u2014 I don&#8217;t have to necessarily deal with that. It&#8217;s just do the job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Now, what my customers will do \u2014 I love this one customer. Oh my goodness. He&#8217;s an orthopedic surgeon. Oh my goodness. He will cut the lights off in the bathroom, go in with the flash, literally, and flash down the baseboards, flash the toilet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh my God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah. And that&#8217;s a couple of our customers, actually. So I notify the cleaners beforehand, &#8220;Hey, look, this is a customer that likes to do the flash on their cameras. So please make sure that you are truly wiping. Don&#8217;t just dust with a duster, but take a wet microfiber cloth to make sure you&#8217;re wiping it clear, because they can tell. And they do surgery all day, so they can tell if their house is clean.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I don&#8217;t know if I have ever had, that I&#8217;m aware of, a client say that they do that. Or like I&#8217;ve never even heard of that. That&#8217;s crazy. I mean, I don&#8217;t say it&#8217;s crazy. It&#8217;s very particular and it makes sense because of the type of person that they are. So, wow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-12\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Quality control through before and after photos<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Talk to me about the quality then, because obviously \u2014 how do you vet for quality with these ICs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> So with the after photos, I literally check to see \u2014 I check the before, I check the after. I tell them to take photos from basically the same, like, you know, distance and from the same position you took your before photos. And I just check to make sure that it&#8217;s completely clear, it&#8217;s shiny, it&#8217;s polished, there&#8217;s no hair strands left behind. I tell them, don&#8217;t just take a full photo of a room and think that that&#8217;s okay. No, take a photo inside the microwave, inside the sink, inside, you know, all the things. Like, I don&#8217;t care if you send me a million pictures and upload it, and they may do that just so that it protects you, because essentially that&#8217;s how we get paid. If you do a horrible job and take half behind photos, then the customer is not gonna rebook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> So I kind of have to break it down, you know, break it down so that they can fully understand the importance of it, and that you&#8217;re not just signing in, you know, clocking into work and that&#8217;s it and leaving. Like, you&#8217;re performing a service. And, you know, I tell them, I say, imagine if you had a hair appointment or a nail appointment and they did some crappy nails on you and you still had to pay \u2014 like, how would you feel? Or how would you feel if somebody called out 10 minutes before your hair appointment? You&#8217;d be pissed. So put yourself in the customer&#8217;s shoes, be realistic, and do what you have to do so we can make this money, honey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, really come at it from the \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> I&#8217;m just real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, no, it&#8217;s so true. Of just like, we have high standards so we can all benefit, right? We can all make money, the business can grow, which means we can pay higher, all of the things, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-13\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The website, the logo, and the homes she gets to see<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Speaking of, I love \u2014 I&#8217;m looking at your video on your website. How did you get this? Did you \u2014 it&#8217;s beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> I made that, I made that from scratch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> You made that video? Oh my gosh, you guys, we&#8217;ll definitely have her website linked down below, miraclecleanga.com. The video, I&#8217;m literally like staring at it. These are your apartments that you clean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, those are the apartments that I clean, yes. And I just got those, the other photos, of course, from Google, like the cleaners, yeah. And I just continued to revise the website. And yeah, I just made her a logo and compared \u2014 like I was trying to give it the Housewives of Atlanta feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> That&#8217;s the feel I&#8217;m trying to give. I know it&#8217;s a little peach in there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> It&#8217;s gorgeous. But yeah, some of these \u2014 oh, for me, one of my favorite parts about being a cleaning business is getting to see inside people&#8217;s houses. I just love it. I just love interior design. I love \u2014 like, I just love beautiful spaces. So it&#8217;s very satisfying. Like, show me the pretty houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, I&#8217;ve seen some gorgeous homes. I mean like all covered in glass, gorgeous like ceiling to floor. Like I mean just, just breathtaking. Yes. Where I&#8217;m like, oh my goodness. And then I tell my cleaners too, I&#8217;m like, hey look, when you go into these homes, it looks perfect. But to them, it&#8217;s not perfect. Nine times out of 10, they have OCD. They literally see crumbs like on the \u2014 like, it&#8217;s not perfect. That&#8217;s why they hired you. So it&#8217;s most likely horrible to them. So, you know, you just have to, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> You know, it&#8217;s so interesting. And I&#8217;m sure a lot of our listeners can attest to this, is that the hardest houses to clean are the clean houses. Right? Where you walk in and you&#8217;re like, why am I even here? Those are the toughest houses, because you have to be \u2014 it has to be so good, because they&#8217;re clearly very clean people. They&#8217;re paying money. You need to show them why. And I remember like, early on in cleaning, I had a house that I would do every two weeks and I mean, it was so clean. It was so clean and I&#8217;m wiping down all of the doors, you know, like everything, every, every, every. And she walked through and she&#8217;s just like, I just love that you do that. And I&#8217;m like, there is not a speck of dust in this house \u2014 like, but they want to know that it&#8217;s getting done. Like, they want to know that that&#8217;s happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-14\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">The trashed apartments behind beautiful doors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> It&#8217;s just tough though, because yeah, it&#8217;s not like the \u2014 I mean, do you ever get like dirty, nasty houses? Like, does that happen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Ooh, yes. So we have a few that live in a gorgeous high-rise and their house is trashed. We have a customer, actually two days ago, where she doesn&#8217;t throw away her feminine hygiene products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh, what do you mean she doesn&#8217;t throw them away? Like, where do they go?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> She doesn&#8217;t throw them in the trash can. She just like \u2014 into the trash, yeah. She does that, and then her like, you know, snot rags that she blows her nose. So when the cleaner comes in, the bathroom is piled up against the wall. So the cleaner&#8217;s calling me like, &#8220;Shaquille, what is going on here?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> What the fuck? I don&#8217;t know what else to say to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, it&#8217;s crazy. And then she won&#8217;t wash her dishes for the whole month. So it literally piles out of the sink. And then her shower is orange, so from mildew and the like \u2014 she just lets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Wow. So do you guys do that? Like talk me through that. Because for us, we have had clients where, yes, where their teenage daughters or whatever will just throw the bloody pads like next to the garbage, and we&#8217;ll just leave them, because we&#8217;re like, we don&#8217;t do that. We don&#8217;t touch that stuff, like, because at that point it&#8217;s like a respect line. But every company is different. So I&#8217;m curious, like, do you guys do the dishes? Like, how do you handle that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah. So we do the dishes. We don&#8217;t hand wash dishes, but we do do them. We put them in the dishwasher, one load. And sometimes, depending on the customer \u2014 so if you&#8217;re like a heavy tipper, then I&#8217;ll tell the cleaner, I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Hey, look, can you clean this? She tips well, like don&#8217;t leave anything in her sink, please.&#8221; So they&#8217;ll, you know, do that. And then also watering plants and just little odd and end things that \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> That make you guys stand out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah. Yes. But as far as the bathroom with her, she&#8217;s the only customer. So what I do, I tell my cleaners, if you can, with a broom, just sweep it. Like, take her broom and hit the corner and pull out those tampons and packets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Mm-hmm. This is crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> It is! You know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> You know, we had a house last week. It was the first time clean. And the cleaner was like, &#8220;I&#8217;m just like&#8230;&#8221; They were going over, they&#8217;re like, &#8220;We want to get these bathrooms done.&#8221; They were like, &#8220;The floor is really bad.&#8221; They sent a picture and there&#8217;s just blood all over the floors. Like, but dry. And I&#8217;m like, so we just keep calling it the murder house because we&#8217;re like, what? Like, what happened in this house? And they&#8217;re very quiet now, but it&#8217;s just like \u2014 and of course, until after the fact, we didn&#8217;t realize. And the cleaners did it. And we&#8217;re like, guys, you don&#8217;t have to clean blood on the floors. Like, we&#8217;re not that kind of \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> No, no. Yeah. It&#8217;s crazy. But cleaning her home is literally \u2014 I tell everyone that goes to that home, that is the definition of Miracle Cleaners by definition, outside of like luxury five star. That you will see like a complete transformation after my cleaners have gone there, where it&#8217;s like, whose apartment was this? I know she&#8217;s like shocked when she walks in her home too. But yeah, she has clothes everywhere. So we do put them in bags, and like, I&#8217;ll tell them how to make her bed that has a million things on it, wigs and all this stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Do you charge like extra for all of this kind of like out of the box stuff?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> So she booked for a deep clean already. So she&#8217;s reoccurring. So because she is a special case, should the cleaner go over a set amount of hours, I will extend their hours just to make it, you know, fit. Yeah, but she doesn&#8217;t \u2014 it&#8217;s crazy. She doesn&#8217;t tip. She doesn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Wow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> She doesn&#8217;t care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh my goodness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah. And it really is a doctor. She&#8217;s a doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Wow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> A lot of them are doctors. Yeah, they don&#8217;t care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> That&#8217;s kind of crazy. And it always is interesting when you have beautiful homes like this, you assume things, and it really depends on the individual. Just like we&#8217;ve had the most modest home that&#8217;s just like perfectly clean. Although we do have one client, I don&#8217;t know if I&#8217;ve ever shared this before. He&#8217;s a wonderful client. He&#8217;s been a client for almost seven years now at this point. Great guy. He takes his toilet seat off and puts it in the dishwasher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Oh, no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Great guy, but he wants that. He&#8217;s like, &#8220;Nope, you don&#8217;t have to clean it. I&#8217;ll put this in the dishwasher.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> That should be on TLC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I know. I mean, it is technically sanitary, but like, gosh, yeah. So it&#8217;s the quirks and eccentricities of people is very interesting. Again, we&#8217;re in their house, like, and that&#8217;s what&#8217;s so \u2014 I mean, it scratches my nosy itch, obviously. We always wanna like protect an anonymity. I can&#8217;t ever say that word. We wanna protect who they are, but like it is fun to just be like, ah, wouldn&#8217;t expect it there, you know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-15\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">How she has grown as an entrepreneur<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> So for you, I&#8217;m curious. Yeah, you have seen it all. Like kind of just overall now as an entrepreneur, how have you grown? What has this changed about you, or what has this brought out in you that maybe you didn&#8217;t realize was such a big strength of yours?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Wow, I would say I&#8217;m very adaptable. Like anything could happen at any time and I&#8217;m like a soldier, like I&#8217;m ready to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Roll with the punches, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, roll with the punches. I would say I&#8217;ve grown, I take disappointment a whole lot differently than before. You know, when people let you down. Like I had a field manager that, you know, you grow to like, &#8217;cause you heard different tricks and stuff. Yeah, and it&#8217;s just, you know, she basically left prior to any type of notice. And she was just like, yeah, I found another company, because she can only work between like 8 to 5. And so I&#8217;m like, okay, you know, I don&#8217;t know, because most of our cleanings are from 9 to 5. So I&#8217;m just like, okay, well, she&#8217;s like, yeah, but Airbnbs. And I&#8217;m just like, okay, well, you could have \u2014 you&#8217;re my manager, so you could have at least given me a notice. I&#8217;ve looked out for you so many times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> You know, so that was very disappointing, because when she would have emergencies and have to go to New York to see family for three or four weeks, I would still keep her job without replacing it. I would just shift things around. And so that kind of hurt a little bit. But you know that, and just other cleaners that \u2014 you know how you really, because we are caring people, it&#8217;s like, you know, I know I have my cleaner&#8217;s best interest. You know, like I know I&#8217;m not going to defraud them or do anything crazy or talk to them crazy. But what I will do is basically, you know, I would make sure you get as many hours as possible. You know, I would just do the things that would work for you. And so I felt like it was \u2014 I don&#8217;t take it personally anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> More detached, like you&#8217;re able to have that separation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah. I guess it&#8217;s more detached, but I don&#8217;t know. I just say overall, I&#8217;m more confident. I&#8217;m more fearless, even though there are some things that I feel like I&#8217;m operating from a sense of fear, like the Google reviews and things like that. Just overall, I just transform. I feel like a butterfly in a sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh, I love that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, and I just, I don&#8217;t know, I just try to work through things and just build connections with people. I feel like that&#8217;s what has literally like kept me in the business on both sides, whether it&#8217;s cleaning companies, you know, or cleaners, you know, or customers. Customers are like, you know, &#8220;Shaquille, I won&#8217;t let any other company clean my home.&#8221; Or, you know, just different things where \u2014 yeah, it just, it&#8217;s taught me how to build more solid relationships. It&#8217;s taught me to read people like within the first second, five seconds of meeting them, so you can kind of see like what type of customer or cleaner they are. And that has honestly protected me from a lot, you know, because once you can pick up a cleaner and their personality and how they are \u2014 like, and you know, are they going to be the one that&#8217;s going to make a lot of excuses? Are they going to be the one that&#8217;s going to be with you? You know, if you have a call out, are they going to rush to, you know, to help you out? You know, you just learn to read people more and just grow from that, eliminate excuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-16\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Red flags and the complaint from yesterday<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, absolutely. Is there any red flags either on the client or employee side that you were able to discern and be like, nope, not for me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> I will say for a customer, it would be when they ask what is included in a package. I know that that is a standard question, but sometimes when they ask too many questions \u2014 sorry, delivery. When they ask too many questions and then they say like, you know, is the cleaner here? They begin to just ask like nitpicky questions. Do y&#8217;all clean the top of this? Or like just items that I kind of know that they wouldn&#8217;t typically clean or even look at. So yeah, so I just know like based on that, and I&#8217;ll contact the cleaner and just let them know, hey, this customer is asking a lot of questions upon, you know, onboarding them. Even the day of the appointment, they&#8217;re asking a lot of questions. And so I need you to be very detailed, take very detailed before and afters. If you see anything that you have a question about, just give them a whole rundown just to make sure. Because I&#8217;m basically trying to be proactive of like, my spidey senses are tingling. Let me make sure that we are nailing this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> And like you said, cover your ass. Like that&#8217;s what those pictures are for, and really like making it for the cleaner. Like I&#8217;m not trying to catch you in anything. I&#8217;m trying to make sure that I&#8217;m protecting you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, that&#8217;s literally exactly what it is. I&#8217;m like, hey, look, help me help you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yes. Have you had instances like in those scenarios where then they come back and you&#8217;ve had to been like, nope, this is the before and after. Like, I see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, that does happen. Yes. Yes. Yesterday. Yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yesterday? Tell me what happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yesterday. Yesterday was insane. So the cleaner showed up on time, went into the home, performed the deep clean. Well, prior to the deep clean, I asked the customer, do you have any specific areas that you would like us to pay attention to? He said, no, not at the present moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> That was the ultimate ding, ding, ding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes. And I&#8217;m like, not at the present moment \u2014 that to me, that was very strange. And I&#8217;m like, oh no. So I notified her, I told her, I said, hey, you know, I gave her the disclosures and she did the clean. I checked her after photos. It looked perfect. He tipped her, via Zelle, tipped her. As soon as she made it to the parking deck, he texts me and said, I need to file a complaint against the cleaner. I said, &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry, can I please?&#8221; I called him, he forwarded my call, and he said, &#8220;I want this on text message.&#8221; I said, &#8220;Sure.&#8221; I said, &#8220;How may I assist?&#8221; Like, I didn&#8217;t even know what to do, I&#8217;m like, &#8220;How may I assist?&#8221; He was like, &#8220;Yes, there was areas missed in the shower. I paid for this cleaning.&#8221; I said, &#8220;I&#8217;m looking at the after photos. Your caulk in your shower, in your tile, is yellow,&#8221; because he&#8217;s never cleaned a shower before. So if you don&#8217;t, in those high-rises \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> It&#8217;s stained, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, it&#8217;s gonna stain. So I said, &#8220;She scrubbed your grout, she scrubbed the floors, and that&#8217;s literally the best. We can&#8217;t use bleach in these high-rises.&#8221; So I&#8217;m like, &#8220;We&#8217;ve used a Magic Eraser. We&#8217;ve literally scrubbed, we&#8217;ve done everything we can do. That is just your caulk that&#8217;s been stained.&#8221; And he was like, &#8220;Yeah, so what&#8217;s the name of your company?&#8221; And he&#8217;s like, &#8220;I just still wanna file a complaint.&#8221; And so I just told him, I said, &#8220;Hey, look, I can send my field manager out there with the drill&#8221; \u2014 basically it&#8217;s a drill gun, a drill brush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah, and we&#8217;ll drill your showers. I&#8217;m gonna have him sign a disclosure on Saturday morning. So should anything \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Well, a liability waiver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah, should anything happen, we have that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> It&#8217;s weird. Yeah, we have, I think in our client guidelines, because of that type of stuff, we added a section that talks about like what we can and cannot accomplish with cleaning, basically. Because it&#8217;s like, yeah, people all complain about like the fact that you didn&#8217;t take their 30 year old stove and make it look brand new again. It&#8217;s like, you need to buy a new stove if you want it to look like a new stove. Like we&#8217;re cleaning it, we&#8217;re not like refurbishing it. Or whatever the thing is of like, you need to refinish your floors. You&#8217;re like, you know, like there&#8217;s a difference between cleaning and like repairing, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> And repairing, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh, how frustrating, how frustrating. Especially if you tip the cleaner. Like, so clearly you were happy, but yeah, that&#8217;s crazy. How frustrating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yeah. And I told him that. I said, we are \u2014 &#8217;cause you know, he wants to text. I said, we are kind of confused because you told the cleaner that it was satisfactory and you tipped her. And then he said, my tip to the cleaner has nothing to do with the cleaner. It has everything to do with the standards. And I was like, oh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> That doesn&#8217;t make sense. It feels like he&#8217;s \u2014 are you AI-ing this response, dude? Like that doesn&#8217;t make any sense at all. Has to do with the standards that I&#8217;m saying she didn&#8217;t hit, but I&#8217;m tipping \u2014 like that doesn&#8217;t make sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, it doesn&#8217;t make any sense. And I&#8217;m like, oh my goodness. So I&#8217;m like, okay, well we can be there first thing Saturday morning, get it taken care of. He was like, okay, sounds great. So I thank God that literally that rarely \u2014 like that honestly has never happened where somebody can just report it right after. Like it&#8217;s very strange. So I&#8217;m grateful for that, but.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> And like you said, those before and afters are so valuable. I know we did a move-out clean and they complained. We sent Hannah, who&#8217;s like my lead trainer, field development, quality assurance specialist. Like that is what she does. She&#8217;s very, very good. And we sent her in and she was like scrubbing the walls. It was perfect. And they sent another email that was like, we are remopping and the water is brown, like it is filthy. And we sent them the after video that Hannah took and it&#8217;s like, really? Like, because it looks literally perfect. They didn&#8217;t respond, they paid their bill. And it&#8217;s like, you little shit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, just trying to get over it, trying to get over it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> And that&#8217;s the hard part. And I think that&#8217;s like, there&#8217;s only so much we can do to mitigate that risk, right? And lower the ability of people to do that. But at the end of the day, that is one of the risks of opening a cleaning business, is people are going to try to do that. And obviously like if it&#8217;s happening all the time, we need to wonder why. But it just comes with the territory and you just have to be able to handle yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Mm-hmm, yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-17\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Losing her cool and the hospital FaceTime<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Have you ever had to lose your \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Oh my God, your shower is dirty. Yeah, it&#8217;s a filthy shower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Filthy shower, sis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, exactly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> So I mean, have you ever lost your cool at a cleaner or a client? You just seem so collected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> I would say, I didn&#8217;t lose \u2014 okay, so with a cleaner, yes. But it wasn&#8217;t like, I didn&#8217;t curse them out. I just knew she was lying to me. So here&#8217;s the thing, she would love to \u2014 okay, so she would call out. She would say, &#8220;Hey, Shaquille, I need Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday off.&#8221; And so I&#8217;m like, okay. So she would call out for these days, and then when she gets paid, her check is less. So she would get upset. And I&#8217;m like, why is it not clicking that if you work less, you get paid less? So she was pissed at me. So sometimes she would retaliate and not show up to work because her check is less, but she&#8217;s the one who called out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Which will also make her check less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes. I&#8217;m just like, I said, is something wrong with me? Like, I had to pinch myself &#8217;cause I&#8217;m like, this is weird. So I said \u2014 so the day that she did call out, this is crazy, the appointment was at 10 a.m. I already switched the schedule around to have another cleaner go to that appointment, but I acted as though I still needed to hear from her. So I&#8217;m like, hey, are you there? Are you showing up? I waited for an hour. Then I text her and I said, you know, due to no response, I think this has a no call, no show. And unfortunately, I have to terminate your contract with us. She literally responded instantly and said, &#8220;I just opened my eyes. I was in the hospital. I was unconscious.&#8221; And she said, &#8220;And I look at my phone and I&#8217;m fired. Are you serious, Shaquille, after everything?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Of course. Did she send you a selfie from the hospital bed that was like AI&#8217;d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> &#8216;Cause I&#8217;ve seen that before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> But I FaceTimed her. I said, &#8220;If you are really in the hospital, answer this FaceTime.&#8221; I FaceTimed her. I know you&#8217;re like, &#8220;What?&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I know! I fucking love that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes. Yes. I said, &#8220;Answer this FaceTime.&#8221; I have on a baseball cap, &#8217;cause she forwarded the FaceTime. She said, &#8220;I&#8217;m not answering the FaceTime looking like this.&#8221; I said, &#8220;It&#8217;s okay. I have a baseball cap on. It&#8217;s fine.&#8221; I said, &#8220;If you were really in the hospital and you were unconscious and opened your phone and saw that you were no longer employed, I will re-employ you, so just answer the FaceTime.&#8221; She wouldn&#8217;t even answer the phone. And then she sent me a photo of a dent, looked like somebody hit a shopping cart in it. And she said, &#8220;My daughter was in that car. I was in a car accident.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Okay, did she have a doctor&#8217;s note? Like anything?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> No doctor&#8217;s, nothing, nothing. And then the time of day of the photo in the morning, from the time I&#8217;m texting her, does not match the time of day in that photo. So I&#8217;m just like, I&#8217;m sorry. Because I&#8217;m a smaller business, I can&#8217;t afford to like live on BS cleaners. Like I have to have people that are honest. Well, at least give me a doctor&#8217;s note.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> You know, like do something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah. No, and that&#8217;s, I think for me, that has been like the most eye-opening part of the business. And the hardest thing to do is like, maintain your humanity and not become cynical because of the lying. Like the amount of lying that happens, where it&#8217;s just like, I expect stuff, you know, like whatever, I don&#8217;t care. If you need a day off or whatever, like you just say that. Don&#8217;t \u2014 you don&#8217;t need to lie. You don&#8217;t need to make something up. Like, I am truly shocked by some of the stories that they&#8217;ll tell. It&#8217;s like kind of crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes. Yes, like crazy. Like one lady told me she was in a ditch. She was like, &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry&#8221; \u2014 &#8217;cause she wasn&#8217;t answering the phone. And I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Where are you?&#8221; She said, &#8220;I&#8217;m sorry, my car spun off into a ditch. I lost cell phone signal. I ended up at the McDonald&#8217;s. McDonald&#8217;s wifi was acting up, but I&#8217;m on my way. I have my newborn in the back seat.&#8221; I said, &#8220;What in the world?&#8221; I mean, so I chalked it up to it&#8217;s Atlanta, &#8217;cause like literally you&#8217;ll come across people that say, &#8220;Oh, I have my own cleaning business, I&#8217;m A1.&#8221; You know, like they&#8217;ll say all the things and then they do not conduct themselves in that way whatsoever. And I&#8217;m just like, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> That&#8217;s really interesting. Like when you said that, you know, something culturally speaking about Atlanta is like, everybody&#8217;s just like, how can I make money as fast as possible. Like, I wonder \u2014 like, that&#8217;s really interesting. That and obviously, that is beneficial in a lot of ways, because people want to hustle, but then they don&#8217;t actually want to hustle and do the thing, right? They don&#8217;t want to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> No, that&#8217;s one thing for sure. People in Atlanta, they don&#8217;t want to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Interesting. Yeah, it reminds me, we had a woman that we hired this year, who \u2014 it was the same thing as like, so she had her orientation and like trained one week, and then the next week was her first week of training, so her first paycheck was one day, right? And she quit. She was like, &#8220;I can&#8217;t live off $100 a week, this is crazy.&#8221; And we&#8217;re like, &#8220;You worked one day last week!&#8221; Like they don&#8217;t \u2014 like, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know how we could be more clear!&#8221; I don&#8217;t get it, I don&#8217;t get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> And I don&#8217;t know how else to do it, so what I do with the interviews now is I&#8217;ll tell them, I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Hey, you&#8217;ll make as much money as you&#8217;re available for.&#8221; I just tell them like, &#8220;Hey, our cleaners make between this and this, if you&#8217;re available. Should you not be available?&#8221; And I hate to talk to people like that. Some people are like, &#8220;I understand.&#8221; I&#8217;m like, &#8220;Okay.&#8221; But some people don&#8217;t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, like I don&#8217;t mean to condescend, but I just want to make sure it&#8217;s very clear. You get paid when you work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> When you work. When you work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Oh, that&#8217;s amazing, I love that. Oh my gosh, that&#8217;s hilarious. What about clients? Have you ever had like a, oof, that was intense kind of moment where you had to put them in their place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Wow. No, I would say, I don&#8217;t have anybody that&#8217;s like that. I would say, when it comes to payments, &#8217;cause we&#8217;ll charge after the cleaning \u2014 which I promise you I&#8217;m trying to get there where we charge before, oh my God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> I mean, we charge after, we just have a card on file, so we do the same, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Okay, yes, yes. So I think the only issue I&#8217;ve ever had was a customer paying the next day, and that gave me the worst anxiety, because I&#8217;m like, &#8220;We cleaned your house.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, get it done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Like, yeah. But I had a little peace in that because I do have the key to his home. He knows I have the key. So it&#8217;s like, I know, you know, he&#8217;s a reoccurring customer. So I&#8217;m like, okay, works overnight. Let me just \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Just go to sleep, it&#8217;ll be there in the morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> So, yeah, I got you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 id=\"heading-18\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is next for Miracle Cleaners<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Okay, that&#8217;s good. That&#8217;s good that you have a pretty good client base. That&#8217;s awesome. And honestly, thank you for sharing all these stories. I just love to hear the specific stories. I think that&#8217;s so fun. And I think we can all kind of commiserate over, especially the employee stuff, because it&#8217;s like, oh my gosh, sometimes it&#8217;s just insane. But what does the next year look like for you? What is your vision for, you know, either finishing this year out? Where do you want to see yourself in the next year?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Within the next year, I would like to see myself more in commercial. I want to have some more commercial accounts, really get into that, like possibly art museums or salon suites or just, you know, different medical offices. Like that&#8217;s what I want to get into. And then expand in the residential realm just through strictly Miracle Cleaners, you know, like just kind of growing that customer base. And eventually get into e-commerce, you know, like selling like different cleaning products, and just kind of having a hybrid model of commercial, residential, and then eco-friendly, or maybe the latest and greatest or something that I could think of, you know, as far as a cleaning product to sell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, we have an entrepreneur in our midst. You just, you&#8217;re like, I want to do it all. I love it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> I&#8217;ll do it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Yeah, so that&#8217;s amazing. You&#8217;re clearly very passionate about this and it&#8217;s just so, so exciting to see where you&#8217;re at. And I know like, we&#8217;ll have to have another conversation in a year, see where you&#8217;re at. I&#8217;ll hold you to it. Be like, did you get any commercial? I&#8217;m gonna do my Maid Summit talk on commercial this year. So we shall \u2014 I&#8217;ll spill all of it, as much as I can within 45 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, oh awesome, I&#8217;ll be there for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Hell yeah. Shaquille, this has been amazing. If people wanna follow either you personally or professionally, the business, where can they follow you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Yes, you can follow me on Instagram at Miracle Cleaners of Georgia. And then my website, www.miraclecleanga.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> We&#8217;ll definitely link those down below. This has been amazing. People, please leave her some love. This has been absolutely titillating. We&#8217;ve been thinking about those bloody pads and tampons all day now. Because we&#8217;ve had stuff like that too. But I thought for real, seriously, this has been a joy. I&#8217;ve loved this conversation. Thank you so much for your time today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Shaquille:<\/strong> Thank you so much as well. It&#8217;s been nothing but an honor. Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Stephanie:<\/strong> Everybody, please leave her some love down in the comments. Hit that like, hit that subscribe, and we will see you in the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube From fraud investigator to cleaning business owner Stephanie: Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and today&#8217;s fantastic guest is Ms. Shaquille Richard. She is the owner of Miracle Cleaners of Georgia in Atlanta, Georgia, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":17688,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"Behind the Scenes of Shaquille Richards's Luxury High-Rise Cleaning Biz","_seopress_titles_desc":"Shaquille Richard of Miracle Cleaners of Georgia on cleaning Atlanta luxury high-rises, parking logistics, after-photo QC, and a move-out clean gone wrong.","_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-17687","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\/17687","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=17687"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17691,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17687\/revisions\/17691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zenmaid.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}