Meet Stephanie Pipkin, your host and owner of Serene Clean. In this first episode, she tells the story of how she started her cleaning business at age 22 with just a flyer and a hope to make some side income. Today, at 28, her company makes $1.4M in revenue, and she runs it from Savannah, Georgia while her team operates in Wisconsin. Stephanie gets real about all the ups and downs - from her first employee ghosting her (and crying about it) to managing hundreds of cleaners at a military base during the Afghan refugee crisis. She talks about what it's really like to run a cleaning business, including dealing with problem employees, building a solid team, and creating a company culture she's proud of.

 

Key Moments:

0:00 - Who's Stephanie and what's Serene Clean?

2:13 - Life before cleaning (waitressing and office work)

6:42 - How a YouTube video changed everything

11:00 - First employees - the good, bad, and ghosted 24:30 -

Making it through COVID

32:59 - The huge Fort McCoy project

39:57 - Why she's starting this podcast

46:04 - What actually works when starting out

52:17 - How the business runs today

 

Mentioned in this Episode:

Profit First

Clean My Space YouTube Channel

ZenMaid Software

QuickBooks

 

Want to make your cleaning business run smoother? Try ZenMaid free for 14 days at https://app.zenmaid.com/sign-up

Rather read than listen? Check out the full episode write-up on our blog at https://www.zenmaid.com/magazine/filthy-rich-cleaners-podcast-episode-1/