No one likes confrontation, but sometimes it's necessary. In this solo episode, Stephanie shares the pattern she sees in nearly every consulting call and also recognizes in herself — clocking unacceptable behavior but only saying something when it hits a breaking point. She walks through real examples from Serene Clean, including the employee who stole a wallet from a church, and the manager she nearly lost because she waited months to say what needed to be said.

📌 What You'll Learn

— Why avoiding a hard conversation now guarantees a bigger blowup later

— The difference between a genuine mistake and a blatant disregard for standards (and why they require different responses)

— How your best employees lose respect for you when you let bad behavior slide

— Why delegating every difficult conversation away costs you the skill of having them

— The 48-hour rule Stephanie set for herself when she's sitting on unsavory information

— Why stating a consequence and not following through teaches your team not to believe you

— How avoiding the conversation steals your employee's opportunity to improve

— Why "you don't need anybody" is the harsh truth that saved her culture

— What core values mean and how allowing one exception makes them worthless

— How self-respect is built by action, and why you can't command respect you don't have for yourself

Resources Mentioned

— ZenMaid Mastermind (free Facebook group): https://www.facebook.com/groups/zenmaidmastermind

— ZenMaid Weekly Newsletter (free, no ZenMaid account required): https://zenmaid.com/newsletter

👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com

📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/

✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/

📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

A client claimed a 15-carat ring vanished from under a shampoo bottle, but little did they know that Shaquille spent 15 years as a fraud investigator. In this episode, Shaquille Richards, owner of Miracle Cleaners of Georgia in Atlanta, sits down with Stephanie to talk about building a five-star luxury cleaning business from scratch after losing her job three years ago. She breaks down how she landed the luxury high-rise work through a resident-app partnership, the parking and concierge logistics she manages by hand every day, and the after-photo system that protects her cleaners and her business.

📌 What You'll Learn

— How Shaquille broke into luxury high-rise cleaning through one relationship

— The parking and concierge workflow she uses so cleaners never get booted or locked out

— Why she gives customers a three-hour arrival window her cleaners never see

— How her before-and-after photo process protects cleaners from false complaints

— How she's handled awkward conversations with compassion

— Why she says high-end clients are simpler than you think

— How a 15-year fraud career made her better at running a cleaning business

— The difference between cleaning and repairing, and how to set that expectation before the job

— How she sets availability expectations in interviews so cleaners stop being shocked by their paychecks

— Why fear of Google reviews is costing owners more business than a bad review ever would

Resources Mentioned

— Miracle Cleaners of Georgia website: https://miraclecleanga.com

— Miracle Cleaners of Georgia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/miraclecleanersofgeorgia/

— ZenMaid (Shaquille's scheduling software): https://get.zenmaid.com/

👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com

📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/

✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/

📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

Serene Clean just had its highest-revenue month ever (over $130,000 in July), and Stephanie is opening the books to show exactly how it happened. In this episode, she breaks down the July numbers at Serene Clean: record revenue, 350+ recurring clients, 29 first-time cleans, and the highest net MRR the company has ever added. She walks through the metrics driving the growth, plus the areas that still need work, including undercharged travel fees and why none of her 2026 hires have made it past 90 days. It's a number-heavy look at what's working inside of Serene Clean!

📌 What You'll Learn

— How Serene Clean went from a $97K January to a record $130K+ July

— Why tracking net MRR (monthly recurring revenue) is the most important habit for growth

— What a "whale" client is, and why no client should be more than 10% of your revenue

— How switching to flat rate pricing made clients say yes to recurring service faster

— Why recurring close rate matters more than close rate alone

— How to normalize your profit and loss for 5-payroll-run months so you're not comparing apples to oranges

— Why most travel fees are undercharged

— What Stephanie learned from digging into why 14 employees left in 2026

Resources Mentioned

— Serene Clean's MRR tracking spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rO8m4mlE9-jHKavGDAo7kLyzvjTJuQYZdb3tOVY0Tro/edit?gid=890978938#gid=890978938

— Stephanie's flat rate estimate email template (~$20 on her website, linked below): https://serene-clean.com/downloads/flat-rate-cleaning-estimate-email-template/

— Serene Clean's active Indeed job listings: https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Serene-Clean-6/jobs

— ZenMaid Mastermind Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/zenmaidmastermind

— CleanCon in Austin, Texas: https://www.mycleancon.com/

👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com

📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/

✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/

📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

Michelle Walker moved to the United States four years ago speaking almost no English. Today she runs Walker Cleaning Solutions in Portland, Oregon, with 15 recurring clients and her first W-2 employee — and she started the whole thing with $200. In this hybrid interview-and-consulting episode, Stephanie sits down with Michelle to walk through her path to owning a cleaning business. Michelle shares how she landed her first two recurring clients through families she babysat for and why she turns down clients other cleaners would take. Stephanie then shares what she thinks Michelle should focus on next, including how to think about revenue, how to think about revenue when you hand jobs to an employee, how picky is too picky, and the three growth levers that matter most at her size.

📌 What You'll Learn

— How to land your first recurring clients without spending a dollar on advertising

— Why the families who hire babysitters and nannies are an overlooked pipeline for cleaning clients

— The red flags in a first text message that tell you a client will be a nightmare

— Why "must-have" hiring requirements are non-negotiable, and what happens when you ignore your gut

— How to think about your revenue as a pie when you start handing jobs to employees

— How to figure out how many clients you actually need before you can stop cleaning

— Why being picky about clients only makes sense in the context of your lead volume and close rate

— The three growth levers Stephanie recommends for a solo-to-small cleaning business: in-person networking, community giving, and Google Business Profile

— Why video reviews are worth almost any amount of effort to get

— How hiring part-timers protects you when someone calls out or quits

Resources Mentioned

— ZenMaid (scheduling, reminders, payroll, clock in/out, digital checklists, client notes, booking form): https://get.zenmaid.com/

— Book: Profit First by Mike Michalowicz: https://www.amazon.com/dp/073521414X?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback

— Walker Cleaning Solutions (website): https://www.walkercleansolutions.com/

— Walker Cleaning Solutions (Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61586779175940

👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com

📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/

✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/

📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

Ever woken up and thought, "Didn't I deal with this exact same problem yesterday?" 🥴 In this solo episode (inspired by a groundhog hat and the movie Groundhog Day), Stephanie breaks down why cleaning business owners keep reliving the same problems on repeat, and how to stop. She separates the recurrences you can never eliminate (call outs, cancellations, client questions) from the ones that should never happen twice, then walks through the systems Serene Clean uses to handle both.

📌 What You'll Learn

— The "three-time rule" for knowing when a recurring problem needs a system

— Five questions to ask about any repeat issue: can you automate it, templatize it, document it, delegate it, or prevent it?

— How Slackbot autoresponders train your team to communicate fully the first time

— Why a policy is a decision you make once instead of a thousand times

— How ZenMaid's updated digital checklists let you print and share live cleaning checklists with clients

— How to build a call-out protocol so a cleaner calling in sick doesn't derail your whole day

— The first step to systematizing anything: write down what you did the last time it happened

Resources Mentioned

— Stephanie's free Slackbot Autoresponder download: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AICmhBWQ_Pt1_ZJzPMQxnBV4ppD7k1Kp/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=109299880459560603683&rtpof=true&sd=true

— Serene Clean's client guidelines: https://serene-clean.com/wp-content/uploads/2026-Client-Guidelines-5-7-26.pdf

— Buy Back Your Time (book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/059342297X?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback

— The ZenMaid Mastermind Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/zenmaidmastermind

— The ZenMaid newsletter (respond with questions for future episodes): https://zenmaid.com/newsletter

👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com

📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/

✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/

📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

Six months into her cleaning business, Katie Wilson has already hit a $13K revenue month, fired a cleaner for time theft, lost half her team in 48 hours, and pulled off a 40,000-square-foot post-construction clean with four days' notice. This episode is, if nothing else, a presentation on figuring it out as you go.

In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Katie Wilson, owner of PrismPro Cleaning Solutions in Wichita, Kansas. Katie left a long career in banking and car sales to build a cleaning business she never intended to clean for. She shares how she's grown it, including Google Local Services Ads, free cleans for social proof, production rate audits, and a hiring funnel that intelligently filters candidates before she interviews them. 

📌 What You'll Learn

— Why Google LSA leads beat pay-per-click and why answering the phone fast closes nine out of 10 callers

— How free cleans build reviews, referrals, and the social proof that makes paid leads convert

— How production rate audits improve pricing and scheduling

— How Katie's audit caught an employee clocking out from home

— The Loom-based hiring funnel that filters out candidates who can't follow instructions before the first interview

— Why your close rate drops when you raise prices, and why you shouldn't panic or lower them

— How Katie assembled a crew of solo cleaners on Facebook to complete a 40,000 sq ft post-construction job in four days

Resources Mentioned

— Stephanie's consulting services & business bundles: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/

— ZenMaid scheduling software (GPS clock-in/out, before & after photos): https://get.zenmaid.com/

— Profit First (book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/073521414X?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback

— Cleaning For A Reason: https://cleaningforareason.org/

— PrismPro Cleaning Solutions website: https://prismprocleaning.com

— PrismPro Cleaning Solutions Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PrismProCleaningSolutions/

👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com

📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/

✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/

📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

Growing your commercial accounts is exciting until quality starts slipping. In this episode, Stephanie answers a listener question from Cameron of Virtuous Cleaning Services: how do you grow from 12 to 25 commercial accounts while keeping quality high? Drawing on Serene Clean's 77 commercial accounts (16 added this year alone), Stephanie breaks down the five systems her team uses to onboard new facilities, hand off accounts between cleaners, and catch problems before clients have to complain twice.

📌 What You'll Learn

Resources Mentioned

— The ZenMaid Mastermind Facebook group (free, no ZenMaid subscription required): https://www.facebook.com/groups/zenmaidmastermind

— CleanCon in Austin, TX — coming up at the end of September: https://www.mycleancon.com/

👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com

📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/

✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/

📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

What does the team behind your scheduling software REALLY think about the cleaning industry? Stephanie interviews four of ZenMaid's employees at the 2026 ZenMaid retreat in Barcelona, and the answers might change how you run your business.

In this special on-location episode, Stephanie sits down with Jorge (Head of Customer Success), Chris (full-stack developer), Nicole (Senior Content Marketing Manager), and Jim (Head of Design). They share what support tickets reveal about how organized a cleaning business really is, why hiding your prices can win you more clients, how to build a brand that actually fits your company, and the content mistakes that can erode customer trust without you even realizing.

📌 What You'll Learn

— The support-ticket "tell" that reveals within five minutes whether a cleaning business is organized or chaotic

— Why removing pricing from your booking form can eliminate an entire sales problem and create more human connection with customers

— Jim's two-part branding framework for small businesses: authentic visual identity plus a core belief you build everything around

— The two content mistakes that make cleaning businesses look unprofessional: inconsistent branding and inconsistent posting

— Why customers stop trusting a business that hasn't posted in months, even when the reviews are great

— How to bring retreat-style team bonding to a cleaning company where everyone works solo

Resources Mentioned

— CleanCon (September 28–30 in Austin, Stephanie will be there): https://www.mycleancon.com/

👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com

📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/

✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/

📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

Brooke Kerstetter built The Neat Nest from nothing. She didn't have a background in cleaning or business role models, but now, almost a year in, she's running eight-hour cleaning days and considering making her first hire. In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Brooke, owner and founder of The Neat Nest in State College, Pennsylvania, for a consulting-style deep dive into the operational gaps that hold back a solo cleaner. They cover pricing mistakes, the difference between flat-rate and hourly work, why organizing services need their own model, and all the math behind bringing on a first employee.

📌 What You'll Learn

Resources Mentioned

— The Four Tendencies (book by Gretchen Rubin on internal vs. external expectations): https://www.amazon.com/Four-Tendencies-Indispensable-Personality-Profiles/dp/1524760919

— Profit First (book on managing business cash flow): https://www.amazon.com/Profit-First-Transform-Cash-Eating-Money-Making/dp/073521414X

— The Neat Nest on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Neat-Nest/100064185693597/

👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com

📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/

✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/

📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

Two cleaning companies in one family! In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Kyleigh Lipsitz of The Blissful Clean (Grand Rapids, MI) and her mother, Lisa Temple, founder of Maid in Michigan. Lisa built her business from a stack of handwritten calendars, and Kyleigh took that framework and scaled her own business with software. They run separate residential cleaning companies two hours apart, but come to Filthy Rich Cleaners to share the systems, hiring philosophy, and sales approach that took Lisa's business to $1M in recurring revenue, and to discuss how Kyleigh is following the same playbook.

📌 What You'll Learn

Resources Mentioned

— Debbie Sardone (Lisa's business mentor / paid coaching program): https://debbiesardone.com/

— The Blissful Clean — https://theblissfulclean.com

— Maid in Michigan — https://madeinmichiganllc.com

👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com

📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/

✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/

📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application