Smart Cleaning School

 One year ago today, we arrived back in Pennsylvania after the most epic month-long family trip to the Gulf Coast of Florida. It was a dream and we actually achieved it. Our family lived a full month in another location while the family business operated back home.  In this "best-of" replay, I wanted to convey the mindset Teresa and I had when we left Florida. We didn't want to leave, but we knew we had to. Listen all the way through. I said this statement toward the end. "We both moved from sad to leave to excited to come back." Here's that episode replay.  

Are you new to the Smart Cleaning School Podcast? If not, please bare with me. I started as a solo apartment cleaner in 2005 and moved into real estate presentation cleaning in 2006. This opened up the doors for solo house and small office cleaning in late 2006. I grew and optimized my first solo cleaning business through 2017 to a 2-day per week cleaning job earning over $50,000 per year in profit. I loved having 5-day weekends to spend time with my family.  Check out the introduction episode to hear more of my story. We sold that business in 2018 for $80,000 so our family could move back to our hometown closer to family. I have fully detailed my selling process in the double episode, "How I Sold My Cleaning Business I & 2". We started and grew a new business in the Indian Valley of PA from 2018 to another optimized solo business working 2 days per week and earning $70,000 per year in profit by early 2021. This podcast documents that entire process if you'd like to learn how to do it yourself.  Everything changed when we got our "New Freedom Vision", which was followed by numerous monthly calls with Coach Josh, and culiminating with the victory episode called "The Fight was Worth It". Here's the short version. We desired as a family to take the ultimate trip. We wanted to go to Florida for a month in the middle of the Pennsylvania winter. It was a fight, but it was worth it. I encourage you to to back and listen to the episodes I've mentioned. I believe it's important to walk beside me as we scraped and struggled to build the team that would allow us a month away. In this episode, I want to hone in on one statement my wife Teresa said to me as we were packing up on the last day in Florida. 

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I originally started this podcast for solo cleaners because I was a solo cleaner. I was the solo cleaner's champion to show that you don't have to scale to win. I had optimized 2 solo cleaning companies to $60,000 profit on 2 cleaning days per week without employees. I was also mainly in the residential cleaning world. At the time of this episode, I was growing my second company and really felt that the vision of moms helping moms helping moms would connect with so many women in the industry. But Ken, you're not a woman. That's quite obvious. But I was in an industry dominated by women, so I wanted to relate more. I have been married for 20 years. I have a daughter and 3 sisters. I'm not totally clueless. 

Would you like to talk about anything in your business. I am here to help. Book a free coaching call on the Smart Cleaning School website at www.smartcleaningschool.com. Make sure to check out the many free & paid resources available on the website as well. I look forward to helping you!

I attended my chamber's Fall Forum event at a local theater with four business leaders sharing on the state of the economy and business. For the purposes of this podcast, I'll keep the panelists nameless, but will share their backgrounds. Their backgrounds were the following: an analyst from the FED, a chief lending officer from a local bank, a machine shop owner, and the owner of a construction engineering company. I listened to each of the men talk on the state of the economy and business and the lessons they've learned and implemented. A theme emerged in my mind.  The construction engineer noticed that customers in residential real estate were more interested in energy efficient homes than ever as they wanted less expenses to operate the home. In past years, people didn't care about this as much. The machine shop owner struggled to get good tradesman to work for him. He was reluctant to take on new work. Therefore, instead of growing the bottom line, he focused on taking care of what he already had. He focused on his existing team and doing the work he could handle. He gave increased compensation and benefits and intangibles. He focused on relationships with his team and his vendors. I thought this was incredible as his culture is now booming and morale is way up and it's more desirable to work for him than ever before. All of this happened because he couldn't grow. The loan officer shared the point of view from his customers that he lends to. He notices that businesses are doing more tightening of the budget and watching their expense lines. They are watching their cash flows also to make sure they can handle what's coming next with increasing interest rates. He mentioned one customer that normally would do a single projection for the next 12-24 months. That same business owner is doing 3-5 projections at any point similar to a meteorologist tracking a hurricane on weather.com.  

I really love how businesses are tightening up and getting efficient in their finances. I love how businesses are placing high value on building relationships and culture in their teams. Obviously this was triggered by the tightening of the economy and the inflation and rising prices. As I pondered these answers, I asked myself the questions. Will the lender observe his customers still doing multiple projections and managing cash flows when the economy is booming? Will the machine shop abandon the culture growth when hiring is easy again? Will the construction engineer be doing energy-efficient homes when energy is abundant again? I stood up and asked this question when I had the opportunity to the end. The answers were awesome, especially from the loan officer. He shared an example about his grandparents in the Great Depression. "Those that experienced the Great depression continued to operate as if they were in the Great Depression, even when things got booming again. Those that went through it, don't forget it. That mindset continued. But then the next generation who didn't experience the Great Depression had no idea. And therefore took no precautions when things were good. And these are the ones that got wiped out when it got bad." Our chamber director had a great answer. "A week economy makes businesses stronger and a strong economy can make businesses weaker." The loan officer continued by saying, "the businesses that have gone through these last 2-3 years will not forget and will continue to operate as they've been . They will stay efficient even as they grow in a better economy." He gave a warning. "It's the next generation that concerns me. These are the businesses that never experienced the pandemic like we have."

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 The Smart Cleaning Tribe has been a fun membership to run these last 4+ years. Our founding members have grown significantly as they set goals and hold each other accountable each month. Every month, I bring a subject-matter expert into the Tribe to resource the members. Our very own, Kate Sloan of Chicka Chicka Broom in Montgomery, MN, stepped up to lead the call in September 2022. She has a superpower of utilizing standard operating procedures (SOPs) so well in her business. Kate has been such a resource to the other members. We were all grateful for her sharing so much that day with us. This clip is the first 25 minutes of the 100 minute call where Kate describes her business at the different stages. It's very helpful and encouraging. It's sort of like the 45-year-old without a retirement plan yet that suddenly puts it all together at 50. That's me by the way! Ha! That was Kate as well with SOPs in her business. This 25-minute clip is a SOP story with Kate Sloan.

If you're interested in leveling up your goals each month and having a tribe to hold you accountable as you achieve them, the Smart Cleaning Tribe is for you. Check out the videos and testimonials on our Tribe page and apply to join the 1% Club! You can also book a free coaching call on the Smart Cleaning School website at www.smartcleaningschool.com. Make sure to check out the many free & paid resources available on the website as well. 

 Coach Josh and I use Marco Polo to communicate during the week. He allows me to send questions as I have them. He listens and responds when he gets the chance. I'm very grateful to have Josh Melton in my corner as we grow C3 to the next level in 2023, which is to add the second building block and earn over $100,000 income from the cleaning business.  Josh and I had an exchange on November 8th and 9th of 2022 that was so interesting to me. I've never heard it talked about before in the cleaning groups or other podcasts. I had to cover it here. 

Cleaning is a business, but a business is not merely a ledger with a list of transactions. It's easy to pull up a profit and loss report and see all of the income and expense transactions. It's easy to see the text and numbers printed on the screen or page and assume you're looking at the cleaning business. I don't believe a business merely consists of transactions. A business is relationships. A cleaning business is a group of humans cleaning for other humans, all of which have personalities, beliefs, families, interests. It's easy to measure a business in transactions. That's what our accountants do. It's not easy to measure the relational strength of our business.

Josh poses an interesting point in his Marco Polo to me. "I believe that you can trust someone that you don't respect. But I don't believe you can respect someone you don't trust." I agree with him. I can think of people right now that I could allow into my house around my family, but I don't respect them. Therefore, respect is greater than trust. How do you earn trust? I've talked about this a ton. On the "Optimizer's Workshop with Dave Reeks", I defined the 3 C's to build trust as a cleaner. You've got to have excellent character and be the type of person that others can trust.  You've got to provide an amazing cleaning service. In other words, you've got to handle the transactions of cleaning with excellence. This includes the cleaning itself and surely the transaction of invoices and payments. You've got to be consistent in your cleaning service and everything you do in dealing with your customers. If you show up with great cleaning and character over a long time, you will develop trust. Another way to build trust is to give it. Others won't trust you if you don't trust them. Trust is mutual. I'm going to add a fourth C. You've got to have compassion for other people and not be selfish. This is so foundational. Show love for your fellow human. 

When you put this all together. Start with compassion and character. Become a great cleaner and cleaning service. Handle your transactions with excellence and trust. Give trust. Do this over time. This will earn your trust from your customers. Keep doing it consistently over time and that trust will turn into something greater. It's respect. When your customers respect you, they will want to do business with you for a long time. Most clients will grow with you as you grow mutual respect. However, some clients will only ever think of you as "just the cleaner". Become a person of trust and respect and you'll attract the right ones 

I absolutely love this mindset and it thrills me to build this type of cleaning business in my community. Everything hinges on relationships, not transactions. I hope you enjoy this interaction between Josh an I on Marco Polo.

 Have you ever had a customer or an employee that ghosted you and you didn't know why it happened? When this happens early in your business, it really affects your confidence and your heart. Some of you may have had this happen with a first girlfriend or boyfriend.  It makes you question whether you should be doing what you're doing. It's natural. Rejection is very difficult.  

By 2016, I had optimized my solo cleaning company after 13 hard years. I was very confident in what I did. Later that year, I started coaching others how to do the same. Rachel was my first coaching client. I helped her every week and it felt great to help someone else. Andrea was my second coaching client. I coached her every week and it also felt great. I was really on to something. Maybe I had found a niche that I loved and also way to create a secondary income from anywhere in the country. That was very exciting! My third coaching client... Let's call him Ron... That's not his real name. I want to keep him anonymous. I coached him two times. Ron was working at a factory and had started a side-hustle cleaning company that he wanted to use to get out of his job. I saw some issues with the way he was building it and gave him some hard advice. After our second call, Ron ghosted me. He never gave a reason and he never responded to any of my follow-ups. I emailed him or messaged him probably 10 times over the next 6 to 12 months. I didn't understand what happened. Since this happened,  have moved on and added more coaching clients. I met Debbie Sardone who encouraged me to create a course. That course is called the ISO Model Course which is included in the Solo Elite Membership still today. We sold that first solo business, moved to PA and did it again. I added a podcast and memberships through the Smart Cleaning School. I scaled the second cleaning company with a team and took my family to Florida for a month.  We're growing and striving to help as many people as possible. But that third customer named Ron ghosting me really affected me early on.

I questioned whether I was doing the right thing, or if I was too hard on people, or if I was too easy, or if I was really qualified to be coaching at all? I had to work things out internally and emotionally build my confidence back up. Thankfully,  I was able to help Rachel and Andrea quite a bit, which boosted my confidence. This infamous ghosting happened in March 2017. About a month ago, I decided that I wanted to reach out to every former customer I've had in the coaching business and anything related to Smart Cleaning School memberships. I just sent a simple email checking in with everyone and thanking them for their trust in me and wanting to see how they were doing in their life, family, and business. I sent any email to Ron as well. It was the first contact or follow-up I had done in probably 4-5 years. A month later, I got a free coaching call set up on my calendar. I offer these on my website and mentioned this on my podcast. A guy named Ron booked a call. I looked at the answers to his reasonings for booking the call and it said this. "I just wanted to call and apologize to you."

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 I met a young lady named Brittany Holter on a Zoom call in December 2022. Brittany is a mom, military wife, and new cleaning business owner. She is growing fast and starting to struggle with the good problem of too much work. Her niche is in AirBnB. Brittany reached out to me by booking a free coaching call on my website. Our conversation was wide-reaching and I certainly asked her permission to record in case we talked about anything that could help other listeners like herself.  Brittany agreed and we did! There were 3 topics that we touched on that I wanted to share in one episode. They are how to deal with hazardous material or HazMat, scaling, and the do's and don't with 1099 subcontractors. I have included a clip from our hour-long free coaching call to give you the highlights.  

HazMat - This is a classification of cleaning that you need special training and PPE before you do. Don't be a people pleaser and agree to clean whatever is left, especially in an AirBnB scenario. Either decide that you don't do HazMat or get the proper training and equipment and charge the specialist prices. Otherwise, you're losing time and money and you're putting your health in jeopardy.

Scaling, W2's, and 1099s - It's hard to scale. That's why so few do it successfully. The best ones build strong systems and hire with W2 employees. They train and trust. I shared a brief summary of my experience with Brittany which I capture in this clip. The lazy and quick-fixers just hire helpers that they call 1099's. They do this and have no idea what that even means. The IRS highly regulates the 1099 subcontractor vs the W2 employee. They don't want to get short-changed in taxes. Many cleaners think they can just hire them, call them subs or 1099's, avoid all taxes, and treat them like employees. You can't have it both ways. You either have to hire an employee that you can find, employ, insure, pay taxes for, uniform, train, equip, inspect, correct, and so on. Or you have to outsource the work to a third party independent contractor that has their own supplies, insurance, training. They have their own business with their own customers. You are simply outsourcing work to them. There are do's and don'ts that the IRS highly regulates. Here's an article from the IRS.

1099's Do's and Don'ts, Pros and Cons - I'm adding this as a bonus to the call with Brittany. I am not the expert here, but I did take courses early on in my cleaning career through the experts at Service Magic (now HomeAdvisor). I will refer you to the expert. Ed Selkow is a friend. His double interview on the past, present, and future of the cleaning industry is fascinating. Ed runs the Janitorial Subcontracting Network Facebook group and so much more. Ed knows subbing! Here's the basics from Ken.

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 This is a powerful follow up to my last episode, Building Blocks, I shared a story about Legos and building your cleaning company in blocks that are duplicatable. I had developed a building block as an optimized solo cleaner, but there was no scaling needed. I shared in Building Blocks that we created our first scalable building block in 2022 which was comprised on 16 commercial locations and 8 employees. This block earned my family $40,000 income on $166,000 in annual revenue. This is not a good percentage to keep because the first block is very unprofitable. The second block nearly triples our income. There is something vital that I did not mention that really deserves its own episode. How was I able to trust others after being a solo cleaner for 15 years? How was I able to delegate, create systems, and get others to do just as amazing a job cleaning as I did solo? Do you ever find yourself asking that question? Here's the simple answer. You must let go of your control or you'll never succeed with a team.  

I had lunch with a new friend of mine. Randy Moyer is owner of Moyer Specialty Foods in Souderton, PA. They sell trail mixes and all sorts of goodies that I was so thankful Randy sent me home with that day! I had posted on Facebook a few weeks previously that I was scaling my business and the E-Myth was a big help. He commented that the book helped him successfully scale past $1M several years ago. We had some common friends and decided to meet. That lunch was amazing. Randy is a very interesting guy with a lot of personal freedom. I consider him a new mentor and am thrilled to have the opportunity to highlight his amazing company.  Randy mentors many entrepreneurs. There was a point in the lunch while I was telling my story that Randy stopped me and said this. "Ken, that right there is why so many solopreneurs and small businesses fail. You figured it out. You have already overcome the most difficult thing. Now all you have to do is grow." Would you like to know what story I told him? 

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 My boys love to build Legos! It's one of their favorite things to do. You should see the look on their faces when they open a brand new 3-in-1 set on Christmas Day. It's even more awesome to see my 5-year-old building that same Christmas Lego set on the kitchen floor a few hours later while his brothers are working on theirs. Once and a while, I'll even help them if they let me. A few years ago, we got them Ikea furniture for Christmas. Boring, right? Nope. They each got 9 pull-out organizer bins with a table top for their Legos. Oh my, did they run with that one. They spend hours taking every Lego and carefully placing them into the right color-coded bin. It was a win for the boys as they could build their own projects easier with the organizer like a true Master Builder and it was a win for mom and dad as it kept their Legos in one place...sort of. Legos are kind of like a virus. They spread. Legos end up everywhere. Since getting them the Ikea organizers, my boys have used all available flat space on the family room hard floors, kitchen table, and certainly their bedroom tabletop areas and floors to construct massive Lego ciites. They combine other building materials like Duplo and wooden blocks from games we have like Giant Jenga and Kapla blocks. They bring their stuffed animals and plastic animal toys into the creation and then play for hours. It's mesmerizing. Boys love to build.  

We went to Lego Land last year as well for a day. This was heaven on earth for a then 4, 8, and 10-year-old boys. The 4-D theatre, ride, and laser challenge were highlights. The part that I liked the best was the giant Legos. While the boys were playing in the 3-level playground, I found the pile of rubberized Legos in the parent waiting area. Each block is around 4-by-8 inches and they had a lot of them. I wanted to relive my Lego glory days and impress my sons when they got done in the playground. One thing or block lead to another. After 30 minutes I had constructed a 4-foot tall enclosed structure with entrance and roof. My boys saw it and immediately the youngest ran inside. "Wow, Dad. This is cool. Did you build this?" Oh yeah, my ego was satisfied. I got pictures of all 3 of my boys inside my castle. In fact, other kids were in line to do the same. They thought my house was part of Lego Land. "Actually, I built this."... "Really, you did this?"Oh yeah again, double boost to my ego.

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 Action Unlimited Story: "Our founder, Alan Glazar, joined the Marine Corps at age 17. Wounded in Vietnam, the Marine Corps trained him in heating and cooling where he worked for the remainder of his service. While he didn’t enjoy working on HVAC systems, it exposed him to mechanical skills and a field where he was involved in inspections, repairs, quality control, and maintenance. After leaving the military, he became a janitor for a company that distributed cleaning supplies. His responsibilities quickly expanded from sweeping floors to making coffee, adding up invoices, and calculating daily profits. One day the owner said, “Kid, I want you to go out and sell.” That day Alan discovered his calling—helping customers. And boy was he good at it. The competition soon noticed and another company grabbed him. Throughout his time at the company, Alan rose to fill the shoes of general manager, purchasing manager, and sales manager before eventually running the company as the right hand for the owner.  In 1982, Alan founded Action Paper & Chemical Co, a company founded with the mindset of a salesman on the street with a simple guarantee: 100% Customer satisfACTION! As time progressed and our product line expanded, a name change was necessary. Today, as Action Unlimited Resources, we are still family-owned and operated and we continue to handle customer needs with a sense of urgency – just as Alan founded the company.  

Today, Alan's son Aaron runs the company. They are located just over an hour away from me in Wilimington, DE. In early 2022, I was introduced to a company sales rep, Lynda OLear through one of my local networking friends. I had never heard of Action Unlimited and therefore was not aware of the size and scope of their operation. I asked my friend and Smart Cleaning School guest Kelly Jones about Action. She was emphatic. "They are a great company! I use them personally for all of my supplies. In fact, they are currently making me a product." A few months later, I made arrangements for a site tour or Action and a chance to meet Kelly in person for the first time. It was a great visit. Company rep Becky Eppig was my personal tour guide. She walked Kelly and I around the warehouse and offices at Action. I was very impressed with the operation. The highlight was meeting company CEO Aaron Glazar. He was enthusiastic about his company and had a magnetic personality. I definitely wanted to get Aaron on the podcast to promote his company and, more broadly, to educate cleaning company owners on the chemical supply industry. Aaron gracefully accepted.

Action Unlimited Resources is the recipient of the following major awards:

• Marvin S. Gilman Superstars in Business Award (August 2022)- The Delaware State Chamber of Commerce honors Delaware businesses each year for displaying the highest ethical standards and their model approaches to business and management. Action was one of 4 businesses named in 2022.
• Inc 5000 Award (2002) - This ranks all privately held companies by overall revenue growth over a three-year period. Action ranked #4,689 with a revenue growth of 91%. 
• Great Place to Work 2022 - This certification recognizes workplaces that give all employees a consistent positive experience.

This interview with Aaron Glazar takes us into his background, heart, and vision for the company. He also shares the overal industry outlook so anyone in the cleaning industry can make better choices where to buy their supplies. 

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