Smart Cleaning School

Have you ever organized a conference, ceremony, wedding, or performance? It is a ton of work. The guests simply show up and observe the show. A Master of Ceremony (MC) steps forward with the microphone into the spotlight to lead the guests through a journey. They orchestrate multiple speakers to the climax of the ceremony or performance, where the biggest moment takes center stage. I was that MC recently at my church for a Royal Rangers Gold Medal of Achievement Ceremony.  The Royal Rangers is a Christian ministry raising up boys to become godly men. They develop outdoor, survival, leadership, and spiritual maturity over a decade-long path. The Gold Medal of Achievement (GMA) is the highest award and equivalent to the Boy Scouts Eagle Scout Award. To put this into perspective, there are over 10,000 Royal Rangers nationally and less than 1% ever earn their GMA. Therefore, we celebrate this accomplishment with as much pageantry, formality, and fanfare as we can create to honor the recipients, their parents, their mentors, their church, and Jesus, their Master Ranger. On November 13th, 2021, Logan and my son Kenny Carfagno were recognized for this high honor. It was an emotional day. I've been preparing my first born son for this day for 10 long years in Rangers. Both young men crushed it! Feel free to watch the GMA Ceremony and hear the keynote testimonies of Logan and my son, Kenny. 

There is a reason that I am sharing this story. Certainly, I am proud of my son. But there is a very important lesson I learned as organizer, leader, and MC of this ceremony. There are so many moving parts for the guests to view an incredible ceremony or performance. For our GMA Ceremony, it included the following: Printed programs in English and Spanish to be designed, printed, and handed out, ushers, greeters, cleaners, graphic art, stage design, lighting, sound and microphones, slide show synchronization, live streaming with multiple camera angles, close up photography, ceremony script, timing & placement of over 20 men and boys that were on stage, videos, worship music, the police officers showing up  between shifts to carry the American Flag, faithful women in the kitchen preparing dinner for the banquet, our chef preparing dessert, parents getting their kids to 3 rehearsals prior to the 13th, no one getting sick, setting up of the banquet, serving the food, collecting the letters of mentors from across the country, coordinating dignitaries, presenting gifts, and more. As the orchestrator of this ceremony, I was stressed at 3:30pm. I knew it was gametime after 3 months of planning and rehearsal. I was running around to make sure all last minute preparation was complete and everybody was in place. At 3:45pm, it was completely out of my hands. I had to trust that all the moving parts would function in perfect concert. I gave my worry to God, prayed, and sat down to allow others to start the ceremony off. At 4:15pm, I took the stage in front of over 100 guests to begin the formal portion of the recognition ceremony. I was not worried at all. I could see that all the parts were functioning. At 4:45pm, Logan and Kenny took the stage for their keynotes and captivated the crowd. 

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 I'm recording this episode a few days before Thanksgiving. I have so much to be thankful for. For one, listen to my last episode "Get Out of the Car". I am thankful to be here and able to tell the story. It's sobering. If you haven't heard that episode, stop now, and go back! I am thankful for my health, my amazing wife and 5 kids that all love their Daddy. I am thankful that my dad is picking up the pieces and fighting to get his life back after years of addiction. I am thankful that my mom survived Covid and still has years of life left. I am thankful that I had 44 years with my paternal grandparents, Nana and Pop-Pop Carfagno, who co-raised me. They are very responsible for the man, husband, father, and leader that I've become. I am thankful to have 5 siblings that I'm close with and the 2 little boys and girls that call me Uncle Ken. I am thankful for the house we rent with 2 acres and a creek for our kids to play outside. I am thankful for our church and church family that loves and supports. I am thankful for my friends and the relationships that pour into me. If you've listened to this podcast for a while, you've heard me mention those friends by name. I'm thankful for my business and the amount of time I have at home with my family. I am thankful that we are debt-free. I am thankful to have the assurance of a relationship with the Maker of heaven and earth after I pass away. I could go on and on. 

I want you to get into a place of gratitude right now. I want you to do the same thing I just did. Get out your journal and write out the people and things you're thankful for. Look at this list. Consider calling or messaging each person and thanking them. Why am I telling you this? I have observed something simple in life lately that I've always had trouble explaining. It's hard to explain in words what pride and humility are. We know that they are opposites, but when pressed for a definition, we cannot find the words. Am I right? Can you explain the meaning of both? I couldn't until now. 

We lived in Upstate New York for 16 years. New York had the most spectacular apples and you better believe we were at the orchards every September and October for bags of freshly picked Honeycrisp and Jonagold and Golden Delicious and many more. I'd hoist the younger kids on my shoulders to pick the ripest apple off the top of the tree. They would always bump 8 others and knock them off in the process. Some would hit me in the head, but without fail, my little guy would grab that ripe one and take a bite. Heaven! Can you picture the scene. Imagine an apple tree with a thick trunk, green leaves, and ripe red fruits. We know that it takes years to yield delicious, ripe apples. The orchard owner plants, waters, cultivates, protects, and prunes their trees every season. In fact, the fresher and tastier the fruits, the healthier the roots. We can't see the roots. They are under the soil, but stretch out in all directions from the base of the tree. It's easy to imagine and accept this truth. If the roots are healthy, so are the fruits. And if the roots are damaged or sick, the fruits will either be rotten or none will produce at all.

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 This episode has nothing to do with cleaning, but it may save your life. I'm going to share a story that happened to me recently while I was driving in between houses. Some of you will hear this story and just say, "Ken, that was dumb! I would never do that." Others will say, "Ken, I needed to hear that. Thank you." In the moment, I felt in the right. But for the rest of the night and week, I felt an unbelievable amount of gratitude. I could have been killed in broad daylight at a stop sign in a safe, suburban area and left my wife a widow at 40 and 5 kids fatherless. And for what? My ego!? I hope this story helps you to view the potential dangers other pose at all times. Don't provoke others to anger. Don't get puffed up that you are in the right. We have NO idea what is going on in other people's heads. It's not worth it. I have shared that safety is one of my 3 core values. Excellence, Ownership, and Safety. On this occasion, I failed miserably at my own core value and learned a tremendous lesson. I've heard it said that experience is learning from your own mistakes and wisdom is learning from others. Please gain wisdom from my mistake as a result of this podcast episode. 

I have continued to pray for that man. I have no idea why he was so filled with so much hatred. Maybe he lost his job or a loved one. Maybe he just had a bad day. Maybe he is a man with a short fuse that erupted in instant rage. Road rage is real. Avoid it. Avoid it. Life is already too short. Don't make it shorter.

In this episode, I shared some Road Rage statistics. Here's the link to the full article. Please drive safe! 

 I started this podcast for many reasons in October 2019. I love creating and expressing ideas to others. I'm a natural teacher and the podcast platform has allowed me to get my ideas out of my head and do an audio journal for myself and for anyone that wants to follow. When I started, I was struggling to get my second solo cleaning business off the ground. The struggle wasn't tactical. I knew how to build a company. I just didn't want to. I was challenged by close friends and a new friend I met at a podcasting conference to start. I used this show as a public accountability to the world that I could and would build a second business. I did. For 175 episodes, I built my company and shared my weekly progress with anyone that would listen. Over time, I've added new features like the "Funny Papers" to entertain you with silly stories. I shared clips of membership and expert calls that I facilitate in the Smart Cleaning Tribe. At the end of 2020,  I changed the name of the podcast from the Solo Cleaning School to the Smart Cleaning School, which brought the new tag line of "helping visionaries make the impact they were meant to make." This branding change opened the door to add a monthly long-form, hour-long interview with visionaries from the cleaning industry. I literally did nothing by the book. Normal interviews are organized and questions are sent out ahead of time. I didn't want that at all! I wanted to have a conversation with great people and ask them deeper questions than others in their spheres ask. And I wanted these amazing guests to feel comfortable enough with me to answer them. Therefore, I have no structure to my interviews. In fact, the average 60-minute interview that you hear edited is actually a 90 to 120-minute recorded conversation. I also didn't want to leave my solo cleaning friends high and dry. I added a 10th monthly episode called "Solo Saturday" just for this incredible tribe of cleaning owners that work by themself with no employees. I have simply kept this in front of me. I am creating shows for cleaning business owners all over the world to entertain them and to educate them on leadership, business owner's mindset, efficiency and optimization, and how to live a balanced, healthy life. 

Why am I sharing this with you, my faithful listeners of the Smart Cleaning School? Simple. I'm adding the next piece to this podcast and quite honestly, it's something I thought I'd never do. I'm hand-selecting excellent brands and companies that I personally endorse to sponsor the Smart Cleaning School. It blows my mind that this podcast would be downloaded over 50,000 times in all 50 states, 79 countries, and 6 continents. It blows my mind that companies would be willing to pay me to advertise their products to offset the costs of creating this show. The difficult part would be the WHO and the HOW.  Who would I endorse and how would I do it? Most podcasts have a corporate feel when they bring in sponsors. The host takes a moment to thank their sponsors and then does a 30 to 60-second read or commercial. Sponsors pay podcasters based on the number of reads and how many people would hear those reads. I hope it doesn't surprise you that I wanted to do it differently. I have no structure to my interviews, except I want to extract the heart and vision out of each guest. I wanted my selected sponsors to be no different.

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I have shared multiple times my network marketing background with the Amway business. Teresa and I were active IBOs in the Britt Worldwide team and then shifted over to Larry Winter's LTD organization between 2002 and 2012. We are still IBO's but only to buy products because I still love and use Amway cleaning products in my house and office cleaning business. We have credited so many good things in our life as a direct result of our affiliation with Amway. For starters, we become Christians at an Amway event as crazy as that sounds. Teresa and I are happily married after 18 years as a direct result of the mentors we both had in Amway. Special thanks to our upline Herb & Susie Eplee and Joe & Julie Schirripa out of Spartanburg and Greenville, South Carolina. We learned business owner mentality from hundreds of personal development CDs, weekly open meetings, late-night counseling calls with our upline, and in-person team meetings, conferences, and attitude sessions. Teresa and I sold out and worked together on our marriage and business. We never achieved the level we had hoped for, but that is not because Amway doesn't work. It's because I never truly worked it. I want you to hear this quote by Crown Ambassador Bill Britt. He is one of the most successful Amway IBO's in their 70-year history. This is the highest level an IBO can reach and it earned Bill and his wife Peggy millions and millions of dollars over his 50+ year MLM career. Sadly, Bill passed away in 2013, the year after we stepped away from actively building our Amway business. Bill's legacy to thousands and probably millions of people around the world is humongous. Here's the quote. 

"There is no secret. I simply showed the plan to 1200 people. 900 said, "No" and only 300 signed up. Out of those 300, only 85 did anything at all. Out of those 85, only 35 were serious, and out of those 35, 11 made me a millionaire."

This is true for any business. It's always a game of numbers. Another famous quote of Bill Britt was this. "Some will. Some won't. So what. Somewhere, 6 will." Bill knew that network marketing took a lot of work to build. He not only built one of the largest Amway MLM empires, but he did it the fastest. Bill knew and taught that the Amway business was meant to be built fast. That's the only way it would work. I did the opposite and built it slow. I experienced as many getting out as getting in, while Bill put so many in quick that 11 made him a millionaire. This principle holds true in so many businesses. Bill taught that people are people, no matter what business they are in. You need to bring in new IBO's in batches of 6 to 12 because 3-4 will quit, 3-4 won't do anything, and 3-4 will build the business big. But you have to be disciplined enough to get the 12 in fast, which creates the dynamic necessary to allow 3-4 to rise to the top. 

I know that this strategy would work for a cleaning business as well. What if we added a batch of new houses or offices and a batch of new employees? What would happen. There would be a few that would quit, a few that would be meh, and a few that would be amazing. This is how Bill Britt taught his Amway downline to find the good ones. It's clearly defined in his quotes above. We have to be willing to go through a lot of rocks to find diamonds.

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 "Do you have a few minutes?"  Have you ever been called and asked this? Have you ever been at a store or church or at a business meeting and asked this? I'm sure you have. Does it ever take a few minutes? NO! In fact, is your definition of a "few" minutes the same as the other person's? Nope. I believe this is one of the most dangerous questions known to man! You might say. "Ken, you're being dramatic." Oh, you think so. I have been on 90 minute phone calls that derailed my day because the caller wanted a "few minutes". I have stayed at business meetings 45 minutes longer and missed out on other important things because of a "few minutes". At this point in my life and especially after reading the "7 Habits of Highly Successful People", I can now start to recognize this question for what it is. 

A giant time-waster!

That's right. People determined to talk your ear off with no respect for you time will use this manipulative question to get you to help them. You agree because you're gullible and want to help. And sure, why not? It's only a few minutes. But it's not a few minutes. It's 2 hours! If we say yes to other people's "few minutes", we say no to ours. Let me say it this way. Is your time with your family important to you? Every time you say yes to a Time Waster, you say no to your family. This is blunt and hard to accept. It may come off as rude. You may think less of me and wonder what happened to the nice Christian Ken that always shares happy stories on this podcast. Please, don't think that. Just step back and start analyzing where your time is going. Learn to recognize people that are emotional vampires in your life. They will absolutely suck the life out of you if you allow it.

Okay, my rant is over. I did my best to be true to my own advice and not waste any of your time. This was my shortest episode ever and surely a few minutes! 

 Hello solo cleaners out there! I thoroughly enjoy speaking directly to you every Solo Saturday. In this episode, I'm going to address a common question I'm asked when I coach solo cleaners through my ISO Model. This time it was asked by Shasta Patterson who is a listener to the Smart Cleaning School Podcast and an up and coming solo cleaning optimizer! Thank you Shasta for taking me up on my free coaching call option on my website. Let's revisit your question and my answer so others can hear it. 

Shasta is a new solo cleaner and said that she has started her business legitimately after hearing my podcast earlier this year. First of all, that is outstanding! Way to go Shasta! She currently has 6 clients and is starting to make some money. Her struggle has to do with a few legacy clients from before she made her business legit. They are only paying her $15 per hour. Her question to me was how she could raise the prices of the $15 per hour clients.

I told her this. "You're not going to like my answer but it's the best one for you at this time. You can't raise their prices, not yet. You are an initializer in my ISO model and need to get a bunch of clients fast. You do need to switch to a by-the-job pricing model and charge at least $100 to $125 per biweekly house cleaning client. The answer to your question is you need new clients. Stop trying to squeeze the lemon to get out every drop. That's what you're trying to do with your low-paying clients. You can't squeeze more money out of them because you didn't charge them right. Instead, go get a brand new bag of big juicy lemons so you can be in control and in the driver seat of your own business. Over time, your prices will increase and you'll move through the initialize, stabilize, and optimize phases of your business. Along the way you will increase the prices of these legacy clients and most likely they will not stay with you because a $15 an hour client probably doesn't want to pay $40 an hour. That's okay it's part of your growth curve."

Shasta agreed with me and even said this. "I knew that you were going to say that, Ken." I could tell she was a little discouraged but also excited. I told her this. "Go add 6 clients at $125 biweekly each visit. You will profit $200 per month from each which is an extra $1,200 per month for you in additional income." That got her very excited to go get a new bag of lemons representing 6 new clients. That kind of money will make a huge difference in their family. So what about you (solo cleaner) listening to this podcast right now. Are you an initializer or stabilizer thinking that you're an optimizer? Are you trying to squeeze your clients for more money when you shouldn't be? Are you taking the easy way out and trying not to add new clients? You control your future because you can control the thoughts that you have and the actions that you take. You can control the clients that you decide to bring into your business. So go get some new ones at the prices you actually want! Every single one of us listening to this podcast needs new clients. So go do it.

And remember, stop trying to squeeze those lemons until every single drop comes out. There's a time and place for that, but it's not yet. Go grow your business. I want to thank Shasta Patterson again for reaching out and taking advantage of my offer for a free coaching call and giving me permission to share your question and my answer to the other listeners! It was a great question and you can be $1,200 per month better off if you take my advice.

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Don't you love catchy titles?! I do. This one was totally organic and unplanned. It was my turn to present the next education piece at my local MCBA business networking group. I had a topic that I wanted to test on a group of business owners. I do this with newer content. The result was very good. At the end of the talk, the group was discussing who they wanted to bring in as a special guest speaker during an upcoming "bring a guest day" and the group unanimously chose me! They wanted me to do the same talk again. I recorded both and have permission from every member who commented in my talk. As promised, I wanted to give each of them a shout out and link to their business. 

This podcast is the recording of the second time through this optimization talk, but I put the 10 minute clip from the original talk where we go down the road of Thoroughbreds and Donkeys. Here's a big He-Haw for you! Enjoy this podcast episode and think on the questions I pose in my presentation.

Do you need help figuring out opportunities to optimize your customers, employees, and business segments? Make sure to check out the many free & paid resources available at the Smart Cleaning School website. Also, do you have questions for me? Book a free coaching call on my website!

MCBA Members Mentioned

Hugh Gbewonyo - Foot Solutions

Marsha Poust - Signs by Tomorrow

Gary Volpe - Volpe Enterprises

Colette Melott - CM Business and Accounting Solutions

Paul Osborne - Osborne Solutions

Susan Sloan - Real Health Quotes

Dr. Claire DeFazio - Windsor Hills Chiropractic

Royce Double R Flight Academy

Tom McKee - Edward Jones

Jim Hardy - The Carpet Guys

Vernessa Hopkins - H3 Business Solutions 

 In my last Freedom Report, I humbled myself with the reality of my situation. I'm striving for this New Freedom Vision, but two glaring blind spots were holding me back. Another month has gone by. How is it going? Short answer. Not good! I am going to share my update exactly as it happened and end with a clip from Coach Josh at the end of October with an encouraging word that helps me and will hopefully encourage you. We all need encouragement. I'm not above that because I happen to have a podcast and talk about cleaning. This scaling and building a team thing is new for me. I am bringing you my monthly results exactly as they've occurred to build you up and hopefully teach you something. Here's an outline of my month. 
 

• I finally completed my Project 100 by my October 11th coaching call. The final tally looked like this. 239 total offices on my prospect list. 49 dental (21%), 69 medical (29%), 111 professional (46%), 10 industrial (4%). 99 are members of the Indian Valley Chamber of Commerce where I'm the only cleaner. Josh wanted me to commit to a deadline for introducing myself and my business to every one of these businesses. I chose November 15th,  2021. The strategy was simple from Josh. "Ken, I'm going to guess that 4% of the businesses on this list and any list is currently not happy with their cleaner or actively looking for a new one. These are low-hanging fruit. If you'll just reach out and introduce yourself with a heart of generosity while at the same time promoting your cleaning company, those 4% will request quotes. That's 9 - 10 quotes. You can close 5 and hit your goal for Florida." I have seen this first-hand over the years. I have acquired a few offices because I was at the right place at the right time. I need to strategically put myself there again. This fired me up!
• I honestly assessed my goals with my coaches and my wife. I need 5 new offices and 5 more part-time team members to delegate my full cleaning business and equal the cash flow we currently earn. This is the minimum we need for a month in Florida. I'm simplifying this goal as the 5/5 plan. The 10/10 plan is double and makes Florida a lot more comfortable with about $2,000 in monthly cash flow over and above all of our bills. This makes Josh's challenge to contact all 239 to find the low-hanging fruit vital and a top priority for November 15th.
• As of my last coaching call with Josh in October, I had 100 initial introductions made to my chamber list. 2 requested quotes now. 2 requested quotes in January. 15 are satisfied with their cleaners and will keep me in mind. This is a great start. Josh challenged me to close the month of October, which only had a few days left to send out another 100 and add more to my list. The strategy would include a mixture of emails, direct phone calls, and personal visits to introduce myself in areas where I already have clients. I also collected 2 more customer testimonials to assist in this local marketing approach. The goal is simple. Keep introducing myself. Keep adding new offices as there are at least 50 offices that were missed through my Google and chamber search methods. I fully expect to do initial introductions to 300 businesses by November 15th. This should lead to 12 quote requests and 5-6 new clients in November and December. But there are no guarantees and I have Coach Josh to direct me through each step without me overthinking everything. I need one thing working and that's ACTION!

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 I joined the Indian Valley Chamber of Commerce 2 years ago when I was told I would be the only cleaner in a chamber with 300 members. I am so glad that I joined and decided to engage with the goal of helping to grow the chamber. This is an important "Best Of" episode to prepare you for the next episode.