Smart Cleaning School

This conversation was full of vision. Paul Auguste is a motivated 30-year-old entrepreneur who knows what he wants and why he wants it. It is difficult to listen to him share his dream and not want to be one of his 7 future millionaires that he's mentoring. Paul's main business is HomePlus Cleaning (Tyngsborough, MA). This interview starts out with an aviation story from a near crash in Paul's airplane and ends with where Paul sees his family in the future and the man is only 30! 

This podcast is evolving into a show that grows your vision, solidifies your business owner's mindset, and teaches through stories. For the first 158 episodes, this podcast was the Solo Cleaning School. I was bringing vision, mindset, strategy, and most importantly, my own journey as a solo cleaning optimizer. I was challenged to add my journey in Gatlinburg, TN at the TLF Retreat by my mastermind friends that love and support me. Their challenge was simple. "Ken, you've built a solo cleaning business to $60k profit on 2 days per week and sold it for $80k. You are teaching this to solos. Why not do it again in another state and catalog your journey? It would be the ultimate accountability tool from you to those that you are trying to help." I was challenged big time and accepted! If you start this podcast from the beginning, you will experience the growth of my second optimized solo cleaning business. In fact, I've grown this business from $20,000 annual revenue in October 2019 to $90,000. My solo cleaning business now is better than the one I sold for $80,000 in New York. I've accomplished the goal that I set to accomplish in Gatlinburg. In a previous episode, "A New Freedom Vision", I shared what's been stirring in my heart on the future of my cleaning business. Our family has a dream to visit all 50 states! We don't need to do it in one long RV homeschooling trip. We love our area and the roots we've established with our family in the Philly Area. Yet, we are still excited to live a life of time, money, and location freedom. I shared on that podcast how my friend and leader Total Life Freedom, Vincent Pugliese, challenged me to pursue my long-time dream of enjoying a whole month in warmth during the winter. Again, I accepted the accountability challenge. We are going to the Gulf Coast in February for a month! This means a lot of things practically. I need to delegate my cleaning business for a whole month and have enough money to make the trip! My dream expanded. In my first solo cleaning business, I optimized to sell. In this solo cleaning business, I'm optimizing to scale. Ken, the solo cleaner, is hiring in 2021. I will continue to update you on Carfagno Cleaning and my progress toward this dream! I hope you enjoy it!

I've started looking around for quality people to hire. I'm not hiring yet, but I'm hyper aware of everyone I meet locally. If they impress me, I get their names and write them down. By the time, I'm ready to hire I'll have a list of 20-25 candidates to reach out to. I will only need 2-3 employees. I'd like to hire for my office cleaning side as offices are much easier and less stress for me. Plus, they are 1 day per week. I can hire professionals with full time jobs looking to make extra money to help them achieve their next dream like being debt-free. There are tons of people like that! I'm on the fence about house cleaning. I currently have 6 clients and will likely give these clients away to a member of one of my groups, sell them, or possibly hire someone off my list to maintain them. My focus for the rest of 2021 is fully optimizing this solo cleaning business, reducing my house cleaning side to the ones I want to keep, and add a few more offices to replace the current houses. Ultimately, I'd like to delegate 10 offices to my employees for February 2022. I have a lot of work to do. I have 8 offices now.

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I've had this podcast series idea for quite some time and finally decided it was time to share it. I am an avid reader and movie watcher. Plus, I'm a dad of 5 and have read and watched nearly everything out there. Combine this with my appetite for observation. I notice things in books and movies that make me think. I connect invented characters to real-life lessons. This podcast series will consist of a number of Don't Be Likes. This first one is Don't Be Like Owl. I'll do others on Don't Be Like Clark W. Griswold, or Phil Connors, or a Lemming. It's going to be a lot of fun for me to share these characters with you.

You all know Owl. He's the wise, old tree-dweller in Disney's Winnie the Pooh. Owl is far too wise and smart for his own good. He is self-absorbed and loves to hear himself orate long stories. He has no idea what is going on around him when he is speaking. He has no idea if anyone is even listening. He just loves to weave his tales, no matter how boring or unrelated. In fact, his stories often go on massive rabbit trails as he describes some distant family member... and so on. Do you know anyone like this?

There are two stories in Winnie the Pooh that I think epitomize Owl's inability to read the room. It's Owl's MASSIVE blind spot! In the first one, there is a gust of wind that steals poor Piglet away. Pooh is able to keep a hold of him like he's flying a kite. Piglet flies through the Hundred-Acre Wood until he smacks into Owl's window. It's obvious that Piglet is in trouble and Pooh is yelling for Owl to help. All he has to do is open the window to let Piglet in. Instead, Owl thinks of a time when the wind was also very strong. He starts a long oration about a distant family member... Piglet floats on and the scene continues as Owl is still talking with enthusiasm to no one and thoroughly enjoying it. 

Here's another one. Pooh's head is stuck in a honey pot, upside-down, and raging in the flood waters toward the waterfall. Piglet is also at the mercy of the flood, stuck on a chair, and heading toward the waterfall. Enter Owl. He sees his friends and doesn't even notice the danger they are in. He takes the opportunity to start another oration, completely in "Owl-land". All Owl had to do was fly over to them and help them out or extend a long branch and pull them back into safety. But that's not what Owl does. He is triggered by their appearance and loses all sense of reality. Owl is still talking as Pooh and Piglet careen over the waterfall's edge. Thankfully, they are okay or it would have been a terrible children's story. Again, I ask you. Do you know anyone like this?

I have encountered so many people over the years that will talk your ear off with absolutely no regard for social queues or the ability to read the room around them. They are so self-absorbed, whether intentional or not, that they push people away. No one in their right mind wants to be around someone like this. Do you agree?

There's an old saying. "Do you know that Ugly attacks 1 out of 3. Yeah, look to your right and left. If you don't see it, it's you!" I ask you this. If you don't know anyone like Owl and have no idea what I'm talking about, it's possible that YOU are Owl. Is your business stunted for growth. You cannot outgrow your level of leadership. Maybe you're the problem?! I urge everyone listening to this podcast to check themselves. Don't be like Owl!

Do you like this series? I hope so because I have more to share in the coming months. If you have ideas of characters you'd like me to analyze, please email me - [email protected].

The Smart Cleaning Tribe meets on Zoom every Monday at noon eastern for 2 hours to mastermind, solve issues, and most importantly, to talk about our Why, dreams, and vision. Then we set SMART goals and accountability to achieve these dreams. It's one of the funnest things I get to do for income! I love serving these amazing, growing cleaning company owners. Recently, we were brainstorming on a Tribe call for Lizzie. She is an amazing person and has a big freedom dream coming true in May. She is taking her family to Puerto Rico for a month. The deadline forced Lizze to properly systematize and delegate her cleaning business. Everything was on track until hiring became darn-near impossible. There is a dynamic right now in America that most of you should be noticing. The government has handed out a lot of money for struggling families. Unfortunately, it has also demotivated the work force and companies are literally bribing people to work for them. This put Lizzie in a major bind as she needed a few more employees to secure her trip.

I painted an analogy of the gold miner prospecting for gold. They chip away at the rock until they find a speck of gold. When they find a speck, they hope it leads to a vein. The prospector that finds a vein has a good chance of following the vein to the source. Oh my! That's where the old '49ers got the term "Eureka!" In this clip from the call, we discuss various options and rocks to chip away at in hopes of finding a vein of employees. The conversation sparked ideas in the other members and lead new members Steve & Tonsha to discover their vein of part-time college help. I hope you enjoy this clip from the Smart Cleaning Tribe!

Welcome back to Solo Saturday! Hey solos, what do you think of this new monthly feature? What do you think of the new vibe of the podcast? I'd love your feedback. Please connect with me through my website or email to [email protected]. In this month's edition of Solo Saturday, I will provide a sequel to the popular "Excellence Vs. Perfection".

Are you a perfectionist? Do you take way too long cleaning a single house? If so, please go back and learn the difference between excellence and perfection. It may set you free! In that episode, I touched on the mental illness of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I didn't address it much, but trust me. I know all about it. I am diagnosed with Tourette's and OCD. Most of my mom's family has some form of OCD, eating disorders, tics, etc. I have seen and experienced this and don't take it lightly. If you heard my first episode and still can't get over your perfectionism, I want you to listen to this one. 

Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor, psychiatrist, or mental illness professional. Nor do I guarantee that ERP will help your OCD.

I'm a regular guy that has dealt with this illness my whole life. And now, I have someone very close to me that is struggling with OCD. It breaks my heart to see the struggle.

I will keep the name anonymous, but this person could not control their OCD and suffered tremendously. They needed real help and it was found in the form of Exposure Response Prevention (ERP). This is a form of therapy that wasn't around for me in the 80's and 90's, but it has shown tremendous results in tic disorders and OCD patients without the need for medication. This individual didn't want meds. They wanted to solve the problem, not band-aid it. In ERP, the counselor and/or psychiatrist goes through a 20-week program to identify the sources of OCD, address each one, and replace the habit with something better. It's grueling, but life-changing and freeing for so many. I have learned a lot about ERP. It's fascinating. One thing that I learned is that the OCD patient has to accept the uncertainty. I learned this from an ERP counselor. She told me this. People with OCD struggle because the compulsions never seem to stop the obsessions. There is no closure, thus the cycle repeats over and over again. One of the first things they have to teach themselves is that it's okay to accept the uncertainty. As an example, I don't know is a full answer. It's uncertain, but final. A person with OCD will want I don't know to become a yes or no. They will obsess on something out of their control. However, when they train themselves that I don't know is a complete answer, they can move on. ERP teaches them how to do this. Once they get comfortable with uncertainty, they experience a reduction in their OCD. As I said, I'm no doctor. I'm just fascinated about this breakthrough therapy and wanted anyone listening to this episode to have hope.

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In November 2019, I was full of enthusiasm as I was going after my second solo cleaning business. I had just started the podcast and made a promise to take you on a journey as I built and optimized my new solo cleaning company. I was more excited when I got my first two biweekly houses. But it all tumbled when I had to start cleaning again. I was out of house cleaning shape. I took too long and I was getting tired and frustrated. I hated my business and didn't want to do it anymore. I whined to my wife, but she didn't accept it. This Best-Of is the episode where I shared where I was during this time.

Turn the clock ahead. I pushed through and endured. Now, I am in cleaning shape and clean 3 houses every other Thursday and Friday. I enjoy it and can listen to podcasts and books while I work. My second solo cleaning business is fully built and I honored my promise to you. What a difference 18 months makes when you set your mind to achieving a goal! I'm so thankful that I pushed through. It was SO worth it!

It's been a while since I gave a full update on my own cleaning company. This episode covers a few weeks, but has some great lessons. Here you go!

Our Annual Honeymoon Retreat to Glasbern was cancelled last year due to Covid, but not again this year. It's amazing to get 5 days alone with my bride to reconnect, veg out, take long walks, eat loads of food, play games, watch movies, take long baths, and discuss many important topics. In fact, we came to our retreat with 21 important topics to cover in our family and business and covered every single one over 5 days! The biggest breakthrough during our trip was watching Hal Elrod's movie, the Miracle Morning. We were so INSPIRED that we got to work right away on our Life-SAVERS. I won't teach what this acronym is. Go watch the movie and read the book! I will say this. I have been struggling in the mornings with snooze buttons, coffee, lack of exercise, lack of time, lack of energy. I've done morning routines for years, but started slipping. This movie fired us up and I got right to work, while still on our retreat. The habit continued after the retreat as we implemented the first batch of to-do's from our 21 conversations. I am feeling more energy, less need for coffee, feel better about myself, closer to God, and have a renewed excitement for my goals.

Oh, I shouldn't have said that. Enter my friend and mentor, Vincent Pugliese of Total Life Freedom. At the peak of my excitement, Vincent asked me a question. But before I share this question, let me share the last one he asked me. In October 2017, I was fully optimized in my first solo cleaning business. I was looking at the potential of working 4 days in New York, then taking 10 days off every other week. We could possibly move back home to the Philly Area and I could commute to New York every other week for 4 days. It sounded good on paper. "Ken, why would you do that?" I answered. "We want to go back home. We miss our family." He replied. "Then make the decision to sell your business and move. Figure it out. The mastermind will help you." This scared me and excited me at the same time. I was mad at him and appreciate all at the same time. I called Teresa after the Question. She was excited at the prospect. We prayed hard over this and ultimately made the decision to sell our company and go home. I just needed the push out of my comfort zone. You know the rest of this story from my double podcast on "How I Sold My Cleaning Business I & II". We set the vision to be home with our family and raise our kids around their cousins. I would finally get to spend quality time with my Nana & Pop-Pop, who helped raise me and were in their 80's. We set the goal and we made it SMART with a deadline of June 30, 2018. That's when our lease ran out. We hit our goal. We sold our company and moved back to Philly. We had 2 glorious years to enjoy quality time with my Nana & Pop-Pop before they both passed in 2020. Thank God we chose to come back home! This was one of the best decisions of our life, yet also one of the hardest. It was so worth it.

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This episode is a continuation to It's Time for a Fresh Take. I'm a huge fan of the Rocky series, especially being from the City of Brotherly Love. As a kid, I'd watch the Rocky movies and visit the Philadelphia Art Museum with my dad. We'd climb the walls, visit Rocky's statue (from Rocky III), and explore. But we never actually set foot inside the art museum. I'm not going to summarize the entire Rocky series, but there are some basics that you need to know. Rocky Balboa was a washed up, 30 year old boxer from Philly. He was a scrapper, a bruiser, but was thick-headed and going no where. That all changed when the heavyweight champion of the world was due to fight in Philadelphia for a bicentennial title defense against Mac Lee Green. Green hurt his hand and had to cancel. The other challengers were either busy didn't believe they could get into shape fast enough to fight the Champ. Apollo got creative to give a local guy a chance at the title in the name of freedom to celebrate the Bicentennial. Apollo flipped through boxer registrations and he really liked "The Italian Stallion, Rocky Balboa". This sequence of events began one of the best movie series of all time to celebrate the Underdog.

Fast forward. Rocky put up an incredible test of human endurance against the Champ, but lost in a split decision. The fight went the distance. This was Rocky's stated goal throughout the first movie as no one had ever taken Creed the distance. Rocky achieved the goal, but lost the fight. Apollo was furious as his critics thought he was bested by a no name. Enter Rocky II. Rocky beats Apollo to become the heavyweight champion of the world and utters the most iconic line in movie history "Yo, Adrian. I did it." Apollo retired after the fight and Rocky went on to defend his title in Rocky III. He lost his edge. The Eye of the Tiger that defeated Apollo Creed was gone. Rocky had gone soft and lost to Clubber Lang, who was played by the epic Mr. T. Rocky was done. His trainer Mickey was dead. Apollo steps back into the series to become Rocky's mentor. He confronts Rocky about what was lost after their last fight. Apollo takes Rocky back to his roots in the old gym where he got his start in Los Angeles. Apollo is determined to help Rocky get his edge back, get his Eye of the Tiger back and defeat Clubber for his title back. Apollo took Rocky back to his old gym to get his mojo back. It worked. Rocky remembered what got him where he was and triumphed over Lang.

So many of you start out like Rocky in your cleaning business. No one knows about you. You're scrappy and solo, doing all the work yourself. You're figuring out what works and what doesn't. You take fights against no names for nothing. I mean... you take on clients that pay you scraps and you embrace the challenge. You had an edge. You had the Eye of the Tiger. You got your big chance and grew your company, then found other "Rockys'" to delegate your clients to. They caused you a lot of pain, but you endured. You win the title against Apollo in Rocky II as you hit your first major milestone of getting out of the field. You're free. No more cleaning, or at least you think!

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This episode is a clip from an Expert Call I facilitated in the Smart Cleaning Tribe last December with my friend Alonzo Adams of Busy Bee Cleaning Company in West Chester, PA. Alonzo is a serial entrepreneur with one of the best business & financial mindsets I've ever had the opportunity to learn from. His cleaning company is top rated in Southeastern PA. Alonzo has also grown multiple revenue streams outside of his cleaning company, which is creating generational wealth for his family. He also just completed his term as the chairman for the Association of Residential Cleaning Services (ARCSI). I invited Alonzo onto a Tribe call to share about ARCSI and it's many benefits. But my true intention was to give Tribe members a dose of millionaire mindset around business, finance, and networking. Alonzo is a master networker. In this clip, I extract the networking portion so you can get a flavor of how the rich become rich.

Here are my notes from the call with Alonzo.

• "Your Network is your Net Worth”
• “It’s not about the How. It’s about the Who”- Dan Sullivan. The Who changed my whole life. I had to change my entire WHO in my life to take me the places that I needed to go. How do I get around the A players in my industry? Alonzo had to invest in his future by buying plane tickets, conference tickets, and connect with people in person. This builds trust.
• In Vegas, Alonzo has connected with a guy in 5 minutes in the hallway that created a 6-figure cleaning contract with Will Smith’s people.
• In Vegas, he asked Derrick Christian, “Who is this room that I don’t know that I should know?” Alonzo met the two people and they are doing financial business together now. Networking is purposeful.
• People miss on networking - It’s not about you. Look to be a resource to others. Show the value of others knowing YOU. Ask this. "Why is it important to know me?" What is you sales pitch that makes you valuable to others. Networking has become more selfish in this decade. Networking takes time and you need to practice. Don’t go to people with agendas. Be interested and be interesting.
• It takes time to craft your elevator pitch. What do you have that’s unique that can help others that makes you stand out. Are you referable?
• You can’t touch and go in networking.  You have to water the relationship to grow it.  Alonzo told the story of the $100k per 1-hour keynote. Always plant seeds.
• At conferences, the power is in the hallways and dinners verses the chairs. Masterminds and businesses have been created from the hallways.
• We need to look at opportunities for networking events when things open up.
• Two groups in 2020. One tried to maintain and others did more than they ever did. Alonzo got around the ones that were doubling and got around them. Put together a plan and don’t deviate! If you’re not planning to succeed in 2021, you’re planning to stay the same. Control your own narrative and your own destiny! The Wannapreneurs were the ones speaking loudly and didn’t make it. They were shallow.
• “Tough times make tough people!” - Alonzo Adams
• Find 3 people that you want to meet that you’ve never met before. Make a commitment to link up with these people. Connect with these people. Who are they and make a commitment to do it. Alonzo does this every year! Look for people who are Approachable, are Purpose Driven, and have a good Mindset. Habits exposes people. Someone who is financially savvy.

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