Smart Cleaning School

Recently, I was on a phone call with Wendy Norman. Wendy is a member of the same Total Life Freedom Mastermind as me. She has grown a large Instagram following for her wedding photography business, Apt B Photo out of Savannah, GA. However, Wendy took a substantial hit during Covid and had to do a major pivot. She saw the growing trend of elopements as an alternative to the big wedding and started offering photography packages on her website. They started selling and selling. Now, Wendy is a niche leader in Elopement Photography Packages in Savannah and her name is spreading nationally.

Toward the end of our conversation, she heard the challenges that have held me back. I had shared my lifelong conflict of overthinking everything, which has caused me to take action slower than others that were succeeding at a much higher rate. Wendy listened and then dropped this nugget that I knew needed to be a podcast episode. "Think of life like a scavenger hunt. Everything you get and every person you meet is a new clue along your journey. Have you ever played in a Scavenger Hunt? You are given a map with clues, along with an objective to gather the clues you find the treasure. At the beginning, you have no idea where the treasure is. You just choose a direction and follow the map. Some clues seem valuable, but end up taking you away from the treasure. Other clues are total diversions. And of course, one clue is the right clue that puts you on the right path to the treasure. You don't know which thing or which person is that right clue. Every clue brings curiosity, interest and investment. It's up to us to fully explore the map and our scavenged clues to ascertain the next big move. Eventually, you will reach the treasure and look back to realize that the hunt was way more fun than the treasure." This lines up with a recent episode, Move your Pawn First.

What if we thought like that about other people. Every person we meet is a clue along our path. Be curious about them. Understand them. Find out if that person is the clue that gets you one step closer to your treasure. No person is insignificant, no matter where they are in life. Sometimes clues lead you astray. So do people. You may pick up a clue that leads you to a particular place to dig and nothing came of it and you had to backtrack. So it is with some people and some things. Thinking of life as a scavenger hunt allows you to have fun along the path from every clue versus just wanting to get the treasure. This makes connecting with others to get to know them and find a way to serve them fun. This makes mistakes fun. This makes finding the right clues exciting. This makes facing adversities necessary and easier to overcome. This makes our lives fun. It's the way that Wendy lives her life and I for one was moved by her story. How about you?

Much time is needed in this podcast episode to clear the names of several members of Total Life Freedom Philly. Before I share the final installment of 'Who Paid for Lunch Clue', I must share a few things that happened in my cleaning business since my last update. It will be short. Trust me! First of all, I was asked to lead an education piece for my local MCBA networking group. I taught on the "They Ask You Answer" process. I have LOVED this book and implemented it into both of my websites for Carfagno Cleaning and Smart Cleaning School. The group enjoyed the discussion as it gave them much to think about. I had a one-time cleaning job booked at a historic barn & wedding venue. When we got there, the plumber was replacing some parts and had the water turned off to the entire barn. The plumber was willing to give us an hour to "do our thing" with water, but I had to decline as we needed at least 5 hours of water. Ultimately, I rescheduled the job and wasted 2+ hours of my day and potentially $750 of other work I could have scheduled. Here's what I found out. The plumber was due to work on Monday at the barn, but got held up at had to postpone to Tuesday. I was scheduled for all day Tuesday. The plumber lets the barn know late on Monday that he can't make it and he'll come over in the morning. This is fine in his isolated world, but in the greater picture, Tuesday was already booked. This plumber should have called the barn and worked out a suitable reschedule date like I did. He didn't and unfortunately, it only cost me not him. If this makes you angry, don't let it. It's my fault. I should have called to confirm the barn Monday night or Tuesday morning to make sure I'd have water. Things happen. I just wish that this plumber was more professional.

Okay, the time is here. I love my mastermind community, Total Life Freedom. There are 100 members all over the US and some out of country. Last fall as the restaurants were beginning to open, TLF Philly decided to get together for the first lunch. At the end of lunch, our beloved pastor paid for the table. It was an act of generosity that I so appreciated. I have struggled with accepting gifts, so I declared that I'd pay for the next TLF Philly lunch and made a podcast episode about it called,"Allow a Giver to Give." I had no intention of this free lunch to turn into anything. But that all changed when we met for the second lunch (Don't Fight Google or Facebook, Fight for Lunch). A few of us had the idea to try to pay, but a "Benevolent Benefactor" beat us to it. In my haste, I filed the case with Carfagno & Carfagno, a private investigatory firm in the Philly Area, one of the nation's finest. Our goal at Carfagno & Carfagno was to crack the case of 'Who Paid for Lunch Clue' on January 13th, 2021.

In Benevolent Benefactor, I laid out the following Clue board of players and my investigatory notes. I'll recap quickly.

• The Pastor aka John Stange - He paid for the first lunch. He is the leading suspect from multiple players on the board. He denies emphatically! There was even a hypothesis that his wife was the silent partner and called in the payment ahead of time. I confronted John in a text and he denied this false claim.

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Actual quote - "Some of you won't move your pawn until you can see the checkmate.

I heard about Caleb Maddix a few years ago when he was 15 years old. I was shocked to hear about this teenager that had already blown past me in annual revenue and was about to earn his first million dollars. Recently, I listened to a podcast with Caleb at 17 (He's 18 now). He rocked me with 3 to 4 solid mindset bombs. I would like to share one with you, Mr. Overthinker, and Mrs. Procrastinator.

Caleb was sharing how he has been able to achieve so much, so soon. He referenced sage advice he got from Oprah. "What is your next big move? Do that through to completion.". Caleb then shared a chess-related metaphor that hit me right between the eyes. "Too many of us are overthinking everything, planning and strategizing everything, that they don't do anything.  People are always planning out nine moves ahead until they can find their checkmate. In fact, they won't move their pawn until they can find their checkmate." Bombshell dropped! I'm no chess master and maybe this is exactly how Chess Masters play the game. Maybe they do "see" the entire board 9+ moves in advance. It's quite possible that Bobby Fisher and chess prodigies can literally see 5 different ways to win the game before they even move their first pawn. Or maybe, just maybe, the Chess Master chooses his next best move all the time. He can calculate the statistical probability of each potential move and chooses the best next move like Oprah says. He is willing to lose his pawn or knight or bishop to gain something greater. Risk is part of the reward. He is not stalled or stuck in paralysis by analysis. He must make the next best move all the time to have a chance to win the game.

I find this to be so true in life. We are waiting to move our pawn until we can see the checkmate. Instead, just move your pawn in the best direction and strategy that you can. Evaluate the pros and cons, the risks vs. the rewards, but ultimately, make the move! Do not move slowly. Increase your Speed of Action to increase your speed of results! Make the move and then focus your effort on making that move the best it can be. Then you can quickly assess, so you can make the next best move based on what adversity comes against you. It's always about the next move! Caleb also says this. "Every move you make is going to incur obstacles and life happens. You never know what will come against you. Therefore it's nearly impossible for someone to plan out their checkmate and for every step to work exactly as they choose." So what is your next big move that'll move you forward? If you need help with that, reach out to me for a Free Private Consultation.

 As I listened to this episode recently, I heard myself say that I still have all four grandparents living. I was sharing this in gratitude as it released on February 3rd, 2020. My Nana passed away suddenly on 2/22/20. The main heckler and mentor in this episode passed away on 11/22/20. He never got to hear the episode about the 18 gutter balls. He didn't need to. He lived it and reminded me of it all the time. I want you to listen to this episode again and ask yourself the hard question at the end. "Have you learned yet?" I'd also like you to find the people that are the most special to you and go see them and give them a big hug. Tell them how much you love and appreciate them. You never know when they'll be gone. 

"You can have everything in life you want if you will just help other people get what they want." Zig Ziglar

My two friends and mentors Vincent Pugliese of Total Life Freedom and Billy Altman of the Altman Crew helped me with a major breakthrough this month. These two friends of mine are relational in nature. Connecting and generosity are a part of their life. For me connecting and generosity is a mechanical task that I put on a list and cross off. I've been connecting in my cleaning business for the last 18 months as you've heard on this podcast. I've adopted the Zig Ziglar attitude and have made it my aim to help other people get what they want. This has absolutely worked for the growth of my cleaning business. Let me illustrate. Every time I get a phone call or I meet someone at a networking meeting or I have someone ask me a question online, I always look to help them without expecting them to hire me for cleaning. 

But I haven't copied my own model in my online business, Smart Cleaning School. Sure, I have this podcast and I help you. Vincent and Billy finally got through to me and showed me that I was being selfish. I was more interested in connecting with people to get them into my sales funnel than to truly change their lives. This acknowledgment hurts.

Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. Maybe you've interacted with me and think I'm a huge giver. I appreciate that a lot. But maybe, you've interacted with me and felt like I was selling you something. If that was your experience, I would like to apologize to you over personally. Seriously, send me an email to [email protected] and let me know! I think it's easy to fall into the trap of viewing people with dollar signs. That's not right. People are children of God and I have a calling to help as many of my "neighbors" as I can. Do you struggle with viewing your potential clients as dollar signs and parts to your success machine? I ask you to change course now if you do. I want you all (like me) to remember what Zig said decades ago and let it become the selfless anthem of your business life. You see when we help others get what they want our lives are better in so many ways. We increased our friendships and relationships. We increased our influence. We increased on net worth. If you're built relational like Billy and Vincent, you can laugh at this episode. But if your build like me, a task-oriented, mechanical guy, this episode may be just what the doctor ordered.

Therefore, here's my prescription for you! I encourage every single one of you to get yourself out there into the Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, Google, newsletters, in-person networking groups, the chamber, and local business partnerships. Look for ways to help others in your community get what they want and give away your expertise for free. Use the "They Ask You Answer" philosophy. You are not holding anything back. You're helping everyone by giving them all the information. Even if it doesn't seem like it's going to work, help other people get what they want. Introduce two people that you know to each other to help both of them. Send a gift or word of encouragement to someone that needs help. If someone was trying to figure something out, even if it's not cleaning-related, go find out the answer and tell them. Help people get what they want. If they need cleaning done, help them get what they want and give them a cleaning. These things will all increase your trust value in the community. Here's the formula. More people helped = Higher trust value = More clients, better clients, higher pain clients.

 It's time to return to my personal Carfagno Cleaning business for some updates. I got a call through my website after a referral from my TLF Philly friend, Emily Brunner. This is also "Innocent Emily" from "The Benevolent Benefactor". Stephanie is a house manager for a homeowner with a 7,000 square foot house in a wealthy suburb of Philly. She does all of the business to manage the home for the busy owner. I was very upfront and shared my prices would be $250-$500 per visit and could give many options. I gave optimizer prices. It's a little further than I'd like to travel, but the price could be worth it. She liked my approach and scheduled the estimate. I told her that I'd be able to give a tighter ballpark price window after the estimate. She could then request detailed options if the ballpark fit. I am literally trying to get her to filter out if I'm not the right fit. I can only do this because I was recommended, have a great website, and I'm starting a waiting list. This is a perfect combination of creating demand as an Optimizer. Don't copy me if you're NOT an Optimizer! The night before the estimate, I had an uneasiness about going to the estimate and shared it with my wife. She sensed that I was about to possibly take on a client that was high-paying, but possibly high-drama. That's NOT the type of client I want, so I called Stephanie back and said this. "I'm really sorry, but I need to decline the estimate. It's out of my service area and I'm not sure if I can fit it in as a solo cleaner. I do have a friend that I recommend. She serves your neighborhood." Then I connected the two and both were very appreciative. This was a win-win-win. Stephanie gets what she wants. My friend got a lead. Emily looks good that she had a great referral. I don't get the client and that's a good thing. Plus, I created future reciprocity between me and my other local cleaner friend. This is why I turned work down this week the first time.

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 This is the first Solo Saturday episode. You are still my people. I'm a solo cleaner and have always been one. This monthly Saturday solo show will guide you along my ISO Model. In this first episode, I'd like to start with a 15-minute clip from a recent Optimizer's Workshop I did with Heather Parke from Heather's Housekeeping in Roy, Utah. The Optimizer phase is the final part of my ISO Model. Over the years, I have developed a tool to examine and analyze a solo cleaner's business. It's called an Optimizer's Workshop. I did this workshop with Heather from the Solo Cleaning School Elite Membership as a perk of her membership. We spent 90 minutes together on Zoom to map out her business to see if she was an Optimizer yet. My goal is to show you the analysis needed to properly assess your solo cleaning business. I also realize that this workshop clip is harder to understand without seeing it. Therefore, I have also included the video on my Smart Cleaning School YouTube Channel. 

 How did I find my buyer? I had 6 months left at this point and no training system to train the buyer. Plus, I no idea how to move clients from me to them. This is where I was ready to hammer my list of 600 people in my phone I had generated scripts and was ready to start the grueling process of asking quality people if they were interested in an opportunity. I was overwhelmed as I had very little time. This is how it worked for me. I'm a Christian and I prayed about it. As I was driving to one of my houses one morning, the Lord clearly said inside of my ear. "Call Ian.". Ian was becoming a good friend and a new commander in the Royal Rangers ministry I had served for 6 years. He looked up to me as I was the Senior Commander. He was 26 years old with a lot of promise and potential ahead of him. I got to the house and I texted Ian. "Hey are you around today." He said. "Yeah call me." I called him and I told him this, which was absolutely true. "How happy are you with your job?" Backstory... I knew that he had been working for a tape manufacturer operating heavy machinery. He had also worked at the rail yard but always doing physical labor. He was beating up his body and was earning $17 an hour. As a single guy, he was profiting between $1,500 and $2,000 a month, but not really getting ahead in life. I knew that if he learned how to clean and saw the opportunity he could triple his income and have freedom. He wanted to do more Royal Rangers, but his job was also second shift, and often was hard for him to get to the church and serve the boys. I knew he could work two or three days a week and triple his money. Back to my question. "How happy are you at your job?" He said. "Well not that happy. Why do you ask?" I told him. "I'm going to move to Philadelphia." He was shocked and said. "Ken, you can't leave!" I told him. "God was calling me to leave New York and go back home to be around my family. I'm going to sell my company and I have a short list of people that I think would be great fits. You are one of them. On my way to work today God told me to call you." We talked about some details briefly over the phone. Then he confided and told me that he was just thinking about his future and setting up a 401k and retirement, but wondering if his job would help him get to the next point in life. He was excited about this opportunity. He asked if we can meet at Starbucks that Sunday. Side note. I was going through my third battle of Lyme Disease and was feeling awful. I showed up and essentially pajamas and slippers to the Starbucks on Sunday afternoon, feeling nauseous and wanting to vomit. I brought my notebook and sketched out my business. He had lots of questions and he kept me there for almost 3 hours. At the end I said. "Hey Ian crazy question. I'm going to Dallas for a cleaning conference. Would you like to come with me?" He had never been on a plane before and said heck yes! By this point, he had known the numbers of my business as I showed him the valuation. He knew the price at $79,500. I told him I would take any expenses that he incurred from the Dallas trip off of the sale price as a perk.

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 This podcast episode releases on the 3-year anniversary of the day I sold my first solo cleaning business. Over these 3 years, so many cleaning company owners have asked me how I did it. So many people told me that you can't sell a solo cleaning business because I just owned a job and a job has no value. I didn't believe them. I'm not going to start this story where it really started for me and that's where God put a dream and vision in my heart to leave Upstate New York and go home to the Philly Area. I want to confine this story to the "How", so you can see the practical steps I took.

I had many initial conversations with friends like Billy Altman and John VanderMuelen, who have sold small businesses. I learned a lot and even gained valuable insight into proper expectations. It's hard to get full price. Don't be afraid to do owner-finance and take payments. Use legal documents and document every step of the process. The decision to sell was made in November 2017 and I had to leave NY by late June 2018. That gave me 7-8 months to get it done. I first shopped it around to some cleaning companies after getting a rough valuation of $50,000. One company rejected it after seeing my numbers and signing a non-disclosure agreement. They could get the same number of clients I was selling for less in marketing. One ignored me and one just declined. I sensed early on that another business would not buy mine as it was viewed as a cleaning job. I had to be more creative and package the offer differently. I had to sell a dream and offer it to people looking for what the dream provided. I knew that I had a great dream to offer. I had optimized a cleaning company from 5 days to 2 days per week cleaning and still making $55,000 per year in profit. If all my clients would transition to the new person, I knew this was a great deal for somebody. I just had to find that somebody. I called a few people I thought might be a fit. I could tell they were not the right fit. I considered making a list and what I would say to each person in a script starting with every person in my phone contact list. As I was doing this strategic thinking, I scheduled myself to go to a cleaning conference. I've been to many conferences, but this was my first ever cleaning conference. It was called Speed Cleaning, hosted by industry leader Debbie Sardone.

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 Many of us are paralyzed by too many ideas. We get overwhelmed on which to implement, when, how, and most importantly, WHY. This metaphor is brilliant. I heard it from an Amway stage years ago. You can't steer a parked car and you can't park a moving one. The act of taking action is driving. A coach or mentor can't steer your action if you're not taking it. In fact, have you ever tried to steer a car while it's parked? The power steering is off and the wheel is extremely hard to turn. It's the same way with people. It's easy to turn when they're moving, harder to turn when they're slow and hardest to turn them in their parked. There are also people that don't listen even when they're taking action. They are like the car which loses its power steering on the road! That's not as bad as losing your power breaks, but it's scary. Some people are like that too. These people can be just as dangerous to themselves and their future as the ones that are parked and doing nothing. What about the other side of this metaphor? You can't park a moving one. You have to slow down and then stop the car before you can park. What does parking look like in a person of action? It's them slowing down to come into a mastermind retreat or a weekly call or a meeting with a mentor. They're slowing down from their action, parking, to receive new information. It might be pulling in for gas or getting their tires filled with air or their fluid levels topped off. They might be getting a repair or some maintenance done before they can get back on the road of action.

 These are all coaching and mentoring metaphors, but they're very useful to everyone listening to this podcast. Do you feel like you're stuck? Do you feel like you're parked and you've got tons of ideas, but you just don't know which one to do or when to do it or why to do it? Do you have people trying to give you advice and steer you, but it only makes it worse? These are all signs of overwhelm. Part of your problem could be that you're an over-thinker with classic paralysis by analysis. Or you could just be confused because you've been given different forms of advice mixed with your ideas and you don't know what to do. The result of either scenario is that you don't move and you keep your car parked This is why I designed and created the Smart Cleaning School. If your brand new or feel that overwhelmed, continue to join me on this podcast journey and I will give you a map to achieve your goals. If you'd like to go beyond making the map and having goals, the next step is accountability to achieving them.  Accountability around goals decided by an individual's why is like getting your car out of the shop. Your car is lubed and ready to perform. You will no longer want to stay parked because you know why you are doing your business and you know the next step to take. No one's going to tell you how fast to go, that's up to you. But just the simple fact that you get moving puts you in a place where you can be steered by others who love and support you. That's what it takes to accomplish your goals and dreams through the business that you've created. This is what makes your life, your family's life, and your community better. Would you like this for your life? The Smart Cleaning School has multiple resources, free and paid for you to accomplish this. You can even schedule a free coaching call with me to help you, regardless of where you are on the journey!