Smart Cleaning School

Do you struggle with selling and not charging enough? Do you believe you offer something special to the world? Listen to this "Best Of" episode called "Blueberry Pie". This is one of my favorite episodes of this podcast. I've used this mindset to teach multiple solo cleaners the value they can offer.

This is a story that will cost a cleaning supplier a lot of money. First of all, I hope you all know me by now. I am not vindictive. I did not have a bad experience with the company I'm going to mention. However, I chose to do my 3-stars out of 5 review to the world because it will illustrate a vital lesson on the lifetime value of a client. I purchased my Mosquito Carbon Lite vacuum cleaner from my friend Joshua Burnstein, owner of Sawgrass Cleaning Solutions, Boynton Beach, FL. Joshua is a authorized distributor for Mosquito, which he does as a side hustle. I now use him exclusively to take care of my vacuum needs. But I almost didn't and here's what happened.

My Mosquito has a uniquely designed tapered hose to maximize power and flow for my 160 cfm motor! That's nerd talk, but it means my vacuum really sucks! All of my hoses start to wear down after 2 years. They tear between the ribs and I have to cut a piece off to keep it working. This particular hose has been cut a dozen times to the point where it's barely long enough to vacuum with. I put off ordering a new part from Josh as he told me the replacement part is $100 with shipping! When I could wait no longer, I did a Google search to see if I could get the part cheaper anywhere else. There were a few at $100 and one at $45, which ranked high on Google SEO. It seemed like a reputable supplier, Salamone Supplies out of Menomonee Falls, WI. I researched the company and found the part I needed on the website for a great price. I told Josh and he was highly suspicious as he knew the part wholesaled for $80 on the low side. He wished me good luck. I apologized for jumping ship as I had to try. I ordered the part. To the credit of the company, they contacted me via email and was kind and cordial in their replies. They received the order, but soon realized that they had the two parts mixed up on their website. The part I ordered for $45 had the part number and picture correct for the part I needed, but they had the wrong price listed. They emailed me to let me know of the mistake and asked if I'd like to receive the $45 incorrect part or the part I needed for their price of $90 + shipping. 

Read the rest of this article at the Solo Cleaning School website

There are so many questions that clients and prospects have asked me over the years. As a consultant in the cleaning industry, I get asked even more. My cleaning company website has an in-depth Learning Library that I'm very proud of. Several of these articles are FAQs that I've pulled to the home page of my website. From time to time, I'll bring you one of these articles. Today is such a time as I wanted to mentally equip you, the solo cleaner, with how to answer the naysayers that believe solo cleaning is not possible, not worth it, or not professional. Here's a link to my article, "How Can You Possibly Clean Alone, Ken?". For the purposes of this podcast, I'm going to read it! There are 6 misconceptions that I highlight in this article and I encourage you to remember them as you connect with potential clients. As a side note, I added a 7th misconception for this podcast for solo cleaners directly.

1. Solo Cleaners are not real businesses!
2. Solo Cleaners take too long! I don't want to pay them extra for the same work!
3. Solo Cleaners aren't as efficient as teams!
4. Solo Cleaners have to limit their clients and I might lose them!
5. Solo Cleaners can get sick or injured and I'll lose them!
6. Solo Cleaners don't have systems and are unreliable!
7. Solo Cleaners don't make much money! Since this one is not on my article. Let me clarify. This is true for the solo cleaner who doesn't realize their value. If you are charging $20 per hour or inherited clients from a friend at $50 per cleaning, you are not making much money and it's hard to imagine earning what I earn. If this is you, I encourage you to listen to every single episode of this podcast! To everyone else, I want you to realize that most of the 7-figure cleaning company owners started out as solo cleaners. I have a friend Hannah who earned over a $100,000 per year cleaning solo in her 20's and a college student. Then she hired and grew a team, so she could achieve bigger goals. Go back and listen to a recent episode I did, "Mission 20/20 Complete [Kenny add link]" to hear the results of my own solo cleaning business and how much income I earn. I am totally transparent and share my numbers in hopes of helping you. 

If you would like optimize your solo cleaning company like I've done twice, I encourage you to check out my Solo Cleaning School Elite Membership where I provide independent course work to train you in my ISO Model. You also get access to me through twice monthly Q&A's and access to like-minded, growing solo cleaners in our community.

I referenced a listener of this podcast in the Funny Papers. Tonsha Hokanson is the owner of the brand new company, In a Jiffy Cleaning, LLC serving the Twin Cities, MN. They are doing outstanding work for their clients and in my estimation (having connected personally with the owners), they do it right. I highly recommend reaching out via email: [email protected]

Right off the bat, let me make this statement. There is not one way to properly do a COVID-19 clean and disinfect, but there is science that governs us to follow protocols and procedures to ensure best results. There are so many companies out there doing COVID disinfection. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell which are tried and true with years of disinfection and training from the ones that saw an opportunity in 2020 and short-cutted the system to make money. I would first like to give a shout out to a good friend who has become an expert in disinfection in the Washington D.C. area. Mark Lineberry of Universal Janitorial Services has an incredible article on COVID & Reopening Your Facilities (Guide)and another on properly doing Electostatic Disinfection Services. It will show you just how much training it takes to do this right and I HIGHLY recommend that you begin learning this science so you can help more families and businesses in your community. As you know, I've become a local expert in Philly on the same topic as I've been called to share to various audiences my "9 Mistakes in Disinfecting". I don't use a delivery system like fogging or UV or electrostatic spraying. These require a lot of training and expertise that I don't have. They also require a large equipment investment. I have companies that I refer when clients request this. My clients understand that I do "High Touch Point Disinfecting". The philosophy is simple. 80% of the pathogens lie on 20% of the surfaces. I don't need to kill 100% of the pathogens with a complicated delivery system. I kill 80% by hyper-focusing on the surfaces where pathogens are most likely to settle. 

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a weekly office client that one of their employees tested positive for COVID-19. They suspected it on Monday and everyone left the office to work from home. The positive test came in on Wednesday to confirm. The office remained closed until the following Monday. The office manager wanted my company to substitute a regular cleaning with a COVID clean. This was not the first time, so they knew I would do a good job. Here's the steps I took:

1. I found out which employee desk it was and where that employee spent time on her day in the office. I determined that her office, the owner's office, copy machines, and restrooms were all compromised.
2. I added the other high touch points like light switches, door knobs, common counter tops, break areas, and file cabinet handles. This gave me a map of WHERE to disinfect. I already knew WHAT to disinfect. It's corona virus and the EPA has a list of registered disinfectants (COVID-19 EPA list). I already have one of these chemicals in my cleaning tote.
3. Assess WHEN to disinfect. My friend Mark in his above-referenced article recommends a 7-day period to allow the pathogens to die-off from surfaces. Reports differ as I've seen 5 days. Nevertheless, this office was vacated on Monday afternoon and I was there on Saturday night. That's 5.5 days, which I deemed safe to go in.

Read the rest of this article at the Solo Cleaning School website

I have two related funny stories to the theme of this podcast. Have you ever seen the "Polar Express" movie during Christmas? Most of you have. Toward the end, when the main characters are lost in North Pole, they stumble in the elf operations room. There are a number of videos playing of kids and a red buzzer goes off. One kid is shown on the Naughty List as he repeats the phrase, "I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it." After the movie, my own kids were repeating that phrase including my 3-year-old and if you have kids, so are they. This innocence is cute as a kid, but not as an adult leading a business. My Uncle Bob told me a story about a friend. This guy is a jack of all trades. He does lawns, gutter cleaning, moving, tree service, power washing, whatever. He just goes wherever the money is. But this Jack is uninsured and thus, unprofessional! He takes on a lot of risk. If he is guilty of any damage, the homeowner better hope he doesn't pull the Polar Express line. My uncle told me that a neighbor of his called Jack over to remove an oak tree. When he asked him if he had insurance, Jack lied and said he did. He successfully removed the oak tree, but he didn't put the tree where it was supposed to go. A professional would survey the yard and take vital measurements first. Jack did not and the cry of TIMBER lead to the sound of an oak tree smashing into the roof of the house! It was a miscalculation for Jack. Thankfully, no one was injured. But the house was severely damaged. My uncle told me me how this will play out. When the homeowner hires someone knowingly that doesn't have insurance they take the risk and hope that their own insurance will cover damages if something happens. Sometimes it will, sometimes it won't. Sometimes it covers partial, but never the whole thing. In this case, if it turns out the contractor lied about having insurance. The homeowner can file a lawsuit, but the guy has no money and he won't get anything anyway. The homeowner is screwed either way. What's the lesson here? It's pretty obvious. Don't be Jack. Don't hire Jack. Let him keep rolling down the hill with Jill.

For the main part of this episode, I want to share a short story that happened on the way to work with my kids. As I drove to work, a headache was pounding and I said out loud without realizing it. "I meant to bring the Advil with me, but I forgot." As soon as I said it, my brain kicked this thought. "A lot of good meaning to do it brought me. My head still hurts!" I realized how true that statement is for so many. So many people are meaning to do things, but never do them. in other words, "I meant to do it" is a way to justify their intent but never having to do the action. It's a form of making an excuse. I won't accept that type of life. I got home from work that day and immediately put the Advil in my work bag. I removed the excuse for the future. Unless people start changing their 'meants' into 'dos', they'll be feeling a lot of pain at some point too. And by that time, Advil won't cure it!

In this episode, I'd like to share a few updates from my solo cleaning business. It is true that I stopped striving for my goals in late 2020. But I didn't stop marketing. My "Optimizer's Website", strong "Google My Business" profile, and participation in local networking and chamber events. Recently, I had a couple find me on Google that lead to my website and a phone call. They had their questions answered on my website and the rest over the phone, so they scheduled an in-person estimate. After the estimate, I sent out a proposal my typical menu of customized house cleaning options. Matt and Laura had a few days to digest the menu, so Matt called me to negotiate as any good sales guy would. I explained what my options were so he understood them. One of my monthly cleaning options was of interest but it was about $20 too high above their budget. Ultimately, he asked if I was willing to negotiate, which means could I lower my price to get him as a client? My answer was simple and it never changes. This is not hard for me and it should not be for you either. "I don't lower my prices or my quality, but I can definitely lower the scope or the frequency of my options and provide another option which hits your budget." This would be a win for him as it hits their price. It would be a win to me because I still will earn my same hourly rate because I don't compromise on my prices.

Matt's feedback to me was awesome. "We loved your menu of options and how you customized a plan just for us. We also like that you don't do contracts and we can switch between options as we decide what works best." This is a young family with growing and changing needs . They don't want to be locked into something, they want to grow with a cleaning service. This is a great example of why I advocate and coach to always create a menu to give options. if you only give one price, it can only be yes or no. Many in the industry fight me and say this is not scalable. I disagree. If you have good enough systems and can train your employees, you can definitely scale. The biggest benefits for me is that it allows me to win a higher percentage of clients and spend less on marketing. Plus, it allows me to service the customer better as I optimize my business. They feel listened to, respected, and it allows you to build trust ultra quick. Add on to this, my initial cleaning strategy of staggering over three visits. That's another way to customize and new clients love it because it allows them to get the product without the upfront fee. We shall see if Matt becomes one of my final clients before starting my waiting list.

It's a new calendar year. 2020 was so difficult for many families and so many are exploring other options for income. In this new "Best Of" series, I bring you an older episode that truly connected with my audience. "How to Start Your Solo Cleaning Business" is still one of my most downloaded episodes to date. Everything that I taught in this episode is valid in 2021 and beyond. The only addition would be for you to take cleaning science seriously. I did a wildly popular talk in my area called the "9 Mistakes in Disinfecting". It turned into webinars, YouTube videos, and a podcast. I encourage you to become an expert in cleaning science so you can disinfect like a pro and increase your stock as a cleaner in your area. It will set you apart big time.

I was listening to the Tim Ferriss Podcast recently as he interviewed the one and only Seth Godin. Between comments, Tim uttered the metaphor of the duck does all of its work under the surface. I literally had to pause the episode and write out this one! In my last episode, Mission 20/20 Accomplished, I painted a picture of team cleaning companies growing through insurmountable odds and I shared my success in 2020. I don't want anyone to think that we had it easy or growing our cleaning businesses come easy to us. Let's learn from the duck and then come back with the goal of encouraging you and giving you truth!

The duck appears to always be in control as it glides across the water. It is cool, calm, and collect without a care in the world. Yet, it gets to where it's trying to go. It does change direction and sometimes glides in circles, but it always gets to where it's trying to go. It's easy to see the duck from the side of the lake and say. "Why can't my life be as easy as the duck? They just find the pond or lake that suits them and simply glide across the surface, stick their head under water for a bite to eat, and chill!" Or what if you're thinking this. "I'm watching and listening to Ken build his second solo cleaning business and it seems like he's a duck. He just magically with total calm gets to his destination. He tripled his profits in 2020 during a pandemic. I guess Ken is just a duck!"

You were sitting on the side of the pond looking across the water at the duck. It does look easy from that perspective. My son recently bought the GoPro camera and he can stick it under water and capture incredible video. If your lens is looking at the duck, you see what you see. But if you take a GoPro and point it under the water at the same duck, you will see a different image. You won't recognize the duck. It is far from cool, calm, and collect. You see a duck's bottom and a flurry of webbed feet. That creature looks like he is fighting for his life. His legs are kicking and paddling like crazy. Sometimes the leg paddles forward, sometimes backward, and sometimes stops. But most the time it's swirling and kicking and paddling like crazy. If your perspective of the duck was from the GoPro lens, you would think that life is so hard for the duck. How can ducks  even survive at all!? How will he ever get to where he's going?

The lens from the side of the pond is the lens that others see you from, while the lens underwater is the one that you see you through. It goes back to the episode I did on "The Four Windows". The lens from the side of the pond is the first window and the underwater lens is the second window. Let's bring this back to my business growth success in 2020. You've been listening to my podcast and watching me from the side of the pond. I've tried to be vulnerable and transparent so you could get a look from underwater, but it's hard. I am living it and I know just how hard I've been kicking this year. Nothing has come easy. My little webbed feet have been fluttering away for 10 months, many times having no idea which way my legs were taking me. I relied on my faith and worked like it was up to me and prayed like it was up to God. I've been in mastermind and coaching environments where I've been beaten and bruised. My webbed feet have hurt all along the way, yet you've seen me glide from $30,000 to $80,000 in revenue in 10 months of a pandemic, riots, wild fires, political unrest, family issues, illness, and deaths in the family. Are you starting to see yet?

Read the rest of this article at the Solo Cleaning School website

2020 started with such promise to many. Unfortunately, it ended much differently. This episode is not a co-miserating-let-you-off-the-hook-if-you-did-nothing-about-it episode! This is an episode to fire up the winners. With all the doom and gloom in the media of pandemics, failing economy, and people's livelihoods being destroyed, do you know that there are scores of absolute winners that crushed it in business in 2020 despite the doom and gloom? It's true. In fact, billionaire Mark Cuban predicted it early in the pandemic when he said that many new corporations will be birthed during this time. He also said that the entrepreneur who can pivot toward the future will always thrive. I've paraphrased Mark, but it's so true. I challenge you to search for entrepreneurs who have crushed it in 2020 and learn why and how they did it. Many had their backs pressed against the wall and had no direction but ahead. That's a winner. I facilitate and lead the SMART Cleaning Tribe. This is a group of cleaning business owners growing with employees toward 7-figures and I keep them focused and accountable to their WHY, BHAG, SMART goals. On a mastermind & accountability call recently, we were discussing 2020. They all had SMART goals to double their revenues in 2020. One of the members did. Carrie Cottrell from Cleaning by Carrie out of Galion, OH more than doubled her company well past the quarter million mark. Carrie is crushing it. I've watched her all year. She provides a high quality service at an affordable price. Her product is solid. Plus, Carrie is in a rural, small-town area and she has networked like crazy. She has put herself out there on local news interviews, the chamber, local networking groups, and posting on Facebook every single day something of value to others! It seems that everybody knows Carrie in Galion, OH. She may as well be the only cleaning company there because it certainly seems like it. I'm so proud of Carrie! Jenn Jubrey (Maid Spotless Cleaning, Albany, NY) had to shut down completely by order of the state for nearly 3 months. Yet, she still managed to grow enough just to hit the same revenue as 2019 and position herself to pass $500k in 2021! Her accountability buddy is doing the same thing. Michelle Allegrezza (Sparkling Homes Cleaning, Albertville, MN) lost a large percentage of her clients and staff in 2020 due to the pandemic and she personally dealt with severe illness and family crisis. Like Carrie and Jenn, Michelle is a winner. She dug in big time and went back into the field to personally clean solo again until she had her new hires trained to replace her. Check this out. She finished the year 11% down in revenue from 2019, but was extremely wise with the money that did come in to become a 100% debt-free company! How many business owners can say this in 2020? Michelle and Jenn are racing to $500k and I love stoking the fire of competition! Hannah Brees (Shine & Sparkle Cleaning, Dallas, OR) had wild fires and a pandemic nearly take out her business. Heck, the Oregon wildfires were within miles of her house. She grew her revenue in 2020 while losing more than half of her team and also having to clean solo again for a short time! Way to go Hannah!

Read the rest of this article at the Solo Cleaning School website

I started this podcast with no expectations. It's a highly niched show for people wanting to optimize a solo cleaning business. When my show got to 1,000 downloads, I was shocked! It kept growing. Recently, the Solo Cleaning School Podcast crossed 20,000 downloads in 13 months! That's incredible to me. I am a member of the podcasting community and the "Downloads" metric is so important to people. I've seen some tote their download number around as if they are really big stuff, yet I've seen others with millions of downloads with such humility, you'd think no one listened. I was somewhere in the middle. I couldn't figure out what this number meant until recently. The man I'm talking about with 3 million downloads and total humility is John Stange. He's a local pastor to me and runs the Desire Jesus Website. John is a total stud. He is a master content creator and has a book coming out this May with a major book publisher. I'm so proud to call John a friend.

When I crossed 20,000 downloads, I got a text from John. He said this. "Congratulations on crossing 20k!" Without thinking, I replied. "Thank you John! That's 20,000 opportunities to impact another for Christ." Obviously, this is a conversation between two Christians, one being a pastor. I don't want you to dismiss it as I kept thinking on this. It dawned on me how amazing this comment truly was. I don't have 20,000 listeners. I have a couple hundred listeners that have collectively downloaded one of my episodes 20,000 times. The number astounded me. What is 20,000 downloads? I've had 20,000 opportunities to impact another life with a message of hope. I've had 20,000 opportunites to coach a struggling cleaning business owner to win. I've had 20,000 opportunities to speak to a struggling single mom looking for a way to earn income for her family. I've had 20,000 opportunities to share why solo cleaning is one of the best businesses on the planet. 

This gave me incredible energy as I now have a podcast metric that truly matters. Many will call them downloads, but not me. They are opportunities to impact another human life for good!

Do you know that I have a companion free Solo Cleaning School YouTube Channel ? Make sure to check it out as I give bonus content not on this podcast. And these YouTube views and subscribers are opportunities as well. Thank you for helping to spread the opportunities to others who need to hear them.