Smart Cleaning School

I'm excited to take you backstage again into my own solo cleaning business as I work to achieve my 2020 SMART goals! Now that the school year was back for my family and for my clients, I made a shift to my new schedule. I shuffled my biweekly Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday houses to Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. My goal was to reduce driving. When you're adding new clients like I've been, it's hard to optimize for location as you go. I tend to put new ones where I have the time to do an amazing 3-part initial cleaning. Once I speed up and lock in new clients, I begin to play calendar Tetris. As a practice, I try to move clients infrequently like once per year or less. Once I had the new schedule decided, I connected via email and text with each client to let them know. They all happily agreed.

During one of my house cleanings, I connected with my friend Ed Weidman. He helps companies attract their ideal clients through SEO, Facebook & Google Ads. After hearing several success stories on other cleaning companies running successful Facebook Ad campaigns, I decided to give it a try. I only need 4 more houses to hit my 2020 goal. I know that my prospect filtering process is highly effective and it will probably take 30 leads to generate the right 4 clients. Ed was very confident of this. He gave me the outline of what I need to do and I will keep you up to date on how this works out for me!

I've mentioned my cousin Seth Bryan in the podcast. He was on the good and bad end of a podcast. I shared his impressive story of how he finds potential houses to buy on "Finding Opportunities" and another story of how he cracked open his chin on Thanksgiving morning. Seth is like a brother. His wife Abby is part owner in a family business of a historic site for wedding venues and she asked me to come over for a cleaning estimate. We arranged to meet up early with the whole family before we went to a playground and saw a dinosaur show at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. During this estimate, Abby shared how unhappy she was with the current cleaner as well as the scope and frequency of the work. I took detailed notes of the facility and gave Abby much to consider. It's a lot of money, but the hours aren't ideal for me as she needs upward of 2 visits per week with one after 11pm on Saturday night. I promised to get the proposal out to her and go from there.

My integrity was challenged on Saturday morning. As I approached the door to office #2, I noticed a flyer stuck inside. I had to remove it to open the door. It was a business flyer for another cleaning company. Ooh, what to do... what to do? What would you do? Many would take the flyer and throw it away. That's logical. Remove the competition. That's one way to become the tallest building. You can knock the others down. I did something different to align with my integrity. I took the flyer inside, placed it on the receptionist's desk, and wrote a note. "I found this in the door. Have a great week!" This is the other way to become the tallest building is to build your building taller. This comes from a quote from Jim Rohn. Not only did I feel good about myself, but my kids saw me do it. I am confident in my cleaning and this was my way of building my building taller by building more trust with the owners. Remember, "Trust is Everything with Beth Lane"!

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

There are so many people with the words, "I can't" as a major part of their vocabulary. It's an easy answer and an easy excuse to fail. Those two words come from a society trained to be followers versus critical thinkers. I've been saying this to myself and my kids for over a decade. If we can change those 2 words to 3 words, everything changes. Do you know what the 3 words should be? You guessed it (it's in the title). "How can I?"

Why should you do this? The answer lies in the questions we ask our brains. Do you realize that most people make more statements than questions. This puts our brains on filing duty versus solving duty. It's a shame too because our brains are a nearly unlimited resource for solving difficult problems. Read the book, "Think and Grow Rich", and you'll see this more clearly. Let me explain what this change does in your brain. When you change the period of "I can't" to a question mark of "how can I" and your brain receives the words as a challenge to solve versus a statement of conclusion. To be successful entrepreneur, you need to learn how to think critically and to solve interesting problems. 

Let's make this clear with an example that happened last month with my daughter on the way to cleaning the first of 5 offices Saturday. Christianna currently shares a bedroom with her 3-year-old brother Kasey. She desires to get up earlier than him, but realizes an alarm clock won't work as it will wake him up too. She said this to her dad in the car. "I CAN'T get up on my own because of Kasey". I said this to her. "That's true. Let's change the statement to a question. HOW CAN I get up on my own without waking Kasey? 

This intrigued Christianna, but also let her know that she was about to undertake a long process of learning! My son Kenny was with us and he was smirking as he's already been through this many times with dad. I charged her with a thinking assignment while we cleaned. She had to come up with 10 possibilities of how she could wake up without waking Kasey. It was so much fun. We had a dinner picnic in between the 3rd and 4th offices in a park. Christianna came up with 6 ideas. Kenny and I added 4 others. We talked them over. Here they are!

1. Move my brother out of my room
2. Sleep downstairs on nights that I need to get myself up at a certain time.
3. Will myself to get up through neurolinguistic programming (NLP) the night before.
4. Sleep with earbuds and an alarm.
5. Wake up to just light alarm, facing away from baby.
6. Go to bed early enough to naturally awake at your time. 
7. Buy (or invent) a vibrating alarm. Be woken by feel vs sound or light.  
8. Setup contraption to dump cold water on your head at the wake up time. 
9. Put earmuffs or noise reduction earphones on baby or ear plugs.
10. Buy sleep number bed and setup program for head to rise at wake up time. 

As a team, we put our brains to work to narrow down the list of 10 to the best viable option for her. She decided. Some of the ideas were super funny and we laughed them out of contention. Others were unrealistic. Ultimately, we settled on our Top 3. They were the vibrating alarm, moving Kasey out of the room, and going to bed early. Christianna asked her brain more questions and she decided that the best solution to waking up before Kasey without waking him was to buy a watch with a vibrating alarm. She was amazed at how simple the solution was. You see, she had lived with "I can't" so long that she never tried to solve it. Once I changed her statement to a question, everything changed!

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

I would like to thank a listener to this podcast for this episode.  A few weeks ago, I received an email from Katie Young, sharing with me that she was in the planning phase of her new solo cleaning business. Katie was very excited to get started and thanked me for my support through this podcast. Then she asked a question that I have not directly answered yet.

"How do I name my business? My plan is to make my cleaning business eco-friendly and primarily residential."

She went on to share a few names she was brainstorming and wanted my opinion. I knew right away that my reply answer needed to be an episode so others could benefit. Thank you so much for your support and for this awesome question, Katie!

Before I share my thoughts to this question in 2020, let me take you back and explain how my company name was chosen. I consider myself a pretty creative guy, but for some reason, my family members aren't too creative with names. Let me give you some examples:

• My daughter Chritianna named her stuffed Ram, Rammy, when she was young.
• My son Kenny named his stuffed Skunk, Skunky, when he was young.
• My son Kye named his favorite stuffed Elephant, Ellie.
• My wife and I named our first side businesses accordingly. We named the side Amway business, Carfagno International, the writing business, Carfagno Writing, and the cleaning business, Carfagno Cleaning. Yup, we added the type of business to our last name and whammo.

The only standout in our family was my son Kolby. He was the creative one, naming his stuffed dog, Money, and his stuffed cat, Paper. He's our future millionaire. Thus, you can see that my solo cleaning business had absolutely rhyme or reason behind it. Once it was established, I didn't want to change it especially when I paid for 5,000 business cards and embroidered shirts!

I do hold a position on this now. If I were to name my company again, it would not be Carfagno Cleaning. I would go with something like Indian Valley Cleaning. I've been in the cleaning industry for 15 years, but I've only been networking and consulting in the industry for 4 years. I have learned a lot by helping other companies. Are you ready for your answer, Katie?

Naming your business is important, but don't make it a stumbling block to starting. Here are 7 recommendations for you to consider as you name your business:

1. The name of the owner is common for solos. I chose this with Carfagno Cleaning. Many solo cleaner's do this as well and unfortunately many unregistered, uninsured, and unprofessional cleaners do as well. You'll see "Debbie's Cleaning" or "Sally's Cleaning". There are absolute exceptions to this, but naming your business this was has two huge cons. It communicates "cheap", "under-the-table", Aunt Sallie, and certainly a small business. When you name the business after yourself, you become the brand verses what you do and what sets you apart. The second con is that it's harder to sell a business with the owner's name in it. You may say, "but Ken, you sold yours!" That's true. I sold my client list and my systems, but I kept my name when I left NY and started in PA. There is a pro to naming this way. If you intend to keep your business small and solo for the life of your business, naming your business after you will communicate that you get Debbie or Sally every time. Many homeowners desire this. There is a third point. If you ever intend to do commercial cleaning, the more professional and the less your brand is tied to you the better. I also think that using your last name is more professional than your first when going commercial. My business name has never hurt me in the commercial world. 

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

This week started with content batching. Batching is an optimizer's tool for ultra productivity. Every month, I create blogs, podcasts, and videos for Carfagno Cleaning and Solo Cleaning School. It takes a ton of time to do each week. I used batching in my cleaning business and in other areas of business over the years. When Teresa's mom was available to watch the kids overnight, we jumped on the opportunity and grabbed a hotel for the night. I got so much done as I batched blog after blog after blog. We also enjoyed time together, so it was a win-win. The following day, I rented an office from my MCBA friend Vernessa Hopkins. Vernessa owns H3 Business Services in Harleysville, PA. The office was perfect and I was able to record all of my podcasts for the upcoming month. My batching goal was to invest a few days and dollars to complete all of my content for a month. I accomplished that! Please keep this in mind. The portion of my batching that related to my solo cleaning business was a small part, so it may not be necessary for you to batch your content. However, you may start sending out newsletters a few times per month, maintain your website, and repurpose content to Facebook and Google My Business. Batching would be a great idea for you at that point.

I've been tracking each of my offices from Saturday to Saturday, so I know how long they are taking. Plus, I've made changes to get faster. Over the weekend, I had a difficult email to send. One of these office cleaning clients took me longer because of paint speckles and glitter on the floor as well as increased kitchen areas. I knew I'd have to say something or scope creep would get me! 

[Before continuing, check out the bonus video, "How do I Deal with Scope Creep" on the Solo Cleaning School YouTube Channel. You'll learn how easy it is for your clients to unintentionally take advantage of you.]

When the scope of work increases over time, it causes our cleaning times to increase. The great majority of cleaning companies will NOT raise the price as the scope changes so slowly they don't notice it. Not me! I recognized the potential Scope Creep setting in and knew I would have to send a difficult email. I used the sandwich technique with praise and gratitude in the open and close of the email. In the center, I laid out the areas where the scope has increased. Then I shared how this affects my company. "I clean five offices every Saturday right now. I'm in the process of adding more as well. So when one office starts taking me longer, it ends up costing me money. I'm sure you understand!" Then, I offered possible solutions which either forced them to take ownership and have the staff do more end-of-day cleaning or I would submit a new proposal with higher prices for the increased scope. I was nervous about the outcome as it was surely possible to lose the client, but I had to do this. It's my business and I must run it like one! Fortunately, they responded with consideration and we worked through the solutions together. Ultimately, they decided to take ownership for one portion. The other part, where they've added more kitchen appliances, we decided to alternate half-and-half each week. They gave a little and I didn't raise my prices. It also raised my image of trust and professionalism.

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

Building a business is a privilege we have as free people in America. Patriots have bled and died to give and preserve this freedom and I never want to forget it. I also don't want to take it for granted. Kathy Barnette is the Republican candidate for U.S. Congress for the 4th District of Pennsylvania. This is the district I live in. She was a guest speaker in our church prior to the election and I was so moved with her talk that I asked her permission, her campaign, and our church for the right to take an excerpt from her talk and share it to my podcast audience. They agreed that this was a powerful message about preserving liberty and should be shared. 

I am keeping my notes on the episode short, but I do want you to see this quote from Kathy in print. It is one of the most powerful questions I've ever been asked. It brought tears to my eyes when I heard it. 

"If God removed you today, would anyone notice the ripple your life is no longer creating?"

Kathy has an incredible story of struggle and victory. Please keep an open heart and mind as you listen to her message. It is powerful!

Learn more about Kathy on her website.

This episode is in the same mindset of "Top of Mind" and "Get your Name Out There ". My solo cleaning business grew this week with a new client, but first I want to share about Tom and Andrew and how they each helped me. I wasn't afraid to ask for feedback.

Tom and graduated high school together. We haven't talked in 25 years, with the exception of a few Facebook likes. Last week, I got a private message from Tom. "Hey Ken I tagged you on a comment from Ryan Nyce. He went to MHS a few years younger than us. He's a realtor in our hometown area. He was looking for a cleaner for Trooper. If that's in your sandbox, then feel free to comment to him as well. Good luck man! I listened to a few episodes of your podcast. I'm not a cleaner, but some of the business-related stuff I enjoyed! Keep up the good work!" I had no idea that Tom was paying any attention to what I've been working on. I was honored to be honest. I always liked Tom. We had our jokes and goofed off as seniors, but he's done very well in life and I respect him. This message was so encouraging. I did connect with Ryan and friended him. He added me to his cleaning list and we'll connect sometime and I'll share with him my 3 levels of cleaning so he understands what I do.

Andrew has been following my cleaning email newsletters and typically replies to them with an encouraging word. Like Tom, Andrew is paying attention. I'm always thankful. Well, we talked in person at a recent BIB meeting and I asked him for feedback about my newsletter. I was working hard to put out a weekly cleaning article, but it was draining. I wondered his opinion on doing it less often. Andrew gave me great feedback. He said. "Ken, if you were a big company trying to grow big, I would keep it weekly to keep your name in front of people more. However, your articles are really good and every other week isn't as big of an ask for your subscribers to open and read. A monthly email isn't enough. They would forget you." This was such great advice that I made the switch for my August newsletters and saved a bunch of time.

Let's wrap up this episode with a another win from my solo cleaning business. The Skippack Animal Hospital hired me for monthly cleaning, adding another $5,000 per year in annual revenue. This new client hit my personal SMART goal for August 31st to add $15,000 in new annual, recurring revenue. I've not hit 4 SMART goals this year, increasing our revenue over $55,000 in 2020 alone! What an amazing year. I already mentioned in prior episodes that this new client was watching me from the behind the scenes and asking colleagues about me. They were paying attention. If you're putting yourself out there, I promise you there are people paying attention.

There are two stories I'd like to share to prove that mastery comes with strategic practice. The first story is cute. While making a secret Santa with my son Kye in the basement, I was painting meticulously. Kye marveled and said. "Wow, Dad. You're really good at that. When I get bigger, I'll be able to do it too." I said. "Kye, it's not getting bigger that will make you better. It's a lot of practice. I've been painting for 35 years." He got it right away. It's not how many years you've been alive. It's how many reps you put in. Do you follow this simple mindset?

Once you get better with practice, you will start to notice a phenomenon take place. Your body will just do the best version without you thinking about it. It's called Unconscious Competence and it's where you have a routine that is excellent, efficient, and unbreakable. That's what we need to win in anything. And it's what we need to be able to optimize our solo cleaning businesses. I won't dig into this now, but there are 4 levels to work through: Unconscious Incompetence, Conscious Incompetence, Conscious Competence, and Unconscious Competence.

It takes lots of reps to master these 4 levels. There's another mindset we can borrow from weightlifting too. You can bulk up with high weight and low reps. Or, you can build lean muscle with precision movements, maximizing the negatives of the exercise, through lower weights and high repetitions. That's what I want you to do in your solo cleaning business. Lower the weight and work with precision slowly at first. Master the 4 levels until you reach the pinnacle, then switch to high weight and optimize with speed.

That's the process. Let's close this podcast with a story I've never shared publicly. But if you can get past the funny parts and the title of the competition, you will possibly catch the biggest nugget I've ever shared in the Solo Cleaning School Podcast.

The movie Forrest Gump came out in my freshman year at Penn State. I was an engineering student with homework until 3 or 4am every night. It was brutal. My freshman classes had 300+ students and my sophomore had 100. That's why many said that engineering was pre-business as the drop outs went into the school of business. I couldn't possibly work straight through, so I'd mosey to the freshman commons with my ping-pong paddle, wait my turn, and play until I lost. That's how it worked. The winner would stay on the table accepting new challengers. After a month or two, I improved my already excellent game to become the best freshman ping-pong player. I was already the best in my high school, or at least tied with Scott Shalom, who was a year ahead of me. How did I know I was the best freshman. Simple. I would get on the table when it was my turn and I would stop playing when I was tired. I didn't lose. I was good! There would always be the same pack of Chinese students hovering around the tables and they would cower when I showed up. I was arrogant for sure!

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

I've broken a lot over 15 years, but it's all relative. I have two mindsets to discuss before I share my cleaning misdeeds.

1. Your auto insurance company keeps actuarial tables and knows exactly how much an accident costs on average. These numbers are taken into account when you get and pay your annual insurance premium. In fact, it is designed to be a win-win. If you get into an accident or not, the insurance company still makes money. They win. Plus, your accident or claim is covered so you don't have to pay out of pocket. If you cost the insurance company too much money, they will raise your premium to ensure they make a profit and you can still be covered. Insurance is a product. We insure many things. One of those things is our business against general liability and bodily harm. Your business insurance company has the same actuarial tables and business model. I personally pay $550 per year in general liability and yes, I've had to use it once. The first mindset to take is this. You need insurance because things WILL break or get damaged!
2. I'm a former General Electric mechanical engineer and Six Sigma Green Belt. Six Sigma is a design system to minimize defects to 6 per million opportunities. It's an extremely difficult high bar in engineering design to achieve, that's why companies like GE and Motorola in the 90's and 2000's thrived. As a cleaner, I touch 500 things in each house or office. Over my 15 years, I've cleaned an average of 250 houses and 250 offices or 500 cleans per year. If you multiply the this out, I've created 3,750,000 opportunities to break or damage something. I call this a defect. Over this same 15 year mark, I have 75 defects. Continue the math and you'll conclude that my defect rate is 20 per million opportunities. 5 sigma is 233 defects per million opportunities. I've been cleaning for 15 years right on the cusp of 6 Sigma. In fact, I am literally a 6 Sigma Green Belt in my defect rate over the past 5 years as most of my 75 defects happened in the first 10 years. Therefore, my rate of damage or defect is as good as GE designs the airplane engines you fly with!

Side note: If you're struggling with breaking or damaging things, first evaluate your defect rate. Feel free to assume 500 opportunities per house or office. Secondly, if your defect rate is over 50 per year, you need to make changes in how you clean. A few simple system changes and routine can fix it.

Now that you have the proper perspective on my defect record, let's examine some of the 75 so you can see how I handled them.

1. Knick-Knacks - In my first year, I had a client with a LOT of knick-knacks, especially in the kitchen. I decided early on to be a full surface cleaner, so I would move everything in order to clean under it. This house made me change my policy. I had to move close to 100 items to clean the kitchen every 2 weeks. It's no surprise that I broke 3 of them. I would slide them or bump them and it would crack or break. I told the owner each time. After my second break, she held back $20 from my cleaning check and fired me on the third.
2. Coffee Pot - What happens when you attempt to clean a thin glass coffee pot in a slippery wet hand over a hard granite kitchen counter? The answer is a broken coffee pot. I told the homeowner. He ordered a new one and I asked him to dock the amount from my next cleaning. It cost $25.

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

I've told this story for years. Teresa and I were in the Amway business from 2002 to 2012. While we were there, we were blessed with incredible friends and mentors. One of those men is Herb Eplee. He build his Amway business to 6-figures and residual income in the early 90's and retired from corporate America at 37 years old. Herb is a self-acclaimed Kentucky redneck. He had a retirement party that literally made the Spartanburg, SC newspapers as he set 5 alarm clocks in a field. He labeled them Monday through Friday and blew them up one by one with a shotgun. All of his friends in the Amway business celebrated with American flags as he quit his job. I met Herb 10 years later. He was my Amway Upline and helped Teresa and I in so many ways along with our other upline mentor Joe Schirripa. These two men, whom I'll share more about in future podcasts taught us business owner mentality and mentored us in business, marriage, and faith. 

In July 2008, Teresa and I were fed up with our cleaning business. We had 3 part time employees. I was pulling in $5,000 to $6,000 per month, but kept less than $2,000 in profit. We were starving and full of debt and stress. Our tea kettle was past the whistle; check out "The Whistle is a Warning". We got on this coaching call with Herb wanting help on fixing our cleaning business, so we could be more effective in our Amway business. Well, good ol' Herb gave us some advice we did NOT want to hear. Here are some of the highlights on this call:

• I knew my numbers. This coaching call could NOT have happened if I didn't know my numbers. At the time of this call, I was in business full-time for 2 1/2 years. I've always tracked and known my numbers. This is huge!
• I wasn't able to be a giver. Herb wanted us prospering in our main source of income so we could be a giver and greater benefit to our community. We were so broke that we couldn't even help ourselves. "Ken can do without, but I don't like seeing Teresa and Kenny doing without."
• I was such an over-optimist. My response to Herb's first question, "how are you doin'", was "I'm doing awesome! We definitely could use some more money coming though." I was NOT doing awesome!
• I was employee top-heavy. You have to move yourself into the employee game very slowly. You have to work yourself up until you're very busy, then you bring on someone very slowly so it takes a little pressure off of you. It's a cash flow game. Herb perceived that we needed the entire $5,000 to $6,000 per month for ourselves after taxes to make it. He said, "with 3 employees and paying them, you're way-bad not making it!" This was a super simple way of testing if I could afford employees. Herb said. "Ken, you can afford to pay employees everything over and above what it takes you to float your budget." I wasn't even close! He made one exception. If I couldn't handle my full family budget cleaning solo, then I'd have to make due with employees and fight through with aggressive marketing. 
• I wasn't disciplined to marketing daily. I was not marketing to a level that would create new clients fast enough to keep the employees I had. Herb laid out the strategy to grow our business (in 2008) and how I could get my wife Teresa involved as a business partner. Teresa would need 2 hours per day to make 20 phone calls, which would create 1 new client per day and 5 new clients per week. I would need 2 hours per day around my cleaning to complete the estimates and proposals to close the deals.

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

Do you know how the tea kettle works? It's simple. You fill up the kettle, leaving some room at the top. There is a small pour spout on top with a hinged lid. The water slowly heats up as pressure increases inside this closed pressure vessel. Once critical mass is achieved and the water is boiling, the pressure inside causes the kettle lid to crack and whistle. The water is ready for making tea. I won't mention the person, but I heard a story this week that got me thinking about the tea kettle. This person has a long commute to work, a mentally demanding job, an elderly parent to care for, and children in high school and college in this post-COVID world. This person is constantly in a state of work, like Vincent Pugliese mentioned in the previous episode, "My Greatest Ideas have Never Come from Being Busy " As this person was talking, I could feel the tension, stress, and internal pressure like the water in the heating tea kettle. I felt terrible, but also realized that once a person is in this state, they won't believe they can get out. They feel trapped because they are under so much pressure, with no mental margin, and no quieting time to get new ideas to change things. The image of that tea kettle kept coming to mind.

I was talking to my buddy Billy Altman after hearing this person's story. Billy and his wife Rebecca are missionaries with FamilyLife and have an incredible ministry helping marriages and families. I told him the story and the metaphor I was trying to draw. He immediately picked up on it and said this. "Ken, the tea kettle starts whistling when the water has started boiling. At some point, the tea kettle will start overflowing hot water. The whistle is the warning." I thought about this profound statement that Billy made. He was right. The whistle is a warning. It tells us when we're about to spill over or blow our lid! At some point, my friend will get stretched past the point of what her tea kettle can handle and it will be messy and take a while to clean up. I am praying for this person. If you relate with this story and you're living life with no margin, your whistle may be sounding soon if it hasn't already. Please, quiet your brain and give yourself mental, physical, and emotional space to decompress, depressurize, cool down, and have peace of mind.

I really struggle to give a personal business update after this amazing message, so I'll share a few wins from this week in my solo cleaning business.:

• The week started off awesome with an email from Pam! She selected a biweekly house cleaning for $200 per visit. This adds $5,000 of new revenue per year.
• Shelby Miller and I were appointed education chairs for our MCBA group. It's an honor to work with Shelby. We kicked it off this week with the topic of family & life balance as we felt it was vital to build a foundation of WHY first. The conversation was excellent and we all felt so encouraged.
• I got a website inquiry from a church that needed a cleaning estimate. The pastor found me through my chamber showcase interview and told his office manager to call me for quotes.