Smart Cleaning School

In the first year of my cleaning business, we were struggling big time! Every house was a chore and every dollar was spent before I even earned it. I'll never forget the house at Lake George. It taught me so much. 

• Keep your dream big and keep it alive. Every struggle seems worth it when your dream is big. Every nasty house you clean after Lake George is worth it. A leader in the Amway business named Larry Winters said this. "If your dream is big enough, the facts don't count."
• Not everyone is trustworthy, no matter what they look like. Michael was an attorney from NYC with a lot of money. He had prestige, a beautiful house, but he didn't pay me for 3 months after constant pestering. He didn't think highly of me as I was just some lowly house cleaner. Michael was creating negative ripples.

This happened in 2006. We had $170,000 in debt and earned less than $20,000 that year. My wife was home with our first son and we lived in a rented house in an unsafe part of town. That lake house built a dream for me and sustained me through some difficult years. As I record this podcast, we are literally paying off the final debt payment and will be 100% debt-free for the first time in our adult lives. We still live in a rented house, but it's safe. We live in a 2,300 square foot farm house on 2 acres with a large creek in the back. We love it. We are beginning the wealth building process and who knows... maybe we'll have our own lake house in a few years.

What is your Lake George house that built your dream for a prosperous future? Keep this story in mind as you work through your struggles. No matter how hard it gets... Remember Lake George and it will get you through it.

Six months ago, I met Michelle at a chamber luncheon and handed her my business card. After the luncheon, I sent a personal video message through VidYard as a follow-up to our meeting. She watched the video and replied back with gratitude. Then she told me she would keep my information on file. Then Corona hit and real estate was crushed, so I wasn't expecting anything.

I received a phone call from Lon this week, a local realtor. He wanted an estimate for a sale-ready presentation cleaning for an estate scenario prior to showings as the real estate market opens more. As we talked, Lon mentioned his colleague Michelle and that I was "highly recommended". I NEVER cleaned for this real estate firm or Michelle, yet she highly recommended me. That's the power of making a strong professional impression. My initial handshake and conversation wasn't special, but going the extra mile with a personalized video made all the difference. I booked the job with Lon for $450 and I never even met him.

If you're paying attention to this story as I paid attention to details of my conversation with Michelle (to send her a personalized video), you can take your networking to the next level. Every conversation is a seed. There's another takeaway solo cleaners. This job was a 1-time cleaning for $450. I averaged over $60 per hour and I'm just getting started in my new solo cleaning business as a Stabilizer. I used to earn over $100 per hour as an Optimizer in my 1st business. I'll get back to that level, but the point is that 1-time jobs are very profitable. They also lead to other profitable 1-time jobs and recurring jobs. I build my 1st business on real estate 1-time jobs that lead to recurring. Lastly, these 1-time opportunities have helped buffer our income during COVID-19.

I followed up with Drew from Town Supply. He went with another cleaning company. If you remember from "Don't Be a Hoarder", Doug's wife said this to him. "This guy knows a lot about cleaning! Can we get him to clean our new office?!" I thought this job was a definite, but it just goes to show - "Blueberry Pie". I wished him well and kept him on my mailing list. Then something interesting happened. Drew considers me the cleaning & disinfecting expert, but he hired another company. He emailed me asking for some disinfecting recommendations. I shared what I'm using and how to get it. Drew ordered it. How many contractors would have said, "you didn't hire me, ask your new service"? That's not going the extra mile and creating positive ripples in your community. I have shared many times before in this podcast that I consider myself an educator first, then a cleaner. In this case, I was able to serve through education. 

Mike from my MCBA called me this week to set up a cleaning estimate for his house. He's been reading my weekly educational emails, keeping me "Top of Mind". We scheduled an estimate in 2 weeks. The veterinary hospital that I mapped out a few weeks ago gave me the green light on a new cleaning service. The scope and service cost nearly doubled! This is huge. Since the construction is not done yet, they wanted to phase the increased scope. I developed a 3-month plan and got it approved.

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

I used to get nasty poison ivy as a kid. It would bubble up and itch like crazy. The worst case I ever got was on my face. My eyes were puffed nearly shut in the heat and humidity of July. It was torture. Thankfully, the doctor gave me a steroid to help heal it. You get the point. Now my son gets it bad. Last summer, he attended a survival action camp for Royal Rangers and in that camp learned something amazing. Jewelweed is a natural remedy for the poison ivy infection. The best part is that God placed the Jewelweed next to the Poison Ivy! The cure was with the poison. This is amazing and frustrating at the same time, as I never knew this and had to endure harsh Poison Ivy every summer.

Napoleon Hill says this in "Think and Grow Rich". "Every adversity has with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit." The Poison Ivy is the adversity and the Jewelweed is the seed of an equal of greater benefit. COVID-19 has been the most recent and impactful adversity. What seeds have you discovered of equal of greater benefit? I've shared mine several times. I dug into the science on how to kill Coronavirus and in that research, I built my "9 Mistakes in Disinfecting" presentation to serve my community. This has already lead to cleaning business growth and actual dollars, many of which are recurring profits!

In past episodes during COVID-19, I have shared at nauseum how I've educated my local community on the "9 Mistakes in Disinfecting". I have shared it in every group that would allow with several others upcoming! In my latest edition to my BIB networking group, I blazed through the 9 mistakes in 5 minutes. Since we were all on Zoom, some members had spouses in the background listening. I just wanted to get this information out there. My friend Bill Downs called me after the meeting. "Ken, my wife was listening to the call and said that we need to have Ken over here!" I scheduled the estimate, completed it the following day, and sent the proposal email by Saturday morning!

While vacuuming Monique's house, I discovered that I sucked up a jigsaw piece into my vacuum. This is a nasty thing to look for, but I know that Monique loves her puzzles and I know how I'd feel if I finished the whole thing except for 1 piece. I told her what happened and asked her how important her puzzle piece was. She felt bad to make me search for it inside my dirty vacuum bag. I could tell it was important, so I dug through my nasty bag and found the piece, cleaned it off, and returned it. This was a simple act of service, but it goes a long way toward trust building and allowing me to optimize. Think of the missing piece of the puzzle. This is what it looks like to go the extra mile is. It's the missing piece that most companies ignore. I choose to add this piece over and over and over again. This simple core value has helped me thrive in business.

Let's wrap this up on a fun story. As I've already shared, I did a 1-hour presentation to my chamber on the 9 mistakes. This week, I took a few hours and followed up with all 30 participants from that call through email and VidYard. Several personally thanked me. Some joined my weekly cleaning tips newsletter. One of the 30 names was familiar. It took me a moment to connect the dots. 'Ah'! Last summer, I did my "New to Harleysville Tour" where I solicited 25 offices for cleaning. This tactic does work, but the conversion is very low. I did add a biweekly office cleaning, Gehman Design Remodeling, but that was it. One of my visits was a newer accounting firm with the perfect profile small office for me to clean. I really wanted it. I did all that I could to be a Go-Giver and offer my professional advice on helping them make a better first impression. They were grateful, but it didn't go anywhere. Fast forward 10 months. The decision maker for this office was on my chamber call. They have yet to reach back out to me, but I have noticed they open my weekly emails multiple times. I believe this is a future client. My name is top of mind and their level of trust in my company is increasing.

I am excited to introduce my friend and YouTube superstar, Cassandra Aarssen to Solo Cleaning School. I invited her to be an expert guest in the SMART Cleaning Tribe that I lead for team cleaning companies needing accountability around goals. Cassandra was a busy mom of two small kids when she started her home organizing business. At the time, she was also running a daycare with 9 children for extra money. She saw home organizing as a way to make extra money and possibly get out of the daycare business. It did WAY more than that! Her husband recommended that she record a video with her phone and upload to YouTube. Cassandra has continued this discipline for over 7 years and 750 videos! In this interview, she shares the Clutterbug story. You may be thinking... 'Ken, she isn't a solo cleaner. Why should I care?' For one, she was a solo operator of her home service business like you and I. Secondly, she turned her local brand into a global one that now earns her hundreds of thousands of dollars. 
    

Cassandra had some real power quotes in the interview that I wanted to make sure I took note of!

"I realized you can make something one time and sell it over and over and over again with a book or a concept or a video or a cleaning checklist or an e-book. That's when my eyes really opened up to the magic of the internet and the magic of working smarter, not harder!"

"My advice is to start with one platform and when you can master it, when it seems easy, then add another one."

"It's not about having something perfect. It's about just being consistent."

"You're not going to learn from reading and researching and planning. You're going to learn from doing."

In my last solo cleaning business update, I shared how sharing my knowledge directly lead to my local pharmacy boosting a video I made leading to over 4,500 views! Collaboration is so vital. It's what networking done right really is. Like-minded local business owners sharing with each other for the greater good of the community. Life also gets in the way. I've shared how losing my Nana caused me to slow down work to attend to family matters. The last few weeks have been difficult as I'm the family point of contact for my autistic uncle. I had at least 2 full days of phone calls, emails, and updates to my family members and his team to take care of. I only share this to be real. I had less time and had to prioritize this week and I prioritized collaboration! Here are some examples of actions I took this week:

• Collaboration set up with IV Chamber, Jackie Silveri of EDS on how we complement each other as partners / collaborators in our MCBA networking group. 
• Did 2 interviews with Shelby Miller and Trisha Lutteroty from Keller Williams with good questions and comments
• Taught my chamber how to protect against corona and disinfect properly with 30 attendees. I will email each back personally with a video message. One of the attendees is Tom Merrick, owner of Tom's Help Desk and President of the Skippack Business Owner's Association. He wants me to come speak for their group in June in the same format as today's talk, only shorter in content. You just put yourself out there
• I went back and forth with my veterinary hospital client to get the map correct (the one I made in Boost My Post). The doctors are talking and collaborating with me to design the best strategy for them. Their goal is to have their staff clean & disinfect daily, have my company work in tandom with one of their employees to deep clean, disinfect, and presentation clean their hospital. They LOVED the map and were so thankful to have a plan forming up. I was given the green light to increase my monthly service and wrapped up the week with a beautiful powerpoint with 5 options to expand my cleaning service.
• Brad Imming of SEP Pathfinders helped me set up Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics so I can start tracking visitors to my website. I just need to determine my goal for the site, so Brad can help me design and optimize the funnel to capture more newsletter subscribers, YouTube subscribers, clients. 
• Got my first call from the Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Concierge that Mary Ann Alig added me to. It got us a 1-time move out clean.This was a nice $250 1-time job. I took before & after pics and had the client pay online.
• Went through my CC emails and collected all prospects and new friends and added them to my newsletter
• Created the 9 videos under 2 min each, uploaded them to YouTube, and scheduled them into MailChimp to go out twice per week throughout May. I'll be updating Google My Business with each release.

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

The spider monkey is extremely hard to catch due to its speed and agility. However, you can trap the monkey with a box and a fruit. That's all it takes. Place a piece of delicious fruit inside of a box designed to fit the monkey's arm. Once he grabs the fruit, he cannot let go, even though his clenched fist will not fit through the hole. The monkey is snared by its small thinking and desire for the immediate gratification of the delicious fruit. Ultimately, this is the undoing of the spider monkey.

Teresa and I enjoyed a wonderful beach day in Ocean City, NJ. While eating lunch on the beach, the conversation between the nearby lifeguard and beach patrol guy caught my attention. I was not being nosy, just curious as I like to hear how people think. The lifeguard was a talker, barely giving time to his friend. That's a huge lesson there as this podcast rolls on. He shared how he's been with the city for years as a guard and even served the city council for a term. He was a giving, intelligent, and upbeat guy. But he was blind to his overtalking and small thinking. He mentioned how he'd been passed over for a promotion and possibly rubbed others the wrong way. He could not understand why. I knew from this short conversation. His desire was to get ahead, but he had to play the game as good as he knew how. Then he mentioned that his life has been changed as a new dad with a baby daughter. My heart went out to him. He's about 30-years-old, in great physical shape, lives on the beach, and has an incredible life-saving skillset. But he's broke and stuck with his arm stuck in the spider monkey box.

As I shared with Teresa privately, this lifeguard has incredible value and worth on the open market verses being trapped in a corporate structure or job. He just doesn't know it. He has benefits and security and again, his arm in the spider box. I said to Teresa... "Imagine if this guy took his skillset, learned some people skills, and taught parents like us how to keep our kids safe at the beach and how to teach our kids life skills that could one day save their life. I'd pay big time for that. He could make 3 times his current income if he was willing to accept a different way of earning income."

This is what holds many from starting their solo cleaning business. They have their arm stuck in the spider monkey box with fear, a false sense of security, and small thinking. Take a chance!

I promoted 3 books that can all be found on my Resources page for recommended reading - "Mindset", "The Magic of Thinking Big", and "The Art of Dealing with People".

In this podcast, I share an incredible case study from my friend Hugh Gbewonyo from Foot Solutions in Norristown, PA. Before I go into Hugh's case study, it's important to understand his industry and how he chose to niche. The shoe industry has been growing year-after-year from the 1-to-1 shoe salesman model to the box store. My dad was a shoe salesman in small private owned mall store who knew shoes, was great with people, and took the time with each. I sold shoes years later in a box store where I was trained to help as many as I could and how to properly greet and "sell" them. This is the retail model that took over every industry for the past 40 years. Hugh didn't want that kind of shoe store. He wanted to set himself apart and really help people with every day life by becoming a certified pedorthist. Although he's not a medical doctor for feet, he can analyze feet & gait to recommend custom shoes for people. Thus, his shoe store is a sub-niche from shoe stores.

Prior to COVID-19, Hugh operated like any retail store with open hours and as many as 8 potential customers in his store at a time. Hugh could never quite get to everyone with the average client visiting his store for 15 minutes. His business has done well. But COVID forced Hugh to make a decision. He chose to stay open while other custom shoe stores closed (by choice as they were essential). Hugh ensured each customer's safety with a cleaning and disinfection protocol. Plus, he switched to "Hours By Appointment Only" model out of necessity. This gave his control over the cleanliness between clients and his own daily schedule.

Hugh didn't anticipate what would happen. He was able to get to every customer like the old time shoe stores. He served them and they stayed in his store for an increase from 15 minutes in the old model to over 35 minutes. He felt better as no one slipped between the cracks and he generated more good will and recommendations with the change. By the way, the change also increased his sales per client by 30%! Of course, I asked Hugh about his total sales as he would obviously have less opportunity to sell. Hugh said he is on track to exceed last June's sales by 6% with his new model. Incredible. Not only can he serve more, feel better, have more control over his day, limit the lookers through a prequalification system, but he is making more money! The results speak for their self. Hugh will stick to this model as he has unlocked the Scarcity Principle for his business. He has set himself apart from those that sell the same service. Plus, he offers a free $100 value Gait & Foot Analysis to top it off.

I told Hugh the Jackknives story from Russell Conwell's "Acres of Diamonds". He has already increased his sales per client by 30% through the "By Appointment Only" model. Imagine what could happen if he offered high profit items that every client wanted as well in the front of his store? He could find out what his clients want and start to offer them. He could optimize his sales per client metric to increase his revenues or quite possibly, have more time at home with his family. That's what optimizing and my ISO Model affords you. 

While on a TLF mastermind call where Bee Evans was sorting out her various business projects, Vincent said something profound because Bee had a lot going on. "It's not the overwhelm that stops people, it's the work". Bee is a super hard worker and comes from an oil & gas family in Colorado. She knows work ethic. But she is torn as she feels called to continue her family business while starting various side businesses in professional corporate coaching, winning a spot on the Denver Broncos cheerleading roster, and being a wife and mom. She's got a lot going on to say the least! Each venture requires hard work and dedication and each has a huge payoff toward her family's goals and more specifically, her desire to help women in a new platform she's creating called "Tear Out the Tags".

Once Vincent made that statement, it connected with me big time as a solo cleaner as every aspect of the business falls on me. Not to mention, I'm a podcaster, run a few membership groups, and have a large family.  I'm not afraid of work. In fact, I love it and thrive on being productive! Overwhelm can totally stop us from the work. This is why I need breaks from work to think, go on walks with my wife, play with my boys, take mid-day dates with my daughter. It centers me. This is also why I need the TLF mastermind and the community it provides. 

Going back to Bee and the rest of the mastermind call. It's the not knowing what to do next because her overwhelm bucket was full. It caused her to stop moving forward. Bee made some tough decisions once we helped her gain clarity. She is getting traction  and the hard work will actually take her somewhere. This is what we need to do as solo cleaners. We wear so many hats and we need to keep it simple. Lower your overwhelm with a dream, goals, and work! Get small baby steps and small wins. This gives a sense of accomplishment and lowers the overwhelm, one win at a time.

Do you relate with this? Are you a hard worker, but the overwhelm of life, family, and all aspects of running a solo cleaning business are slowing you down?! That needs to end if you said Yes! You need to take a break to think. You need a community and a plan of which work to do. You need the ISO Model to optimize your business to get your life back. If this message connects with you, go to www.solocleaningschool.com and sign up for the Premium Membership where you can access the ISO Model Training which gives you my proven system to optimize your business. You also access the community of other solo cleaners to ask questions and can participate in live Q&A's from me as questions arise in our school. I hope to see you there!

In my last cleaning business update, I did not hoard my knowledge and it lead to opportunities to help my community. Since we're in the middle of a global pandemic, I'm doing whatever I can to serve my community in my expertise of cleaning. In part, it's actual cleaning and in part, knowledge. In this week's update, let's continue the theme of serving.

I served my clients in a way I've personally never done, but it made a HUGE difference! A veterinary hospital I've cleaned for nearly 2 years is close to wrapping up a 4,000 square foot expansion. We've known that the cleaning scope would expand, but the goal was never to maximize what we could make. It's always to maximize the experience and goals of my client. I already shared that I met with the owner a month ago to talk about the cleaning. They desired to create a cleaning plan to incorporate daily cleaning by staff, weekly cleaning by a staff member for extra money, and weekly deep & presentation cleaning services from my company. I asked if there was a map of the new building. She said that one of the staff was making one. Instead, I volunteered. "What if I create a full map of this hospital, make my recommendation on the various cleaning items, and color code it!? We can use this as a working collaboration tool until we have the options that you'd like me to price." She was so pleased with this. I left and set this map as my next task. I took a video walking through the new hospital and used it create my map. It was beautiful and took me a full day at home to do. To the outside world, it seems like I wasted a full day. But I know this. By taking this consulting role with the vet to help them achieve their cleanliness goals, we will be rewarded an increase in services of at least $5,000/year! That's called an investment, not a waste!

Another way I served my clients was leaving Google reviews. I've personally worked with or have enough 1-to-1 experience with members in my BIB networking group that I went on their Google profiles and left 5-star reviews to help boost their views. This is a totally selfless and honest act. I asked for nothing in return.

I also continued to help my community. My chamber invited me to host a second virtual Zoom workshop with everyone working from home. My friend Tom asked me about masks and directional filtering. It was a great one, so I did follow up research and got back to him later in the day. He responded with this. "I consider you my cleaning & disinfectant expert." I checked in my friend Dr. Mak from the Skippack pharmacy to see if he had any questions. He said a few of his customers had follow questions to the videos I made for them. So I checked out the pharmacy page, found my videos, comments, and answered the questions. Before leaving the page, I noticed something startling. One of the my videos had 4,500 views! I dug in more and realized how. Dr. Mak BOOSTED MY POST on Facebook. I was so honored that he would ask me to help his clients and then he invested into his business and mine through a boost. This lead to Facebook page likes, which I personally friended and thanked (which lead to new client Monique), and it lead to 5 newsletter signups!

That's what can happen if you're a Go-Giver. You can eat your seed or plant it. If you plant it, you have a great chance to see that seed turn into a tree producing fruit with thousands of new seeds. I chose to sow my seed. I hope you do too!