Smart Cleaning School

I've watched the devastation that cleaning companies face due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I've listened to all sides of the quarantine argument and I'll tell you this... when Corona hits your loved ones and you get a gut punch, your perspective changes. It's one thing to feel the pain of the financial strain and only hear of the health strain many face from Corona. It's an entirely different thing to feel the pain of a loved one fighting for their life in the hospital with the disease. That was me this week. And it's my mom. Not to mention, my step dad and 2 of my sisters have tested positive and been through torture. I am not advocating that we keep our country in lock down forever, but I am so much more empathetic to those that have dealt with this virus on a human level and understand what they've been going through. Please take a moment and be thankful that you're only problem is financial compared to what others are dealing with.

At the end of this episode, I shared a great quote from my Grandma Shellie (from You Eat With Your Eyes). When I asked her if she was staying safe, her answer rocked me.

"Kenny, I don't practice social distancing. I practice physical distancing. We need to stay connected socially. That's the way I'm built."

I think we all need a little dose of that!

Letra was working for a large national cleaning service when her boss recognized an entrepreneur's heart inside of her. Instead of offering a promotion, Letra was offered mentorship and the opportunity to go solo. This is unheard of. Businesses don't launch other businesses unless they are franchises or financially incentivized. That's why Letra thought she was being punked.

Check out this solo cleaning story and the plan she formed recently in her marketing with a little help from yours truly. Plus, be sure to listen for these quotes during the interview!

"If I wanted to get to the next level, I had to get out of my comfort zone."

"You can't grow without taking risks."

If you're in the Houston, TX Area, make sure to check out Letra's company, Ms. Moody's Cleaning Service!

Ellen Johnston (Above & Beyond Housekeeping Services / Wyomissing, PA) - 69 News in Reading, PA on 4/24/20 headlined "Housekeeping company gives out free hand sanitizer" 

"I was in the disinfectant aisle, just because I wanted to see it, and there was an older couple, say in their 80s. There was no disinfectant of any kind," recalled Ellen Johnston. She overheard the wife ask her husband a question we all have probably asked over the past couple weeks. "It was so sad," Johnston shared. "She said, 'What are we gonna do?' and he said, 'I guess we will just have to drive around and look at other places.'" So Johnston and her staff decided to create a temporary place to give out much-needed refills of hand sanitizer, even the though the company is struggling. "We are down about 95% among our clients," Johnston said. "We are trying to spread the work that we have among our employees to keep them working," Johnston said.

In a grocery store aisle or anywhere else for that matter, nobody should have to do without. "Everybody has to dig deep and see how they can help their community," Johnston said.

Mary Connolly (Maid IV Service / Countryside, IL) - I have been offering disinfectant to police stations, fire station, gas stations, and general public as much as possible, I have hosted my first give away and will continue to host them for the duration of lock down in my city.

Mark Lineberry (Universal Janitorial Services / Fairfax,VA) - We're donating 10% of all revenue in April, including from the EIDL, to support two local area food banks. Plus we are donating $100 for every new contract signed in April. We anticipate a donation of $10,000 in total. In fact, Round 1 out. $2021.55 each to the Capital Area Food Bank and Britepaths (formerly called our Daily Bread). Second round will likely go out May 1 and will be more than this payment, thanks to the EIDL advance.

Michelle Allegrezza (Sparkling Homes Cleaning Service / Albertville, MN) - Outside of running her cleaning company, Michelle is a trained EMS and runs a side company in the medical field. She says, "My boyfirend Jake Shoulak (Shoo-lack) and I are making 3D masks made with antimicrobial filament and comes with surgical grade filters. We have gotten a ton of donations and currently have six 3D printers running 24 hours a day to keep up with demand! Check out Jake's site if you'd like to order masks.

Hannah Brees (Shine & Sparkle / Dallas, OR) - At Shine & Sparkle we have been offering free grocery deliveries, free meals to kids in need delivered to their door step, hand written encouragement cards to our clients, and for every $100 gift card purchased for a healthcare worker we are donating $25! We’ve raised about $1500 so far, plus our donation!

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

Your kids are home and they are driving you crazy! We've been homeschooling for 10 years and wanted to impart some wisdom on how you could spark their passions with a little curiosity! There is a lot of busy work given to your kids by their schools. They want to maintain control of what they learn and how. That's fine. Here's what I recommend. Put away the devices and turn off the TV. That's when you can make curiosity the curriculum.

• Challenge 1: Tell your kids to go outside and find something interesting. Don't come back until they do. Have them show & tell what they found. Maybe it's a quartz rock or a lizard or turtle or fossil or plant or flower or bug! Encourage them to learn more about the thing they found. This may lead to books or YouTube together.
• Challenge 2: Give your kids some wood pieces and nails or a hot glue gun and popsicle sticks and have them build something. Let them ask what they can build next. You can help them find a project online.
• Challenge 3: Give them old electronics that they can take apart and let them! My son turned this into a computer repair business at 13 years old.
• Challenge 4: Give them access to baking or sowing and let them figure it out with your guidance and using their device as a resource.

In each of these challenges, guide your kids to pursue their curiosity to knowledge, from knowledge to experiments, from experiments to excitement.

What if you could uncover a passion in your kids and fan the flame into something more exciting?

I learned work ethic by working and humility by being humbled. Here's what I mean. I watched my mom and day each work very hard toward their goals, but I truly learned work ethic when I had to do house cleaning chores every week. Over time, I even learned to like it and appreciate it. I was paid for my work and always had money in my savings account. It felt good and I could buy things that I wanted. I also learned humility as cleaning toilets and taking out trash is not glamorous and can be quite nasty. I learned that excellence in my work at every level strengthened my character. I have my parents to thank for that!

In this episode, I teach you how to get your kids involved and learning work ethic and humility through house cleaning chores. As a professional cleaner for 15 years, I'll share our family's strategy & schedule. First, we teach them how to clean and disinfect. Then we break up the house like a professional house cleaner does and assign chores to each kid based on ability. We use a biweekly cleaning schedule except for the recycling & trash (daily) and bathrooms (weekly).

• 6 year old - recycling, helping with glass cleaning and dusting, folding & putting away own laundry, biweekly bathroom
• 9 year old - trash, vacuum & mop stairs and upstairs
• 12 year old - dust, vacuum & mop downstairs
• 15 year old - bathrooms & kitchen

This is an awesome model to teach hard work done right equals money and money equals rewards. It worked for my mom and it is working for our kids. Lastly, I think many of you will appreciate my closing P.S. in this episode.

"Let's get your kids to clean... so you don't have to!"

Let's start with a great resource. What is the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) current understanding about transmission from their website?

• Spread from person to person within 6 feet via respiratory droplets
• Transmission via contaminated surfaces has NOT been documented
• Infected, but non-symptomatic people play a huge role in transmission
• Transmission through droplets much more common than fomites (objects or materials which are likely to carry infection, such as clothes, utensils, and furniture.)
• "Current evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 may remain viable for hours to days on surfaces made from a variety of materials."
• "Cleaning of visibly dirty surfaces followed by disinfection is a best practice measure for prevention of COVID-19 and other viral respiratory illnesses in households and community settings."
• Personal hygiene, precaution, and protection is the #1 way to protect yourself. Wear a filtering mask, protective nitrile, latex, or vinyl gloves. Keep your distance of 6 feet. Wash your hands frequently, especially after removing gloves or potential exposure for 20 seconds with soap & water. I'll talk more on PPE in the 3rd episode.

Now that we understand what the CDC recommends and the "9 Mistakes in Disinfecting", let's shift gears to safely bringing groceries, mail, and packages into your home. The best science we have so far is that the Coronavirus can survive on varying surfaces for varying lengths of time. Below is a overview of the surfaces from these National Institutes of Health and WebMD articles.

• Copper (pennies) - 4 hours
• Aluminum - 8 hours
• Textiles (rags, towels, clothing) - 12-24 hours
• Cardboard - 24 hours
• Plastics / Counters / Metals (cans, stainless) - 2-3 days
• Wood - 4 days
• Glass / Ceramics / Paper - Hard to determine - up to 5 days

Let's pull it all together. When it comes to disinfecting our groceries, we choose a disinfectant that is food safe. Therefore, our family uses isopropyl alcohol 70%. It kills the corona virus in 60 seconds fully wet and disinfects other pathogens in 5 minutes. We do 5 minutes to be safe. You can use also use grain alcohol (ethanol 95%) which is also food safe. If you do not have alcohol, use what you have that is food safe, which is clearly on the back label. If you only have chemical disinfectants, make sure to fully disinfect and then fully rinse each item under water with soap and water. The last resort would be to skip the disinfection and either wash everything with soap and water or allow your groceries to sit in your trunk for up to 5 days so they are safe.

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

Over my 15 years of professional cleaning for home & small business owners, I have seen that 90% of people DO NOT disinfect correctly. They fall prey to one of the "9 Mistakes in Disinfecting". This episode summarizes these 9 mistakes. 

#1 Mistake! Not fully cleaning surface first!

#2 Mistake! Not selecting a registered disinfectant!

#3 Mistake! Not selecting the right disinfectant for the right pathogen!

#4 Mistake! Not following the directions on the label! Dilute correctly and wet surface long enough!

#5 Mistake! Not using chemical correctly. Bleach MUST be remade every day!

#6 Mistake! Cross contamination from rag or not wearing gloves!

#7 Mistake! Wrong pH for surface and damaging it!  

#8 Mistake! Never mix chemicals. It could kill you!

#9 Mistake! Not fully cleaning surface after disinfecting!

I created a 5-part free video course "How to Disinfect Properly" for my cleaning clients & local community to help them during this COVID-19 crisis. If you would like to get more details into each of these 9 mistakes, click here to access your FREE course!

This episode is for my US-based solo cleaners only. President Trump signed the CARES Act into law on Friday, March 27th. In this 900 page, $2 trillion bill, congress has earmarked $350 billion in personal stimulus to American families and $350 billion to the Small Business Administration (SBA) to disperse to small businesses across the fruited plain. The personal stimulus is automatic and requires no action. If the Treasury already has your bank's direct deposit on file, you'll receive your money in April 2020. Otherwise, it may take a few months. If you're like me, you just assumed you didn't qualify for any of the other $350 billion. Well, you're wrong. This episode covers the 4 main portions of the CARES Act that the self-employed can take advantage of. Some of the money is first-come, first-serve, so get applying!

Before I begin, let's give credit to my source. Denai Wolfe of The Chic CFO has been helping so many people figure this law out since our president signed it. Denai does daily FB Lives in her Profit Factor group and I've had the honor of two expert calls on Zoom with her on the SMART Cleaning Tribe membership that I run and the Total Life Freedom Community that my friend Vincent runs. This episode is a culmination of my knowledge and applying to us... the Solo Cleaning Owners! Make sure to check out this FREE RESOURCE from Denai as well!

There are 4 parts of this law that pertains to us, the self-employed solo cleaners. The EIDL is a given. Go apply ASAP!!! You could get up to $10,000. The FMLA, UC, and PPP are the others and you would have to select one! In this episode, I describe how to calculate your average monthly payroll and go through examples of each of these options. I also give an example of a sole proprietor solo cleaner earning $2,000 per month in payroll and how to decide which option to take. I'll share basics here, so make sure to listen to the full episode for more details.

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

We are in a challenging time as we navigate the devastating effects of the Coronavirus. We need to be wise, use caution, and protect ourselves and families. But we also need to control our emotions and try to view things optimistically. A great example emerged a few weeks before the corona outbreak with my daughter. She was struggling as a pre-teen and allowing a small irritant to throw off her whole day. I told her the beautiful story of the oyster and the pearl. First, an irritant enters the oyster. It usually opens it's shell to eat and stays closed to not be eaten. Sometimes sand or small organisms enter. The oyster feels threatened and secretes a substance called Meka (or mother of pearl) to fight the intruder. This is the same substance that the mantle or inside of the shell is made of. The oyster also secretes a protein to act as glue to continue covering this intruder layer after layer. In the end is a pearl. To the oyster, it just transformed something irritating into something that is safe. To mankind, the pearl is of significant value. One such pearl from the Australian South Seas was recently sold for $1.5M. I shifted gears with my daughter and told her to be like the oyster. Turn your irritants into something beautiful. I now say the same to everyone reading this or listening to my podcast. 

I begin this episode with a real estate investing story from my brilliant cousin Seth. He is not a big time cash buyer in the real estate world. Every time he tries to compete on their level and get to the houses at the pre-foreclosure or auction stage, he is beaten because he cannot compete with cash. Seth had to find another way. Make sure to listen to this podcast to see the shear brilliance of Seth's advantage and how he is buying properties in his area.

From this story, I pivot to solo cleaning company owners and the hidden advantage they have and how they could find opportunities right now in the middle of this COVID-19 storm. There are three main ideas I share:

1. Commercial cleaning is not affected because buildings are empty and they need to be deep cleaned and disinfected. Residential is down big time. Go and find empty buildings to clean for income now. Not only will you earn money now and help protect your community, but they will remember you and possibly hire you for recurring services later on. Adding commercial clients will offer more long-term stability to your solo cleaning business.
2. Study the science of disinfecting or pay attention to the upcoming podcasts on the Solo Cleaning School. Once you are confident, educate your community for free. Share this information with your target client groups. You will help them now and who do you think they'll call for house cleaning after this is all over?!
3. Use this time to fix or establish your business systems and finances to prepare for the coming growth from your first two ideas.

This is an huge opportunity to get ahead, while so many are panicking.