Latest / Cleaning Business Life / CBL Episode 191 Angie Zweiner: From Rock Bottom to Rebuilding Everything

Transcript

CBL Episode 191 Angie Zweiner: From Rock Bottom to Rebuilding Everything · Cleaning Business Life

1:01
SPEAKER_03: Welcome back everyone.
1:03
SPEAKER_03: I am Jamie, your host with the Cleaning Business Live.
1:07
SPEAKER_03: I'm here with Shannon Miller, your host.
1:11
SPEAKER_03: And we today we have a special guest, Angie Angie.
1:15
SPEAKER_03: Angie.
1:16
SPEAKER_03: Angie Zweener.
1:19
SPEAKER_03: It's Wiener with the Z is what I was told.
1:22
SPEAKER_03: With optimized cleaning.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Hi everyone.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, welcome.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: We're super excited.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: For full disclosure, Miss Angie actually is a service provider here in my area.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: We've actually had lunch together.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, we've met face to face and she's actually a former student.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: So I'm super excited to have her here and chat about what's going on with her businesses because she has two now, not just one.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: So take me back to where you were before you started the cleaning business.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: What was life back at the time?
1:56
SPEAKER_00: You did you've had other businesses in the past, right?
1:59
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: I mean, like, I feel like this was bred like almost seven years ago.
2:05
SPEAKER_02: I was 28 years old and like terribly addicted to alcohol.
2:10
SPEAKER_02: And like it got me through a dark time, you know, alcohol did, but it also like stunted my growth in life, you know.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: Like it took away the creativity and the passion for life, but it also got rid of like the bad part of life.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: And so I remember when my daughter was really little and I was struggling with like being sober and stuff like that.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: Like, I made a promise to her that like one day I was going to take her to Disneyland.
2:34
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's where it all started.
2:35
SPEAKER_02: Like I was struggling with like being a single mom, like making enough money to support her.
2:43
SPEAKER_02: Shortly after that, like I started a couple like recovery homes I wanted to give back.
2:47
SPEAKER_02: I was super altruistic in my motives, but the businesses failed.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: Too altruistic.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: I was too selfless.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: I was too invested in what I was doing for people that like I was going to work to try to keep the businesses open.
3:02
SPEAKER_02: And so the businesses weren't making enough to like keep the doors open.
3:06
SPEAKER_02: And eventually I had to admit defeat.
3:09
SPEAKER_02: And then I got into doing a yoga business and doing breath workshops and trying to share spirituality with people.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: And that's just not a very profitable business.
3:19
SPEAKER_02: It's like really great to do that like as a hobby, you know, but I was trying to make a living off of it.
3:24
SPEAKER_02: And I and I just couldn't like again the altruism, like the selflessness and like the the money wasn't there in the business.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: And so I made a Facebook post in our Prescott moms group, and Shannon commented, and at this time I'm working like three different jobs.
3:41
SPEAKER_02: I'm cleaning on the side, you know, I've got my yoga and meditations that I'm doing.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: Um I was like, How do single moms make$75,000 a year to support their children?
3:55
SPEAKER_02: And I was so mad.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: And Shannon commented, and she was like, you can make$100,000 owning a cleaning business.
4:02
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, yeah, right.
4:03
SPEAKER_02: You know, like I'm cleaning on the side, you know, like prove it basically.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: And like Shannon gave me like some of her, some of your classwork, your, I forget what it was called, the pricing, scale, and profit class.
4:18
SPEAKER_02: You gave it to me for free.
4:20
SPEAKER_02: And I took notes.
4:21
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was writing stuff down, and I was like, oh wow, like I can really make a hundred thousand dollars a year.
4:28
SPEAKER_02: And I remember I was on a trip with my daughter.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: We went to the Big Sur to go camping, and I quit all my jobs at the same time, all three jobs.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: And I literally had two offices that I was cleaning at the time, like, and that was it.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: And I I was just like, I was so done feeling like life was so hard.
4:47
SPEAKER_02: And I started implementing what you were teaching me, Shannon, because you were offering me like a lot of like really great support and advice.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: And like by the second year, I made$155,000 in my cleaning business.
5:02
unknown: Okay.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: I think it was called the pricing blueprint masterclasses.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: Yep, that's what it was.
5:10
SPEAKER_03: See?
5:11
SPEAKER_03: So you learned really quick what the value of uh of having a coach and a mentor.
5:19
SPEAKER_03: I I'm like, yeah, right.
5:21
SPEAKER_03: I I did the same thing.
5:22
SPEAKER_03: I did the same thing, and now I'm like, I need a coach for this area.
5:28
SPEAKER_03: I need a coach for this area.
5:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because every phase of business requires like a different mindset.
5:35
SPEAKER_02: It does.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: It does.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: I even have a coach.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: So it's coaches need coaches, right?
5:42
SPEAKER_00: It's it's interesting.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: And and you're you took the ball and you ran with it.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: That was the most incredible part.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Like when I when I see the fire behind the steps, I'm like, oh, oh, she's gonna run with it, right?
5:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, what else can I do to set her up so she can be successful with that?
5:58
SPEAKER_00: And there have been several others after you as well in my area who've taken my courses.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: So I I think it's an awesome thing to watch you grow and blossom.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: So did you immediately know that cleaning was it, or you just were just looking for income?
6:14
SPEAKER_02: I mean, how did that put out there for you?
6:18
SPEAKER_02: I was not interested in cleaning toilets my entire life.
6:21
SPEAKER_02: I was interested in the finances, the financial freedom.
6:25
SPEAKER_02: I was sick of working nights and weekends.
6:28
SPEAKER_02: Right.
6:28
SPEAKER_02: And honestly, like when I first started it, it was all about the money.
6:32
SPEAKER_02: And when you are chasing money in a business, eventually your fire goes out inside.
6:38
SPEAKER_02: And I had to like go deep within and ask myself, like, what am I really contributing by cleaning houses?
6:45
SPEAKER_02: And it was like I looked at my own life and I was like, I'm helping people with their stress, I'm helping people take the to-do list and chop it down.
6:52
SPEAKER_02: I'm helping people, you know, like get back their time so that they can spend it with their kids, or just like, you know, elderly people, like they get to a part of their life where like they really want their house clean, but like physically their bodies can't handle it.
7:06
SPEAKER_02: And so it went from like, I just want some extra income and I want to stop suffering, to how am I actually contributing to other people's lives by cleaning?
7:16
SPEAKER_02: And when that started to, that mindset started to flourish, it was like, okay, I can do this for the long haul.
7:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, like I can contribute to our like we're service providers, you know, we provide a service.
7:29
SPEAKER_02: And if I'm all in it for the money, it's just like, I don't know, there's something inside of me that like it can't continue on like that.
7:37
SPEAKER_02: Right.
7:38
SPEAKER_03: It sounds like you had a whole because you're very uh zen and like you said, holistic and and uh people's mental space that that is what drives you now, right?
7:56
SPEAKER_02: It also was uh so the first six months was hard.
8:01
SPEAKER_02: I had to find the clients, I had to do a good job, you know, like get referred.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: And the first six months I made sixteen thousand dollars, and that was like every month I was like, where's the income going to come from?
8:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, but then by the second year, making a hundred-five thousand dollars a year, like you can't do that without helpers.
8:21
SPEAKER_02: And so then it was like, okay, our cost of living here is ridiculous, and then and then minimum wage, that's even worse, you know.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: And so then it became about like how do I help other moms?
9:01
SPEAKER_02: Like, like, how do I have moms working for me making livable wages?
9:06
SPEAKER_02: So I started paying people$25 an hour, which some people are like, you're crazy doing that.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, yeah, but they deserve it, you know, like and so I started using the business to also give other people an opportunity to live without burden and stress.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: And I hire a lot of moms, you know, moms with kids, like they can't live off of 17 bucks an hour, you know.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: So that was a big part of the drive, too, is like helping clients take the stress out of their life, but also like helping moms to give them like better opportunities and not letting the economy dictate what that looks like.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: So often in this town, particularly, the economy has always dictated what the wages are.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: For a long time, they suppressed a lot of things.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Like when you first move to town, they're like, well, you know, you don't know how things work.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: We have a very narrow mindset that's expanding.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: I've seen that change a lot in the last five years, but they really have tried to suppress the wages for a lot of people.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: And there, we like Jamie lives in a small town.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: There aren't a lot of jobs.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: When people come here, there are not a lot of jobs.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: Like we have some jobs, you either work for the school system or the airport or Emery Riddle or one of the schools.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Flexibility.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: Don't forget about the flexibility.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: Flexibility is an important thing, especially when you're dealing with moms, because everybody wants mom's hours.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: We have uh you talk uh you guys hear me talk about pickup.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: Right, drop off and pickup.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: I gotta be able to do the drop off and pickup because they get mad.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Like, where were you?
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Why did you come to get me?
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Did you love me?
10:43
SPEAKER_00: Right?
10:43
SPEAKER_00: So that whole like kill, kill, kill.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's interesting to see that it's it's doable for people in small towns, and I don't want anyone to be discouraged if they feel in their town they can't do it too, is my whole point.
10:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and we have so many cleaning businesses here, and we're still succeeding, you know.
11:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:02
SPEAKER_02: Everyone's like, competition, competition.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: No, truck forward, keep going, you know.
11:08
SPEAKER_02: Stand out.
11:09
SPEAKER_03: We hear it all the time in the groups, right?
11:13
SPEAKER_03: I wish I could get those prizes.
11:16
SPEAKER_03: You can and quit quit thinking like that.
11:19
SPEAKER_03: You gotta change your mindset over it and yeah, truck forward.
11:25
SPEAKER_02: Just focus on your contribution, don't look at what everyone else is doing, you know.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: It's a distraction.
11:32
SPEAKER_02: Because that's where your energy goes.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: Like, if your energy is going to what other people are doing, well, their stuff is gonna grow because you're paying so much attention to it.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: Like, just focus your energy on growing your own, your own.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: So true, so true.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: It's it's wonderful to see how many people have succeeded.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: I think there is what 65 or 70 microcleaning businesses here in town.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: I remember when there weren't there were like 15 and that there were three big companies, and I was one of them.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: So it's just it's it's awesome to see the conglomerate.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: They they all collaborate, especially in the messenger group that we have.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: It's hit or miss sometimes in there, but I think that for the most part, it's it's a benefit for everyone.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: So, what was the most uncomfortable and uncertain thing that you came across in your early days of your business?
12:22
SPEAKER_00: We all have like those stories.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: The most uncomfortable was probably like I would walk into a job and I didn't have any boundaries with what I was doing and how I was pricing my jobs.
12:37
SPEAKER_02: And so I was essentially like bidding a job for a maintenance cleaning and I was providing a deep cleaning service.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: Like that was pretty gnarly.
12:45
SPEAKER_02: I would go home crying, my body would be hurting, aching from like the long day.
12:50
SPEAKER_02: But like I had no idea how to create a menu, you know, like it took me a little while before I could afford your course, like as a student.
12:57
SPEAKER_02: And then once I had your course, it was like copy paste, copy paste, just do what Shannon did, because like look at all the things you accomplished, you know.
13:05
SPEAKER_02: Like, why would I make up my own system when it when your system worked, you know?
13:10
SPEAKER_02: And and that was like one of the most uncomfortable things in the beginning.
13:14
SPEAKER_02: And then also like just being really extra sensitive to things, like if I fell short on a cleaning and I had to go back and correct it, I would take that really personally.
13:25
SPEAKER_02: Um, I also was like really sensitive when people didn't like my quotes, like I would give them a certain price and they would make judgments about like how high my prices were, and I would want to like argue or defend or justify like why I was doing it.
13:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
13:43
SPEAKER_02: And it was like I learned the hard way.
13:44
SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't have to make them understand, you know, I don't have to explain it.
13:49
SPEAKER_02: They didn't ask me to explain it, so why would I explain it?
13:52
SPEAKER_02: But I would say, like, the sensitivity, like my own lack of boundaries in business, that was probably the hardest in the beginning.
13:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:00
SPEAKER_03: Showing up to a move out clean and then being there for 12 hours, like in the beginning, like just or wanting to curl up over, and like I there's no way I'm gonna get this done in 12 hours.
14:11
SPEAKER_03: Well, like I bring a letter.
14:13
SPEAKER_03: Like, I'm gonna go ahead and just take a nap.
14:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and then we'll pick we'll pick up.
14:17
SPEAKER_03: There's nobody here.
14:19
SPEAKER_03: Know that nobody's coming until tomorrow at this time.
14:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'm sleeping.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: I've had I've yeah, or I'd pack a whole week full and then like underestimate how long a job would take.
14:35
SPEAKER_02: And so I couldn't just quit at four, you know, and come back the next day because I had jobs scheduled that day.
14:40
SPEAKER_02: So now I'm in a house until eight o'clock at night trying to get it prepped for the owners, and I'm bringing my ladder in to do something that's like really high up, and I knock the wall, and now I'm at Home Depot trying to patch a hole in the wall because like now I'm just stressed and I I'm making mistakes now because I don't have like that cutoff point, you know.
15:02
SPEAKER_03: Oh, or the the boundaries.
15:04
SPEAKER_03: The boundaries, like yeah, you're taking on everything.
15:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I was like the yeah, being a yes girl was like a absolutely thing.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the the tough ones I had in the beginning is we were out in Dewey and it was a real estate agent who hired me.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: This is why I have this such a thing for real estate agents.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: And we went to the house and there was no power electricity, but he still expected it to get clean.
15:29
SPEAKER_00: So I coerced the next door neighbor to let me use their water and their hose.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: And the real estate agent was indifferent.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: He didn't care whether I was inconvenienced or not.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: So we I had five-gallon buckets in the back of my car and we're carrying five-gallon buckets because the hose only went to a certain distance.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: And then he gave me a heart to river.
15:54
SPEAKER_03: Well, you were in a place where there's a lot of off-grid cleanings.
15:57
SPEAKER_03: And do you remember that time whenever it was like I had a whole line of employees?
16:03
SPEAKER_03: I was like, is it on yet?
16:05
SPEAKER_03: And they had a huge generator of for power.
16:11
SPEAKER_03: And I he was like, Oh, I'm sorry.
16:13
SPEAKER_03: And I was like, I don't know, it's like huge, like I'm not messing with it.
16:19
SPEAKER_03: And and then having to go to down to the river, filling up pickle pickle barrels to clean, finish a clean because there was no electricity in water.
16:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:32
SPEAKER_03: So we have a lot of those though.
16:35
SPEAKER_03: You remember those moments though for sure.
16:39
SPEAKER_03: It changes, it changes a lot and and it makes you instantly like, oh, that'll never happen again.
16:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like believing what the client says about the home, like not doing a walkthrough.
16:56
unknown: Yeah.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: You walk in and you're like, I thought you said all the drawers were cleaned.
17:00
SPEAKER_02: Like, what the it's all filthy, you know?
17:04
SPEAKER_03: It's like, wait, I thought you said this was gonna be okay.
17:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:10
SPEAKER_03: You you gave it a level five.
17:12
SPEAKER_03: This is a level nine.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: So we've walked into this last year.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh my gosh, you can't live like this.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm really sorry, but we're gonna have to we're gonna have to get you caught up, right?
17:25
SPEAKER_00: And that's a you know, another conversation for charity cleans and that type of stuff.
17:29
SPEAKER_00: So, what kept you going when you still weren't working yet?
17:32
SPEAKER_00: So when things were still kind of a little bit rough, what kept you going?
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Was it like a self-grit determination?
17:38
SPEAKER_00: Did you bootstrap it?
17:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I know that you do a lot of self-reflection.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Was it more of that aspect when things were not going smooth?
17:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know you and I talk a lot about tweaking things here and there as things come up.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Is that just what you do normally?
17:53
SPEAKER_00: That type of thing?
17:56
SPEAKER_02: Honestly, in the beginning, what kept me going was my rebelliousness.
17:59
SPEAKER_02: I did not want to work for someone else.
18:02
SPEAKER_02: And I'll just be completely transparent.
18:04
SPEAKER_02: Like, I was like so stubborn, and I was like, I refuse to work for bad bosses after all the stuff that I've done my entire life because I've had plenty of jobs and different industries and stuff like that.
18:18
SPEAKER_02: And one thing I really wanted to do in my business was to be a good boss, you know, and like treat people with respect and things like that.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: And what kept me going when I wanted to quit, because I wanted to quit a hundred times in those first three years, was not wanting to work for somebody else.
18:38
SPEAKER_03: Definitely.
18:39
SPEAKER_03: I felt like the money was just too good.
18:41
SPEAKER_03: I was like, there's no way I'll ever make or see this amount of money.
18:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
18:48
SPEAKER_03: Ever again if I work for somebody else.
18:51
SPEAKER_02: I know.
18:51
SPEAKER_02: I was telling my office manager, we did one job.
18:54
SPEAKER_02: It took us one full day with eight people, and it's literally paying my whole tax bill next week.
19:00
SPEAKER_02: Right, there you go.
19:03
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
19:07
SPEAKER_00: Next.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: What changes whether mindset or systems made you have the biggest impact early on?
19:19
SPEAKER_00: It's just tweaking go, tweak and go.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, was there anything that stood out in the beginning versus now?
19:25
SPEAKER_02: I would say making a menu was like the biggest.
19:29
SPEAKER_02: Better communication with my clients and my team.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: And so, like, before I walk into a job, instead of being like, because I'm I came into this being a yoga instructor, and yoga instructors are very like, go with the flow, like be present, like and like that doesn't work in business when you're walking into a job and you're just like, oh, whatever, you know, like you have to have more standards and structure.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: And I think communicating early on with the client, like this is the package you selected, this is what's included in that package.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: It's a flat rate.
20:02
SPEAKER_02: A lot of people confuse pricing for hourly.
20:05
SPEAKER_02: So if you schedule a job for five hours, because I want to make sure I'm gonna do a good job and I give myself enough time.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: So I might schedule that job for five hours, but I get done with it at three and a half, four hours.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: And then they wonder why, like, we're not giving them a refund on the cleaning fee.
20:21
SPEAKER_02: And we price things as a flat rate.
20:23
SPEAKER_02: So, like being very, very specific, you're paying a flat rate.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: The time needed to complete the service may be different at every clean depending on the condition of the home, how long it's been between cleanings.
20:37
SPEAKER_02: This is the package you selected.
20:39
SPEAKER_02: If you need more, you have to communicate that ahead of time so that we can add this to, you know, add extra time to our schedule or whatever the case may be.
20:49
SPEAKER_02: So definitely the menu and communication was was very helpful in the beginning.
20:56
SPEAKER_03: So that really uh that takes us on to our next question of how has your pricing evolved from when you first started to now?
21:04
SPEAKER_03: I that just kind of just segues right into that question.
21:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so pricing the I got better at asking questions to price things because I I do do a lot of estimates without walking properties.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: And for the most part, I would say 90% of the time, it's worked in my favor only because I got better at asking questions, like what kind of pets do you have?
21:28
SPEAKER_02: How old are your kids in the house?
21:29
SPEAKER_02: How many people are in the house?
21:31
SPEAKER_02: When was the last time it was clean?
21:33
SPEAKER_02: And I've got gotten a lot better at getting to know clients, and there's just like a certain type of client where you know that house is going to be clean when you walk into it.
21:43
SPEAKER_02: You can tell by the question the way that the person vibe.
21:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you can tell by the way the person answers the question, like that their kids are just destroying the house, you know.
21:56
SPEAKER_02: You can hear the overwhelm.
21:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, you can hear it.
21:59
SPEAKER_02: And so it's getting to know people, asking the right questions.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: And so I definitely price houses higher when there's long-haired dogs or kids in the house.
22:12
SPEAKER_02: The city that they're in, Williamson Valley has a lot of red dust that comes in the house.
22:18
SPEAKER_02: That's a different cleaning than like Prescott, which, like, you know, there's not like that much wind and open space in Prescott.
22:26
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, asking questions for sure.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: And I know at one point you actually did a survey with your clients, and I'm bringing this up so the people who are listening can um learn as are listening.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: And you decided that you were going to adjust your pricing at one point.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: I remember this, and it just attracted all of the wrong clientele.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: Is that correct?
22:52
SPEAKER_00: Blew up in my face.
22:53
SPEAKER_00: Because every single one of them is like, lower your price, lower your price, and you're like, people pleasing, right?
22:57
SPEAKER_00: Because it's automatic.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: You just automatically, oh yeah, sure, no problem.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: So what ended up happening with that?
23:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:03
SPEAKER_02: So I adjusted all my prices.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: I started offering lower rates to try to make my services more affordable for people.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: And all it did was give me clients that had absolutely no gratitude for how hard we worked to clean their house, didn't want to pay for their services, or they were just people that had a lot of like financial issues who Couldn't pay their bills.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: I remember walking before I got to this client's house.
23:29
SPEAKER_02: She had texted me and she said, Can I please pay you on Friday?
23:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm running short on cash this week.
23:34
SPEAKER_02: And before I got to the job, I was like, Yeah, of course, you can pay me on Friday.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: The job was being done on a Wednesday.
23:40
SPEAKER_02: I showed up to this lady's house.
23:42
SPEAKER_02: She had a brand new TV.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: Of course she did.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: Amazon boxes on the front porch.
23:47
SPEAKER_02: And I was, I asked myself, What are you doing?
23:50
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, like this, if she can afford this huge TV and like all these like pretty little things in her house, like she can afford her cleaning service, you know, like oh bummer.
24:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:05
SPEAKER_03: Well, we live in my right.
24:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we live in my that's obviously the mistakes made early on.
24:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:13
SPEAKER_03: So what boundaries did you have to learn the hard way?
24:16
SPEAKER_03: Obviously, those are those are some hard boundaries to learn.
24:21
SPEAKER_03: That's putting those in place, right?
24:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because you know, like creating a service agreement, the hardest part is living up to your own agreement, you know, like you want the clients to live up to the agreement, but like you also have to live up to it too.
24:37
SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, you're teaching them that you will negotiate your own contract.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: And like that's not helpful for anybody.
24:45
SPEAKER_02: And so, like, saying no has been one of the hardest things.
24:48
SPEAKER_02: And I go through phases with that where like sometimes I'm feeling really good.
24:52
SPEAKER_02: I'm making a lot of money, and I say a yes to a few things that may be a little more difficult.
24:56
SPEAKER_02: And then I have to go back to saying no again because now I'm stuck in a relationship with a client that's like draining everyone's energy.
25:03
SPEAKER_02: You know, they're leaving my team feeling just like just like rough after leaving their house.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: And like, so saying no is like one of the biggest things I learned with boundaries is like, no, I can't do that.
25:14
SPEAKER_02: I can't do that today.
25:15
SPEAKER_02: Or like you show up to a job and they want you to clean out their oven and their fridge.
25:20
SPEAKER_02: Well, those that takes a long time to clean out a fridge.
25:23
SPEAKER_02: We two hours at least.
25:25
SPEAKER_02: Hours is what we schedule, and that's if they've emptied it, you know.
25:29
SPEAKER_02: Like a lot of the times they yeah, a lot of the times they won't empty their fridge out, and so it's like, you know, at least two hours for the fridge, plus the freezer.
25:38
SPEAKER_02: You don't even know what's in the freezer.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: It's like chiseling.
25:42
SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, and so like food that is expired and they're like, just throw it out.
25:49
SPEAKER_03: Yes, I don't know.
25:51
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: They don't have trash can space, and then you have to haul it back.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a whole thing.
25:56
SPEAKER_02: Heavy.
25:58
SPEAKER_02: I know, and and like just being able to say, like, I would love to do that for you, but I have to do that at the next service because I didn't plan for that today, you know?
26:06
SPEAKER_03: Schedule that another thing.
26:13
SPEAKER_03: That's how we spin it.
26:14
SPEAKER_03: That needs to be scheduled.
26:17
SPEAKER_03: My my team has other houses to do after this, and we didn't discuss this.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: You mean it's not all about me?
26:28
SPEAKER_00: What were you saying you had another one?
26:31
SPEAKER_02: Shoot, I might have lost it.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: I started listening, so I was like, sorry.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: Just come back to it.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: So what does your business look like today compared to when you first started?
26:46
SPEAKER_00: I it's totally done a 180 each time because I've watched.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: Um tell us a little bit what that was like for you for the people who are wanting to grow their business from scratch to where you're at today.
26:56
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't have to share numbers if you don't want, you can just disclose whatever you feel comfortable disclosing.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: So this will be our fourth year in business this June.
27:07
SPEAKER_02: And I don't mind sharing numbers at all.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: I'll I'll share like our growth sales.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: So for Optimize, I did$16,000 my first year.
27:14
SPEAKER_02: That was about six months as a solo cleaner.
27:17
SPEAKER_02: My second year, I was a solo cleaner with helpers, and so I would hire people just to come help me on jobs, and we did$155,000 the second year.
27:28
SPEAKER_02: The third year,$166,000, I think we did at the end of the year.
27:33
SPEAKER_02: No, I'm sorry, 366,000.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I I remember third year.
27:39
SPEAKER_02: I was like, whoa, because I wasn't keeping track of it every month, you know.
27:43
SPEAKER_02: I had to hire an accountant because I didn't have time to do bookkeeping.
27:48
SPEAKER_02: So year three, there were two major changes.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: I started hiring a lot more people and I quit cleaning.
27:55
SPEAKER_02: And so I took a step back and became the manager.
27:58
SPEAKER_02: So I was doing estimates, scheduling, managing the team, like things like that.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: And that was a little rough because I was I had to like change how I did business because I was a yes girl.
28:15
SPEAKER_02: And now I had to create more standards to accommodate our growth, you know.
28:19
SPEAKER_02: And so I lost a lot of my legacy clients because I would go to their house and can you empty a shed?
28:26
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
28:26
SPEAKER_02: And then they would tip me a hundred dollars, you know.
28:28
SPEAKER_02: And we don't do that in a cleaning business, we don't empty the shed, but I was doing stuff like that.
28:34
SPEAKER_02: And so when I added cleaners and I stopped cleaning, you know, a lot of them quit working with me because now we were sticking to the schedule, we were sticking to the checklist, we were, you know, things were being adjusted, you know.
28:48
SPEAKER_02: So a lot of things changed in that third year.
28:50
SPEAKER_02: At by the end of the third year, I could no longer mix residential with short-term rentals.
28:56
SPEAKER_02: Right off, yes, it was so rough scheduling that, and I was moving my residential clients, which is so rude.
29:04
SPEAKER_02: It was so rude.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: Like I was moving residential clients to accommodate a last-minute booking at an Airbnb.
29:11
SPEAKER_02: It was a scheduling nightmare.
29:13
SPEAKER_02: So by the end of year three, I divided it into two separate businesses, and I had just a short-term rental cleaning business, and then I had my residential cleaning business.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: And so we split it off into two, and then the year after that, we did about a quarter million in sales.
29:29
SPEAKER_02: So we went down, but also around that time I got pregnant.
29:33
SPEAKER_02: I was high-risk pregnant.
29:35
SPEAKER_02: I had to slow things down because I needed to take a maternity leave.
29:39
SPEAKER_02: I had trained my lead cleaner to be our office manager, and she couldn't effectively manage the size of our team while I was on maternity leave.
29:49
SPEAKER_02: So what I did was I downsized our business to get through that season.
29:54
SPEAKER_02: And then after I was done with my maternity leave, I started hiring more of like a management team to be able so that I could just like kind of be hands-off.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: Right now, I would say I'm like an HR in the background.
30:07
SPEAKER_02: You know, I do payroll, I write the policies, I manage the problems, I do the problem solving.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: But my managers are really good at being autonomous and making good decisions for the business.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: They run things by me when they're not sure about something.
30:23
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, we we definitely like we hit like a huge year and then we kind of scaled back after that.
30:31
SPEAKER_02: And then when I scaled back and I had some free time to look at my business, I started making even more changes to make it more effective because it felt so chaotic making that much money and not having like really strong systems to like carry that through.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: And I I watch a lot of your videos, Shannon, and I listen to your guys' podcasts, and you talk about that all the time.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: Like you have to have a system that can hold the amount of work that you guys are providing, you know, like your team, your management, your clients.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: And if you don't have a good system, it starts to fall apart.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: And for the audience, the the key point that Angie did when she separated the two companies is she has one crew for short-term rentals and one crew for residential cleaning.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: That is key.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: And the biggest component for your short-term rental, and we don't have to go into full detail, is that you actually have a person, a live person, do a walkthrough to ensure quality.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: That might be ideal for a lot of businesses who are in the short-term rental industry, but I I like that component because it gives a nice human touch to our area, which is what so many people love.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
31:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
31:43
SPEAKER_03: Once you that's what I wanted whenever I I can relate to you on so many levels, because we kind of started at the same same time and watched each other grow.
31:56
SPEAKER_03: I remember whenever you said that you were scaling back in the group a little bit so that you can re you basically took your business and reconstructed it to make it better and stronger.
32:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
32:08
SPEAKER_03: Because it was that's how I started feeling like okay, because you know, you know you're gonna grow.
32:16
SPEAKER_03: I know there's there's we're growing, and before I grow anymore, I was like, I I need help.
32:26
SPEAKER_03: I raised my hand, I'm like, I need help, and I need to structure this a little bit better before I get too big for my pants and topple over.
32:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
32:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
32:37
SPEAKER_03: So I remember that time, and it's like, oh my god, who's bumps?
32:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
32:43
SPEAKER_03: That was good times.
32:44
SPEAKER_03: I mean so far.
32:46
SPEAKER_03: We have it's it's and it all it all started with uh that group and of course Shannon.
32:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
32:54
SPEAKER_03: You're you're the common denominator here, you know?
32:59
SPEAKER_03: And that's that's obviously that's whenever when when was that when you started seeing yourself as an actual business owner instead of just someone trying to make it all work?
33:13
SPEAKER_02: It was March of 20.
33:16
SPEAKER_02: Ooh.
33:18
SPEAKER_02: I wanna say so.
33:19
SPEAKER_02: I hired the manager before I got married in 2024.
33:23
SPEAKER_02: And so I wanna say sometime in 2024 is when I stepped out of cleaning and I replaced myself with my cleaners.
33:32
unknown: Yeah.
33:32
SPEAKER_02: So that was almost two years ago now, right?
33:35
SPEAKER_00: It's it goes by fast.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: It's it's amazing to watch both of your growth, but I think it's awesome.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: And it's because Angie, I have direct contact with you.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I talk to Jamie all the time, but you are in my neighborhood.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's it's I love I love watching it.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: It makes me so happy because I and you'll hear me say this a lot.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: We are the 23rd trade.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: This is the first time in our lifetime or in the the whole history of the United States where women actually have the ball and are running with it.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: There are so many people who are going to have financial freedom.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: The whole point of doing all this crazy stuff is to have a legacy that you either gift or that you sell.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: And it's the the doors are wide open where in the past you had to get through corporate America and there were certain prerequisites and you know, rite of passage, rituals that happened that that you would never get to the top unless you did, you know, either questionable things or unquestionable things.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of corporate bottle stopping that happened.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: Where now, if you if you have the gumption and you have the desire, the opportunity is there.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: I've never seen it so wide open in my and it just makes me excited.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: I want to see the whole industry just go where it needs to go because I genuinely want people to be successful.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: I want you guys to have the power to make influences so that you can do other things.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: Because once you get this all stabilized, then you can start buying properties and then you can start investing in maybe a car wash or a laundromat or something else or a vending machine.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: I talked to someone who's going to buy vending machines the other day.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's awesome.
35:08
SPEAKER_03: We kind of were like almost buying.
35:12
SPEAKER_03: I remember talking to you, like, I can you believe we're like buying this, we're buying a house, right?
35:18
SPEAKER_03: Oh yeah, Jamie.
35:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, at the same time, like, can you believe we're doing this?
35:24
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I was blown away because I was cleaning a real estate office while I was still on food stamps, and I was talking to a realtor and I was like, I really want to buy a house.
35:34
SPEAKER_02: And I remember this feeling of doom, like, oh god, like I have to get off state insurance, and then I have to get off food stamps.
35:41
SPEAKER_02: And like, I really had to grow into a more mature version of myself.
35:47
SPEAKER_02: And like food stamps is amazing, it's very helpful for people that need supplemental, but nobody talks about that transition of being middle class and still living in poverty because now you're paying for all your food, all your medical expenses are yours.
36:05
SPEAKER_02: Like you're making more money, but now you're spending more money, and it's so uncomfortable because then you got to break through that phase.
36:11
SPEAKER_02: You're like lower middle class, and then you're like middle class.
36:16
SPEAKER_03: It is such a transition, isn't it?
36:18
SPEAKER_03: It's like, geez, you're trying to hold on, but you're like, okay, I'm tapping away.
36:24
SPEAKER_03: I'm back away.
36:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, wait a minute, let me just hold on to you.
36:27
SPEAKER_03: Just okay, I'm backing away.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: You're like, it's$1,300 for stitches.
36:33
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I should have done this myself.
36:37
SPEAKER_02: Come here, kid.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna sew this up real quick with some butterfly band-aids, right?
36:46
SPEAKER_00: You got these fancy band-aids, they're they're high tech, whatever.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay, slap one of those bad boys on.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: So what has been the biggest challenge in managing and and growth for both of your businesses?
37:00
SPEAKER_00: Is it just, you know, for for me, like it was it's always about pulling the reins in.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'll let it run.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: I'll let you run.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: I'll let you have the longest leash possible.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: And then when I get sick of it, I'm like, bam, I pull it back.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, I'm kind of done with that.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: Let's pivot.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: Do you have that type of style?
37:17
SPEAKER_00: Or is it like intentional?
37:20
SPEAKER_00: Do you like okay year three, which is obviously what I because in my old days I used to do that, but is it more intentional where you okay, 2026, I'm gonna do this, this, and this?
37:29
SPEAKER_00: Or how how are you forecasting what your business is gonna do next?
37:35
SPEAKER_03: You wanna go first, Jamie?
37:37
SPEAKER_03: Well, I know right now, I never thought of doing it like that.
37:42
SPEAKER_03: I I we're doing I'm doing a mission statement and like what does it actually mean?
37:48
SPEAKER_03: And I'm doing core values.
37:50
SPEAKER_03: And I never had, you know, am I am I hiring people that align with my core values?
37:58
SPEAKER_03: These are not things that you're thinking of whenever you're I don't even know, year two in your business.
38:05
SPEAKER_03: You're not thinking about core value, you're thinking about sending out estimates and and please don't let me lose this client.
38:14
SPEAKER_03: And now it's just kind of like, you know, so just everything is getting more and more structured and aligning more with my business because we're growing, and um instead of just throwing a breathing body inside of my business, I'm like intentionally hiring, intentionally having those hard conversations with people.
38:43
SPEAKER_03: So that's kind of where I'm at right now.
38:45
SPEAKER_03: I'm doing all these mission statements, core values, really structuring the back end, also trying to take what is in here, which is so hard to do, to take what's inside of your head to put it down for somebody to follow because I am the bottleneck.
39:04
SPEAKER_03: I still am the bottleneck, I'm still putting out fires.
39:07
SPEAKER_03: People don't know, they still come to me whenever there's the big problems.
39:12
SPEAKER_03: I need for the this, what is inside of my brain, to be on paper for somebody to easily follow.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: That's really good.
39:26
SPEAKER_02: I think we're in like a very similar spot.
39:28
SPEAKER_02: I just wrote down what you said about having core values in a mission statement.
39:34
SPEAKER_02: Because our one of our biggest problems recently with our growth has been hiring good help.
39:40
SPEAKER_02: And it's like no matter how great I can how great I think I am at interviewing people, I call it resume inflation because I remember what you say on your interview.
39:53
SPEAKER_02: And if you tell me you are cleaning, you were managing a short-term rental cleaning business, and you were the the lead short-term rental cleaner for this business, and then I hire you, and you are high maintenance, ask so many questions, can't figure out how to solve problems.
40:11
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what are you talking about?
40:13
SPEAKER_02: You are the manager, you are the lead.
40:15
SPEAKER_02: So did you stretch it or was it a lie?
40:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so I call it resume inflation.
40:22
SPEAKER_02: And that's why recently I made a post in our our support, our maid support network about how do you guys hire?
40:30
SPEAKER_02: Because and someone had mentioned the interview process of some man, I forget his name, I have it written down somewhere, but they were like, look up the interview questions for this guy.
40:41
SPEAKER_02: And then I put in chat GBT tailor these questions for a cleaning business.
40:45
SPEAKER_02: And so then it changed all of his interview questions for a cleaning business.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: And the questions are so direct that it would almost force you to look within your own mind to answer the questions.
40:57
SPEAKER_02: Because when I interview people, I ask really open-ended questions.
41:00
SPEAKER_02: Do you work well with a team?
41:02
SPEAKER_02: Well, everyone's gonna say yes because they want they want to impress you.
41:06
SPEAKER_00: Well, there are those discs.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm high maintenance, no.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: I'd love those questions if you come across them, that's for sure.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you can copy it.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we can there's that disc uh what it stands for something.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: Right.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: I can't remember what that is.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: It used to be free, and I've heard I'm missing the back of one of my earrings.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: It used to be free, and I think it there's still some versions of it that are free.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: It's a personality assessment and it tells you which category is best suited for the cleaning industry.
41:41
SPEAKER_00: Um but I I think they're starting to charge.
41:43
SPEAKER_00: But I'd be interested in the interview questions because we can put that in the show notes, and then that people who land on the podcast can just get it.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: It'll help them for sure.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: Did you find any other answers for your resume inflation?
41:58
SPEAKER_02: So with the the new interview questions, because the problems that we ran into is they're great cleaners, terrible personality.
42:05
SPEAKER_02: Right now, and terrible personalities, they bring the morale of your team down.
42:10
SPEAKER_02: You start losing clients because they're difficult to work with, they start getting entitled and they call out the same day because they think that they're just entitled to like whatever they want.
42:20
SPEAKER_02: And it starts to affect your business when they have a bad personality.
42:24
SPEAKER_02: And so then, or you get great personality, terrible cleaner, like no drive, no like oomph behind their cleaning.
42:33
SPEAKER_02: Like they're like almost there, but they have a great personality and they get along with their clients really well, but they just don't have that oomph to really get a job done.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: And honestly, my best team members have come from McDonald's.
42:50
SPEAKER_02: The people that have worked there for 10 years, they're committed.
42:55
SPEAKER_02: So we started things that we started doing on our interview process that we didn't do in the beginning was calling professional references.
43:02
SPEAKER_02: I never checked professional references because I thought that I was so intuitive that I could just, you know, I would just tell you all kinds of things if you work around it.
43:13
SPEAKER_03: Shannon always told me they're references, and I'm like, and then I become too close.
43:20
SPEAKER_03: That was another problem with me.
43:22
SPEAKER_03: I become too close to them.
43:26
SPEAKER_03: There's no boundary or cutoff, like and then it's really hard to be like, hey, I hate to do this.
43:43
SPEAKER_03: We need to have a talk and we need to document this.
43:46
SPEAKER_03: And that's so funny that we're both kind of just in the same so let's revisit this whole McDonald's thing.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm curious now.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: You found some good resources in the McDonald's crowd, which I think is phenomenal.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: What about them?
44:04
SPEAKER_00: What attributes are you looking for?
44:05
SPEAKER_00: If if a person from McDonald's landed in my lap, what attributes would I be looking for from a McDonald's perspective to fill in for a cleaner?
44:15
SPEAKER_02: They're committed.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: They show up to their job for 10 years, they barely get promoted.
44:21
SPEAKER_02: And by the time they get to the top of being a manager, there's nowhere else for them to go.
44:26
SPEAKER_02: So they also are looking for a job that they can grow in.
44:30
SPEAKER_02: They're committed, they can grow in it, and they've got grit.
44:33
SPEAKER_02: They work with gnarly people in customer service.
44:37
SPEAKER_02: I've seen the videos.
44:41
SPEAKER_02: They're typically in I joke about this with my manager.
44:45
SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm more of like a masculine kind of woman.
44:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm not very super feminine.
44:48
SPEAKER_02: I wear dresses and stuff, but like my personality is a little more masculine and feminine.
44:54
SPEAKER_02: But women that are more masculine end up being better cleaners because they just they work hard and they've got grit to them and they don't take crap from certain clients.
45:04
SPEAKER_02: And they're, you know, it's so like some of the people that work at McDonald's, they're not like super feminine and sweet and naive.
45:13
SPEAKER_02: They're like they got grit to them.
45:15
SPEAKER_00: They're not the fluffy bunny type.
45:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they can smell the toilet.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: I love it, I love it, I love it.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: For those of you who are Listening, so you can just make a code of that.
45:25
SPEAKER_02: Put an ad in McDonald's bathroom and tell them you'll pay more than what they're making.
45:30
SPEAKER_02: Oh little roll up and go get 'em.
45:40
SPEAKER_03: For a good job.
45:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
45:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay, the last question, because I don't want to take up all your morning.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: If someone is listening, if someone listening is where you were back then, unsure, overwhelmed, or starting over, what would you tell them to focus on first?
46:01
SPEAKER_02: Following direction from a mentor.
46:03
SPEAKER_02: A hundred percent.
46:05
SPEAKER_02: Because I think that I'm so smart and I can figure things out on my own or I can fix things on my own.
46:10
SPEAKER_02: A mentor has experience with what you're dealing with.
46:14
SPEAKER_02: They've learned how to problem solve those problems and become more effective at what you're doing.
46:18
SPEAKER_02: So if you can follow direction, I mean you're setting yourself up for success.
46:23
SPEAKER_02: That's like the biggest thing for me is just being able to follow direction.
46:28
SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
46:29
SPEAKER_03: And actually doing the work, right?
46:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
46:32
SPEAKER_03: Like because you actually got to do the work.
46:34
SPEAKER_03: It's like, oh, I got this program.
46:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
46:37
SPEAKER_03: Why aren't I making well you need to do the work?
46:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
46:41
SPEAKER_03: It takes so much.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: That's where the real work comes in at.
46:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:44
SPEAKER_00: And many people buy, and a lot sometimes they just don't.
46:48
SPEAKER_00: I can't make them complete the structure, scale and profit cleaning business academy.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: It has to be on them.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: They have to want it.
46:56
SPEAKER_03: Definitely.
46:58
SPEAKER_03: I think that comes with Shannon.
47:00
SPEAKER_03: I think that comes with just your line of what you do is you're gonna have some that are like us, me and Angie, and then you're gonna also have some people that are just like, why isn't this working?
47:16
SPEAKER_03: Why isn't this working for me?
47:20
SPEAKER_03: Have you even clicked in your program?
47:22
SPEAKER_03: Have you done any program?
47:25
SPEAKER_03: Because that's where the world that's where the real work comes in at is you hire the coach and then and and the listening like you said, Angie, listening to what they're actually telling you.
47:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
47:41
SPEAKER_03: It is it's very difficult sometimes because you really want to do it your own way, right?
47:46
SPEAKER_03: You think that you know better.
47:50
SPEAKER_03: But just remember that you know, I want to be where that person that I hired is at.
47:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:59
SPEAKER_03: That's where I'm going.
48:00
SPEAKER_03: So I think I, you know, I'm gonna listen.
48:04
SPEAKER_03: It is very hard to uh change your mind a little bit, like change the way that you you know being told how to go, you know.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because we want to be the boss, but as a boss, you don't realize that now you work 24-7 and you work for everyone in your business.
48:27
SPEAKER_02: It's not what I thought it was gonna be, where I'm at the top and everyone listens to me.
48:32
SPEAKER_02: No, that's not true at all.
48:34
SPEAKER_02: Now you are the servant of everyone in your business, you know?
48:40
SPEAKER_00: I meant as a support, your your position is the support for the rest of the team.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: It's an upside-down goal.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: Do you have any questions for I always ask because sometimes we get some interesting questions.
48:48
SPEAKER_00: Do you have any questions for either one of us?
48:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, do you uh how much did you sell your business for, Shannon?
48:55
SPEAKER_00: The uh castle keeper cleaning?
48:57
SPEAKER_00: It was over half a million.
48:59
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, that's awesome.
49:01
SPEAKER_02: And how long did you work building that business before you sold it?
49:06
SPEAKER_02: Like how many years did you have that bills business for?
49:08
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't into it.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you're ready.
49:39
SPEAKER_00: If you're if you're really serious, you know, give me a call later.
49:41
SPEAKER_00: So I hung up on him because I was like, this is a this is a crank call, right?
49:44
SPEAKER_00: It's just some jerk, you know, trying to get my time, whatever.
49:47
SPEAKER_00: And then the second time he called, he's like, I don't know if you remember me, blah, blah, blah, but I'm interested in buying your business.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: I have the rights to castle keeper cleaning and blah, blah, blah.
49:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh yeah, I remember you.
49:59
SPEAKER_00: So he's like giving me the spiel.
50:00
SPEAKER_00: He goes on for like five whole minutes, doesn't let me have a word in edgewise.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't, I at this point, I'm not even listening, right?
50:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm just being polite.
50:08
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I think he offered me, I want to say it was like 40 grand.
50:13
SPEAKER_00: And I just like I started laughing.
50:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm not, whatever, buddy.
50:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, this is a full-fledged seven-figure business.
50:21
SPEAKER_00: Like, so the time he called me, he came, he finally came up over a hundred grand.
50:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm not, I'm not, whatever.
50:27
SPEAKER_00: I go, I'm I'm considering because at this point, you have to remember, my brother was dying, my younger brother.
50:33
SPEAKER_00: So I had all my mom's freaking out, my brother's dying from a major disease.
50:38
SPEAKER_00: There's all of this chaos happening that I don't like.
50:41
SPEAKER_00: I like everything structured, boundaries, systems.
50:45
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Yeah, I, you know, so finally when he came up with some I go, I'm thinking about getting a business broker, blah, blah, blah.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: And we, it was actually, I have an unusual circumstance I have found out.
50:57
SPEAKER_00: Most people who sell businesses have to pay 10% to a broker.
51:00
SPEAKER_00: I actually didn't.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: We just did a transaction.
51:02
SPEAKER_00: And there's as we talked to Chris Schwab, which actually hasn't published, I need to reach out to him because he had some legalities with his interview.
51:11
SPEAKER_00: There's a transition that happens when you're handing a business over to someone.
51:15
SPEAKER_00: You don't just go, here you go, here's your paperwork figured out.
51:17
SPEAKER_00: There's a multi-stepped process.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: And then at that point, COVID happened and I didn't hear anything from him.
51:25
SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: So it's I filed all my stuff on my end.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: Just like, I don't want to be responsible for this anymore, but I haven't heard from him since.
51:35
SPEAKER_00: I got my money, and that was that.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:40
SPEAKER_00: But it's just, but most transactions don't happen that way.
51:44
SPEAKER_00: There's a broker and there's back and forth, and there's all of these legalities.
51:47
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna take this piece, this piece, this piece, and I'm gonna keep this piece, or maybe I'm gonna stay on as a consultant.
51:54
SPEAKER_00: It was a very, I guess because of how it started off, it was so casual, right?
51:59
SPEAKER_00: So, but the yeah, the first time he came, he's like, Oh, I'm gonna offer you like 10 grand, blah, blah, blah.
52:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, fuck off.
52:08
SPEAKER_03: Hey, can I buy your business from you?
52:10
SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, you don't know who I am, but my blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
52:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't, I I don't know you from Sinola, buddy.
52:17
SPEAKER_00: Right.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: So, but that's that's uh, that's the short version of what went down.
52:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
52:23
SPEAKER_02: And then you became a mentor, and now you have a bunch of successful cleaning businesses that you mentored in that way.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: Right.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: It's you're 16.
52:32
SPEAKER_00: It's funny because we I celebrated 15,000 move out cleanings.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: That means I have walked at one point a third of the homes in my area and in our area.
52:41
SPEAKER_00: Like that's a lot of homes to be in.
52:42
SPEAKER_00: Now it's not that way because of how much building that's happening right now.
52:46
SPEAKER_00: Like they're building 197 homes right in front of me, which drives me nuts.
52:50
SPEAKER_00: And they're also installing internet, which also drives me nuts.
52:52
SPEAKER_00: So every day it disrupts I don't have any way to know which way I have to take the kids to school.
52:57
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, oh, you're not going to be able to do it.
53:01
SPEAKER_01: Everybody, I can't handle this.
53:03
SPEAKER_03: What?
53:03
SPEAKER_03: So now you guys are kind of living in a booming town now.
53:07
SPEAKER_03: It's not so much so rule anymore.
53:10
SPEAKER_00: The housing market has cooled off a little because I've been paying attention in the Phoenix area because we have we're having water issues.
53:16
SPEAKER_00: I don't care what you tell me, we're having water issues, especially down south.
53:19
SPEAKER_00: I won't go into it here on the little bit of stuff I know, but because I'm not an expert, but there's some stuff going on that I see because I'm all about patterns.
53:29
SPEAKER_00: But that we've had a lot of people come.
53:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this town, it used to take eight minutes to go from Prescate Valley into Prescott.
53:35
SPEAKER_00: It now takes 45 minutes to an hour to get anywhere in town.
53:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:38
SPEAKER_02: When I moved here, the Highway 69 had almost nothing on it.
53:41
SPEAKER_02: Right.
53:42
SPEAKER_02: It was in 2013.
53:43
SPEAKER_02: And and now it's just covered in purple.
53:47
SPEAKER_02: And yeah.
53:48
SPEAKER_02: I'm lucky.
53:49
SPEAKER_03: I take Highway 89 into town.
53:51
SPEAKER_03: So anytime I go down south, because it's I'm literally three to four hours away from any kind of civilization.
54:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
54:04
SPEAKER_03: I remember me and my husband were driving, and as soon as we hit that, I was like, my mouth is just drooling.
54:10
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, look at all those houses.
54:12
SPEAKER_03: And he was like, Yeah.
54:14
SPEAKER_03: I remember looking at his like adjustment.
54:17
SPEAKER_03: We automatically both thought the same thing.
54:20
SPEAKER_03: Cha-ching, cha-ching.
54:21
SPEAKER_03: I was like, gosh, man, to live in a city.
54:24
SPEAKER_03: It's a whole different thing, you know.
54:28
SPEAKER_03: I'm structured different, but I don't know.
54:31
SPEAKER_03: We're still we're we're making it.
54:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we cleaned four million dollar houses, Shannon, and the water just trickles out of the shower because there's not enough water pressure.
54:45
SPEAKER_00: Their pump doesn't pump it up high enough.
54:47
SPEAKER_00: Or it'll be a rusty red.
54:48
SPEAKER_00: You're like, I can't rinse this red stuff.
54:51
SPEAKER_00: Do you have any other questions?
54:53
SPEAKER_02: Not that I can think of right now.
54:55
SPEAKER_02: I'm just really grateful to be a part of this, and I'd love to do this again with you guys.
54:59
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
55:00
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
55:00
SPEAKER_03: I'm so glad it finally worked out.
55:02
SPEAKER_03: I've I have I've told Shannon that for a while, probably well over a year, I'm like, I want she, I want Angie on there.
55:11
SPEAKER_03: I want Angie on.
55:12
SPEAKER_03: So I'm glad it all's time we can get into the nitty-gritty stuff.
55:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
55:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
55:18
SPEAKER_00: Definitely we can get into the nitty-gritty.
55:20
SPEAKER_00: Not a problem at all.
55:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, I will let you go.
55:23
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for being on.
55:25
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you being here.
55:26
SPEAKER_00: I love watching you guys both grow.
55:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's I'm excited to see where you guys take it.
55:33
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Shannon.
55:34
SPEAKER_00: Have a great day.
55:36
SPEAKER_00: Bye.