How Collette Built a $20K/Month Cleaning Business With Two Kids Under 2

Vic: Okay, today we have the fabulous Collette from Langford Cleaning Company. Technically, the competition for my own cleaning company. I'm Vic, and I had the pleasure of meeting Collette about a year and a half, maybe two years ago. I'll give you the gist from the get-go for anybody watching who's new here: Collette's cleaning company is over $20K a month in revenue. She has two children, one is a year and a half.

Collette: He'll be two in a month.

Vic: He'll be two in a month, and the other is two months.

Collette: Two and a half months.

Vic: The reason I wanted specifically to ask Collette on here is that so many times we get people who are solo-operated cleaning companies. It's just them, not necessarily them and a partner, or them and a sister or a friend. Just them running their cleaning company, and they're parents of children, and they have busy lives. So I think about Collette and I know, holy cow, she's crushing it, and quietly crushing it.

You're not a braggy person. I had to really ask, hey, what's your revenue?

Collette: For that.

Vic: And then, oh, we need to talk. But also, I've been sending lots of business your way because I know your company is doing fabulous, and I'm happy to do it. In this conversation, we're going to dive into everything from where she got her start, stumbling blocks, lessons she wishes she knew before starting. We're going to dive into the numbers: revenue, percentage recurring, percentage one-time cleans, how many cleaners she has, literally everything we could possibly think to ask Collette.

If you're watching this live and have a question, please drop it in the comments, we'd love to hear them. It also helps keep us going because then we know doing this live is helpful. So to start, Collette,

Collette: let's dive in.

Vic: Why did you start a cleaning company?

Collette: Why did I start a cleaning company? Well, you were a huge pivotal point in that, because you had connected with my husband out in the field, because you're both business owners. You guys got to chatting and he brought the idea to me, and I just thought that's fantastic. I felt that was something I could absolutely do.

I think I've always been someone who cares so much about a client experience, or cares about people's experience and life experiences. So I thought, why not make this opportunity something of my own, and then give the opportunity to other people as well, because we're all just trying to do this human experience: feel appreciated, feel seen, be compensated fairly for what we're doing.

Vic: What a concept, right?

Collette: Yeah. So that part really spoke to me. And then obviously the other side of it is the time freedom. Not just financial freedom, but time freedom too. I've always wanted to do something that didn't require me to be physically in a space, and give me more flexibility for my lifetime, retirement, raising our kids, that type of thing. So this literally I could do from anywhere. So, I'm ringing for a quote, sorry,

Vic: Clients calling.

Collette: Yeah, that's kind of how we stepped into it. I was always kind of looking for something. I have a fitness and nutrition background, so I was doing that type of coaching for quite a while. I'd leave that more as a passion project versus a career, because really, at the end of the day, that was going to require a lot more of my time. This doesn't.

Vic: I love what you said about how you're paying people better, treating them with respect, with autonomy. What we really are all about, my sister and I, at Cleaning Company Blueprint in general, is: yes, you can make a lot of money owning a cleaning business, you can have a multi-million dollar cleaning business, and that's great. But what we're really all about at this stage in our lives is impact on our local community, being able to provide opportunities for ourselves and others, and owning our time. There are other coaches in the cleaning business world who'll say things like you can drive a Lamborghini, or have 50 locations, go nuts with your car.

That is the last thing, that does not motivate me at all. But owning my time, that is the greatest gift of all, while also being able to help others make a good living wage, and help our clients actually find good, consistent, reliable cleaners who get the job done. I think when you first start a cleaning company, you might think, I don't know if that's as motivating, you just think about how to get clients, how to get cleaners, but really this is long-term about how to get your life back, so that you own it, and you get to, if you want to coach clients with nutrition and fitness, which is an awesome career by the way,

Collette: I now, ironically enough, coach mobility, which I never thought I would do. As a result of owning my cleaning business, I go to the gym all the time. And as a result of that, I leaned further into, oh, maybe I'd like to coach this. As a career, kudos to the people who are coaches and make a living, but I don't know how they do it, because you'd have to coach so many clients in a day, or maybe have a YouTube channel or whatever.

That's just a different thing, whereas I have lots of friends in that space too.

Vic: Exactly. They do it because they love it, which is amazing, but they have such a limited capacity for income in that space, in exchange for a lot of time. So in your previous life before starting your cleaning business, what was the day job you would have had, just to give us context, because you didn't just work in nutrition, right?

Collette: No, no. That was more of a "I need to do something else in conjunction with my full-time job to make more money, to have an impact" type thing. I'd say mostly I was seven years in banking and then about ten years in government, pouring so much of my heart into that space. But really, at the end of the day, it's someone else's business, and you're capped financially, you can only go so far, it's just not the same.

I think also, my generation is conditioned to grow up and get a job with a pension, get a mortgage, and hopefully pay it off by the time you're 65 and retire.

Vic: And what do you do?

Collette: Yeah, exactly. It was just, no, I can't foresee myself doing this the rest of my life. Huge props to my husband, because he's a business owner and he gets it, so without him maybe I wouldn't be in this position. It's been pretty cool to do that together, be business owners together, and grow something from the ground up.

Vic: I love that so much. I do think the more you're around other business owners, especially small local service business owners like we are, the more you think, oh yeah, that is a better way to live, that is an opportunity. That's part of the reason we even have this channel, just to show people there is another way to make a living in this world, and it doesn't have to be so damn hard. Let's talk about your lifestyle now, because two kids, two years old and two months old, come on, that's busy.

How are you managing all the things? What does life look like for you now? It's not glamorous where you have this beautiful office and go sit there and reply to clients. Half the time I'm nursing a baby while replying to clients, typing with one hand, or I use one thumb, so I think just being realistic in how it looks,

Collette: which kind of segues into: it doesn't have to be perfect to start, either. You just make it fit your life. I think of it as having pockets of time throughout the day, whether it's through naps, or everybody's not having a meltdown, and I work in those pockets of time and make it fit my life. I'm someone who loves perfection and can be type A in that way, but this has really made me kind of surrender to that idea, and now this is how it's operating, but it's going so well.

I incorporated my business two weeks before my first was born, so I literally did this as a first-time mom, so busy just trying to figure it out, and yeah, it's been amazing.

Vic: You're getting so many comments, by the way, people saying, go Collette, Collette's amazing, I love her story.

Collette: I can't see them.

Vic: I know, you can't, I haven't put them on the screen yet. Somebody asked if it's a residential company, and yes, that's what we coach here at Cleaning Company Blueprint: residential first, commercial later. Commercial will find you when you run a good cleaning company. We're not doing that cold outreach that commercial cleaning companies coach.

We're really focused on high quality service for the cleaning industry, but from a residential place. When you started your company, did you follow our videos on the channel? How did you learn how to do everything?

Collette: Yeah, I followed your blueprint, basically. There were some things I kind of swayed from, and then when I came back to it, okay, this makes sense, this is why they do this, this is why they say this. But I think growing your own business, you kind of have to do that, right?

Vic: A hundred percent. But we do make it very easy, we try to make it as easy as possible. For context, for anybody new to the space: there's a guy named Rohan Gilkes who went viral on Reddit about 15 years ago now, where he laid out exactly how to launch a cleaning company that's going to be successful. He gave Twitter courses, then went to Zoom during the pandemic, that's how we found it.

Rohan and Kevin, who are really good friends who met through that community, asked us to put everything on the YouTube channel, because we followed their blueprint, and they said, can you guys just keep paying this forward? We said, yeah, for sure, of course. So we took their blueprint and added our spin to it, which is local, we love hyper-local. We're never going to coach you to come up with a generic business name like Shiny Cleany Unicorn Solutions, that will never be me and Jen, it's always you.

Collette's business is Langford Cleaning Company, she lives in Langford, it's part of our city. She didn't even go for the whole city, she just went for the one location, because that's what works fastest. Jen and I, ours is Oak Bay Clean. The reason I give this ramble is that everybody who just follows the blueprint does really well.

There's a strength, a trust, an "I'm just going to do what I know works and get out of my own way" attitude. What I love about you, Collette, is when I found out you were at $20K a month I thought, wow, she never brings it up. We have a thing called the Inner Circle, quite a few members meet every week on Zoom, and Collette's there every week holding the baby. We all go, oh my god, baby, show me that baby, I just love babies, and yet quietly just doing the work and having a company be so successful so fast.

It's because you just did what you needed to do, you didn't fight it, you didn't say, no, I'm going to make this totally different business that is Cleaning Unicorn Solutions, you just went, okay, this is the formula, that's what I'm going to do. I want to talk a little more about that: because you work in nutrition and health and fitness, I suspect this has to do with that aspect of who you are.

Collette: Totally. I think I associate the two so closely. I think the biggest thing is small habits, they compound and you end up with this incredible result, and it just keeps going. I'm here for the long game, a sustainable, healthy, complete foundation. You associate that to your first time in the gym, you show up, start eating your whole foods, tracking your macros, doing all those things.

You look in the mirror after your first week, you're probably going to look the same, and you think, okay, well, this isn't working.

Vic: You've done a lot of work and nothing's changed.

Collette: Exactly. Then it's the same thing with your business, doing little things every single day, coming up with operating procedures and things to make your life a little easier. That's your meal prep, your templates and emails to clients, you're sprinkling everything throughout the day so things are just working when it comes up, and then you see the results. You've been going to the gym, eating well, doing your cardio.

The thing is, you're disciplined at that point. So my discipline with the gym and nutrition is what's brought the discipline into my life with this business. Motivation and inspiration are just emotions in the moment, your discipline is really what's going to keep you going and see it through in a way that's sustainable, and you'll have that foundation down the road. It's the same thing with your body, your business.

That's kind of how I see it.

Vic: I love that. I think it's something we've seen, where people who have an athlete kind of background,

Collette: and I'm no athlete, I've never been an athlete. I've just started playing pickleball,

Vic: and my sister is floored that I'm able to even hit the racket, every time she says, wait, you're actually kind of good at this. I say, thanks, Jen,

Collette: jerk. And she says, well, no, because you've just never been sporty. Which is totally true. But when it comes to health and fitness, that's a core foundation in my life, it's always been something really important to me, and understanding that you don't run a marathon without training, and loads of people sign up for marathons and then quit.

But we're interested in the people who are actually running the whole thing, not just doing it once, doing it more than once, because you're learning and growing and changing and adapting as you go. I really see that in you, understanding that you don't have to do it all in one day.

Vic: I think that's also your mom superpower. You're choosing. Jen wrote her master's thesis when her now-24-year-old was a baby, and we had friends who were still doing their masters four years later, no kids, single, didn't need a job, doing all of the things, and that's just how she did it, she only had that nap time, so that's when she wrote, but she was doing it every day while other people come up with all the excuses to never do the actual work.

Collette: And that's really what we see, even in the Inner Circle: it's the people who don't make a big deal out of it who are often making the most money, not the ones asking a million questions, it's just trust, there's a trust piece, that if you just do those little bits you're going to do better in the long run.

Vic: And when you veer off track and then come back and go, oh, that's why they said to do this, I did it this way, but actually it's easier to do it that way. You've done really well with that. Let's dive into numbers. Your first few months, when you first started, first off, and I didn't prep you for this, so I apologize if I'm throwing you a curveball: approximately how much money did you spend on your startup stage?

Collette: That's a good question.

Vic: I know, and that's why I didn't prep you for this, I'm really throwing you a curveball, but

Collette: that's okay. It wasn't a lot. I'm in BC, so you pay for your business license and your municipal license, that type of thing. I didn't spend a lot, and yeah, the software, the software is amazing, it keeps me

Vic: right on track.

Collette: I couldn't imagine trying to run a business that's all through text messaging, I wouldn't have the time for that.

Vic: You wouldn't believe the number of businesses that run entirely without any software, I'm always

Collette: amazed. I have aspects of my type-A personality, and that's one of them, everything is there, use that. I didn't spend a lot of money on the website. I did the Convertlabs.io website first, and then I actually knew someone who helped me build another type of website, through WordPress, which was fantastic.

Vic: I was wondering about your template, it does look a little different from the typical Convertlabs.io ones. Okay, cool.

Collette: Yeah, I have the booking system and integrations in there, but we changed it up a little, made it more green and cool. But I don't, I'd honestly be pulling a number out of the air.

Vic: I'd say under a thousand. I don't think you would have spent more than that, depending on your business registration, how you went about it, but I'd say under a thousand.

Collette: Yeah, with a lawyer and stuff for my incorporation, it wasn't a lot.

Vic: For a business startup, you're not coming up with ten grand.

Collette: No, no.

Vic: And do you remember where you got your very first clients from?

Collette: Yeah, I still remember. My first job was March 19th, 2025, my first cleaner heading out. That was my only clean that month. It was a friend who said, I want to support you. He owns his own business too, he's a boxing coach. Shout out to Brian.

Vic: Was he just a one-time, or did he become recurring?

Collette: He's monthly, he's still there. But yeah, $137 that month was what I made, March 2025.

Vic: Perfect.

Collette: Then it kind of slowly progressed, and I'd say November 2025 was when I had an $8,500 month, and I thought, oh, this is feeling like a business, this is feeling real.

Vic: This is nine months later, and you've got now, what, an eight, eight-and-a-half-month-old. Keep in mind, she just had a baby, you guys.

Collette: Yeah, he would have just turned a year in October, but I was getting things going when I had a newborn.

Vic: I'm also very gentle with myself in that regard, you look around the room and think, I could be doing more, I could have, but the whole purpose of this is for me to be with my children, to be present and be a mom and do these things. So it was, okay, let's pump the brakes, we're doing fine.

Vic: Well, an $8,500 month. So profit margins, are you about 30%?

Collette: Yeah, I would say so, back then, with advertising probably. Yeah, because I was advertising, I was doing, I don't know if I can say, Google ads or whatever, but for me it wasn't great, so I pivoted. November was actually the month I pivoted, it was in and around the fall. So it was $8,500, and then my March, April, May was consistently in that $10K range.

Vic: Nice.

Collette: Then June was $16,000-something, July $18,000, and then just my $21,400 for August.

Vic: Amazing. And now we're into September, so a bit of a seasonal shift, back-to-school time. Have you noticed any trends? You're still really early on, but are you noticing trends in terms of when it gets busy, when it's quieter?

Collette: Quieter for sure is that first three months of the year, January, February, March. But you have people wanting to pick it up in spring going into summer, and then people revisiting in the fall, because holidays are coming and people want help.

Vic: We definitely see summer for us as gangbusters. Christmas used to be, but we've dialed that back a lot because we don't focus as much on those one-time deep-clean needs, instead we really focus on recurring clients, we don't want the stress anymore. I'd rather have good, consistent clients year in, year out. Let's talk a little about recurring revenue versus one-time revenue. Do you know your approximate split, percentage-wise?

Collette: My recurring is about 67% right now, I think.

Vic: That's really good, Collette, that's really good.

Collette: No, 63, 63.

Vic: Okay.

Collette: Yeah.

Vic: Amazing.

Collette: 63.

Vic: And what's your goal?

Collette: I'd love to do 80, for sure. I'm sitting pretty every month, but

Collette: that would probably be next spring.

Vic: Totally.

Collette: And for right now, my booking percentage and my revenue percentage are almost kind of flipped, in a way. I'm still taking a lot of those one-times, those move-outs, because I'm new and I want to get my name out there with property management companies and things like that, and that's coming organically now, which is really nice. I think it's also motivating for the people I bring on, there are some people who already work full-time Monday to Friday but want to do evenings and weekends,

Vic: which is amazing, and it's been really great, it's almost the perfect recipe for the cleaners, for the people who need those last-minute things.

Collette: It keeps the revenue coming in, but it also lets you get to know those cleaners and their skill set, you're providing them with income, they're earning more on those jobs too, because they're harder.

Collette: Yeah, it's just been feeling out different ways of doing things, and we'll get there.

Vic: You totally will, it's just time, you're already crushing it. In the beginning you start paying for leads, whether it's Google Local Services or Google Ads or Yelp or Bing, whatever, you're paying for people to find out about you. But you've done a really good job of, because you did local, Langford, you didn't try to do the whole city, because you only need a hundred good recurring clients to make half a million a year. You're not looking for thousands, guys, you're just looking for a hundred.

Collette really understood that message. And the second thing you did was focus on quality customer service, honoring your commitments, using good software so you're not dealing with texting back and forth, "what time are you getting here," it's just the cleaner uses the button that says on my way, the client gets that. It's smart. For anybody contemplating this, you'll find the cleaning industry is still stuck in the eighties and nineties when it comes to technology.

We're using simple, basic technology that works, because that's all we need, it doesn't have to be overly complicated, but it works really well. In terms of your goal to get to 80%, that's just going to happen, you'll reach the point where you can start saying no to so many one-time demands, and hopefully there'll be another cleaning company that will start, that you can pass along, just like we've been doing with you, where it's "no, call Collette," we've been sending quite a bit of those last-minute requests your way, especially knowing you have a team willing to go above and beyond for that extra cash. Another question: where are you finding these cleaners, how are you?

Collette: A lot of the time, Indeed, again following your blueprint.

Vic: Following the blueprint.

Collette: Yeah, it works. Mainly Indeed, but I've actually had, there's some acquaintances through life too, I'm born and raised in this city, I know a lot of people still. That said, I'm not relying on my warm market to grow my business, but I've had two individuals reach out to me, "hey, that's amazing that you started this business," they used to clean at one point in the past, and they're looking at growing their own businesses, as business owners and entrepreneurs, so for them it's coming in cleaning, and it's a win-win for both of us.

Vic: Exactly.

Collette: Yeah, it's really cool.

Vic: And are they all independent contractors, or did you do the employee route?

Collette: Independent contractors, yeah.

Vic: It's just easier, right?

Collette: So much easier.

Vic: How many cleaners do you have now?

Collette: I have seven right now.

Vic: Oh, perfect, that's good.

Vic: We're at 20 now, and we're $300 shy of $60K monthly recurring revenue, so any one-time clients we take on is just icing on the cake. As Collette knows, we've blocked off our calendar for the next three weeks because I'm going traveling and I don't want to deal with it. A couple of my cleaners have texted to ask if there's anything more, and I tell them, nope, not for the next three weeks. I always coach my cleaners that summer is when you make a lot of money, and often they don't listen, because summer's really nice where we live, to be fair, and this is the time everybody wants to be on their paddleboards, or camping, or surfing, so that's always our struggle, managing the work-life balance, because some of them are very money-motivated and want to work all the time, then they burn out and get sick and need a week off.

It's this constant balancing act. I'm curious how you're finding working with your cleaners and managing them, is this your first time managing people, or do you have management experience?

Collette: I have experience with management from banking and government, mentoring was a big part of it too.

Vic: Probably helpful.

Collette: Yeah, I have a lot of experience in that realm, mentoring, training, those types of things. I think that's where I'm such a soft heart, I just want to wrap my arms around people, we can do this better.

Vic: So you're able to give feedback in a really positive way,

Collette: where they don't feel like they've had the worst day ever.

Vic: Everybody needs feedback,

Collette: of course,

Vic: that's what we say to our cleaners all the time, hey, maybe you're having an off day today, how are you, you just check in with them.

Collette: Are there any stories that come to mind, oh my gosh, this was a really bad day, or a really bad experience, anything you could share that would help someone else?

Collette: I think it's like any job, you're always going to have bad days, an experience that leaves you feeling a little ill. But I think it's what you take from it, because you're going to run into adversity, and even if you're making the right decision in that moment you could still get a bad review. For me, we sent out a cleaner and unfortunately one of the two was sick, but the other one still showed up, which would have been fine if the job was as described. Unfortunately, it was absolutely not what they had described.

So I had to offer the choice of, we can reschedule and come back, and it's going to cost more money, and unfortunately some people aren't receptive to you trying to make a responsible decision, giving them the standard and quality rather than rushing through a clean. Not everybody's going to see it the way you see it, and for a lot of people it's the money, they don't want to pay more for what they really need. So sometimes you can't avoid the bad reviews, and I think not taking it on so personally,

Vic: because things are going to come up and you're making a decision based on your business, it's not personal. You'll learn from it and move on.

Vic: I think, was this a one-star review? Did you get a one star?

Collette: Yeah.

Vic: I think you're not a real business owner until you get a one-star review. In a way we've got to celebrate those one-star reviews, because it means you now have a real business. When I see, just as a customer, a company that only has five-star reviews, I think, those are full of crap.

Collette: Yeah, and then that you're not.

Vic: And I actually actively look for the one stars and then I filter, I want to see how the business owner responds, because that's your opportunity to show your ideal clients how you deal with your not-ideal clients, since it's almost always that the one star is coming from somebody who wasn't the right fit for what you do.

Vic: And in this case, it was an emotionally charged situation to begin with. You're making the responsible decision, but somebody's going to publicly disagree with it, and that's okay,

Collette: that's life. It's hard in the moment, we're all human, we're all going to get a little upset,

Collette: or question, should I have done this better, could I have handled it differently. And that's something,

Vic: kudos to you, Collette, because some people get stuck in those moments, and let this small thing feel like a mountain, and go, I need to rewrite my operating procedures. Jen and I did this yesterday, we were talking about something, and she caught herself and said, wait, I'm trying to rewrite our business plan for one customer. And I said, yep. So we just move on, that customer wasn't the right fit, we're not changing our business plan for one person, it's the right fit for the people we do have, and the cleaners we do have, we don't need to get sidetracked, because it's so easy to, and again it's that athlete thing, you're not going, ooh, this is a shiny new method of working out, so I'll do it this way today, and tomorrow I'll try Atkins,

Collette: and I'll go on keto.

Vic: Exactly, whatever the trend is. Instead, it's, okay, let's focus on the basics, what do we know works, what actually matters, what do we not care about.

Collette: I think that's also how you grow into your business, because you can't overanalyze every decision. That's something I wish I'd told my younger self: nothing is going to be perfect. You can sit there and try to perfect a template as much as possible, but as you work through your business and make decisions, that template, you're probably going to change 15 times over anyway, and you need to get your feet dirty, or whatever the term is, and that's how you start creating these policies, whatever you want to call them, that's where you get your experience, because you're not going to have it all figured out. You can sit at your computer and try to anticipate every possible situation, but you actually have to go through it and grow through it.

Vic: I love that, go through it and grow through it, that's a quote I can steal. I want to know what's next for you, because you've just had a baby, so maybe no more babies for the next three months or so. But the kids are going to grow up. Do you see yourself going all in on this business? Expanding? Changing? What do you think?

Collette: I'm all in with this, for sure, this is the long game for me. We love to travel, we did tons of it before kids, that's what we knew we wanted before settling down and having children, but we want to share that experience with them too. This is something I could do from anywhere, and maybe by that point I'll have somebody being me, answering your questions, doing all those things, but the long game is, retire my husband, and then we're just out there in a different country doing whatever we need to, raising our kids, experiencing life, doing all the things, and we have this business basically operating itself, giving people opportunities, clients happy, we're happy, people are working.

Vic: And you can so easily get there, that's such a good plan. That's where Jen and I are now, we do travel, but we have another business and another passion project we work on, so when we travel, it's for that. It's amazing, but her kids are also grown now, so it's different. Being able to travel with young kids while owning a business, can you even imagine what your life would be like?

Collette: It's so different, it's so much better.

Vic: It's so much better.

Collette: So much better.

Collette: Imagine sitting at a bank job.

Vic: I can't even imagine you doing that, that's just not you. For me, I used to be a school teacher, giving my time for a capped salary. I love teaching, that's why I do this channel, I love coaching, I love giving back, I love being the change I want to see in the world, creating opportunities for ourselves and others. All of that is who I am, and if it weren't for this business, I wouldn't be able to do any of it.

Collette: That's wild.

Vic: This is the best. And who knew starting a cleaning company would actually make us gush about how amazing our lives are.

Collette: But AI can't replace it, you need actual people.

Vic: And I love that you brought that up. You need actual people, AI can't replace it, Amazon can't replace it, it's tried, by the way, to get into this space, and Amazon hasn't been successful trying to start cleaning businesses. It's China-proof too, because let's face it, in North America, China does everything better, cheaper, faster, so if I were selling a product right now I'd be very worried, because people could just buy that product cheaper direct from China. Why would they buy your sweet, wonderful, heartfelt thing, because people don't care, unless you're at a community craft fair or something, in which case you can't really make enough money.

Whereas this truly is the only business I've found where we can actually do this, so I'm so happy you found it too. Is there anything you wish you'd heard before you started, that you'd tell other people to encourage them, or to tell them this isn't right for you, if that's the case?

Collette: Something I'd tell them is there are so many opportunities out there promising you get rich quick, easy money, all these things, but if you truly want that sustainable lifestyle, it's going to come from doing the work and putting in the time. When you really think about it, time's passing by so fast anyway, I remember doing my first discovery call with you, the only discovery call, watching a hot seat and thinking maybe one day I'll be in that, and bam, here we are two years later.

Vic: That's nothing.

Collette: And I think just don't be afraid to start. Why not you? If you can dig deep, a lot of personal development comes from this too, if you're somebody who's okay with not having all the answers when you start. I think that's the biggest thing, you sit at your computer one day, your first client email comes in, and you sit there for 30 minutes trying to make the perfect response, but they're not going to realize it's a perfect response, who cares.

And I think you don't need to build the finished version, we're not building the finished version of our business right now, we're growing into it. You're always going to change, always going to grow, that's just life.

Vic: And I think you're also going to get bored. You're very close, so, we have the four stages we talk about in our Inner Circle, I'll go over that briefly now. Sorry, I'm just fixing my heat pad, I love sitting with a heat pad on my back. I'm the type of person who has the heater on in the car even in summer, heated seats, AC blasting, but the heated seats still going.

Collette: Hilarious, I know. I'm the one sitting here sweating because I'm talking and I don't have a pad on. I know some people want the cold seats, the AC, like an ice pack basically. No, I want the heat.

Vic: We always coach that there are four levels when you're first starting a cleaning company, it helps us see where people are at. Zero to $10K, we call it the Leap, that's where you haven't started your business yet, or you have, but you're not generating a lot of revenue. We call it the Leap because you're taking a leap of faith, both in starting a business and in yourself and the business plan. For some people it's easy to say, there's a plan, I can follow it, amazing, but for some people there's a plan and they'll come up with a million reasons why this shouldn't work.

So just take the leap of faith. Once you cross from $10K to $20K we call that the Engine, the fine-tuning, that's where you're fine-tuning your paperwork, your processes, your hiring, dealing with clients, all of it. A lot of people in the Leap try to fine-tune, but you can't fine-tune until you've got the experience to know how to deal with situations as they arise, you have to learn to crawl before you walk, then run. And your phase, you're so close to being in what we call the Boring Phase.

In your case it won't necessarily be boring, because you have two young children,

Collette: right,

Vic: so actually boring will be a blessing for you. We call it the Boring Phase because you've fine-tuned enough, and you can fine-tune forever, there's a million more things you could be doing to make the business better, but eventually you reach a point where good enough is good enough, and you're happy with that. The Boring Phase in a lot of ways is the most dangerous phase, and it won't be for you, Collette, but for most people it's the most dangerous phase, because this is when they start going, I'm going to blow up my business to make it better, and they launch a second location and lose track of the first, and it starts dropping, or they embrace AI to such an extent they think it's going to do everything, and their business drops, or they hire virtual assistants and think they never have to do anything, and their business drops. It's just that they're bored, because doing the same thing day in, day out is boring.

If you were a coach in a fitness center, that would be boring after a couple of years, the same clients, same routines, but they find a way to energize themselves and keep going. It's the same for anybody in our community who reaches about $25K, usually it's, oh, this is kind of boring. In your case, you're going to have young kids, so you're fine, you'll be, bring it on, let's go to the park, because your life is going to be so full. But that's an opportunity to embrace your hobbies, the things you're passionate about, your free time, because it is amazing when you have, in our case, 20 cleaners going out on a day and nothing happens, no phone calls, no panicked texts, just revenue coming in, because it's the same clients every two weeks, same cleaners, nothing happens.

And then the fourth stage is called the Other Side, usually after $50K a month, that's when you start going, should I grow to $100K, is that what I want, or am I happy with this, because at $50K a month you're making about $15K a month in profit in your pocket, that's a lot of money for working an hour or two a day yourself. So you might think, I want to write a book, or make a movie, or develop an app for a fitness studio, whatever. I love the Other Side, because that's where you get to make decisions that are much more meaningful and impactful in your community. We just got a comment here, Megan says, "Yes, it feels great that there's no cap on her income." True freedom, exactly.

Collette: A hundred percent, and

Vic: it's your own.

Collette: It's your own.

Vic: And you get to decide, if a client's not the right fit, you don't have to take them on,

Collette: if a cleaner's not the right fit, you don't have to work with them, you get to decide.

Vic: I've done both those things, and it's fine.

Collette: So many times. Melissa said, it's so much deeper than cleaning, I've discovered so many things about myself building this business, I've met and served some amazing people and businesses while having location freedom. The location freedom is really interesting, I got to go to Chile for a month a few years ago, and nobody knew I wasn't in Canada, they all assumed I was still here, and I just let them, they didn't need to know I was on a beach in Chile.

Vic: I know there are people who love that, who want to travel the world remotely running their business, and go for it, but I'm kind of past that stage in my life, I would have loved that in my 20s, but now it sounds like a lot of work,

Collette: unless I was traveling first class everywhere.

Vic: It's funny, I'm a homebody generally, but when it comes to putting me in another country with the food and the way of life and culture, count me in.

Vic: I know, and we've got a couple members in our Inner Circle, Terrace and his wife, they're going traveling with their young child too, they're so excited, I think it's Japan or something, but that was part of the reason they built their cleaning business, so they could travel, raise their kids, and run a company, and not worry about paying the bills, or asking somebody for the time off.

Collette: Oh god, can you imagine?

Vic: No, that used to be me.

Collette: And that's the other reason I love working with independent contractors, they're also empowered to take their own vacations when they want, so having a cleaner say, hey, heads up, next month I'm going to a conference for three days, I'll need these covered, it's good for you, what are you learning, that's cool. The only time I get annoyed is when it's summer and they want to go surfing for a couple weeks and then complain in the winter that they're not making enough money, and I think,

Vic: as I said,

Collette: summer is when we make it rain, winter is when it's raining, that's when you go on holiday. But they're human, and they want to enjoy the summer too.

Vic: I get it. Any last passing gems of wisdom you'd like to share?

Collette: Ooh, I don't know if I have all the answers, but

Vic: I certainly don't, but I will say, this is new, this is at Costco, you guys, this is a protein drink,

Collette: it's pumpkin time,

Vic: it's pumpkin time, it's September 4th, it's got 30 grams of protein, I'm trying really hard to get at least 150 grams of protein a day.

Collette: It's freaking hard to do.

Vic: Thank you, it's actually a challenge, man, that's a lot of protein, and we'll have a conversation after this about my nutrition and health, but this is surprisingly tasty, this is not sponsored, they have no idea I'm doing this, but if you're into pumpkin spice, I was a bit scared of this, I thought this could be nasty. It could be one of those things that's really great or really bad, and it has a picture of pie on it, and it does taste like a liquid pumpkin pie, which is my favorite pie of all the pies.

Collette: Oh,

Vic: yeah, now you know.

Collette: I do also love fall.

Vic: Yeah, I love fall, or, white women in Canada. It's pumpkin spice latte on us, we are the demographic. Okay, tell me, what's your gem of wisdom, if you have any?

Collette: I think this business can be literally whatever you want it to be. You mentioned the Lamborghini thing before, we have this uncapped opportunity, which is super cool, because anybody, myself included, coming from government, you're capped, you'll make that same amount of money the rest of your life until you retire at some point. But I think for me it's the luxury in the littlest moments, I'm not a luxurious person, I'm not into brand names, amazing if that's what you love, but for me it's the luxury moments in my life, of not rushing my kid off to daycare because he wants to ride his bike around the driveway at 10am on a Tuesday, that's what we're doing, or Thursday we go for a family hike, I have a baby strapped to me, he has a toddler in the backpack, cool. So I think regardless of why anyone's coming up with reasons why they might not be able to do this, why not them, why not you, you can literally make this whatever you want it to be, and following a blueprint is

Vic: the easiest way.

Collette: It's mindless, it takes work, but it's already mapped out for you, so if you're stuck, there's a million and one ways to become unstuck.

Vic: I love that. We've just built our website, cleaningcompanyblueprint.com, which has the resources there and also gives you a checklist, for anybody watching, you can download it and it'll help you know what to do each day. What Collette's talking about is when we set you up with the blueprint, which is free, by the way, all of this is free on the YouTube channel, you follow one thing a day. Most people do it in about two days, which you can, but you're going to skip things.

Did you do that, Collette? Did you do it in two days?

Collette: No, no, I didn't.

Vic: Good, because you were pregnant, about to give birth. So, one thing a day, and the reason for that is it's an intentional thing, it matters, and it might be a really small thing, like one day it's just getting your business bank account, but that involves you actually doing that work, getting your incorporation, setting up your website, your booking software, your prices, all the questions you have today, yeah, but what about this or what about that, that is normal, your brain is going to do that, and that's why we have the checklist, so we can walk you through it. Take the leap and do the work, it's worth doing. I don't know if you find this, Collette, but when I go to the gym and work out with other people, there's people who'll be complaining about their jobs.

Do you find it hard to listen to them, thinking, we'll just start one of these?

Collette: Yeah, but I think that's my personality to begin with, people who say, oh, you're so lucky, physique-wise, and well, no, there's no luck, literally, what you're not changing, you're choosing, is kind of how I see things.

Vic: I love that. We live in a world where we have so much access to information, it's insane.

Collette: Maybe that's what's overwhelming for people, there's too much information. Don't over-complicate it, don't over-analyze it, nothing is going to be perfect, just start taking an actionable step and you're going to get there. I don't believe people are stuck, personally, it's choices and steps forward, and if you want to accept things as, that's just how life is, well then that's probably where you're going to stay, and that's okay too.

Collette: But you are choosing that, I do agree with that, I do. And that's hard for people to hear, I just usually shut my mouth now, whereas in the beginning I'd say, there's window washing, there's landscaping, there's pressure washing, there's so many versions of these businesses. Now I'm just, you either want to start one, and I hope I kind of influence them in a way where they see me living my best life, but without being annoying, I hope, I don't know. I think a lot of it too is that personal development piece, there's people who are always digging deep, looking honestly in the mirror, how can I do this better, how can I grow, and it's those people who keep going on this trajectory, which is amazing for them, however it looks.

Vic: And it's growth mindset versus closed mindset, right, if you have a closed mindset and you're saying, nope, this is the only way it's going to work, there's scarcity and fear, and then there's abundance and opportunity, it totally depends how you see it. I love that you said that, because that was the whole reason I wanted to talk to you specifically, because you are directly my competition, and someone else would be, I'm not helping them,

Collette: like what,

Vic: and would go to that fear place, whereas I went, oh, awesome, okay, great, here's where I recommend you start. And you totally, I think, okay, you live in Langford, start Langford, and you followed the steps, you didn't battle it, you didn't argue it, you just went, okay, yeah, great, 100 clients, I'm going to get 100 clients, then 200, then 400, and I'm going to do it in a way that I can still raise my kids the way I want to raise my kids, I can still be present the way I want to be present, I can still travel, I can still go to the gym in the middle of the day, because I'm sure you're doing that, I know I always talk about that on this channel, but that is such a gift. When you work a normal job, you don't get to just take off in the middle of the day and have a good workout, I'm not talking about a lunchtime quick run in, run out, I'm talking a good two hours of my day, I bike to the gym, get my workout in, hang out with people, socialize, then bike home, then shower, that is not a quick thing. And to be able to do that while having my phone, occasionally looking and going, is there anything happening, oh no, okay, fine, great,

Collette: that's the type of luxury I'm talking about.

Vic: That's exactly it. And it's funny, because I know enough really wealthy people now, partly through the cleaning company and networking, and there's such a mindset shift that happens for me when I'm hanging out with them, some of them are really happy and own all the time in the world and are living their best lives, but a lot of them are hustling and pushing for that next dollar so they can have the better car or the better house or the better vacation, and I just don't think it's worth it. I want the money, and I want the quality of life, and I want to be able to have lunch with my girlfriends in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon, you won't convince me that hustling or pushing harder is worth that sacrifice in my time, because my time is worth more than that, we are only on this planet for a certain amount of time.

Collette: None of us know how long it's going to be, but all of us know it's going to end.

Vic: A hundred percent. Melissa says, "I relate so much with Collette, I worked as a healthcare professional and worked PRN so I could be there for my babies when I was in that season of life, I couldn't imagine asking off to anyone anymore." Exactly, Melissa, can you imagine asking for permission? I also just don't ask for permission for most things anymore in my life, in all honesty, that's also the empowerment of being a successful business owner, you don't have to ask for permission, you just live your life the way you want to live it. I'm so freaking proud of you.

Collette: Thank you.

Vic: And I'm so happy you took that initial leap, especially when you were pregnant and about to pop, and your beautiful baby, you and Matt have such gorgeous babies. And I also know you're running your business on your own, and he's running his business on his own, but that's really cool to see, because there's a lot of people who never start because they think, oh, I don't have a second person.

Collette: Yeah.

Vic: But you don't need that second person, we also have a community, it's amazing, you're welcome to join us, just go down the rabbit hole of Cleaning Company Blueprint, you'll find us.

Collette: Thank you.

Vic: Thank you so much. Anytime, I'm so glad it was a goal of yours to be on the hot seat, that's always my goal for you guys when I do the discovery calls, my goal is to put you in the hot seat, I want you to be sharing.

Collette: Maybe that'll be me one day.

Vic: Of course it would, oh my god, and I can't wait for the next one, when you're at about $50K, we've had Isaac and Jenna, they're now at over $100K a month,

Collette: amazing.

Vic: Which is just unreal, but they've crushed it, same exactly as you in terms of what they want in their lives, their contribution to their local communities, what they want as parents, it's just time, they've got one year more on you, maybe two. That's it. Okay, thank you all for being here, thank you for all the comments, thank you for all the LOLs, the "thank you both" and "well done"s and the "Vic is amazing, Collette's amazing." Collette, I'll let you see those afterwards, you can see all of them, I didn't pull them all up, but there's lots there. And if anybody wants to reach out to you, they'll go to langfordcleaningcompany.ca, I believe, my apologies, you embraced the Canada,

Collette: I did, I was trying to be in line,

Vic: yeah, she's Canadian, she's in Canada, might as well have .ca.

Collette: Yeah.

Vic: All right, well, we will see everybody on the next one, thank you for being here.

Collette: Thank you.

Vic: Okay, I'm clicking end stream and it's not going. There he goes.