How Daniel Hit $10K a Month With His Cleaning Business

Vic: A few months ago, Daniel posted that he reached $10,000 in monthly recurring revenue with his cleaning company that he launched in June 2023. So Daniel, we wanted to bring you in for what we call our hot seat call, where we sit down, have a conversation, talk about your journey, and share with everyone on YouTube and our coaching clients how we reached these milestones. You started your cleaning company June 2023. What did you do before that?

Daniel: This is completely out of left field, but I've been a digital marketer for 17 years. This whole cleaning thing came from somewhere, I'll tell you in a minute. My background is digital marketing. I specialized in B2B SaaS and e-commerce, and my most recent position was chief marketing officer of a Web3 company. It was cool, it was sexy, I was part owner, we were doing cool stuff.

Then suddenly I had a massive flaming burnout. I left the industry, left that job, left my sexy role, and decided I could do something as far away from Web3 as possible, which turns out is cleaning toilets. So I thought, what the heck, let's just do this. We launched on June 20th, and it's been a wild ride.

Vic: That's so great. It is something we talk a lot about, what is the magic formula for success in this industry. There's something about severe burnout that gives you a perspective where you're like, this is fine, it's all good, in comparison to the stress you had before.

Daniel: Anybody on this call today, and anybody who watches this, is going to identify with that burnout moment. It's a horrible feeling, but it can produce some good results. I don't want to say everything has a reason, but in this case I was able to shake off some of that and, as Taylor Swift put it, move on up. So here we are, we have a company.

Vic: That's awesome. The digital marketing thing, I'm going to park that for now, because we're going to come back around to it, it's a huge piece of what's going to make you really successful. So you start your cleaning company. What is it called, and where is it?

Daniel: It's called Clean Co. Clean, just like you spell it, no fancy Ks. Clean Co, and we're located in Greenville, South Carolina. We serve the entire upstate region of South Carolina, about a 50-mile radius of Greenville. There are about 1.2 million homes in the area, and we service that entire area. We don't have all 1.2 million homes yet, but we've got goals.

Vic: And it's Clean Co Greenville, isn't it?

Daniel: I branded it Clean Co Greenville because I wanted to specify that geolocation. The website is cleancogreenville.com. I also thought, hey, I can spin this off and potentially have other businesses. So in November I launched Clean Co Commercial, servicing businesses, offices, commercial spaces. Just last week I closed on a deal where we're cleaning a 400,000-square-foot old-fashioned mill that's been converted into lofts. I have full-time people there. So the commercial side has taken off, and that's exciting.

Vic: Are they doing 30-day terms? How are you cash-flowing the commercial? That's always the concern for most people starting cleaning companies. They get excited about commercial, and then it's, oh wait, they want to pay me in 30 days and I have to pay my cleaners today.

Daniel: I was like, that's not going to work, we can't do 30 days. Some of these companies are locked into corporate contracts and billing systems, and you just have to play with it, otherwise you're shafted. But I said, I'm going to need payment in net 10. And they said, sure, we usually turn around our invoices in 48 hours.

As long as you send it on this date, I'll have it turned around within the next two days. I can work with that. None of this net 30 stuff, because I'm nobody's bank. I'm a little bitty business, I can't hold on to thousands of dollars for over a month. It seemed to work out, fingers crossed, because this is brand new and I have no clue what I'm doing.

I'm building this parachute as I'm hurtling down at 9,000 meters per second.

Vic: That's exactly why we invited you into the hot seat, because from the minute I met you I was like, this is going to be fun. And honestly, we don't know what we're doing either. We're all in the same boat, fumbling our way through, having the big career pivots, but more than anything, being able to share what works. That's what Jen and I love about our community.

We have a similar thing, a group of apartment buildings that we clean. They found us on Google, reached out, and I did a walkthrough, and then it was, what are we going to do about this net 30 thing? Jen, my sister who runs the other half of our business and deals with our books, she's always like, never again. Never again, but only for cashflow.

I didn't have the guts to say I can do net 10, so I'm going to take that from you and try it next time.

Daniel: Do it with my caution, because like I said, I have no clue what I'm doing, I'm faking it till I make it. If this turns around and bites me, don't come to me.

Vic: On that note, what's your monthly revenue right now? We're having this call on January 22nd, 2024, just to put that in context for our internet audience. You've been open since June, so that's seven months. What's your monthly revenue now, if you don't mind?

Daniel: I looked at it just today. On Friday I was about $8,500 gross for the month. So I'll probably be grossing 17 to 18 by the end of the month, if my projections are correct, and that's with the new commercial contract I picked up. I'd love to be at 50 by the end of Q1, and then cruising into who knows, the sky's the limit. That's the goal.

Vic: If you make it to 50 within Q1, you're going to have a million-dollar company for sure, your second year for sure.

Daniel: Don't jinx me, but I know you're right.

Vic: It's funny, 10K is kind of the first marker, the monthly recurring revenue, because then you know you can pay your bills. Do you know your profit margins?

Daniel: I'm about 40%.

Vic: Amazing. So you've got 40%, you can live off that. It's not great, but it replaces a job. And then 50K, now you're in, okay, I can take my family on vacation, start planning bigger things.

Daniel: One of the reasons I started this particular type of company, and Rohan, I thank the gods and the universe every day for you, because you're the man who put me on this journey. I found this business because I can essentially work from home. I can also put this business on autopilot. If I don't want to spend 40 or 50 hours a week, I don't have to.

With the things going on in my life right now, the complications, the drama we all have, that serves me so well, because I don't have the bandwidth for a 40-hour-a-week job, and this is far less than that.

Vic: Same. Context for the YouTube audience who don't know who Rohan is. Rohan is the guy who basically taught us all. He started this, he did a Reddit thread over 10 years ago, and he keeps doing these 30-day courses. We've got one here on the channel that we did as a 21-day version. For you, Daniel, how did you find him?

We make it seem like he's a guru. He's just a guy, everyone. He's a guy who believes in the internet and shares stuff, and he's amazing because he did change our lives.

Daniel: What happened was the Instagram gods knew I was flailing about, so they targeted me with Rohan's stuff, and I was like, this is really interesting. This guy claims he can take 30 days and tell me to build a revenue-generating business. Obviously there was a hook, obviously Rohan knows what's up, and obviously I fell for it, and I was in. I'm not paid for this, I'm not doing any marketing, I promise.

I just took that course because I was targeted somehow by the ads.

Vic: That's amazing. I've got to talk to his people and find out what they did there. They're always experimenting and figuring out what works. The main thing is just knowing that somebody else has done this before. Jen had a similar situation to you, her life changed drastically two years ago. In my case, I was working with another family business, complications, changing careers, looking at my life.

It was the pandemic, so many of us went, what are we doing, as a planet, as a species, but then as me individually, what am I doing? When Jen called and said, I saw this tweet by this guy, I was like, you're crazy, but we'll try it. And we tried it, and we passed a million in revenue within 26 months. But Daniel, I swear, you're going to beat us for sure.

Daniel: For anybody actually watching this, I have such a high nonsense detector. If I see somebody riffing and trying to spin something, I'm like, no. This is not that. I'm just honestly hustling, doing this little family biz here in South Carolina, and nobody paid me to say anything. Everything coming from me is from the heart.

Vic: You just went for it with the whole metaphysics and stuff.

Daniel: What are we doing as a species? Well, we've got to pay our bills, pay the rent, take care of our kids. And this is allowing me to do that right now, so I'm really grateful.

Vic: I feel exactly the same way. In my case, I get to go to yoga in the middle of the day. When I had a job, that wasn't a thing. That one-hour lunch break, you can't fit in a whole class, you have to drive, you have to shower. Now I can plan everything around the thing that's more important to me.

The other thing that's interesting is that you have a true local service business, and same with us. We are not trying to do this remotely. A lot of people on the internet pitch that you can do this remotely, and you can in your case, but it's a lot easier if you're actually part of your community doing it where you are. Would you agree?

Daniel: Wholeheartedly, and I'll take it a step further. My community is a big deal to me. I'm part of networking groups, I'm sitting for city council positions, I'm on commissions, the public schools my children go to, I'm sponsoring stuff and getting involved. But the real thing that has allowed me to cherish the local aspect is being able to cultivate my team members.

I'm hiring people, and I'm not just throwing something up on Indeed to see what sticks. I'll interview people three times in person before I offer them a job.

Vic: Wow.

Daniel: It's so intentional, because it's values-based. I have three core values, and if they're not jiving with those values, we're not going to work out. That's why I'm having these in-person interviews with local community members who want to get involved in a local company.

Vic: So what are these three core values?

Daniel: Be kind, do what you say, and figure it out. It sounds elementary, my daughter is in third grade and her school motto is be kind, and here I am as an adult telling my employees, be kind. It's so basic, but it's essential, because what we're doing is a very high-trust, high-touch industry. We're literally going into people's bathrooms and closets and bedrooms, making their beds, so there's a real personal rapport that needs to be happening.

Then, figure it out, because there's going to be problems, figure it out. And do what you say, because reliability is one of the most important traits you can have in residential cleaning. Show up at nine o'clock, do what you say.

Vic: I love that. I'm totally stealing that. Those are probably ours too. We haven't thought them through enough to break them into three things, but that's it right there. So let's talk about roadblocks. You've had amazing successes, but there have likely been some stumbling blocks. Tell us about some things that have been difficult that you've learned from.

Daniel: I'll give two, and the reason is I've actually made these mistakes, so now I feel like I have the wherewithal to say, please don't make them. Number one, being so desperate for people that you'll just hire anybody. I had that come-to-Jesus moment where I was like, these people I hired are not the kind of people that need to be in this role. I was doing 1099s, they were contractors, pay you same day.

I had to take a deep breath and be like, I can't work with you guys anymore, I'm sorry. I had to go back to the basics of values and commitment and reliability, and that's when I started hiring really good people. The thing about hiring really good people is you expect to compensate them a little more, and that takes a significant amount of your bottom line, but it's worth it, because that's how you hang on to those contracts long-term and develop commitment from your clients. So to sum it up, hire the right people.

Vic: This is business 101, but it's the hardest part of this business, because you're not selling widgets or supplies or products. You are literally selling people. In any business your people are the most important, but in cleaning, if you don't have good people, you're screwed. So did you make them employees, when you said they were contractors and now they're not?

Daniel: Yes, I'll qualify that. First I had to get rid of the people I hired at first, because they simply weren't reliable, they wouldn't show up, and I realized I wasn't qualifying them effectively. That's when I instated the three-interview, in-person thing, and my values, and that's also when I decided to hire exclusively W-2 employees.

Vic: Now, I'm in Canada, so this is always different for us. You guys always call them 1099s, and I always think that's so funny, I'm like, okay, so they're people, they're numbers. W-2 is an employee, and it's different paperwork.

Daniel: Thankfully you can have part-time employees. I am paying their disability, their unemployment, all these taxes on their behalf, but I don't have to pay through the wazoo for benefits and all of that, that a full-time employee might expect, because most of the time they're working 20 to 25 hours a week.

Vic: That's probably the sweet spot for them in terms of quality of life, because once you start cleaning 40 hours a week, that's too much for anybody. 30 is kind of full-time.

Daniel: All of my employees have kids, lives, things to do, and they're like, I can't work Fridays, or I can't work from 2 PM on because I'm picking my kid up from school. And I'm like, that's fine, here's the cleaning availability I have, take your pick. The cool thing about Convertlabs is you can do that, they can pick their jobs, pick their time.

Vic: So you're using the invite button so they can pick which ones work for them?

Daniel: It's fairly limited right now because I'm a startup and I want my hands in a lot of that. I'm not micromanaging, but I'm stipulating, okay, I get your time constraints, so I'm going to assign you some things. That way I also know what clients we're serving on what day, so I can go visit those clients in person if I feel it's necessary.

Vic: Do you mind sharing approximately how much your cleaners are actually earning?

Daniel: I start them at $18.10 per hour, where my cleaners actually make $20 an hour, but, and this is a big but, I give them extra money for the following. Transportation, compensated at 65 cents per mile, but I average it and give them 10 miles per clean. So if they have two cleans per day, they're getting $6.50 for each trip, so about $13 extra for that day of cleaning, because they had to drive their car around and keep their equipment in their car, so they don't have to go back to an office or warehouse, which is a waste of time and gas. The second thing, I compensate them for laundry.

I don't want to be taking rags each night, who has time for that, so I ask them to launder their own rags at their facilities if they choose, and I give them $3 a load. I equate one cleaning job with one load. So if they have three jobs in a day, I give them $9 in laundry compensation. So $18.10 an hour, plus 65 cents a mile at 10 miles per clean, plus $3 per load.

That was a lot of numbers.

Vic: No, that was good. For context, is that a lot of money where you live?

Daniel: The minimum wage in my state is around $13, and that's kind of chancy, really hard to pay rent. In South Carolina we have a generally lower cost of living compared with the rest of the United States, so it's a pretty good gig. Bus drivers for the city make less. Somebody holding a sign on the street corner would make 10 or 11 an hour.

Vic: For context, our construction workers, somebody holding a sign, and I say that because it's a similar skill level in how the general population views it, cleaning I'd argue is a lot more skilled, but they're starting at about $25 an hour here. We pay our cleaners closer to 35 to 40 an hour, and our minimum wage, I think it might even be 18. It's good to have the context of what's good where you are. So you mentioned you had two stories.

The second roadblock?

Daniel: If you can walk away from this conversation with just one thing, this is it. Stop cleaning. Do not clean. We talked about hiring and people. Well, the most important person in your organization is yourself. Call it enlightened self-interest rather than arrogance, because you've got to watch out for yourself. I tell my people, the reason I'm not cleaning is because I'm growing the cleaning company.

The most exciting part of my week is when I run payroll, because I'm giving you the money. But if I'm over on Delwood Drive cleaning that three-bedroom, two-bathroom house for that delightful old couple, the company is not benefiting from me. I can clean with the best of them, I wouldn't have started this company if I hated cleaning, however my time and resources and energy are best spent working on the business, not in it. It's cliche, everybody from Gary Vaynerchuk on down says it, but it really is a thing.

The most important thing I can do is actually not clean.

Vic: I love that, because having been part of our community for the last few years and meeting the hundreds of people in there, that is a common theme of the folks who struggle. They're struggling because they're busy cleaning at the same time as trying to run a company. I get it, because you've got to pay your bills, and when you're first starting out, if you don't have a good cleaner, you don't have time to look for a good cleaner, so you grab the bucket and do it yourself. It's a catch-22.

Daniel: The easiest way to solve a problem is just to go out and do it, and it's hard to keep yourself from doing that. But one of the things I learned from Rohan is to track your numbers relentlessly. I found out that when I was actually going out and working, it would affect the bottom line, it would literally cause us to lose money. So I'm going to spend those two hours I would have spent at Delwood on marketing, tweaking my ads instead.

Vic: It's not hard for me, because I really hate cleaning. More than happy to have somebody else do it. The hard part for me is not spinning my own wheels, feeling like I need to be busy doing something, and if I'm not, that must be wrong, rather than, oh, it's Monday in January, we took two bookings, my goal is two to three bookings a day, so I didn't take three, not a big deal.

Daniel: I feel the same. I don't get caught up in my mind if I'm not actually churning out marketing emails, because look, somebody just found my website organically, and they clicked, and they booked. I didn't do a dang thing to get that booking except join the cult, follow Rohan, do what he says, and now the bookings are coming in.

Vic: Your name, Clean Co Greenville, you've got your location, you've got your keywords, which we always teach, keywords and location, be specific. People in Greenville are going to type best cleaning company Greenville. You did some really smart things, and you also did not do any funky spelling of clean. You would not believe the number of people in our community with wacky names where nobody's going to find them. It's almost too simple that you don't believe it could be this easy.

Daniel: You told me something when we talked originally, you said, change your H1. So my website literally says, Greenville's Best Home Cleaning. It's ridiculously simple, but people are Googling that, what's Greenville's best home cleaning, and lo and behold, first page.

Vic: You're not stupid, because you stopped yourself from making stupid decisions. Those decisions are so simple, but very important. You mentioned organic. Do you know your percentage of organic versus paid leads?

Daniel: This is horrible, because I'm a digital marketer, and the cobbler's kids have no shoes, and the marketer's website is not doing a very good job marketing. I don't do anything paid right now, it's all organic, it's all social. I turned off the paid stuff, don't mess with Bark, Angie.

Vic: You're 100% organic right now?

Daniel: Yes. We only pay 300 to Google right now.

Vic: And you're billing at least 50K a month. We're probably 70 to 80% organic according to the numbers, but I believe we're more than that.

Daniel: What I was doing at first was starving, I wasn't making any money, so I couldn't pay anybody anything, so I was like, let's just do it ourselves. I post organic social, we're on Facebook and Instagram, and the rest has just been coming in organically. My Google Business Profile is a big deal. For about two weeks I turned on Local Services Ads, paying about $10 a lead, and closing about 50% of them.

Sometimes they were just tire kickers, and I hate paying 10 bucks for somebody to kick my tires, but when they did call, I was able to close them with credit card in hand within seven or eight minutes. A mom would call, and within seven minutes I'd have her credit card, because they were so primed, ready to close with whoever picked up the phone.

Vic: $10 is an incredible deal for that. Everyone else will say 25 to 30. In some areas I've heard as much as $50 a lead. It's brutally expensive now.

Daniel: I was lucky to get those 10 bucks a lead. They were kind of toying with it, battening down the prices to drive engagement, and it's probably gone up.

Vic: You said Google Business Profile, which is just your basic business listing. Are you posting a certain number of updates?

Daniel: I don't post any updates on Google Business Profile. I'll update my Facebook statuses or post Instagram stories, but really, please don't follow my example, I'm just doing stuff as I have the availability or the inspiration, not on a schedule. Does a future me aspire to be so disciplined I'm posting on a schedule? Of course. But that's not me right now.

Vic: We're the same way, we post once a week, but we have a bit more of a set structure. I need it, I'm too ADHD without it. So that also speaks to how many people pivot, change careers, and end up in this one, and it is kind of a fumble your way along, and yet so many other people quit. They reach the hard part, it's hard to hire, and they just stop.

Daniel: There's a huge realization I experienced when I started. I thought, there's got to be a few cleaning businesses around in Greenville. Let me tell you, everybody and their literal mother has a cleaning business. I'm on Facebook, and in the Greenville residents group, 20,000 members, somebody says, I'm looking for a cleaner for my three-bedroom, two-bathroom, I have two kids and two dogs, and within 60 minutes there will be 122 comments.

I'm using that specific number because that's what I saw a little while ago, 122 comments saying, oh, I've got a cleaning company. Because that's how many people can easily get into cleaning. You've got a mop and a vacuum, great, go clean houses. But what distinguishes the people generating five figures a month from the people who are like, I've got two houses in my subdivision, is you have to look at it as an actual business.

I'm not just cleaning houses, I'm scaling a business, I have aspirations to take over the entire southeast, eventually the entire United States. Watch out, Canada, we're coming for you next.

Vic: Is your goal to sell your company, or to keep it for your kids? What's the end goal?

Daniel: I don't have an explicit exit plan written out, but I'd like to pass this along to my children, because one of the best ways to build generational wealth is to purchase real estate and build businesses. So that's the long-term plan, to leave them with an inheritance they can enjoy or survive off of, but then just holding them.

Vic: I love it. When you reach your 50K a month, we'll invite you into our Millionaire Mastermind group. It's a group that myself and a guy named Brian out of Calgary formed, specifically because we wanted to find other people that were like us. We've had some success, but we want the next level, how do we find this group of people that are going to be nice and transparent and share their stuff.

We get together once a month, there's about eight of us, four core who show up every time. Every four weeks we have a theme. We did spreadsheets last month, and you wouldn't believe how nerdy we all got about our numbers, going into profitability, how much you spent on marketing, how many recurring versus one-time cleans. Most of us have focused on residential, because that's the easiest way to get in, and then eventually commercial.

I think you'll really like it.

Daniel: I'd be honored. One thing that's very difficult for me is to celebrate. When I reached 10,000, I was like, okay, so what. It didn't change my identity, it didn't significantly improve my happiness, but it did allow me to breathe a little easier at night, knowing I've hit that level and 80% of my clients are recurring, so it's a steady stream. Going to keep going.

Vic: I love that, 80% recurring. That's our magic number too, 80% recurring, 20% one-time cleans. It's not just a number, it actually means quality of life for Jen and me as business owners, but also for the cleaners. Most of them have a mostly full schedule with a day or two of move-in, move-outs or deep cleans.

Daniel: I'll add, it's a quality of life for the clients as well. They're like, put my credit card on file, come back every two weeks. I love those recurring cleans, because sure, we'll charge you $450 for an initial deep clean, but then it just constantly goes on. And the more often it comes, the cleaner it gets.

So I'm not looking at a contract as, oh, it's 450 bucks. I'm looking at it as a $4,000, $5,000 annual recurring contract. Press play, don't pause, rinse and repeat.

Vic: All right, do you have questions for me?

Daniel: I do. What is your goal, what's your next step?

Vic: We thought initially we wanted to build a business we could sell. We only started our company in July 2021, and I didn't really start working on it until September 2021, so it's been about two and a half years. When we first started, it was, we want to reach 50K a month, because then we can pay our bills and not have to have a job, for two people. We pay higher percentages to our cleaners, so our profit margins are only 26 to 28%, we don't have the 40% you have, but we're fine with that.

Initially we wanted to build the company so we could earn 3 million a year and try to sell it for at least 10 million. Now we understand a lot more about how businesses are sold in Canada. A lot of the people who talk about buying and selling are American, and we have very different bank systems and different conservatism when it comes to math and money. The valuation for a local service business in Canada will be about three times your profits.

So if we take a million-dollar company earning 300,000, we could sell it for 900,000, even though we're billing a million a year. If I was doing this as a SaaS company in the States, I could sell it for $30 million. So now that I know what I know, I'm like, okay, that's not really a lot of money, so let's build it to 3 million because we can, and keep it going. My sister has three kids, I don't have any of my own yet, but for now it would just be that generational wealth builder.

What I love more than anything is that Jen and I work in creative fields, and we're able to keep working without the desperation you normally feel about paying your bills. Jen does a lot of the coaching on the website side, making sure people are hitting the right target demographic and their websites are clean and beautiful. Being able to focus on what she loves to do is the most important thing.

Daniel: That makes a lot of sense. At the end of the day, if you're going to spend your entire day just being miserable, that kind of sucks. A lot of us don't have choices, we've got to do what we've got to do, but if you can find a way to provide utility within our industry, it's a huge plus.

Vic: It's funny, you mentioned payday is your favorite day. Every single person in the Millionaire Mastermind group, all billing at least 50K a month, has said the same thing. It's the best feeling in the world to be able to pay people more than what they're used to getting, treat them with respect and kindness, and keep spreading that forward.

Daniel: I love giving bonuses. We give review bonuses, so if a cleaner gets a five-star review, and we never have the cleaners ask for them, then it's, hey, awesome, thanks so much, here's 20 bucks. A lot of people say focus on profits, maximize, pound the most you can out of your cleaners. Maybe I could be more successful doing that, but you only live once, enjoy your life.

I've watched one of the moms who's a cleaner, she has four kids, her quality of life since working with me has improved, because she's making more money and it's reliable, so she can buy more for her kids, they go hiking on the weekends. That's what keeps me going, being able to improve not just my own quality of life but my employees' quality of life. That lights me up.

Vic: Same. Okay, we do have a question. Go for it, Renard.

Renard: I was thinking back to what you were saying about the interviews and having three of them, and I was curious, do you have three different things you're looking for each time, or is it kind of the same vibe check each time, or a progression in what you're looking for? I'm wondering if there are differences between the first, second, and third interviews.

Daniel: Super question. In the first interview, I hold a group interview. I put it out on Indeed or Craigslist, they click through and fill out their information and get a Calendly invite, and everybody meets me at a little watering hole we have. If 15 or 20 people sign up, I can expect maybe two or three will show up, it's just facts.

Of those who show up, I'm vibing, this person showed up late, that's not a good sign. In that group interview I talk about our values, I don't talk about the job, I spend about 15 minutes on that, and then they ask questions, usually about pay. If I'm getting a good vibe, I pull them aside or text them, hey, can you meet later this week, let's hit up a coffee shop, I do this all at coffee shops because I love coffee shops. There I ask more about their background, what gets them excited, a little about their personal life if they're willing to share, kids, hobbies.

Then they ask me questions, I go over the pay and what it looks like, and if we're both feeling good, I say, can you come to a working interview. I describe it as a working interview, it doubles as both an interview with my other team members and a training. I'll usually bring one of my team members, because nobody likes seeing the same ugly face twice in a row, and they're a lot better looking than me and great with this. Then, if we all feel good, they come for that third working interview, which is, let's check out their work ethic and give them a little training.

I pay them for that, I Venmo or PayPal it. Then me and whoever was team lead that day talk about it, and usually by that point we're like, yeah, let's join our team. Sometimes we'll do a fourth working interview, but usually we extend the offer, sign the paperwork, and go. So first interview, group, surface level but core values.

Second, more in depth, meet one of my cleaners. Third, roll up our sleeves and get working. Does that answer your question?

Renard: Absolutely. I was also wondering, do you check their equipment or supplies, do you have a checklist or requirements around that, or does everyone have the same supplies?

Daniel: I provide 100% of the supplies. Every cleaner gets a Shark vacuum, a caddy that holds all their stuff, a whole bunch of supplies, Pledge, stainless cleaner, a pack of rags, and a mop. All told, I'm probably in about 300, 400 bucks. That's their equipment, they're not going to be effective unless they have good equipment, and I'm not going to lean on them to provide their own, I don't feel good about that.

Plus, there are some laws in the United States, if you hire employees, you need to provide the wherewithal to do the job. If they're 1099, no problem, they bring their own stuff. But since I'm hiring W-2 employees, I'm under some legal obligation to provide that, and ethically I think it's best practice. I also provide a training manual, I wrote this whole thing that describes how to clean a house, because some of these people come in and don't know how to clean, I'm hiring on values, not experience.

My team member training manual is 40 pages long, I've got videos, diagrams, rules.

Renard: Wow. The last question, do you do anything to foster relationships or morale, or does it just happen organically?

Daniel: I wish I could say we have weekly parties and gather around the fire and sing Kumbaya, but we don't. Maybe I could get better at that. What does happen is these cleaners are paired together, sometimes randomly depending on the schedule, so Heather is now working with Taryn every Tuesday, and they get along famously, meeting organically over the work week. Sometimes they're like, hey, do you want to carpool.

But at this point I'm not having regular structured team-morale meetings. One thing I like to emphasize, whether in my cleaning company or other organizations I've led, is we're not a family. Let's not do that, that's old.

Vic: I appreciate that, I hate that too. Nonprofits do that a lot, we're a family, to squeeze everything out of you.

Daniel: So we're not a family, we're a team of professionals. I do the same thing you do, mixing and matching cleaners, and it creates a really positive workplace if you're honoring your commitments, paying your cleaners well and on time, treating them with respect, and firing clients before you fire cleaners.

Vic: If you've got good cleaners, you've got to qualify that first, but cleaners have to know you have their backs. Once you have that kind of workplace morale, you don't have to foster it as much.

Daniel: I really like that statement, fire your clients before you fire your cleaners. I'm going to steal that. I have zero tolerance in my company for clients who make the cleaners feel uncomfortable. My cleaners don't deserve that. If you're not respecting these people, I'm sorry, but we're not going to clean for you.

Vic: We've gone over time, so I'll cut it short. Jen will edit this into the mastery she does, so it'll show up on YouTube in the next couple of days. We'll link Daniel to your website, of course, unless you don't want us to, but it's always good to get the backlinks. If people have questions, they'll DM you within our community or write a comment on the post.

Daniel: Love it. It's been an absolute pleasure, I'm so thankful for this opportunity.

Vic: Thank you so much for sharing and for sitting in the hot seat. It's not easy to have somebody say, hey, you're an expert, and you're like, what the heck. I have the exact same feeling today. You'll reach a million and then maybe you'll feel more qualified to sit in it, but who knows. And Renard, thanks for your great questions.

Renard: No problem. Thank you for your time, Daniel.

Daniel: Yeah, of course.