How Sandra Built a $20K/Month Cleaning Business

Vic: Welcome to Cleaning Company Blueprint. Today we have Sandra of Maid Knows Best in North Carolina, and we're putting her in the hot seat to ask her all the questions about her cleaning business. Sandra, we met online over two years ago. I reached out because you had a cleaning business and my sister and I were just starting ours.

We were like, is this real? Who are these people? How do we know this is going to work? This guy Rohan my sister met on Twitter, do you really have a cleaning company, is it successful, are we going to be able to do this? And you were so kind and so generous with your time.

I've thought about you for the last two years, in terms of starting our own and where we're at now, and I just feel this bond with you. Knowing we weren't alone, even though we're in geographic locations that are so different, knowing you were out there really helped us. So let's talk about your journey. How did you get into the cleaning industry?

Sandra: Well, I was in finance for 15 years before this. Since I graduated college, finance. Merrill, Wells Fargo, all the big banks. It was great. I had a great run until I realized I was a great worker, top-notch, met all my sales goals, and I just felt like I was getting the pennies. I wanted more control over my efforts.

At that point I was at Wells Fargo and I wasn't feeling valued. But I had the opportunity to network with so many different people, and I always felt like I was the connector. I connected so many people together that there came a point where I thought, maybe this is where I'm supposed to be, the middleman. I had a business partner when I first started, one of my best friends, a complete entrepreneur who never worked for anyone.

She said, why don't you do your own thing, let's do it together. She found Rohan and said, listen to this. I was still working at Wells Fargo. We came up with a name, we tried to follow Rohan. Because she's an entrepreneur and I was in finance and have some control issues, we did have Rohan.

This was back in 2015. We did all the calls.

Vic: For reference, I'm going to interrupt you there. What Sandra's talking about when she says "the calls" is a 30-day course that Rohan and Kevin have been teaching for years. That's the one you're talking about, right?

Sandra: Yeah. She actually found Rohan on Reddit. Way back, the OG. And we started. It was great. I was still working, so it was kind of nice. There were times I went out and did cleanings during my lunch break. Quite the experience.

Vic: In a suit? Were you wearing a suit?

Sandra: Yes, in a suit. It was very odd. But I'm the kind of person, you've got to get it done. So we had the no-shows, and I was like, what are we going to do? At the time my business partner was pregnant, so her cleaning wasn't an option. She was like, what are we going to do?

I said, we're not canceling. This was one of our first five clients. I said, I just need you to bring me some sneakers because I cannot clean in heels and I don't want to clean barefoot. So go get me some sneakers. And I cleaned.

Vic: I love that. You know, we had this thing we called book and scramble. You book it, and then you scramble. Someone calls, are you available? Absolutely we're available. And then we scramble.

Sandra: Right. The beginning was a little crazy, partially because we did not follow Rohan to the teeth.

Vic: I love that. Everybody wants to reinvent the wheel. You think you know better. It's the entrepreneurial journey. It can't possibly be this simple to just follow the road.

Sandra: Exactly. It just can't be this simple. But it really is, if you stick to it. You've got to show up every day.

Vic: Well, I will say you did follow the script in terms of take a booking and scramble. A lot of people won't even take that first booking because they don't have a cleaner yet. They're like, I can't answer the phone yet, I can't have a website yet if I don't have a cleaner. Whereas what we say is take the booking and figure it out.

Sandra: Yeah. And you spend a lot of time on the small things, like what's going to be your business name and what does your website look like. I have not touched my website since 2015.

Vic: Wow. But website-wise you kept it the same.

Sandra: The stuff we dedicated a lot of time to, we even went down to, let's do a business plan, because she was an entrepreneur.

Vic: And you worked in finance, so you know a business plan is like, who gets past the business plan? Very few. It's so overwhelming.

Sandra: It's tedious. You go to the library, you join all these, and then you're like, oh, I have to do this business plan, I have to make a profit, I have to show this and that, and then you don't. It's very time consuming and it's not realistic.

Vic: And I don't know that that model works for this particular model, because you don't have to prove anything other than bookings coming in, cleaners going out, where's the revenue. You don't need a financial investor to prove it to. There are other businesses where you do. This one, it is so stupidly simple.

Sandra: It is. I remember Kevin used to say, just hit the charge button. I went out to a couple of cleanings, guilty as charged. But I got to a point where I said, I am not under any circumstances going out to do a cleaning or an estimate that isn't necessary. I picked this platform and this program for a reason, the simplicity of it.

It's the McDonald's way. You do the same thing over and over again and it works. You get to a point where you have to know what you're worth. If you know how much you're worth, you're not going to spend your time doing things that, well, you just don't have time. And if you do, something's wrong.

If you have time to go do a cleaning, something is being left behind in your business.

Vic: It's a really good point. So many of the people we've talked to in these calls say the same thing. It's really good to know how hard it is, to have empathy for your cleaners. After you've done a few cleans you know this is emotionally demanding, physically demanding, mentally, having to put yourself into somebody else's home and be like a chameleon that adjusts to what they want.

Sandra: And the chaos. You go into somebody's home and you want to believe some people will change because you're there, but some people don't. You get bought into that same energy, that same chaos they're living in, and then you have to stay in there for however many hours and wash yourself off when you get out. I've had some experiences.

We did a rapper's house at one point. It was lucrative, the money was great, but the experience for the cleaners was so much that I had to let go of the contract, because I wasn't going to let go of my girls. The first time I cleaned baseboards in a house, I took baseboards out of my deep cleaning years ago, because I did a detailed baseboard cleaning for a 3,000-square-foot home and I remember thinking, this is so tedious, there is no way this makes financial sense to include in a deep clean. People who have pets, the dog hair is on all the baseboards.

There are those clients who understand, and then you have those clients who are expecting something.

Vic: When you're in this industry a while you get all kinds of crazy requests. And part of it is knowing that some clients are just, it's okay, because you let go of clients over cleaners. When you've got good cleaners you will let go of a client before a cleaner.

Sandra: Yeah. Don't let your cleaners ever hold you hostage.

Vic: That's a good tip. Can we talk revenue a little bit, Sandra? Where are you at, monthly billing or annual, whatever you're comfortable sharing?

Sandra: Monthly I'm anywhere between 15 and 20.

Vic: A month. And she's talking thousands, not dollars. So anywhere between 15 and 20K a month. And you're not working with your business partner anymore?

Sandra: My business partner moved two years into our business.

Vic: So solopreneur, 15 to 20K a month. What are your goals for 2024?

Sandra: I want to provide financial freedom for myself and a legacy for my kids. I want them to live a life of financial freedom. Through being an entrepreneur they see the work it entails, and I want to be an example for them. I want them to know you can do this. You don't have to work for anybody.

You can make as much or as little money as you want. I'm a believer that you have more control than you give yourself credit for. It's easy to play the blame game and say it's because of circumstances, but the truth is if you stick to it and build consistency, you're the one who can get it done.

Vic: You're accountable to you. There's this myth a lot of my friends have who have job jobs, that's what I call them, job jobs, where somebody else controls what you do with your time. They believe it's more secure because it's Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, a steady paycheck. But I have a friend that's been laid off five times now.

To be fair, she's in the film industry, but the IT industry is the same right now. So there's this myth that it's secure. Not everybody's meant to do this. There's a reason only some of us are really successful in this industry. From what I've seen, it's this almost irrational belief in ourselves. And a lot of the people that are really successful have career changed.

Just like you, just like me. Every single person we've interviewed for the hot seat series has had a career change. They know what they're leaving behind didn't serve them, and what they're doing now is serving what they need.

Sandra: I'll tell you one of the reasons I decided I'm ready to go. I found out a gentleman I worked with was making double what I was making with less experience. I had 10-plus years of experience. I live in the south now, I'm from the north, and it was very different. When you have a job, you give so much of you.

For me as a mom, I gave so much of my family time to that company. So many missed moments. When I found that out it was like a kick in the face, and I thought, to what end? At what point is enough?

Vic: There's this need for safety. Is it safe? That doesn't feel safe to me.

Sandra: Right.

Vic: And it isn't. The truth is, instead of thinking, I have to go back because this is safe, what you should be thinking is, I need to create my own safety. There's nothing wrong with that, and it's very feasible to create a safety net for yourself.

Sandra: I feel like that's what happens to most people. They want to go back to the paycheck, so every Friday I get a paycheck. You're almost programmed. Which is why I tell my children, you're almost programmed to take these certain steps. You graduate high school, you go to college, you get a job, somebody pays you. I try to tell kids, that's not everybody's journey.

Vic: Especially not now. There's so much uncertainty.

Sandra: When I was at Merrill Lynch, there was a group of maybe 12 of us, one morning we got there and HR was in the office and by the time it was done there were maybe four or five of us left. There is no certainty. There's more certainty in you getting up in the morning and being able to do something to move the needle for you and yours.

Vic: So let's talk nitty gritty about what that actually looks like. When you say moving the needle forward, what are you actually doing in a day now?

Sandra: I'll be honest with you, a lot of the reason I haven't grown as much is because I have so many control issues. I want to do my numbers, I'm in finance, I want to look at the numbers and make sure everything's in order. Some of my time is spent on too much admin work instead of trying to grow. What I've learned and what I do now is learning what you don't like to do and what you've decided you're not going to do.

If you're not the person to make a 100 calls, that's not what you do. I'm in my 40s, I'm not going to do it. So my advice, if there's something you know you're not going to do, find somebody to do it. Don't not get it done, that's not an option. I used to spend most of my time trying to get referrals, trying to get reviews.

NiceJob, complete game changer.

Vic: Same. It's a game changer. The link is below for anybody watching this. NiceJob integrates. The software Sandra and I use is called Convertlabs, again link below, and NiceJob integrates with Convertlabs. It asks your clients for reviews in a way that's all tested and optimized, not horribly annoying. If the person says they'd give it five stars, it's a simple click, and then it asks, would you mind writing a review. It works like magic. Every month you get reviews.

Sandra: I used to be the one calling as soon as my girl checked out of a job, because I was in the, oh my gosh, what if I get a negative review. Now I'm like, if I get a review, I get a review. The truth is everybody knows there are crazy people, and most of the time when they leave those long reviews it's somebody nobody's looking at that way. It's a good opportunity for your ideal demographic to read them and go, oh, that's how they deal with the crazy ones, but I'm not crazy.

Vic: So negatives are actually a good thing. It's always hard for people who really care to hear that, but a negative review and how you respond to it shows your positive clients what your boundaries are and how you'll deal with them. It's a good thing.

Sandra: It is. I always feel like it's a little sketchy when you don't have any negative reviews. Nobody's perfect. I try to be consistent, so I go back to clients we did one-time cleanings for and follow up: are you ready for your next cleaning?

Vic: So you're doing the upsell to get them to become recurring.

Sandra: Right now I'm at about 30, maybe between 30 and 35 recurring.

Vic: That's not bad.

Sandra: I have these two contracts.

Vic: Let's talk about those. I'm excited, because that's very different, Sandra. I haven't talked to anybody in our community that does the contracts you do. If you're cool talking about them, I think it'll be really helpful for others.

Sandra: Let's do it. So I have three. Well, I have my 7-Elevens. Someone just called me, I had no idea what I was doing, no idea whatsoever. He's like, can you come do an estimate. I'm like, sure. I know nothing about estimates, nothing about commercial, I'm a finance person. I get there, this gas station is under construction, full of dust, and I'm thinking, I don't know how long this will take.

I come in my nice skirt, nice shirt, heels, ready to do whatever. I give him a number, and he comes back and says, this is how much I pay my people in Virginia, can you do it for that amount? I said, of course. Take the book and scramble. In my head I thought, this is the perfect opportunity to backtrack and figure out, if somebody in Virginia is charging this much, what is that price based on.

I want you to know my pricing, people always ask how I came up with it. I don't know, I just picked the number, and then I did research and over time it worked out. The whole window thing, how much do you charge for windows, I don't know, I charge $10 per pane. Both sides.

So 40 bucks. You just kind of go with it. I learned how to do square footage in commercial properties because one day I was literally counting with my feet across the whole store, and everybody was looking at me like I was crazy. The electrician was there and said, are you trying to find out the square footage?

I said, I am. He said, look up, each of these blocks is two feet. And I was like, oh my God, like in elementary school. Never did the feet-counting thing again. Now I just look up, do the math, and I look like a genius.

Vic: I love that guy.

Sandra: It's about you being present in your business. Rohan and Kevin don't do commercial, so this was one of those things where I went in knowing nothing, but I know there's an opportunity for learning. And it's about relationships. This is a service business about relationships. I've had this 7-Eleven relationship since 2017. They call me whenever. We've even traveled to Virginia for this guy. He's a great person, so when I'm able, I'll go anywhere.

Vic: How often does your team clean the 7-Elevens? How big of a contract does that work out to be?

Sandra: It has slowed down drastically. They used to build, I want to say like 10 in a year, and they've slowed down quite a bit. When COVID hit everything went in a different direction. I did have a team of cleaners who specifically did the 7-Elevens. One of the things I mentioned before, not allowing your cleaners to hold you hostage.

Sometimes you need to clean house. Sometimes your flowers become leaves, and if you don't pull them in time they'll drag you down. I tell cleaners, my enjoyment comes from serving you as a cleaner and serving my clients. That's my joy. I develop relationships, but I try not to make them too personal, because there needs to be a line.

When you allow those lines to cross, they'll take advantage of it, thinking that without them you don't exist, when it's actually the opposite. This year I got rid of two cleaners I'd worked with for years. It just wasn't working anymore, and that's okay.

Vic: This is a simple business. I don't know if you recall, Kevin had a story, I think he was on a boat somewhere. There aren't a lot of things that should be causing you stress. If your cleaner's causing you stress, she's not the one. There's another one around the corner.

Sandra: The security thing comes from being in the job market for so long. For me it was about keeping the security. I knew I could send them anywhere and they did a five-star job every single time. But eventually if you're not doing a five-star job or you're disrespecting me, that's not an option. There are certain things that are non-negotiable.

Vic: That's fair. So how many cleaners are you working with now?

Sandra: Right now I have five cleaners I work with consistently. I do have a carpet cleaning guy.

Vic: Interesting. So you've diversified.

Sandra: I've always done carpet cleaning, I just don't market it. If it comes to me, it's easy. There's no reason I don't market it, it's one of those daily consistency things. That's the consistency of the business that I feel is harder. If you build consistency around doing the things that move the needle, like making the calls, following up with those one-time cleans and those move-outs.

They moved somewhere, why can't you clean the house they moved into? Every move-out is an opportunity to get a recurring.

Vic: Rohan calls that the low-hanging fruit. Why aren't you following up with people that have already booked with you? They know your company's good.

Sandra: I'll be the first to admit I don't always. But for a couple months back, I followed up with every Thumbtack contact I ever had. I said, hey, at some point you reached out to us, how's it going, do you need cleaning now? I was doing 20 a day, text messages if I had their number, emails if I had their email, 20 a day, and they were converting. Ask me why I stopped.

Vic: Life. You got a puppy.

Sandra: But those things work. Not reinventing, just doing the work and staying in there. A mentor of mine always told me, whenever you feel like you have to give up, when it's just too much, that is you coming to a crossroad. That is the moment you get over it, and there is so much more on the other side. So I won't quit.

Vic: Let's circle back. You said your goal is financial freedom, intergenerational wealth, time freedom. What is that number for you?

Sandra: You know what, I don't even know what that number is.

Vic: Isn't it funny? When you first started I bet you had a number, and then as you keep going you get more time freedom, your financial freedom is that you're paying your own bills and you don't need someone else. I'm the same way. I had a goal when we first started, I want to bill three million a year, because we believed if we billed three million we could sell for 10 million.

But now we know in Canada it's not as simple as that. That's still the goal, but it's a moving target. The real goal is time freedom, being able to decide what I do with my day every day. You can't put a number on that.

Sandra: I thought everybody thinks a million, I just want to make a million. A million may be enough. But as you grow in this business and as a person, you realize there really is no number. For me it's about the service itself, the relationships, and less about the finance. The finance part will grow as far as you want to take it.

There's no limit. As long as I continue to service and develop these relationships. I have another relationship, the Bryce, with Spruce. The Bryce is an apartment complex.

Vic: So we talked about one contract for 7-Eleven, this is the other one, apartment complexes.

Sandra: The other one is the Bryce. I got it through a friend. Here's a tidbit I've learned: do you want to service your friends and family? Probably not, you don't want to get into their mess. But you still need to develop the relationship so they know what you do. I got the Bryce contract from a coworker back in the day.

They had a cleaner who started not showing up, they ran into a jam, and he called me, hey, I need a favor, I need somebody to clean these three apartments today. Did I have those cleaners? Absolutely not. I said yes, pulled my cleaners from different jobs, and told them, I need you to go clean these three apartments.

This contract is very lucrative. I was on a call with Rohan one day and said, look, I'm depositing this check, probably a two or three thousand dollar check. The way I do it, I have one cleaner who does eight apartment buildings.

Vic: It's the exact same story. People always ask, how do you get into commercial? You go into residential, get your reviews, and commercial finds you. You book and scramble, and then figure it out. What I find in terms of recruiting is it's easier to find cleaners that can do commercial than residential, because it's simpler, it's repetitive.

In my mind it's the most boring of all our contracts, so it takes a special kind of cleaner that enjoys that repetition, and one cleaner can do eight buildings, no problem. Ironically, that one cleaner we pay an hourly rate. All our other cleaners we pay 60% of the grand total, but because it's commercial it's hourly. We still pay her a rate, but she's technically making less per hour than our other cleaners, and yet she bills more per month because of those eight buildings.

What I love is she's making a lot more money than she's used to, she's exceptionally happy, she takes such pride, she's never called in sick, these are her buildings, there's an ownership factor. But building maintenance just underwent management changes and they're letting our cleaner go, which is painful financially and a little emotionally, because now we're putting her back into residential and she's feeling some anxiety.

Sandra: The struggle with those contracts is they pay net 30, and sometimes not even 30, so you have to front that money. It's nice to get the check when you get it. Right now outstanding with the Bryce I have maybe $7,000. I used to pay out 60%, now I'm paying out 55%. I only do contractors, I don't do employees.

I've gone back and forth on the right thing, and it goes back to the things you don't want to do. I don't want to carry inventory. I wanted at one point to build a brand, but I don't want to tell you what to wear. There's no excitement for me in that.

Vic: It's not what your clients are looking for either. If they wanted that, they'd hire Merry Maids or Molly Maids, the two big national residential brands. They're looking for Maid Knows Best, or ours, Oak Bay Clean, because we're not those. So there's no point wasting your money.

Sandra: Oh, I wish everybody would listen to this piece of advice. Do not spend a dime, not even a dime, on the branding of your car, your clothes, your business cards. I did all that. We had things on our car, the checklist, the shirt with the logo. We were trying to do the whole Molly Maid thing. Then I got to a point where I actually attended the whole program again.

Vic: That's good.

Sandra: Because I was like, what is all this, this can't be it. Sometimes you have to hit the reset button, and that is okay. It doesn't mean you failed, it just means you didn't listen very closely the first time. You tried to put yourself into the business plan, into the business program, and it's not about you.

This has already been tested. You don't go try to make your own vaccines, it's already tested, it already works. He gave you the road map, and if you follow it, it works. I ventured out a little to commercial, and I feel the stress and suffering of what that is. Rohan and Kevin keep it simple.

You don't have to worry about net 30. And don't worry, because there'll be another residential client right around the corner.

Vic: There are slow periods. In our business, and this is fair for anybody dealing with financial transactions, January and February are going to be the difficult months. It's logical, because Christmas just happened, and Christmas in North America is mass consumption, it all goes on your credit cards. By the end of January, beginning of February, your credit card bills come. But by the end of February, beginning of March, the calls start coming in again. It happens every year.

Sandra: The numbers don't lie. My January was 11,000, my February was 18. December was 15, January was 11, February was 18.

Vic: Wow. It's across the board, that is just how those numbers are. And still, when you get to January, what do you do? A lot of people throw in the towel because they're still thinking about January. You need to think on a larger scale. Every business, even the one that pays you a paycheck, goes through these months.

They don't tell you about it, they don't have a meeting about a slow month, but every business goes through it. You've got to stay in there, show up for your business, yourself, and your family, and do something that moves the needle, whether that's updating your Google or something else.

Sandra: I've tried the government contracts, which is a lot of work. I did all the paperwork, but I haven't really ventured out because I don't think I'm ready financially on that 30 days.

Vic: What you're talking about, we have commercial clients now, so we have months where we're short $17,000 that's coming in 30 days, provided that company doesn't go bankrupt. If they go bankrupt, we're out that 17 grand. That's why we're always talking residential, because they pay Visa, Mastercard, Amex, it all goes through Stripe, it's integrated with Convertlabs. You hit charge, it shows up in your bank account a couple days later.

In our case we pay same day. A lot of people pay every Friday or every two weeks. We find it easier to pay daily. That's the one thing I do every day, between 4 and 5 I sit down and pay the cleaners.

Sandra: I pay everybody through Wednesday. They get paid every Friday for the week before. Their first week they don't get paid, just like at a job. The Spruce contract is my third contract. Spruce is a company based out of Texas, and they've consumed a lot of our luxury apartment complexes. They've come up with a way to integrate with the building's website, so when you go to pay your rent online, you can get a Spruce cleaning.

I got that lead through Thumbtack. In the beginning he gave me his pricing and I said, that's ridiculous, you're so under market, why would I ever do this. Then I saw it as an opportunity to fill in the day for the cleaners. The payout for a cleaner is between 50 and 100 bucks.

That's low, but it's filler. I tell my cleaners, look for a day where you have one house and two apartments, that's your day. If both properties pay 50, 60 bucks, that's 100, 120 bucks you wouldn't have otherwise. It's a win-win. They do a classic clean, a deep clean, a regular clean, a move-out.

Not move-outs for every one, some complexes already have an agreement with someone else. I do about 10 of those bookings a week.

Vic: That's a lot. That's great.

Sandra: I have a cleaner who only does Spruce, she does about two or three cleanings a day, makes anywhere from five to $700 a week. A lot of our cleaners are moms, they want to be there to pick up their kids at the bus stop, done by two. Some only do one apartment a day. Is it a lot of money?

No. But is it more money than you would usually make in that time? Sure. If she's working four hours a day and taking home 100, 150 bucks, and she has the time freedom that she could say no. It works. Their pay structure is better, the money hits on Wednesday, direct deposit, for the week of.

Vic: That's not bad.

Sandra: Aside from the fact that it makes a low profit. For each cleaning I'm not making much of a profit. I didn't do the 60-40 split, I couldn't, it was too low. So I adjusted the pricing for that. Across the board I do about 55. I used to do 60, everybody got 60. What I realized is, I'm doing a lot of work, and as I grow, if I'm giving you a lot of cleanings, that percentage has to go down.

If I'm giving you 10 cleanings a week, I can't pay you 60%, the numbers don't work. So I do 55%, unless it's a pain-in-the-butt client, then the cleaner gets more, or somebody who spends a lot of time in that home because they have kids, then I'll pay 60. But for the most part I pay out at 55.

Vic: That's fair. Within our community some people have it reversed, they pay 40% and keep 60. It's whatever works for you, your business, your cleaners, finding that sweet spot, and more importantly keeping it simple so you can scale. What I love about 2024, post-pandemic, is that pay transparency is now on the forefront of employees' minds.

The ones on board with pay transparency are getting more applications, better qualified applications. And I mean, this is what it pays, not this is what it pays if you're a man, which they can't say, but that's what's happened forever. It's a really radical, very simple new approach. We pay a percentage, that's it.

It doesn't matter if you have 20 years of experience. You do need experience, because we're not doing the training, but it works, because there's no pushback on, well, I deserve more. This is a job, you're doing a job, and everybody gets the same. It's my favorite thing about this business.

Sandra: It's the same with clients. Cleaning is a luxury. You either can afford to get your house cleaned or you can't. They're like, you're too expensive. Okay, well, I give you quality, but there are a lot of cleaners you can go get a $60 cleaning from, go for it. That's your choice. I don't negotiate my price.

Vic: Me neither.

Sandra: I'm very respectful. I appreciate you giving me a call, but we don't negotiate pricing. We pay our girls a living wage. I wish you all the best, and if you change your mind you're welcome to give me a call. And if you find that great cleaner willing to work for that, please give them my number, I'm always hiring.

Vic: When people tell you, so-and-so used to clean my house for $60, okay, but why is she not cleaning your house? Because she found another client who's going to pay more. They always come up with the same, she got sick or she had to leave. No, she dropped you, or she wasn't doing the job. Those are the two options.

Sandra: In the beginning I did negotiate, because you're like, I want to get this client. Then I said, no. I never claim to be the cheapest. I am not the cheapest in Charlotte. Why would I want to be the cheapest? When I think I'm going to offer you the cheapest service, I think I'm going to offer you the least quality. In my brain, that's how it works.

Vic: I was doing research on pricing in a new city we were expanding to, so I reached out to a bunch of cleaning companies to get a sense of the rate. One of them put me on a spam list and recently said, we're going to give you 50% off for the year if you sign up for this contract. As the owner of a cleaning business, let me tell you why that's a terrible idea. Number one, you just discounted your labor, because the only thing you're paying for in cleaning is a human being, by 50%.

Gross. Number two, you're roping people into a yearlong contract, which means you need cash flow because that person's going to pay ahead. Number three, you can't fire that client now. As Sandra just said, and every single person I've interviewed says, you have to be able to let your clients go if you have good cleaners.

A client that just paid 50% off for a whole year, that is not the kind of person I want to spend my time on, because that person's going to be calling me, she didn't use a toothbrush to clean my baseboards. No thank you. Thank you, next.

Sandra: You got it.

Vic: It's been an hour, so I want to be conscious of your time. Are there any last bits of advice you haven't had a chance to share, for somebody just starting out thinking about getting into this industry?

Sandra: If you're cleaning, stop cleaning. You are allowed to go to one cleaning for the experience. You are not allowed to clean. You are not a cleaner, you are a business owner. You have to play that role. This is no different from any other industry in the sense that you own your business. Whether you're contracting or doing employees and W-2s, that is logistics. You are a business owner and you need to play that role.

Vic: And honestly, the community we're talking about is connected to Convertlabs, there are over 400 people in there who all share best practices, worst practices, whatever, it's all about transparency. Because Sandra's business in North Carolina has nothing to do with my business in Canada.

Sandra: Do not be a hater. There is enough business for everybody.

Vic: The one consistent piece of advice, stop cleaning. It breaks my heart because there are so many amazing cleaners who find us on YouTube and then want to build the dollars we're building, and they get frustrated because they want to control. Sandra, at the beginning you said your biggest issue is control, and recognizing it is the first step. But then you also had to put that into place and stop cleaning.

I remember talking to you two years ago and you'd be at the 7-Eleven at two in the morning.

Sandra: I was not sleeping. I would get home, shower, and take my children to school in the morning. One day I could not comb my hair, my hands hurt so bad, and my 15-year-old son was combing my hair. I was sitting in front of the mirror and I said to myself, that's enough. This was never the plan.

It comes from not being able to let go and wanting to control everything. Can you do it better than everybody? Probably. Do you have more commitment? Absolutely, it's your business. But there are other people who can do it just as well. You are not the top of the crop all the time. If someone's not doing it quick enough, I'll do it.

If I ask you to do something and you're not doing it right, I'm going to do it my way. You can be that way, but you can't grow in that space of wanting to hold on.

Vic: There are days in this business where you won't have a lot to do. But charge the cards. You have to get used to it, because we're so programmed to believe in busy, especially in North America. Europe has this figured out better, a lot of the European countries are like, no, we're going to take holiday, thank you very much.

Sandra: The guilt will set in if you don't. That is exactly how we feel, guilty for not doing something.

Vic: Jen told me I've got to stop talking about yoga in these calls, but I do go to yoga every single day. I carve out two hours of every workday as a non-negotiable, because my job is to be nice and kind to people, and in order to do that I've got to ground myself. For me that's yoga, for someone else it might be golfing. Husein, who's in our community, golfs every day.

He's 40-something, billing 50, 60K a month, and he golfs every day. Good for you. You handle the things that set you off better when you realize your job is to juggle all the balls in the air and learn to have a life.

Sandra: I am struggling, I just started. This is day 28 for me. I decided I needed to do 30 days of something non-business related, related to my personal growth. I've tried to read the Bible I don't know how many times, and I decided I'm going to read one chapter a day for 30 days.

I'm on day 28. This is the farthest I've ever come, because I always feel like there's guilt involved. If I'm doing something for myself, I should be doing something for the business. You fill yourself with that and forget to live your life. Part of why you're doing this business, you're an entrepreneur because you want to live a different lifestyle.

If you're heading into your business all the time and you don't give yourself quality me time, it's counterproductive. You should be growing spiritually, emotionally, financially, the same way your business is growing. If you're throwing yourself headfirst into your business, there will come a moment where you crash, and you don't have the luxury of crashing. So you have to continue to invest in yourself the same way you invest in your business.

Vic: Right.

Sandra: There are so many people who don't. You have a business, but you ultimately want to retire. Find yourself a financial advisor, sit down and talk. You get to have a 401k, you get to have some sort of investment for your future. The business is important, but it's not everything in your life. When I opened up my retirement piece for the business, it gave me back a little bit of that job security thing.

As a business owner you can still invest in your retirement. You just have to ask the right person and use your resources. I always think about everybody who's helped me along the way. When somebody says, what can I do for you, pass it along. How many checklists have I given people, how do you do your pricing, here's my website, go ahead and look at all my pricing, copy it, as long as it's not in my town.

Vic: Rohan, don't come to my town.

Sandra: But honestly, our business, Rohan started this and he helped his cleaner grow her business, and eventually it was her business. It's the same thing we do for ours. This is your business, you are a 1099, you can make this as big or as small as you want. And success leaves clues, so reach out to people in our community, how did you do this, what did you do here.

Vic: The people that are the most successful in our community do exactly that. They reach out, hey guys, I found this amazing new tip, this is what I've tweaked with my Google ads, this is how I do my Thumbtack approach. The business networking group BNI always says givers gain, and it's that approach, the more you give the more you get, within reason. When you're using Convertlabs, it literally is a button, the Convertlabs community, and you've got access to all of these people.

I love that philosophy, because we're not competing with each other. It's a scarcity mindset, and we don't have that. We know there's more around the corner every single day. So it's 8:11. Thank you for meeting me at 7 AM, the only hour we could carve out.

Sandra: I'm up anyway, my cleaners are already getting out the door, what's my excuse.

Vic: All I've got to do is sit here on Zoom drinking my morning coffee with the lovely Sandra. Thank you so much for your time, we really appreciate it.

Sandra: Thank you so much for having me. Anytime. This is going to be fun. I'm going to see how Jen edits this together.