Episode 136: Love Language Behind Christa Myricks’s Cleaning Business

Episode 136: Love Language Behind Christa Myricks’s Cleaning Business

Brandon Schoen:
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Profit Cleaners podcast. The only place where you can learn from the top 1% of cleaning business owners from around the world to take it to the next level and win. And guys, thank you so much for being here. We appreciate the opportunity. You're joined by Brandon Condre and Brandon Shane here in the house.

So how's it going? Brandon, Condrey, Things are good. Things are good. Awesome man. We just got off of some really awesome coaching calls and we've been doing some other fun strategy calls with you guys, so podcast is gonna be a really fun interview. Let's tell people a little bit about Krista Brandon, where she's from, her company. Yeah,

So Krista owns Hope Cleaning Co and you can find that@hopecleaning.co. And she is on the east side of Mobile Bay in Mobile, Alabama. But the areas they service are Fairhope, Daphne and Spanish Fort. And so, you know, this is like a longer one than we normally do, but it was really good conversation. You know, Krista has some background in HR and so we talked a little bit about that and talked about how she found her way to running a cleaning business.

And I think you can also get some value over it and see what's possible if you just kind of follow the system, do the work, it's good stuff. Yeah, absolutely guys, so this is a really inspiring story again from Krista. You probably already have heard some of the backstory if you heard her other podcast, but go listen to it. I owe you a beer or eight.

Ultimately that's what we're doing here guys, is we're we're sharing knowledge, we're sharing our experience and everything that we can give to you guys to help you as you're growing your cleaning businesses. And again, just some of the highlights I thought with the cleaning business. And yeah, we just had some really impactful insights along the way. Chris just started this cleaning business about three years ago,

you know, in 2024 she is gonna break through seven figures. So I think that's an amazing, amazing testament to, you know, if you just keep sticking through it, you keep taking action, you don't give up, you know you can do that as well. And the sky is the starting point and you guys can absolutely take this knowledge that we're sharing with you,

Chris, that you know, definitely listened to our podcast. A lot of you guys listen to the podcast and start cleaning businesses just from listening to the podcast. But Krista actually worked with us in our coaching and in our program and I think she said she probably still could have done it on her own, but it gave her so much confidence and so much more knowledge to take more action.

And so again guys, if you are starting your cleaning business, if you're just getting going wherever you're at in the journey, take some inspiration from Chris to here and see what's possible. And again, a rising tide raises all ships. We're all here to learn and get better together. So I think that's pretty much it. Let's jump into it Brandon,

and should be a fun conversation with Chris. All right, Grow your cleaning business, make more money, have more time. This is the Profit Cleaners podcast with your host Brandon Condre. And Brandon Shane. All right, welcome everyone to this interview today we are joined by Krista Myrick and thank you so much for being here. Krista, this is an amazing opportunity to just hear your story and share with the Profit Cleaners where you've kind of all the progress you've made over the last few years.

And we did, did share on an earlier episode, just like you reached out recently and sent us an email about the growth you've had over the last few years and just where you've come. And so I just can't wait to hear your story today and just hear like more of the progress you've made. And like again, the whole point of this is to inspire people,

show people what's possible. So you know, Brandon and I obviously have been in the cleaning business for a while, but the more and more we hear you guys' stories, the more it encourages us to keep going. Because at one point Brandon and I were like, is anybody out there listening to this? Does anybody care? But the more we hear your stories,

the more it's like really compelling for us to just be like, and this is amazing. This is the most rewarding experience ever to to hear your story. So Krista welcome today, Krista's from Alabama. Tell us about your cleaning business. Let's jump into it Krista. Yeah, thank y'all so much. This is so fun. If you had told me three years ago and I'm like walking around my neighborhood,

listening to you guys that I'd be on the podcast, I'm not sure how I would've felt about that, but yeah, and I'm so glad I reached out. You know, just kind of been quietly listening and I'm a more of a content consumer than what I've put out there or have been and, but I thought, you know, if it were me,

like I would definitely wanna know the impact that I'm having on people's lives. So thank y'all so much for what you're doing and I'm so glad you did not quit. But yeah, so gosh, where to start? We it, I must have been feeling really good and really confident that day that I said it because I listened to the podcast and that was awesome.

But then you know, the life of a business owner, you like start the year off and I remember like January one, I'm like man, this is my year. Like only 24, you know? And then I think this might be if we make it through tomorrow, the first week, like full week we've had of school, they were like,

kids got sick, I got sick, like the weather dipped below 40 and the school's closed and then they were out a week for Mardi GRA break and all these things. And I'm just like, man, whew, I'm now, it's smart. But I'm very blessed that half created us some flexibility with this business. Doesn't mean that it's easier, that there's not not anything that needs to be done so,

and so, yeah, the business will be three on April 1st of this year and so launched kind of coming, I guess coming outta the height of the pandemic. But that was really such a crazy time for everybody with, I think so many businesses were born in that time when people had just, you know, little room to breathe and be creative and think a lot of thinking probably during that time for everybody.

And I was working for another company, my career history, my education as in human human resource management. And so I was helping another business at the time navigate all these challenges in terms of, well the biggest cha the challenge was staffing, which I know that y'all dealt with as well for an essential business. But then all of the cleaning and the time off requirements and paying with the time off requirements and all of that stuff.

But I was no stranger to helping. I worked with a couple different size organizations and throughout my career, but really those small business owners who were growing their businesses was where I spent the bulk of the time and knew at some point like I could do this. You know, it felt like I was called to do this and then felt the need in our community for the cleaning business because I was my own target customer,

you know? And I couldn't find the help that I really needed. And it's always been kind of my love language anyways. You know, when somebody's going through something I would want to help. Like I, that's how I felt like I could provide some value. But it's weird if you don't have a cleaning business to like go to somebody's house that's like on bedrest and their laundry's piling up and be like,

just let me help you. Nobody wants to let, let a friend help them. So it's easier with the business. It's almost like I am gonna have this platform to like then be able to able to provide that value to people. And so really the idea started as a nonprofit and you learn if you've ever looked into nonprofits, that that's actually a lot more work in terms of the paperwork and the board of directors and all of the requirements for actually why Did you wanna run it as a nonprofit to begin with?

I'm really curious. Well, because the answer I was thinking I just said a very good one because it really did start that way actually. I mean a, a pastor in my church would would say, you know, you have different gifts and like maybe at one point in your life you have year in your working years and stuff and you don't have time but you have money to type and then maybe another point in your life like,

or if you don't work or if you're older or whatever, then maybe you don't have a lot of extra money but you could go like clean people's houses. And he used that example and it stuck with me and that was probably 10 years ago that I heard this sermon. But I know, and I have always been a very big believer in just kind of the power and the connection of a clean environment and mental health.

Like I said, that's, you know, what I was going whenever I was having babies or whatever, like that was my biggest thing is like, no, I need to schedule a c-section so I, so I can know the house is gonna be clean when I go home. And that's like super crazy to say out loud and this is not the direction I thought this conversation was gonna go,

but, but like I said, I wanted in the beginning it to be a way that I could give back. Yeah. To the community. And I'm very blessed that I've not ever had to be super motivated by money. And so, you know that's, It's a lovely reason why Obviously now like you're running a business and you're like, I work hard,

I need to make money. I mean so I mean we've talked about it in the past but you have a really good reason why, why you wanted to start it. And if you just follow that like you have, then the money typically follows as long as you run a good organization. And I think you found that we've never toyed with the nonprofit side we did with the cancer cleans.

The hospital did tell us one time that if we formed a nonprofit that there were grants that could get us to perform the cleaning for cancer patients. We never went down that road because of the same issue that you had, which is there's a lot of paperwork involved and nonprofits are hardcore because it's a lot of, it's one of the ways that people kind of launder money.

There's a lot of shady nonprofits out there and so that's why the regulation on it's so high. Yeah. I have another question though. And I think I idea of like the, in the beginning like yeah being able to fund these free claims instead of just like as a business, like it just being out of your pocket, but then also that more of that community I felt like would be less lonely almost.

Do you know what I mean? To have like the board and to be able to put yourself out there in that way. In your previous life, your HR manager life, you dealt with a lot of small businesses that needed your help. What did you take away from those meetings with those businesses that made you say, I want to do this? Because oftentimes businesses seeking out HR help are maybe not in the most comfortable spot 'cause they're,

I mean some of them are growing so they need help, which is great. A couple times we've set out an HR person is someone you know, said they were gonna call a lawyer when we fired them for whatever reason and we needed to have our policies reviewed to make sure that we were doing things the correct way. So what were those experiences like and how did you come away from that being?

I'm definitely starting a business as a result of this. So first of all, HR has a really bad reputation and there's a reason why and I hate that. I've never been that kind of HR person. Like yes there are things you have to have in place to protect the business in this climate. But I kind of fell into hr, I didn't go to school for that.

I was a psychology major. I dunno, I'm not gonna let my kids be a psychologist. My Brother was a psych major, he works at a construction company now You're like, whatcha gonna, yeah. But I, I kind of fell into it because I was kind of pursuing my next step in life. I knew I wanted to pursue more education,

so wasn't sure I would and I started, took on kind of a temporary position or I thought I was gonna be temporary with a growing company as like an executive assistant, the two who was the COO at the time and he passed all the stuff off that he didn't wanna do, which was kind of that transactional HR stuff, right? You know, like setting up,

you know, getting the handbook, working with the attorney, write the handbook, setting up payroll, you know, kind of getting benefits is the, but also the business. I was doing everything that from scouting locations because when I worked there the first 18 months I worked there, the business grew from like three to seven locations. And so I just kind of fell into that on accident and had the opportunity to then pursue a master's degree while I was working in this position,

which was amazing and I would recommend that to anybody if you had the opportunity because I was able to, you know, apply what I was learning in that program every day. So that, that was huge. And then eventually I just kind of kind of outgrew that and took a much smaller position with a really large company and was able, able to grow with them and they just had an amazing leadership team that,

you know, I can't, I've just been very lucky to have just amazing mentors my whole career. But that got to be that, you know, like I traveled, my husband traveled, I loved that job, but if I had stayed there, like I never would've seen a baseball game. You know, I, it was just really tough and we kind of had to make some decisions.

And so then, then I tried to be a stay at home mom and I was really bad at that because I'm just not, I'm not wired that way and I have the biggest respect, I think that's the hardest job in the whole world. But went back into the small business and that was more of the same growing chains of quick serve franchise restaurants for a local business owner.

And he was amazing. And when I decided, you know, there are a couple steps there so I kind of had thought through different things but he was a role model as well and so supportive. I continued to work for him as I was launching the cleaning business. Just so supportive. And, but I had seen, you know, I had seen all these behind the scenes and I had played a part in this growth,

you know, I would, I would go and and hire and train for a new location and kind of help them through the onboarding processes. I had done that so many times with other businesses and then again just personally felt the need of this business. So it kind of all came together and in that time when I knew the direction I wanted to take,

but you like when you have in your head like I'm gonna start a cleaning business, but like that's not sexy and like I don't know how to tell people that and I don't really actually know how to execute. And that's when I started, you know, really pursuing kind of getting information from others and I found you guys, that's what I said before,

like that confidence piece is huge. Like Yeah, you just don't want to be like the only person doing the thing, especially when you consider it unsexy and so do a lot of other people. I remember when I quit, I quit my six figure sales job in science, which I majored in in genetics, which was my passion. And when they told me,

they asked me why I was quitting, I'm gonna start a cleaning company. They're like, why? What, what is it about? Is it like a special cleaning company? I'm like, Nope, just houses man. That's it. And they looked at me like I was crazy but I was miserable at that job. I traveled all the time. Traveling was super fun when I didn't have kids and it was just me and my wife.

And then as soon as my daughter was able to talk and get really upset when I had to leave to go to the airport, I was like, I can't, I can't keep doing this anymore. It had been like a decade of flying around to do that. So yeah, we have a very similar path. So I find it interesting and that was one of the things that Brandon and I said when we started is we wanna bring,

you know like some Silicon Valley type practices and things like that to an unsexy business model, which is the mom and pop cleaning company. And most of them have been around for a really long time. Like in the case of those franchises, those guys got up and running in like the early seventies and then didn't change anything. They still run stuff on carbon copy paper and they don't have a computer system.

And when we realized that that's what we were up against, I'm like, I mean this, I feel like this is gonna be easy. Obviously that was, it was not easy. Running a business is very, very difficult. But the overall model I think stood the test of time and we started going up against mom and pops that just weren't, you know,

like millennials aged out to the point where they're making money and they wanna spend time with their families. Like that's a big difference between like, you know, the baby boomers and millennials is that they're spending a lot more time with their kids or spending time and experiences, which means they don't want to clean their house. There is no stay at home mom in millennial families usually.

So yeah, that was, that was huge for us when we realized that and you know, like just the fact that we were willing to text people and other ones you had to call and they wouldn't answer. I feel like just that alone was like, whoa, you guys are amazing. I'm like, we haven't even done anything. This is not that hard.

Sometimes it feels like the bar is not quite high enough, you know, like we, our second year in business at 2022, we also partnered with Cleaning for a Reason and we were awarded like their top 100 cleaning partners list for that year. But we didn't even do that much because we also do, we do stuff outside of cleaning for reason as well.

But I think we, I'm not even gonna say the number but, and we were the only one on the list that made it and the whole state of Alabama, which I was like, I dunno whether proud or sad about this but, but then it's also like okay all these other companies are saying that they partnered with this organization and they didn't make the list and I'm like kind of local.

I'm like, I know what I did. Yeah, That people run things a different way, especially if they're stuck in their way and they're not gonna change. Shane, you got any thoughts there? You're very quiet over there. This is just, I'm just enthralled with this conversation. It's amazing. But I really, what I love the most about what you said so far Krista is just your servant heart.

You know, you wanna serving the community, all the things you did leading up to this point kind of prepared you for this and the HR and like seeing what you didn't like about that and it, I'm sure it's helped you with just being more comfortable hiring and and dealing with people, managing people and understanding that. But I just love what you said about,

you know, you wanted to help your community and you know from, you know, after talking to your pastor and getting the light bulb went off and you're like now we can actually serve people in these other ways. And that's what it really feels like. I can remember many, many times, especially with the cancer cleans people just like inviting us into their,

their home having coffee with their family, they couldn't believe we were cleaning their house. Like there's just so much impact that you make helping anybody in the community but just in general with this service, you really are impacting people's lives, not just your life and your team's life. It's like incredible to realize you're delivering happiness, you're delivering their time back so they can do more of what they love.

And I just think hearing what you said, you know, like having that initial intention which was to go serve and help people and do it maybe in a professional way because like you said, it felt weird doing it as a friend, but people will, will definitely have a company come do that. And then on top of that, you know, you continue to do that with cleaning for a reason and just reaching out and we're trying to find more ways to do that as well.

But it's just like when you help people in a genuine way and when you're solving a real problem that is an example of really like one of the best businesses and it and the reciprocity and kind of the karma that comes back from that I think from serving people and helping people in all these ways, you know, you're living proof of it. I think we are too.

Just, you know, that business will come back to you. People will wanna share that and work with you and and if you're doing good things and helping people, like you're gonna gonna grow and you're gonna continue to excel and make progress. And so that's what I hear from what you've been doing. It's just really incredible to hear that story so far and and where you've come from and everything you've learned up to this point and on the journey.

So do you feel like the HR and everything you've done up to this point has prepared you kind of for this business or helped you in additional ways other than the mentors and everybody you had? Do you feel like that's been helpful? Oh yeah, I mean for sure. And just two things real quick about the, that I wasn't really expecting about the pro bono leads are like I don't get to really personally benefit from that so much anymore 'cause I'm not the one out there doing it,

but the team members love it and yeah, you know, that's part of what I look for when I'm hiring as well. But they just love it, you know, everybody wants to feel like they're doing more than just like cleaning houses, right? So I think it really helps with reducing our turnover and stuff like that as well, making them proud to be part of the business and proud of,

of where they work and they really look forward to those and that obviously benefits the business. And then we've had so many that then like they get through the treatment, they sign on as regular paying customers or you know, they just write about us. So it's interesting that it's actually good for the financial health business as well and the culture and all that of course.

But yes, I, I mean yes and no to the the HR question, yes in the sense that going in like so many people are afraid of starting a business or just hiring help if they are the business because they're terrified of that part, right? And that's like the one part I wasn't terrified of, but you know, because I didn't have like I,

you know, fails marketing, you kind have to just figure all that out until you don't have to do everything anymore. But, but then also I got to experience I the flip side, whereas as an HR business partner, like you're a coach, you're basically like an inside coach to this organization and like I never as an HR person like fired anybody or hired anybody or anything like that because I wanted the manager to own that.

And so, you know, we, we'd kind of consult internally but I wasn't having to actually do some of these things like they weren't my employees. And so now it's just crazy 'cause it's so much harder and so many times like I know what I need to do, but I have to really like stay on myself to actually hold people myself accountable in some areas because it,

it is so much harder when like it's just you, like there's no, you know, there's no like blaming a policy because if your policy, right? So that's been tough and I've had to, but I've, I feel like I definitely feel like I've gotten better at that and you know, because people, I think people know like if you care,

like you care about them, but then sometimes it's just business and it's like, hey I realize x, YZ has happened, I know you're going through some stuff, but the same time like I've got a business to run. So, you know, there's some tough conversations but I think that ultimately the team respects that and if they don't it's not a good fit.

But yeah. Yeah, You, you can't take those small hard conversations. Personally, I remember being very upset the first couple times we terminated someone and we terminated one person right away and then we had a really long stretch where we didn't have to do it again and then we went through a spat of it. 'cause you just get to a size where,

I mean look man, this is gonna happen pretty constantly. And so we're, you know, we've got 60 plus employees now and I think we are doing interviews every week and someone is leaving or being terminated every week unfortunately that's just like the nature of the gig. Either they find what we're doing too difficult, too fast, they don't wanna work like that.

Or worse they do something that is, you know, a terminable offense and we have to cut 'em loose. And so I don't see that part going away. But one of my favorite parts about business, about being an entrepreneur is that it is on you. And then that is the scary slash fun part. So yep, it's your policy, you screwed up.

But don't worry, I also get to fix it and I get to figure out how we went wrong along the way And then you know, there's just like we have the person, Rena, who's doing our hiring and firing and things like that, she was our trainer for a long time. And then the hiring, interviewing following up like it's just so hard to get people to show up for the interviews.

A lot of them are, you know, applying online so they can keep collecting their state benefits and show the unemployment office that yes we, I did apply for a job but you know like we, they don't actually respond to come on in, we'll talk to you right now like we'll take an interview right now. So she moved from training to more of this HR sort of position and then we had to get a trainer in there to support her and now she's missing meetings 'cause of all these interviews.

And so this is a constant moving, growing puzzle. Like you're adding more and more pieces to a jigsaw puzzle. Like you started out at a hundred pieces and now you're up to like 10,000 and you just are constantly juggling all these things and people find that terrifying. I find it kind of fun. Like I think this is a creative endeavor. I think running a business is a creative endeavor.

You made something from scratch, you went out and found us on a Google search and so that just means that you were trying to fit the pieces of the puzzle together and that's part of the fun. So yeah. Yeah, it's, I guess it depends on what kind of is to, whether it's on or not. Sometimes it's fun but so Reyna so then,

and that's a lot. 60 is a lot. I can't, so if she started, she went from a cleaner to a trainer I guess and then trainer to some of this HR support. So, and this is where my like nerdy age R question comes in, but she or safety training on like what you should or shouldn't like talk about in interviews or like how,

what did she have to do to prepare herself for that? Wanna know why most cleaning business owners fail or get stuck systems When you don't have the right systems in place for hiring, training, marketing all of the day-to-day essentials, then your business gets jammed and without the right systems it's impossible to keep moving forward. If you're ready to add smart proven systems to your cleaning business so that you can join the top 1% of cleaning business owners,

head over to our free Facebook group now and watch the masterclass pinned to the top of the group. Just search top 1% cleaning business owner club, find our faces and watch the free class to learn exactly how we took our business from zero to seven figures in just three years. Yeah, so we brought in an outside HR consultant to go over everything. We reviewed our policies with them,

we reviewed our interview process with them, they made some changes and then since then, you know I belong to this, it's like a CEO peer group but it's called firecracker leadership and they launched a management training academy type thing. And so both Claudia and Rena go to those, you know, once a month and they bring in a guest speaker and they cover stuff.

So yeah, we did give her some training. We didn't just throw her to the wolves and you know, the HR person did point out several flaws in our system that I thought were pretty innocuous. Like we were, we were rating answers to interview questions on a scale of one to 10, like each person at the table rating on a scale of one to 10.

And then we would kind of combine numbers at the end to come up with this average. I was just trying to be coldly logical about it. Like let's just come up with a number likes you can score 10 and and they rated seven so like that's good, right? And then she told us not to do that, that this could open us up to some weird discrimination stuff and all this is like an outside edge case that someone's gonna sue you 'cause you rate up a five or something.

So we change that practice and have made it much less coldly logical I suppose, but I don't, I'm not in on the interviews anymore. So yeah, we've definitely adjusted the whole time and that's part about being a business owner is you're never done. That might be something that turns people off. Like you don't get to a point where you're like, cool,

I can sit back and relax. Like not really like laws change. Like over the course of our running our business, we had paid sick time state law come in, they're working on expanding that paid sick time law and so we have to adjust to those things as they come along. And so it's never done like it just keeps becoming its own thing.

And this is why I think cleaning, you know, running these companies of a certain age when you're coming into it with a certain mindset about what you expect as a customer of lots of other really good, you know, customer experience companies like this is how we're gonna do it. That to me is part of the reason that the older cleaning companies are having trouble keeping up because they didn't change.

They are, we saw one that was running their computer system on like the green type dos monitors that they like a CRT cube monitor in their office that they had had since the seventies. Like they were running the oldest possible computing hardware. And to me that just screams like, I tick a box, I got a computer, I'm all done, yay.

But if you don't stay on top of it, it just, it becomes archaic. And that's what I think is happening right now. Yeah. So this is kind of a, it's a good time to be disrupting the Service business. Yeah, that's, I mean I, I had service fusion before I had any customers. Like if I, I had not like,

which I don't even know how people stay organized without a software like that, but yeah, no, and I think that's amazing that y'all are providing those kind of management development opportunities for the person that's in the office. She also started as a cleaner team lead, now she's full-time there doing kind of scheduling, scheduling answer customers for tiles currently like operations coordinator.

And I've been talking about ways to develop her begin into like where do you wanna go? Like whether, you know, I want to provide whatever this is like hopefully you stay with us a long time, but if you don't then you're gonna be better for your next opportunity. You're gonna have more opportunity, you're gonna have a better, you know, these skills.

And it's, you know what, it's funny because when I was still with the last company I was with, I told them my plans, I was kind of offboarding myself, replacing myself there and one of the restaurant managers, I told her, I was like, you know, it's not sexy like they talked about and she was like, you know what is sexy?

She was like providing like jobs, making jobs, providing a healthy, happy work environment like providing a service to your community. So just to circle around background to that like, and that's pretty, it's yeah, They're all, they're all connected, you know, like you can, we wanted to run a business a certain way. I did not want be the angry micromanager leader,

like looking over your shoulder. I wanted to be exactly the opposite. I wanna hand you a process and let you run with it and I'll be here if you have any questions and I wanna let you make your own mistakes even if I see 'em coming because that's how you learn. And I think a lot of businesses struggle with this internal development of people.

I think that they feel like why should I train them for whatever they're gonna, like, I'm just gonna train 'em up when they're gonna leave And like, yeah, that's a risk that you take. But I'm trying to approach it from a more positive side and say that if I, you know, put some investment into this employee that it'll be better for our business and hopefully it will,

they'll have some loyalty to us as well going forward so that like if we fall on some hard times or things aren't going super smooth like one week, they're not just gonna up and leave for the next highest paying job because we did put some effort into that person. And so that's what I think is something that, it's a long game, it's gonna pay dividends over time,

but it's something that you have to do if you wanna do, you know, like responsible capitalism, like you can try and squeeze every dime out of something and everyone's miserable or you can try and reinvest some of those proceeds back into your people, your business and it just makes the whole organization much stronger. Yeah, and I was just gonna say the people aspect of running any business is really challenging,

but especially us here talking and anyone listening, like that's one of the biggest things people have an issue with is, you know, it's scary to hire people but it's also scary to like we've been talking about. And so like to maintain that loyalty and so in, in order to do that, like you said earlier on, Chris does like even be them being part of something great like the cancer cleans or whatever else you're doing.

That's why those things are so important is because employees, people in general wanna be part of something historic, something great, something that's above and beyond right? And so the more that you can build that into your culture, the more you can make people feel like they're part, part of something great. And then even more importantly, seeing their vision. Like your vision is as the leader,

you're casting that to your team, but they have to be able to see their dream fitting inside your vision so they see a path forward. And just like we did with Raina, like some of the best people we have in our teams, they started as cleaners and then they worked up and we happen to have Claudia in the beginning too, but she worked her way up to many more things that she was responsible for.

And so, you know, hiring from within, inspiring your teams, like making them part of what you're doing and showing them there's a path forward for growth. And even like, yeah, if you can do things like having them being part of serving the client but on a deeper level, like let them know yeah we're, we're just cleaning this house for free because we're helping these people out.

Or like anytime we have the teams like write down the handwritten notes, like it just makes them part of that experience. Like they're giving these people, they're thanking people, they're signing their name on it, you know, and so the more you can get your teams involved, I think the better. And that creates loyalty that creates, you know, your long term mission and something that people wanna be part of.

But also, like you guys are saying too, like business is probably the hardest thing any of us will ever do. I mean parenting is super hard and other things too, but I'm just saying what I always remember when things get hard is I tell myself I'm built for this. This is what I chose to do. I'm an entrepreneur. Very few people in the world are actually true entrepreneurs and you get paid to deal with the hard stuff,

you know, so at some point there's delayed gratification, right? But at some point you are gonna be in a position where you can't pay yourself more and you can actually have more of that time back. And Chris, I, that's one of the things I loved probably most that you shared in that email you wrote us a few weeks back was not only are you hitting healthy margins with your business,

you're serving your community, but you're getting your time back, you're spending time with your kids, you're getting to pick them up from school, you're going on a vacation this summer. Ultimately that's like my reason why is I wanna build a great business so I can spend more time with my family and make those memories and get that time back, you know?

So maybe tell us a little bit more about like how that's been as far as like that transition from like doing everything in your business maybe the first year or two to maybe like getting a little more time back. Does that feel like that's happening a little bit more? Yeah, I think like with, you know, you go through stages in life, like you somehow just get through them and you look back and you're like,

I don't know how I did that. But you know, like I think about like when the babies were little and I worked during the day and I was doing online schooling at night and like, you know, you're like, I'm like I wouldn't do that again. But ultimately everything gets you good, you here and in the beginning it is, it is,

you know, you're a person on the cleaning team, you're like fielding calls from other houses running outside to do a zoom estimate, getting home and doing the bookkeeping and you know, returning messages and then maybe see your family for a minute and then when kids go to bed, then you're working on your business at that point trying to make it so that it's not always gonna be that,

you know, tweaking the website, creating a Facebook ad, whatever it is, you know. And so it can be, it was a little crazy for a while, but yes. And now you know, like I missed that blue call yesterday because it was my week for corporal or it's my week for corporal and that's something that I have that commitment,

like I'm gonna be there picking up those kids and so you know, I'm gonna watch a replay at my convenience. Like that's the great thing about technology these days. But then you also have to remind yourself just because I do have flexibility and I can technically do all these things, like you don't have to do all these things, you know, like I'm coming off of the kids are out a whole week from Mardi Gras break for those,

you know what Mardi Gras is? They got a whole week off at school for that. And I'm like, it's fine. Like I can work from home, whatever. But it's, it's really hard to work from home when you've got like a 5-year-old, right? Yeah. And a dog and a cab in tweens that are like asking you to drive them everywhere.

And it felt like I was back at that like work all day and then have a couple hours to do running around and dinner and then work at night to try to catch up from, I still have to like try to give myself grace and remind myself that like, it's okay to ask for help too, you know, like I can maybe we'll look at Mardi CRO or Spring break day camps,

like maybe. So it's beautiful that there is the freedom, but yeah, and, and it's also still the life of a business owner. So I do better when I have planned, like if I'm gonna plan to take this time off or go on this vacation and know that everything's gonna be okay, but when you're like, I mean there are plenty of people that run businesses and I hear,

I see 'em on Facebook at different things all the time where they are like full-time, stay at home maybe, maybe they even homeschool and they run this business. And I would like to talk to one of those people because I dunno how they stay sane. But at the end of the day too, what's great about this business is we're cleaning houses, right?

Like, so we're not doing brain surgery and it's a lot of a luxury service. And so I've also gotten much better about, you know, setting those boundaries because like let's say, you know, I was so proud of myself a couple months ago because I, I saw an email pop up, you know, I read the first sentence and I knew it was gonna be a complaint from a customer and it was like between six and seven at night and I,

in the beginning of the business I would've read that, I would've let it ruin my night. I would've been in my head and absent from my kids and you know what I mean? And I read one sentence and I was like, that can wait till tomorrow morning. You know? Yep. Same thing with the weekends and stuff like, and that's the great thing about residential cleaning,

but I have adopted that, you know, like we're cleaning houses and it's a very valuable service, but at the end of the day it's all okay. And I try to pass that on to the team as well. Like there's no reason for this job to be stressful, you know, like as long as the intentions are good, like you break something or if you miss something or you know like it's gonna be okay,

it's fine. Yeah. Krista, you've, you've had really good success so far. What's on the horizon? Like do you have a goal in mind? I want to be this big, this much revenue and then I'll do this. Like where do you see the journey going from here? Oh gosh, I thought I wanted to be big and then I heard you say 60 employees and I'm like ooh,

I don't, oh but So I mean five six of those employees are not cleaners and so we do have office staff helping out with all kinds of stuff. So don't picture it as 60 cleaners all barking in your ear for help. Like there's three and a half customer service reps, an operations director, a trainer, a this or that. Yeah. But I'm curious,

how do you see it going? So definitely I think we're kind of wired the same way. You know, at when things get too easy or too comfortable you what's the next thing, right? So I have definitely always had big goals. In the beginning it was, you know, we do our teams by letter, so letter of the alphabet and each letter is named after a local street sign.

So we've got Apricot, bayview, cedar de Lamar ago and I wanted a team for every letter of the alphabet. Like that was my goal. That's a lot. But right now I think it's just to continue to take market share. We are blessed to be a very fast growing community. So as much as it's tempting to like try to do what you guys have done and go outside of this market because like we have a bunch of family and other places in the state and you know,

other great communities and I'm like, ooh, as a business owner I could take advantage and you know, be able to, to be in this area more or whatnot. But I think right now I really just need to focus on, on market share and our current community and as well as I, you know, I still, I love, I wanna get more involved in kind of community groups with other business owners and entrepreneurs.

I really love the business community and as a business owner it can be lonely, you know, so I've been trying to get more involved doing stuff like this and getting out there more just to, to be part of a larger community. So those are kind of my goals for this year. Nice. I like it. Well we're pushing 45 minutes. This is a pretty long podcast episode for us usually speaking,

but Shane you have any closing thoughts there? I just wanna say Krista, that we homeschool our kids and we run the business remote now and my wife helps me a lot with profit. So if you ever wanna talk more about that, I'll, I'll tell you more about it but it's totally possible. But I would say in the beginning, you know,

I still had a lot of support from my wife but Brandon were, Brandon and I were a lot more boots on the ground and I think that's a great way to start and continue obviously depending on what kind of business owner and where you wanna be with the business. But I love what you said about it's, and Brandon and I had these same conversations at the beginning where I was like,

we're not on the operating table. This isn't like life or death, you know, so we should have more fun. And so we decided to have more fun and we've grown a lot, both of us in different ways along the way. But I think it's, yeah, you gotta find out what works for you and set up, you know, ultimately delegating the things you don't like doing and building your team around you is super important so that you can focus on your strengths and focus on,

you know, being a better mom, being being a better wife, be a better leader in your family, all the other things that you do in your community as well. It's gonna help you be better at those things. But I think, yeah, just, it's kind of funny because like starting a business, you think you're gonna do all these things and ultimately you learn so much more in doing it and you get,

you know, sharpened by being out there as an entrepreneur and it's a crazy journey. Sometimes I wonder if I would ever do it again 'cause it is is a lot of hard work and stuff. But I do think it is worth it. I do think it's for us if anyone is listening, like it is possible to do that. But I think start where you're at.

A lot of people ask us if you can run the business remote and stuff like that, start doing it like Krista did it, you gotta do everything in the business, business, you know, be in the business to start. But eventually you can work your way out and you'll, that is the reward in, in the goal in the, in the future is free up your time and build your team and build the systems and the structure so you can have more fun with your life.

And do you know, whatever your reason why is, but yeah, I just wanted to say thank you so much Christa for sharing your story and it's just so amazing to hear your progress because it was, I think you said in your emails like three years ago, which is literally like a thousand days, right? Three years ago you were in your hotel room like going through this course like,

and then you just got inspired and I think what's really important, what you did was you took massive action and you sought out knowledge, which comes from experience. You sought out, you know, different ways to grow. You had mentors along the way of course, but you didn't give up. And I think that's just a testament to anyone out there doing this,

this, this business is not life or death, it's not rocket science, it's not surgery. But if you just keep showing up and you keep doing the hard work, like the results will show. And Krista, you're a prime example of that. And so just thank you so much for yeah, being part of that and sharing your story and inspiring other people to show them what's possible.

I think it's amazing. So Thank You'all so much. I I remember that now that you say that. I remember listening to that podcast when you announced that you were like taking off and RVing and I was like, man, and I'm still, I'm still earlier, you know, in my journey. But yeah, that's for sure, for sure goals and I'm,

I'm testing it out this summer. I'm going on two different, two week long trips and so awesome. But, but that, yeah hopefully one day and It'll work out like those, those big vacations are fun 'cause then you get to see what happened when you got back. Like ideally you're able to completely unplug, I'm gonna let you do this, here's how you handle these cases.

Call me if anything comes up. But the fun part is I remember talking to this guy, he came to talk to our firecracker group a couple times, but he used to own a big landscaping company. He told us when he started, he would take a month long to go to Greece every summer 'cause that's where his family is. And you know,

the first month that he left, he came back and things had shrunk and people were mad and they'd lost a couple clients and so he worked on it and then the next year it kind of stayed flat and then the year after that it grew while he was gone and then he started extending the time and before he sold the company he was spending all summer in Greece and the people that he put in charge when he came back,

sales were made, supplies were ordered, people were hired and fired and everything worked out great. And you don't have to be that hands-on forever. So I do agree with, you know what Brandon said that you, when you first start, you should know how to do everything. You should have your hands in every little piece 'cause A, you're the only person and B,

like you gotta know those things to be able to train someone else. And then over time you just kind of delegate yourself out if that's the goal. Like a lot of people really like staying in there and having their fingers on it, which is great. Like if that's your goal, then engineer the role that you wanna have in the business. But that's not Brandon and I's goal Brandon and I's goal is to,

you know, ski an RV all summer or whatever. Like that's the idea. So, you know, as you, we get further along this process, like you're able to work less if you want to or work on different things if you want to like, you know, Profit Cleaners was a, a wacky project, a side gig, a podcast and it's grown into something different that takes more time now.

And Brandon and I are in a really good spot where we can take time away from the business that, you know, pays us to work on this business that is growing. And so it's fun. You can kind of, it's like a create your own adventure book, however you wanna work it, pick the page that you want to turn to and see what happens.

And I am so thankful for y'all and I really wanted to come out there and the timing doesn't work for me, but I'll keep my eye on future dates. So Yeah, we'll do it again for sure. That's not the first in-person event that we'll do. But since you segue to that, you know, depending on when you're listening to this, we are having an in-person sort of behind the scenes tour of Sandia Green Clean.

It's on March 14th and 15th and you can hit us up at hello at Profit Cleaners dot com to learn more about that. Or if you're already on the list, you would've already gotten an email. Yeah, yeah. Thanks so much for being with us Krista, I really appreciate It. Yeah, thank you so much Krista. Thank y'all. This is fun.

And I'll be connecting with y'all later. Yeah, well yeah, we'll look forward to seeing you on the future. Profit, Cleaners coaching calls, you're always on those. And like I said, that people that take action get results, you take an action, Krista. So keep showing up and anyone else listening out there, and Krista's a great example of this.

Keep showing up, keep taking action. Action is what's gonna change your business and your life. As much as we'd all like to attract success into our life through the law of attraction. You actually have to get up and do stuff and take action and make your dreams become a reality through actually doing it and not giving up. But yeah, thank you so much Krista,

I can't wait to hear more of your progress in the future and to just see what you do in 2024. I think this is the, the year you're shooting to hit seven figures. So I wanna hear that at the end of this year that you're hitting seven figures and I can't wait to hear that story. So keep us updated on the journey. Yeah,

Absolutely. Thanks so much guys. All Right, thanks Crystal. Thanks you. Thanks for joining us today. To get more info, including show notes, updates, trainings, and super cool free stuff, head over to Profit Cleaners dot com and remember, keep it clean.