Episode 111: From Couch-Flipping to Business Ownership: An Interview with Brian Coronado

Episode 111: From Couch-Flipping to Business Ownership: An Interview with Brian Coronado

Brian Coronado:
Cleaning industry is stressful. I like being a part of it, but it's very stressful in the way that cleaners call out. Clients are like, Hey, just don't come today, last minute they'll just, Hey, just don't come today. And I have three cleaners scheduled for the day to do four or five houses. And then clients say, oh, just don't come today. I'm not, I'm not feeling so well. Or they'll hit you with, can you guys come on Saturday? We work Monday through Friday. And then I have my cleaners who have their kids and their appointments. So I had to get used to it. And it's difficult, right? They always have their lives. There's a reason we only work Monday through Fridays because I want them to have Saturday and Sunday for their families. It's very stressful in that way.

Announcer:
Grow your cleaning business, make more money, have more time. This is the Profit Cleaners podcast with your host Brandon Condrey and Brandon Schoen.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Profit Cleaners. 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.

Speaking from experience, we just actually had a call finally getting people on these podcasts and learning from people around the world. So I wanted to just intro this awesome podcast we have for you guys today. Got Brandon Condre in the house. Yeah, let's tell him about this call we just had with Brian. He is a cleaning business owner. You guys are gonna love this story.

This is an amazing podcast. So tell him a little bit more about this call. We just had Brandon. Yeah, we're talking with Brian Coronado today and he owns Crown Home Cleaning, which is based in Stanford, Connecticut, that's just north of New York City and Greenwich, Connecticut. And it's one of the wealthiest parts of the country is up there. Yeah,

Brian's 21. I cannot believe what he is doing at 21. If Brandon and I got started at 21, we'd be flying around in Jets by now. But Brian will get there. He's got the right attitude. He's taken a lot of the stuff that we say in the podcast to heart about mindset and things like that. And I think this will be a really interesting call,

you know, an interesting podcast for you guys to listen to depending on where you are. Like if you are hesitant to start from scratch, listen to Brian how he started from scratch. If you are thinking about buying a business, listen to Brian. He bought one that was already in existence and how he pulled that off and what the pitfalls and fallout was of buying an existing cleaning business.

It was super interesting. Yeah, and I just love his story of his journey, which is something all of us probably will go through or have gone through already. But just the story of trying something failing and keep going. Like just having this attitude of like being relentless, having that tenacious, you know, attitude. Just like I'm gonna keep going.

Whatever it takes, Brian has that, he's only 21 guys, but you're gonna love this podcast. Just hearing like how he came from flipping couches to now owning a cleaning business and doubling it in the last seven months. And just really inspiring. So you guys will hear all about that. We'll probably have Brian on again for another podcast 'cause he had a ton of other questions that we couldn't even get to.

But it was a great call. So I'm excited to to hear more about Brian's story. You guys are gonna love it too. Yeah. So let's dive in. Alright everybody, so we got Brian Coronado with us today on the podcast. Super exciting to hear Brian's story. Welcome Brian and Crown Home Clean out in Stanford, Connecticut. So let's get into it with Brian today.

You have an amazing story, Brian, you're one of our students with Profit Cleaners and I just love your story. I love your energy man. And just tell us about yourself, about your story. Let's get into it. Hey guys, it's so nice to be here. Thank you guys for having me. I love what you guys are doing and from the beginning I always felt like this was gonna be a good fit.

So I'm excited to be on here. Yeah man, happy to have you on here. This is awesome. So I'm from Stanford, Connecticut, born and raised. I've been here my whole entire life and I always like to let everybody know like I come from, you know, immigrant parents for those that can relate, you know, we basically come from nothing.

I was very fortunate to have very hardworking parents coming from immigrant parents. You know, they always kinda tell you basically they're old school. They say go to school, get your degree, get a nice job in an office where you're gonna be sitting all day. Which for me it sounded like a nightmare. And I actually lived that dream, that quote unquote dream of my parents.

And I worked at a bank and it was kinda the worst time of my life. It was during Covid. It was funny because there was no clients. So I was just sitting there and I remember watching four movies a day. I was watching four movies on Netflix. I became like this movie critic and I'm like, wait, what am I even doing here?

Like maybe I should be doing something more productive. I got into reading. When I started reading, I read books like Think and Grow, rich, rich Dad, poor Dad. I was reading a lot of books and as soon as I read Rich Dad, poor Dad, my whole paradigm changed. It was basically what I took out of it is Mind Your Own Business,

which is like the name of one of the chapters. Yep. And it kind of got me outta that mindset where I don't want to be an employee and I never did. So back when I was in middle school, I was buying and selling sneakers to make my money. And I always remember that because I was actually really good at it. So buying and selling was like a second nature to me.

So Covid hit, I saw it as an opportunity to get outta school. You know, online schooling is the worst by the way. I hate it. I'm not that type of guy. I got out of it. I was always an a b average. And you know, school wasn't hard for me but I just felt like I was wasting my time.

And then I came across couch flipping. It's funny, in Rich Dad, poor Dad, they mention how when you don't have that weekly paycheck, that monthly, biweekly paycheck, whatever, your mind starts figuring out ways to make money. So I feel like that was one of those things for me. 'cause I quit the bank, you know, I had no income,

nothing. I'm living under my parents' roof still. So they weren't very happy with me. And yeah, I came across couch flipping. Tell Me about couch flipping. 'cause I definitely sold a couch to a guy and then I saw it on Facebook Marketplace three days later being vacuumed. It had better pictures than I took. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's basically like what I do.

You know, it's not really rocket science. You buy a couch and you fix it up and you take nicer pictures and you sell it. I did that, you know, just to make some money prior. Actually I tried a lot of things. I failed at a lot of things. So one of them was a QR code. Do you guys know like the QR code menus?

Yep. I figured out how to make them and I went restaurant to restaurant all over Stanford. I probably went to 60 restaurants. I don't know one person was interested and they didn't even call me back. I failed horrendously a few times, you know, trying to throw out ideas in my mind. I Think there's something important to point out here though,

for those of you listening that have never started a business or maybe you're hesitant about starting a business, what you're hearing Brian say is that you need to fail a bunch of times. I like calling it failing up. Other people calling it fail up. You fail something, try something else. Fail something, try something else. 60 people in Stanford told you no about QR codes over and over and over again.

Could have been More. How did that impact your self-esteem? Did it run you down? Down? Oh It was horrendous. It brought me down. It was one of those things where it's like I tried it. Next thing. All right, there's clearly not something a market for. It ended up being free if you had the square thing. I didn't know that.

So a lot of these guys just in a week ended up getting it for free through Square. It was horrendous. Again, next thing, what's the next thing? It was one of those things where you have no other choice, right? If you don't have that job. And I knew if I had a job that gave me that weekly paycheck, I'm not gonna be as hungry to try and figure it out.

I remember this very clearly. I was in my room and I saw the couch flipping. So I go on Facebook, I see a couch and it's free. So free couch. Now it's like how am I gonna get this couch? One of my best friends, he actually had a truck, he did electrician. I don't know what he did. And so he let me borrow his truck.

Boom. I picked it up, I brought it to my girlfriend's house at the time and we had it there for like two days and then it sold for $200 a week later. So I was like, okay, $200. Not bad. At the time it was actually, you know, some money because I was sure I had no income and we actually fixed it up nicely.

We took some pictures delivering. It was a nightmare. It was the most narrow stairway. I had three of my buddies come with me. It was just horrendous. It was a nightmare. It took like four hours, you know, I ended up paying my friends because of their time and you know, the $200 ended up turning into like a hundred.

So then my next thing was how can I make this easier? So it ended up taking a whole, you know, two year process in the beginning making roughly around a thousand dollars profit to making closer to 7,000 a month profit. Well how many couches is $7,000? So I remember it was January and I realized it's not about quantity, it's about quality.

So it became pay to play. So I started to invest, you know, crate and Barrel Pottery Barn. I learned the market very well. So I studied the market enough where I know how much. So I know a Crate and Barrel couch goes for 5,000. I invested say $400 into the couch. It was already in pristine condition. I didn't even have to clean it,

take nice pictures and then I'm selling it for $2,000. I ended up doing less work, just learning the market better and just selling. There's a bunch of trends in what you're talking about that come up in business over and over and over again. Quality, not quantity. Know your market, invest the right time, work smarter, not harder. All these things are awesome.

So we're flipping couches. We're in the middle of the pandemic. You've quit school and your job, your parents are pissed. How do we arrive at, I'm buying a cleaning company. I'm Hispanic. So everybody here in this area, their mom is a house cleaner if you're Hispanic. So my mom is a house cleaner. She's been doing it for 20 years.

And I remember when I was in high school thinking, mom, we can have a cleaning business. Like if you really figure out how to get girls working for you, train them yourself. 'cause you're good at it, you can do this yourself. And you know, her mindset wasn't that. Her mindset's like, I'm gonna work hard and put food on your plate,

right? And put a roof over your head. So that was her mindset, which I a hundred percent respect and I understand. So I knew that with having my mom in the picture, I can actually grow something. And then the opportunity came across where her old friend, she used to babysit me when I was a little kid, she was selling her company now.

It was one of those things where she's selling a company and it's all cash, you know, there's no really heavy contracts or paperwork. She was very trustworthy. But unfortunately it was a mess. It was a big disorganized mess. Basically all her systems were in her head, you know, all her SOPs and her thing. She was very difficult to work with.

My Spanish is all right, it's not perfect. So it kind of was hard like that. And then you know, we got into a little arguments but it was just a mess. Everything was disorganized and yeah. So have you guys ever Rich think and Grow Rich Red, think and Grow Rich? Oh yeah, Shane has, I think, I don't think I have Think And Grow Rich.

Basically the idea of it is to find a team, right? It kind of insists that you know, you need a team, you need to work. So I was huge on finding, networking, finding the team, and then two, a mentor building, investing in myself, right? I came across a course before you guys, it was up flip and you know,

I paid for it and I, I didn't end up getting what I wanted from it, you guys, I was already watching your guys' YouTube channel and getting so much information from it. So I felt, you know, ready to invest. I even emailed Brandon, I was like, Hey, do you guys have like a discount? You know, my money isn't really necessarily high up yet so I kind of need a discount.

And he goes, it's a coincidence because it's Thanksgiving and black Friday's coming around so there's a Black Friday special you guys did. And I had to purchase it when it was that. Yeah, nice. So that was huge for me. I bought your guys course and it's been very helpful. My issue right now is translating it. I bought this company around seven months ago and I have zero experience cleaning.

I thought my mom was gonna be there more, but she has her own job, her own life and I don't want to take that away from her. So she kinda helps in chimes in a little bit. But my issue right now is I have zero business experience and I've learned a lot. You know, it's been seven months now since I've purchased the company.

Now it's like about translating it and kind of getting those systems going. When You say translating, you don't mean literally, you just mean like Not literally figuratively. Yeah. Trying to apply them to the business. Oh yeah, a hundred percent. The cleaners knew from the beginning that I didn't know much about cleaning at first. I tried, you know,

pretending like I was this expert and it caught on really quickly that I have no idea Even like I'm just one of those guys that if something looks organized it means it's clean, you know? So unfortunately I didn't really know much about it. I still am not a hundred percent about cleaning. I do have a good idea. I've watched all your guys' videos,

the training videos of how to clean and stuff. So yeah, so they knew that I have great cleaners, they're fantastic. Now in the scaling world, I kind of need to figure out my systems and get quality over quantity, right? Sure. So we're seven months in. You're running the cleaning business, you're using the Profit Cleaners videos and things like that.

You're working on integrating it in there. How's it going? How's the cleaning industry in general? Cleaning Industry is stressful. I like being a part of it, but it's very stressful in the way that cleaners call out. Clients are like, Hey, just don't come today, last minute they'll just, Hey, just don't come today. And I have three cleaners scheduled for the day to do four or five houses and then clients say,

oh just don't come today. I'm not, I'm not feeling so well. Or they'll hit you with, can you guys come on Saturday? We work Monday through Friday. And then I have my cleaners who have their kids and their appointments. So I had to get used to it. And it's difficult, right? They always have their lives. There's a reason we only work Monday through Fridays because I want them to have Saturday and Sunday for their families.

It's very stressful in that way. Other than that, I feel like the demand for cleaning is so high. And I live in a great area where I was telling Brandon on our phone call last month, I'm 10 minutes away from Greenwich, Connecticut. So Greenwich, Connecticut is, I think I just saw Judge Judy has a house that's like $12 million house over here and it's crazy to me.

So yeah, the potential to have a very good cleaning business is just inevitable. It's just about how I'm gonna apply everything to it. I think it's wild that you're 21. I think that's so cool. When I was 21, I mean I was still in college, I was in there, but just like you failing up, I tried a bunch of stuff.

I had a record label in college that we did nothing with. We, I don't know, a really bad hip hop guy and we did zero to promote anything. So that was kind of fun like, but yeah, I think it's awesome that you're 21, if you stick with it and this like pans out for you, you're either gonna sell this to someone else who can run with it long term or you'll turn this into whatever the next thing that Brian does,

which I think is awesome. Yeah, What intrigued me about you guys is the cars I saw the cars, I saw the name, I saw it's scaling. Scaling for me is number one. That's why I love entrepreneurship. I love the idea of business and the potential to actually grow something out of nothing for me is wonderful. I love that idea and I'm so young that I can eventually sell this company,

which is will be The goal. Nice. Shane, you've been very quiet. I'm just listening man. But yeah, I wanted to hear more. Yeah, I'm a talker. No, no, no, I'm sorry. No, no. I'm inspired by you too. Brian, like 21 years old, you're out there taking action. You went out and found a way.

I want to hear more about how did you structure that deal to take over a cleaning company. Like a lot of people haven't even thought about that, but it's like a lot of people are thinking like start from scratch and go get the customers. You were just like, go find a company that's already going and just get 'em. Yeah. We've also had cleaning companies call us up to see if we wanted to buy them,

which is usually a bad deal for us. I do. I am curious about whatever you wanna share. Noting that this is gonna be public on the internet. Please tell us how that deal worked out and what you paid. If you wanna share that and if you thought that was worth the value. I'm an open book, so let, I'll tell you guys everything.

It was a nightmare I get for you guys why it would be such a easy no to say no to buying somebody else's company. Because there's always that risk, right? The risk is you buy the clients for example, you buy their company, buy their cleaners, the cleaners don't wanna work for you or the clients don't. That is the risk in my mind.

I, all I bought was a list of name and phone numbers and everyone told me they didn't wanna work with me. And so we paid for air. Yeah. So it was one of those things where I had to think, how can I do this without risking losing the client? Unfortunately there was a lot of terrible clients, like not ideal clients that are very on the cheaper side and the cheaper the client,

the more picky they are, right? So they want to pay the least amount of money but they want everything done perfectly and it's a nightmare. It's a headache on my book. So that's not the ideal client. So yeah, so that thing came across, her name was Uisa. She sung her company and she's a fantastic cleaner. She's a beast.

She cleans fast and good. So she taught her ways to her staff and honestly I wish I could have her around to train my staff. But unfortunately she moved to Stratford. She messaged my mom about selling the company and I was ready. I was saving my money up from couch flipping 'cause I knew I wanted to do something scalable and cleaning for me.

I dunno, I saw something on up flip on their YouTube channel and it was like a guy who started a cleaning company and I saw the numbers and obviously the numbers aren't everything 'cause considering what you have to spend on the staff, the equipment, everything. But I figured this was perfect. So yeah, UISA came to me and I was ready to buy a company.

I saw the client list, I saw what they were paying, I did the numbers and I was like, this is fantastic. I was ready to sign the paper that she made, which is not really, Yeah, not a legal document. Not a legal document at all. We gotta notarize if that makes it feel special. But yeah, I was ready to sign it and then boom,

she's not ready to sell anymore. It's like she got some regrets. Something happened. I was so bummed out. I was ready to buy his cleaning company. I was still flipping my couches. But it's so funny because I was making a good amount of income working one hour, two hours, three hours a week. So it's crazy. So basically I wasn't being so productive during the week.

I was build, not building bad habits, but I was just making a good income and I was comfortable. I was so comfortable and I hated the idea of being comfortable and I wanted the stress that I currently deal with with the cleaning company. I wanted it. So sometimes when I'm like freaking out, stressed out, I tell myself, hey this is what I wanted.

Right? Life Begins at the edge of your comfort zone. That's a quote that I always like to kick around. So I'm glad to hear you say that you like being uncomfortable. This really pushes my limits. This cleaning business from the start has really pushed my limits and I just remind myself, hey this is what I wanted. Right? I want it to be in a stress position that I could resolve.

Right? I was wanna say that's a great attitude Brian. 'cause a lot of people don't have that. But like for me personally too, that's what drives me is that energy of like starting something. It feels stressful but if you can find a way to let that drive you, I mean that's huge. So I love hearing that, that you tell yourself that.

I Love seeing your guys part in the new course, how you guys did a whole module on mindset and look, I have my my productivity notebook, which is all nice now I had to get it because it's funny when you start being your own boss and stuff, you reach like a gray area in your productivity in your day to day. So you have to structure it yourself,

right? So that module was great for, I found it so useful honestly. Yeah, that's awesome. A lot of our early podcast episodes were all about mindset and it kind of felt like we were beating a dead horse a little bit. But we just reiterated every time, like the reason we're telling you about this again is that it's super important and it's relevant and it came up again.

So I'm glad things are resonating with people. Yeah, yeah, no, a hundred percent. I resonated with that very much. I want to hear like how many clients did she have, how much were you buying it for and then it fell apart. What happened after that? So we bought roughly around 30 reoccurring clients or it could have been, I think it was like 36 or 35.

We bought 35 reoccurring clients. It was weekly, biweekly and I guess monthly. And then like I told you guys, it was done so wrong. So she was like, oh my phone number, I want you to pay a thousand dollars for it because this phone number gets calls in every week from random clients, right? So she insisted I paid her a thousand dollars for just the phone number.

So it was ended up being a very big price. It ended up being around a thousand per client considering what I purchased. I purchased basically only the clients and she doesn't know it, but the cleaners ended up being more than enough. She told me to fire the cleaners, they're useless and they ended up being great. That's her words exactly. Fire the cleaners,

they're complainers, they're useless. So right from the like start, I had to go to the cleaners and I sat down and I talked to them. I was like, Hey, what's the issue here? Why do I hear not so good stuff? And it's like, oh she had us wake up at 6:00 AM she had us work till eight at night.

I can't even feed my children. I said Okay, so now I can fix this. So the first thing I did was fix that relationship with them and had them as at a comfortable spot. We work till five but obviously occasionally they get out late but I'll pay them extra and they don't get in late until like 9:00 PM they get to their first house.

So they bring their kids to school, take 'em to the bus, whatever it is. I thought it was huge because I saw my mom take care of me and still clean houses while I was growing up. So I felt like it was a fulfilling thing for me. This can actually be fulfilling as I can provide a better life for these, for these people.

Nice Again, great attitude. Love it. Yeah. How many of the 35 clients did you get to keep after the transition? So It was actually like 40 clients and then the magic phone number, that one call per week basically. So I ended up keeping 25, probably 22, roughly I think three of them. Or every once in a while they'll gimme a call.

So I did lose a couple. The funny part is I lost the worst clients, the most headache clients in the world. That was gonna Be my next question is did you fire those clients or did they voluntarily leave? So I don't say no, unfortunately I need to learn how to say no. That's one of those things where where I don't say no,

I kept them happy. I kept, I tried raising their prices, they weren't very happy. So I worked with them but unfortunately I wasn't good at at saying no now I'm very strict. So yeah, so we lost those clients and what I realized that she didn't do is she didn't offer these non-reoccurring clients an option to become reoccurring at a discount. So I started messaging them,

Hey you're paying two 50 every once in a while come be a biweekly customer and I'll give you 2 25. Which is still not a great deal for them, but they would say yes. So we got a few more reoccurring clients in the door. And then the second thing is referral. Hey, do you love our company? Yeah, do you wanna refer us?

So they referred us and then boom, now we're back at 50 clients. We went over, we're at 50 clients and now it's the issue. I'm understaffed. I'm understaffed, I need to hire, I need to figure out a system because my cleaners are just, they just know their way and then they bring a new girl in and they're just cleaning.

But we're at 50 clients, we're at a good position, they're paying a good rate, they're not paying that a hundred dollars. I had a client I was paying like 90 who quit on us, which is great. We got rid of a lot of those terrible clients, which I'm happy about. Yeah, great work man. I mean it sounds like you did actually do the impossible business acquisition here and and get your money's worth by keeping those clients.

But again, I think a lot of that comes down to your hustle when you got it and instead of saying we'll just let these all wither or keep everything exactly the same, you immediately switched gears into let's make the employees happy knowing that the cleaning's not gonna happen if you don't have happy cleaners. So that was a good call. And then I think by trying to raise prices on people,

you immediately expose the ones that are the tire kickers as Brandon calls them. The ones that get really upset about you didn't dust it. We've talked about that before. But like the reason that customers that pay less expect more is that it's a bigger portion of their income. Like they're spending a huge percentage of their income on this cleaning. They're expecting the world.

If you get a different type of person, different income bracket that's gonna pay at a higher price, it's less of a hit to them. And so they're not necessarily going through the house with a magnifying glass after you left to get a laundry list of complaints. I just don't have time for that. I can't believe that people do have time to go around running around looking for hairs stuck under couch cushions and things.

But it happens. It happens a hundred percent. There's those people out there and you're completely right with with what you said, it's a big portion of their income. So it's about finding that the right client. Yeah. And also Brent, I wanted to say like, I don't know, you didn't say the actual monthly amount when you bought it, but I don't know if you know what the monthly revenue was with those 36 recurring clients?

10,000. 10,000 roughly. Okay. And I paid 36,000 for the company. That's still amazing man. Like if you think of that 10,000 over 12 months, that's $120,000 a year. You bought that business for 36, 30 some thousand and change whatever it is, which is, in my mind it's still a really great deal because Yeah, that's the numbers I did.

Yeah. And and like on top of that you were able to raise prices, get rid of the problem customers so that you freed up spots for the ideal customers. So yeah, you hit a little bit of a adversity there but you overcame that adversity 'cause you have a great attitude. You just kept going, you worked with your teams, you like figured it out,

which is amazing. And now you're at 50 clients and that's amazing man. So I just wanna say you're doing some amazing stuff and I think a lot of people are gonna be inspired to hear that because you're 21 years old man and you're just, you're just getting out there and you just have a great attitude. And I think a lot of people are scared to do what you're doing.

But it's like that's inspiring to hear even at such a young age, man it's not impossible at all. You just gotta take the right action and do it. I think it's Impossible. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. I appreciate that man. Yeah, for me it, I'm very hard on myself. I'm very competitive as well. So I see what you guys are doing and I'm like,

I need to get there. There's no other choice for me. Right? I need to get it. And sometimes I overstress don't sleep as well 'cause I'm just very like hey I need to get there. What does it take? I think me joining your guys' course and getting to speak with you guys was a huge step. It really was. I believe so much in investing in myself,

like whatever the course costs or whatever it cost for me to get a mentor, it's always worth it. Yeah. And that's a big thing and like you said in those books, the power of the mastermind, the power of a mentor and that's really what we talk about all the time. But it's just modeling that success and and not trying to reinvent everything yourself because you very well could have spent just like this lady,

she had been that you bought the business from, she had been in business for maybe 20, 30 years and you took that business and doubled it in like seven months Just having some different, a different way of, she believed that only she could do everything. And it's like when I realized other people can help, other people can actually, other ideas are actually useful.

I tell my cleaners to gimme their ideas as well 'cause they're very knowledgeable. They, they know everything about cleaning, they can figure out certain ways. So yeah, getting help is huge. She didn't really believe in that. She didn't believe in Google. She didn't believe in How can you not believe in Google in 2023? They Don't know how Google works.

So yeah, we're on Google now. So Where do you see it going in the future? Yep. So right now that's my goal is I want to hire somebody for the day to day because like you guys have it mapped up in the course, the visionary, I want it to be a visionary, right? I want to figure out what's next.

I wanna get the financing through and figure out a, a plan to grow it. But first step we want to hit a million in revenue, that's number one. And then after we have bigger goals, right? So eventually we want to grow it to a certain point where it, where it, I like seeing what you guys are doing. I like seeing what other companies like I know Spruce Home cleaning in in Seattle have a great thing going and they're even franchising now.

But I like the idea of growing a big company. Hey Profit Cleaners, if you're interested in growing your cleaning business and joining the top 1% of cleaning business owners, well now's the time We're launching our new business out in Texas and documenting everything. So you're gonna want to join us and you're gonna see how six and seven figure cleaning businesses are built from the ground up so that you can do it too.

To get started on this journey with us, head over to our free Facebook group now and watch the masterclass pinned to the top of the group. Just look up top 1% cleaning business owner club on Facebook or go to Profit Cleaners dot com slash facebook and watch the free masterclass pinned to the top to learn more The day-to-day. Stress interferes with figuring out what's next,

what's the big picture? So now that we're around roughly seven, eight months in, I feel like it's, I'm ready to hire somebody for the day-to-day and paint the picture for the future. So we want to definitely reach a million in revenue as their first goal, but we know that there's higher goals to reach. I don't like setting a limit but like I told you guys I wanna sell.

That's always been the goal to sell. So now it's about getting our SOPs, our systems in place. I'm recording everything, I'm writing everything down now I kind of want to get the quality going, the systems and how to clean and everything. So a training manual, which we're gonna use your guys' course to kind of niche down on that and yeah,

I love that Brian. I just wanted to say like that's huge, the difference in how you bought that company when you worked with that lady in your town, you got a screaming deal man because that that you bought it at a fraction of the revenue in a year basically or like a third of the revenues for that whole year. Whereas when you build out what you're talking the systems,

you're capturing those systems, how that whole business is run almost to the point where someone can walk in off the street and run that business without you because it's so well documented. That's what's gonna give you a huge leg up on that valuation when you go to sell. And so that's really smart and I love hearing that's exactly what we're doing too man. And that's why we just say model what we're doing and do it on your own to do you do your own version of it but that's gonna be a game changer for you long term.

So I love that. Yeah I always noticed that. But you guys are doing, you guys have everything done even though you're selling a course, you guys still have everything in there so I love that. Yeah Brian I look forward to hearing from you in the future. We'll have some follow up with you as you approach that million dollars in revenue. For everyone else listening,

this is a good blueprint of someone who just went all in. We, you guys tell you all the time that you need to do it. When Brandon and I started Sandia, Green Clean, we both quit our full-time jobs that had stable income and shot ourselves in the foot. But in retrospect like when you get your back against the wall and you really gotta perform or else and that's what you were doing with the couch flipping and you just moved that into,

now you're doing it with the cleaning so you're just crushing it man. Way to go. I really like to hear it. Yeah man. Appreciate you guys. You guys are awesome. I wanted to ask you guys, I don't know if you guys are open, but I would love to go visit Albuquerque and see how your operation works. I'd love to get down there and visit,

have a trip, make a trip out of it. I'm sure we can sort that out and if we do we will have an excuse to record some more videos. Yeah, I love that for YouTube and I love that idea man. Let's make a whole video out of it. So that's awesome. I congratulations by the way for Texas and your other locations.

I saw you guys were opening up. That's awesome. You guys are doing it right man, you guys are doing it right. I'll tell You that. Yeah man, thank you so much. Like you said man, we're following in the footsteps of a mentor too. And so like, like the way I think a lot of the reason you had a great attitude and great mindset to start.

You had some failures which helps. It's like every time you get a no you're that much closer to a yes, right? And every time you have a failure it's that much closer to your success And like so I love hearing that story Brian and just how much faster you're able to go with that knowledge with a mentor and obviously with that attitude like whatever it takes to win,

I'm gonna do it. And that's what you did. And to this day like you know, we're doing great, we can do better. We're very competitive. We're always trying to improve of course. But I would say like a big part of that is just like what you said, just finding that mentor. We still talk to our mentor Corby all the time up in Denver and just,

he's been a huge part of that success. But again, it's like don't reinvent the wheel, just model that success and just hearing you run with this and like even then in a much different place we were like scrambling a lot more and you're kinda like, how do I Do this? Wasn't, I was going through it. Yeah. So this call today has been really fun.

Even just in a short amount of time to see how much that new knowledge, we put the new course out there, you texted me a bunch of mail like man I love, I'm loving what you guys are doing and it just seemed like it was helping you so I'm really glad to hear that you're getting value out of it and just keep hanging out man.

'cause we got a lot more coming like we're documenting everything for the Texas location as we launch out here. And I'm learning a lot. That's why we do this too is 'cause we learn through teaching and like helping you guys. Like we're learning how to perfect our systems better and it's inspiring for everybody, including ourselves, you know, so, so I love that man.

So yeah, I guess other than that like a million dollars, like what else can we help you with? You got the course, you got the system like we'll keep like working with you obviously I need to figure out for your systems, especially the green cleaning, I wanna go green. I think it's also not only great the idea of it, it's also fulfilling and it's a nice way of marketing one,

but two it's like hey, you're actually doing something good for the environment, good for the cleaners, good for yourself, good for everybody. So I need to learn how to translate. I keep using that word but I need to learn how to translate your guys' way into my way. And the second thing is the cleaners like the no show, no calls,

the systems in play. I, that's where I've been struggling. You guys are helping me a lot with figuring out how to run the business, how to incorporate things. Now I just need to make sure my cleaners are doing it. I bring in the extension poles and then the next day I go to the garage that we run out of and they're right there.

They're not even using that. It's very difficult. I have thoughts too. There's a couple things. Yeah one, the green cleaning stuff is easy. So it's just a couple chemicals. It's way more simple than the other stuff. So just buy a couple test bottles of the stuff that's in the course and then Guinea pig on someone, clean your house,

clean your girlfriend's house, your parents like whatever. And then just let the cleaners learn how to use the stuff and then see if they have any questions. So that part should be pretty easy for the cleaners, no-show stuff. We also had this issue and then every time we complained about it to Corby, he is like, have you started paying him a bonus yet?

Yeah I need to do that. When we finally started, man that was the switch. It was so easy as soon as we started doing that. The bonus is in that course there's a spreadsheet we're working on a simplified version 'cause people find my spreadsheet a little bit hard to follow but It's a little hard to follow. Yeah, I've noticed that. So Yeah,

so you can come up with your own bonus, but the idea is you wanna add a bonus to the behavior that you want. So if you want them to no call, no show, tell 'em that for every week that you don't, no call, no show. We'll add 50 bucks to the paycheck, a hundred bucks. Like whatever it is that you think will incentivize them to actually perform.

And then the same thing for not using the tools that you want 'em to use. I got you guys these cleaners, you need to use them. So for every house today, make sure that you send me a picture of you using the cleaner on the ceiling fan, the duster on the ceiling fan. And then if you do that for whatever this week at every house,

then we'll add this bonus to your paycheck. So the bonus that we have is highly complex. It's about profit and speed and all this stuff. Yours doesn't need to be that crazy. You can make a simplified one on your own, but they just need to see that okay, on top of my hourly they're gonna get that hourly whether they work really hard or not.

So you want to be able to show them, if you follow the system, if you use this duster that we bought, if you send me these inspection pictures, then we will add X to your paycheck at the end of this week. So that's really the easiest part to influence that no call, no show behavior is you've already bent over backwards trying to adjust schedule,

you know, so they can be around with their kids and stuff, which is very awesome, very admirable. You need them to reciprocate. And the way to do that is money talks. Yeah, Okay, that's awesome. Also, Brian, on that note, money talks, that's a huge one. 'cause every time I think back to that, we had like three teams and we had so much going on that we were like,

I don't know, we don't have time to put the bonus in place. Like we'll do it later. And I was like Brandon, we gotta do it man. And as soon as we did it, it wasn't even the right time. There's never a right time to do anything in business, but you just gotta do it. And when you do it,

it was a game changer. The other thing that's a game changer is using those core values. And I saw on your website you have quality, customer satisfaction, responsibility. So just reiterate those core values man. When you're telling your teams like hey you gotta take responsibility. Like use the tools and the systems we're giving you take responsibility, right? We're gonna work on our core values honestly to make it translated.

I kind of want it to be more for them as well. Like it's good for the clients to see that what our core values are, but I wanna change it and tweak it. I saw some cool ones where it's like a buffalo, like a Buffalo Cows run away from the storm Buffalo's run through the storm, right? Yeah. I kind of wanna incorporate ones for them because I noticed that those are very useful in companies.

Yeah, I highly recommend Reading Traction by Gino Wickman if you haven't done it already. There's a whole worksheet on core values in there. So definitely check that one out. If you got into reading business books, don't stop reading business books 'cause you got a business going that you should still invest in some continuing education there for yourself. So that book was transformative for us.

So that's where our core values came from was working through that process. Yeah, I think once you have your teams on that same level, and this is also like why we say like the team system in our opinion is just better because they're working together, they're building team rapport, comradery, team spirit, like they're going through hard stuff together. And then when you reiterate those core values,

like everything in your business, hiring, firing, every major decision should be those core values. So when you say keep your cleaners accountable, hey you're not using the tools and the systems we said to use and then you tie it back to a core value take, responsibility or quality. We need the quality to be higher. Use the tools and systems so the quality is higher.

Like just always point it back to the core value and the customer satisfaction, that's the other one. The customers are gonna be more satisfied when we use these tools, when we use these systems, when it's a higher quality clean. And so those kind of things are as small as they seem and nuance as they seem like that's a huge tool other than the bonus system guiding your teams and get,

and even to the point like recognizing your teams. 'cause I heard this recently, it's like people will work for money but they will kill for recognition. So if you recognize your teams, like just be like, Hey Maria, like I noticed you took responsibility yesterday. It was a higher quality clean for the customer 'cause you used our mops and you used our system.

I wanna thank you so much for doing that. And so she didn't ask for that recognition, you just gave that recognition. Everybody heard that recognition and so everyone's like, whoa, Maria got recognized, I wanna do some of that. Everyone's gonna step up and start living those core values. But you gotta point it out and you have to recognize people for living them and maybe even Adam more.

I know you have three on here, but you should have three to five, maybe six or seven at the most. Yeah, That's what I'm talking, I want to expand that list for sure. Yeah, so just things like that. Again, a lot of people they think like you don't need to have a business plan or core values that's student cliche or it is important in a businessman.

And the more you read these business books and people that have done great things, they do these things and we do these things and it works for a reason. Even we didn't believe it all the time either. But it's kind of hard to get used to the system sometimes or to get your teams or even core values. But when you start doing it,

eventually it starts picking up and people get used to it and it and the system takes over. I feel like for scaling, it makes your life so much easier, right? You revert back to those core values always. Absolutely man. Absolutely. So yeah Brandon, I mean I think you're doing amazing man. I think we should schedule another one of these calls here soon.

Just check back in with You. Listen, I have, I have a lot more to talk about. So yeah, we definitely should. Yeah, we could talk more about, 'cause I know last time, yeah you had a lot, a much different set of questions, but I just wanna say like congrats man for coming this far. Even like a month ago when I talked to you,

you're already like doing tremendously better. We Had a quality issue a month ago and I sat down with my cleaners and what I realized is you can mess up something in my home. You can forget to dust, you can forget to do something. As long as my customer service is on point, I went to every single client and I shook their hand,

I got to speak with them, they invited me, they, they had me sit down and drink coffee and they just fell in like they loved the idea of meeting me and they're like, listen, it's just a mistake, it's okay. As long as I kind of prevent that from happening again, they're gonna be happy. So I put that in my job notes and,

and yeah, I love that. That's personalizing. Like everything these days is so automated, but when you reach out, pick up the phone, hand write something, just personalize something like that goes a huge long way. And people like overlook anything. If you're just like, Hey, I'm listening, I'm so sorry. Like I'm taking responsibility, let's fix it.

That's huge man. That is taking responsibility, one of your core values, you know? So The flower thing that you guys are doing is awesome. I love that idea. I'm gonna definitely incorporate that For Christmas we made something similar. We did some like Merry Christmas cards that are fold and then we had like a little Santa Claus thing from the dollar store with a hat and they loved that.

I got so many text messages, they were so grateful for it. Like, ah, thank you guys so much. It's the little stuff, it's the little personal touches that create that customer experience that really help retain those customers. They talk about that stuff. That means a lot to 'em, you know? So I was talking to a a student the other day who was like,

we sent out cards like that and they, people invite me to their kids' birthday parties and their soccer games and he is like, I'm not even part of the family, but people feel like you're part of the family when you do stuff like that, you know? So it goes a long way. Anyways, Brian, I just love hearing your story today,

man. I think you're an inspiration to so many people, especially at 21 years of age. And just keep hustling, man. Keep getting after it and working on putting those systems in place. You're gonna get to a million dollars and I think a lot more than that man. So we'll be there along with you on the ride, man, 'cause we're doing it with you.

So that's kind of the, the fun part of Profit Cleaners is we're all doing it together. A rising tide raises all ships. Yep. Awesome. Thank you guys. You guys are awesome. Awesome Man and Man, keep it up and check in with us in the Facebook group and then otherwise we'll certainly organize in one of these calls and maybe we'll see you in Albuquerque one of these days.

Yeah, I'll be there. I really will be there. Yeah man, we'll put Together to how you guys do things. Awesome man. I appreciate that so much. All right man, we'll see you soon in Albuquerque, Brian and take care brother. All right guys, that's a wrap. So that was our call with Brian. We're gonna be doing a lot more of these in the future guys 'cause we just have so many people with amazing stories like this.

But again, that was amazing, Brandon, like would you agree? Just hearing all that? Yeah, I Think he's doing great. He's got a good future ahead. So if you know anyone in the Stanford, Connecticut area that would like to jump on board with a systematized cleaning company, then check out Crown Home Cleaning. And if you wanna come on the podcast and tell your story,

hit us up at hello at Profit Cleaners dot com. We are happy to talk cleaning with any of you and business stuff in general. Yeah, Absolutely guys. And these kind of stories are making a difference. If this is inspiring to you guys, if you're learning something getting better, maybe it's giving you a new idea or just new inspiration, share the podcast.

You know, share this out to someone. Share it out on a social media channel, on a group. Send it to somebody that could use the help. You know, 'cause a lot of times we hear people in different service businesses, even just getting a lot of help, getting a lot of inspiration from this. So share it out. Help us out guys.

Leave us a review for the podcast. We always say that. Leave us a review, share it out and just share the love and help be part of this movement. Again, we're working on here with Profit Cleaners, just helping as many people as we can get to that next level with their cleaning business. So yeah guys, that's pretty much it.

Until next time, keep it Clean. Keep it clean. 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.