Episode 126: Meet Profit Cleaner, Stanley LeBron: From Professional Gaming to Cleaning Business Success

Episode 126: Meet Profit Cleaner, Stanley LeBron: From Professional Gaming to Cleaning Business Success

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.

Brandon Schoen:
All right everybody. So we are joined today by one of our amazing students, Stanley LeBron, and I'm just so excited and grateful to have you here, Stanley, just the last few weeks. You've been a student of ours, you know, for months now, but just the last few weeks, you know, hearing some of your stories of success, some of the progress you're making, I was just blown away man. And so I just wanted to have you on the podcast and hear more of what you got going on. And I know things are always changing, it's challenging in the beginning,

but I do remember that one of the last messages you sent me was, this is changing my life, man. Like it's priceless having you guys around as mentors to figure this business out as I go. And you had, you were hiring, you had your first team up and going. You had 16 new clients, you had 25 new reviews. I mean,

you had a lot of stuff going on. So I just wanted to have you on, man, let's hear about how it's going, the progress, like what it's been like for you. I'm excited to hear what's going on in your business. So let's dive into it. Tell us a little bit more about how you got started, Stanley. Like what's going on with your business and let everybody know,

you know, all the Profit Cleaners out there that are trying to do what you're doing. Let's hear how you did it. Yeah, well first off, I appreciate you guys having me on a podcast. Before I started my cleaning business, I binge watched, binge listened to you guys' podcast episode. I would re-listen to episodes When I first got on board with you guys as mentors,

I was what, what'd you call a warm lead or a hot lead? Like I was ready to buy. I was like, I Yeah, I remember that man. You were ready to go. I was awesome. Yeah, so how I got started is my background. I was actually a professional gamer for five years for the NBA 2K League. Wow,

That's awesome. So I was actually drafted by that Miami Heat my first year ever in the league. Nice. Yeah. Wow. So I played two years for the heat, then I played for the Portland Trailblazers for a season Sacramento Kings. And then my last year in the league I was on an expansion team that bought in from Spain and they had me located in Indiana,

which is where I have my cleaning business now. So while I was working as a gamer, I met my now girlfriend here and when the season was over, I had a decision to make like, well am I gonna go back home to New York where I grew up and do long distance or am I gonna stay here with my girlfriend and figure some things out?

So I stayed with my girlfriend and I did some research on how I can make some money, some easy to get into businesses and cleaning was one of them. I live in Carmel, Indiana is like one of the top five cities in the US so it's a really nice suburban area with a lot of money to go around. So I was like, man,

like I'll take some of these rich people's money. And that's how I kind of got into it. Nice. Do you miss the eSports life? Yes. I wish I can go back every day. I don't wish I like, I love what I'm doing now, actually. I'm having a lot of fun with the business learning every day. But I didn't want to leave the gaming world.

They kind of forced my hand because I was only employed for half the year and I had just turned 28 so I couldn't just keep doing the six months working six months off thing. But I miss the league and I always like to tell all my friends from the league, like once I get this business up and running and it's like running without me, you know,

the the dream of an entrepreneur that I'll be back. Did it pay well? Like I'm really curious. I mean I've never, eSports is like so new. Like eSports is one of the things that makes me feel old. My six month salary was 35,000 every six months my contract. But then there was tons of bonus money. Like this past season my friend won the championship and just for winning the championship alone,

he took home almost 60 k just him Ding for winning The championship. Yeah, Like what's the, it streams on Twitch or something presumably. Right. And so like they have advertisers that pay stuff while people are watching it live. Yeah, we, they stream it on Twitch, YouTube, they do a whole lot of short form content now. They's like IG reels,

they, they're everywhere with content. But yeah, we have like I keep saying we like, I'm still a part of the league, but they're sponsored by Snickers big brands 'cause you know, it's a part of the NBA. So they kind of like are piggybacking them to get them up and going 'cause it's only six years in so they're not where they want to be.

But it grows every year and they've always have big brand sponsorships that come in. Man. Wild stuff. I love it. Yeah. All right. So you quit the league, you made a conscious decision to stay in a nice city, hang out with your girlfriend, which I, I did. I I moved for a girl, she's now my wife.

So you know, I think that'll play out nicely for you if you wanted to. So you started the company, you listened to a bunch of podcast episodes. I think it's awesome that you binge listened to us. That's pretty cool. How did you find us in the beginning if you were just Googling businesses to start, how did you stumble upon the podcast?

Well when I decided to do a cleaning business I consumed as much content as I could. YouTube, I've watched a lot of different cleaning business owners and I've listened to their podcast and I watched a bunch of videos of other peoples that have successful cleaning businesses. And you guys, I found you guys on Apple podcasts. Like you guys will always come up like there's not quality,

quality content on Apple podcasts for cleaning business beside you guys. But on YouTube you'll see a couple. But when I actually had an interview with a different cleaning company owner, he is based from Seattle. Yeah. He was trying to sell me a course and it was like between you and between that company and your company. And I was just like, man,

these guys just know. I felt like you guys sounded more educated on the cleaning business. Like I felt more comfortable going with you guys. So Nice. Yeah, you guys have some competition on that aspect of the course. I welcome competition. It's fine. I mean there's a reason you ended up with us so I'm sure there's a reason other people will end up with us as well,

but Yep. Yeah. So you started the company, I've talked to you a couple times, we've had a couple meetings, I see you on the coaching calls pretty regularly. And then Brandon wanted to bring you on because you've had like this recent sort of bout of success. So tell us about what's been recently going on with the cleaning company and those reviews and all that stuff.

And then we can maybe touch on staffing 'cause you're back to cleaning houses. So I'm curious how we got there too. Okay. My phone started ringing but I heard, yeah, I about to hit my first nine K month. Nice. And the month before that it was around like 6,000. And then the month before that it was like 3000 revenue.

So I had doubled up Twice pretty much. Yeah. In August I was at around 3000 and then I doubled up from August to September. At that point I was like, okay, this is like happening like, and then this month, like I said, I'm like nearing the nine K range. I've had about over a thousand dollars worth of cancellations unfortunately this month.

I guess that's what's come with having a lot of clients. You'll get cancellations. So. Yep. So that was kind of a bummer because I was like, do they give, I'm sorry, go ahead. Do they give you a reason for the cancellations? So one of my biweekly clients just decided that she wants cleans on Saturdays and I'm like, well I can't,

I can't do that right now. And then another client just said their house wasn't as dirty and they don't want the clean right now. So yeah, those are, it Hasn't been like quality issues or anything wrong. They just don't want the clean graininess. Yes. I mean the one that said the house was too clean, I don't need you to come back.

Was that a monthly client? A biweekly client? So that client's been all over the place. First we started as weekly, then we moved on to biweekly and now I guess we're moving on to monthly. Well I mean it's good that they're still a client. I mean the alternative is nothing. But I mean the one, the reason I asked about the cancellations is sometimes we,

it's actually distinctly tied to like flu season and I guess we could call it covid season now too. But people start calling out sick just because they're, they can't make it that day and our schedule's kind of packed so it's kind of difficult to reschedule them. So we have this new sanitizing service that we're offering. So we're trying to pivot the customer experience scene to being like,

they call in sick like hey really sorry, I hope you feel better next time we come out, do you want us to bring this sanitizing robot and get all the virus outta your curtains and stuff? So we're inching towards doing that. So we're trying to find a way to capture those cancellations to even get like an upsell. And that's something that we'll be rolling out to the podcast listeners here soon.

But yeah, I mean it's good to have cancellations that are not quality related. The quality ones are hard 'cause that means that you failed and when it's just them bitching about scheduling or you know, maybe it costs too much. Like there's things you can do but it doesn't sound like you have a problem to deal with is what I'm saying. That's Awesome man.

So keep going. So you had some progressive growth the last few months you're picking up, you're getting some steam, getting some momentum, building that belief, right? And then I think you said you hired your first team, right? You had your first team going and picking up new clients left and Right. So I was working with three ladies, they were all family and they all lived in the same household.

But it was one older sister, a younger sister and then a younger cousin. The oldest sister was, she was like the dream employee, always maintained quality. She will hold her the other girls accountable because you know they're sisters and they're all related so it was easy for her to hold them accountable. So I turned her into the team lead like two weeks in and it was going great but there was a little hiccup down the road and I had to let them go unfortunately.

And now I've been in the field the whole week but I got some interviews lined up and I Nice got a candidate that has, who speaks English, this candidate is, 'cause my, the last lady, they didn't speak English and that was another issue with some of my clients. It wasn't a big issue but it was kind of just in the back of my mind like this is gonna cost me at some point.

I always thought about it. Sure, yeah. But down the road, like let's say these interviews work out, you get a bunch of people that have driver's licenses that could be a place where you go back to in the future where they're not drivers. Like if you get one person has a driver's license, you could bring them back on potentially as cleaners.

But that's the conversation for down the road I think. But yeah man it happens. I like to hear that you're just rolling with it. We got interviews scheduled, no big deal. Like we'll find someone like that's the way to do it. Yeah, Yeah. That's the most important thing man. You're just don't give up, you just keep going when things happen.

As long as you're learning from it. Like you are learning from it. You said, I didn't do this right this time, but next time I'll do it right this way. And as long as you're taking that knowledge into the next phase of what you're doing, that's the beauty of business is you make your own roles and at the end of the day it's all kind of like an experiment but as long as you're learning from those things you're doing,

those aren't mistakes. Those are just pushing you forward to the next level and now you're gonna actually be able to uplevel your team. So the first people you had maybe weren't the best fit, but you got some progress and some momentum with them. Now the next people will be even better and you'll be able to build on that. And I think it'll really,

it'll be a great, you know, stepping stone for you instead of like a a failure or something like that. Yeah, I think about quotes a lot Brandon, you they keep me going. I'll be honest with you, Brandon's good for that. I do want some schisms on a t-shirt. I think that's our next merch ploy that we should be doing.

This Is what you guys call it. I told my girlfriend last week, it was one of Brandon's quotes, I was like, this guy, it was my, the client that has turned from weekly to biweekly to monthly, we've had several back and forths and I'm like man, this guy's really sharpening my ax. I was telling my girlfriend that I've heard Brandon say it a lot of times on the podcast.

Yeah Brother. Absolutely. I mean every time you encounter anything hard or challenging or even just like you're doing, listening to the podcast, reading books, I mean you're sharpening your ax man so you can cut through the next thing even better. So I love that man. That's huge. Yeah. So tell us what happened beyond that. While you had that team though,

you were getting new clients, getting new reviews, it sounded like you were, you made quite a bit of growth happen even while you didn't have the best team, it was still making progress, Right? Yeah, it's great. I'm about to be at, I think I'm at 28 Google reviews right now. Google just keeps taking down my reviews for some reason I have to keep emailing them to put 'em back up.

Do they do it? Do they put 'em back up? Yeah, I've actually had great results. Like I get through with them and I emailed the guy and I follow up and they get them posted. Did they tell you why they took 'em down in the first place? No, that's weird man. Reviews are such a strange space and there's so much stuff that relies on them.

So like I, maybe they're looking, they think it was fraudulent or something, but that's interesting. I'm glad that they responded to you. We were just talking about on the coaching call how Google has notoriously bad customer service. So I'm good to hear a success story out of it. There's like a little hack I have on the Google support site 'cause it'll only give you email option but if you keep playing around with like a,

like what you need done and eventually it'll give you a callback option and that's what I do to get ahold of them like fast. So Nice. I like it. Very Nice. Alrighty. Well if you guys are, I mean we've had lots of issues with Google. If you guys are listening to this and you've had issues with Google, take that little nugget from Stanley that's just keep,

I think that's just a good like mindset hack too. It's like when something doesn't go your way, just keep going. Like keep hacking away until you find a a solution and as an entrepreneur you're gonna like come across so many challenges and stopping points, but if you just keep going and don't give up, you'll get through it. Google will call you back eventually you will get a team in place eventually that will work for you and keep going from there.

So that's amazing man. So how do you think you were getting those reviews, Stanley? Were you asking for 'em? Were you just over-delivering value? What kind of process were you using to gather those reviews in the beginning? I think what works best for me is like asking for a review right after the clean. When I wait, like for the next day I,

I don't get good results but if I ask like right away, that's been my best method to get the review because I always follow up with a text after the clean like hey like how was the clean? Did you like it? It's normally good, great feedback like oh I love them. Like oh can you please give a review? Like I like make it personalized as well.

Like I tell them what I tell 'em what I'm trying to do. Like I'm really trying to grow this company and I need your help. That's amazing man. Yeah and I love what you're doing 'cause you're like right as the clean is finished or that same day you're following up, right? And most sales and business are in the follow-up and and a lot of the customer experience is things you do after the fact,

not just the upfront stuff. So the fact that you're reaching out, you're customizing, you're personalizing a message to somebody, it shows that you care. Like people are feeling that your intent is that you care and you're asking for help and people want to naturally, people want to help local businesses or people in their community if they need a favor. So I love that man,

I love that you're doing that and eventually like you know, in the beginning we had to do a lot more of that too. But eventually as your business grows, as you dial in your process and your experience, that'll happen more organically too and people will just, and especially if you're over-delivering and you're doing things like that and going outta your way, it's gonna help just those things happen organically.

But I love that man that's really powerful 'cause a lot of people have a hard time getting reviews for lots of different reasons. So take taking action on that. Yep. Stanley, are you using a review software or are you just crafting those text messages on your own and giving them a link to your Google My Business page Just on my own. Not automated yet.

Good job. Yeah but that's the whole point, right? It works. Like we told people that we had reviews before we started using one of those softwares. We use podium but you can absolutely get 'em. You just have to ask. That's the thing that podium makes it easy to ask without having to track it, which is a lot easier when you get bigger and you've got dozens of jobs a day.

But when you're brand new like that, yeah man just can you give us a review? It'd be really helpful, really helpful if you could do this for us. So I really appreciate that you're taking that to heart and also that you're telling 'em why like that we always tell you guys like tell the customer why, here's why I need your review. I'm trying to grow this business.

This really helps a lot. And it's clear that people resonate with that. So I think that's awesome. Yeah, well I got it from you guys so Nice. Awesome man it's good. It's good that people listen and follow through. Yeah, no we still do that to this day I think we're pivoting more towards you know, just that experience but like still we're aggressive with that stuff but I think ultimately our goal is just to like create such an amazing experience for people that they can't help but to do it on their own.

But obviously a little nudge helps every once in a while. So especially when you're brand new, those reviews are gold, you know, so you, you getting out there that for those first 30 reviews you built in just a few months, Stanley, I mean that's like pure gold because that's social proof now that people are gonna wanna work with you but they're gonna wonder,

well who else is buying Stanley's cleaning services? Right? And so they're gonna go look for those reviews and that's what's gonna help sell 'em most of the time. Especially if you're brand new. So that's super huge man that you're working those reviews and just getting out there man taking action. That's what it sounds like to me. So have you been enjoying like the coaching calls and like you're getting some value from just like hanging out with us and as you're building your business?

Yeah, I always learn something new from the coaching calls. What I like from the coaching calls is that there's people like me in there that are new and they act newbie questions and I'll just be a fly on the wall and listen and just learn from people that are in my shoes. So yeah, I think those are great So and I like that you guys do it almost every week and that you guys have the q and as for everybody too.

Yeah, I mean we only know what you guys tell us so we want to make it easy for people that are in the course to be able to ask what they need to know. Like when we made the course we tried to get you all the way like this is what we think you'll need to know. But over time it develops into a different sort of beast and we're happy to roll with it.

That's part of the fun. Yeah, absolutely. Like we're in there learning with you guys. Like that's the fun part is we might have made some progress ahead of the pack here but like we're also in listening to you guys listening to what you're trying out and everybody's getting better together. So I think that's a huge value add there. A lot of times too,

just as an entrepreneur, I know this personally for myself, you know, sometimes you feel like a lone wolf out there. Like nobody understands what you're trying to do. I think it's entrepreneurs only make up like 7% of the world population. It's a very small actual number of true entrepreneurs. You know when you surround yourself with community, with people like-Minded,

there's that quote I love You are the average of the people, like the five people you surround yourself with. Just the more you do that, whether that's through podcasts, books, communities like mastermind coachings, the better you're gonna get man and the more confidence you're gonna have and that's then it's gonna be easier for you to take action. You know? So I think you know,

you we're seeing that in reality here, you know, like you didn't really know what you were doing a few months ago. I remember having that initial call with you Stanley and it's amazing man to hear your, your progress almost 10,000 a month and like what do you think made the difference for you man? Like was it, would you think you could have done that five or six months ago when you were very first starting without any of this knowledge or what do you think made you take action and and get it done?

I mean I definitely think I could have done it probably not as fast as I'm doing it now because I mean I've just been exposed to so much knowledge with you guys and the group and just all the content I've consumed. But if I went the route of just trying to do it all by my own then it would've been tough. I remember this is the one story I always like to reference where this was like the turning point was like okay,

like the money I spent on the course was worth it. I was doing, I had a clean move out clean, the guy was trying to sell the house and I was supposed to clean it with some girl and she no-showed me that day. So I was there by myself. It took me like nine hours to get that down on my myself. Yeah,

Wow. I ruined the stove. I, I uploaded the video in the group if you guys remember, but I ruined the stove and I had like five minutes to just panic like what am I gonna do? Like that was the first time I ever ruined an appliance like what's gonna happen? And then I was like wait, like I, I have these guys like I'm just gonna go in there and ask and whatever they tell me like I'm gonna row with it.

And I went in there, I posted a video of the damages and one of the other students I think, what's his name? Kyle, maybe he's in Indiana too. Kyle. Yeah Kyle. He told me if it's under your deductible just cover it. And then Brandon Condre commented like yep, that's exactly what you do. So I was like okay well I'm gonna tell him and that's what I'm gonna do if it comes down to it.

So that was the moment I was like okay, like this was worth it 'cause I would've been just losing it over that. So how did he take it? How did your customer take it when you gave him that news? He Was telling the house. So I told him like look I messed this up. He said he is gonna have a sun look at it.

And I never heard from him since and yep perfect. That's all you had to do though. The difference is is if you hadn't told him, someone would've found it on some walkthrough later and been pissed and then they would've called you and then been really pissed. But the fact that you were just upfront, hey really sorry screwed up this appliance my bad.

I will cover this so we can you find a guy, replace it and I'll reimburse you. Like that's the best way and then it puts it back on them to do what they gotta do and then they never contact you. So maybe that was small or maybe they talked to the buyers who were like nah, we're gonna replace it with something new anyway and it just ended up being a non-issue and that's like the best case scenario.

But had you not said anything, it could have been way worse and that you may have had to like refund the cost of that clean even though it wasn't a big deal on their end but they were just mad about it 'cause you tried to hide it and that happens a lot. People get upset when you try to hide things from customers like you shouldn't do that.

We try to tell you guys to be just be upfront man like you're human. Mistakes happen. It wasn't intentional. I didn't come in here to bash your stove, I'm really sorry. And that usually just works out man. People realize that mistakes happen and I'm glad it worked out. I'm glad that that was your ROI on the course investment was that we saved you from some headache with a customer.

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. The best part about this story is I had a, another client reach out to me a few months before that she wanted to move out clean because she was selling the house,

clean her place up. Then she calls me again three months later because she liked the job that we did. She's like, hey like I finally bought my new house, we didn't even move in clean. I get to the house and it's the same house. I ruined the stove. Was the stove still there? Was it still ruined? It Was still ruined.

Oh man, great. Did you tell her that that, did you not, did you not tell her the stove part? Hopefully but did you tell her that I cleaned it before? No, I told my ladies like I've cleaned this house before and I ruined the stove and we were having, we were just laughing, laughing, having a great time.

I will never tell the client I have a story very, it's similar, not the same thing but I got this request for an estimate. I saw it come through and I was like, I'm gonna go do this one in person. And I got down there and it was the house that I lived in in college. It was like the debauchery party house when we lived there and police were called and people,

dude it was a good time, it was a good house to live in but we trashed that place and so I really wanted to know what it looked like as an adult, you know, with an adult living in it. And she was a doctor working at the hospital and I told her like when we walked through like there's this funny hole in the wall,

I was like, yeah this is where my friend Johnny threw this dude through the sheet rock and we repaired it ourselves and we had a good laugh about it. She thought it was funny and she ended up being a customer so we cleaned that house all the time. It was hilarious. So yeah it was, I mean it's funny like when you live in a city like that you'll run into more things like that.

So it's, I dunno always funny, funny to go into a house like that when you've been there before. I think the damage stories are always really funny. I just wanna piggyback on that really quick. In the very early days, like first year of business in our neighborhood Brandon, I don't know if you remember this but our very, I was with the team like doing the inspection and stuff and we had actually broken,

it looked like a pretty nice piece of China or some glass on the bar and we left our leave behind note, we immediately called, contacted the customer, told 'em hey we broke this, we'll replace it like we always do. And that was the day that I realized that being upfront and honest with people really pays because this lady was so surprised. This is the wow factor we're always talking about.

When you make people feel like, oh my gosh you really care. She went and I was right there next to her and she called her friend or she was talking to her neighbor and she was like, you won't believe it. This company even left a note and told me they broke my stuff and they even called me and like all these things and she couldn't believe that we just hold her,

you know? But again, a lot of times companies hide these things and it's when you're going above and beyond and you're overdelivering value and you're just doing things to just help people instead of just take, take, take, you're helping, helping, helping people. People can't believe it and that's when they tell that story. And so, so yeah you did the right thing Stanley.

I and I think in the future that knowledge will pay huge dividends because it's like we've had so many stories of breakage and damaging crazy amounts of appliances and other stories from other people too. But it's like if you make it right, first of all they won't believe it or they even told them and so yeah they might not even care that're like thank you for telling me and it's not even a big deal.

I think that's a great example of just great offering a great customer experience. Even if you break something, take responsibility, people don't expect that. So if you do things that people don't expect, they're gonna talk about you, they're gonna keep working with you and it's gonna create loyalty and it's gonna create a great brand story for you. So I love that man.

Yeah, We actually broke, my weekly client had a perfume like on a stand by his tv. Okay. And we broke it, it shattered and it was like 20 bucks. So I already ordered the new perfume on Amazon. I haven't even told him I broke it yet. So I'm gonna text him, let 'em know like hey, I broke this and I already ordered new one,

it'll be there tomorrow. So Nice. Oh cool. Oh man, that reminds me of one, we're just trading war stories here on this episode. So come along guys, this is gonna be a fun ride. It was really early on in the days we were cleaning this house. The wife had booked us, she liked us a lot, it was our second clean I think.

And her husband was a surgeon and he had a collection of brandy and a big collection of brandy and we knocked over and broke a bottle of Louis the 14th brandy, which is French and if you've ever seen the bottle, it's got all these little spiky things on the outside of the glass. And so they were trying to dust it and the duster got caught in one of those,

knocked it over, that bottle of brandy is $4,000. And I almost lost my mind when I found out how much it was gonna cost to replace it. And I told 'em, I'm like, I'm really sorry about it. Like please let us know how we can replace it. I know some people like on the, you know alcohol distribution side of things,

like maybe there's a way to find it. And the guy was so cool that we approached him about it, he was like, I didn't even like it that much. And it was like mostly done anyway. He's like, I'll give you a couple names of some stuff that's affordable, you buy whatever you want. And he gave me this list and we got him two bottles off of it and we did find a guy that gave us a discount on it and so we ended up spending a hundred dollars instead of 4,000.

But that was a hard pill to swallow to walk up to a guy and be like Hey man we broke your $4,000 bottle of brandy, really sorry. And it all worked out in the end. So I think it just goes back to the whole story of tell him that you did it and the fact that your weekly customer is gonna be blown outta the water.

Like $20 for a perfume is not a lot in the perfume world but the fact that you already ordered a replacement, it's already on the way it'll be delivered tomorrow. That's above and beyond for them. That's what's gonna make them stay weekly customer and tell their neighbors about how you did that. That's the best part. Yeah, My only weekly client, I can't let go of them.

Agreed. That's awesome man. You're already doing it man. You're already delivering amazing customer experiences and even just little things like you might not think that's a big deal but that is a big deal to a lot of people and a lot of people, that's the reason one of the biggest reasons people hate house cleaning is they're worried their stuff's gonna get broken or stolen or it's gonna be a hard experience in one way or another.

So if you make it a pleasant experience and even if things go wrong, you're making it right, you're taking responsibility. That's what it's all about. And yeah, that's what's gonna get you so many more customers in the future too is just keeping that mindset. So right on man. So what's next Stanley? Like what's next big goal or what are you working on next to keep growing this business in Indiana?

I'm like laser focused on hiring. I was supposed to be done cleaning two weeks ago. Yep. Yeah, Like I'm over the cleaning, it's just, it's not realistic to the goals I have to the company I want to be, I can't keep cleaning like I can put my time to way better use. I'm just ready to hire a team and just let go and what's the phrase,

let go and let God and just let's do it. Let whatever happens happens. And yeah like it's just the reward for not cleaning is so much better than cleaning. Like if you send them on a hundred cleans and three cleans go wrong, like I'm taking those odds 10 outta 10 times and I just, for me that what's holding me back to do that is just the fear of,

'cause nobody's gonna care as much as I care about the queen. No one's ever gonna care as much as I care. Like I get that, I've accepted that but it's still just the fear that I'm holding onto like man, like they're gonna mess something up but I've messed things up. I messed up a a stove and I'm still here so like I just gotta just get over that and that's what I'm ready to do.

Like I'm ready to do that. Like it's gonna happen like real soon. Yeah that's a good focus. It's a good focus to be laser hired on that as soon as you get out of there. Then I think when it really becomes real is when you get two or three teams and now you have a pool of employees you can work with. So like if someone calls in sick on one team you can shuffle jobs between them,

you can shuffle people around for floating, you know, that's the, the real magic happens. So like you gotta get that first team to stick and then from there like the sky's the limit. But I think like the important part there, the fear part, that is one thing you definitely have to let go of. It's so hard to do it but after you get done with the first one and you realize that they didn't destroy anything,

we had a bunch of good customers that went through like I remember trying to game out like what's the worst case scenario? Like someone leaves the gas on on a stove 'cause they twisted a knob the wrong way with a microfiber and then like the whole house explodes. Well that's what's insurance for. Like that's not you. They're not gonna come after Stanley to rebuild the house.

Like that's an insurance claim. You got that covered that cost you a thousand bucks on your deductible to blow someone's house up. Now you know you might have a reputation problem you gotta manage after that but that's the worst case scenario. So when you picture people going into houses and breaking perfumes or picture frames or even appliances, you can bounce back from that.

Like we destroyed $10,000 in appliances that were seven days old and they still stayed a customer and because they had the receipt they got full value from the insurance. And what I liked about it was they got a check for the value of the appliances but because they had young kids, they kept the appliances that we scratched because the kids were gonna do it anyway.

And so we basically, our insurance bought em a set of appliances are bad but they liked how we handled it and so they kept going. So you just gotta go into it with that mindset. Your employees will 100% not care about it as much as you do. They will screw up. That's what the bonus is for. You gotta give them a bonus to try and incentivize 'em to care a little bit more like you do.

And then over time it'll all sort of sort of self out like you said, it is just something that you gotta manage from far away. But I'd we rather be steering it in an office than scrubbing toilets myself a Hundred percent with you on that. I actually just got initiated last week into Carmel Rotary Club so I'm getting involved in the community just doing as much as I can honestly to just get my name out there and meet some people because I moved to Indiana,

I don't know anybody here but my girlfriend and some of her friends that I've met. So Yep, that's a good way to do it. I like those community groups like the Rotarians Rotary Club, the Elks, like those kind of like some old dudes hang out there usually, but they're usually fun and they've been around a long time so they're, they're happy to introduce you to other people.

BNI is a good one to get into the business community side of things. And then in terms of general community, like I dunno man you gotta pick up a hobby like you're into gaming. I'm sure there's some group that gets together that's usually online but you gotta find, like I played racketball when I moved to Las Vegas and I just met a bunch of people doing that,

including this dude that was 90 years old that I used to play with. His name was Eddie, he was awesome. So yeah, the more that you get your name out there, the better they are. Chambers of commerce, depending on how good they're, they're they're widely variable depending on the city. But oftentimes they will offer to do like a ribbon cutting ceremony even if you've been in business a long time,

like come out for the ribbon cutting for this cleaning company, you know like they're brand new to the group and they'll put out a press release that'll usually get you in a paper. Something to keep in mind there too. That's Nice. Didn't know about that, I appreciate that. Yeah, Absolutely man. And I think you're doing the right thing man.

Just creating that network. It's easier when you like are from the town 'cause you obviously have that network and that community already. But if you're not, especially if you're not, yeah join those groups up. Brandon did a lot of the BNI more than I did in the beginning and there was good pros and cons but I think no matter what, as long as you're taking action,

you're gonna create momentum, you're gonna meet the right people that'll put you in touch with the right people. A lot of times in those groups what you're surrounded by is what we call in the marketing world like influencers or micro influencers, people that have a lot of clout, they have a lot of of network that they can reach out to. So tell those people,

hey man, like we'll showcase our skills, we'll clean your house for free. Like let us just show you what we can do and please talk about us. Please tell your network, please talk about it at at the networking event. It's also another great strategy for like Facebook groups and things like that. There's, there's gotta be some really cool Carmel Facebook groups of moms or neighborhood groups,

family groups, things like that where you can sponsor or clean the admin's house of the group. Just do whatever you can to get your word out there and and get people noticing your stuff whether it's organic or paid, but I think you're doing the right thing man. Just keep getting out there. Remember like you're creating a brand, right? So what do you want people to remember when they hear your brand,

when they see your brand And the more of those experiences you can get people, the more you're out there smiling, shaking people's hands, telling people what you're doing, the more it's gonna create those connections too. So that's huge man. I think you're doing some amazing things and it sounds like you're in a really good market too. So there's gotta be some cool community groups there in Carmel,

right? Yeah, I mean I'm in a great market to start a home cleaning business. Yeah. Do you carry around brochures or anything Stanley? Like do you have an elevator pitch If someone asks you what you do you can like flop 'em this thing like this is it, this is what I do. Here's the 62nd pitch. I've thought about it,

I've never executed it but my pitch would be I give people free time and peace of mind. I love It, I like it. What do you mean? I'll tell 'em I have a home cleaning business. Yep. That's the way to do it man. You get 'em asking questions, they're following through after you tell 'em a home cleaning business, here's this card like you get 50% off 'cause you met me in person or something.

Like just something to hand out. Like we used to hand out brochures, the teams all carry brochures in their cars so if they ever get asked about it when they're having lunch, which happens pretty often, they're able to hand that out. So I definitely recommend getting some old school print media. Just have around. Yeah, there's a good template in the course you can repurpose Stanley.

But also, yeah, I mean in the beginning the more you get out there, the more action, even bad things happening, like you said, mistakes happening on the team or a negative review, that means you're taking a lot of action. That means you're getting out there enough that maybe some bad things are happening once in a while, but as long as you keep going and overcome those things,

I mean that's where you're gonna keep growing and it's powerful man, what all the actions you're taking right now, it's gonna come back to you. It's just like, it feels like a lot of baby steps in the beginning but it's like all those deposits you're making every day taking action, it's gonna come back to you And I'm just proud of you man.

This is awesome. I'm just happy to hear that you're, you're making progress and making waves in your business. And what's your girlfriend think about all this. She's been cleaning with me this week. Oh really? Oh man, that's commitment right there. I like it. Yeah, she's supportive. She keeps me levelheaded. Like ow I have my moments where I'm like man this I'll just start cursing.

It's not working. So I'm going back and she'll be like, she'll bring it back and she'll be like, look at all the progress you made and then she'll remind me of my review, she'll remind me of a client that I made happy and she'll just bring me back and it's just co it's consistent. So yeah, we can thank her for me being present here today with you guys.

That's awesome man. Well please send all my thanks. I mean that's half the battle man. You just gotta show up. Do the work's. Part of the hard part about being an entrepreneur in the beginning there's a lot to do, you're the only person doing it. But once you start building that team, man stuff just starts to snowball and it just gets to this different level.

It's a lot better and you're, it sounds like you're on the cusp. You gotta get this laser focused hiring thing up and outta the way with this one team and then get a second team on, you know, after some sales and then from there sky's the limit. Yeah, Yeah. And it does get easier Stanley. Like it's like those issues with cancellations you were mentioning in the beginning like as you have more teams and more people to work with,

like it's easier to fill in those spots. You have more people to fill in or you have more customers more one times and more move outs you can fill the schedule with if people cancel. So as you pick up more momentum, you get like economies of scale and you get more efficiencies and more things that that make it easier. But you're like in the hardest part of it right now man.

And you're doing amazing and and I would just say keep going and I love that your pitch, remember we talk about this all the time on the coaching calls and stuff, but like you're selling happiness, you're not even selling cleaning services, you're selling happiness, giving people their time back. And when you flip your perspective like that, it's so much more powerful and you can make some really amazing experiences for people.

'cause you can remind them, hey, like it's gonna feel great when you can spend time with your family and your kids' birthday this weekend and you can do stuff again as a family. You're not cleaning toilets all day. So it's a powerful product that you're selling and it's happiness and it's time back and I love that you're already pitching it that way too.

So very, very cool man. So, well I don't know if you had any other questions Stanley, we keep going forever but I think I just wanted to get an update on you, see how you're doing the progress. It's amazing. So thank you for sharing all this man. I think I'm even learning a lot and I think a lot of people out there are gonna learn a lot from hearing your story man.

Yeah, for sure. There's this one thing I want to share with new cleaning business owners who are hustling. I'm gonna take credit for it. I found the new gorilla marketing tactic, let's hear it. And I've been Ubering on my spare time with car magnets and I have flyers on every single door in my car. Nice. I like it. People pick it up like they pick it up after a ride and then I haven't closed the deal yet,

but I've gotten some interest. Some people have called me genius for it, so I'm gonna keep rolling with it. Nice Building brand over. There You go man. Yeah, get the brand out there. And that's the thing man is just sometimes you like, you try something, it doesn't work, you try it a little different way. It's always like an experiment,

right? So you might find maybe it works super good with Lyft but not Uber or like the way you say it or the way you do it is different. That works way better. So you just gotta keep going with it. And I love that you're trying stuff man. Gorilla marketing is where it's at too, especially in the beginning. I think that's it man.

We just wanted to catch up with you, hear how business is going. Thanks for sharing your progress, Stanley. You're doing amazing. And don't stop man, keep taking action, keep you know, doubling down on knowledge, showing up to the coaching calls. 'cause that ultimately is what's gonna build your mentality, your, your mindset. The confidence and the clarity to keep going is just surrounding yourself with winners.

And so I'm, I'm glad you're in the group man. I'm excited to be on the journey with you and let's just keep going. Yeah, for Sure. We should title this podcast part one 'cause I have a part two when my new revenue go. Let's Do it man. Yeah, let's check back in later this year. I like it. Or early next year I suppose.

Let's do It man. Well thanks for being here Stanley, and thanks for inspiring everybody and sharing your story and, and your wins and your challenges and everything. Everyone's gonna keep taking action 'cause of it. So we appreciate you man. Thank you. Oh, thank you guys. I really appreciate the course and you guys have helped me a lot, just ease off so much stress.

So I really appreciate you guys more than you know, so I'm happy to be here. Yeah man, we're happy to have you. Keep it up, get back to answering the phone when Angie calls. Otherwise you get charged for it. You gotta get back to business man. But eventually you'll work your way up and just keep going. Get build that team.

So I'm excited for you Stanley. All right, man, until the next episode. Keep it clean Stanley, 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.