Episode 4: How to Consistently Show Up in the Cleaning Industry with Corby Felsher, Founder of Stapleton Home Services

Episode 4: How to Consistently Show Up in the Cleaning Industry with Corby Felsher, Founder of Stapleton Home Services

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:
Hey everybody, Brandon Schoen here. Welcome back to another episode of the Profit Cleaners, the only place where you can learn from the top 1% of cleaning business owners to explode your business. And here we are guys, with another episode, episode four, really exciting content for you guys today. How to consistently show up in the cleaning industry with Corby Felsher, the founder of Stapleton Home Services, and believe it or not, he is our mentor. And we're so excited for him to join us just for you guys to get to know him, hear a little bit about his story, how he started out up in Denver almost 20 years ago, just cleaning hospital, hospital rooms, and a little bit of commercial, and then how he switched to doing homes. He's now got over 40 employees and he is just doing big things, shaking things up and making waves up in Denver. So we're really excited for you guys to just listen some of the highlights and some of the insights that Corby has, but today we're going to learn how Corby got the idea to start his cleaning company, how it evolved from again, cleaning clinics to homes in Denver. Um, and we're also going to discover how to build a solid foundation for your business so it can thrive for decades to come. You're also going to see how Corby consistently developed systems in order to adapt to constant changes again, all while managing 40 employees, you're going to learn how Brandon Condrey and I got inspired to follow in his footsteps and kind of the story there, how we got all this started, how we just sent them a random gift in the mail. And then the rest is history. The important stuff with word of mouth and why getting referrals from loyal satisfied customers is really key. We're also going to talk about the secret sauce, keeping long term customers. So your business always has a solid reliable foundation, and we're going to top it off with Corby's actionable tips on what you need to start off your business on the right foot or keep it going in the right direction. So without further ado, guys, I want to jump into the show. I apologize if we have a few audio issues, there's just an initial call. We're going to get better on the settings there, but again, guys, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for supporting the show. I apologize we've been kind of a way building our business the last few weeks. We haven't published a lot of new episodes, but we're getting back on it. We've just seen how much you guys have been supporting us, reaching out, asking questions, hopping on the live trainings and stuff we're doing. So again, stay to the end of the podcast. We'll give the link out for that, for the live training. And, um, again, thank you guys so much for all your support. Keep sharing out the podcast, give us a like, give us a review. And for further ado, let's jump into the episode with Corby Felsher.

Corby Felsher:
It is a hot network of people continuing to talk about every single thing. You have opinions of all of them. And that's wonderful thing. It's a tough thing if you're running a business, that's not quite good. If you're running an okay business, this tongue will tear you up. One bad review, and this could have a downturn as you're getting going, and you won't even get your foothold. There's some neighborhood groups that here, here, can you destroy you in a second? We knew that right away, because you can have a successful financial company and operate like a Molly maids, Merry maids. All these franchises operates and you could be successful, but you cannot be a great company. If you operate inside that world.

Brandon Schoen:
All right, everybody. So welcome to the call today. We have a very special call with the one and only Corby our mentor, our coach. The guy that helped us start all of this several years ago, back in 2017. So we want to make an introduction to him and just share the story of how Corby got started, how we all got started together and just kind of go from there. So you guys know kind of the backstory of about how it all started and it's kind of a cool story. So we're going to jump in Corby let's introduce you. Welcome to the call. Welcome to the podcast Profit Cleaners and we're so excited to have you, and we're so excited for all the future stuff we're going to be sharing with people, but let's just introduce you now and dive in and tell people a little bit about yourself and how you got into the cleaning business.

Corby Felsher:
Yeah. What an introduction. Thanks guys.

Brandon Schoen:
The one and only. The man.

Corby Felsher:
Wow. Thank you. I'm very excited to be a part of this too. This is pretty fun stuff. New technology for me. So bear with me. Yeah. If you want me to give you a brief overview of our existence, is that how you'd like to start?

Brandon Schoen:
Yeah. Just tell people a little bit about you and your Stapleton, how you guys started.

Corby Felsher:
Well, I was born or child in Wisconsin on a dairy farm. Nah I wasn't, I was born in Wisconsin though, and I was moved to Colorado in about 1992 after I graduated from university of Wisconsin. And about 10 years after that, we started a small cleaning company in well, but in year 2000, we clean clinics throughout the city of Denver and children's clinics and my business partner and I became pretty successful in that pretty quickly. And that there was a need for systemized cleaning. At that point in the clinics, they were not getting consistent cleaners they'd hire whatever company to come in and do whatever process they normally do. And we immediately started to develop systems and I moved to Stapleton in 2002 and I was at my house and this young lady comes to the door and knocks and says, we would like to clean your house. We'll do it for free. And she was very presentable and gave a good pitch and like, wow, yes, please come clean. And while she was cleaning, I was just thinking, wow, I would like to work with this person. And I was thinking more for the commercial side. She was a young gal. She was probably 19 at the time playing with her cousin. And before she left, I said, what do you think about possibly expanding your model and working with me to take on faith and embed that point Stapleton it was just 200 houses. Now we've got, I don't know, 10,000 houses here or something like that. And from there we went on and I work together to kind of build a good cleaning core here. We gave away free cleans to get started. And I think we cleaned about 10% of all homes right off the bat. And we had great retention and started taking those systems from our clinics and applying them in the houses. And we worked out in my garage and it was just the two of them. And we've expanded, obviously now I'm almost 18, 19 years later. And to, you know, nearly 40 employees and still just operating in the Stapleton and as it's grown and just continuing to develop better systems, we never stop at that. And that's kind of been the backbone of our success is the systems. And that leads us to working with you wonderful folks in Albuquerque you moved here Brandon and you dealt with our company and that's how we came together.

Brandon Condrey:
Yeah, I did. I'll jump in and just tell them how I did it from our end. So my wife and I moved to Denver from Las Vegas. I think that was in 2007. I want to say something like that. We originally lived in park Hill. I did try and get Stapleton to come out and service us in park Hill. Cause I had seen the car to neighbor's house, but you guys shut me down and said that we don't no one's going to come out there. But it was because you had some legacy customers that you did service that were outside of the Stapleton, which is why I saw the car, but Stapleton was like, I could throw a rock at it, but I was outside of your service area. So no one would come do it. But we had a kid in 2014, we outgrew our tiny house, like right away. And so we had wanted it to be in Stapleton. It was a very family friendly neighborhood and we wanted to be in there. And so we sold our house and jumped over there. That was when 2015 and the market was crazy hot. We got 30 offers on our house after it being listed for a day, something like that. But we moved in. We finally got Stapleton Home Services I distinctly remember this. My wife remembers this, but Corby you wrote up on a beach cruiser, you had super long hair and you were wearing flip flops and you walked in and did the estimate and about, I don't know, 30 seconds, Bing bang. Boom. I know the floor plan. No worries. Here's the cost of you later? Like, and I remember telling my wife, I was like, I want that dude's life. How do I ride around on my bike with flip flops? So on all day as a job and she remembers that. And then, you know, I had a job, we stayed in Stapleton for just about a year. Everything was getting super expensive. We doubled our mortgage payment or we moved to Stapleton. And so we decided to move back home to be closer to family. So our kids could know their grandparents and things like that. And when we got settled in Albuquerque Stapleton Home Services was the only cleaning company I'd had. We were young. That was our first house that we bought. And I just thought that's how cleaning companies are. They're all like that one. That's just the way they are. And so we got here, I quickly found out that was not the truth. So we had called all the big franchises. They were terrible. They're just doing estimates over the phone and they're not being really, there was just no effort put into it. And then what we ended up with was a housekeeper, her and her sister, and they were great. But you know, you run into problems with housekeepers reliability, scheduling, cars that break down. And so we can't get to you today, whatever it is. And so I was very unhappy at my job. I was ready to bail and this was what we zeroed in on Brandon and I've been hanging out for probably a year at that point. And we were always bouncing wacky business ideas off each other. I was like, dude, let's start a cleaning company. What's going to be cool. That will show people later is that I have these emails. So I have the email where I told Brandon we should start a cleaning company. And then I have the first email that I sent to you Corby that said Albuquerque Home Services question Mark. And then I told you that I was a previous customer. And do you want to do this? And yeah, you were super receptive. So that kind of got the boat rolling the show on the road. And here we are three years later and we're approaching 30 employees and seven crews, in three years and it's just going gangbusters.

Corby Felsher:
Dang. Wow. Yeah, this has been fun. I mean, what a, what a great experience this has been for myself and Lindsey and Luis are the directors of state home services to work with you all and see this incredible growth that you've taken on. And Albuquerque how fun it really, it's really fun to watch and be a part of. Thanks guys.

Brandon Condrey:
Yeah, it's been really good from our end too. I mean, it obviously worked for a reason. So I do think that Stapleton, Home Services is unique in the cleaning world and that's why we were able to just come in here and, you know, we just identified a whole new market. No one in Albuquerque was very good at customer service, but cleaning was hit or miss, depending on the mood of whoever arrived that day. And this is how it worked. It's worked really well.

Corby Felsher:
Awesome. On a side note, you know, it's been 18 years of Stapleton Home Services we will no longer exist as you know it within the next three months, as you guys know, this is the last day I'm wearing this hat. It says Stapleton Home Services on it. I brought it here. I'm standing in a room by myself, just so I don't offend anybody that Stapleton with Stapleton airport was named after a mayor who apparently was part of the Klu Klux Klan back in the day. And that has brought about some serious change in our neighborhood with all the current events, very sensitive events. The neighborhood is society to change the name and we're named after the neighborhood. And so we are searching for a new name and we are not going to stay with Stapleton Services we, we love the name. We did not know any association with they negative. We just named it after the neighborhood, but I'm going to wear a pride fleet today as the name of my company that we developed with no association with whatever the past was, but we will be changing our name to probably whatever the neighborhood is named Home Services so if it's John it'll be John Home Services you're not John Home Services by the way, John Home Services right?

Brandon Condrey:
Yes. Yes. I mean, when I lived in Stapleton it was just, I just thought it was named after the airport. I had no idea what the connotation was or that there was an ongoing conversation in the background. I had no clue until, uh, you know, the events of 2020, which have changed lots of things. So yeah, I mean, we're happy to brainstorm some ideas with you, but you'll end up being central park Home Services or whatever park they name it after us. And for those that don't know, Denver has the highest amount of per capita parks in the nation and you can't really walk a block without running into a tiny park, especially in Stapleton they have those pocket parks tucked around all the little corners.

Corby Felsher:
Yes. We have a lot of parks. I think when they developed the neighborhood that we took on the old Stapleton airport and it's quite a big chunk of land. And the agreement was that there'd be 33% open space. So they put a lot of parks in here, one of them central park. And that is the leading name right now for our new name, but central park Chrome Home Services might be the future, but neither here nor there, same company sounds me working with you.

Brandon Schoen:
Sounds a bit like Manhattan to me. That's going to get.

Corby Felsher:
I know for sure is.

Brandon Condrey:
All right. That's the history right there.

Brandon Schoen:
Yeah. Well, I just wanted to interject because a lot of the stuff we're talking about on the podcast in general is kind of reverse engineering, success, modeling success. And I think that's kind of what we did in the beginning with you. Corby was we reached out to someone who was leading, who was doing a really amazing job that just so happened. Brandon lived in the same city and was able to experience your business and your services and the systems that you'd put together. But what was really cool is we got to go up, you know, we had several phone calls with you before all this actually got going. Just feel it out more, but kind of a we're unboxing and unpackaging and this podcast and just sharing what the world is kind of what we learned along the way. And just a lot of the things that you shared with us, you kind of like took us under your wing and you kind of opened the hood of your car. We even went up to Stapleton a few different times and got a document exactly what you're doing behind the scenes and your business. So I think right now what we're doing is just kind of unboxing that and just kind of starting to share that with the world, because we realized how much it changed our life and how much it helped us and how fun it's been working with you. And so we want to kind of replicate that other level out to the world, then this podcast, and just continue sharing that can do sharing what's happening under the hood and behind the scenes in our businesses and just all the things we keep to grow. So just want to thank you so much for helping us get this far. It's been so Epic, so awesome.

Corby Felsher:
Yeah, it's been, It's fun for me and I'm as much a benefit for us as it is for you. It's been so much learning for us. You two young guys, constantly changing and innovating. We put our innovative shoes on also, and we'd love specifically during this tough time that we've been going through the last few months, our team has been soaking up what you, two gentlemen have been putting together here. Some of the changes you've been making and some of your agile moves that you're making to make your company not only adapt, but to be stronger in the future. I love seeing it. It's great. And that's one thing that we are learning right now is that we have a lot to learn. We have more to do. That's the fun part of business. I think in specifically the industry we're in, it never stops. This has brought about a lot of changes, but when this is all over and there's a backseat and we go on to normal, I think the innovation is going to be even more. I mean, I think the ideas are flowing and our industry is nowhere near where it's going to end up in five years and specifically our two companies. I think we have kind of a benefit of Stapleton Home Services had kind of a unique situation and I bring it up. I talk about this quite often, as we're working in a bubble, Brandon you live here, you know how this bubble is? It's like living in Mayberry, there is 30,000 people here, but it is Mayberry. There is, it is a hot network of people continually talk about every single thing and have opinions of all of them. And that's wonderful thing. It's a tough thing. If you're running a business, that's not quite good. If you're running an okay business, this tongue will tear you up one bad review. And this, you could, you could have a downturn as you're getting going and you won't even get your foothold. There's some neighborhood groups at here, here, can you destroy you in a second? We knew that right away. And we worked in this hyper, like under a microscope continually from day one from 18 years ago. And we continue to, and I think that alone, cause you can have a successful financial company and operate like a Molly maids, Merry maids. All these franchises operates and you could be successful, but you cannot be a great company. If you operate inside that world, those companies don't work well in Stapleton. For one reason, there's no way that they can make all these people happy. It's impossible. Those operations, nothing against Molly maids, Mary, I just named some names there, but those big franchises don't seem to hit the Mark. They get it, the Mark through a big city throughout all of Denver and traveling all over the place. People that good marketing they can get in there, but a sustainable and continue growth like us. Under this microscope, you have to develop systems that work. You cannot have people that are untrained out there, cleaning houses. Do you have to be better than the rest? Not saying better than just a few competitors, you have to be better than all the competitors. There is no in between. You have to be better. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to be better than all the competitors. And that's something we realized early and we're still under the microscope and we like it. It works well for us.

Brandon Condrey:
Yeah. We've had the same experience here. So I mean the franchise complaints we hear from customers when they finally had enough and they come over to where they're going to stay forever is that they charge us $600 for the first Clean and it was terrible. And then every Clean after that has just been all over the place or they don't show up or they come late and it's cause they're making them clean, you know, eight houses a day and they're paying them 10 bucks an hour. And so there's just no motivation for those people to try hard, to be involved, to be part of a living breathing thing. That's kind of coming up versus I have a job at this place. And so yeah, we've run into the same thing as well. And it is nice to get those customers that came from whatever. And they're so skeptical in the beginning that we're going to treat you like I was treated last time, but we just blow them away and we do it completely differently. And there's followup surveys and we are adjusting job notes to make sure that all your needs are met and these things and people are just very, very happy. And we've now gotten to the point with the community where for instance, I'm on Reddit a lot and someone will ask in the Albuquerque subreddit, you know, does anyone know a good cleaning company? And I used to jump in there and say, Hey, try Sandia Green, Clean check this out. But now there's people that do it for us. There are people that will say like, Oh, we've been with Sandia Green Clean for years, the owners on here. And then they'll tag me. And then I jump in and say, Hey, it's me. I can answer any questions, but we have an army of loyal customers that are happy to sing our praises when we're not able to do it at that exact moment. So it's been great.

Corby Felsher:
Yeah. That's awesome. We talk about it. We used to years ago, the complaint would come in some really hard words in an email or a phone call. Somebody has some serious energy in a complaint and it usually comes from somebody who was dealt with, you know, in the service industry. People are just generally mad before the service even comes, you know, talking about a plumber, whatever, you know what I mean? It's just, it's just that way. It's a normal reaction, but I can't remember a time. And we had a complaint where it didn't turn into a positive for our company and for that customer. I don't remember when. And so when they do come in, there's no panic. If it does happen, it's something we missed or some Mark we missed somehow. I know we just gained a customer for life. Thanks. I'm glad they put that energy into that because that same energy comes back over them as to our service, our customer service. If we miss something we're putting in, like you said, you send out a survey and sub surveys to make sure we're hitting those marks. You do follow up. Well, that's not out there in this market for us. Those companies aren't there. And then that customer slowly becomes a customer for life because they're not used to that type of reaction from the customer service side and by the cleaning technicians themselves as you've witnessed. I'm sure.

Brandon Condrey:
Yeah.

Brandon Schoen:
How's this going to say? I always tell Brandon are the loudest customers are also the loudest when you make them happy. So if they're really upset, they bring all that energy and emotion. Well, if you make them happy, like you're saying, you make a customer for life and now they're going to direct that energy and emotion towards telling everybody how great you are. So it's a great strategy. Just take care of your worst customers, make them happy. And then they'll go tell the whole world.

Corby Felsher:
That's right.

Brandon Condrey:
Corby don't forget how we seal the deal with you. We sent you an Alexa after we had had our first phone call.

Corby Felsher:
I still have that.

Brandon Condrey:
You sent me back this email. It was awesome. You said I could see, thank you for the ASA gift. What you signed off at the end. Alexa, make an appointment for next Wednesday at 10:00 AM.

Corby Felsher:
So awesome. Yeah. I now have that Alexa in my son's room, my 17 year old son who sleeps about noon and I about a year ago, I figured out the feature that you can just start talking.

Brandon Condrey:
You can enter comment. You could just say, get out of bed.

Corby Felsher:
Yeah. So I started talking very softly. Hey buddy, it's your dad? 7:00 AM when I'm heading to work, you know? Yes. Yeah. That was an excellent what a great way to start a business relationship. So smart. You guys are smart. You know, you have me at Alexa.

Brandon Condrey:
That's nice. Yeah. Good stuff. I mean, I think we kind of covered what we were hoping to in the intro call.

Brandon Schoen:
Yes, I think so. I was just going to ask Corby if you could just think of one tip that you could give people out there. If they're starting a cleaning business, they already have a cleaning business. What would be one of your biggest tips you could offer out to add value?

Corby Felsher:
Yeah. That's an interesting question.

Brandon Schoen:
Sorry to put you on the spot, but yeah, no, you talked about systems all the time and it could be something like that.

Corby Felsher:
Or, I mean, the systems thing is huge. I mean, but the two things, one is passion. I mean you, two gentlemen have passion for business and for not just business, but something that you're going to operate for the rest of your life and feel really good about what you've done. Not just as a profitable person, but as a, you know, a human in existence. Like when it's all done and you look back, did you do some good? I mean, so I think all business should look at that. So you can, you know, you rest easier, you sleep better. It should be attack from that angle. It's hard to always keep that focus. But I think that's the most important thing because then that tries passion because passion wins and passionate can be felt through email to your customers in this segment we're doing right here. I had it from the get go. I felt it. I felt good about what we're doing and I still feel good. So if you don't have that, maybe change what you're trying to do. And I think that's the most important thing for any business you're getting into, especially in today's world. I think you should not look at businesses. This is some way I can make some money. You're thinking it that way. You're going To miss your Mark and you're not going to feel so good at 65. And I think we're all set up. We've talked about this often, we're set up to feel good from the moment we started to the moment we're done and then we're going to make others feel good along the way. That's the only way to go about it. And we've done that. We're going to continue to do that. And I know you, two guys are, and I think this combination of our two companies working towards that on more of a global scale is what excites me because it's not just maid service. It's not just cleaning service. It's every business it's any single business you're looking to start it. It has to have that route. So that would be my suggestion is there's your tip. You don't feel that stop.

Brandon Schoen:
Awesome. All right, man. Well, anything else you guys want to add or..

Brandon Condrey:
No, I mean, I think that sums it up real nice. We will obviously hear from Corby many, many more times in the future, but this was just a way to make sure that the audience was familiar with Corby with Stapleton and the future of central park Home Services whatever we end up at, but we'll get there. We'll get there.

Brandon Schoen:
Yes, yes. Yeah. That'll probably be a clear, fun episode, even just type your rebrand or BME. And I'm sure a lot of companies out there are going to be doing that or need to know how to do that too. So we'll follow you on that just in general in the future, we've got a lot of really cool things coming up. We're going to go more in detail on a lot of specific systems and things that you've done together and kind of collaborated on to create these great companies. And, but just one more thing I want to add to Corby while you're managing all that. Just one of the things that really impacted me, I think working with you too, is just that passion you're talking about and how it really does, like go through your teams, your employees, to your feeding teams, to your customers. There's just this all encompassing impact that we're having when you really do care when you really do have that passion. And so I love that. I feel like we've integrated that, learning that from you and we just continue to improve on that. So thanks so much again, have for teaching us all this great stuff, we got a lot more great stuff coming in the future. So stay tuned guys. And anything else guys?

Brandon Condrey:
No, it was great. It was a good call. We'll talk to you again soon. Corby have fun stay Clean.

Corby Felsher:
I will. I will. Thanks Sandia. Awesome.

Brandon Condrey:
All right, we'll see you guys, right.

Brandon Schoen:
All right, everybody. So hope you enjoyed that episode. Um, again, just a lot of great content, a lot of awesomeness from Corby. Thank you again Corby for sharing that with us, we're going to have Corby on and future episodes as well. Guys. We've got a lot more to go over and just learn and keep diving into. So stay tuned for that. Again, if you guys enjoyed this episode, if you got any value out of it, anything that you learned, if it made you better, if it made you think differently, please, please, please help us by just sharing out this podcast with a friend, uh, someone that you know who owns a cleaning business, someone who wants to start a cleaning business, whatever it might be, please share it out like it and review it, help us out guys, and just share the love on top of that. We just have a couple of quick more things with, for you to go over to the website, profitcleaners.com/toolkit. We're going to be posting a lot more of the frameworks and tools and templates and things that we can start putting out there. So check that out guys. If you haven't gotten to the website, profitcleaners.com/toolkit, I'm going to be putting lots of cool free tools in there for you as well as if you have not jumped on our live free coaching calls that we do every week. Then you want to jump on that should be doing them every Thursday here. So just hop on for the next few weeks here and there should be some spots left. In fact, there is so hop on and go to profitcleaners.com/masterclass joined to learn more and checking out guys. So we're going to help you guys build the business of your dreams to whatever level you want. But again, we want it to be something that you're proud of. Something that he loves, something that totally changes your life hopefully, and make a huge impact in the world. So check out the masterclass again, that's profitcleaners.com/masterclass, and we'll see you guys there looking forward to helping you guys seen you grow, reach out on the Facebook group, reach out hello@profitcleaners.com. If you guys have any questions, we'll see you guys soon. Take care.

Announcer:
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