Filthy Rich Cleaners Podcast E9: From Rock Bottom to Rising Star: Inside Tenacity Clean with Katrina Johnson & Tameka

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Introduction

Coming up next on the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast: “Sometimes that means you might butt heads a little bit, and that’s good because it means you are considering other perspectives, because it’s not always just our way or the highway.”

From your first dollar to your first million, welcome to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast presented by ZenMaid. Join your host, Stephanie Pipkin, founder of Serene Clean as she shares proven tips, tricks and hard earned lessons. Whether you’re just starting out or ready to scale, get ready to discover how to build your own cleaning empire. Let’s roll up our sleeves and dive in.

Stephanie: Hello everyone, and welcome back to Filthy Rich Cleaners. I am your host, Stephanie Pitkin, and on this very special episode, we have an in-person interview with our lovely ladies here from Tenacity University and Tenacity Cleaning Company. We have Miss Katrina Johnson and Tameka. Thank you, ladies for coming to my home today here in Atlanta.

Katrina: Our pleasure.

Stephanie: You had the pleasure of interviewing with me, and I’m not going to go live we on that interview. I think you were at my studio for about four—

Katrina: Never ending YouTube podcast. It’s three parts, four parts.

Stephanie: Conversation was so good, and I’m so amazing.

Katrina: For everybody that doesn’t know who I am, my name is Miss Johnson. I’m the owner of Tenacity Clean based out of Savannah, Georgia. This is my wonderful partner here, Miss Tameka.

Tameka: Yes, you guys, everything about every it’s just it does not feel like an interview. It’s like you can just talk about business, and the conversations are endless, especially when you know the ins and outs and just everything. So I’m just happy to be here. I’m here to get started and answer some questions.

Katrina: I was happy to hear that you were in Savannah. We watched Stephanie on ZenMaid channel all the time. Shout out to ZenMaid, but we watch her videos all the time. When I found out you were in Savannah, you choose something about Savannah. I’m like—

Stephanie: I know it’s been really wonderful to make this connection with you ladies. Because, as you know, I always say, it can be such a lonely road being in business ownership, even cleaning business in general, because we’re out in the field by ourselves as well. So it’s been wonderful to make these connections, and that’s why I encourage everybody like use the internet for what some of the best things out of it are, which obviously these ladies have a amazing YouTube channel. If you guys have not checked it out, I watch it all the time, and what I really appreciate is, I mean truly, the candid cleaning conversations and being candid and honest with all of the struggles and wins. But I think a lot of people tend to just show the wins, especially in today’s day and age. We’re afraid to show when we fail, right? And so I really appreciate the fact that you ladies are very authentic and honest and show the struggles, you know, and that we all make failures, or we all have failures. All make mistakes, but you keep pushing forward. So I’d love to just give a moment and hear your guys’ stories. How did you come to be in Tenacity?

The Beginning of Tenacity Clean

Katrina: Tenacity Clean? Well, I actually founded Tenacity Clean back in 2019 but it wasn’t my first cleaning company. My first cleaning company was called Georgia’s Heavenly Cleaners. That was my very first cleaning company, and that was back in 2018. I started Georgia’s Heavenly Cleaner because I used to clean houses with my mom, and my mom, when she cleaned houses, she was just cleaning houses, just to take care of the family. I thought that we can take this thing to another level and actually turn it into a business.

My company quickly grew to say about $70,000 in my first year. Not that bad. But what happened was I ended up having to file bankruptcy and close the company down, because you can grow fast. It’s more to business than just getting clients and getting people to do the work. I’m a hustler. I come from the projects, and all I know is hustle, hustle, grind, grind. Well, you only could do that but so much before you can actually start putting some real systems into the business.

I wasn’t business savvy at all. So I took a lot of shark loans. I told the story a million times. I took shark loans, and those are the predatorial loans. And for me, like them giving me $10,000 that was big. Like, you’re going to just give me 10,000? And then not knowing what to do with the 10,000 when you get it, like you’re thinking, okay, I can take this for payroll, but you have no plan on how you’re going to pay it back.

So these are the struggles that I had in my first year of entrepreneurship. I didn’t understand and my pricing was bad, not to mention pricing was awful. I priced too low. I priced like I was doing the cleaning, not I didn’t price for outsourcing. And then I started outsourcing. First company was a disaster.

So I filed bankruptcy at the end of 2018 and I wanted to give up. I started to give up. But then I started to think, you know, if I go get a job that lifestyle sucks too, and I just still be pissed off because I was pissed off in the job. So I say, let me try it again. This time, when I try it out, this time, put a lot more thought into it. I’m going to slow down. I’m going to get out of hustle, hustle grind, grind mode. Really try to put some systems in place. Maybe I need to get a coach. Maybe I need some help.

So I decided to try again, and with my second company, we decided to name it Tenacity, because I felt like that’s what I needed to have to take that next step. I started that November of 2019 that’s who we are now. I met Tamika in 2021 right after COVID.

Meeting Tameka and Building Partnership

Tameka: I came into a world of, I don’t know what this is like. What did she just bring me into? Because I’m used to the nine to five, being told what to do and just to have independence. It was like, okay, this is something different. Like, I actually get to be my own boss. I don’t have to wait for someone to tell me what to do. I can actually do it myself.

I do have customer service background, so I knew how to talk. When we met, she was like, “Hey, I’m looking for some cold callers. It would be perfect for you.” So I slid right on in. It was so easy, but I didn’t know it was the other stuff, which is the tough conversation, that you have to have with people. And it’s those tough conversations, like you really have to walk on egg shells to talk to people. You can’t just say what you really want to say. And then it was another layer of the finances, then it was another layer of the back end, the systems. It was just so much. It was overwhelming for me when I first got here.

The Impact of Business Ownership

Tameka: But one thing I can tell you that it has done for me, it has given me self development, because it has shown me a different way of thinking. It actually reconstructs me for how I think about things. It changes you. It helps you to make better decisions, because now you don’t think just in the now, you think broad. When you make a decision in business, it does not just affect you.

Stephanie: And that pressure and that – it’s a very grave thing to take seriously that you are potentially negatively affecting a lot of people and families.

Tameka: And one thing I can tell you, like, it is so lonely, it’s not easy. It’s like, you mentally have to be built for this because it’s like, it’s so much that comes with it. People are not going to understand your dream. They’re not going to understand where you’re trying to go. And as long as your intentions are good and you know where you’re trying to go, I feel like it’s inevitable. Like it’s endless of what you can accomplish.

Taking a Leap of Faith

Katrina: I made Tameka walk off her job. She still has the headsets to AT&T.

Tameka: To be honest with you, I was like, “Girl, this lady don’t know what she’s talking about. She’s trying to make me walk off my job.” Listen, she told me to walk off my job! Long story short, she told me to walk off my job. I was coming to Atlanta. She was in Atlanta, and I did tell her I was coming to Atlanta to pick her up.

We met online, so that is that’s how we met. But she was like, come here. She was like, you don’t have to worry about getting paid this amount of money. How much you’re getting paid? I know. I’m like, you’re asking me kind of personal questions. Then it was more so instance of, well, I don’t want you to be here. Let me show you different ways and everybody, they do like a lot of good talking.

Katrina: But she’s not telling you her full story. She was homeless, and she was living with some strangers. When she was telling me her story, and we have been talking for probably a couple of months, whatever. And it was just something about Tameka, you know how some people have that it factor. And I’m like, girl, you know what, you’ll be better off over here. You could be so successful. I saw so much in her, and I’m like, girl, you can do better over here. Let’s be a team. Let’s just come if you don’t like it, you can go back to where you’re at, but I guarantee you, you’ll be better off.

The Reality of Business Growth

Katrina: And she’s been amazing, and she was the missing part to Tenacity Clean, because when I met her, I was actually, I was – it’s hard wearing all the hats. In the beginning, you’re the marketer. You’re putting together the systems you’re having to do quality control, you’re doing everything. You’re doing sales, everything. So I’m literally living in my office, even though I’m paying rent across town for an apartment, I’m paying rent for my mom. I’m paying rent in three different places but I was living in my office, like literally working until I sleep and waking up in the office.

Living the Business Reality

Katrina: That was my life, and then I’ll go home. So it was people in the building that was like, “This girl got somewhere to stay or not?” I’m like, I got somewhere to stay. I’m paying rent in three different places. I’m going crazy right now. What’s happening? So I needed, I really needed some help. And she was able to come in and see the little things that I was going through. And she was like, “Man,” she fell in love with Tenacity Clean. She fell in love with the whole cleaning industry and all.

So I turned her on into entrepreneurship. When I used to talk to her about it, she was like, “No, I’m trying to get – I’m gonna get two jobs. I already know. I got a plan on how I’m gonna get out of this.” And I’m like, “Girl, no no no no no no, just come here, because I already have a platform set up. Just help me with cold calling. Help me get some sales in, help me with interviewing process.”

On Building Trust and Partnership

Stephanie: And that’s something that you know I’d love to hear more about. When it comes to – I see so many people making really poor decisions on who they partner with in business, and it can literally destroy their business. Their business can be stolen. They lose friendships, they lose family. So, any tips you have for people who are considering partnering with somebody?

Katrina: That’s a really good one. Because we’re both not so open, right? People like, it’s not like we just do this. Just go across town and pick people up. Strangers up. It was something about Tameka that drew me to her and I felt like she wasn’t, you know, I felt like she was a good person. I can’t tell you what it was. Maybe it was the fact that she wrote a song for me. She wrote a whole song. She would do things that, you know, abnormal stuff. And I was like, “Oh this girl is a little different. She’s a little different.” And I know she was just trying to find her way.

But tips, tips on trying to find a partner. I feel like, in the beginning part, I truly feel like cleaning business owners, they want to partner with their friend, or they want to partner with whoever, or like, “Oh, my mom wants to clean.” So now y’all want to go into a whole partnership together. But the problem with that is you got two people that know nothing about business – you’re better off just doing your own thing. If you know nothing, and she knows nothing, what are we doing here? And then you’re going to do a 50/50 split on it. How? Who’s differentiating whether she’s even worthy of the 50?

The Importance of Defined Roles

Stephanie: Laying out the responsibility and skill, like, what? Like, you both need to bring things to the table, and I get it if you don’t know what that looks like, because you’re both starting out, but really laying out who is going to do what. Because it needs if you’re going to 50/50 split the money, it needs to be 50/50 the responsibility.

Katrina: It almost never works out when two people come from nothing and they try to partner on the LLC together. I hear the stories – we’re coaches now. I don’t like it. I would advise people to just get a company and maybe sub some work out to her or whatever, until you guys figure some things out. That’s the way I would coach a person to do.

For me and my situation, I had been in business. I had already learned, I already knew what I wanted in Tameka, and I needed her to be an assistant first. So I hired her to be an assistant. It wasn’t a partnership, okay? And then it didn’t become a partnership until a couple of years down the line, and she had proven what I know what she can do now. I know she can build funnels, websites, you name it she can do. So now it’s like, turned into a partnership.

Finding the Right Partnership

Katrina: But that’s what I was saying for my tips to two new people. I don’t think that they need to partner.

Stephanie: No, don’t do it. And that’s the thing. Is, like, even everybody gets very gung ho about getting into business, and we’re all excited, and the adrenaline’s pumping and we’re motivated, and then the problems start to happen, and the failures start to happen, and all of a sudden, most people quit. Then most people quit. So if you have not seen this person in those situations, are they going to quit? Are they going to behave in ways that you do not agree with? You haven’t – everything’s great and hunky dory when it’s all great in the beginning. But what happens when things goes wrong and you guys totally disagree with how things should be handled, or maybe don’t have the same core values or ethics or whatever? You don’t know that till you see them in a bad situation.

It’s just like in a relationship, I was just telling somebody, it’s like, okay, everything’s great when you’re going on dates, you’re going on vacation, but what happens when somebody gets sick or you’re having money troubles? How do they act in those moments, the bad moments? It’s truly just like a partnership.

Katrina: It’s just like a partnership. And when I bring her to my house, those were questions that I asked. I always ask about the hard, quick, what happens if this don’t work out? I want to know. I want to ask behavior questions, like, what would you do in a situation like this? And really, a person’s financial health is everything in a partnership. I may have good spending habits. She might not have good spending habits.

Stephanie: It may feel like intrusive, but usually, if you’re talking about sharing the most valuable asset you are ever going to have, then you need to be able to talk about money with this person, because money is going to come up. You’re running a business.

Katrina: You should be able to ask for that person’s credit score. Like, let me see your credit score.

Stephanie: Because they could be completely lying to you about what that looks like. So if you’re listening and you’re considering, like, I’m just going to go into partnership with my friend, or something along those lines. Could you guys just both be cleaning and refer each other for business first? Maybe do that. And let’s see, in a year from now, are they still around? Are you still around?

The Importance of Understanding Partnership

Tameka: You may not even want to do business anymore. Just on my intake on everything, everything that you guys said was absolutely wonderful, and that is so true, just from my perspective, just coming in, I didn’t know what to expect. Just with partnership, I didn’t even know this is what the ending goal was going to be. But as long as you stay true to yourself, to your core, and you know your true intentions on what is supposed to be, I feel like you will make the right decision.

And I relate things back to relationships all the time. You just think about, what type of partner are you looking for? You have to understand, don’t just say, oh, when you looking for a man or you’re looking for a woman, you’re not just going to say, I want a tall, dark, handsome – you’re going to say attributes about that person. I want someone who’s God fearing. I want someone who knows about themselves and has vision goals, like you are going to say different personality traits.

Understanding Business Partnerships

Tameka: Also when it comes to family dynamics, it goes down the line of things because it goes deep. And I feel like that is something that you can look for in a partner as well, and you want to see them when they’re upset, and that’s most of all, like, is this person going to take from you? Are they going to help contribute to what you have? Because having a partner is detrimental if it’s not the right frequency, that’s the one thing I can tell you, because it’s stressful, especially if you’re a mom, if you’re a sister, a best friend, because now that time is being taken away, and this person that you’re partnering with, you’re spending majority of your time with. So it’s like, oh, it can become like, I need to get out sometimes, and it can become overwhelming.

Katrina: And sometimes you don’t know until you get to know that person. You gotta get to know their habits, and everything about them. Don’t just partner with new people, and you know nothing about their work ethics.

Stephanie: If you’ve had a sweater longer than you’ve known them, perhaps wait a little bit longer.

Katrina: This is for the people that are just starting out in business. Like it’s a little different when you have two people that have been in business for 10 years, and they have, they have two different expertise, right? So maybe you have a laundry company that you started, and maybe I have a cleaning company, and we want to partner with Airbnbs together, or whatever like that’s just a first thing come to mind.

Different Types of Partnerships

Stephanie: So academics are different, so it’s like you’re bringing two different industries together, or two different mindsets together to try to – it still goes back to relationship.

Katrina: Partnership. It was not like a partnership on the LLC type of partnership. It’s more so he does the government contracts. I know nothing about government contracts, nothing, okay, but one thing I can do, if you sub it out to me, we can handle getting the staff in it and taking care of the day by day. We can do that. But when it comes to the bidding challenge and the paperwork, it gives me anxiety, just reading the paperwork along. I read the first couple of pages, and I was like—

Stephanie: Yeah, yeah.

Katrina: Okay, so I don’t specialize in this, but I partnered with someone who does and he understood every word. This is just what he does. He closed his own government contracts. He loves this world. He lives for this world. We might make a good partnership. The complimentary skills – I’m good at what we’re good at. You’re good at what you’re good at. He hates the field. We love the field. So we make a good partnership.

On Different Perspectives

Stephanie: And sometimes that means you might butt heads a little bit, and that’s good, because it means you are considering other perspectives, because it’s not always just our way or the highway, and even though we are the owners and so at the end of the day, yes, we do have the final say, but for me, like I take my management staff’s opinions very seriously, because they’re the ones in the day to day operations.

Managing Operations and Growth

Stephanie: And so it’s very easy for me to just want to take every opportunity or push, push, push, when they’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we are not operationally ready for XYZ. Or this is a problem. This is a problem. And so, or consider it from this angle and I definitely can see things through rose colored glasses, but one of the best things that having my managers with me is we look at it from all angles and the what ifs, as you mentioned, like, what if this happens, and you really need to lay out all potential problems ahead of considering especially big jobs.

Like, okay, our biggest account is a large government contract, and the process to get the background check approved is over three months long. So, okay, we can’t just send somebody on our staff to fill in. So what are we going to do? And we really needed to spell out every single scenario of like, how we going to handle this, how we going to handle this, especially when we’re talking about evening work, it’s like, are you going to go clean? Is that? Am I going to go clean? Because that’s what I did in the beginning.

And so I’d love to hear you know, obviously you guys are commercial. You are now doing residential as well. So can you just talk to me as how the business has evolved when it comes to services. Have has there been experimenting with different types of jobs to figure out your niche? And I mean, they just posted a video of this crazy kitchen clean that they took on. And it was wild. And I, literally, I never would have even bid it, because it was so watching the video, Walker was like, oh geez, I would never do that. Like it was scary. Kitchens are scary. We don’t do restaurants so. So I love to hear how have things evolved over time? What kind of jobs have you taken that you are no longer ever going to take again?

Exploring Different Services

Katrina: So we’re not – I’m not afraid to venture out and try different things. That’s really how you figure out what you like and what you don’t like, what you want to tolerate, what you don’t want to tolerate. And there is no good or bad industry. There’s not a good or bad but, as far as the kitchen job went. They found us on Google, and I talked to talk to the guy we went to do the walk through. After we did the walk through, I felt like, I don’t, I didn’t want to do it. Then, right? It was one of those situation where you go and you walk something and you don’t want to, and you’re like, oh, I don’t think I want to send a bid. And we actually did not send him a bid.

He came for the bid. That’s what made us send the bid. I told Tameka, when we did the walkthrough, it was one of those situations where it’s like, you know how you just don’t want to take it on. It’s not even my – I don’t, we don’t specialize in this, right? But we did it just, just to see, you know, sometimes we will take a leap, take a leap of faith.

So I ended up bidding at 5k he ended up accepting it right away. He was like, “Sure. Can you start tomorrow?” And I was like, “Damn, should have got those numbers.”

Learning from Experience

Katrina: Because I said seven in the beginning. It was that bad, okay? And because of that, I don’t like the niche. I wouldn’t take it again. But it was a great experience, learning experience, right? As you if you can see on my YouTube page, the gentleman that I was going to subcontract the hoods out, I know nothing about hoods. So anything I know nothing about, I’m subcontractor. I’mma find someone that’s an expert. And he came in and he gave us a whole walk through a mini training.

Stephanie: I was like, I need to take notes on this guy. We’ll link the video in the show notes for sure – their YouTube video, because it was really fascinating. And also for me, reiterated, I don’t want to do kitchens, but if you are somebody watching and you want to get into more specialized things, you know it can be done. People are doing it. It just the more specialized – the reason I tend to stray away from those types of things is because that means more training when it comes to COVID years and so the again, that low barrier to entry, it’s pretty darn easy to train a house cleaner or a business cleaner.

Once we start getting into floor refinishing, carpet cleaning, kitchen cleaning and that type of stuff, or even things like restoration that a ServPro does, we always just reference that to our local ServPro. We have a good relationship where we kind of give each other business and refer to each other because even though it seems like they’re a competitor, they’re not, they do what they do, and we do what we do, but they’re right next to each other.

And those are really good opportunities to have collaborative relationships with local businesses, and you are complimenting and referring to each other’s business, and make sure that they do good work. Obviously, don’t just blindly refer, go check them out online. But that’s a really good way, especially in the beginning, to start getting some traction, is find businesses that are in adjacent fields. So that could be landscaping companies, window cleaners, carpet cleaners, if you don’t offer that. And as long as you’re not competing, and sometimes even if they’re a competitor, if you have that friendliness, you can be referring.

Navigating Business Relationships

Katrina: And then we also went into a house, and this house was so beautiful. It had these beautiful chandeliers. And the lady was like, “Oh, yes. And I need you to clean this chandelier as a whole.” And these chandeliers, and I’m looking like that—yeah, like you look at it, at brace.

So we get in the car, and we’re calling chandelier company, getting bids on the chandeliers. We didn’t win that bid. But the thing that you have to watch out for, you still have to watch out for – if they did take on the house, they can take on the whole bid if they are connected to cleaning other cleaning companies. Like we’ve experienced something like that with the floor guy that we hired to come on a walk through with us. So he was doing walk throughs with us and then going behind our back—

Stephanie: And bidding it, undercut you basically.

Katrina: Damn it, you know, we had a deal. We were supposed to do the cleaning, and you’re handling the floors, but he would go behind our backs.

The Reality of Business Competition

Stephanie: You know, I was fair and love born business, as they say. And unfortunately, you will run into people who are cutthroat. And no matter how kind you are, like it can, it can sometimes be really discouraging. Actually, I would say it’s one of the most discouraging parts of owning a cleaning company is people will take advantage of your good nature, whether that be employees, contractors, customers, other vendors – and it’s so easy to make that say, like, make you say, “Screw this. I’m not doing this anymore because everybody’s an asshole, and I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Dealing with Client Challenges

Katrina: I want to quit everything. Literally, three days ago, I send my daughter to do a house. Now, you know where I’m going at so she does the house, and I think we charged the lady 400 for it, and it only took her two hours to do it. Maybe we did overcharge a little bit. But, you know, we did our Google, we looked at the house and everything, and she did have pets and all that stuff, so it came up to 400 anyway.

After my daughter did the house, she calls me, and she’s like, “Mom, guess what?” I’m like, “What?” She’s like “She tried to take me.” And I’m like, “You kidding me, tell them.” So I hope you’re not mad or anything. But I did give her a quote and all that. That’s my daughter and she knows, I was trying to help her out anyway, because I’m going to be leaving, and then she needs her own clients.

But it’s just the way it all happened, you know. And not only that, but the lady also told her, “You know, I have a friend in Wilmington island and Tenacity cleans for them too.” All of my clients. But people would do that in this business, be prepared. So if she wasn’t my daughter and she didn’t come tell me, imagine how many times that has happened behind your back.

Stephanie: And you’re wondering where the client went, like you’re wondering—

Katrina: We’re on the phone, literally laughing about the whole thing. We’re just like, in tears, laughing about it. Because she was like, “I won’t tell Miss Johnson. I won’t tell Tameka. You know, just give me a price and you know, I’ll hire you as my personal cleaner.”

Building Client Guidelines

Stephanie: That’s where, you know, building the relationships with either your contractors or your cleaners, and also having those client guidelines and pace where, you know, we’ve talked about that before, actually, pretty much every guest has talked about the situation happening, so that, I hope that tells you like this is common, so don’t let it break your heart when it happens. Kind of expect it and plan for it. And so that can look like for us, we have a $2,500 fee if a client tries to solicit our cleaners.

Katrina: She freaking service agreement. She really, they will sign these agreements and still try to backdoor you. And luckily, I want to help my daughter, and I don’t mind because she does need some more accounts, since we lost a lot of accounts in 2024 and we’ll talk about the pains in 2024 next. But we lost a lot of accounts in my trying to help her out. Help my daughter out. So good. She has two new clients.

Stephanie: Especially, like you guys are moving. They’re moving to Atlanta, so it kind of makes a lot of sense gonna do business there.

The Challenges of 2024

Katrina: The good is our company, every year since I started Tennessee Clean, our company has doubled in income. Just doubled. We grew 2024, I don’t know what the hell happened, but it was a year of hell for us. That was it was actually the first year that we went back in income and we lost about 180 compared to the previous year.

And that was, to me, it’s like, but it’s one thing that happened was going through a major depression, because it’ll do it to you in business. When you’re not when you’re depressed and you’re not thinking clearly, so you make the worst decisions in the world when you are emotional, when you’re going through whatever you may be going through.

For one your household needs to be together, because if you and your spouse and your kids and everything, like, if your household is in shambles, please believe don’t think about excelling in your cleaning business. Get that together.

The Impact of Personal Life on Business

Stephanie: It affects everything. And people who thinks that the home life doesn’t – it’s naive, because you need to have your home life together. And even you know, you’ll see this in your staff too. Like, if their home life is having problems, it’s going to affect our work. They’re human. We’re human. And so, making sure that your foundation is strong enough, easier said than done. All of us listening can attest to like, when shits hitting the fan at home, it’s just you’re trying to stay afloat.

Katrina: You’re just trying to stay afloat. And then you don’t feel like going to work. See when we’re business owner, we’re the CEO, and it’s like when you grow a company to a half a million, it’s like when we – when I had a job, you could quit. You could quit. The times get hard. You can walk off your job.

Stephanie: They’re calling and it’s like, that’s their problem.

Katrina: You can do that. But when you grow a company and you have a staff and you have clients that need that, you got contracts with you, it’s no walking away from anything. You must face this. You must face it and it is what it is at the end of the day. So that was one of our even when I didn’t want to face stuff, I gotta face it. So it’s one of those type of situations, and I made poor decisions. I actually gave away a couple of clients. I gave away way too many clients because you were felt overwhelmed.

It’s overwhelming. It’s just like what I had an epic moment, you know? And when I woke up, I say, Holy—

Tameka: Like she was like, I tried to stop you, but I wasn’t in the right mind.

Managing Business Growth

Katrina: So and then after that, we had a lot of commercial accounts. We just weren’t checking – you can’t get that comfortable. You got workers, independent contractors out there, cleaning these accounts. You subcontracting stuff out. Things can go – you can think that everything is okay over there, right? And then my head is all over the place. I’m over here trying to get more clients. And we’re on sale, sales. And this is going to shits over here, and you ain’t paying attention to it, that’s what’s happening. So we lost like five accounts back to back.

Stephanie: It was, it all like, similar contractors. Was it different, like, because you guys use mostly contractors?

Katrina: Yes, it was different. Different contractors.

Stephanie: They were getting away with it basically.

Katrina: We even had, you know, we talked about their family and friends.

Stephanie: Again, we don’t say all this so please do as we say sometimes, as we do.

Facing Business Challenges

Katrina: Some of our best clients. And then, for 2024 some of the clients, they left because they said we were too much.

Stephanie: Too much? What do you mean by that?

Katrina: We were too high. And they were trying – like 2024 it seemed like everybody was trying to crunch those numbers. And I respect, I respect their opinion, but I do, and I don’t, because it’s like the building is big as hell. And you want people to do it for crumbs. The people that are going to come in and deal with what we were dealing with, if they’re doing it for less than what I was doing it for—

Stephanie: You don’t want it. You don’t want that account.

Standing Firm on Pricing

Katrina: My price is my price.

Stephanie: And it’s such a balancing act, and it’s easy to second guess yourself when you do lose a bid or whatever, like, “Oh, I guess I could have came down a little bit.” It’s like, no. Because, trust me, when you start doing that work and you start seeing how much work is and all of the problems and the headaches of managing it, you are going to be kicking yourself and feels so resentful, not only to the account, but to yourself for making a poor decision in that area.

So, you know, anytime we’ve lost a bid, it’s just like, okay, it was meant to be.

Katrina: It was meant to be. It wasn’t. And we just lost, lost, lost and lost. And I was like, it was like this downward spiral, because I’m already going through something. Like, if I get piling another email like this, like, and then I gotta check GPT some shit to say back, because I know—

Stephanie: How to handle it. Thank goodness for AI talking about that with guests too. Like, oh, how do I deal with this? Please teach me.

Overcoming Challenges

Katrina: I wasn’t emotionally ready to even handle all of the stuff that we had to handle. But God, we made it through. We made it through. But it’s like in 23 I think we closed 23 out at 68 right? So we lost 101 80, so it put us back at around the five. And it’s still, we still don’t have to clean, but it’s still like, ouch.

Stephanie: We dropped the ball.

Tameka: Yeah, it’s just a lot that happens within business. Like, you can mentally think that you’re there and you’re like, you know what? Everything is on autopilot. I’ve got everything under control. And then wham, because it’s that is such a true state. We never get too comfortable, because there is so much that can happen.

Like it makes you want to look at your systems and people say, “Well, what goals do you have?” Because people are good for New Year’s resolutions and all that stuff. And to be honest with you, just like the heck with goals, let’s just find these loopholes that we have and fix them, because that is what’s going to take us to the next level.

And people don’t understand that. People may say, “Yeah, I want to add on more revenue. Let’s get more clients.” Wait a minute, because that may not be the case, because if you have your back end, not together, you’re going to bring people in more problems. Having problems is not an issue. Having problems is actually good because it shows you how you can become great.

The Impact of Business Ownership

Tameka: And I can’t express it enough, just being in business, it does a lot for you, like it shows you things, and it opens up your eyes to things that you haven’t seen before. And I am so appreciative just to be in the room with both of you guys. I’m like, I want to talk, but it makes me feel like Dutch, like Double Dutch, like, just, boom, boom, boom.

Stephanie: It was four hours long.

Katrina: We could just go. Okay, Tameka starting her own company. Entity means to be a business owner, okay, I’m all about empowering my surroundings. And are you excited?

Starting a New Business Venture

Tameka: Well, I am excited, but it’s more so, like, this is a good business step for the business, because, like you said before, like, just in case, if anything was to happen, you still have something else. It’s more so new endeavors, new you get to explore new things, new opportunities, meet new have new connections with people.

And I’m all about customer service, and a lot of people don’t like residential but it’s all in who you are and who you bring onto your company. And it’s just like a lot of people just bring people on to just fill those slots, but you have to hire for character that is, like the number one thing. And sometimes you might can’t hire someone who’s just like you, but you want them to embody some of the character traits that you have, because it’s like these people are going to represent you in the locations there.

Stephanie: It’s your name on it.

Katrina: So she’s going to have all employees. It’s going to be more personal, excited employees. So it’s really us learning both worlds. Even though we’re coaches with you. You never stop learning. Okay, never stop learning. So we can literally go in, oh, she says she wants to do residential, have a staff of employees—

Stephanie: Contractors.

Different Business Models

Katrina: Off of our conversation when we talked a few months ago, like, and we talking about, like, having employees, and it’s like there’s pros and cons to both. I will always be one to always have employees. That also has to do with my location and very rural area, but I do love. You know, what’s important to me and, like, what I take pride in is a good company culture and having a really close and, like you said, like they’re reflecting me in the field.

So I need to make sure I actually like these people and do I think that they are going to do the right thing when nobody’s watching? Because for us, integrity is one of our core values, which we can define in a lot of ways, but truly, what are you going to do if nobody’s going to find out about it in that house? And even though we teach them like, hey, assume you’re being recorded at all times, because we had enough nightmares of that too, but assume you’re being recorded with everything you say and do in a house or a business, whatever.

But really, at the end of the day, they know a lot of times they can get away with things that nobody’s going to actually see, right? So how do you impart them to go above and beyond and do it to the highest level, and it’s a challenge, and you’re going to go through a lot of people, and you know, it’s just how it is.

And there are wonderful, good people out there, anybody who says, “Nobody wants to work anymore.” Like, if you have that mentality, you can’t be in this business. You can’t be in any business, right? You can go work for somebody else, because it’s not true. And what does that? How does that help you? How does that mindset help you? If you were just already defeatist, like, yeah, so yeah, I’m excited for you. So you’re going to be serving Atlanta. Then I said, Yeah, what is the plan?

Future Plans and Growth

Katrina: We’re looking at – for Tenacity Clean, we’re subcontracting work out to our students in Tenacity Academy. So that’s how we’re making both worlds and talk to each other. I have students, and they’re in different states and cities and states, and we hire cold callers to get us accounts in those states, and we’ll be subcontracting. It’s more so gonna be more like a city wide type of model is what we’re looking for in the future. That’s really so, that’s what we’re working on for Tenacity Clean, Tenacity Maids.

Tameka: I made a logo and everything. I was like, make sure you pick which one you like. It’s like, when you find out you’re getting ready to have a baby. It’s just like, every aspect of it, it’s like, now you’re like, yes, but you go through the stages. You’re excited, but then you’re like, wait a minute, how is it going to turn out?

So what? It doesn’t even matter. It’s a fact of you just getting out there and you’re getting started, you having the right coaches around you to encourage you on everything that you need to do. So it’s just like, just get out there and kick butt. Like, what? Like, what is the worst that can happen? So what if you make mistakes, you learn from your experiences, and you just keep going.

Building a Unique Business Model

Tameka: But I just know with Tenacity Maids, I wanted to be like just fulfillment. I wanted to be hospitality. I wanted to be like no other, just dedicate in time. When we leave, we’re going to leave a candle. We’re going to leave some type of refresh, like spray, like it’s going to – you’re going to know Tenacity came to your house because it’s going to be like an experience that you never went through.

I’m going to actually check up on you, like the clients now that we have in Tenacity Clean I actually reach out to the clients like I have a very personable relationship. A lot of people don’t do that. They’re just looking for the transaction. But me, I’m looking for the transformation, because I want people to grow with us, because I know pets name, I know uncle’s names, cousins name, so I really want to see how you’re feeling, how what’s going on, like, what are your pain points?

Because a lot of people problems are trust. They don’t believe in inviting people into their home because some people might steal. They don’t believe in hiring another cleaning company. Because what makes you different? It’s just so much that goes into just starting this business. But I know that it will change a lot of people’s lives.

Creating Opportunities

Tameka: I want to be able to give people work, because it’s such a struggle just working right now, finding consistent work. A lot of people that I’ve talked to, even myself, coming from a nine to five, they felt unvalued because I didn’t feel valued as a worker. I felt like someone was just telling me, go do this, go do that, and then you don’t even recognize me for what I do, and then you hire from the outside for a position that the person was already there that could have fulfilled it.

So I’m more so we’re not going to hire from the outside. We’re hiring from the inside, and we’re going to go about development, show you different types of skills. We don’t just want you to feel like this is it for you, like you can exceed and that’s where Tenacity Academy comes in at for people who want to start their own cleaning business and learn the aspects of it, because it’s like pulling back layers of an onion – it’s just so much that you have to go through just dealing with business.

Creative Business Growth

Katrina: That’s that’s the beauty of growing a business from the ground up, is the invention, the fact that you can do whatever, as long as you are buying by the law. You can be as creative as you want to be with your baby. That’s the beautiful part. We were just in the movie theaters the day before yesterday, and a commercial came up, and I was like, and after the second local commercial came up, I got my phone like this. You get a commercial to come up locally in the morning. Literally, we’re always thinking outside the box like I’m literally thinking like, well, what if somebody’s sitting here and my commercial comes up, well, they see Tenacity Clean at the movie theater?

So we reached out to the in, you know, we’re looking to do a business that’s really creative. It’s different. It’s different. But that’s the beauty of growing a business from the ground up. You can be as – there are no rules. There’s no “oh no, you have to do” – no. You could be as creative as you want.

Learning from Experience

Stephanie: And surely being a student of the game and never letting pride, ego, anything like that get in the way, remaining humble. And I know, you know, that’s such a cliched thing to say, but you’re never – you should never be so proud as to not be always learning, and even if you do reach, like, quote, unquote, a level of success. It’s like, don’t get comfortable, as you guys said, because that’s when things start to fall through the cracks, because you’re comfortable.

And I remember I had that conversation with my managers a few months ago when it came to nothing to do with quality, but more so being cavalier when we did – when we lost a client, or being a little like, “oh, we’ll just replace him.” Because I honestly, that’s always how it’s been. I’m just like, we’ve never struggled with leads. That’s not the issues we’ve typically had. And so I was like, we cannot be so cocky to think that this may someday not be a problem. And so like saying, like, “oh, it’s not a big deal” because, you know, like, we don’t like them anyway, or whatever the reason is that the client canceled, you know, just remaining students of the game, and never, ever getting comfortable. Because somebody could start up tomorrow and take all your business, or where all your staff could leave, or all, you know, all of the things that could happen.

Facing Industry Changes

Stephanie: And obviously, you shift, and you change. I was just getting my hair done yesterday, and my hair stylist, her entire salon walked out on her, and she had to close her salon. What was the reason for – well, her longest stylist, who’ve been with her for seven years, and she had paid for, you know, for a hairstylist, you have to go through the apprenticeship. And there’s a lot of money that goes into training, or getting somebody, a stylist, to like, be able to work by themselves, basically, in your salon.

Dealing with Business Setbacks

Stephanie: So she paid for everybody’s all of that stuff. And the longest, most loyal stylist, was basically creating a little bit of a mutiny. Like, “hey, come with me.” She’s doing this and lying and saying all of these things. And so they all went with her. And so she had to sell her salon space. She’s now kind of re – like, not even starting over. I would say she she’s changing paths, because she’s like, “You know what, like this has been, the stress relief that has come from now.” She is just owner operator. She’s got a chair and, you know, really switching gears.

And there’s a lot of grief in that loss, for sure, for her, and that betrayal, frankly. But you know, these types of things can – they do happen, they happen. And so don’t just dismiss your feelings about it. But you can’t stay in that hole. You can’t – you got to pull yourself out of the hole. Because some of the worst things that happened in my business, like, it was, they were devastating, and especially when it came to somebody you’re close to relationships, had managers that no longer managers, but like, where I – yes, like, like, YouTube, Brutus.

Katrina: We literally gave accounts to, and then they went behind our back and tried to steal more accounts. Girl, we were helping you grow to learn that this is the nature of the cleanup industry. It’s really the nature of business. It’s not just our industry. It’s every industry. It’s the nature of business. Because I hear these stories with business owners in different niches all the time, just like you say, with the salon person, it happens to us.

Understanding Business Evolution

Tameka: That’s why I tell people like a lot of times, and I’m going to say this, and hopefully it doesn’t go over no one’s head. But just in business itself, you want to get attached to the bus. You don’t want to get attached to the seat, because if you are attached to the bus, you’re going to know that that bus is actually still keep going. You don’t know where it may be leading you to and your seat will change, because you might be a passenger, you might be the driver, you might go here, you may go there.

So it’s just things that may happen. And don’t look at everything like it’s a bad thing that happens, that have may have been the blessing in disguise that needed to happen.

Katrina: Every time it actually is always a blessing. And it’s a story of resilience when it comes to business owners, when you look at the high performing – I like to study the people that I’m like, “How the hell did you get there?” We go through some stuff. It is a level with every level that you’re at. You gotta fight something to get to another level. They gotta fight something to get to another level. Like, this is what I’m learning about business, about the resilience part and only the strong really survive.

Being Vulnerable in Business

Stephanie: You know, goes to the top and I think that’s why us sharing, like, our failures and struggles and setbacks. I know that that may make you like question, like, “Oh, our abilities,” like potentially, because I know sometimes I feel nervous about sharing my mistakes, because it feels very vulnerable.

Katrina: Not vulnerable. I used to feel scared to share my mistakes, until I noticed everybody going through it.

Sharing Experiences and Growth

Stephanie: As soon as you say it, you get a million people saying, “Oh, I got a story just like it.” And that’s why it’s like, being vulnerable and sharing these types of things, it’s going to help other people. And again, like we’re all learning and that’s why I appreciate your guys’s candidness and sharing that. And it just encouraged me to continue to do so, just like, you know, I talked about getting a divorce on your guys’s podcast, and what how big of a struggle that was for the business.

And so I’m just really leaning into sharing the show that is business ownership, and it like it’s all smoke and mirrors. It’s things like they were easy, they were – and obviously to the customer, everything is perfect. We are the best, and you will never get anything better. And we’ve never made a mistake, ever.

So to our fellow owners who are watching right now, like, trust us, it has not been easy. And no, it’s not easy for you guys. I know you’re going through struggles, and you may be like, “ah, they don’t understand. I’m dealing with this.” Listen, our problems are pretty universal. Like, they really are – quality issues, losing accounts because of quality. Been there, done that, right? I’ve had that happen. We’ve had it happen this year, even though I tell how good our quality is, slips through the cracks sometimes, and you don’t know where that customer’s tolerance level is. It may be – you got one shot, one opportunity, to lose yourself in the moment.

Katrina: So there are some highlight moments you guys, we don’t want to make y’all not want to be business owners, but there are pros and cons with every business, is what we’re saying. There are pros and cons but the message that I want people to get out of it is the resilience – you’re going to go through some shit, dust yourself off, try it again. Get better. Look at the solutions. Look at what you can do to get better. What can you do to get better? That’s just my thing. What can we do to get better in business?

Understanding Business Cycles

Tameka: I look at it like the different seasons like that we have in the world. Like we have summer, we have fall, we have winter. It’s just everything that we have. And just in business, you’re going to go through different seasons. This season you might be flourishing so many customers coming in. The next season, you may not be so great. The next season, it might be a little wobbly. The next season, it’ll be a drought, like you just never know, because it’s inevitable, like, you don’t know what you’re going to experience.

So just understand that you’re going to go through seasons because it’s business, like it’s just supposed to happen. And just understand what you’re going through is necessary to take you to that next level. Don’t look at a failure as a fallback. It’s actually a come up, because now you get to see a problem and how to solve it, and that’s what we do for our clients.

Helping Clients and Making an Impact

Tameka: Every day, we have to go to our clients and we have to figure out their problem, because they may be saying that it’s one thing, but it’s up to us. That just made me think about a doctor. So we have to be a doctor right, to be able to diagnose them with their issues and their problems that they’re experiencing, and they’re going to feel so much better and be like, “wow, you know what? This is not just cleaning.” This is like therapy, like, we actually are changing people’s lives.

Like, seriously, we are. Because it’s like, if you have you ever heard that stating you can’t think in chaos, you can’t think of clutter, but it’s like the transition that we do for people. When we’re cleaning, we’re talking to people, we’re actually getting to know you, because we want to know what is the issue.

Giving Back to the Community

Tameka: And one thing I can say that we do is we do Cleaning for a Reason.

Stephanie: Same.

Tameka: You know, Cleaning for Reason, and it’s just like, people be like, “you clean for free?” Like, yeah, literally, because it’s like, our way of giving back. And the stories I’ve heard from the patients, it’s just like, really, like, you don’t have nobody. Like, you would think that people would have people, but I’m not going to carry on with that, but it’s just so much that just goes into business and understand that you’re going to go through seasons, and it’s meant to happen, but you’re not going to stay there.

It’s like having a common cold. Do you think you’re going to keep the cold forever? It’s going to subside, it’s going to go away. So just understand it’s temporary. How you feel, what you’re going through is temporary. As long as you have good intentions, you know the outcome that you want to have. You have good people that is around you that can pour into you. Join a podcast, you know, join a community, talk to people.

And I know that sometimes people want to be in this shell and they’re like, “What if I sound crazy, what if I say the wrong thing? What if they don’t like me?” So what? That’s what makes you different. You understand I don’t want to be like nobody else. I love being me because I’m different, and that’s what you have to do for yourself. So don’t worry about—

Managing Social Media and Mental Health

Katrina: It’s important to keep a supportive community around you, because if you’re surrounded by negative people and you already get hit with negative thoughts like, “Oh, I’m a bad business owner. Oh, I did this wrong. I did that wrong.” Like, every negative thought that you could think of, right? And if you – it’s important for you to have people like, I Tameka, she, I could vouch for it. She’s always picking me up. She was like, “girl, get up. No, we’re gonna fight this.”

Like you need those people around you to push you to the next level, and you may need to do that. Listen this, this right here, is this can be devastating to a business owner, very much. Being addicted to the scroll and anything like this. This device was made to capture to get our attention, right? So you have to learn how to do social media detox. So I do social media detox like there are days where we wouldn’t – it’s no social media at all.

Stephanie: Don’t get drifted by what’s going on in the world. Such a good tip. Oh my gosh, horrible right now in Las Vegas with the fire, I see another freaking fire come up, and then it does something to you emotionally.

Katrina: Oh, those people, I know, I know.

Stephanie: Like, I woke up yesterday to a story from LA of, like, this guy lost, he couldn’t find his dogs, and he’s sobbing, I’m sobbing. And like, it’s like, so you are letting the outside world affect your inner world. So don’t pick up your effing phone as soon as you wake up. I know it feels like you have to with – you take care of yourself, right? That means get up a little earlier so you got 15 minutes of quiet before the chaos. Because that’s what it is. Every morning there’s chaos, you know, and just expect it. That’s what it is, that’s what we’re doing.

Understanding the Business Journey

Tameka: One thing I have learned, just being in business, like, it’s not going to be perfect, you guys, like, just think about Apple, Google, Chick fil A, all these major brands, I don’t care. Just think about all of them. They all started at a small point in a garage, and then they all had to advance. And do you not think everybody went through problems? I mean, people go through name changes all the time. You may not know it, but on the back end, it may be something else going on. It may look like everything is perfect, but you just never know people’s journey of what they had to go through.

It’s just the outcome. So I tell people all the time, never look at a person’s ending like it’s supposed to be your beginning, right? Because your journey is your journey, and that’s your testimony that you are supposed to say on your own, you’re it’s going to take time like, for crying out loud, we signed up to be a business owner. So do you think that’s going to be easy?

Katrina: Imagine growing Apple from the LLC, okay, just imagine, like, all of the things that he has to go through to build that company to where it’s at, right now, right? It’s not going to happen overnight.

Learning from Failure

Stephanie: And most of your, usually your first business, oftentimes fails, you know? And so when you look at successful business owners, and you read their great stories, and you know, they’re famous for being incredibly successful business owners, that is almost always not their first business. They went through failures. And so you think, if they had stopped think about that, that what was supposed to exist, never would have, right?

And that there is a reason. Statistically speaking, almost every business owner is going to fail like they like it is. It’s hard, so what you guys are attempting to do here, it’s not easy. And so just accept that, and that that’s what we’re signing up for. And that means we are going to be faced with challenges that people who do just work for other people, which, you know, can be a wonderful thing, obviously, we all have done, you know, so it’s not like we’re like better or anything like that. It’s just, it’s a choice, so, but we are going to face things that they never going to face.

But we need to accept the fact that we signed up for this, and that means that we are going to face struggles that they are not going to or and, yeah, but that means, because our reward is potentially a lot greater than their reward.

Katrina: Is the control of, like, not, you know, like, I get to control the 80 hours of work that I did a week or whatever.

Finding Gratitude in Business

Katrina: The beauty of it, and we can set my own schedule. That’s the beauty of it. You know, as even though we lost accounts, I had to take into consideration that, you know, you still you still don’t have to get up and go clean anything Katrina like, operate in gratitude. Have a gratitude. Be thankful for a little minute, because sometimes I can be complaining, like I should be this, I should be that, and it’s like it can always be worse than what it is. Okay. It could be way worse than what it is.

Maintaining Perspective

Katrina: You can still run my business in my home. So I had to start thinking about all of the gratitude moments like, “Hey, you still got this. You still got this going on over here. You still got this. Just calm down, do some self development.” I was just going to say that, you know, we’re big on self development and working on me and working on getting fire. You know, as a CEO, you need that fire to get out here and do interviews, to get out here and do candid cleaning conversations and surviving the cleaning industry. You need that fire. But sometimes that fire, we don’t always have that fight. I hate the fire.

Stephanie: Every time we get—

Katrina: Go right back to sleep, wake up.

Stephanie: Like I woke up, like, I know I’m about, like, I’m getting cold. I felt like shit yesterday. But it’s like, I’m here and where I’m enjoying this. And it’s like, you just turn it on because, like, it’s what you do, it’s what you have to do. And honestly, like, once, it’s the whole, you know, fake it till you make a thing. I typically once I start going in, whatever I’m faking, then all of a sudden I’m feeling good. You know, I feel great.

Supporting Each Other

Katrina: The one thing I do want to ask you, like, Steph, right for roof, I know, with us, we’re like, we’re always pouring into people. And it’s like we, who pours into us? So who pours into you, Steph?

Stephanie: Like, that’s a good question. I have really great friends. My managers, honestly are some of my best friends. And I like, and I know that they say like, don’t, you know, mix that we weren’t friends before, but we have became so close. And they’re wonderful people. I my best friend back in Wisconsin. She is wonderful Maddie. She just had beautiful twin baby boys just six months old.

And so even though I’m, you know, from like, way, like, my family is all out there. And honestly, yeah, it’s just been this community has been one. Obviously, my boyfriend goes without standing or without saying, of course, but the community online. Like, literally, I just go down to the ZenMaid mastermind, or I go watch, like, like, it makes me feel less alone. But yeah, honestly, I don’t have a lot of, like, a big, big network, I would say, of close, you know, and I’ve lots of family turmoil in the past month, honestly, so I’m not really able to rely on my family at all now.

Tameka: You create your family.

Stephanie: Your family.

The Challenges of Entrepreneurship

Katrina: And the reason why I said that is because just entrepreneurship, it is so hard, because you face it alone sometimes, and people don’t really understand, like, the aspects of your mindset, because it can really take you to a different place. You understand when you’re battling everybody? And it’s like, somebody might be able to complain about what they’re going through, and then it’s like, dude, if you really knew what I was going through, like somebody could come to you and say, “Man, I need $10 for gas” if you have my problems of a $50,000 payroll.

Like, do you understand? Like, all you have to do is just change your mindset and do something different. Look at your finances. It may not be a financial problem. It might be just be a personal problem. Because of your habits, you understand like and we have to be here for a lot of people.

And we talk to people every day because we do, like a morning meetup, eight o’clock to nine o’clock. And so many people, they come in. A lot of people are just trying to find a home. They’re trying to find their own tribe, because whoever they’re around, it’s not there. And so what I feel people’s energy, and you know how I feel your energy when you came like, it’s just, it’s just so much. And I was just wondering, like, who pours into Steph.

Self-Care and Personal Growth

Stephanie: So honestly, it’s, it’s a lot of myself, of like, the whole you can’t, and this sounds terrible, but truly, like you are the only person that you will forever be able to depend on. So, like, I’ve really focused on, like, what, how would I show myself, love and respect, taking care of myself, those types of things.

And it, yeah, sometimes it is very challenging. And honestly, like, I get so much joy from, like the service aspect of it, and like the being a great boss and all of those things. And sometimes that is like a thankless job, but honestly, I have very grateful staff and a good team, and so, yeah, honestly, like this, just again, candidly, this past month has been, like one of the, like, worst months of my life because of personal things.

And so I have gotten a lot of strength just from, like, my friends as I made it and doing pouring into work and that, like work, I know that that sounds like possibly toxic, but it’s been my lifeline. Like it’s been my lifeline when, when everything else was not everything, but things have been going very down a difficult path for me in my personal life. And so I can take solstice in the fact that, like, I have a freaking awesome business I but I mean it, it shoot like, yeah, I have so much to be grateful for. And that doesn’t mean that you discount your struggles and challenges. But I just try to keep in mind, like I I’m a very, very blessed person.

Looking Back at the Journey

Katrina: That was my biggest lesson for 2024 man, like, listen, look how far you came. Like you came from the project like I literally had food stamps, welfare like I have. When I first started my business, I was a single mom with five kids, three of my children, they’re grown and gone, but I still got two, an eight year old and a nine year old, that live with me, but I have had I gotta take care of them. I have to take care of my mom, my uncle, like I’m thinking about everything that I’ve done throughout the years, and I’m like, why am I so hard on myself?

I’m always hard on myself. Like, why? Why the hell am I so hard? Like, You came a long way. Like, literally, be grateful. Be thankful for everything that you put together is going to get better. You know, pick yourself up. You gotta have those conversations with yourself and have strong people in your corner, like somebody to pour it, pour into you, especially when you become a coach. All you’re doing is pouring in people all day.

Finding Balance

Stephanie: Is a balancing act, you know, like being hard on yourself, I would say, like, there’s a difference between being hard on yourself and having really high expectations for yourself. I have super high expectations for myself, and I get angry once I when I don’t hit those, those high expectations, and that’s where the like being hard on yourself.

Of like, like you said, take a step back, and I’ve talked about that before. Of, I’ve absolutely taken for granted, like, all like, the craziness that has been like, my journey of serene clean and taking a step back and saying, holy crap. Look at what has happened. And it almost feels like it’s happened to me. I didn’t do it, and, and just really owning, like you did this, like everybody listening, you did this, you put in the work.

Yeah, you guys put in the work. And that is something to be proud of, is what we’ve done. And so I just encourage everybody listening, of like, hey, take a step back. Look at what you’ve done and you know, David Goggins, he is like, if you don’t know who that is, but I remember, in his first book, Can’t Hurt Me, it was he talks about having a cookie jar, and what he means by having a cookie jar is you need to have accomplishments and things that you have done in your life that you are proud of, so that when you are going through the next challenge and you’re struggling, you reach into that cookie jar and say, I did this.

Drawing Strength from Past Success

Stephanie: And honestly, when you talk about, like, who pours into me, I got this cookie jar that said, of all of what Stephanie has done and gone through and overcome, right? And I just pull from that and say, Stephanie, you are a strong person. You’re a strong person. Look what you went through. Look at what you did.

And that’s not to say there hasn’t been, you know, a lot of people along the path that have been right there with me. You know, my staff, as I say, friends, partner, thing, everything like it. I’ve had a lot of great people, but at the end of the day, you are fully in control of—

Katrina: That’s right, that’s right. So you have full control of your life. So it’s entrepreneurship is not meant to be easy. That’s why I try to, we try to avoid doing the commercials on the beach and in the Lamborghinis and, you know, like the lifestyle that you see.

Stephanie: Yeah, I don’t like that. We try to touch it. When you’re talking to people who I mean, I get it, it’s like, aspirational. But what I like people to hear is like, hey, like, we’re just, we’re regular people, regular.

Katrina: No, and, and that makes it so, if we can do it, you can do it.

The Reality of Success

Katrina: Damn sure don’t happen that day. Okay? If you’re not, I don’t want, that’s my that’s the real thing that I want people to get out of this is that anybody can do it, anybody can literally get a LLC ein po and business license and phone your business owner, which I actually thought that was, that’s kind of spooky, because when I I have a felony on my background, and back in 2018 I just remember being really hard for me to find a job. I couldn’t find a job to save my life at one point, you know, making eight and $9 an hour, but, but I could be a business owner.

Stephanie: Yesterday interviewed Vanessa Higgins, and she was telling me about a company that only hires like felons for cleaning like giving job opportunities to people who made a mistake or whatever the situation was, were younger, and now they’re being punished for the rest of their life because they can’t support their family.

Katrina: Because, yeah, you know, it’s just not like they don’t even dig deep into what the situation is. If it says whatever, throw you out. And that’s what I dealt with, like every all my life, you know, and that’s really what led me to getting cleaning jobs, because those were the only type of jobs I could get. Those only type of people that would hire me was cleaning companies.

Overcoming Obstacles

Katrina: So what I did back then was I said, you know what? I remember my last interview. I was in the mall, and I was in tears, crying, and the guy was interviewing me, and it was a situation where I knew I had the job, because he – I sold myself to him. I’m really good at talking, so I sold myself to him, and he wanted to hire me. And he even took me in the back and showed me how to clock in. So I was like, I got this job. I know I got this job. It’s right on my house. I’m excited, right?

So he said, “I’m gonna give you a call.” He never called me. So on Friday, I went back to the mall, and I’m like, hold up. Now, I know I aced that interview. So when I saw him, I just went, like, this, “hey.” And he said, “Come here.” And I was like, I know he’s not going to say what I think he’s going to say. So he said, “sit down.” So I sat down, and he was like, “Well, you got something on your background.” And I just tears just started coming down, because I’m like, “Are you serious? I can do this job. You kidding me?”

Stephanie: Yeah, like you look at it, at brace.

Katrina: And he was like, “Yeah, you know, this is the mall, and, you know, they have certain procedures like this.”

Stephanie: This is in the White House.

Finding a New Path

Katrina: Literally. And it was at that point where I said, okay, when he advised me to get a job at the warehouse, because he said, warehouse to take anybody. And then I ended up finding a job at the Lexus dealership. I was a janitor, and I said, I will not let this moment beat me. I will not let this situation beat me, because I’m not a bad person. I literally carried a weapon without a license. Big deal, but, you know, people don’t know they just like, “oh.”

So I’m like, I won’t let this, this moment, beat me. I said I’m going to get a job at whatever job it is, whoever hires me, I’m going to look at it like it’s a trade. I want to look at that job like it’s a trade, like they’re gonna pay me eight and $9 an hour to learn, like a princess ship. That’s what I’m gonna look at it like.

So every job that I would get I had three jobs. This is what I told a story about me having three jobs. I got a job as a housekeeper. I was working in Lexus dealership, and then I worked at another little janitorial thing, three jobs. I made $600 a week. I remember it like it was yesterday. And I said, “Okay, damn, because I’m working from sun up to Sunday, I have no more time, and this is all I am making. $600 a week. I have five kids. I got a family to take care of. No. Lord, something got to give.”

Learning the Business

Katrina: So I started to learn and take in how long is it taking me to clean this account? What type of supplies am I using on this account? What type of scheduler is he using? We didn’t have ZenMaid back then, but we got ZenMaid now. But I’m like, listen, I’m really holding in on what it takes to be a business owner. Because I knew at that moment that’s what I was going to be. I’m going to be a cleaning business owner. It was at that moment when I was going through that I’m like, I’m going to be a cleaning business owner. That’s what I’m be.

And my last job, I think, in my lab – my very last job, I was a caregiver. Right after that, I got a little caregiving job at night, and I would take care of this lady. It was an overnight position, but by the time she – I had already started my business and everything. So I’m working my business and taking care of the doing the caregiver thing overnight, and when she passed away, by the time she passed away, my business was making enough for me to just do that for the long haul.

Upcoming Events and Future Plans

Katrina: Actually, our next event is going to be January 25 it’s going to be here in Savannah, Georgia. It’s actually going to be a pooler at the ALA hotel, and it’s a cleaning business master class workshop where we’re going to be going over how to grow your cleaning company, how it’s basically how to get started, all of the meat and potato stuff that that we don’t really talk about on YouTube.

We usually cover it in workshop. And it’s a seven hour workshop. It’s very intense. I’ve had some people come because they’re interested in our world and they want to start a business. And by the time that we get finished going through all of the slides and everything, they’re like, “I don’t know if I want to be a business.”

Stephanie: That’s good. That’s great. This was, I’ve had conversations with people who hire me for a consulting call, and they’re thinking about this, and they’re like, “thank you so much for the call. You have explained exactly, I don’t want to do this.” And that’s one of the things.

Katrina: And it comes up, like, when you do those discovery calls, like, I don’t, we don’t try to sell. It’s not a selling thing. If this is something that you really don’t want to do, by gosh, I’m thankful to tell you that you don’t have to do it. I’m not trying to convince you that, because I feel like some people, they’re not meant to be business owners. I’m sorry. Well, most people.

Moving Forward

Katrina: Well, we’re looking at – for Tenacity Clean, we’re subcontracting work out to our students in Tenacity Academy. So that’s how we’re making both worlds work together. I have students, and they’re in different states and cities, and we hire cold callers to get us accounts in those states, and we’ll be subcontracting. It’s going to be more like a citywide type of model is what we’re looking for in the future.

Final Thoughts and Closing

Stephanie: Well, thank you so much, ladies. This has been so wonderful. Thank you coming to my home.

Katrina: Beautiful home. I don’t want to leave here for like, 30 minutes, like, “Oh, my God, this is cute.”

Stephanie: It’s beautiful.

Katrina: I didn’t want to see my ghetto and stuff. Like, oh, this is not.

Stephanie: I put a lot of pride joy into it. Thank you ladies, and thank you to our listeners. I will see you guys on the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners.

If you enjoyed this episode of The Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast, please be sure to leave us a five star review so we can reach more cleaners like you. Until next time, keep your work clean and your business filthy rich.

Note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• ZenMaid
• Tenacity Academy
• Cleaning for a Reason
• Book: “Can’t Hurt Me” by David Goggins
• Event: March 29th – Operations/Finances Workshop with Stephanie