Filthy Rich Cleaners Podcast E19: How to Ride the Emotional Rollercoaster of Cleaning Business Ownership with Carolyn Arellano

Introduction

Coming up next on the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast: “All of that to say it can be done. We are literally living proof of it. If you’ve tried a couple things and then got discouraged, like you gotta try something else.”

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.

Meeting Carolyn Arellano

Stephanie: Hello everyone. Welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I’m your host, Stephanie Pipkin, and with me today is a guest I have wanted to meet for so long, and I’m so excited for us to meet because I swear we’re like sisters on the same path. It seems very cool. So Carolyn, thank you so much for joining me. Carolyn is the owner of the Cleaning Business Mentor and Spotless Cleaning in New Jersey. So thank you, Carolyn, for taking the time to join me today.

Carolyn: Well, thank you, Stephanie, for having me on the podcast, and I want to say that I was equally as excited meeting you for the first time, getting to introduce myself and talk to you directly, because I do feel like we are on very similar paths. So it’s just really, really awesome to be here. And thank you guys to the ZenMaid team also for putting this amazing podcast together.

Stephanie: Everybody’s been killing it. It’s really a ton of work to do the podcast, but it’s been so rewarding, and hopefully everybody listening has been enjoying them just as much as I’ve been enjoying having the conversations. Because it’s so validating to hear that nobody’s experience is individual. We all have literally the same struggles, it seems like. And I hope that makes our listeners feel not so alone, because it certainly can feel like a lonely path. I would love to hear your story, Carolyn. How did you get started? What were you doing before opening your cleaning business, and how did all that transpire? If you would be willing to share that.

Carolyn’s Journey to Entrepreneurship

Carolyn: Yeah, of course. So again, my name is Carolyn Arellano. I am the owner of Spotless Cleaning Service. I started my business back in 2018 or 19, going on six years, and I did it out of pure necessity.

I was going to school in college for a business degree. I always knew I wanted to be a business owner, but I just never exactly knew what business. My father is an entrepreneur. My grandparents are from Ecuador and from Chile. Both sets of grandparents came over and started a business. So I had a lot of entrepreneurs in my family that I was looking up to, but I just didn’t have my own thing, so I kept going to school.

As I mentioned, my dad’s an entrepreneur, so I was kind of hoping I’d take over his mechanic business. He had a mechanic shop, actually does pretty well still, about 35 years in business, and I used to think this is what I want to do. So he’s like, “You know, get a degree and when you’re done, you can have the place.”

Well, my father’s pretty young, and he’s not going to be retiring anytime soon. So after I graduated college with my business degree, I still had no idea what business. It was very frustrating, as you can imagine, not knowing what you want to do in life, especially with a business degree. But I ended up working for my dad for about a week. He didn’t want to change one thing in the business. It frustrated the hell out of me.

And then I went and got a part-time job. So I was working a part-time job doing some customer service. And I was blessed enough to meet my mentor, my first business mentor. And we got to talking. I was actually working for him at the time, and he was like, “You know, why don’t you start your own business? Why did you go into school for business?”

At this point, I was going for a master’s degree in international business, although I had no idea what I was going to do internationally. I was on that path of just going to school to go to school, to feel accomplished, maybe one day make enough money. And it was an experience, but it did lead me to meeting my mentor, thinking about a business that I wanted to put into motion.

From Party Planning to Cleaning

My first business was actually a party planning business. It never really took off the ground because of COVID. It was around that same time, and I learned that in New York, New Jersey, there’s just so much for people to do. It didn’t work out. I ended up wasting a couple of months, a couple thousand dollars, but in that process, I learned a lot about business research, how to put marketing together.

I always loved to clean. I’ve always had a huge love for cleaning. I’d help people clean for free. So I’d go to your house, organize your pantry, maybe help you deep clean your kitchen or your mom’s garage, because I just couldn’t stand looking at it. But I never thought I could actually turn that into money. I never thought I could get paid for it, aside from my father, who I would clean his shop for an extra $100 every Saturday.

And it just so happened that one week, in one week’s time, I had four people tell me that I should start a cleaning business because of the side jobs that I was helping them with, which was like packing and moving, deep cleaning a home, organizing someone’s pantry. And I’m like, “You know what? Too many people have told me in one week that I should start a cleaning business.” Not something I ever thought of, never crossed my mind in my entire college career or ever in general.

But that week, since the party planning business wasn’t going anywhere, I was like, “You know what? Let me do some research.” And lo and behold, six years later, that’s pretty much right here, we are having this awesome conversation on this amazing podcast with ZenMaid. That’s really how I started the business. It was out of pure necessity. Never once thought about it.

I was able to turn my passion into profit, which was cleaning, organizing, helping people feel better about their homes and their self-esteem. I’ll never forget what it felt like cleaning our very first home, not knowing exactly what we’re doing, but watching lots of videos on YouTube University, and then being handed $250 for a three-hour job with my partner. My mind was completely blown. And from there, it was like, “Okay, this is it. This is my thing.”

The Transformation from Employee to Business Owner

Stephanie: It does really change you. I know you commented in your intake form about having that first employee, and that was kind of a big turning point for me as well. The first day that I was at my full-time job and somebody was cleaning and I was making money off of somebody else’s labor – that literally blew my mind.

Carolyn: Right? It was life-changing. For me, it was really life-changing as well. During this transition of me starting the cleaning business, I was also restarting in life again. I was 30, maybe just turning 30, back at home, meaning my father’s house. Got out of a relationship that didn’t work out, that ended up draining my bank account, draining me emotionally. It was what I thought was my lowest low, having to start over as an adult, asking if you could come home. It was quite embarrassing, and honestly the most stressful financial time in my life. The phones were ringing, creditors were calling me. I didn’t have any money to pay these people. It was just really, really bad.

And all through that, I was still trying to figure something out, what’s going to work. And then making that first house cleaning money, it totally changed my life. I was able to get my own place again, get out of debt, buy a new car. I could have a life where I wasn’t depending on somebody else or asking for help. So for me, it was empowering, and it definitely changed the way I thought, the way I feel, and now I love helping people get to that point.

Building Confidence Through Competence

Stephanie: I totally can relate to that confidence building. I know that a lot of times, at least for me, in that beginning stage, I was like this fragile little baby bird that anything could really break because I had no confidence. I just hadn’t done anything worth inciting confidence.

One of my favorite quotes that I tell myself all the time, and I tell other people, is “competence breeds confidence.” If you don’t feel good at something or you feel like you’re a loser, not good at anything, it’s like, well, you haven’t done anything yet. It’s okay. That’s how we all feel in the beginning. And the more reps you get at things, the more practice, the more competence you gain in something, it just turns you into this confident, powerful person.

I know for myself, I probably seem super confident. I wasn’t before, though. It’s just fake it till you make it. I know that’s so cliché, but I didn’t know what the hell I was doing at the first walk-throughs or talking to clients, or even how long things took. I kind of tried to figure it out, but you just do it, you learn, and then you do it again and get better. I think we all get a conniption and analysis paralysis. I’m a woman of action in the beginning, because that was my big thing – just go do, fail, do again.

Carolyn: Exactly. I love that phrase that you said, “competence breeds confidence,” because it’s true. Like you said, you don’t know what you’re doing right? I watched all the YouTube videos. I read all the books. Melissa Maker from Canada, there’s so many people that I took information from. I made sure I was as prepared as I could be.

But in reality, until you go out there and you do that first house cleaning, you do that first walk-through, that first estimate, that first post-construction – there’s so many firsts. And until you do that first and you keep doing it like you said, that’s how you build the confidence. And you kind of do have to fake it till you make it. The clients are looking at us as the professional, so we do have to be confident with what we’re going in.

Trying to be as prepared as you can is great, as long as you don’t get analysis paralysis. But more importantly, getting out there and learning things firsthand and making mistakes and underbidding and sometimes losing money on a job, whatever the case is, it’s all learning experience. But we will absolutely get better with things as we go, for sure.

The Value of Mentorship in Business

Stephanie: Yeah, and really, the biggest failure is just quitting and throwing in the towel. When you talk about mentorship, I took Melissa Maker’s course. It no longer exists, but she had a course on running a cleaning business, and that’s where my business came from.

Really taking a look at the experts in the industry – you’re not going to resonate with everybody, and that’s okay. You find your person, you find your people. There’s a lot of different personalities in our industry, and there’s definitely a lot of people that, frankly, I wouldn’t listen to.

As I mentioned before we started recording, in every single industry, in every aspect of life – I mean, there’s life coaches, there’s all these people where they will happily take your money and not actually teach you anything. We both have had major influences from mentors throughout our business life. I’d love to hear how that experience has been, and what would you recommend to people when they’re like, “I really would like a mentor, but who do I trust? How do I approach this? What does that even look like? What can a mentor do for me?”

Carolyn: That’s actually an amazing question. First off, for anybody that’s listening, having a mentor in any aspect of your life is going to help you save a lot of time, a lot of headaches, a lot of struggle and strife, because you are dealing with somebody that has more experience.

Having a mentor for me was 100% life-changing, because this person was the first person in my adult life that could actually tell me that I was capable of doing something. So that’s number one, I had a more sense of confidence. I had somebody in my corner. Some people just need that push, that confidence boost. Like, “Hey, you got this? I’m here for you if you need it.”

Having that support was really pivotal for my adult life, because I never had anybody tell me that I could do these things or root for me, or think any further than what my mind was taking me. So having a mentor is great in all aspects of life.

I have a business mentor. Then I started seeking out mentors in the industry specific like you had mentioned, like Melissa Maker. I started reaching out to people, and it all helped me save years and years worth of time, worth of mistakes.

Being Ready for Mentorship

For those of you that are looking for a mentor, number one, most importantly, you want to make sure that you are mentally prepared, emotionally prepared to take on a mentor. You need to have confidence in yourself and understand that the information that you’re going to be given, you need to apply. That’s the most important thing.

I know you know this Stephanie, because you work with a number of clients. It’s like, we can give you the recipe, or people can tell you what to do and what not to do, but if you’re not going to take that information and actually apply it, then it’s really not worth much.

The mentor on the other side of that – we get a lot of joy out of seeing our students succeed. So you want to make sure that you’re mentally and emotionally prepared, meaning that you have to be ready to take constructive criticism. You’re going to hear things about yourself that you’re not going to like. You have to be open to it. You have to be open to change. You have to be open to changing your mindset.

Me and my business mentor, there’s stuff that he has been telling me to do for years, and I’m just now applying it. So I said for 2025 one of my goals is I’m gonna just let go and listen to him, because everything that he has said that I’ve waited on and I’ve done years later – I’ve heard it like year one, year two, year three. So now I’m just like, “You know what? All these fears that I have…”

The stuff that I don’t listen to my mentor about is selling. Like, “Oh, you got to sell. You got to push. You got to do this.” And I’m not comfortable, because I’ve never been a saleswoman, not directly anyway. But this year, something changed. I’m like, “You know what? I’m gonna listen.” Got on the phone all of January, it’s been my best January yet, just for me getting over that fear and practicing and asking people to make a sale before we hang up.

Never Stop Learning

Having a mentor can really get you years and years ahead, depending on what aspect of your life. Right now, I’m looking for a coaching mentor to help me actually be a better coach. I’m looking for a mentor right now to help me become a better speaker. So I’m a part of a Toastmasters group here in New York.

Mentorship never stops for me, and it shouldn’t for you guys either. Your mentors, some of them will be around forever. Some of them are just here for a moment or a time in your life where you need that extra help.

If you guys are looking for mentors, number one, be ready. And number two, just reach out to people that you connect with, that you resonate with. If you don’t get the response that you’re looking for, don’t feel defeated or let down because a lot of people are busy throughout the day. I can speak for myself too, I’m sure you are as well. It’s easy to get having a message missed or an email read and then put away, but try a second time. Try a third time. And if the person that you’re looking for doesn’t have the time or the bandwidth to mentor you, don’t take it personal and just move on, and you will find somebody that you connect with.

Don’t Take Rejection Personally

Stephanie: So many points that I just 100% agree with. Number one, yes, don’t take it personally if you reach out to somebody and they don’t give you the time of day, or it feels dismissive to you, because it is 100% not personal. I get a lot of emails every day, and I gladly welcome them, but sometimes it takes me a little bit to get back to them, and I hope nobody ever takes that personally.

If you’re seeking somebody out for their mentorship, it’s probably because you admire whatever they are doing, and you want to, in some way or capacity, imitate what they’re doing. So they’re probably busy people, so keep that in mind.

Number two, when it comes to being ready and not taking things personally – I have super high rejection sensitivity. Any fellow ADHDers out there, we are very sensitive to rejection, and so that makes it really hard to not take things personally, to not dwell and stew. This can be from employees, from clients, from anybody that I interact with, it’ll just stew in me. So I can totally relate if anybody takes things very personally.

But it really is not about you, almost always. It may be really trying to remove yourself from whatever they are rejecting. Say you are trying to make sales, and they say no – they’re not rejecting you. It’s not like you’re a terrible person. It’s just for whatever reason they are rejecting the sale, and that a lot of times has nothing to do with you.

Or maybe you need to actually improve your sales process or the way you present things, or your branding marketing. There’s so many things that when we just associate with shame, as opposed to just removing that away and saying, “Okay, what can I fix about this to make it more likely that they accept whatever it is I am trying to propose.”

Taking Action is Essential

Coming back to what you said about taking action and being ready when it comes to actually doing things – 100%. I’m not going to name names, but I have had consulting clients where I have stopped the consulting relationship because they don’t do anything that I tell them to do.

You are so right – if I’m working with you, I so want you to be successful. And it’s really frustrating to me, and it makes me feel like I’m a failure if you’re failing, but it’s because you’re not doing anything I tell you. If every time I talk to you, you haven’t done anything that I’ve suggested, and you’re full of reasons as to why, I get really over it fast because I could talk to somebody who’s actually going to do what I’ve suggested.

Or don’t ask me to have that relationship. And that’s where maybe you still need to be looking at online resources like YouTube University. I probably, at any given day, consume like four to five hours of YouTube videos, even if it’s just passively. I am a woman obsessed. I’m 100% addicted, and I’m never gonna go into rehab. I love YouTube.

And same with audio books – we’re all students of the game, and there’s always ways to level up. You’re never done. So I think it’s really a weird balance of being confident but not being prideful that you know everything. I fully know nothing about some things sometimes. And even though it may seem like we do, we’re still learning. I can really appreciate how modest and what a student’s mind you have, because I think it’s so important, no matter how successful you get, you’re never done learning.

Carolyn: Oh yeah, 100%. There’s so many people that know a lot more than us in certain areas, and I’m the first person to be like, “I don’t have the right answer for this, so let me reach out to somebody that can help us.”

Being Open to Criticism

But back to what you were saying about the rejection part. For those of you that are looking for a mentor, the reason why I brought that up is because you are going to hear things about yourself that you don’t like.

When I first started in business, my business mentor literally shattered my entire personal life. I remember the first meeting we had. He was like, “Listen, this gotta stop. This gotta stop. This gotta stop. This gotta stop. Everything needs to change today. Either you’re going to make this commitment with me, or I’m not going to help you.”

And I’m just like, “Okay, well, I’ve already done X, Y, and Z for the last 20-something years of my life, and I know what the results are. I know what the results are of having these same friends every weekend, going out and drinking. I know what the results are of looking forward to a Friday to cash a $750 check that’s never going to get any higher.”

So I already knew what the results of my past life were. So when I did have this mentor come into my life, I was ready for it. I was sick of life. I was tired of it. I already knew everything that I could possibly do on my own, how that would work out.

So he told me a lot about myself. He’s like, “You need to stop doing this. You watch too much TV. You’re hanging out too much. You cannot have a nine-to-five mentality. You will be working 60-70 hours a week, Monday through Monday. You’re gonna be cleaning during the day, and when you’re done, you’re gonna come back to the office. You’re gonna be working two o’clock in the morning.”

And I was just like, “Oh my God. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. This is so much stuff.” But I took every little piece of advice, little by little, implemented things. Stopped hanging out, stopped having the nine-to-five mindset. Stopped having a poor mindset, which is what I had.

Growth Mindset and Personal Development

Also, that goes back to audios too. So I listened to a lot of books like you had mentioned, “Think and Grow Rich,” “Change Your Life, Change Your Paradigm.” A lot of books that helped me mentally prepare for the mentorship that I was about to take on, because it was a commitment that I was making to myself, but also to my mentor, because I knew that he was going to help transfer years and years worth of business knowledge to me, but I had to be dedicated.

So being dedicated is really important, making sure you have the time. And like Stephanie said, have your questions, but make sure they are not questions that you can find on YouTube. That’s another thing – if you’re gonna seek information, make sure it’s not information that person has already put out there, or that it’s not easy to grab.

Otherwise, be prepared to make a lot of changes and hear a lot of things about yourself that you don’t like. And you will learn how to not take it so personal, because you’ll notice that this person cares about me. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I do need to stop watching Netflix as I work, because maybe it is decreasing my productivity slightly, because I am trying to listen to what’s going on in Game of Thrones Season Five while trying to write up this proposal.

So be prepared to just be open to criticism, take constructive feedback, and more importantly, be open to apply the changes that need to get done.

Finding the Right Mentor

Stephanie: Absolutely. You know, when I first started getting business coaching, which I don’t have a business coach currently right now – honestly, this is going to sound kind of arrogant – you need to have somebody who’s like where you want to be, and I don’t know who that is right now. You have to connect with them.

So I’m still looking for that person, someone who’s at 5 million a year, or whatever it is, when they’re so far ahead. I’m like, you can really change the game with me. And am I willing to sacrifice to get to that level? And the whole why of it all?

Carolyn: That’s so important.

Stephanie: Why do I want to get to 5 million? I don’t know if I do. It’s just the things – am I willing to sacrifice to get to that level?

You may hear us talk about numbers, or people really focus on the numbers because it is something to celebrate when you hit these really big financial milestones or these revenue milestones. But to get to that, it takes a certain level of sacrifice, and I am most likely not willing to sacrifice what I have built now in order to get to perhaps that revenue number. And that’s totally okay.

And I think if you are hearing what we have gone through, and you’re like, “I’m not willing to go through that,” that’s okay too. It just may not be the right path or whatever.

But I do think for anybody getting into the industry, the hardest is absolutely the first couple years. So if you can get through that and systematize and make things run smoothly, it’s gonna get wildly easier. My life is 7 million bajillion times easier than it was year one of the business. Not even a question, and I’m making so much more money than I did then.

So it really is a test of discipline, fortitude and absolute pig-headedness. Put your nose to the ground and grind, because the reward is so sweet. It is so sweet, guys. But if you are listening and you’re cleaning right now, you are in the absolute trenches. I like me and Carolyn both know, we know what pain is that you are feeling right now. It sucks.

But if you can just push through and learn and get better at the business side of things, it’s gonna get so much better. I promise you’re going to be out of the field. I promise you’re going to have great staff. It just takes a lot of work to get there.

I’d love to hear any tips you have when it comes to sticking to it, sticking to the grind to get through the tough times.

Pushing Through the Hard Times

Carolyn: 100%. You made such a great point, Stephanie. We’ve been there, we understand what it is. We understand how hard it is to be out in the field cleaning. We understand how hard it is to find cleaners, pricing, all of that stuff. It’s hard.

And like Stephanie said, if you can just make it through year one, year two – I feel like after year two is when really it’s like, “Okay, I have a little bit of relief now,” because I figured all the things out, like the really hard operations and the systems of it all. And then, yes, after year two, I did have a huge sense of relief. And I’m like, “Okay, I have a business now, all the things are working,” and of course, every year we have to tweak.

But really, don’t quit. Do not give up. What I tell a lot of the students that I have is that you already know what life is like right now. You know what kind of life you’re living and what kind of quality of life that you’re living. So you already know that.

The scary part is what lies ahead. Don’t worry about, “How am I going to do this?” or “I don’t know this” or “I don’t speak this language” or “I don’t know business” – all of that stuff you’re going to figure out. It’s the “I can’t,” “I won’t,” “I don’t know how to” that will stop you indefinitely, and you will stay where you are at today.

Growth vs. Stagnation

There’s nothing scarier to me than being stagnant in life, because I did it for so damn long that now my ultimate mission is just getting better incrementally every day, no matter what it is that I do – getting better, making a little bit more money, being a better person, being a better mother, being a better sister.

Everything is learnable, and it does get easy, but the hardest part is not quitting. Too many people give up, and they have no idea how close they actually are to that breakthrough.

There were plenty of times in year one, year two, working 60-70 hours, maybe working for free – a lot of things happen that made me want to quit, but I already knew how my life would be if I quit. I didn’t know what it would be like if I made it over that hill.

So don’t give up. Stay positive. Keep in mind what your goals are. What does your future self look like? What does your future life look like? And just know that this business can literally take you there if you put the time and the effort and you seek out the education of it all.

Because I didn’t learn any of this information in college. Sadly enough, a lot of what I learned in college I didn’t even apply. It was my first year in business where I was like, “They didn’t teach me this kind of stuff.”

Stephanie: I totally agree. I got an associate’s in marketing, and was there points of that that was helpful? Absolutely, but I do thank God I did not go get a master’s degree and a bunch of student debt, because you are so right that the business will teach you everything you need to know, as long as you have your listening ears open and your listening eyes, your eye holes open and learn from what the heck is going on in front of you.

Wearing Multiple Hats in Business

It’s not like you’re just in a customer service role. It’s not like you’re just in a management role. It’s not like you’re just in a bookkeeping role or a sales role. You literally have to do all of these things. And probably when you’re starting out, you’re maybe decent at one of these areas, and then also the cleaning as well, the physical labor of it all.

So if you guys are feeling overwhelmed, that’s because this is overwhelming. To own a business, you have to do it all, and that’s where I get really irritated whenever a cleaner goes off and starts their own cleaning business. Best of luck to you, but I don’t have much confidence in them, because I know how difficult it is, and that 99% of people are going to quit within that first year.

So if you are contemplating quitting, guys, is there something that you can improve? Have you tried everything? You probably haven’t. I get how discouraging it is, especially when you are doing the cleaning, when cleaners keep quitting on you, no-calling, or they’re doing shitty quality. I totally can empathize and understand.

But have you pulled every lever? Have you tried everything? Have you tried – no, you haven’t. I guarantee you haven’t. If you had, it would be working, because there’s so many avenues to test out, and you gotta play the long game.

The Long Game vs. Quick Results

This is not a flash in the pan thing, and I know that, especially in today’s world, it is very much emphasized of quick money. How can we start something really fast and get money right away?

I know you might hear our stories, and it seems quick. Yes, in the grand scheme of things, most small businesses don’t even get to a million dollars in revenue. So to do that in a few years is super fast.

All of that to say it can be done. We are literally living proof of it. But if you’ve tried a couple things and then got discouraged, you gotta try something else. It’s okay. Just keep experimenting, is what I’m trying to say.

Carolyn: 100%. You said a lot of great stuff. It’s true – in the beginning, it is extremely overwhelming. Because like you said, you’re doing marketing, you’re doing labor, your customer service, you’re quoting. You are everything, and it is hard.

Business isn’t for everybody, and that’s okay, too. But getting through that first year, that second year, it does get easier. You just have to stick with it. You get your system down. Document everything that you guys are doing, keep looking for education. Keep looking for podcasts like this, where you can hear conversations and understand that the work is absolutely worth it. It is so worth it.

The Work Never Stops

I still put a lot of hours into work every week. Now it’s not so much my cleaning business, it’s my consulting business, but I’ll tell you what I learned from that. Also being in business with this new business for the last two years, it’s that we’re always going to have to work, no matter what business we’re in. The work has to get done.

I thought being a content creator, I was going to do part time. No, it’s a full-time job. I have five people that work for me just on that business.

So I say that to say that you’re always going to have to learn. You’re always going to have to look at this as a long game. Like Stephanie said, think five to 10 years. Don’t think quick money, one to two years. Can it be done? Absolutely it can be done. Is it realistic? It all depends on your situation – how much time you have, who do you have helping you, what do you already know coming into this space.

But ultimately, you should look at this as a long game and know that this is going to be an investment for five to 10 years. And then when you think about, “Oh, well, I don’t really want to work 60-70 hour weeks,” because that’s what it’ll probably be like in the first year. Okay, that’s fine if you don’t want to work 60-70 hour weeks in your own business.

You have to realize something – the only difference for me is when we’re working in our own business, our income level, our potential is whatever we want it to be. There is nothing stopping Stephanie from doing X amount of money this month, or me. When you have a job, there’s a cap on that. You’re only going to make so much a year. You’re only going to make so much a week.

So also put that into perspective – yes, it’s a lot of hard work the first five years, well, the first two years are the hardest, and it’s all an investment, but it’s for long term, for your family. I love knowing that if I wanted to or if I had to make X amount of money, that I could figure it out, and I could do it with this cleaning business.

The Reward of Business Ownership

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s the beautiful thing. What you put in does directly contribute to what you put out, which for a lot of us who have been at “normal” jobs before, that is absolutely not the case. Where you put in so much and you don’t get that reward.

However, the trade-off is that it’s not your problem at the end of the day at a regular job, because it’s not your business. So we do take on, obviously, all of the stress and all of the responsibility, because it’s ours. But that means that the potential for the reward is so much greater, truly.

So I know we’re really going into kind of motivational mode right now, and I usually don’t – I feel like both of us are kind of in that mindset right now, of “Keep going guys, don’t quit.” And also, this time of year – I’m assuming this one’s gonna post in March – this is a tough time of year for sales. Typically, everybody’s broke. Christmas just happened. Nobody’s got their tax returns back yet.

So I just want you to know that this is an industry-wide thing, guys, and you’re not doing anything wrong. Always flipping things as an opportunity. Like, “Great, maybe I have a little bit more time to focus on internal XYZ or whatever.” Things happen totally outside of your control. It’s all in how you react to it. How fast can you pivot and adjust?

Managing Through Challenges

For example, in the past month, we have had over $10,000 worth of revenue loss due to call-ins. We have had record numbers of call-ins. In the past week, I think we’ve had 230 hours worth of lost hours because everybody is sick. Everybody is like, just the sickness is like – Serene Cleaning down with the sickness. It’s insane. I don’t understand what’s going on, whether it’s lice, whether it’s horrific—

Carolyn: I know, it’s crazy.

Stephanie: And so it’s like, what do you do? I was really hoping we would hit a certain number in January. I cannot control the fact that that just happened. I can’t. But what can I do?

Maybe we need to hire and overstaff a little bit more. Maybe we need to build in even more on-call time, because my full-time on-call person is also my main trainer. Well, when she’s training, which she’s been training the past two weeks, she hasn’t been available to fill in.

So can I analyze that and see if there’s anything to do differently there? But the revenue sucks, but at the end of the day, there’s only so much you can do, because I’m not going to force somebody to work when they’re sick.

I’ve kind of disassociated from that result. And it’s just like, are we putting in the effort? Are we doing our best? Are we doing everything that we can when it comes to the input? And whatever the output is, I’m just trying to emotionally remove myself from it. This is a really good way to not get so beat up about it. My reaction is like, “Yeah, sucks,” and then just move on. Because what else is there to do?

Carolyn: Exactly. I love that you said that, because going back to what we were talking about, when you said you had started the business, you were very fragile. I had full-blown anxiety. So, this is before starting the business, I was just a very anxious person. I was prescribed medications. I would just have full-blown panic attacks. It’s terrible for anybody that has to experience that.

But with business, and my mentor taught me this, and obviously business taught me this – you’re going to get things thrown at you every single day. People getting sick, things that are out of your control, things breaking, people just not showing up to work, or whatever the case may be.

Learning to Manage Business Crises

For me, the first few business situations that I was in, I went into a full-blown panic. Like sweating, “What am I gonna do? Oh my God, they said we stole something. I know we didn’t steal. What are we gonna do?”

There was this time somebody had accused my team of stealing. I never had dealt with this before. “What do I do?” I’m grabbing my jacket and my keys, and my mentor’s like, “Where are you going?” I’m like, “I gotta go get $1,800 at the bank account right now. They said that this girl took it.”

He’s like, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait, stop right now.” And I was in full-blown panic mode. And he’s like, “Look, this is not how you operate. You need to calm down.” And we went through all the steps.

And so now, it did take maybe three, four years of kind of conditioning myself, but now when I get these types of issues thrown at me, I feel a lot like you. It’s just like, “Well, what can we do? I tried everything, unless it’s something that I didn’t handle myself. I’m not gonna beat myself up over it.”

We lost an account a couple days ago. My assistant was like, “Hey, I have really bad news. We just lost this account.” He’s like, “What do you want me to do?” And I’m like, “Honestly, nothing. Just tell them we’re sorry this happened. We’ll be there on Sunday to pick up our stuff.”

To be honest, it was a customer that we had been having some issues with over the last couple of years. They don’t want to pay the price, but they don’t want to change the scope of work. So for me, it did suck, but it didn’t ruin my day. It didn’t ruin what I was doing in that moment.

Back then, I would have been like, “Oh my god, Stephanie, I’m so sorry. We can’t do this podcast today because I just lost the account.” No, no, you can’t. If you’re going to be a business owner, you have to understand that you are going to be a problem solver. And now that’s what we are – we’re problem solvers.

So now you have that kind of mindset, and it’s like, if you understand that waking up every day, you are going to have issues, but it is your job – you are getting paid to solve them. That’s another way too you can look at the business a little bit differently and not have anxiety or freak out over things not working out how we’d like.

The Importance of Mindset

Stephanie: Yeah, and really, I mean, I know anybody who’s listening, who’s been a regular listener of our podcast – just kidding, it’s a brand new podcast. But every single episode, you will notice that myself and my guests, we talk about mindset, guys. There’s a reason for that, because literally, that is the basis on which you are going to be successful or not.

Because mindset affects how you go into each day and how you interact with each person that you come into contact with in your business, whether that be a customer or an employee or whoever else you’re dealing with, even a potential customer. Just everywhere you go, how you act is absolutely going to come back tenfold to you.

And even if something terrible happens or an employee is just horrific and they ghost you, or they give you attitude, or whatever – my biggest regrets in the business are how I have reacted poorly when somebody is behaving ridiculously towards me.

Because being righteous is 100% appropriate in that situation, because it’s like, “Well, they’re doing me wrong. I have absolutely every right to come down and try to smite them down.” That is an inappropriate response, but it’s our job. Trust me, every time I’ve done that, I look back and I regretted it.

Once the dust settles and I can see clearly because my rage and self-righteousness has calmed down, I’m like, “Oh, I didn’t handle that well.” Do you have any situations where you got way too emotionally volatile?

Managing Emotional Reactions

Carolyn: Oh yeah, 100%. I think you’re saying this, and I’m like, “This is me.” Plenty of times, with my technicians, with some of my customers, even in my day-to-day life – even how I handle my children sometimes, or how I react to my boyfriend maybe just being annoying, because he’s just a guy. It’s not like he’s doing anything on purpose.

So for me, I would always react because I am just a big ball of emotion. That’s how I was born. I’m either crying, laughing, feeling something for somebody, but I’m very empathetic and overly emotional.

So plenty of times in the beginning, in my life, in the beginning of business, I would say things, regret it. I would feel mortified the next day, of how I handled the situation, of how I let my feelings get in the way.

So now my rule of thumb, Stephanie, is to give everything a day – 24 hours. It could be a terrible message from a client. It could be a business deal gone wrong. It could be a personal friend of mine just saying something that is completely inappropriate or something. But whatever it is, I give myself a day because, and I tell my kids this, I’m like, “Give yourself 24 hours, because in 24 hours, you will feel different. You will not feel the same.”

You may, it depends on the situation, but for the most part, we don’t feel the same 24 hours later. So absolutely, I’ve said things, I’ve regretted things. I’ve fired people then hired them back. I put my foot in my mouth plenty of times.

Stephanie: We’re human, guys. We’re human, and we’re just trying to have you learn from us. Especially, a lot of us start this business at a younger age. We are still developing as a person. We are still wildly immature in a lot of areas.

It’s really easy – the whole “it’s easy to say what you’re going to do in a fight until you get punched in the face” kind of thing. And so these are proverbial getting punched in the face.

Handling Difficult Situations

I remember one of my former managers, she had had some mental health things, and she had texted me at midnight demanding more money, a raise, even though she was the one who didn’t show up the most, and she had just gotten a raise and was not performing well.

Luckily, something with the phones happened where I did not get the message until the next day. So I did not get that message at midnight when she was having her breakdown and texting me demanding more money. Because I don’t think I would have reacted very well, and that was only like a year ago. I think I would have had a bitch fit.

And so luckily, that didn’t happen, and even then, when I got it, I still exactly as you said, I did not respond because I was so volatile.

Carolyn: Start shaking, yeah.

Stephanie: You start shaking, right? And the reason I’m honing in on this so much is because I see this so many times in the Facebook groups or even with consulting clients, where the way that they react to customers being crazy – even though they’re being insane. But that doesn’t mean you stoop to their level.

Guys, people go read that crazy review, and then they see how you respond. How you respond will dictate what they think of you. You have to think of the optics of everything. How will the other employees see you reacting to that?

And I’m not saying there’s not a time and a place – I have done what we call “one public hanging” of an employee before, and sometimes that is useful. I will get shaky thinking about it, and I can’t even remember exactly what he did.

I think he was talking about going and getting another job and trying to go behind my back. I literally can’t even think about the thing. But anyway, I ended up screaming at him in front of an entire room of employees, and I fired him. You guys are probably like, “Who the heck is that girl?” I don’t even know who that was. I was so angry.

All I’m saying, guys, is that you know, keep in mind that we are not perfect at this. And I will say even Jesus flipped tables, so sometimes you gotta flip a table, right? It’s difficult to navigate in the moment. And so the best thing we can say right now is take a step back. Pause, pause, because you can’t think straight when you’re mad. So just take some time, guys.

I know you may not have experienced anything that makes you that hot yet in the business, oh, you will. It’s going to happen.

Managing Customer Interactions

Carolyn: Oh yeah, you will. It used to happen with me, even when we do everything in the first year when I was trying to sell my services. Some of my customers or potentials would be like, “Oh, what? Who’s gonna pay that? Not when I have this lady.” And I’ve been told all these rude things, and I would get so overly emotional. I’d be like, “What do you mean?”

And then I realized I had to hire someone for the phone, because I am not the one to be answering it.

Things do get taken personally a lot, and I understand that, because it’s our business. It’s like we work so hard for it. How dare you try to do something behind my back that’s gonna cause my company strife? Or how dare you not value my services and think that we’re gonna come clean for eight hours for 60 bucks?

But the reality is that a lot of these people are uneducated. And even if they are, it’s our duty as the business owners to reply as such. Like you were mentioning those reviews, because same thing, first thing you want to do is go off. And it’s like, no, you don’t want people reading that. No, you can get your point across and be very professional and still get the point across.

So being able to control your emotions in business, I would think, is a huge lesson, and it’s something that we were constantly learning. When you’re an emotional person, like you or me, you can’t just get rid of that completely. But it does get better, because now we stop and we’re like, “Wait a minute.” And I’m like, “Alright, am I gonna respond to that?”

Stephanie: No, absolutely. And honestly, it is an uphill battle. We’re women, and that means the stereotype is already there that we are psychotically emotional and can’t control ourselves. So guys, please don’t feed into that stereotype. I’ve done it enough, plenty for our gender, so let’s keep it together.

Carolyn: Yeah, it’s already hard enough. You guys definitely, having your emotions in check is really important. I know we talked a lot about mindset, but having your mind prepared and just being in a mindset where you’re open to change. Open to change, not thinking that you know everything all the time.

I always want to be – I don’t want to be the smartest person in the room. If there’s something that I can take from somebody and listen to, then I’m going to definitely do that. But you have to definitely be open-minded. You have to be strong. Have to be strong-willed. You have to be disciplined.

Building Discipline and Personal Growth

Even if you’ve never experienced any of these things before, you can do it. For years, I had no discipline. I had nothing really – if you would have asked me, “What do you want to be when you grow up? Or what do you like?” I never thought of a future. I was just so used to surviving.

So all of these habits, personality traits – this can be learned. It can be learned. You just have to dedicate your time to it and tell yourself, “I’m going to change. I am going to be a better business person, I am going to be less emotional. I am going to be stricter. I’m not going to drink anymore. I’m not going to binge on Netflix.”

It’s all or nothing. And if you treat your business like there is no other option, that’s another big thing, Stephanie – there cannot be a Plan B. In the beginning of year one, year two, when I want to quit, I’d be crying to my mentor, and the first thing I would say is, “That’s it. I’m gonna go get a job and I’m gonna go bartend again. F this shit.”

And he’s like, “You’re not getting any younger. Number one, how old do you think you want to be in a bar?” And that was – I didn’t want to hear that, but it’s true. You know what you’re gonna get. You know what kind of money you’re gonna leave with, the people you’re gonna have to work with.

So there cannot be a plan B. You guys have to think of this as Plan A, and that’s it. Because if you always think, “Well, I can always go back and do this, or I could,” then you’re not gonna put your all or nothing.

And a lot of times too for us, it depends – for me, I had no other choice but to succeed. So if you have a comfortable life, or if you’re doing this like as a side hustle, then it might be a little bit more relaxed. But if you treat this like your only option, then you’ll push yourself or convince yourself like you have to get this done.

Finding What Motivates You

Stephanie: Yeah, and I know for myself, I’m a very proud person, and so being seen as a failure by others has always been, I guess, a motivating factor, whether it’s good or bad. I can’t help the fact – external motivation is huge for me.

And I think we all see that or we’ve been taught that it’s like, you just should be intrinsically motivated. Okay, every time I was ready to step on stage for a bikini competition, it was because I got a coach who yelled at me, because I certainly wasn’t going to do it. I needed external motivation to keep me on track.

So don’t think that that makes you a weak person. That’s probably more of us than not, that can just intrinsically motivate yourself without any external forces at all.

So for me now, having employees and having such a big team – that is so externally motivating, and it’s almost like I’ve built it into my own business. Obviously, just growing it, that’s going to happen, but it’s really good, because I cannot fail 30 people who are depending on me to feed their families.

Carolyn: Like, 30 families. Yeah.

Stephanie: So just saying that, it makes me want to go work on the business right now, because they’re there. And that responsibility, although it could be seen as a heavy thing or a burden, it’s what I’ve chosen. And without responsibility, how can you take any pride in anything?

The more responsibility I’ve put on myself, the more proud I am of myself. Because really, if you’re not accomplishing things, there’s just nothing to be proud of. And so the more it grows, the more I add on to myself – even starting this podcast, it is way more responsibility.

But now I have so much pride, because I’m like, “Look how many people I can help now.” It’s really interesting just thinking about, the more I add on to my plate, the more highly productive I am.

Carolyn: Because you’re accomplishing all of your goals. That’s what it is. And I think that to grow as a person, it’s important, setting goals and crushing them. Like you said, this podcast, you didn’t have to do this. This is going to take how many hours a week out of your life, but you’re pushing yourself to do something new.

And ultimately, you have a really great heart, and you want to help people, and that’s why you’re going to do so great with this podcast. Doing things with really good intentions – you are being very insightful with this podcast, it’s going to be huge, and it is going to give you confidence when people are telling you how much this episode or the other episodes have helped.

But it’s definitely important for us to give ourselves goals and try to improve on things, whether that’s in the business, and really just push ourselves. Because who wants to be the same every single day? I don’t want to wake up the same person I was yesterday. I want to have more money in my bank account. I want to be healthier. I want to be better.

Building Confidence Through Practice

I feel like everything that we touched on is really important. To have that business mindset, to be tenacious, to be all of these things that maybe we’re not used to being, because we never had to show up like this before. But like Stephanie said earlier, confidence builds confidence. So continue to do something, you will get better at it.

I used to hate how my voice used to sound, how I’d look on video. I used to not like answering the phone in the cleaning business. I used to not like doing all of these things because I wasn’t good at it. But I wasn’t good at it because I never did it. But then you do something 50 to 100 times, and then it’s just like, “Oh, why was I even so nervous about that?”

Stephanie: The more you prepare for things, the less nervous you’re going to get. So every time you do a sales call, it’s gonna get better, guys. Preparedness in the form of writing yourself a sales script, and then tweak it from there. That will give you something to lean back on.

We have not touched on at all, hardly, and that may be another episode, the actual nitty-gritty, “this is how you do this template and this stuff.” I actually just shared in the mastermind today, this morning, when I’m recording this, how we do our celebration reminder emails. I email every single client on their anniversary a personalized video from myself thanking them for their business and their loyalty, and all of this stuff.

And it’s like, “Stephanie, how the heck do you do that?” Well, you create an email template. You batch all the stuff, and you do it all at once, once a month, and bang, now you got a repeatable system, and it’s a lot easier to do that.

Staying Focused and Prioritizing

And so if you’re trying to do everything willy-nilly, all over the place and jumping like a little jelly bean from topic to topic, you’re not going to accomplish anything.

So staying focused when it comes to mindset, but tactically – that is the biggest struggle I’ve had. And the biggest thing that I can say is going to be always the main focus of me lately, is focusing on focusing more, especially when there’s so many distractions.

I have a lot less distraction now than I did when I was actually operationally managing the business and being the point of contact for the cleaners. I know a lot of you guys, you’re like, “Oh, easy for you to say – you have managers.” Yeah, it is easy for me to say, because I have managers now. It was not easy when I didn’t have managers.

So really prioritizing what needs to be done right now. And if you guys haven’t listened to the Chris Schwab episode, that’s a really good one on how to keep coming back to what needs to get done and not getting frustrated with the distractions.

Because as a cleaning business owner, specifically, where you’re the main point of contact for your techs, you are in the business of being distracted, of handling distractions. That’s literally what we’re signing up for.

So if every time you get pulled away, you get super frustrated and pissy, and then that infiltrates how you interact or behave with people, it’s only going to go downhill, guys.

So the reason we’re saying all these things and making these really black and white statements of “this is how it is” – it’s because we’re trying to impart on you that if you do not accept these things and then operate from those acceptance places with a really good, at least neutral mindset – but if you’re coming at it with a negative “this sucks, every day sucks” – well, go get another job then. Just go get another job.

Embracing the Business Journey

Carolyn: Yeah, go get another job. You know how that’s going to work for you. You know what you’re going to make. You know what your income potential is going to be every single week.

It’s not easy, but like Stephanie said, it’s super rewarding, especially if you can stick it out and actually figure out the business year one, year two. The work never stops, but you can delegate a lot of it to the people that you bring on board.

And I’m still kind of struggling – I don’t say struggling – I am continuing to better myself with time management, like you had mentioned. That’s something else that you can learn, to train yourself – “This is what I’m gonna do in this amount of time. If not, I’m gonna move on to the next thing.”

Stephanie: Looking at what could you put into place to protect your focus. So that could be, can you get a part-time virtual assistant who handles the cleaners or the customer calls for four hours a day?

Because maybe you can’t afford – I mean, most likely, if you’re in the beginning, you can’t afford much. But as time goes on, could you afford something to get you a two-hour block of time where all you focus on is improving the business systems and policies, or working on your sales flow, or whatever it is that you’re really struggling with?

If you do not carve out that time, guys, it’s not going to happen. Don’t think it’s going to happen during the day, when everybody’s coming at you. So you have to create space for yourself to focus and work on those things.

So maybe it is an hour a day where somebody else is in charge. Or, if you can’t do that, get up earlier. That’s what I was—

Carolyn: I was just gonna say—

Stephanie: An hour earlier every day in the beginning, because it’s the time I had.

Carolyn: When we were cleaning in year one, that’s what we did. We were cleaning from eight o’clock at night, six o’clock at night to eight o’clock the morning. We’d have to stay up and work late, we’d have to work on the weekends.

There’s a lot of sacrifice, for sure, but it is extremely rewarding. And then everything that you learn in your cleaning business, that’s another awesome thing – in the cleaning industry, you don’t know what doors it’ll open for you. You have no idea what doors it could open for you.

Just talking to all these different people – this is just an amazing opportunity. If anybody’s listening and you’re thinking about starting a cleaning business, or if you’ve been in business and maybe you’ve been stagnant and you want to quit – failing is not an option, at least not for me, and I know it’s not for Stephanie.

What’s gonna happen if you quit? Are you doing all the things that you’re supposed to be doing? And like Stephanie said earlier, you’re probably not. Let’s just be real. You’re not doing the door knocking, you’re not doing the 200 phone calls every day, you’re not running ads, you’re not investing into yourself. You’re not trying to learn anything new.

You cannot expect for things to change when we keep doing the same stuff over and over. So we definitely have to get out there and try different things and just try to be disciplined and really think of the end goal.

Closing Thoughts

Stephanie: Absolutely. Well, Carolyn, this is – I’m so motivated. I feel like—

Carolyn: I love it. I love it.

Carolyn: I definitely, I’m so grateful for you bringing me on the podcast, Stephanie, and I love that this conversation was so natural, probably the easiest, one of the easiest podcasts—

Stephanie: Thank you. I pride myself in having absolutely no structure.

Carolyn: No, this is great. I 100% had such a great time talking, and I definitely need to have you on my podcast. So I’m gonna send you a link so that I can have you on my channel and we can talk.

Stephanie: Yes, and we can talk more about cleaning.

Carolyn: Yes.

Stephanie: Next time, we’ll talk a little bit more strategically and tactically. But I just know Carolyn and I have such similar mindsets about mindsets, if you will. So I just wanted to kind of give you guys a little bit of a kick in the butt on this one, and get you motivated.

I know – go listen to a book, go watch YouTube, go seek out a mentor, and really focusing on what is specifically grinding your gears right now in your business. Is it sales? Is it managing staff? Is it pricing?

I mean, pretty much all of us have had problems in all of those things and then some. So there’s answers out there, guys. Just make sure you’re really critically thinking about who you’re looking to for answers. Are they where you want to be, and are they currently where you want to be, or was it a long time ago, and they maybe are not as present in the industry?

And I’m not saying that to toot our horns. It’s more so like, things have changed a lot since COVID.

Carolyn: Definitely do your due diligence, guys.

Cautionary Tale About Sales Tactics

Stephanie: It’s so easy to be dazzled. Side note, I was walking through Savannah Saturday, enjoying myself going through Forsyth Park, which is a huge park. Savannah is known for its parks and squares. And I love walking, that’s my jam. I love just walking around looking at stuff.

Anyway, I’m walking through the park, and this guy stops me to get me to donate to whatever thing. And he’s using all of the sales tactics. He’s using my first name. He’s trying to do fist bumps and physical touch. He’s using everything. And then he pulls up his tablet and he starts filling out my name, and he doesn’t even ask me if it’s okay. “What can I put you down for?”

It was so – I was like, “Oh my,” and I grabbed his shoulders. I’m like, “But I’m in sales, I’ll see you later.” It just felt so icky. And he had this glazed look in his eyes as he’s just word-vomiting his script at me. And I was just like, “Oh, I hated that.”

And it really reiterated – I don’t ever want to be like that. So really paying attention to how people are selling you. And if it feels icky in any way, guys, just listen to your gut. Because sales should not be icky, at all. It should be connecting to people who can mutually benefit each other.

And that’s why it’s so easy for me to sell cleaning, because I’m like, “I know this is going to change your life. I just got to show you how.” So it’s really easy for me to sell, and if it’s right, it’s right. If the person doesn’t value it, then I’m not going to push because I’m not here to convince you that this is a value – you either think it is or it isn’t.

But I’m not going to convince you. I might help you convince your husband, but I’m not here to try to beg people to be my customer. So all of that little tangent to say, if it feels weird, it probably is weird. So don’t hire just anybody. Don’t hand over that credit card so easily.

Finding Success in the Cleaning Industry

Carolyn: Yeah, 100%. Especially since COVID, everyone wants to sell you a dream. And Stephanie and I are here to tell you, no matter how you want to structure your business, you’re going to have to put work into it. This is going to be work. Work is required for a couple of years, but it is 100% worth the reward.

And honestly, this is a dream for me. We didn’t talk much about this, but to wrap it up, I’ve been a ZenMaid user since the start of my cleaning business. So the fact that I’m sitting here now with Stephanie with ZenMaid, doing a podcast about helping others in the industry and mindset and all of that stuff, it’s literally a dream come true.

I never would have thought six years ago in my life that the platform that I’m using – now I get to share my story on with an amazing, another amazing business woman. So you never really know your true potential. You never really know how far your business can take you, but you know what the result will be if you stop. So keep on pushing.

And I just want to say thank you guys so much. Thank you Stephanie, for having this great podcast, and thank you ZenMaid, for all of the great work that you guys are doing, always improving your platform and actually being a huge part of our business’s growth.

Stephanie: Oh my gosh, yeah. I mean, it’s just that – I’m almost six years in. April will be six years for us. I’ve been a ZenMaid user since day one, when it was just me. So we’re just so similar in that, and I’m like, “ZenMaid, good thing you were so pretty back then.”

Carolyn: Prettier than everybody.

Stephanie: Amar’s just smacking his head right now. But hey, I mean, it works. I’m a girl. I like pretty things, at least this girl likes pretty things. And if my software looks good and it’s aesthetically nice, and it’s simple to use, it just made sense. And obviously it’s grown with the business so much. And all of the features are pretty sick, if I do say so, that are coming out.

So it’s grown, you know, zero to 1.5 this year. Not one, not 1.5 dollars, 1.5 million, hopefully this year. So that’s right, huge round of applause. Hopefully we hit it. If everybody stops calling in – if any of my players, please show up to work, dear Lord. I’m trying to make some money here. Take your damn vitamins.

They don’t watch it, I hope not anyway, but I’ll cut it off, because I could ramble with you forever, Carolyn. But where can they find you if they want to find out more about you?

Where to Find Carolyn

Carolyn: Absolutely. Number one, you can find me in the ZenMaid mastermind group, which I’m sure Stephanie is going to link down below. They have an amazing Facebook page.

I can also be found on YouTube, which is probably the platform that I spend the most time on. So on YouTube, it’s at Carolyn Arellano, and then on Instagram at Carolyn CEO, and I also have a full website, if you guys are interested to go check out www.cleaningbusinessmentor.com.

Stephanie: Perfect. We will definitely link all of those. Carolyn, thank you so much. We will absolutely be having another episode.

Carolyn: So excited. Thank you so much.

Stephanie: Let us know what your favorite moment was, and please like share this with all of your buddies, or not your competitors, so that they fail and we’ll see you at the next cleaning business podcast on Filthy Rich Cleaners here. Bye guys. Have a great day.

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
• ZenMaid Mastermind Facebook Group
• “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill
• “Change Your Life, Change Your Paradigm” by Bob Proctor – Book mentioned by Carolyn
• Melissa Maker
• Filthy Rich Cleaners Episode with Chris Schwab episode
• Toastmasters
• Carolyn’s YouTube channel
• Carolyn’s Instagram page
• Cleaning Business Mentor website