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Introduction
Coming up next on the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast: “And you’re going to have problems that an owner who knows how to clean is not going to. Because if you do not want to clean, who is the backup? All of a sudden, it’s not passive anymore.”
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.
Table of contents
- Introduction
- The Passive Income Myth
- Why Owners Need to Know How to Clean
- The Reality of Training
- Beyond Marketing and Sales
- Building Quality from the Ground Up
- The Importance of Owner Involvement
- The Need for Control
- The Independent Contractor Challenge
- The Reality of Remote vs. Passive
- The Financial Reality
- The Reality of Growth
- The Current State of Serene Clean
- Finding the Right Balance
- The Quality Connection
- Closing Thoughts
The Passive Income Myth
Hey guys, welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie Pipkin. And today I am going to go on a little bit of a rant because it’s something I keep seeing online – basically creating passive revenue streams and a cleaning business being suggested as one. Let me be clear, a cleaning business is not passive income. You are going to have to work your butt off in order to make it successful and for it to grow to its full potential.
Why Owners Need to Know How to Clean
One of the biggest issues that I see is people thinking they don’t need to clean in the beginning. And though it can be done, there are many challenges that arise when you yourself as the owner do not know how to clean, do not know how to train cleaning, or just in general think that you are going to outsource the cleaning to independent contractors from the get-go and not experience issues.
In order to have a high-quality cleaning service – which should be the goal for everybody, and everybody says that they are high quality, which means those words mean nothing – you need to know what clean is because you need to know how to quality check and you need to know how to train.
Obviously, there are wonderful training programs out there. Shout out to Cleaning Tech Bootcamp from Courtney Wisely. We use that as a supplement to in-person training. They go through Cleaning Tech Bootcamp, which is an online training resource, as a kind of little dibble dabble, getting their toes in the water before they go out and do their in-field training.
The Reality of Training
In the beginning, I was doing all of the in-person training, and then obviously some of my cleaners became trainers or became the main people who trained. Technically, any of our seasoned cleaners can train and know what to look for because they know quality and we’re working off of checklists.
The training process and you yourself knowing how to clean is the opposite of passive. It is very, very hard work. And if you think that you are going to just hire out the cleaning ICs of people who are already going to know how to clean, the issue is you are not in control. You’re not in control of the quality. You don’t know what’s going on out there in the field.
Beyond Marketing and Sales
It doesn’t matter how good your sales are. It doesn’t matter how good your marketing is, how good your ads are – all of these things that kind of the hustle bro culture has created this idea that if only you can bring in the sales, everything else will figure itself out and that it’s sheer volume of leads and having a killer follow-up process.
I will say 100% those things are important but you can’t put lipstick on a pig. If you have shitty cleaning, it’s not gonna go well. You’re not gonna be able to grow. You fight the onslaught of problems that a low quality service provides.
Building Quality from the Ground Up
The only way you’re going to have a high quality service is if you know what clean is, if you know what the processes are, if you have it spelled out very specifically what tasks are expected of your cleaners to accomplish so that you can hold them accountable.
Let me tell you, every single time I hire somebody who has prior cleaning company experience, they need to be retrained or they cause me a whole host of problems. I prefer people who have not had any cleaning experience and I hire on values, the type of person they are, work ethic, those types of things. And then the cleaning will be trained, okay? Because we can train people to clean, but it’s all in the how of training. It’s all in the quality of service that we’re focusing on.
The Importance of Owner Involvement
In my humble opinion, the owner should know how to clean. I know that in today’s culture that may seem like a wild concept. And I know for some of you who are listening are like, “Well, does Stephanie?” but let me tell you, it’s out there. It’s out there online. People telling other people they don’t need to know how to clean. They can just outsource all of that.
And it can be done. It’s just going to be more difficult. And you’re going to have problems that an owner who knows how to clean is not going to. Because if you do not want to clean, who is the backup? What do you do when somebody calls in? All of a sudden, it’s not passive anymore.
The Need for Control
I want to control the entire customer experience. I want to control what my employees are wearing. I want to control how they speak, how they behave, the checklist that they follow, how they bring their supplies in, what supplies and tools that they use. Every single aspect of the cleaning, I want to be under my control, because why would I want to put my name on some other companies work and rely on another company who may not have the standards and expectations for their staff that I have for mine?
Maybe they’re paying their cleaners terribly and so they’re getting horrific quality candidates who will work for that and so then you can’t expect high quality.
The Independent Contractor Challenge
This whole outsourcing concept, I’m not a fan of. Again, it can work, but the vetting process for having those ICs as well as doing everything legally is challenging. Because what a lot of people do is they try to basically treat ICs as employees and do all of those controlling things I just mentioned that under my rights as an employer, I absolutely can control like a psychopath because that’s how you get high quality.
If you try to do that to an IC, you’re most likely breaking the law, and that is a whole can of worms I will get into in some episode in the future – IC versus W2 employees. Obviously I’m in the United States, and I’m also in Wisconsin, that’s where my business is at least. I’m in Georgia because I run my business remotely, but not passively.
The Reality of Remote vs. Passive
If by passive you mean you’re not cleaning, that doesn’t mean what you think it means. Passive means you really don’t have to manage or do anything in the day to day. You’re not responsible for any cleanings. You’re not the point of contact.
Technically I could get to that point, but I don’t want to. And I also don’t want to pay another administrative person to take on my roles so that I can truly be passive in Serene Clean because I want to make a higher percentage of income. Which means I cannot outsource the things that would get me to a point of passivity because I am willing to do that work for that money.
The Financial Reality
Another thing that really bothers me about this whole concept of cleaning business being passive is that means that somebody else is doing all of the work, which means you have to pay them. And in order for it to get to the revenue that can support all of these administrative people, whether that be virtual assistants, managers in person, et cetera – that is overhead cost.
Those people aren’t cleaning, they’re not bringing in money, they’re just costing money. So that has to come off the top after you pay your cleaners to do the service. And then you have to pay your taxes and then you have to pay for all your software and all your insurance and all of that stuff. And then you have to pay yourself.
The Reality of Growth
There’s not much left over to pay managers and administrative staff until you get to a high enough revenue. And so, for most people in the industry, that’s not going to happen for several years. Until you get to that point, that’s not passive, right? So we’re talking about years of hard, dedicated work to even get to a place where you can have some administrative help. You’re gonna be in the trenches for a while.
Everybody I see, they’re hiring virtual assistants right away, they’re hiring managers right away. And if you have the money to invest in the cleaning business and pour into it from the get-go, okay, I’m not really talking to you. I’m talking to the majority of us who don’t have thousands of dollars to invest from the start to pay a manager and basically yourself not take a paycheck because that’s what that looks like.
The Current State of Serene Clean
We are at, I think, 1.4 million a year in revenue now. I have three full-time managers, myself, and then my executive assistant. When you look at all of the administrative labor that goes into running this business and managing staff – and if you don’t have to manage staff when you’re using independent contractors, well, then you need to have somebody out there doing quality checks or what have you and you’re also paying them a higher percentage.
Finding the Right Balance
ICs can be a wonderful thing as a supplement to employees. I think it’s a really good strategic move. In our area, that’s not even an option, because people don’t do that – we’re in a super rural area. So in some cities, it makes perfect sense to basically farm it out to ICs or use them as your backup, but then have a core group of staff as your center.
The Quality Connection
Last year we had less than 0.7% complaint rate and I think we had 8,500 plus cleanings. That’s why we’re able to charge a lot of money. That’s why I’m able to pay high. That’s why I’m able to get good candidates who stay and I’m able to give benefits.
I could not get to this point if I did not from day one say, we’re going to be the highest quality. This is not a wipe down service. This is going to be as perfect as we can get. And I’m not saying we don’t have quality issues. I’m not saying that we’ve had issues with training or consistency – that’s been a big issue over the time. But that’s because the guiding light has been like this isn’t good enough and putting your foot down and having very very high standards.
Closing Thoughts
If you’re making over a million in revenue and you are able to run all ICs and you’ve done that from the beginning, let’s talk. I am so curious and I would love for you to show me a different perspective. But there’s a reason I will always run employees and there is a reason that I don’t believe that this is a possibly passive income stream for years and years.
Make sure you check out our other interviews. I had a fantastic interview with Simone from Australia last week. She does use ICs, I believe. If I remember correctly, she’s transitioned to that over time, but she has a highly specialized type of service. So in her situation, it totally makes sense. So if you wanna hear another side of this, and for good reason, go listen to her episode.
Note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability.
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