Digital Social Hour - Making Millions off Cleaning Business & Getting Out of Debt | Hartzog Family DSH #290

Episode Date: February 17, 2024

The Hartzog family comes on the show to talk about their journey of escaping debt, how they make millions off a home cleaning business and what they are working on next. APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly Factor: Use code "DSH50" for 50% off your order at https://www.factormeals.com/dsh50 Digital Social Hour works with participants in sponsored media and stays compliant with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding sponsored media. #ad LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

So we said we could take an outdated mom and pop industry and add some technology to it. We could beat the competition from day one. So instead of us going out and doing the cleanings, we were working with mom and pop shops who were independent contractors. We would send them to do the cleaning. And having our 9 to 5 allowed us to do certain things, right? It allowed us to clean the business to be supplemental and not just relying on it. So I can operate differently if it's a business that's

helping me and not just the only thing I need. Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe. It helps a lot with the algorithm. It helps us get bigger and better guests, and it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot. Thank you guys for supporting, and here's the episode. All right. Welcome back, guys. Digital Social Hour. We're talking cleaning business today. We got Janika and Anthony Hartzog here in the building. How's it going, guys? Good, good, good. What's up? What's up?

All the way from Dallas and you guys are from New York, right? Yes. I'm originally from Brooklyn, New York. That's my people right there. Born and raised. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Damon John just came on. He's from Brooklyn, too, I think. Yeah. Small world. So what prompted the move to Dallas? Was that when the cleaning stuff started happening? No.

We moved to Dallas almost eight years ago now. And from Brooklyn, New York, I got a promotion at my job. I was doing IT for 15 years as an IT director. And it was like, you should move to Dallas because we had an office out there. And I was traveling a lot for my job. And it was like, you should move out to Dallas. I'm like, I don't feel like it. I don't want to do that. And then we had a few visits.

And we decided, let's make that move. Okay to Dallas. I'm like, I don't feel like it. I don't want to do that. And then we had a few visits, and we decided let's make that move. Okay. I promised her a dog and a concept kitchen and stuff like that. So we decided to make that move. What breed? He's an Australian cattle dog mixed with chow. Love that. I have an Australian shepherd.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So they probably look just like that. We didn't know what size he was going to be. Oh, yeah? About 50 pounds. Okay. Yeah, mine's a mini so it's like 35 okay yeah damn this can go to 70 or maybe he'll see where he's at okay yeah i feel that

apartment okay we'll see so i want to talk about from it you guys went into cleaning right and why did you decide to go into the cleaning industry because that's such a random industry right yeah so we had 114 000 of debt and i'll let you tell that Yeah. So we had $114,000 of debt. And I'll let you tell that story. No. Yeah. We had $114,000 of debt. And we were paying it off.

We were side hustling, raising our income. And the cleaning business was something else to raise our income, essentially. He had brought the business to me. And I'm like, that doesn't make sense. Never heard of it. Never spoke about having a business. Why would we do that? All those questions.

And so once he got more information, that's when we got started about six years ago now, or November will be seven years. So we got started while paying off debt, while working on nine to fives with the cleaning business. Wow. So 114K in debt. How did that happen?

How long did it take to compile that much debt? Oh, to compile, I don't know. To pay off took 23 months. Okay. But what it consisted of was I went to graduate school, so I had a private student loan. We had undergrad loans. We had a new car. We moved to Dallas and then some credit card. Wow. So that's what it consisted of. So I guess how long it took if you start counting from undergrad. Yeah. But when we got married, we combined our finances a lot of people talk about you know oh i want to have separate finances separate bank accounts when

we got married we believed that we should combine everything so her debt and my debt we just combined it and we realized that we had 114 000 of debt as a family as a newlywed couple and we were like let's let's try to figure this out how are we going to proceed from here yeah and honestly that's probably a common issue if you're going to college yes absolutely and the fact that you paid off in two years that's the uncommon part i feel like most people have debt for 10 20 years if they're going to college you know what i mean yeah i mean that was i mean that's the standard it's kind of like what's the reason why are we rushing to pay this off that's what it was but then after we started it became like a game it's like okay we can do this we can okay, we can do this. We can pay it off.

And so the goal was to pay it off on my 30th birthday, and we did that. Yeah, because the interest is probably high on those, right? Student loans. Yeah, absolutely. At this point, we've paid it off in 2018, 2017. So it's far gone out of our heads now. What did you guys do to celebrate that day? We pressed the button together.

Yeah, we literally pressed the button together on the computer pop champagne let's go went to houston to celebrate uh my 30th birthday with family and friends and then in may we went to maldise in dubai like a debt payoff and celebrating our wedding anniversary in one wow you would think that once you pay it off it's like gonna be this we went we obviously traveled but once you hit that button, you hit submit, there's no confetti that comes out. There is no like, oh my God, like the debt freedom people

don't come and help you out. They're like, no, you press the button, it says submit. Then it takes a few days of process and you wait and you're trying to anticipate it and the next thing you know,

it says you got the email saying, you know, you have paid off your student loans and you press that button and that's pretty much it. But we didn't really celebrate until we went to Houston and did our own thing.

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has grown tremendously i want to talk about the first year, what that was like, because you were still working your nine to fives the first year, right? And I'm still working my nine to fives. Oh, you still are? Yeah. Wow. We got to get into that. We'll talk about that.

Yeah. He's gone, but I'm still there. Okay. So yeah, first year, walk me through that. You're learning a bunch. You probably made a ton of mistakes. What was that like? So revenue first year, I think was about 75,000 our first year.

It was a learning curve. I think at month eight, we were like, should we do this? Is it worth it? You know, we don't need it. We have our jobs. We are high income earners, just two of us, no kids. So those were the things that we were discussing during that time. But it was just a learning about what marketing really is and what the business really entails

and how, you know, they say the customer is always right. And are they really? And how do you handle that? And then learning our strengths and weaknesses, right, for the business. So he was in IT, so he would handle the back end. I'm a mental health therapist, so I would handle the clients that aren't so happy and the people that we were working with. So that was another thing that we had to learn during that time because this was our first

business ever. We didn't have any business schooling or anything. So that was part of part of the learning process. So was it profitable the first year pretty much? Yeah. Yeah, it was profitable. We weren't tracking as well as we should have been. It was profitable.

We didn't get an accountant to really look over the P&Ls probably till like year two. Yeah, that's what I did. I mean, they don't teach you that, to be honest. So you're just doing it and then you're like, oh, what are taxes? You know what I mean? Oh, that was a big one that got a sales tax. Oh, yeah. We, to be honest. So you're just doing it, and then you're like, oh, what are taxes? That's for sure. You know what I mean? Oh, that was a big one that got us, sales tax. Oh, yeah. We didn't know we had to charge that.

Sales tax is hot. But what we did was we were following the Profit First model by Mike Michalowicz as a book, and it just literally tells you how to manage your business finances as a first-time business owner, essentially. Yeah. So we were just taking out a small percentage for taxes, about 15% for taxes, about 10% for like owners drawing, stuff like that. So that by the time tax season came around, we already had some of this stuff saved. And that's how we were managing our finances at the very beginning of our business. We didn't really know what to do, but this book kind of helped us out.

75K, first year is pretty impressive. Was that all word of mouth or were you running paid ads? We were doing paid ads. From the very beginning. From the very beginning. Got it. Because the way we run our business is not like the typical mom and pop shop. So we realized that if we could take an outdated industry, I know everyone's talking about

the Cody Sanchez's and stuff like that, but 2017, this really wasn't a thing, owning a residential cleaning business. A remote. A remote cleaning business. So we said we could take an outdated mom and pop industry and add some technology to it. We could beat the competition from day one. So instead of us going out and doing the cleanings, we were working with mom and pop industry and add some technology to it we could beat the competition from day one right so instead of us going out and doing the cleanings we were working with mom and pop shops who were independent contractors we would send them to do the cleanings we would

manage the back end the marketing the advertisement the customer service the emails everything like that in a workflow and they would just go out and clean we would do the other percentage of the job interesting so you were like drop shipping cleaning almost yeah that was somebody called that that's pretty interesting yeah now a lot of people are doing it where they're like you have the ubers the airbnb the lifts they run the same business model right where they're just sending people out to do the work and you know you're managing the actual business side of it so it is drop shipping cleaning yeah when i pictured this i thought it was you two on the floor scrubbing but you're literally outsourcing when he brought it i thought that too And that's why I said no. I was like, no way.

That's how I brought it to her. She was like, hell no. I was like, why would we do that? Like we have a high paying job. Why would we go out and clean homes? And once I explained the business model, which is the same reaction you had, it's like, oh, okay, we don't have to clean. We'll work with mom and pop shops who have none of that. And some of the people that we work with here,

they already been cleaning for 15 years. They don't have a website. They don't have any digital marketing, advertising, customer service. And all they really do is just cleaning. And that's what they enjoy. Wow.

So we said that we could find people like that who don't want to do anything else, but clean. We can run our business that way. And that's what we've been doing it for seven years now. That's sick. So are you doing this just in Dallas or everywhere? We are just in Dallas.

We have students in 42 States, but our, our business, cause we still own our cleaning business is just in Dallas or everywhere? We are just in Dallas. We have students in 42 states, but our business, because we still own our cleaning business, is just in Dallas. Wow. Yeah. 42 states. You guys are with the teaching side too. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't recognize that. We didn't start teaching until a couple of years ago. We were already three, three, four years in the business until we realized that people wanted this information. And then we saw other people talking about it. I was like, wait, no, we've been doing this already for four years how about we talk about this too yeah so the more we talked about the more people got interested in and he said okay there is a component of this where people do want to know about it we just weren't explaining it the way you know i thought we were yeah because

we were only we were talking about the debt freedom story on social media that's what we were known for initially until he was like i think people want to know about the clean i'm like why would they want to know about the clean once again i'm like questioning him like why would they want to know about it but he was completely right um and so now most people know us for that they don't even know we have a debt-free story or anything like that but just the cleaning the cleaning part of it wow my man's a visionary out here yeah he absolutely is i'll give it to you good morning america it was like the whole story was three minutes but the last 15 15 seconds they said, oh, yeah, they own this cleaning business. Yeah.

And it was the whole story is about the debt freedom journey. And it was like, wait, wait, wait. What's that 15 seconds? People want to know more about that. And that's the part of the story that kind of took off. People start asking questions about. Yeah. Nice.

And from there you got into the teaching side, right? Because at that point the business has done hundreds of thousands. Yeah. So you were able to go out there and teach. And it's such a specific thing that there's not many people that could teach it. Right. Because you guys did it for four years. I feel like anyone else teaching it doesn't have the experience you guys did.

Yeah. You sound like him. He says that. And I'm like, people, in this day and age, people don't feel they need experience. They just jump in. I hate when I see courses about, like, people that don't actually do it. Yeah. Like, that pisses me off, actually.

Yeah, that was the first thing that I was worried about too is like once we start telling this stuff everyone is teaching something but it was like we we felt like we had the experience because we were doing it for four years before we even started teaching it and we had our own experience teaching people you know what they've been able to accomplish and now our students have gone on and do and done what 13 million dollars open up businesses in 42 plus states and they've done like 50,000 cleanings wow and we recognize that was okay there is something here let's focus on this part of the story let's help create a greater impact yeah and not many people look like us or just even have our story as well so I think that helps that puts a twist to it we're a couple we're from Brooklyn

New York yeah all those things so plus you came from that much debt. I mean, that's a crazy story. It's like almost inspiring a lot of people, I feel like. Yeah. When it comes to finding the actual cleaners, are you just calling them, emailing them? Do you have a system for that? So multiple ways. The same place that you kind of look for a job is where we would look.

So like Indeed, ZipRecruiter, even Craigslist is a place that we would look. We also like to do a lot of referrals when it comes to that. So we hire someone asking them. They have family and friends that would want to be part of the process. And we do an extensive process of background check. They have to have their own cleaning supplies. They have to have their own car, that type of stuff, because they are a contractor. So they operate as themselves.

They also have their own assurance. So those type of things we have in place with the people that we work with. Yeah. It's a good business because I feel like people always need cleaning. It's kind of recession-proof. As long as there's a house or a building. People realize that during the pandemic, a lot of business. That's when we started really focusing on the teaching side of it because a lot of businesses went down during the pandemic.

Right. But we saw a huge spike during the pandemic. Everyone wanted their homes cleaned. They became germaphobes. It was a brand new thing. And it was like, okay, this industry is pandemic proof, right? There's a pandemic that's happening. Cleaning was identified in Dallas as essential workers.

We said, oh, we can still operate our cleaning business. They can still garden and clean. We can run our business from our home and we can still make money. And that's when we said, okay, this is really something that we need to be sharing, that we need to share a lot more of. Nice. A lot of people lost money during COVID, but you guys were actually doing it. Yeah.

That's cool. We went, our revenue, the pandemic happened in Dallas in March. The first month, no one knew what the hell was happening. April, we said, okay, we see the business going down. By May, our revenue jumped right back to normal. While other businesses were closed, we said, okay, we see the business going down. By May, our revenue jumped right back to normal. While other businesses were closed, we said, okay, we're essential. And the thing about it in Dallas was they were flagging people on the road. The cops were looking for people who were driving to find out why they were on the road.

So we were essential. We're essential workers. We have a cleaning business. Here's our branding. Here's our licensing and stuff like that. And we were able to continue operating our business. Wow. The good thing with the model is that we can always turn it on and off, right? Because we

don't have employees, we have contractors. So with the marketing during that time, we're like, let's turn it down, you know, because no one's booking our services. So we can always just turn it down. So you're not like just losing money. Yeah. As opposed to if it was a different model, then you would be in that stuck place. Like, okay, what do I do now? That makes sense. Because you got employees that they got to get paid regardless if you make money or not you decide yeah that's why businesses were shutting down because employees still had to be paid and they're not even working for money locked down as well they don't work they don't get paid yeah that's cool so you're a mental health therapist you said yeah and you decided to keep that job yes so you must really like it

so with my full-time job i kind of work on the insurance side of mental health. I don't do one-on-one therapy as much as I used to in the past. Once we had our baby, I let that part go for a bit because it's taxing to hear everybody. Everyone's traumas. Yeah, it's taxing. Not to say I won't ever get back into that, but yeah, I still have my job. You're going to ask me why. I don't have a straight answer um at

first it was like identity like okay i went i got my master's for this i had tons of debt for this this is part of my life um now it's probably just being scared which was the same thing for when he left as well so i'm not to say that i'm obsessed with it that i must stay or i'm not one that like i need this as well um because at some point I do want to let it go and just work if I want to I feel that you know yeah it is a safety net right having that insurance and yeah you know money's coming in every two weeks or whatever exactly exactly and a lot of first-time entrepreneurs we've if you go on our page we never tell people to just quit their jobs right it took us we had our business now almost what eight years now i just left my job

in 2021 oh so six years in yeah and we still we were making fifty thousand dollars in our cleaning business a month so we were like i was still afraid we were on good morning america and it was on in the office team was like why are you still here they were seeing our stories on podcast they were they knew our numbers my boss even came to was like, do you still want to be here? And it's like, we don't ever tell anyone just to jump ship. We want to make sure we have our ducks in a row. Before I left, we had made sure we had an emergency fund. We made sure we were ready to go.

We made sure we did this. We did that. So I think it's just one of those things. We don't ever tell people just jump ship. And we want to follow our own advice as well. Right. And having our 9 to 5 allowed us to do certain things. It allowed us, the cleaner business, to be supplemental and not just relying on it.

So I can operate differently if it's a business that's helping me and not just the only thing I need. Yeah. Right. And so eventually that helps me to put marketing dollars in that helps me to do other things until it's. Are you interested in coming on the Digital Social Hour podcast as a guest? We'll click the application link below in the description of this video. We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life. Click the application link below and here's the episode guys. Sustainable on its own and now I feel comfortable for it to run on its own. And it's funny people ask that I'm like well your comfortability in mind is different right? You have

different things going on so I can't tell you what exactly you need yeah but for us this is this is what it looks like so wow it's so crazy that 50k a month is possible in just one city too with cleaning yeah yeah oh absolutely i mean we know competitors that are doing way more like really yeah six figures and stuff damn that's insane just off cleaning because i feel like the margins are pretty high with cleaning yeah because it's just your time and exactly so when you're doing when you're so let's say we were just out doing the jobs ourself outside of the marketing that would be it would be our time so we'd be able to keep all of that money right so when we're running our business and you see other people like um one of our competitors he's been doing this for like 20 years he's he hits us up he's like i see you guys your

name and branding is at the top of google and stuff like that and he was like i wish i would have focused on that day one. Those are the things that people who have been in the industry 20 years, they're not focused on SEO. They're not focused on Yelp ads, Google ads, Google local services, marketing, emails, things like that. So we're able to come into the industry and provide that. So that's why we're able to focus on just Dallas. And if we said, all right, we want to go on a market to other areas, we could absolutely do that. But I think with the teaching component, our time has just been so limited.

Yeah, that's the thing. The way that we want to run our business, right? So, like, you may ask, can you hit six figures in this business? Yeah. But what does that consist of? Like, for my time, for people that I have to hire, for me having freedom of not speaking to you and my business running on my own. Like, what does that consist of? And so we've learned that as well.

Because at times we were comparing ourselves, like, why don't we have more and it's like i don't really want more be careful what you wish for yeah because you don't know what that's going to look like or are you ready for it yeah handle it when you're teaching this how much money are you recommend people to start off with to start a business like this we're telling them about 1500 that's it yeah and we're talking 1500 to get your llc get a bank account, and you even have marketing spending money. Yeah. Because all of it doesn't happen at the same time as well, right? So, you know, LLC and stuff that can take a week or two.

Going on to market and your website, that type of stuff, it's a transition. So it may take a month to two months to spend that. It's not like you start and you just give $1,500. The more, the better, of course, because the way that this goes is the more marketing dollars you can put in, the more eyes, the more customers see you, the more people will book you. Because we do everything online. So if we don't do anything in the field, like we don't go door-to-door, we don't do any of that. Because we were in Dallas and we didn't know anybody, so who are we going to?

Yeah, door-to-door for cleaning. It's a bit weird. I mean, it might work. I don't know. It might work. I mean, you know, there's other things that if you know people, that's a place to start, right? Family and friends. But how long is that sustainable?

Right. So marketing in places like Yelp, Google, those type of places. Yeah. People are looking for cleaning services. Yeah, Google is great because it's so targeted. Yeah. I love Google. I just started running those, actually.

Yeah, and we tell people, like, where are you going to look for a cleaner at? Where are you going to look for any local services? It's normally going to be Google or Yelp for the most part. Maybe Thumbtack. Thumbtack, something like that. So why not put most of your energy into the places where you know your customers are already looking versus trying to do these other platforms? So some of our students, they have experience doing, like, cold calling and stuff like that, which is totally fine. We don't have any experience doing cold calling we're not going

to tell you to do something we've never done yeah so that's how we teach we tell you use your experiences if you have a nine to five you're a marketing or you're in sales or use your experience that you already have that you're already doing yeah and to expand your business even further i want to hear that cold calling script for cleaning man that's so funny so for example I mean, who is this? So, for example, if I was doing cold calling, I would probably call residential complexes in Dallas, Texas. I want to talk to their front desk, whatever the front concierge, whatever that front desk person is, and ask them, hey, are you in the market for a new cleaner?

Are you satisfied with your cleaning service? And maybe some people want to do a drop-in. I know some people might bring some cookies to their front desk or something like that. Old school, yeah. Yeah, something like that. And some restaurants have done that, and it has worked. That makes sense. It's just not something that we've that. Old school, yeah. Yeah, something like that. And some restaurants have done that. And it has worked.

That makes sense. It's just not something that we've done. Yeah, on a commercial level, that makes sense. I was thinking more residential. Oh, no. Who the f*** is this? The funny thing was, we did try it once. We didn't cold call, though.

We tried not going to. It was 95 degrees. He's like dressing a button down. And we're putting flyers under doors. We got nothing from it after an hour of that. We're like, we're never doing this again. But we're like, let's try it. We're new in the business.

We don't know. This is seven years ago. I've never been closed on a door sales ever. Yeah. Most people in this day and age I don't think will be. It's a tough sell, I mean. So right now, we just had storms in Texas. And the roofers, they were doing doors. And they're ****ing it because every single neighbor in our area is getting their roofs done by the same company.

So something like that. That makes sense. It creates FOMO. It's like, wait, why are they on their roof and their roof and their roof? Now you're thinking something's wrong with your roof. And that's also a good offer because the insurance is covering it. Exactly. So they're not even spending any money.

Exactly. Right. I want to talk about balancing dating and business. You guys are a lot of couples struggle, you know, balancing the two. Yeah. What's been your experience there? What's our experience there? I don't think my first thing I always say is I don't think every couple should be in business together.

Right. And that's not being rude. That's just like you have to know your strengths and weaknesses of how it works because it can consume you. We are very vocal on, you know, this is too much. Shut it off. We're not doing it. And being respectful of each other, not getting an attitude about that. Right.

So we're very vocal in that. We've also known each other for about 20 plus years. I don't know. We haven't said that. We've known each other for a really long time. So that probably helps the situation. But I spoke about the strengths and weaknesses that we have. And so focusing on that has been very helpful for us. I know what you can handle. I

know what you handle. And let's just focus on that. We can get back together. Right. One last thing we do is we have family meetings. And that's important. That can go over everything from spirituality to family to business to everything of checking the temperature to see how things are going, what's not working what can we change who will we eliminate whatever so those would be my few things family meetings how often are those that sounds cool so when we were paying off the debt they were like once a week and then they like fluctuated out we brought it back again this year we're like adamant about it to once a month uh but we both work from home and we're like constantly talking to each other so you can say

things are happening day to day, but when we actually like sit down, babies away, dogs with no TV on once a month at this point. That's great advice. Cause I've seen where couples get into business together. It ruins the relationship honestly. So it's a,

it's a balance, you know? It's just like when a kid comes to come, not comparing our business to a kid, but, but it is kind of the same thing. Cause that dynamic can change the balance of the family. You got a brand new business or a brand new baby,

a brand new entity that entered the family that wasn't there before. And I was like, how do you guys manage that relationship with that new individual, that new entity and yourselves? So even outside of our daughters, we still got to have our date nights. We got to focus on ourselves. We still got to have date nights outside of our business

because if we don't and we go to the business meeting? We got to focus on ourselves. All right, we still got to have date nights outside of our business because if we don't and we go to the business meeting and we're just talking about business all the time, that creates a rift between us too. So if the business is going bad, the relationship is going bad, it was like, we got to be able to separate the two.

Yep. That used to happen to me because even on date nights, I would just talk business the whole time. I'm the same way. Yeah. Oh, he will go forever. I'm the one stopping it, by the way.

If anybody needs to know, it's me stopping it she's like tony not tonight no business and it's like all right i shut it off we're done i'm focused on a relationship again took me a while to get out of that yeah my girl would give me a kick under the table i just go on and on man i get so excited about business yeah but it happens especially at the beginning with the business when we were the only ones answering the phone doing things if we got an angry customer it would ruin our night it was one time remember it was valentine's day and we're like pissed because this person's like i'm gonna leave a bad review you know people just go on and we're like listen we gotta go out let's just go out it's valentine's day let's just go and that's what we did so we're very intentional about it really of knowing when it's becoming too

consuming we need to stop it here and he's like well business doesn't stop i'm like yes it does and this house is stopping and it's stopping right now we're about to watch some housewives like it's stopping right now um so that's important i think it's being intentional about it as well yeah reviews must be brutal right because people are strict especially with restaurants and cleaning probably even stricter it's even worse because clean if you go to a restaurant you're probably not going to leave a bad review. If things didn't go 100%, you're probably like,

all right, cool. I'll just never go back. You're in my house. And you're in my house. You're in my sanctuary. This is my private area and something didn't go to your liking. You're going to be pissed off.

And you paid a premium. And you paid a premium for that service. It's not like a, I don't know, another service, right? You're paying a premium for this. You normally expect premium service. Yep.

So some of the things we try to use to make sure we get in front of getting bad reviews is, number one, the review doesn't happen at the point of the cleaning. It happens when it gets to your website. And now they are on our website. They see we're a premium service. Now they're probably calling us, right? So making that experience the same amongst everyone. So now it's like, all right, who am I speaking to?

What can I provide? How can we help you? But then also setting expectations. So we tell you what time we're going to be there. Another thing we do is we give you arrival windows. So it's like,

if we said we're going to be there between 8 to 10 a.m., we're going to make sure we're there between 8 to 10 a.m. Just like, you know, the cable guy gives you 8 to like noon, we say we're going to do

a two-hour arrival window. Our goal is to get there within that arrival window every single time. If we can't get there, we will give you a discount or we'll call you and let you know in advance. Setting expectations.

We let you know after the cleaning. We're going to call you to make sure you're satisfied. Our cleaner is going to do a walkthrough. Make sure you're satisfied. And then also, once we get them on the phone, we want to find out, are you satisfied? Were you good? Are you happy? We call every single client.

We call every single client. Every client? Our team does. Our team calls every single client. So we want to find out, yeah. Wow. Our team calls every single client. The team was us. So we want to find out if you were satisfied. If you were not satisfied, we have 100% satisfaction guaranteed. We'll send a team back out.

We try to get them before they could go on any platforms to bash us or anything. Nice. It doesn't work 100% of the time. I'm not even going to lie to you. I mean, I'm a therapist, so I know that people can be people. But really, in this field or in this business it's like okay some people you just cannot reason with no matter what you can't avoid the review it is what it is you could have done everything right you could have done one thing one little thing and

it just it is what it is so you just gotta stand by your policies you have in place and kind of take the L and understand that you're gonna get it happens. I've gone through like five clean ladies out here. It's tough finding good ones. That's what people say. I think they're so gassed because they're cleaning all day. So like they're not putting in 100% effort on your specific house because they got to clean four more after, you know what I mean? And that's the thing.

It's a difference when you hire a person versus a company. So we tell people all the time because they're like, oh, this is a bit pricier. We are pricier than if you're hiring a person because then a person, if they don't show up, who are you going to find another one? A person that they steal from you, who are you going to? Hopefully you find them. You don't know. But a company, you know, it can be a different person.

If this person didn't do well and then we can keep the same person with you if you're available, those type of things. So it is different compared to an individual. That makes sense. Working with a company. What are you guys currently working on now and what's next for this year and next year? Oh, just we're always trying to do bigger. And also just with the cleaning business, we're like, OK, how can we continue profit as well? Like, how do we make sure our profit margins are well? That's something that we focus on in team building. It's something that we focused on.

Once we had our daughter, we finally put like a manager in place. Prior to that, it was just us for five years. Wow. Managing. We did have VAs, but it was just us managing. So growing our team is important. Impacting more students in different ways. Figuring that out as well.

That journey for our student is important for us this year. Yeah.'ve hired when we first started it was just us so now we have an operations manager she this is why we could do sit here and do a podcast because she's running the business for us full time yeah uh she has a customer service agent she has a customer service manager so she has a full team under her um so that's and we've also expanded to another um another area and a subsidy of dallas as well so thinking about if we want to keep that expansion model going what that looks like for us uh we've also dove in 100 into the education model because it's a lot you could impact a lot more people across the world than just in dallas texas obviously so i'm focused on the education model we've done um we've brought

some team members in-house from we also – we also own a virtual assistant business for cleaning business owners. But we decided to take that business and bring it 100% into our education side. So now they're supporting our students on the emails, on the customer support. We have a community of over, what, 250 students now in there. We've serviced over 2,000 students. So focusing on the education side, that's my role. That's my job. That's my day that's my role. That's my job. That's my day to day, making sure they're seeing success, making sure they're seeing results

and continuing to just grow our own cleaning business. I love that. Yeah. I think that's the right move. Cause with education, you could scale not even just countrywide, but worldwide. We've got our first student, not our first, our second student just launched in UK in two weeks. He was like, Hey, I don't, this is working in UK. He was like, was like well not really sure but i'm sure if they have cleaners there we can figure it out and then two weeks later he said hey i got my first cleaner and we're waiting for the next update hey i got my first client now so uh we got a couple uk students we got some people in canada canada he we was on instagram live and him and his wife joined it's like hey i'm looking into this model and he came back i was like i got my first client got my first cleaner thank you guys so um definitely expanding worldwide at this point yeah love it where can

people find you guys more about the course in business so people can find us our course in business at cleaningbusinessuniversity.com um we also uh theharchimony.com is where you can find us on youtube or on instagram and that's the h-a-r-T-R-I-M-O-N-Y.com. Anything else I missed? I would say we also have a podcast. So we teach people how to start remote cleaning businesses. Also, it's about entrepreneurship in general. That's more than a side hustle podcast. And that's just us sharing our story and what we've learned about business, entrepreneurship, relationships, and life. Love it. We'll link it all in the video below. Thanks so much for coming on, guys. Thank having us yeah thanks for watching as always see you tomorrow