The Level Up Podcast w/ Paul Alex - Broke With $100 → Built a $4M Cleaning Business Without Ads ft. Johnny Robinson

Episode Date: July 19, 2025

💰 He only had $100 in his bank account... now he's built a $4 million empire.In this powerful episode of The Level Up Podcast, Paul Alex sits down with Johnny Robinson (@johnnytheceo) to break down the raw, behind-the-scenes journey of building a 7-figure cleaning business from scratch — and how he used that success to retire his mom, go viral online, and help over 3,000 others start their own businesses.🔥 From splitting a queen bed with his best friend to running a multimillion-dollar brand… this is the ultimate underdog story turned masterclass in entrepreneurship.🎙️ Key Takeaways:How Johnny turned $75 and a squeegee into a thriving cleaning businessThe strategy he used to generate $50K in 2 weeks before launching his coaching programHow he scaled Home Service Academy to $4M using organic content + affiliate marketingWhy his biggest "why" was retiring his mom from Uber after 80-hour workweeksHow to build trust, generate leads, and convert clients — even with no prior experience🔔 Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.“Your Network is your NETWORTH!”Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024Youtube: https://jo.my/ytpaulalex2024Linkedin: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur?Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you:www.CashSwipe.comFREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com

Welcome to the level up podcast. I'm your host, Paul Alex. I went from being a cop to an eight-figure entrepreneur that helps average people like you and me make money every single day. I created this podcast to help you get motivated and to crush your goals. Let's win together. Remember, I have your six. Get ready to level up right now. Hey guys and welcome back to the level up podcast.

This is Paul Alex. I have another phenomenal interview with a very special guest by the name of Johnny. Johnny in 2017 started a cleaning business with his best friend that he met in middle school, guys. And with $150, they ended up building a multimillion dollar tangible cleaning business, guys. And in 2022, they ended up transitioning to the online space and helped over 3,000 people in North America start successful cleaning businesses. And now he's here today at the level up. Ready to tell you everything from A to Z, how you guys can do it. And also to inspire anybody who wants to start a side hustle to turn to.

to a full-time income Johnny. Welcome to the show, brother. What an intro, man. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. When I'm on this Celsius, I'm on. Free promo. Sponsors. See, Emilio had it in the background. As you guys know, Emilio is the rock star producer and sound engineer that makes the level up, the level up. With that being said, guys, Johnny, so you just came back from Vegas. How was your flight, bro? It was terrible, man. It was terrible. It was terrible. We were just talking about it. Yeah, no, it's terrible. That Miami airport's no joke, dude. It's no joke like my wife she has so many things to say about miami airport dude like it's it's insane like it's control chaos i've never experienced anything like it dude i've done a lot of travel this

year going to different events stuff like that and you know i'm pretty used to it but i mean just getting took its hour to get to the gate like i was talking after that took an hour to get the uber just terrible experience but miami's been cool so far yeah and uh did you did you uh work on your Spaniel? No, I didn't. I should have. I should have, dude, because no, like, I was trying to doordash some food last night because I was starving.

I got in super late. I was trying to talk to the Uber driver. They both spoke Spanish, and I couldn't communicate with them. So going back to Vegas, I might have to open up the Duolingo app or something like that. Dude, 100%. And I'm half Mexican. So it's like every time I talk to, like, especially the old school Mexican dudes, they're like, what do you mean?

You don't speak Spanish. Right? I feel kind of bad, you know? It's all good, man. It happens. So, with that being said, let's dive into your background, dude. What inspired you and your business partner, Sergio, to go ahead and start an actual cleaning business in 2017?

Well, dude, funny enough, actually, similar to you growing up, I wanted to be a cop. Oh, shit. I was actually an explorer and I was going through the process of becoming a cadet. Did you tell me this? No, I didn't tell you this. Dude, that's badass. I saved it for the podcast, man. Come on.

Yeah, that's fire for this, man. Come on. So I wanted to be a cop growing up. And so growing up, my mom pretty much raised me on. her own. My dad wasn't involved in my life kind of in and out up until about I was a sophomore in high school, so he was 14, 15 years old. Then he passed away. He's alcoholic. Oh, man, I'm sorry to hear that. No, no, appreciate it. Then my mom was like, hey, or I wanted to be a cop. I was like, hey, mom, I really want to be a cop. I'm like telling her this in high school. And she's

like, I'm going to sell my house. And we were living in a small town in Southern California called Hesperia, if you've heard of it, Victorville, Apple Valley. I do. Call it the ass crack of Southern California. Terrible. And so I was like, I really want to live in Orange County, mom, because there's better opportunities I really wanted to work for an Orange County PD. So she sells the house, which she worked her ass off to save up and purchase. And she's like, all right, I'm betting this on you. You better do this. We move to Orange County. We start renting this house for $3,200 a month in the city of Orange. And she goes, or she's like, all right, go ahead, do your thing. I go become an explorer because I'm just turning 18.

at this point and what happened was I I become an explorer and I get yelled at by this woman cadet she starts yelling at me and that's when I'm like I can't take this yeah she starts calling me a sheep or something like that yeah a wolf here or she this is that something like that something like yeah this is not it yeah I come back I tell my mom after she had bought me the boots and the freaking mag light flashlight and I'm like I'm not doing this she's like the fuck you aren't like what do you mean right like no I'm not and so she's pitched like well you need to get a freaking job. So I go get a job and I was a water, water park lifeguard. And I was making like 10 bucks an hour or something. This is 2016. Yeah. And she gives me her car that she has a $450 a month

payment on or something like that. And I go to work for two weeks. I get paid and I get paid like $600 after taxes. I'm like, this is BS. I like go to my mom. I'm like, mom, it just seems like I have this car so that I can go to work just so I can pay for the car. And she's like, yeah, welcome to the real world she's like that's part of the plan you know you're you're covering my car payment yeah i was like okay i was like i got to figure out a way to make some money yeah this is BS dude so i go to sergio we were i was going to college too full-time yeah and so was Sergio and Sergio is uh my best friend from the seventh grade and so we're still hanging out after high school and we we go to the beach one day and i was like dude did you know you didn't need to agree to start a

business i thought you needed a degree to start a business yeah and i had found out through the internet you didn't. And so with this newfound knowledge, I'm like, hey, dude, did you know you didn't need a degree? He's like, no, I didn't. I thought you needed one too. Because we both come from families where there's no entrepreneurs, nobody really, quote unquote, like made it or has been entrepreneurial. So I was like, you want to start a business? He's like, nope, I'm going to school for civil engineering. I'm cool. I'm going to make 70 grand a year after I get out of college. So I'm like, okay. And so I'm still thinking, I'm still on this like business kick. I'm thinking of ideas. And he calls me a week later after he found a Gary Vee video. And

He's like, dude, and he got declined at Arby's. Like, they wouldn't hire him because he was trying to get a job. Oh, shit. And so he's like, yeah, dude, let's start a business. I'm like, all right, let's do it. And so it was between landscaping or window cleaning because the question was, how do we make money yesterday? Yeah. Like, as soon as possible, like we got to start paying some bills.

And so it's between landscaping and window cleaning and landscaping just seemed like way too hard. It was hot at the time because we were during summer when we were starting. And so we picked window cleaning. And originally we thought we were going to go sit at the gas station and clean car windows. We didn't know window cleaning was at real industry. People are actually faithful. Did you guys buy you like squeegees and like, oh, well, Sergio was like, yeah, dude, let's do window cleaning. I'm like, all right.

And I Google window cleaning thinking like, because I had reluctantly agreed, I was like, dude, we're not going to make no money. But we're going to go sit on the freaking gas station and freaking, but anyways, he's like, oh, I'm down. I'm not opposed. I was like, all right, whatever. And I Google window cleaning, and then come to find out, like, people with houses pay for it, people with commercial buildings, storefronts. And so I'm like, oh, dude, this is like a real thing. So we start watching different YouTubers on these guys that are like showing us, like, how to actually clean windows. Yeah.

Start a window cleaning business. Like very in the trenches, hands on. And so with $150, I put in $75, you put in $75, and we bought a squeegee, a couple polos from Walmart. And it's called a bucket on the belt. So it's like a, you put your squeegee in there, your applicator so you can clean the window. Johnny, like, before you continue, dude, how much did you have in your bank account when you went ahead and took $75 from your bank account, dude? I probably only had like 100 because right before that, we were going to start a T-shirt company. Holy shit.

And we paid $300 for a logo. Oh, my gosh. We never used it. We never used it yet. That's so real. You don't how many logos I've bought for different ideas and never did anything like it? I think a lot of people can freaking, like, resonate with that. Well, dude, we didn't know Fiver existed, right?

So it was like, we went to 99-0. designs. They were milking you guys. Yeah, dude, milked us, bro. So we spent, like, we have probably like 300 bucks a piece in our account, maybe. And so we both put in 150 to pay for that logo. And then I remember Sergio was drawing little designs on his notebook, and he's like, all right, dude, how do I take this and put it on here, like to the computer screen?

I'm like, yeah, dude, this is not the business for us, bro. So we scrapped that like day one after we paid for the logo. And that's when we came up with the window cleaning. But yeah, 75 bucks, $75, dude. And we just, Walmart polo squeegee started going, hitting the ground running, going to different storefronts. And the first one we did was a, because he was living with me and my mom that seems at this point. And we were actually sleeping on the same bed together. I love that.

On the same queen bed in my room. So, like, while we were going to college and trying to build this. And so we would wake up. Do you guys have pictures of that? Like, you have pictures of like, dude, this is what you slept there? I don't like to post him. It was kind of sad. Amelia was like, whoa.

It's a little son. So, but yeah, I've got them. I've got them for sure. Maybe we can pop them up on the screen, but. So let's dive into like, okay, let's dive into the serious stuff right now. The serious stuff is client acquisition. So sales, how are you guys getting leads? Especially in the beginners, dude, there's a lot of people here that are like, Paul,

I suck at sales. I was like, me too, bro. Like, hey, this is why we learn, right? We have to start from somewhere. So you guys just invested $75 each. You guys are living in the same room. you guys are in college i mean you guys have that abundance mindset up in the entrepreneurial spirit but at the end of the day dude you guys are just starting out is your mindset right now like hey

dude let's just try it out and see how it goes dude our mindset was literally like yeah like let's just go knock on doors and if we knock on a hundred doors there's one that's gonna say yes like what i love that because especially sergio he's he's he's going to school for engineering he ended up getting his degree in engineering yeah he's very analytical yeah and so he's like dude if we go knock on a hundred doors what are the odds that one says all of them say no like the odds of them saying no, all of them is a lot lower than one saying yes. So I was like, yeah, that's a good point. Let's just go knock on as many doors.

And so our pitch was, hey, can we clean your windows, Paul? And you would say no, and I would go, are you sure? You don't want us to clean your windows? And that was our pitch. That was literally it. It was terrible pitch. I'm not saying that's a good pitch. But it's like, that was a pitch.

And then the first one we did, they said it was a donut shop on the corner where we were staying. And they were like, yeah, we will pay you if we like it. hey that's close enough like screw it whatever clean two windows clean them and they're like yeah it's good but like here here's some donuts they paid us in a box of like their old donuts because it was like the afternoon at this point so that was like our first paid job and then such an awesome story dude i got paid for my first job in my cleaning business with donuts i love that yeah and so we're excited but i mean donuts weren't going to pay the bills right so then we drove down the street and we ended up going on a heater dude like we we hit this auto repair shop

called Green Auto Repair. So remember the name. Andy Green, dude, shout out to him. He did not need his windows clean. Dude, his windows were screwed up. Like, I'm talking, like, debris, everything from all the auto repair. But he saw us.

We were, you know, 19 at the time. Young, he just wanted to support us. And so I remember thinking, like, what do you want to quote this, bro? And Sergio was like, I don't know, dude, like, 30 bucks. I'm like, how about 40? Remember we were shitting bricks at $40. And I was like, all right, let's go pitch it. I was like, all right, dude.

we can do it for like $40 and he said, yeah, let's do it. And we were like, oh my God. Yeah, uh-huh moment. You're like, dude, I'll go each pay 40 bucks, bro. And so we clean it real quick and he pays us and then we go across the street to this burger joint, Omega Burger.

And we go there and we pitch him 50 bucks every month and he takes it. Nice. So there was 90 bucks there. Then we go to this old Ford Auto Part store across the street from that one. And there's a ton of glass. Like we ended up actually

attending them for a really long time. But we pitched them for 80 bucks. And so we had made 80 plus 170 in like an hour. And we were like, dude, you can make some serious money doing this. And it was a good thing that happened, though, because after that happened, we went two weeks straight without getting a client. Yeah. And so we were just leaning on all that recurring that we had built up. But if that didn't happen, I don't know if we would have still been in the window cleaning business. We got really lucky with the string of clients that were saying yes. And then we just couldn't get another one until finally answer your original question of the client acquisition. We were like, okay, we started stacking these storefronts, but we weren't making that much

money. And we're like, dude, we have to stack a bazillion storefronts if we ever want to make real money. So let's figure out how to get into residential because I would look at the pricing on these other competitors' websites and they're charging $200, $300, $400, $400, $400 for some of these bigger houses. And Orange County, there's massive homes. So I'm like, you know who, what would work is if we called the top, two, three house cleaning companies on Yelp,

and they don't offer window cleaning services because they don't carry the insurance. So what if we just call them and ask them, hey, why don't you send us all of your window cleaning clients because you probably get people that ask you for it, and I'll just send you 15 or 20% back to you and we'll take care of the whole job. And so that way, you know, you're paying for these leads.

You can get an additional 15, 20% off the lead. Why not? And so I call the first two, the first two on Yelp, and I pitch them. And like, yeah, let's do it. I'm like, no freaking way. And so the top two cleaning companies on Yelp, dude, on Yelp, start setting us all their traffic, basically, for people who need window cleaning. We got to like 10K a month off that. Dude, that's insane.

Yeah. That's insane because that's like one of the most expensive overhead expenses when it comes to business, dude, is client acquisition. You guys figured out a simple way to go ahead and leverage another person's, not only brand, but like actual clientele, like their portfolio, dude. That's fire, bro. Good job on that one, man. Yeah. And so then we had to sit down meeting with one of them. And one of them's like, you need to get on, you need to build your reputation on Yelp. You need to get reviews. We get so much business from Yelp. And we're like, okay. We're listening. Yeah. And so they're sending us this work and we're doing it. And we're starting to grow the business and make some money. And then we start asking everybody. Because we're still in the field. I'm doing all the work. We're doing all the work. I'm on the inside. I'm on the inside. I got into a habit of every time I started to clean the windows inside, there'd be the homeowner there. And I was asking. them hey like what do you do for work I start to ask them about themselves people love to talk about themselves and so they started telling me about it and funny enough a lesson I learned here

was like 80% of my clients had built a business or built and sold a business yeah and I'm like okay it's a great mentorship yeah yeah 100% so I'm like okay this is interesting like I'm picking up on this pattern but as I'm talking to them they're getting to like me because I'm like I'm like very inquisitive and wanting to get to know like oh what business do you run how do you get your your clients how long have you been doing it etc etc etc and I would then ask them for a review at the end. And so slowly but surely we ended up building this huge reputation in Orange County with like hundreds and hundreds.

I think maybe almost a thousand, five-star reviews at this point currently. But we started to build this reputation. The more and more reviews we got, the more calls we started to get. And we're like, all right, let's do the same thing but on Google My Business. It's now called Google Business Profile. But started doing that on Google Business Profile. And then we started to rank on Google. And so then we're like, all right, well, if we're already getting all this organic, like, free

leads like what if we just spend a little bit of money on yelp started spending money on yelp and because we had that good reputation people were calling us and closed and we're we're spending like four grand uh three four grand in ads and we're getting like a 16 to 20 to one return on our ad spend that's fired yeah that's so awesome just because we have a reputation that's exactly what i teach my clients too is like hey build your reputation like yes spend a little bit the beginning but ask everybody for a review and i'm talking as soon as that clean is done pick up the phone like and people like Oh, that's not scalable. Like, why don't you have a VA do it or your team do it?

No, you personally the owner, so you don't ever lose that relationship, call them and say, hey, how was the clean? Oh, my God, it was great. Awesome. Hey, we're a small but growing business, and it keeps us at the top. Would you mind leaving us a review? And if they say yes, then you have free reign to follow up with them until the end of time until they leave that review because they told you they'd leave you that review.

Johnny, one thing I like about your approach, man, it's very similar to my approach. I always tell people and always talk to friends and mentees that always say, like, hey, dude, Like, how were you able to not scale your business, but then also, how do you know all these people that have been successful? Just like you, dude, you and Sergio, right? And I love your guys story because it's so inspiring that you guys are leading by example, dude. Leaning by example, there's a difference between being a leader and being a boss. You guys are a leader because you guys actually went ahead, take the initiative to do the testimonies instead of hiring a VA, instead of getting an assistant, instead of hiring and delegating that right off the top, right? You guys took the steps, the initial steps, to go ahead and build the foundation and show your people how to get the job done, dude.

And that's what everybody needs to do when they start a business, you know? Absolutely. I'm a big believe in that. Yeah, absolutely, man. It's huge. And that went a long way for us. And we ended up, that's how we built. Like, if you're listening to this, you've got time, go Google, window cleaning, Orange County.

Orange Window Cleaning was the company. That's the name of the company. And it's going to show up number one on Map Pack, and it'll either be right above Yelp or right under Yelp. It goes back and forth. And it's just because we focus on providing a great service and doing a really good job at building a brand and reputation. And home service businesses, that's how you win. if you can build that brand and get a bunch of five-star reviews and simply by just asking and you know you can layer some tech onto it to help you out but that's how you win yeah and do you still have some clients that like are still unconnected with you and sergio directly do like they just hit you up like i don't know the owner of the company and they hit you up directly like yo and like they're probably bigger accounts yeah i still get calls to this day from because a piece of advice don't add don't put your personal business phone number out in the public because that's what we did that's what we did and so this day like back from 2017 2018 i saw people that reach out to me and they're like hey can i

get my windows kind of like yeah let me connect you with victor the new owner um and so i'll connect them and i've had some people reach out and be like dude i saw your content like one of your videos popped up like congrats you and sergio you clean my windows in 2018 i'm like let's go dude hell yeah i love that man i love that so okay so you guys end up growing that 2020 what happens in 2022 that you guys are like yo let's i mean that's right after covid right um what what where where do you you guys get the idea of like jumping now online and started being an info product around the experience and what you guys have built for the last few years yeah so what happened was in 2021 i would say the later half of 2021 august 2021 i started tweeting and i had the handle

at squeegee god it's still my handle squeegee god that's so unique dude yeah yeah so i had squeege got and i'm tweeting about this window cleaning business and i'm posting pictures of our trucks and we're wrapping our third truck. And people are like, man, it's like, and I'm talking about how I'm a college student. Like, oh, this 22-year-old kid is, like, and killing it on window cleaning. So I'm going to mass in this following on Twitter.

And it was just when this corner of Twitter called like Small Business Twitter, money Twitter started to really grow. And so I was able to kind of catch that wave in like this window cleaning thing. And people were finding it really interesting how I was running it remotely because we ended up using contractors and just really, really getting good at sales and marketing. And the customer experience, we could start to sub out the work. because workers' comp was a pain

but I won't get too crazy into that but like we were just getting waxed with W2s and so people were like oh this is cool like I've never heard of like this remote window cleaning thing and I'm starting to get DMs hey how do I do it how do I do it I stumble across a book called

100 million dollar offers oh yeah such a great book yeah so I'm like oh dude he ran this company called Jim launch like I could probably do the same thing just call it clean launch I love that dude actually we ended up calling it squeegee launch because we were going to do window cleaning but we realized we actually had

enrolled a couple people as window cleaning clients but we were like you know what this is gonna be very challenging you're gonna have to do the work yourself bust your back get some ladders come out of pocket for much of expensive equipment i want them to start the remote way these people that are asking me how to do it but it's not going to work in every market and i'm thinking i'm thinking like i'm thinking like 10 steps ahead where it's like i want to scale this already i'm thinking in my head like we got it has to be house cleaning because house cleaning is we'll work in any market the abundance of contractors that you can hire that are available to you or everywhere so I'm like it would work in house cleaning but I don't have the

authority in house cleaning so I can't ethically and morally sell somebody and teach them how to do house cleaning even though I know I could do it because it's just selling a different service let me go get the experience so what I did was my mom was still in that same house that she was renting in Orange County and rent was like 33 3, 3,400 a month and I'm making good money at the window cleaning business but it's not to the point where I'm like hey mom here's grand a month here's 10 grand a month don't don't worry about it um so i'm like let me knock out two birds with one stone let me retire my mom because she was driving uber full time i'm not talking like 40 50 hours a week dude like 80 hours a week like sun up to sundown monday to sometimes

seven days a week but mostly monday to saturday um and she sits at the airport all day because it's when they get the surges of course yeah and so i'm like all right i'm going to retire my mom with this remote cleaning business, and I'm going to build the authority and my following by live tweeting the whole process, making a bunch of content about it. And so with a new Amex gold card, we opened, put two grand of ad spend on that Amex gold card, hire the cleaner, set up all the software. I said, all right, mom, don't drive Uber this week. Just here's the phone. Here's the software. Here's how you work it. Just pick up the phone, say the words, and see how much revenue we can do that first month we had 12 grand of revenue with four grand of profit the next month we

did 20 grand of revenue with 8 grand of profit and to this day she hasn't touched uber uh since january of 22 dude that's fire so like how was that feeling as a son to retire your mom from working uber seven days out of the week 80 hours dude that's 80 hours in a car that is literally backbreaking bro like it is and i can tell you from experience because i worked 8,800 hour weeks, I was a cop in the city of Oakland and California. And dude, I'm just sitting in the crown of Vic, bro, for like 40 hours, right? It's just like, dude, it sucks, right? I bet.

Yeah, so like, man, respect, bro. Like, you retired your mom, dude. I really love that because was that your biggest why? Your biggest why behind doing all this was like, dude, I want to take care of my mom. The biggest why was, yeah, I had to grow up real quick. I had to be a man, dude. Like, I watched my mom struggle. Like, this podcast would be three hours long if I told her whole thing.

story about what she had to go through to get me back and and get her life together. Yeah. But to see that and it's like, dude, I got to freaking become a man very quickly here, you know, when I was when I was an adult. And so it feels really good. And it feels even better now because like those numbers are cool. But now she just hit $40,000 in April. That's what I texted me.

And she's like, I finally did it, son. Because that's, you know, $40,000 means it's halfway to to a million dollars here. It's about $500k a year run rate. And so she's all stoked in that business now does anywhere between. 15 to 20K month in profit and the cool thing about the cleaning business it's recurring so like if you just do a good job you should walk into more and more revenue every single month exactly and so it's even better now dude and she's like telling me i'm made more money than i ever have in my life like this is it's really cool it's fulfilling and she's getting remarried now and that's

good feeling dude i love that you you basically allow your mom to live life by design and for every single entrepreneur every single mentee that i've had like i was asked like Like, hey, dude, like, why do you decide to come work with me or any other, you know, mentor or entrepreneur? And they go, dude, because the foundation that you have with your why. And, dude, your why, that's the reason why you're successful, bro. I just want you to know that. Like, and I'm pretty sure you already know that. But, like, dude, like, I see it.

Like, the energy, like the passion that you have, it's just like, like you said, dude, like the vehicle was cleaning. It's not the sexiest thing. It's not. When I start ATMs. Law enforcement detective in Oakland, bro. I had an X that broke it with me. My mom was just like, bro, you're a cop. Like, what are you doing?

Right? Everybody doubting, haters. But I did it because the long-term vision, just like you, 10 steps ahead, I was like, okay, I can grow this, become financially free, and then I'll figure it after that, right? So that was your vision, dude. So now you build a successful, tangible business with your best friend, and now you're building a successful in full business because now you have 3,000 clients in North America.

So let me ask you, dude, what's next? Dude, it's HSA. Dude, right or die, HSA.A. Home Service Academy, when I say HSA. But Home Service Academy is the company where we help people start cleaning companies. Yeah. It's all one-on. So, like, we're very hands-on with our coaches and me and Sergio.

And we do the whole shabang live events, all that stuff, too. It's really cool. But, like, I think in our space, there's a lot of people who like to offer hop. And they'll run a company when it's hot. Because, dude, when we started Home Service Academy, like right after that whole thing with my mom, we launched Home Service Academy and we did

pre-sold the program and we sold 15 people we collected $50,000 of cash in two weeks pre-selling it and then with just those 15 people we're like all right for three months we're going to make sure we get results so we didn't sell anything for three months

then we just got results for them and then come April of 2022 I had been assembling a team because I'm like all right yeah these people are crushing it so I was like let's roll out I was just getting clients from Twitter. It's like, let's roll out LinkedIn, short form, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and long form YouTube. And let's turn on paid. So I got this team together and I took all that

50 grand. And I put it right back into assembling a team. And then we went zero to 2.8 million in nine months. And it's just insane the success we're getting. And there's a lot of cool places we can take HSA, whether it be like, hey, we can start to buy a lot of our clients because they're getting big, dude. Like our clients that have been for three years, four years, some of them doing 150 grand a month like that's a solid it's a real tangible business that's what i'm talking about so it's like yeah you can trade that business you can sell the business for a multiple of its of its profit it's earnings so um there's a lot of cool things we can do with this and are you guys teaching how to exit out of like selling your own cleaning business as well yeah 100 so what actually is really

cool is we'll have people who are like 50 60 grand a month and then we'll have another client who's at like 20 30 yeah and they'll be like hey dude can you find a buyer for my business i'm like hey uh let's say Lee, Lee is one of our clients. She's in Wichita. She's bought two businesses now for HSA. Like, hey, Lee, you want to buy this company? Boom, connect them. And just by being in HSA, you're like,

you get access to the kind of like the deal flow if you ever wanted to go pro through acquisition. Wow. That's amazing, dude. That's amazing. I love that. So let me ask you, like if somebody wanted to go ahead and start their own cleaning business,

they want to get more information, what would be some, I guess, good websites or, you know, where could they find you to go ahead and find this information brother we put it all out for free on youtube we've got whole hour plus long videos where i go through everything i don't hold back like if you want to start a cleaning business yeah you can just watch our free stuff and build it that way like i think like we've helped when i say we've helped 3 000 people that's through hsa yeah through our content is probably double if not triple absolutely because i look at our affiliate payouts from booking

koala yeah and uh we've sent so many people there away and it's just from people who watch the Twitter, read the Twitter or read the, um, or watch the YouTube videos. So, um, 100% YouTube. Johnny and Sergio on YouTube. Yeah. If you want to watch, uh, free stuff. And then we have a whole book we wrote, 120 page book, everything we know about cleaning. Um, so if you watch some of those videos, you can get the book for free to, a PDF version. I love that, dude. I love that. So let's talk about, uh, let's switch gears now to more of like the digital marketing side of things. How did you guys learn digital marketing dude? Because like back in 2020, you know, in the middle COVID, you know, I was billed $12,000 to $15,000 in residuals off ATMs.

It allowed me to reduce my workload from 80 hours to 40 hours. And then I was just like, all right, well, let me go do something new, right? Because I got all this time, right? Because everyone is locked in their houses. So then I jump back on Facebook, dude. I get targeted by Russell Brunson. And I get targeted by Dan Henry, read Digital Millionaire, and Russell Brunce's book, changed my life, dude, read it eight times.

And then the rest is history. you do, April 2020, I start diving deep into, invested $10,000 into a course myself, into digital marketing. And I was like, you know what, dude? People don't like the police at the time, you know, because the whole BLM thing. And I was just like, I can't start a program on how to be a cop because nobody will buy it. So I was like, let me go ahead and start a business on, you know, an ATM business. And I was just like, all right, I'm going to do this.

And I end up doing it, dude. And it takes off around March of 2021, doing my first six figures. And, dude, the rest of history, how to figure it out, dude. It was like six months of hell, where I was just like, I did not know what I was doing, bro. Like, I don't even know how to navigate IG sometimes right now, right? But I've been in the digital marketing game for five years now. So what were the steps that you took in order for you and Sergio to learn the digital marketing game? That's a great question, man.

So remember that book? I told you it came across $100 million offers. Yes, sir. So we read that book and we were like, wow, okay. I didn't even know this world existed. Like similar to you. I didn't know this was a thing. And his whole.

What happened was that whole first, second page when he tells his story about, hey, when you have a grand slam offer, it's like instead of stepping up to the base and hitting a home run and scoring a max of four runs, you could, if you have the right offer, you could hit the ball and you could score a max of, you know, 1,000 runs, 10,000 runs. And I'm like, thinking about this. I'm like, okay. So we go through the whole book, using the book as our, like, guide. We come with an offer. Yeah. And I just start tweeting, bro. Hey, here's a direct-to-calal link.

book on my calendar. Dude, why Twitter? Out of everything? Why Twitter? Because for me it was Facebook. And people were like, bro, no one doesn't use his Facebook no more. But then like $200,000 a month later. That's where I had my following.

Dude, I just had my following there. And then people were, like, I would post a tweet. And I knew how to write a tweet to where I could get like 100,000 views on it. And so I was going insanely viral, like all my tweets were. And so I would write a thread. And then at the end, I'd be like, I'd be like this simple service business. It could be $65,000 a month. Here's exactly how to do it at the end of it.

And if you want to learn one-on-one with me, book directly on my calendar, direct link to calendar. They would get on my call with me. I didn't know high-ticket sales or anything. Dude, I was selling like $12,000 light installations in the middle of cleaning business. I had no problem with sales. Like that was, they would get on.

I was closing like crazy on these people and given they were warm, right? They're coming from my audience. But, yeah, we sold that first $50,000. And then I was like, okay. Well, I had already built up a skill set in everything I knew in the window cleaning business. What I didn't realize was it's a little different in the digital space. But we were able to ride the fact that we were the first ones to do remote cleaning.

Nobody was doing remote cleaning. And we got up to about 120K month and spent with it. And so we started to get all these eyeballs around remote cleaning. And then what happened was so usually your first six months was, hell, our first nine months was like, two, our freaking shit doesn't stink. Like, man, everything I touch turns to gold, bro, like, who are those guys? Like, that's, that's the mentality we're on, we're dropping freaking, like, 50 grand on masterminds you, going to Stockdale, partying, like, like, like, yeah, it was ridiculous. That mastermind did help me out a lot, though.

Which mastermind was it? Cole Gordon, Closers A-Oh. Oh, yeah. A figure board room? Yeah, I'm back in it now, actually, so I just re-up for a second year. But join that and started to, like, really get a taste for like, oh, my God. dude we were paying ourselves like fuck like 70 grand in dividends i remember one month uh in 2022 and we're like you and sir geiro like we made it yeah dude we're like we ain't never

going back and um burn the boats and so we had to we had this third business partner um in canada that we brought in because our dumb asses like hindsight's 2020 but like we're like we don't know how to run facebook ads so let's just give someone a third of the business holy shit. Guys, this is awesome. I love your story, dude. Because most people are so stingy. Most people, you guys are like,

yo, we don't know Facebook. Let's just get a partner and we'll figure it out from there. I love that, dude. That's a perfect action right there. Something I would do. Yeah, yeah. Well, hindsight, it was kind of stupid, though. No, it is. But that's how you learn, dude. It was a really expensive mistake.

Yeah. But you learn from it for sure because now we know how to freaking run some ads and do that stuff. stuff. Yeah. And so what happens is we're trying to scale this. 2023 comes along. We're still growing. We've added another million dollars to the business. We're still about four million. And, but way less profit. And I'm starting to look at the ads. And it's because the ads are like, we don't have a back end and we don't have, like, the ads aren't where we need them to be. At least the row. The row ass isn't there. We hear like one row. 0.9 row as I was looking at like, dude, this is bad. So I'm like I'm like going to our partner who runs marketing like do what's going on like

well let's hire some some consultants to work with you man so I get bringing like the best dudes in the space that I know and I'm like all right this guy doesn't freaking help you crack it dude like something's wrong and so going in 2024 he's a meeting with them one day I call him because the ads are just still shit in the bed dude we're just like breaking even breaking even I'm like and now our back end starting to kick up too so I'm like we really got to crack in like the front end acquisition because that's how we're going to continue to scale his business because like our fulfillment's crushing it. Like, people are getting insane results.

They're wanting to stick with us for a long time. But we're having trouble on paid, getting consistent clients. So I call the dude that's consultant for our CMO at the time. And I'm like, hey, dude, off the record, like, what's going on? He's like, I don't know what the hell he does all day. I'm like, damn. So that next Monday, me and Sergio sat down, like, hey, do we want to buy you out? And this was July of 2024.

Oh, snap. So this is recent, dude. A year ago. That's wild, bro. Mm-hmm. So we buy them out. And then I become like CMO. And so I'm like, forget the ads. Yeah. We're not doing ads anymore. Right. Because like it's just eating away all the profit. So we're going to lean on organic and we're going to start to do affiliates because I'm like, look, I don't know how to run ads still at the time. And but when I am good as I'm good at sales. So if I can say, hey, Paul, why don't you promote Home Service Academy? Yeah. You know, maybe I'll promote you. do a little swap I can instead of closing

you know one deal I'll make close 20 deals from your audience absolutely right so we started to do that and we started to replace the traffic with affiliates I love that and so what was cool about that is we actually ended up opening up affiliates as an acquisition channel and then we have a whole team built around affiliates and it's consistent then we have organic which is also consistent

that took us three years to kick up especially on YouTube and then we I through networking and trying to close affiliates it's I found a guy who used to run the media for V-Shred. Okay. A million dollars a day in spend. Yep. Yep.

And so he was like, I was hanging out with him in Vegas. I bought a mistake. And I guess he really liked me because he's like, dude, I'll help you with your ads. How did you meet him, dude? Because your network is your net worth. So like people are probably like, they're mind boggled right now. They're probably like, dude, like, you're already making money. Dude, obviously you could go ahead and connect with these like high earners and these people

that like have these skill sets. But like a regular person like me, like, how am I able to go ahead and take the opportunity? How am I able to go ahead and get an abundance of network like you? That's a good question. Yeah. So what happened was, what I ended up doing was I went on a crazy event spree at the beginning of the year. So from like January up until I'm still doing it, dude. I'm here in freaking Miami.

So you're talking about you're going on podcasts, you're going on conferences. You're doing keynote speeches and stuff like that? Yeah, exactly. And so if you ask how you do that, what happened was I was just like, how do I get to more events and who do I need to? I sent out a tweet, right? And so maybe if you don't have an audience, this looks like maybe you go to your e-media network and say, hey, do you know anybody who might, you know, be in the space you're looking to get into and start to build a connection with them, start to ask them questions.

Because what I did was I just tweeted, hey, who's running affiliate offers for high-ticket info? And somebody responded and tagging this dude name Pedro. Pedro. Matos was self-publishing. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I do. So I can connect with Pedro, and Pedro was like, yeah, do you let me.

me show you what we're doing. Yeah. I'm like, and he introduces me to the whole affiliate world. And he's like, I like to get my affiliates through events.

We do cold outreach. We do it this way, that way. I'm like, hmm, okay. And so he's like, we make a couple of intros for you. I get introed to a dude

at this big company. It does about $120 million a year. Like, biggest, one of the biggest info companies in the space. I get connected with their head of partnerships.

Me and him end up becoming friends because when he, when he ended up being like, hey, you want to come speak at this event. I just had someone fall out. I'm like, yeah, dude, I'll come speak.

Ended up being a pace and we're being event, dude. Nice. And Russell Brunson was in the lineup. Never spoke before. Never had spoken in my life on stage. Done like webinars and stuff. And that's badass. And I had to be the opener. I'm like, yeah, dude, how many people are there? He's like, oh, dude, it's like 200 people. I get there, it's 400 people. All of them paid 35 grand to be there.

I'm the fucking guy opening it up. I'm like, shit in bricks. Dude, I love that. I'm shit in bricks. Were you in the back? Like, I'm literally in the back, like, I was in the back, bro. I was in the back, I was in the back. I'm like, I'm like, dude, I had to take two dumps, bro. Yeah.

Is Sergio there? And what is he telling you? And what is he telling you? He's just like, it's going to be cool, bro. Yeah, he's like, you're fine, bro. You're good. But he's in the back like, you got this. Dude, I'm like, stress and out.

Represent, bro. And I'm like, all right, dude, I'm going to get up and teach him how to scale a business. Yeah. Ended up crushing it. And it was just a value talk. And my CTA at the end was like, hey, follow me on Instagram. I convert like 90% of the room to follow me on Instagram. And so me and me and this guy, Brandon, ended up just becoming the best of friends.

And to this day, like I was just hanging out with him a couple weekends ago. And then he interests me to people, Pedro answers me to people. And then because I'm now friends with them, I'm like, let me start going to some events. I go to affiliate some at West. I go to ClickFunnels. I start getting invited to these different masterminds that are like, hey, this mastermind is only real estate specific. Like you have to be invited. but because I'm putting together dinners in Vegas

like that's the big thing with me is like I like to put dinners together smart so when I'm in Vegas I know all the managers and all the nice restaurants so they're going to show out a little bit especially if I tell them hey like let's I've got this important like business meeting and pretty much business people like send us like a muse or something right

like chef will custom make appetizers is really cool and so I'm putting together dinners every night and keep on them best like these dinners are not cheaper like two grand three grand a night no of course dude yeah and but I see it It's an investment though. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. It's an investment. And so I'm putting together groups like 16, 20 people. And through this, people just, they started calling me Johnny Vegas at this event. Bro, that's a badass thing. Yeah. They started calling me Johnny Vegas. And so

that's when I just speed, I basically sped run, like knowing everybody in the space just from like a couple events I went to and then they invite me to events. Then I go to those events and then I get invited to more events. And then I'm in some masterminds as well. You know, you know, you're remind me of my other friend. His name's Eddie Maloof. He owns an agency called Bad Marketing. Appreciate it, Eddie. But Eddie, the reason why they're so successful in their agency and they be able to get very high-end clients is because he has the power of network. He has mastered that. And I'm a big believer in that. I have been able to work, thankfully, with some really successful entrepreneurs, some really good guys, just like yourself, that have connected me

with going and speaking in conferences, keynotes, dude. And that all converts. That all converts, dude, especially if you have a very inspiring story like yours, right? I'm pretty sure you told this story at Pace Morphy's event. Oh, yeah. And, you crushed it because people can relate to that, dude, especially, like, with your parents and Uber in the pain of, like, seeing your mom, dude, like, work. And, like, you just want to retire her because she raised you as a kid. Dude, it's very inspiring, bro. I appreciate it, man.

No, it is. It is. And a lot of people are going to resonate with that, dude. Yeah. They are. So from there, so you're a master networker now. And then now, I mean, okay, so yes, you have that kind of going on. But are you guys working on any other projects?

No, no, dude. We're big on focus, man. Okay, good. Just huge on focus. Like, you know, if we want to work on other things, like, we're going to test out rolling out a window cleaning offer next month. Nice. Because we, like, why haven't we done that?

Yeah. Like, all of our expertise is pretty much in window. Not that we're not experts in house cleaning, but like window cleaning, I know from everything from doing squeaging myself. Like, I know what squeegeeging. replacement blades you need like what's good and what's bad to that level so it's like why haven't we done that so we're going to test that and that that'll kind of scratch my itch of like wanting to go into other opportunities but i just see homeservice academy is such a good opportunity whether that uh to

continue to scale and grow and we can take a lot of routes with it like i said we could franchise we could do a roll up um we can do a software because we've so much inbound demand of people want to start cleaning companies existing cleaning businesses coming to us saying hey i need help growing so for us it's just like stay focused keep making content Keep tinkering and getting better, little improvements, and continue to scale the business. Dude, are you playing on staying in Vegas? No, I'm moving. Okay.

Yeah, I'm moving. If you add, it depends on the month you ask me, dude, I love Vegas, especially, like, during, during click funnels. Like, it was really fun because I'm like, okay, I'm in my city now. And it's been nice because I've got a lot, I've really tapped in in Vegas now. Right. And everybody knows you, dude. Everybody knows me in Vegas. So it's nice when people come in because I can show someone a little bit of a

better time, just like I'm sure you can in Puerto Rico over here in Miami, right? And so going back to, the reason for the move is just to get more locked in because I live on Strip. Makes sense. Someone hits me up, hey dude, I'm in town every weekend, dude, I shit you not every weekend.

I'm in town, bro, what are you doing? And then I'm like, I don't want to say no because I'm getting FOMO because I'm like, I haven't seen this person probably be fun, but then you maybe stay out a little too late. Exactly. It's a fun city, so. Yeah, no, I can imagine, man.

Well, I mean, good for you. I love the life that you build, life by design, dude, making it happen with you and your passion and just your core values, dude. It's about what you're doing, what you can do with the mind. So with that being said, dude, this is, as you know all the podcast with Paul Alex. We have gone ahead and helped a lot of people with self-help, self-help, believing in themselves and mindset. That's the biggest thing, dude.

We don't monetize this. We don't have sponsorships because, guys, we have, to be honest, we haven't gone and monetize this for, but we want this to be free value. So we bring guests like you, dude, just to give them the sauce, give them inspiration. And look, hopefully somebody listens to this. And guess what? You're going to change more lives, dude. And that's what it's about, right?

I hope so, man. So with that being said, imagine 100,000 people are going to listen to this, which they are, dude. Happens on every Saturday episode. Okay. All right. So what do you have to tell the audience right now that just heard your story, dude? Give them a couple of words of motivation to help them level up. it's a good question man i would say a couple things i would say a couple things i would say

one if you just stick with something there's a million ways to make a million bucks and if you just stick with one thing for a long enough time you will make money and whatever it is whether it's cleaning it's ATMs um it's setting up pumpkins on your porch for other people i know someone doing that you can make money doing anything as long as you stick with it for long enough time horizon and if you're ever doubting when in doubt just defaults to logic, right? Like I said at the beginning, would it be unreasonable if I call 100 businesses are all of them going to say no to my services or my offering? Probably not. It's probably more unreasonable that all of them would say no than one to say yes. And so I think a lot of people

get too emotional when they're trying to grow their business, trying to start their first business, whatever that may be, when it's like, just think about it logically. Is there somebody else who's built a million dollar cleaning business? Is there someone else who's built a million dollar ATM business? Are they smarter than you? Maybe. Maybe they're not though, right? Because there's hundreds of thousands of people have built these million dollar companies like what why what makes you different right why can't you do the same thing so that's what I would leave the audience dude I love that I love that when when when I came into the online space back in 2020 I looked at people that were making $100,000 on info products and I was just like

what is making them so special and I'm like trying to funnel hack dude you know funnel hack for all the listeners right now if you guys are not in digital marketing funnel hacking is when you look at somebody's process in the online space and you're trying to figure out what works for them what's getting them client acquisitions what's getting them clients how their sales process why the company's so successful and one thing i always tell path of least resistance right path of least resistance work smart or not harder folks it's 2025 you got to leverage technology dude and processes right and even me i'm an old school millennial dude i still love to doork I still love to call a call, right?

But is it as effective in 2025 now, not as much as DMing, right? Not as much as going ahead and paying ads or tweeting, right? And do they still call it tweeting, dude, now that it's converted to X? I still call it tweeting. I know people are going to listen to that. It's called X now, but X, Twitter, whatever. Yeah, yeah. No, that's awesome, dude.

I love that. It inspires me to go ahead and venture off to new channels that, you know, I haven't checked out before because I'm big on. just Facebook and Instagram. I'm starting the YouTube. I'm going ahead and now doing the LinkedIn and the Twitter. And, dude, it's awesome. I love to see people like you and other entrepreneurs kill it in those spaces, dude.

Can I just say one thing? Go ahead, about your thing right there because you're like, I'm funnel hacking. One quick tip that I love is my favorite term is R&D. Yeah. Rip off and duplicate. There you go. Just rip off and duplicate. Someone's already doing it and you know they're making money.

You can just, you know, tweak it a little bit. Rip off and duplicate, guys. guys, all right? It's not saying doing shady business, but it's just working smarter and harder. And just like when you were reading one million offers or offers is Jim launch. Clean launch, yeah. Clean launch. Clean launch.

How'd you find the name? Don't worry about it, bro. You know, it's phenomenal, dude. With that being said, dude, anything else that you want to leave the audience with? I think that's it, man. I think we're good if you want to, you know, hit your boy up. Johnny and Sergio on pretty much all socials. Johnny the CEO is my personal.

It's my new business specific personal account because me and Sergio have always run at joint. So I have a new Instagram if you want to connect with me there. I read them all. But most importantly, I just want to say, dude, thank you so much for having me, bro. Absolutely, dude. Appreciate it. Absolutely.

Anytime, dude. And then once again, for the listeners and the viewers right now that are watching us on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube, what was the YouTube channel where they can learn all about this, bro? Yeah, we have Johnny and Sergio, and then we have Home Service Academy. Johnny and Sergio is a lot more tactical. Yeah, and then what is the best way to contact you personally, dude? Because I already know there's going to be people that want to pick your brain.

They're going to want to talk to you directly. Yeah, hit me on Instagram at Johnny, the CEO. There you guys have it. That's another fire episode here on the level of podcast with Paul Alex, guys. Look, Johnny and Sergio, they're killing the game in the cleaning industry, and they can show you exactly how to do it too. Now, with that being said, share this episode with someone that you care, you love. You want to help them change their mindset and actually level up.

With that being said, leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcast, guys, and also subscribe on YouTube. I'll catch you on the next one. Thanks for listening up to Level-up Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to share with a family, friend, and everyone you know who's ready to level up. Leave a five-star review on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and wherever you tune in. It really helps spreading the word, and don't forget to check out official Paul Alex.com for more episodes. through resources to kickstart your journey.

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