645: The $60k/mo Remote Cleaning Side Hustle

0:00:01 (upbeat music)
0:00:04 This is the $60,000 a month remote leaning side hustle.
0:00:06 What’s up, what’s up, Nick Loper here.
0:00:07 Welcome to The Side Hustle Show.
0:00:09 It’s the entrepreneurship podcast you can actually apply.
0:00:10 And here’s the opportunity.
0:00:13 Helping homeowners get the help they need
0:00:15 and helping on-the-ground professionals
0:00:18 get the work they want and making a margin in the middle.
0:00:19 And doing it all from home,
0:00:21 even if you have no experience in the service
0:00:23 your company is ultimately providing.
0:00:24 It might sound a little bit crazy,
0:00:26 but it’s a crazy world that we live in.
0:00:27 Today’s guest has taken that model
0:00:28 and really run with it growing
0:00:32 from zero on a path to a million dollars in revenue
0:00:34 as a side hustle in his first two years
0:00:36 as a remote cleaning entrepreneur
0:00:39 from NebraskaEliteCleaning.com, Skyler Sullivan.
0:00:40 Welcome to The Side Hustle Show.
0:00:41 – Yes, sir, thank you, Nick.
0:00:42 I appreciate it.
0:00:43 Looking forward to talking here.
0:00:44 – And me as well.
0:00:45 Stick around in this one.
0:00:46 You can learn how Skyler landed
0:00:48 his first customers in cleaners, right?
0:00:49 You gotta play both sides of this,
0:00:51 how he markets the business today
0:00:52 and how he manages the communications
0:00:55 and logistics of it all on the side from his day job.
0:00:58 But I want to know about your first booking.
0:00:59 You put this out into the world
0:01:01 and somebody raises their hand,
0:01:02 some stranger customer says,
0:01:04 “Yeah, come on by, can you do my house?”
0:01:05 – Yeah, totally.
0:01:07 First time, I didn’t even know what I was doing.
0:01:09 It took me a while actually to get the LLC
0:01:10 and all that sort of stuff.
0:01:12 But finally, a couple months in, I actually get it.
0:01:15 And I started using Angie leads.
0:01:16 Everybody kind of knows about Angie.
0:01:18 – Formerly Angie’s List, sure.
0:01:18 – Yeah, Angie’s List.
0:01:21 So you bid on the leads, each leads like 35 bucks.
0:01:23 The first one was a guy who called me
0:01:26 and said he just needed the basement really, really vacuumed.
0:01:26 I said, “Okay, we vacuumed.”
0:01:27 He’s like, “Well, you shampooed too?
0:01:30 I’m like, no, not really, but we’ll vacuum.”
0:01:31 Anyways, I sent a cleaner there.
0:01:34 I didn’t really know her and she said she would do it.
0:01:36 So she goes, doesn’t make it to the whole queen.
0:01:38 She has roaches on her, she said she had to run out.
0:01:40 She said there were mice everywhere, she’s seen them.
0:01:42 So she’s unhappy, she’s mad at me.
0:01:45 The customer is unhappy because it was unrealistic
0:01:48 expectations ’cause I didn’t ask the right questions.
0:01:49 And now the money he paid me,
0:01:52 he wants to take all his money back and the queen is mad.
0:01:55 So it was like a complete train rick for the first clean.
0:01:56 – Yeah, you’re like, wait a minute.
0:01:58 This sounded so much easier on paper.
0:01:59 What are you supposed to do in that case?
0:02:02 Are you supposed to get pictures of the space in advance?
0:02:04 Like it’s hard to give a bid over the phone or online
0:02:06 if you don’t know what you’re walking into.
0:02:07 – And that’s what we do now.
0:02:09 We do, we get pictures and you can get a feel
0:02:11 after doing so many of these things.
0:02:11 What’s gonna be good?
0:02:12 What’s gonna be bad?
0:02:13 Just kind of talking with them.
0:02:14 That was my first one ever.
0:02:17 I didn’t know to ask about bugs
0:02:20 when he told me the rating was gonna be a six.
0:02:22 And then they’re trying to figure out
0:02:23 how they’re gonna pay for it.
0:02:25 There’s a lot of red flags that I didn’t know
0:02:26 were red flags at the time.
0:02:27 – Interesting.
0:02:29 So that’s one, Andrew’s one platform to get leads.
0:02:30 What happens after that?
0:02:33 You decide, look, that’s gotta be a one-off
0:02:35 or does that become common?
0:02:37 Just curious what kind of situations
0:02:40 you might find yourself in as a new cleaning startup.
0:02:42 – Yeah, so that happened.
0:02:43 And I was just like kind of blown away.
0:02:45 I’m like, man, there’s other people doing this.
0:02:48 This can’t be the way it is all the time, right?
0:02:50 Like I really fought because I got some money out of it.
0:02:51 I don’t know.
0:02:52 It was probably a couple hundred dollars.
0:02:53 And I said, hey, let’s just make a deal.
0:02:55 Like I’ll take a hundred dollars.
0:02:57 That way I didn’t lose money on the deal
0:02:58 and I could pay the cleaner something.
0:03:00 So we made some sort of deal.
0:03:01 And I was just like glad I was done with it.
0:03:03 The second clean was another Angie deal.
0:03:06 And the lady called and she had a parrot
0:03:09 and there was parrot poop and animal crap everywhere.
0:03:11 She didn’t had a clean in years.
0:03:13 We get there again, over two.
0:03:16 Like it was a train wreck.
0:03:16 The cleaner gets there.
0:03:19 I mean, this is a, not a hoarder house,
0:03:21 but just a disgusting, disgusting house.
0:03:25 I’m talking like food of the animal everywhere.
0:03:28 Like there was mold in the kitchen or in the bathrooms.
0:03:29 It’s always not even safe, you know?
0:03:31 And then you’ve got the poop from the parrot.
0:03:33 So I said, yeah, we’re gonna do a great job.
0:03:34 Get it all cleaned.
0:03:35 Then I have to end up calling her and saying,
0:03:36 like we can’t do it.
0:03:37 She’s ticked off.
0:03:39 And so I have a couple of issues, right?
0:03:40 Early.
0:03:41 You’re really celibus.
0:03:42 Yeah.
0:03:44 Well, it started off tough.
0:03:45 It’s definitely started off tough.
0:03:47 I appreciate you not sugarcoating it
0:03:48 and saying, yeah, it’s all been the sunshine
0:03:50 and unicorns and rainbows here.
0:03:52 So that’s all good.
0:03:55 Now the interesting part here is like you’ve got to play,
0:03:57 you kind of got to balance the demand side,
0:03:59 like as my marketing ramps up,
0:04:01 as I start to get customers and leads,
0:04:03 but also making sure you have the cleaners available
0:04:05 to go out and fulfill the work.
0:04:07 And so it sounds like you had some cleaners
0:04:10 that you had recruited to go out and do it.
0:04:11 Like, okay, I’m gonna start to fill up your schedule.
0:04:15 Is that where new cleaning businesses have to start
0:04:18 with the labor, with the professional like fulfillment side?
0:04:20 Yeah, well, that’s a great question.
0:04:21 And just to kind of answer what you were saying
0:04:24 about like start off tough, it did start off tough.
0:04:26 And just to play on that real quick,
0:04:29 it started off so tough that like my first three,
0:04:30 I booked a recurring clean and I was like,
0:04:32 I was thinking I was so good, right?
0:04:33 ‘Cause I was decent at sales,
0:04:35 but then our fulfillment wasn’t good enough.
0:04:36 And so she canceled, she was ticked,
0:04:38 she wanted to give me a poor review.
0:04:40 And so I remember sitting in my kitchen
0:04:43 with my now fiance and she goes, you can quit.
0:04:44 You don’t have to do this.
0:04:46 So she told me, I’m sitting here.
0:04:47 I’m like, I’ve never been a quitter.
0:04:50 My background is a division one college basketball coach.
0:04:51 So I’m inherently competitive.
0:04:53 She goes, you can quit.
0:04:55 And I go, I’m not quitting, heck no.
0:04:57 And I was like, I’ll never forget that moment
0:04:59 because it gives me chills too.
0:05:00 Because that day I was like,
0:05:03 I’m gonna spend this entire Sunday finding better people.
0:05:06 And I kind of did, but I mean, I worked at it.
0:05:08 So that’s that part.
0:05:09 Can I pause there?
0:05:10 I think that’s really important to have somebody
0:05:13 in your corner who is rooting for you
0:05:16 and either pushing you like, say, hey, look, it’s okay.
0:05:17 You don’t have to do this.
0:05:18 You don’t need this in your life.
0:05:19 And that’s totally fine.
0:05:22 And in the opposite corner, it could be like,
0:05:23 hey, you’re gonna get through this, right?
0:05:28 It’s just a low period and the sun’s gonna come up tomorrow
0:05:29 and we can figure this out.
0:05:30 Yeah, exactly.
0:05:31 So that’s what I was thinking.
0:05:33 I’m just like, okay, I just gotta find a couple more
0:05:34 and we just gotta get done.
0:05:35 So that’s what I spent the day doing
0:05:37 and things got a little bit better after that.
0:05:40 But that was like a moment where it’s either fight or flight
0:05:42 because things had gone really poorly
0:05:44 for like the first three weeks or a month, you know?
0:05:47 Was there any market research that went into it?
0:05:50 Well, I’m in Omaha or, you know,
0:05:52 how many other cleaners already exist in this area?
0:05:54 How am I ever gonna compete with the people
0:05:56 who already have dozens of reviews?
0:05:58 Is there anything like that that goes into it
0:06:00 when choosing a market or a niche?
0:06:03 Or just saying like, look, I know this is a game I can win.
0:06:05 The most important thing is doing it where you’re at.
0:06:07 Like what I’ve learned because I’ve tried to think,
0:06:08 oh, this is so easy.
0:06:10 I can do it in different areas even now.
0:06:11 And it’s a lot harder to do it
0:06:13 when you’re not in that location
0:06:15 because I’m able to do networking here.
0:06:17 I’m able to just be at boots on the ground
0:06:19 if something goes wrong, I’ve gone to the cleans
0:06:20 and done some quality control myself.
0:06:23 So I would definitely say doing it where you live
0:06:25 helps so much more rather than be like,
0:06:28 hey, Tampa, Florida is a really great economy.
0:06:29 That’d be a great place.
0:06:31 It’s so much harder when you’re not there, I feel like.
0:06:32 – You got it, yeah, even though it’s like
0:06:36 you’re not necessarily on the ground, inside every house,
0:06:38 it’s still like, there’s a presence.
0:06:40 And I’m kind of with you versus saying like,
0:06:43 oh, the keyword research or the data pointed to,
0:06:45 you know, this mismatch between, you know,
0:06:47 the population and then the number of service providers.
0:06:49 So like, there’s clearly room over here
0:06:50 ’cause you kind of, you need those service providers
0:06:52 to be your fulfillment arm.
0:06:53 – For sure.
0:06:54 And I used to meet with them before interviews.
0:06:56 Interviews, I’d be like, let’s go meet in person.
0:07:00 And so I think that just that sort of stuff helps to,
0:07:02 you know, they know who they’re working for
0:07:03 and they know it’s because there’s not always
0:07:05 a lot of action with me and them
0:07:07 because I’ve got multiple cleaners and multiple jobs.
0:07:09 I can’t see them all every day.
0:07:12 – What’s that pitch or what’s your recruiting look like?
0:07:15 Trying to find something like, I’ve got this idea.
0:07:16 I would start this cleaning business,
0:07:18 but I need people to help me do the cleaning.
0:07:20 And like, what’s that outreach like?
0:07:22 – Yeah, well, everybody’s cleaned.
0:07:24 I’ve cleaned before, you know, don’t love it,
0:07:26 but everybody’s clean.
0:07:27 And so cleaning to me is like,
0:07:29 you don’t have to be a star or a machine.
0:07:31 Yeah, we can learn all the tips and tricks
0:07:32 and be more efficient and be better.
0:07:35 But if you’re just detailed and diligent,
0:07:35 anybody can do it.
0:07:37 If you’re high character, detailed and diligent,
0:07:38 you probably, anybody can do it.
0:07:39 And then after that, I mean,
0:07:41 there’s tips and tricks for different chemicals.
0:07:42 But so that’s what I knew.
0:07:44 That’s what I knew is that it doesn’t take a master.
0:07:45 I just need to find some people who are probably good
0:07:47 and maybe they’ve worked in a hotel or something like that.
0:07:49 So I would use Indeed, Facebook a little bit,
0:07:53 but Craigslist, Indeed was really, really helpful at first.
0:07:54 And then after I found a couple,
0:07:58 we would use referrals from cleaners who knew other cleaners
0:07:59 who, you know, had worked out.
0:08:01 So what’s that pitch like though?
0:08:02 The pitch is like, hey,
0:08:05 I just created an elite cleaning company,
0:08:06 a company that I’m looking for pros.
0:08:07 We are pros.
0:08:09 We have a professional mantra
0:08:10 and I’m looking for pros like you,
0:08:13 based on your resume and who you are, you know,
0:08:14 does this sound like something you’d be interested in?
0:08:17 You know, making some more money and taking more jobs.
0:08:19 And most of the time it’s yes, not always, but most of the time.
0:08:22 Okay. So it’s like the pitch is we’ll, you know,
0:08:24 we’re building this elite culture.
0:08:26 We’d love for you to be a part of it if that’s a fit
0:08:28 and we’ll help you fill up your schedule.
0:08:30 We’ll help you get more hours.
0:08:31 Absolutely. Yep. Exactly.
0:08:33 We’ll help you fill up your schedule.
0:08:35 All you have to worry about is doing the cleaning.
0:08:37 We’ll do the, you know, the scheduling.
0:08:39 We’ll do the notes.
0:08:41 All you have to do is just show up, do the cleaning.
0:08:42 You have to worry about reschedules
0:08:44 and collecting payments.
0:08:46 We’ll take care of all that for you.
0:08:48 Got it. And so that it appeals to the people who want,
0:08:50 kind of like an easy button way.
0:08:51 I mean, of course it’s still manual labor,
0:08:53 but like they don’t have to be the entrepreneur.
0:08:54 They don’t have to be the marketer.
0:08:56 You don’t have to be the administrator.
0:08:59 Like they can just be, you just show up and do the work.
0:09:00 You know, I think a lot of people
0:09:01 are looking for something like that.
0:09:03 Yeah. Exactly. Advertising.
0:09:04 They don’t have to worry about sales,
0:09:07 negotiation with customers, customer cancellations,
0:09:09 getting payments, you know,
0:09:10 and the communication with customers.
0:09:12 They can be literally 24/7.
0:09:14 Like we’ll get calls, texts from people
0:09:15 and all day, all night.
0:09:16 And so if you’re not an entrepreneur,
0:09:17 don’t have that mindset.
0:09:19 You can get walked over by customers as well
0:09:21 or take an advantage of.
0:09:24 What’s typical in terms of an hourly rate
0:09:26 or a payment per clean or how do you things,
0:09:28 how do you have things structured with the cleaners?
0:09:32 We like to be around that $25, $25 an hour ish
0:09:34 because they’re also supplying equipment
0:09:35 of their own equipment as well.
0:09:37 Their own cleaning supplies and driving there.
0:09:40 So $25 and then they get tips as well.
0:09:42 And it can be a little bit higher around that.
0:09:43 Got it. Okay.
0:09:45 So that’s helpful on the recruiting side.
0:09:47 Let’s talk about the customer acquisition side,
0:09:49 aside from these first couple jobs
0:09:51 that do not turn out so well.
0:09:53 Like when, when do things start to turn around?
0:09:55 Do you start to see consistent lead flow,
0:09:56 recurring bookings, stuff like that?
0:09:59 Some people would say or just do home cleaning
0:10:00 because everything else is sticky.
0:10:01 Sticky in a negative way.
0:10:04 If you’re doing janitorial or if you’re doing commercial
0:10:06 and I would get these calls and I would just be like,
0:10:08 hey, like it’s money, let’s see if we can do it.
0:10:11 And so I ended up getting a pretty nice commercial deal
0:10:13 that was like over 10,000 a month.
0:10:15 And that helped me just get momentum.
0:10:16 It helped me get momentum
0:10:18 because my margins were high on it still.
0:10:20 And it helped me really think really,
0:10:22 really futuristic about the business.
0:10:24 Not to mention also having a day job
0:10:26 helped me think futuristically about the business.
0:10:27 I was never in this short-term mindset like,
0:10:29 okay, let’s make this quick money right now and keep moving.
0:10:31 I was always in the long-term mindset like,
0:10:33 I don’t really need this money right now.
0:10:34 I have a day job.
0:10:36 And so I could just think futuristically.
0:10:36 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:10:38 And so from the advertising perspective,
0:10:40 I mean, I used Google, I tried Thumbtack,
0:10:43 I tried Yelp, I tried it all.
0:10:46 And then even investing into my SEO
0:10:47 or search engine optimization
0:10:48 and trying to get more organic.
0:10:49 So yeah.
0:10:52 How did this $10,000 a month commercial building find you?
0:10:53 It was a school.
0:10:55 It’s a private school, private church, Catholic.
0:10:57 And I’m Catholic as well.
0:10:58 It’s actually my parish.
0:11:00 Just by pure luck, they called our company.
0:11:02 I answered the phone and they were looking
0:11:04 for a different provider for their Catholic school
0:11:07 and church for the Catholic school or diocese like the,
0:11:10 and so I was like, okay, yeah, like let’s do it.
0:11:11 Let me come by and check it out.
0:11:13 And I didn’t even know how to quote it.
0:11:14 I didn’t know what I was doing with quoting it,
0:11:16 but that was the next question.
0:11:17 Like, how do you come up with price again?
0:11:19 I was just like trying to figure out like,
0:11:21 maybe my charge rate was really, really high too,
0:11:23 but I also wasn’t figuring out
0:11:24 like how long it would really take.
0:11:26 I was like way underbidding on the,
0:11:27 how long it would take,
0:11:28 but I was way overbidding on the price.
0:11:30 So it kind of even itself out.
0:11:31 That makes sense.
0:11:32 I didn’t know how to quote it,
0:11:33 but I just threw a number out that I was like,
0:11:37 I was pretty sure if we got it, I wouldn’t lose money.
0:11:39 I did an interview with a couple of the people there
0:11:40 and they liked me.
0:11:41 And they’re like, I believe in this guy.
0:11:42 I think he’ll figure it out.
0:11:44 So we started off with one person there
0:11:45 and then we went to two
0:11:48 and they kept giving us more and more responsibility.
0:11:50 They kept kind of firing their W2 employees
0:11:51 and having us take on more.
0:11:54 So it was one to two to three.
0:11:54 And then we ended up,
0:11:56 we ended up having four people there
0:11:58 five to six days a week and we fulfilled it.
0:11:59 It was a lot of cleaning, a lot of work
0:12:01 but it would end up being really good.
0:12:02 So how they ended up just calling me.
0:12:04 I was advertising with Google
0:12:06 and he just gave me a call and we ran with that one.
0:12:08 Now what I’ll say with this too
0:12:10 is that it wasn’t always easy.
0:12:12 But I protected that account.
0:12:13 Like when you have a big account
0:12:16 that is more than probably 50% of your whole portfolio
0:12:18 ’cause at first it was,
0:12:19 I protected that thing with my life.
0:12:22 I said, when anybody called from there,
0:12:23 I was the one that I wanted to answer.
0:12:24 I wanted to talk to them, I wanted to solve the problem
0:12:26 because everything’s not always perfect there.
0:12:29 What happened was a cleaner would miss.
0:12:30 I didn’t really always have backups there.
0:12:32 So we’ve had three people, one was sick.
0:12:33 You know who went in there
0:12:35 and did the cleaning for four hours that night?
0:12:36 – It’s gotta be you.
0:12:37 – Exactly.
0:12:38 And I was in there and I was like,
0:12:40 and I’d be so ticked, like, dang it.
0:12:41 I have to go spend my freaking night,
0:12:42 NBA playoffs or something.
0:12:43 I gotta go spend my night.
0:12:44 It’s gonna take me five hours.
0:12:45 And it did.
0:12:46 And I’m like, and you know what?
0:12:48 In the next morning and you know how I woke up?
0:12:51 Soar, soar, ’cause it’s daunting work.
0:12:52 – It’s labor, yeah.
0:12:54 – But I protected it and I made sure
0:12:56 that we fulfilled it every night.
0:12:56 We didn’t miss.
0:12:58 We ended up having it for a couple of years.
0:13:00 More with Skylar in just a moment,
0:13:03 including how he gets local leads from a networking group
0:13:05 and what happens when cleaners try
0:13:07 and poach customers right after this?
0:13:09 – Running a business is hard.
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0:15:21 – Okay, so they found you through a Google ad.
0:15:22 You’ve mentioned Angie,
0:15:24 mentioned a little bit of the SEO
0:15:28 starting to build up a presence for the website itself.
0:15:32 Thumbtack exists maybe not as easy picking
0:15:35 or as lucrative as it once was with $7 leads.
0:15:38 What else is a lead source these days?
0:15:41 – Yep, so I also joined a networking chapter.
0:15:43 What it is that we meet once a week
0:15:46 and there’s business owners and people in different trades
0:15:48 in my city from all different trades.
0:15:50 There’s realtors, mortgage lenders, loans,
0:15:53 electrician plumbers, heating, air conditioning.
0:15:54 Pretty much you name it,
0:15:56 every trade should be in there, not every–
0:15:58 – What’s it like a BI or what’s like the–
0:15:59 – B and I, yep.
0:16:00 – Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
0:16:02 – So we’re all in there and the whole point is
0:16:05 is like if you ever need a service, use each other.
0:16:08 And it’s a really cool thing
0:16:10 because you’re friends with these people
0:16:12 and yet we don’t ask for discounts, right?
0:16:14 So everybody pays regular price
0:16:16 but if you need a service, use each other.
0:16:18 And so those guys use me as well
0:16:19 and I use them as well
0:16:22 and it was just a good way to kind of get things rolling
0:16:24 that way as well and kind of bringing more
0:16:25 just from the networking aspect.
0:16:27 – Is the rule like we can only have one service provider
0:16:29 and every industry or niche should we,
0:16:31 hey, we need a cleaning guy, so you’re welcome in.
0:16:34 – Exactly, yeah, one of each, exactly.
0:16:35 So no more other cleaners can be in there.
0:16:37 We’re the exclusive cleaner of the group.
0:16:38 You know, there’s only one plumber of the group,
0:16:39 only one realtor in the group.
0:16:41 Yeah, otherwise there’s just different groups.
0:16:42 – Yeah, that’s true.
0:16:44 I guess you go start, spin off your own chapter
0:16:45 if you’re like number two in line.
0:16:47 Like, okay, fine, well I’m making my own group.
0:16:48 I remember going to a couple of those meetings
0:16:50 for the painting business and–
0:16:51 – Oh, you did painting?
0:16:52 Okay.
0:16:54 – Yeah, yeah, we’ll pass referrals along.
0:16:57 It’s almost, you kind of need that group of individuals
0:16:59 where you occupy cleaning
0:17:01 as like that little sliver of brain space.
0:17:02 Like, okay, ding, ding, ding, ding.
0:17:04 Oh, I have a guy, I know somebody.
0:17:05 I got to refer somebody.
0:17:07 You know, whether it’s web design or pressure washing
0:17:09 or you know, anything online or offline,
0:17:12 if you can occupy that little bit of referral brain space
0:17:14 for people, so if ever that comes up, you’re like,
0:17:16 hey, you ought to talk to this, oh and so.
0:17:17 Yeah, I think that’s a good place to be.
0:17:18 – Yeah, it is.
0:17:20 You know what I’ve learned from it too is like,
0:17:23 being in people’s homes is very personal.
0:17:25 It’s sacred almost really.
0:17:26 Like, we’re not changing somebody’s tires.
0:17:29 We’re going in their home, it’s their personal space
0:17:31 and so if it’s a brother or sister or best friend,
0:17:34 like, if things go totally haywire, we laugh, it’s fine.
0:17:36 With an acquaintance, like, it could potentially ruin
0:17:38 a friendship, you know what I mean?
0:17:40 Like, we meet each other, but we’re not best friends
0:17:43 and so what it’s been interesting is like,
0:17:46 my price structure isn’t the lowest in the city.
0:17:48 We’re definitely above average on pricing.
0:17:49 I think we’re very fair.
0:17:52 We’re not the highest, but we’re also not the lowest.
0:17:54 I tell people that, but what I’ll tell you is that
0:17:55 what you’re going to pay for is you’re going to pay
0:17:58 for positive communication, you’re going to pay for us
0:18:00 showing up, us doing the work and us making sure
0:18:02 it’s done right, you know, because a lot of times
0:18:06 people don’t show up who charge lower and what happens
0:18:07 is we get a lot of calls that people say,
0:18:10 hey, I need a cleaner, well what happened to yours?
0:18:11 ‘Cause I used to have a cleaner, they don’t show up anymore.
0:18:12 What do you mean?
0:18:13 Well, they don’t show up.
0:18:15 Okay, how much were you paying previously?
0:18:16 $10 an hour, right?
0:18:19 Something that’s not even realistic.
0:18:20 That’s why they didn’t show up, yeah.
0:18:22 Exactly, they want to get an office job
0:18:23 ’cause they can’t afford this life.
0:18:25 And so point is, yeah, we’re gonna be a little bit more
0:18:27 expensive, so if you can find Sheila down the street,
0:18:29 you can do it and that’s what some of the people
0:18:31 in our group, they don’t always use us for home cleaning.
0:18:34 In fact, none of us use us for home cleaning
0:18:36 and that’s fine because maybe they have their own people,
0:18:38 but what we’ve gotten luck with is like using it
0:18:41 for businesses, commercial cleaning, so that’s been good.
0:18:45 When you’re going out to bid a job or even submit an estimate
0:18:47 on a job, how are you thinking about the margins
0:18:48 for like a cost of labor?
0:18:51 Like do we want to do 50/50, do we want to do 60/40?
0:18:53 Like what makes sense there?
0:18:55 When I do a residential, I’ve got it down
0:18:59 to a pretty good area where based on the square footage
0:19:02 and based on the extras, I know how long it’s gonna take.
0:19:04 And based on that, I’ve got a flat rate price.
0:19:04 We just do flat rate.
0:19:07 Flat rate makes it easy because I know how long
0:19:09 it should take my cleaner and everybody can be paid.
0:19:11 If my cleaner’s faster and they do a great job,
0:19:13 hey, kudos to them, they like that better.
0:19:14 If it takes them a little bit longer,
0:19:17 well, you know, I gotta do better on my estimation.
0:19:20 But only in certain situations while I do an hourly rate,
0:19:23 only if I’m, you know, ’cause my job as the owner
0:19:24 of this company is to try and solve problems.
0:19:27 So if I can’t figure out if my clean is $400
0:19:29 and all they have a budget for is $200,
0:19:32 well then let’s see what can I do for them for $200.
0:19:34 And so maybe I’ll do an hourly deal, three hour maximum.
0:19:36 The problem with doing an hourly deal
0:19:38 is that now the customer thinks
0:19:39 you should have got more done in three hours.
0:19:41 So that’s why I try and stay away from it
0:19:42 because then they want to complain about it.
0:19:44 – But then on the flip side, like if you do flat rate
0:19:47 and they’re in and out in, you know, an hour and 15 minutes,
0:19:48 you’re like, well, dang, you know,
0:19:50 then you start calculating the hourly rate in your head too.
0:19:52 – Exactly, exactly, exactly.
0:19:54 So it works, everybody does it,
0:19:57 but at least it makes it easier and cleaner for most people.
0:19:59 You don’t have to watch the clock and we do flat rate.
0:20:00 So I usually do the flat rate.
0:20:02 To answer your question on the margins,
0:20:04 it depends, every cleaner has a little bit
0:20:07 of a different situation, especially when I first started,
0:20:08 I was giving more to my cleaners.
0:20:10 Now it’s a little bit less,
0:20:12 but that’s also because we’ve built a brand
0:20:15 and reputation that if they work with us and they’re good,
0:20:17 they’re going to continue to get jobs.
0:20:19 And so I’ve built that brand for years,
0:20:21 whereas they can just show up today and get jobs.
0:20:23 So with that being said,
0:20:27 it’s anywhere from 40% to the cleaner to 60%.
0:20:31 And I really don’t want to pay my cleaner much less
0:20:34 than about $70 per visit, generally,
0:20:37 just because of the time, the gas and all that,
0:20:38 like the way the world is today,
0:20:40 if you pay somebody 40, 50 bucks
0:20:43 to go spend an hour and a half, it’s tough, I think.
0:20:44 – Yeah, that’s helpful.
0:20:45 And that’s interesting to hear.
0:20:47 Like, okay, starting out,
0:20:49 I’m willing to accept a lower margin again,
0:20:50 ’cause I still got the day job, right?
0:20:51 I’m building this brand.
0:20:55 And then as that reputation and branding improves,
0:20:58 then kind of like Nike or like North Face
0:21:01 or these like elite brands or high prestige brands,
0:21:03 or it’s like, yeah, there’s definitely gonna be
0:21:04 some more margin built in.
0:21:06 – Yeah, I would try and do that.
0:21:07 But also with that being said,
0:21:10 there’s more margin potentially on some of these jobs,
0:21:12 but there’s less margin ’cause now I’ve gotta update my CRM.
0:21:14 So that’s gonna cost me more money.
0:21:17 I’ve also helped people out with supplies.
0:21:19 If they’re gonna be there all the time,
0:21:22 then I’ll let them loan something to them.
0:21:23 And then I’ve had to hire more people.
0:21:24 There’s more helpers now.
0:21:26 Like I don’t have, I’m hiring more people
0:21:29 to help in the office, so they have to pay them as well.
0:21:32 So, and then also with residential compared to commercial,
0:21:35 it’s gonna be a different margin.
0:21:37 A lot of times, commercial is, it’s a tricky one.
0:21:39 Sometimes you can only get like 20, 30% margins
0:21:41 when you’re competing with the ABMs of the world
0:21:44 because they hire employees and they’ll hire employees
0:21:45 for a minimum wage at $14, $15 an hour
0:21:48 and they’re willing to take a 30, 40% margin
0:21:51 and just keep on stacking as many accounts as they can.
0:21:53 Whereas I would do more quality than quantity.
0:21:56 – Well, you could be 40 to 60% on residential.
0:21:59 – Yeah, I won’t just go 40 to 60% on a commercial job.
0:22:00 I’ll never win that.
0:22:03 I might only be able to say, if it’s a $150 job,
0:22:06 I might only be able to tack on 30% of that,
0:22:08 which is another 30, 40 bucks.
0:22:10 I might only make $30, $40 a day on it.
0:22:11 So I’m willing to do that
0:22:14 if I’m able to get more quantity,
0:22:16 but it just has to be through the right value.
0:22:19 – Sure, yeah, higher volume instead of coming back
0:22:22 every two or three weeks, it’s coming back every night.
0:22:26 Okay, that makes, man, this is super interesting stuff.
0:22:27 Do you have a picture of the pie chart
0:22:29 between residential and commercial as it stands today?
0:22:31 – I don’t have an exact picture
0:22:32 ’cause it’s kind of ever changing.
0:22:34 That’s the thing with this too is like the churn, right?
0:22:37 So there’s always churn and what I like to look at,
0:22:38 I just made up this stat on my own,
0:22:41 but we used to have, I used to always track
0:22:43 new recurring revenue every month.
0:22:44 And I want, and I have, you know,
0:22:47 in my personal opinion, I like to get over 2,500 per month,
0:22:50 new recurring revenue, but that doesn’t track the churn,
0:22:52 which in cleaning, it’s finicky.
0:22:54 And so people are going to naturally churn.
0:22:56 You want to keep it as low as you can, but,
0:22:58 so if we lose a couple, if we lose a weekly customer,
0:23:01 it’s $300 a week, I just lost over $1,200 a month, you know?
0:23:05 And so I track now net recurring new revenue,
0:23:09 net new recurring revenue, which is take my churn,
0:23:11 take my new recurring revenue minus my churn, average it out.
0:23:13 And that’s what we, you know, that’s our new growth.
0:23:15 I’ve been at like $600 a month on that
0:23:17 over the past six, seven months.
0:23:18 It’s kind of a new thing I’m tracking,
0:23:21 which seems to be okay, not as much of a growth
0:23:22 as I thought, but you know what?
0:23:24 People are finicky, they’re going to naturally churn.
0:23:26 You just have to try and keep it to as much
0:23:27 to a minimum as I can.
0:23:30 – Okay, this is like, I added three new clients,
0:23:31 but I lost one, right?
0:23:33 It’s like as long as the number stays positive,
0:23:35 the business is growing.
0:23:35 – Exactly.
0:23:37 Now, the only thing is, is I don’t even care as much
0:23:39 about how many customers I add,
0:23:41 because if that one customer was a weekly customer
0:23:44 and they were paying 300 a visit, I lost 1,200 revenue.
0:23:47 But if I only get three more new recurring customers
0:23:50 and they’re once a month at 300 a month, I still lose.
0:23:52 ‘Cause I only gained, you know, $900 that month,
0:23:55 but I lost 1,200 because that customer was so valuable.
0:23:57 – Yeah, and there’s more logistical complexity
0:24:00 in dealing with more people rather than less.
0:24:01 – Exactly, yep.
0:24:04 – It is a good business from the standpoint
0:24:06 of there is this recurring revenue component
0:24:07 where stuff is gonna keep getting dirty.
0:24:09 You’re gonna want to keep coming back.
0:24:11 What reasons do you find people say,
0:24:13 ah, you know, I gotta put a pause on this service.
0:24:16 I’m gonna try somebody cheaper.
0:24:17 I’m gonna bring it in a house.
0:24:19 Like what do you see reasons for that turn?
0:24:22 – Obviously price is always gonna be a big one.
0:24:23 Hey, we’ve got stuff going on,
0:24:25 or maybe, hey, we’re gonna be going to Florida
0:24:28 for the winter, so we’re gonna be gone.
0:24:30 But price, or we’re moving, that’s always it.
0:24:32 But then if you wanna dig deeper,
0:24:33 which I always wanna find out, like, okay,
0:24:36 well, this price’s been working for you for four months,
0:24:37 so what’s going on?
0:24:39 And sometimes I’ll just go radio silent,
0:24:41 or they’ll tell me a number,
0:24:42 and if they tell me a number and I can work with it,
0:24:45 I say, let’s try this, or we can negotiate, right?
0:24:46 Or if they’re just at this crazy number
0:24:48 that doesn’t even make sense, we have to let them go.
0:24:51 But sometimes it’s price, right?
0:24:52 But other times it’s, I don’t even,
0:24:54 they don’t even really wanna respond to me.
0:24:56 And so I’ve had, that’s the other thing I have to guard
0:24:59 against is poaching for my current cleaners.
0:25:00 Because it can happen.
0:25:02 – Okay, okay.
0:25:04 Yeah, they’re like, why are we paying 50%
0:25:05 over to here at a Skyler?
0:25:07 We could just do this deal direct.
0:25:08 – They try to, they’ll try to.
0:25:10 And so the customers will try and get,
0:25:11 we don’t, we try and keep the,
0:25:14 a limitation of how much my cleaner has their phone number,
0:25:16 but you can’t always, they might, you know,
0:25:17 that my cleaner might go there
0:25:18 and they might exchange phone numbers.
0:25:20 Or if your cleaner doesn’t getting
0:25:21 a lot, a lot of work from you,
0:25:24 they, you just don’t know, they might say something.
0:25:27 And I bet they have, because I’ve gotten customers telling me,
0:25:29 hey, they’re trying to, they’re trying to like cut you out,
0:25:30 just so you know, they try to get me.
0:25:31 I’ve gone over to people’s houses
0:25:33 and asked them personally,
0:25:36 because they just out of the blue, quit.
0:25:37 – Anything you do to prevent that?
0:25:39 – I try and put them on the stand with me
0:25:41 and we just talk and to say, you know,
0:25:42 did you say something?
0:25:45 And did you by chance talk about doing this cheaper?
0:25:46 Did you guys talk about money?
0:25:48 But then they always answer the right question.
0:25:49 So then the other thing I’ve done is like,
0:25:52 okay, screw this, my sister, she lives not too far away.
0:25:54 We’ll send her to her house.
0:25:57 And I’ll see if the cleaner is going to try
0:26:00 and leave a business card or leave a phone number.
0:26:03 – You got like a spy on the inside.
0:26:04 – Yeah, I got a spy.
0:26:05 She’s an inside spy.
0:26:07 So, you know, my sister, she gets a,
0:26:10 she gets a free clean, so she’s happy.
0:26:12 And she needs to report to me if I got a poacher.
0:26:13 – Oh, funny.
0:26:14 No, that’s great.
0:26:15 – So that’s kind of how that works there.
0:26:18 And then, I mean, obviously if they’re poaching,
0:26:19 we’ve already set clear expectations.
0:26:20 That’s a no, no.
0:26:23 And so, you know, I would let them go then.
0:26:24 – Okay.
0:26:27 Anything else on the inbound customer lead flow side,
0:26:28 especially in the early days?
0:26:31 – Well leads, the cleaning business has really changed.
0:26:34 It’s just like, it’s like buying businesses right now.
0:26:36 Buying businesses is super duper hot, I feel like,
0:26:37 especially on Twitter.
0:26:40 And what it was like a year or two ago
0:26:41 was cleaning businesses.
0:26:42 And there was what I’ll say right now is that
0:26:45 I joined a cleaning academy as well.
0:26:49 And I joined it with Johnny Robinson and Sergio with HSA.
0:26:51 And those guys are awesome.
0:26:52 They’re very awesome.
0:26:55 So doing coaching through them and doing lessons HSA
0:26:59 and Johnny and Sergio and Trevor getting people off
0:27:01 on the right foot and really getting them results.
0:27:03 – Anything specific that they helped you with
0:27:04 on the marketing side?
0:27:08 – Yeah, for the marketing is like Google pay per click ads.
0:27:09 I didn’t really do a whole lot of,
0:27:13 but local service ads, people use Google local service ads.
0:27:14 So I’d use that.
0:27:16 And we had just a lot of word of mouth,
0:27:18 like passing out business cards,
0:27:20 going to realtors house, trying to meet with people,
0:27:22 like meet with realtors as well
0:27:23 and just going to an open house.
0:27:25 So they’d give me tips and tricks to do that.
0:27:27 Facebook posting, posting in mom groups, stuff like that.
0:27:29 So those guys would always be like, hey, try this,
0:27:30 try this, try this.
0:27:32 And it works, it works.
0:27:37 – Yeah, start to give, you know, cast a presence online
0:27:38 and in person.
0:27:39 I like the realtor angle of, you know,
0:27:41 what are the potential lead fountains
0:27:44 where it’s like instead of this one-to-one, hand-to-hand,
0:27:45 you know, okay, I got somebody.
0:27:48 It’s like, well, who knows lots of potential customers.
0:27:49 So they need this house staged and cleaned
0:27:52 or you know, they’re just in and out of a lot.
0:27:53 They know lots of different people in town.
0:27:54 That’s a good way to go.
0:27:57 And these different mom groups on Facebook.
0:27:58 One thing that I just think is interesting
0:28:00 about the cleaning business in general,
0:28:02 like I think back to like my childhood
0:28:04 and my neighborhood growing up,
0:28:05 I don’t know if anybody had a cleaner
0:28:06 or is this just something we didn’t talk about?
0:28:09 Or like, I don’t know, but like now it’s super,
0:28:11 super common like for our neighbors,
0:28:14 you see the car, you see the little maid car pull up
0:28:16 and stuff, it’s like become a thing.
0:28:20 Like so the point I’m trying to make is like the pie
0:28:21 has gotten a lot bigger.
0:28:22 And obviously there’s more competition,
0:28:24 but it’s still super fragmented.
0:28:27 There’s not any one national company or brand
0:28:29 that like, you know, has a commanding market share here.
0:28:31 It’s still super localized, super mom and pop,
0:28:33 super, you know, fragmented.
0:28:36 And so that’s where the opportunity lies to come in
0:28:39 and build something like a Nebraska elite cleaning
0:28:41 with almost 300 reviews on Google now.
0:28:43 So there’s something going on there.
0:28:46 I do want to talk about how you have generated
0:28:48 that volume of positive feedback.
0:28:50 How Skyler is collecting those Google reviews,
0:28:53 the other tools and tech he’s using to manage the business
0:28:55 and how he’s running this thing on the side
0:28:57 from his day job right after this.
0:28:59 – Yeah, well, we’ve had a lot of customers.
0:29:03 And so we all, I mean, I have a couple of assistants as well.
0:29:06 And it’s just important for us that I want to do quality,
0:29:08 quality control as kind of as soon as we can
0:29:10 after the clean, like quality control to me
0:29:12 just means let’s talk with the customer,
0:29:13 let’s make sure they’re happy.
0:29:15 Another thing is I always want my cleaner to do a walkthrough,
0:29:17 make sure that the customer is happy when we’re done.
0:29:19 And so, I mean, obviously not always,
0:29:22 but almost obviously, almost always we have good feedback.
0:29:26 And so when that happens, hey, would you guys help us out?
0:29:27 We’re a small local business
0:29:30 and we could really appreciate a Google review.
0:29:33 And just by simply asking and especially trying to strike
0:29:35 the firewall, the iron’s hot right after the clean
0:29:36 and getting that done,
0:29:38 people will more often than not do it.
0:29:41 – Yeah, the next closest competitor that shows up for me
0:29:43 when I Google Omaha cleaners has eight.
0:29:47 So it’s like 293 for Nebraska Elite Cleaning.
0:29:48 Next guy, eight.
0:29:51 So it’s just like, oh, clearly these people
0:29:52 who are serious about the business,
0:29:53 this is the one thing I’m gonna hire.
0:29:56 And you might find that whatever your niche
0:29:59 plus locality is, like it might not take,
0:30:01 I mean, if you can hit double digits, right?
0:30:03 It’s, you know, I was always trying to get to double digits
0:30:04 on like book launch reviews.
0:30:06 It’s like, there’s certain, you know,
0:30:08 it might not take very much to just really stand out
0:30:09 against the competition.
0:30:11 So that’s an interesting way.
0:30:14 Anything tools and tech wise that you’re using
0:30:15 either for that review collection
0:30:17 or if that’s just hand to hand,
0:30:18 hey, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, you know,
0:30:20 thanks so much for having us over today.
0:30:21 Let’s take a look around.
0:30:22 Anything that we missed, you know,
0:30:23 make sure you’re happy.
0:30:24 Would you mind helping us out?
0:30:26 If you are happy, here’s the, you know, QR code.
0:30:28 Like here’s the link to the Google review or whatever.
0:30:31 Anything else that helps run the business
0:30:34 from tools and tech and scheduling and phone management,
0:30:35 like all the different pieces here.
0:30:37 – There’s a few different softwares
0:30:40 and I’d use one as well that will automatically
0:30:42 when a job is completed,
0:30:44 send over a text message to the customer
0:30:46 that they can give us a review.
0:30:47 – Ooh, which one is that?
0:30:48 – It’s called nice job.
0:30:50 I think it’s about $75 a month.
0:30:54 But what it does is it sends reviews,
0:30:55 a review right to the customer
0:30:57 and then it follows up like a day or a couple of days later
0:30:59 and then a couple of days later again and with an email.
0:31:03 So it’ll continuously kind of hit the customer.
0:31:04 And if they had a good experience
0:31:06 along with us potentially texting them and saying,
0:31:07 hey, you know, did you have a good experience?
0:31:09 Okay, well you leave us that review.
0:31:10 Then maybe they say they will on a Tuesday
0:31:12 and then they forget on Tuesday
0:31:13 and then they get their automated text
0:31:16 from Nice Job on a Thursday, then they maybe do it.
0:31:18 So that helps to get those as well
0:31:20 along with just the personal part of it.
0:31:22 We try and give them a call and ask for one as well
0:31:24 if they had a good experience.
0:31:25 – Got it, cool.
0:31:28 How about on the scheduling and team management side?
0:31:31 – Yeah, so on the scheduling and team management side,
0:31:33 I would say, well, it’s gotten bigger.
0:31:35 And so having a day job, I couldn’t do it all.
0:31:38 And it was hard to let go because as a business owner,
0:31:39 you think you’re the best
0:31:41 and you’re the only one that can do it.
0:31:43 So it took like the 80/20 rule.
0:31:46 If you let 80% of the job can be done
0:31:47 by somebody else at a good level
0:31:50 and not to do too much micromanaging.
0:31:53 So I got a couple of assistants, I actually have four now.
0:31:54 They help with all the scheduling.
0:31:58 They do all the inbounds for me, take our inbound calls
0:32:00 and they deal with most all customer interaction,
0:32:03 except the stuff that I do in person
0:32:05 and do the scheduling and do the customers
0:32:06 and also deal with my cleaners.
0:32:09 So we keep those guys pretty busy generally.
0:32:10 – Is there a phone system
0:32:12 or a like scheduling app software
0:32:14 that they’re using to say
0:32:16 which people need to go where at what time?
0:32:20 – So booking Koala is what I use for the CRM booking Koala.
0:32:23 And it’s pretty nice and a lot of home services,
0:32:24 home services I believe use it.
0:32:28 I think it can be used for like lawn care, handyman,
0:32:30 probably carpet shampooing companies.
0:32:32 So it’s pretty handy there.
0:32:33 – That’s a new one, booking Koala.
0:32:35 Like we’ve had people mentioned jobber in the past,
0:32:37 but I never heard of booking Koala.
0:32:38 – Yeah, booking Koala,
0:32:40 that company’s doing pretty darn well.
0:32:42 So I think it’s $57 a month
0:32:45 or you can go if you have like more than 50 providers
0:32:48 then it goes over up to like 157,
0:32:50 but it’s relatively cheap, $57 a month.
0:32:51 I use booking Koala.
0:32:54 I use open phone for my phone system.
0:32:56 And that way everybody,
0:32:58 I can always see who’s responding to texts
0:32:59 and calls and who’s on a call.
0:33:02 So that makes it pretty easy as well.
0:33:02 And then we use Slack.
0:33:05 I communicate with my assistants via Slack
0:33:08 so we can just have good communication and a plan.
0:33:11 – I wanna commend you for plugging all our sponsors
0:33:12 in this episode.
0:33:14 – No, right.
0:33:17 I didn’t know if it was a sponsor episode,
0:33:18 but yeah, absolutely.
0:33:21 – Yeah, indeed has been great as a sponsor.
0:33:22 Open phone has been great as a sponsor.
0:33:24 There’s, maybe as we keep going,
0:33:25 we’ll check off a couple more here.
0:33:26 – Yeah, exactly, right?
0:33:27 – No, you’re doing awesome.
0:33:29 – But yeah, we use a lot of different tech
0:33:32 and just try and automate what can be automated
0:33:34 and keep the personal touch alive as well.
0:33:37 – Yeah, one thing I forgot to clarify
0:33:38 on the cleaners themselves.
0:33:40 You mentioned, hey, sometimes it’s better
0:33:43 to have them as a W2 and maybe under the eyes of the law,
0:33:44 they are, if they’re working for you,
0:33:46 communicating with you every day.
0:33:49 Like do you have that structured as contractors
0:33:52 or they’re W2 people under your brand?
0:33:55 – Yeah, they’re structured as subcontractors
0:33:57 and we have them sign a subcontractor
0:33:58 or cleaner agreement as well.
0:34:00 So they know they’re a subcontractor
0:34:03 and before I kind of even get them onboarded to do cleans,
0:34:05 I have them fill out a 1099 form
0:34:09 and sign my cleaners agreement and get insurance.
0:34:10 I have insurance, but I also want them
0:34:11 to have insurance as well.
0:34:14 So everybody’s insured in case anything happens
0:34:15 and absolutely things break.
0:34:18 – Yeah, and if they were already doing freelance
0:34:20 cleaning gigs or something they probably already had.
0:34:21 – You know, they should have it,
0:34:24 but I would say probably like 20% of them only have it,
0:34:26 maybe less, like not very many have it as many as you think,
0:34:28 but yeah, they should.
0:34:30 – Like just a general liability policy
0:34:32 for you’re in somebody’s house and you break something.
0:34:34 – Exactly, like up to, I think up to a million
0:34:37 is what it is kind of the standard there.
0:34:40 So like a million dollars and it’s probably about $50 a month
0:34:42 right around 50 a month for both parties.
0:34:45 And yeah, we just structured as a subcontractor.
0:34:48 Why? Because there’s payroll taxes,
0:34:50 there’s workers comp, there’s a lot of other things
0:34:54 that come into play and then when you have them as a W2.
0:34:57 So it’s a little bit cleaner as a subcontractor,
0:34:59 but you also have a little bit less control.
0:35:01 I can’t really tell them what to do, how to do it.
0:35:04 They can still not take jobs.
0:35:05 Yeah, they can kind of work on their own schedule
0:35:07 and I can’t really tell them how to do their work.
0:35:09 And they can work for another company too.
0:35:11 They can work for me and three other companies.
0:35:13 – Sure, and you kind of get the impression
0:35:16 that that is how somebody is gonna fill out their schedule
0:35:18 as like a free agent almost.
0:35:20 Well, yeah, I’ll do some work over here,
0:35:22 I’ll do some work on my own and fill in the blank
0:35:23 with something else.
0:35:24 Maybe it’s cleaning, maybe it’s not,
0:35:26 but I’m gonna piece together this income
0:35:28 from a few different sources.
0:35:30 So you got the day job, you got the cleaning business,
0:35:34 you’re buying up a carpet cleaning business,
0:35:36 you’re starting all this other stuff.
0:35:37 Talk to me about a day in the life.
0:35:40 Like, how do you juggle all of this stuff
0:35:41 and all of it?
0:35:42 It sounds like you got a great team of assistants
0:35:45 that are kind of handling the day-to-day bookings,
0:35:47 but there’s still gonna be fires to put out.
0:35:48 There’s still like other things.
0:35:50 What’s, walk me through a typical day
0:35:51 if there is such a thing.
0:35:53 – There’s so many fires to put out
0:35:54 and that’s like what I am.
0:35:56 Like being a business owner and everybody knows it,
0:35:58 but I’m a professional firefighter.
0:36:01 Like every day, you know, what keeps me sane,
0:36:04 I try and always get myself a lift-in
0:36:06 just to like say, at least I invest in myself today
0:36:07 in some capacity.
0:36:08 So I try and be as healthy as I can,
0:36:11 get a lift-in if I can, and then try and eat healthy,
0:36:12 but a day in the life.
0:36:14 So when I first started this business,
0:36:17 it take, the advantage I had or have or had
0:36:18 was I’m single.
0:36:19 I’m single, I had a girlfriend,
0:36:22 but I didn’t have kids and I also worked a job
0:36:24 or do still work a job that’s in sales.
0:36:26 So there’s a little bit of flexibility
0:36:27 as long as you’re hitting your numbers.
0:36:28 And so I always hit my numbers.
0:36:30 And so there was flexibility.
0:36:31 And so I was able to kind of move around,
0:36:34 but it wasn’t uncommon for me to work
0:36:37 from nine or 10 p.m. till three.
0:36:38 And so at first start of just being, okay,
0:36:39 I’m gonna quit at two.
0:36:40 Then it started to be, I’m gonna quit at three.
0:36:41 Then I’m gonna quit at four.
0:36:43 And so like I’ve got to, I’ve got to continue
0:36:47 to be better about sleep and being more healthy.
0:36:49 And then that way, because right now my health
0:36:52 is probably not great, but it takes so much work,
0:36:53 especially to get things going.
0:36:54 – What are you doing during that time?
0:36:57 Like nobody is available to talk to you at 2 a.m.
0:36:58 – No, nobody’s available to talk to,
0:37:00 but I’ve got a list of things I need to do.
0:37:04 I wanna get like shirts for us to wear
0:37:07 that people, my cleaners can wear if they so desire.
0:37:09 We’ll pay ’em more, but it’s better for my brand.
0:37:13 My books too, like so the finance is part of it.
0:37:15 I’ve got to continue to keep up with that
0:37:17 and who still owes me money, right?
0:37:19 And so people that we usually do credit card payment
0:37:21 prior to, because I don’t wanna mess around.
0:37:23 If you don’t pay me, we have problems.
0:37:25 – Sure, okay, fair enough.
0:37:27 I do appreciate you sharing, like look,
0:37:29 this was a lot of late nights trying to get this thing
0:37:33 off the ground and those hours have gotta come somewhere.
0:37:35 There’s a way to structure it in a way
0:37:38 that doesn’t require you a ton like during the nine to five
0:37:40 during the day to day, but there’s still like
0:37:43 some heavy lifting, like just something doing the volume
0:37:45 that you’re doing doesn’t happen without effort.
0:37:48 And it’s good to hear that like no, no, no,
0:37:49 there was some sacrifices made.
0:37:51 – Yeah, just to kind of keep up with everything
0:37:54 because your cleaners are constantly kind of need to paid.
0:37:56 So I’m kind of like a piggy bank in some ways
0:37:58 because they won’t pay and they won’t pay today.
0:38:01 And it’s not uncommon like we had 22 cleans in a day
0:38:04 and that’s a lot of moving parts, a lot of moving parts.
0:38:05 And if somebody doesn’t show up,
0:38:07 I need to have a backup and so on and so forth.
0:38:10 – Is there any tool or system that you can use?
0:38:12 ‘Cause yeah, you’re collecting revenue from the customer
0:38:15 and then you gotta pay 40 to 60% of it out to the cleaner.
0:38:18 Like is there some way to automate that?
0:38:20 Or do you have to like go schedule 22 transactions,
0:38:22 you know, each day?
0:38:26 – Yeah, so the booking koala integrates with Stripe
0:38:28 and you know, so free plug to Stripe there again.
0:38:31 But anyways, that integrates and it holds a card.
0:38:35 And so if it’s a recurring clean, it’ll just charge
0:38:37 as soon as our cleaner clocks out.
0:38:39 So the card’s charged once they clocked out
0:38:41 and that collects the payment.
0:38:42 – Yeah, I’m just trying to figure out
0:38:44 ’cause it’s a lot to keep track of mentally.
0:38:47 And so it sounds like the booking koala is helping.
0:38:48 It’s okay, this person logged this job
0:38:50 or this many hours, so they are owed this much
0:38:53 and we collect it, like it’s tied to that card swipe
0:38:55 from the customer and then make it more seamless, I guess.
0:38:56 – Yeah, it’s a little seamless.
0:38:59 But the thing is when you get commercial jobs too,
0:39:00 that can be somewhat difficult
0:39:01 because they usually don’t pay.
0:39:03 It’s usually a net 15 or net 30.
0:39:05 And it’s thousands of dollars.
0:39:08 I’ve got to front that to labor, you know,
0:39:09 and I won’t get that check.
0:39:10 It’s gonna be a check payment too.
0:39:11 It’s gonna be a couple of weeks later.
0:39:14 So that’s just one of the small, it’s a small challenge,
0:39:16 but it’s okay, it’s worth it.
0:39:18 – Right, so you’re gonna have some cash flow
0:39:19 to be able to make that float.
0:39:21 – Exactly, you have to have a little bit more cash flow
0:39:22 to make that work, yep.
0:39:24 – What’s surprised you the most
0:39:25 over the last couple of years of building this?
0:39:27 – You can make money doing anything.
0:39:29 Like if you want to cut trees down,
0:39:30 I guarantee you can make money.
0:39:32 As an entrepreneur, there’s always ways to make money.
0:39:34 Just think of something that people pay for
0:39:35 and you can do it yourself.
0:39:37 I don’t want to have self-limiting beliefs too
0:39:40 because like when people say you can’t do that, why not?
0:39:41 Why not?
0:39:43 So self-limiting beliefs is one thing
0:39:45 that you can make money in two things.
0:39:48 And the other thing is like, we literally, in my opinion,
0:39:50 I think you can accomplish anything you want to do.
0:39:52 It’s just about what you’ll sacrifice.
0:39:53 Because I’ve seen it every time,
0:39:54 like if I wanted to continue to coach,
0:39:56 I could just want to sacrifice a little bit longer
0:39:57 for a little bit more.
0:39:59 And I could have done what I wanted to do.
0:40:00 Same thing with this business.
0:40:02 Like we can probably continue to grow this
0:40:03 as far as we want to go.
0:40:05 It’s just about what you’ll sacrifice.
0:40:07 How many more fires do I want to put out, right?
0:40:09 Because there’s more money equals more fires,
0:40:12 but truly like you can make so much money
0:40:14 through this through being an entrepreneur
0:40:17 if you are willing to withstand a lot of pain.
0:40:19 And some pain, I’m not gonna say it’s all pain,
0:40:20 but like I was talking with the person
0:40:22 I built the business from yesterday
0:40:24 and she goes, that’s a business owner, right?
0:40:25 Like it sucks most of the time
0:40:26 until we go cash that check, right?
0:40:28 That’s like usually the best time.
0:40:30 And so being a business owner, small business owner,
0:40:31 like a lot falls on our shoulders,
0:40:35 but I enjoy the daily adventure truly,
0:40:38 like the roller coaster and like winning or like,
0:40:39 hey, we did a great job.
0:40:40 Let’s keep on pushing forward.
0:40:42 Like I actually enjoy that.
0:40:44 And I don’t really think of it as work.
0:40:46 Like to me, it’s actually pretty fun.
0:40:47 Yeah, if you can turn it into a game,
0:40:48 if you can have fun doing it,
0:40:51 recognize that you’re privileged to be able to play it
0:40:55 and try and play it at a competitive and high level
0:40:56 and get better every day.
0:40:58 The advantages like no two days are the same,
0:41:00 which is kind of exciting.
0:41:00 Yeah, exactly.
0:41:02 And I’m a bit grateful to have a lot of job
0:41:04 or like, at least my one corporate job was like that,
0:41:05 where it’s like, you’re driving around,
0:41:07 you’re talking to different people.
0:41:09 There wasn’t a whole lot of monotony to it,
0:41:10 which I think helped.
0:41:12 But, and then as a business owner, right,
0:41:14 it’s just professional firefighters.
0:41:15 What’s gonna happen today?
0:41:18 And then try to build systems and processes around like,
0:41:20 okay, I could squash out this fire,
0:41:22 but how do I make sure it doesn’t flare up again
0:41:24 and getting better about that?
0:41:24 Yeah, exactly.
0:41:28 And so, and my assistants are huge for me, you know,
0:41:29 having them and just,
0:41:31 I guess I spent a lot of time with them.
0:41:33 So I don’t talk to the customer a whole lot anymore,
0:41:36 but I spend hours with them given them direction on,
0:41:39 hey, here’s what I need you to tell this customer,
0:41:40 tell this cleaner, here’s what we’re gonna do there.
0:41:42 And just giving them a general plan,
0:41:44 but kind of having them execute it.
0:41:46 Yeah, having them execute it.
0:41:48 So they’ve been huge.
0:41:50 Are you going to expand geographically?
0:41:52 If you wanna keep putting out more and more fires
0:41:54 as the revenue grows or, you know,
0:41:57 franchise this thing nationally, what’s next for you?
0:41:58 You gonna sell it?
0:41:59 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:42:00 So great question.
0:42:02 I mean, do I wanna franchise?
0:42:04 I never thought I wanted to own a cleaning business.
0:42:06 So, you know, who knows?
0:42:08 But right now that’s not necessarily something I wanna do.
0:42:10 Do I want to eventually sell it?
0:42:13 Yeah, and probably just continue to grow, I guess,
0:42:14 but eventually sell it.
0:42:16 But do I wanna go a different area?
0:42:18 Like I said before, I kind of tried that
0:42:20 and I did it in Texas and it worked.
0:42:23 I mean, in a year, I don’t know if I’ve even done,
0:42:25 I don’t even think I’ve done $100,000 in sales,
0:42:27 which would be 12 times eight.
0:42:29 That’s not even probably 10,000 a month.
0:42:31 You know, so that’s not real,
0:42:32 that’s not really, really that big.
0:42:34 It’s actually probably really small,
0:42:35 maybe less than 100,000.
0:42:37 So to think that you can scale it and you–
0:42:39 I don’t know, pause you there.
0:42:41 I imagine a lot of people listening be like,
0:42:43 “Dang, we can’t use the word only.”
0:42:44 In front of 10 grand a month.
0:42:47 It’s still pretty significant from something,
0:42:50 to wheel something into existence from zero to one.
0:42:51 It’s a pretty big deal.
0:42:51 Yeah, you’re so right.
0:42:52 Yeah, great point.
0:42:54 It’s small and it’s hard to keep up
0:42:57 and I’m not pushing as much effort into it.
0:43:00 Like I could probably hire somebody to cold call companies
0:43:02 and push more reviews there
0:43:07 and also push more up SEO or online stuff there,
0:43:08 but I’m not.
0:43:10 So do I wanna grow one another place?
0:43:11 Only over acquisition.
0:43:13 Probably not starting from the ground up again.
0:43:15 Would I sell this one someday?
0:43:16 Yeah, I would sell it.
0:43:17 And not because I don’t wanna do it.
0:43:18 I like doing it.
0:43:19 I like what I’ve built,
0:43:21 but I always kinda wanna keep leveling up
0:43:23 whatever that may be.
0:43:24 Growth through acquisition.
0:43:26 Now you’re getting into different niches
0:43:28 kind of in the home services space
0:43:30 like carpet cleaning and painting
0:43:32 and kind of if you follow the same playbook,
0:43:34 you think the same playbook is gonna apply
0:43:35 across different verticals?
0:43:37 I think there’s some similarities
0:43:39 but there’s definitely differences too.
0:43:41 The good thing about cleaning is that it’s,
0:43:42 recurring, okay?
0:43:43 That’s your best thing about it.
0:43:44 It’s pretty low ticket.
0:43:48 We could be doing $150 jobs and by the time,
0:43:50 if I’m a lot of times a business owner
0:43:53 maybe makes 15 to 30% of their gross sales.
0:43:54 15 to 30%.
0:43:56 If you’re on the high side, like you’re doing awesome.
0:43:57 Yeah, after playing for the cleaners
0:43:59 and all the other overhead and marketing
0:44:00 and stuff like that, yeah.
0:44:02 Exactly, ’cause there’s just always more fees.
0:44:04 And so if I make 25% of 150,
0:44:07 that ends up being like 40 bucks, something like that, right?
0:44:09 Yeah, so very much a volume game, right?
0:44:11 Like how do we keep stacking up these recurring clients?
0:44:13 Exactly, so recurring is good in it.
0:44:15 The low jobs are not so good
0:44:17 and then you get the customers who can be difficult
0:44:19 because they have expectations that,
0:44:21 their grandma used to pay somebody 20 bucks an hour.
0:44:24 So now that’s the difference in it.
0:44:27 But like, whereas the other trades we talked about painting
0:44:28 is a much higher ticket average.
0:44:30 Average ticket for that is a couple thousand.
0:44:31 For carpet cleaning,
0:44:33 the average ticket’s a little bit higher as well.
0:44:35 So when your ticket’s higher,
0:44:37 I think you can market differently
0:44:39 where like door knocking,
0:44:42 I think can be more valuable with those other ones,
0:44:43 with those other trades potentially,
0:44:44 not as much as with cleaning.
0:44:46 You don’t need to go knock people’s doors.
0:44:47 There’s not gonna be any ROI.
0:44:49 I think the marketing’s gonna be a little bit different.
0:44:50 That’d be the biggest thing.
0:44:53 That was, that was the, you know, my experience.
0:44:54 You know, knock on doors, try and sell some paint jobs.
0:44:56 Hey, can I come back this weekend
0:44:58 and give you an estimate and allow the rinse repeat?
0:45:00 Yeah, great point.
0:45:01 That’s the thing about that.
0:45:03 Like painting is very, very in-person.
0:45:06 I mean, I’ve got to go to their house.
0:45:06 I’ve got to do an estimate.
0:45:08 I’ve got to spend a couple of hours with them
0:45:10 just to hope I get a shot, right?
0:45:13 And whereas cleaning, I’ve got it pretty much automated.
0:45:14 I don’t have to go there
0:45:15 unless it’s gonna be a commercial clean
0:45:17 then they want me to meet with them.
0:45:19 So that’s the flip on those two.
0:45:21 Yeah, well, this has been fascinating.
0:45:23 I’ve been taking a ton of notes.
0:45:25 I think it’s really an interesting niche.
0:45:28 It’s a really interesting illustration of something
0:45:31 that you can do across any number of different niches.
0:45:33 Again, NebraskaEliteCleaning.com
0:45:34 where you can find Skyler.
0:45:36 We’ve mentioned Home Services Academy.
0:45:37 This was Johnny Robinson.
0:45:38 Johnny was on the show a couple of years ago
0:45:41 talking about his window washing business at Squeegee God.
0:45:43 Follow along with it with Johnny over there.
0:45:44 Always interesting stuff.
0:45:45 Let’s wrap this thing up
0:45:47 with your number one tip for side hustle nation.
0:45:49 I just think if you stick with something long enough
0:45:52 and you’re willing to get your teeth kicked in long enough,
0:45:54 you’ll succeed, like truly.
0:45:55 If you stick with it long enough
0:45:56 and you’re willing to get your teeth kicked in,
0:45:57 you can do it.
0:45:59 I’ve always said to, life is like,
0:46:00 you can get anything you want done
0:46:01 just about what you’ll sacrifice.
0:46:04 If you want to sacrifice a Saturday here and there
0:46:06 for 30 minutes being on the phone with a customer
0:46:08 and you’re willing to do that, you can make it.
0:46:11 There’s different things like that, but at least to start.
0:46:13 But my number one tip is just like stick with it
0:46:15 and give something a good shot
0:46:17 if you want to try something that can work.
0:46:20 – Yeah, that’s an interesting reframe about sacrifices.
0:46:23 Obviously sticking with it, persistence, grit, all that.
0:46:25 Like I’m on board with that within this idea of,
0:46:26 what are you going to sacrifice?
0:46:28 And you can think about in the pie chart of your day.
0:46:30 Hey, look, we’re all dealt 24 hours in a day.
0:46:31 If I want to build something,
0:46:32 I’m going to have to read,
0:46:34 invest some of these hours somewhere else.
0:46:36 Somewhere that they’re not currently being used for.
0:46:38 And that might feel like a sacrifice.
0:46:39 What are we going to do?
0:46:40 It’s like, if somebody always talks about,
0:46:43 the word decide is like from Latin, like to cut.
0:46:44 It’s like, well, what are you going to cut, right?
0:46:45 And then it’s like, well, now I’m going this way
0:46:48 because I cut off that other thing with my decision.
0:46:49 And it’s like, I guess it’s maybe from incision,
0:46:50 probably the same route.
0:46:51 But it’s interesting.
0:46:53 Yeah, what are you going to sacrifice?
0:46:54 – Yeah, it’s so true.
0:46:56 My sacrifice to Ben, hey, we have a new cleaner.
0:46:58 I got to go see, I want to see how she did.
0:46:59 I know this is a vacant house.
0:47:01 I’m going to go drive there tonight.
0:47:02 But for me, it’s kind of fun.
0:47:03 Like I’m going to go drive there.
0:47:04 I’m going to go test her out and see how she did.
0:47:06 But it also can be seen as a sacrifice.
0:47:07 I think those are probably the two biggest things, right?
0:47:09 It’s like, I mean, they’re giving it my time
0:47:11 or I’m giving it a headache and I’m trying to put out a fire
0:47:12 and deal with a mess.
0:47:16 – Yeah, reminded of that line that an entrepreneur is someone
0:47:18 who’s willing to live a few years like others won’t.
0:47:20 So they can live a lot of years like others can’t.
0:47:23 And that’s definitely something that has stood out
0:47:26 in this conversation along with the idea of being able
0:47:28 to have a longer time horizon.
0:47:30 Being able to say like, look, the day job’s okay.
0:47:33 I don’t need to, I don’t need to make rent tomorrow.
0:47:35 Like if it takes a little bit longer,
0:47:36 like that’s totally fine.
0:47:39 Building the team, building the reputation,
0:47:42 building the, you know, that incredible online reputation
0:47:44 for the brand such that when you show up in person,
0:47:47 there’s like this preconceived notion
0:47:48 of what that experience is going to be like
0:47:50 based on the online presentation.
0:47:52 It’s that branding, that positioning.
0:47:54 I think Nebraska Elite Cleaning has done an awesome job
0:47:55 with all of that.
0:47:57 So kudos to you on everything that you built
0:47:59 and everything that you’ll continue to build.
0:48:00 We’ve been talking cleaning today
0:48:02 about that’s not the only service
0:48:03 that you could apply these tactics to.
0:48:05 To get your creative juices flowing,
0:48:08 make sure to grab your free listener bonus for this episode.
0:48:11 It’s my list of 101 service business ideas.
0:48:13 Just head over to the show notes for this episode
0:48:18 at sidehustlenation.com/skiler, S-K-Y-L-E-R.
0:48:19 Or follow the link in the episode description.
0:48:20 I’ll get you right over there.
0:48:22 Again, that’s 101 service business ideas
0:48:23 that you might be able to apply.
0:48:26 Some of Skyler’s marketing playbook too
0:48:28 and a little bit of fulfillment playbook too.
0:48:30 But big thanks to Skyler for sharing his insight.
0:48:32 Thanks to our sponsors for helping make
0:48:33 this content free for everyone.
0:48:36 You can hit up sidehustlenation.com/deals
0:48:39 for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place.
0:48:40 Thank you for supporting the advertisers
0:48:41 that support the show.
0:48:42 That is it for me.
0:48:43 Thank you so much for tuning in.
0:48:45 If you’re finding value in the show,
0:48:47 the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend.
0:48:48 So fire off that text message.
0:48:49 Hey, check this out.
0:48:50 We could totally do this.
0:48:51 Look over at this guy’s build.
0:48:53 Until next time, let’s go out there and make something happen
0:48:54 and I’ll catch you in the next edition
0:48:56 of the Side Hustle Show.