Blog Posts

The 3 Levels of Commercial Cleaning

2/19/2021

This video comes from a Facebook Live I did for the Solo Cleaning School Elite Membership in February 2021. Heather was interested in adding a few offices and wondered what my cleaning system looks like for commercial compared to residential. I answer that question in this video and gave a ton more

Build It Before You Need It

2/5/2021

I go into detail on my 2020 cleaning business numbers and my 2021 goals in my podcast episode, "Mission 20/20 Accomplished". I highly encourage you to listen when you get a chance. This video comes from a Facebook Live I did for the Solo Cleaning School Elite Membership in December. I answered member questions, but also shared more detail and mindset behind achieving your goals

The Mexican Fisherman

1/15/2021

I mentioned The Mexican Fisherman on "The Sandbox Parable of Retirement Planning" podcast episode with the promise to share bonus content about it soon. This video and short article is that promise. Have you ever heard this story? Tim Ferriss describes it in his epic "Four-Hour Work Week" book. Before you read any further, make sure to watch my video

A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Solo Cleaning School Podcast

1/1/2021

I started the Solo Cleaning School Podcast in October 2019. It was a project that I literally put off for 3 years! Heck, I even attended two podcast conferences without having a podcast. It seems so silly looking back because I thoroughly enjoy doing this podcast each and every month. It gives me a creative outlet to share my many thoughts to an unknown audience. Over time, the unknown audience started to grow and make themselves known to me through their private messages and emails. To date, my podcast has over 23,000 downloads and has been listened to in all 50 states, 64 countries, and 6 continents. It's staggering to me how my little show on solo cleaning can reach so many people

How to Partner with Home Stagers

12/18/2020

Home Stagers are one of the hidden gems in the cleaning industry. I've worked with realtors and stagers for 16 years and share my experience in the attached video. If you don't want to watch the video, I'll give you the short version.

An Optimizer's Website

12/4/2020

I ran a solo cleaning company from 2005 to 2018 that sold for close to six figures and I never had my own website. This seems unbelievable in our tech world, but it's true! My business grew from year-to-year through referrals through my local network

The Paper Clip Test

11/20/2020

I've been cleaning small offices for 15 years. There is no doubt in my mind that house cleaners can and should dominate small commercial cleaning. Why? Janitorial companies typically prefer scale, size, and frequency. In other words, they want the big contracts with multi-day cleaning schedules. They are amazing at it! But they don't like the small commercial for multiple reasons. For one, they are small and not worth the time. Secondly, these smaller offices have the owner in the office and they want their office cleaned more like their house. Have you ever noticed that many small offices hire their house cleaners to clean their offices? It's very common. I have also seen that these small commercial offices are way more pandemic proof through 2020 across the nation.

We're Debt Free!

11/6/2020

When I was fired from my job at GE on October 30th, 2005, we plunged into a financial pit that we weren't sure if we could ever get out of. We owed over $130,000. It got worse! In 2006, we had our car repossessed and added other debts related to business sales taxes, medical, legal, credit card. When we tallied it all up in early 2007, we owed $170,000 to 33 different creditors and none of them was a mortgage

Don't Explain your Prices!

10/16/2020

Joe is a new member to Solo Cleaning School Elite and had an outstanding question in a recent Facebook Live Q&A.

"How do you itemize/break down/explain your prices for people when they ask?"

You thought Forrest Gump was Good at Ping-Pong

10/2/2020

You Thought Forrest Gump was Good at Ping-Pong - Mastery requires reps and going through the 4 levels of competence. In this episode, I go back in time to Penn State freshman year 1996, East Halls Commons, to the site of the Gump-a-Thon Ping-Pong Tournament. How did I become the best ping-pong player of my fellow freshman and of the tournament? I mastered the ping-pong serve. This strategy set me up for success in every game. We need to do the same with our solo cleaning business

Author

The Smart Cleaning School helps cleaning business owners from start-up to the struggling solo to the striving seven-figure get SMARTER in their businesses, reshape their mindset, increase productivity, clear the overwhelm, and get clarity through SMART goal-setting & personal accountability. Ken Carfagno is a lifetime learner and teacher. His mission is to help visionaries make the impact they were meant to make.

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