June 2021 Freedom Report with Coach Josh

I shared in my last Carfagno Cleaning update, "Stay, Scale or Sell " that the seasons are shifting from Spring to Summer. As promised, I'm departing from my weekly business updates to allow space for other impactful episodes like my interview, "The Cleaning Journey to Nineveh with Josh Melton". I will continue bringing you updates, but during this Summer season of me earning my freedom, I'll be starting this new monthly podcast segment.

Purposely, I mentioned the prior podcasts. In "Stay, Scale or Sell", I laid out my case for Why I need to scale my cleaning company. In the interview with Josh Melton, I saw a man with the same story as me and the same business if I were to scale. After the interview, I reached out to Josh and asked him if I could hire him to coach me to his level. Thankfully, Josh accepted. For the remainder of 2021, I am launching this new segment, which will be a monthly freedom report with my friend and coach Josh Melton. The format may change from month-to-month, but the objective is the same. How is Ken doing toward his goal to enjoy freedom in Florida with his family for a month in the winter? This segment will keep you updated. Plus, I will add actual clips of our coaching calls between Josh and myself. I'm so thankful to Josh. He has built a professional commercial cleaning company with over 60 employees, mostly part-time professionals needing extra money. He calls it his "Chick-Fil-A Model", but more importantly, Josh has an ongoing 6-figure income in the same types of offices I clean and he doesn't have to clean or manage. I wanted this and Josh was willing to help me! Here's the coolest part for Josh. He has wanted to help others do what he has done in a coaching program down the road called the "6-Figure Commercial Cleaner". Josh is also the co-host with his business partner Chad Brown that you should definitely check out! It's called the Entrepreneur Adventure Podcast. In the clip of my first coaching call with Josh, I share some recent wins and my need to start hiring. I also share his take on the pros and cons of the business model I'd like to scale.

There are some updates from June that I would like to share. I will do so in bullet form to make it easier to follow!

• My marketing machine is still working well. I still have house cleaning referrals coming in and unfortunately, I need to reply to all of them with this. "I am taking a waiting list on all new houses. Would you like to be on the waiting list or would you like me to refer you to a cleaning friend as I cannot take any more houses?"  I have done this at least 5 times in June. Honestly, it's inconceivable to think I would turn down work. But I need to because my goal is financial and time freedom through my commercial cleaning business. Where does that leave me with houses? I don't know. I will likely hire someone or train a solo cleaner to take them over.
• I did take one house though. One of the doctors at a vet that I clean wanted her house on a bi-weekly schedule. She trusted me because of my 3-year performance and trust from cleaning her hospital. I put her on my waiting list and at the same time one of my regular clients needed to stop service due to declining health of a family member. I totally understood and wished the family well. This was a good reminder to me how important the waiting list is. I just slid the new client in the place of the one that canceled. Here's the cool part. The new client is $20 more per visit.
• This is the BIG ONE! I also had a call come in from a large CPA firm. One of their CPAs belong to the same chamber as me, so he had seen my name and the influence I had at the chamber. He recommended me. Another CPA from a different firm and also in a different chamber of commerce recommended me. I have no idea about that. I don't know the other CPA, nor am I a member of that chamber. So two different CPAs recommended me. The HR director checked out my website and was really impressed. Plus, she noticed that I was a Christian which reflected many of the values that their firm had. She called and left a message."Your name was referred to us. I checked out your website and was very impressed. It looks like your taking a waiting list and I'd love to be able to get on your calendar for an estimate." I was amazed that my website communicated how professional and busy I am. It worked! I followed through with an estimate and a proposal that took me over 6 hours. They gave me a map of the building which was 13,500 square feet. During our estimate we had prioritized areas that needed to be cleaned every visit versus every other visit and monthly. I color-coded the map that they gave me and included it in the proposal. Then I used the proposal as a collaborative tool to start a back-and-forth process until we found an option that worked for them. I gave them three options. A week later I checked back in and the HR director wanted to hire my company! This is very exciting as it's going to be a $3,000 per month client. With this new client, I have NO CHOICE! I have to hire now because I cannot do this myself and with my two kids. This job will start in July. Something that happened at the end of the estimate was very interesting. The HR director asked me. "Do you background check your employees as the things in this office are highly confidential and it's really important to us that we can trust the people in here." Here was my answer. "I am going to be hiring professionals that already work in professional settings like bank tellers, college administrators, office workers, secretaries, etc. These will be people that know and speak the professional language. They're already background checked and screened by their full-time jobs. And they want to make more money outside of their full-time job and commercial cleaning will help them to hit some goals." She loved my answer and felt immediate trust to the team I'm bringing on.

What do you think of my new format? Did you like the segment with Coach Josh? I always invite feedback. Email me at ken@smartcleaningschool.com.