You Must Let Go of Your Control

This is a powerful follow up to my last episode, Building Blocks, I shared a story about Legos and building your cleaning company in blocks that are duplicatable. I had developed a building block as an optimized solo cleaner, but there was no scaling needed. I shared in Building Blocks that we created our first scalable building block in 2022 which was comprised on 16 commercial locations and 8 employees. This block earned my family $40,000 income on $166,000 in annual revenue. This is not a good percentage to keep because the first block is very unprofitable. The second block nearly triples our income. There is something vital that I did not mention that really deserves its own episode. How was I able to trust others after being a solo cleaner for 15 years? How was I able to delegate, create systems, and get others to do just as amazing a job cleaning as I did solo? Do you ever find yourself asking that question? Here's the simple answer. You must let go of your control or you'll never succeed with a team. 

I had lunch with a new friend of mine. Randy Moyer is owner of Moyer Specialty Foods in Souderton, PA. They sell trail mixes and all sorts of goodies that I was so thankful Randy sent me home with that day! I had posted on Facebook a few weeks previously that I was scaling my business and the E-Myth was a big help. He commented that the book helped him successfully scale past $1M several years ago. We had some common friends and decided to meet. That lunch was amazing. Randy is a very interesting guy with a lot of personal freedom. I consider him a new mentor and am thrilled to have the opportunity to highlight his amazing company.  Randy mentors many entrepreneurs. There was a point in the lunch while I was telling my story that Randy stopped me and said this. "Ken, that right there is why so many solopreneurs and small businesses fail. You figured it out. You have already overcome the most difficult thing. Now all you have to do is grow." Would you like to know what story I told him?

Here's the story I told him. "Randy, I was a solo cleaner for a long time. I cleaned everything myself with near perfection (like a level 10 out of 10). I inspected my work after every cleaning and did well. When I set this New Freedom Vision to go to Florida for a month with my family, I was deafly afraid. How was I going to find others that could clean like I did while I was gone? As the months leading up to the trip were torn from our 2021 calendar, I felt the pressure big time. We had invested a lot in overhead to be able to hire, but we needed $5,000 per month in new revenue as the first part of our Florida goal. We hit that in December 2021. This left me with 60 days to delegate 10 offices. I was even more pressured. The deadline of the goal created the pressure. That's when I figured something out. I was onboarding 6 new office locations. I was amazed at the level of cleaning other professional commercial cleaning companies in my area were offering. I literally found dirt and dust not just missed a time or two. These former companies missed them every time for months. That's when I realized that the level of service being paid for my professional companies was around a 3 or 4 on my scale of 10. This blew my mind. I don't need to clean to a level 10. No body could afford it for one. And another thing, it's not possible to train. I realized that I could train to a level of 8 and call this excellence, where 10 was perfection. Heck, the customer would pay a little more for the C3 Experience and get double the cleaning benefit from a level 4 to an 8. I could then train employees to clean 80% as good as me. This allowed me to create a cleaning scorecard and training strategy. This was a win-win. The customer gets a better cleaning. The employee doesn't have to be perfect. Mistakes and missed spots are allowed. I hired 7 people in December 2021 and January 2022. I trained 5 of them in the C3 Experience and inspected their work every week. Then I left for Florida. We did it. But then something else happened. We were gone for a month in another state. I couldn't physically see every location every time like I did as a solo and like I did before leaving. It was excruciating that first week, but nothing bad happened. I trusted and prayed for our team and they performed. The second week was easier and by the end of the month I had so much peace that I knew this was going to work. I had learned how to give up control over my business and trust other people to run it. I had also given my company to God and said, 'this is not mine. Lord, you own it all. Help me run it better.'  We got home and I've never looked back or gone back. The control is gone. I feel like I can grow this to $500k, $1M, and more."

Do you understand how I released the control over my business?

1. It's not my business. It's God's and I manage it for Him. I truly believe this. It's why I have a mission as a 10-Talent Steward.
2. I set a deadline to leave the business. I had to hire, train, and trust. This forced me to take action. I realized that a level 8 was the perfect level to train others to.
3. I couldn't be there to check for a month. Nothing broke. No one complained. In fact, one company knew I was gone and told me that my employees were cleaning "as if Ken was cleaning". I no longer had to check quality every time. I could do it every other week or once a month.

These 3 lessons helped me overcome my control freak, perfectionist mindset. What about you? Would you like to do the same thing, but you're afraid or too controlling? Would you like to talk about it. Book a free coaching call with me on the Smart Cleaning School website at www.smartcleaningschool.com. Make sure to check out the many free & paid resources available on the website as well. I look forward to helping you overcome your control too!