Filthy Rich Cleaners: The Cleaning Business Podcast

A cleaning company can look profitable on paper and still lose money on nearly every job. Before you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a business, you need to know what's behind the P&L. In this solo episode, Stephanie explains why she would almost never buy a cleaning business (yet why she seriously considered buying one anyway), and talks about a consulting client's rough experience after buying a mostly residential company. 📌 What You'll Learn — Why commercial accounts are a safer purchase than a residential client list — How to check production rates and profit per hour on every client before you buy — The red flags hiding behind a profitable-looking P&L, like owner labor, low pay, and staff turnover — Why missing client notes create a mess for a new owner — What to learn about a company's team and culture before making an offer — Why Stephanie would rather put money into marketing than buy a client list — How messy bookkeeping can stop you from getting the loan you need to grow Resources Mentioned — ZenMaid Mastermind Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/zenmaidmastermind — ZenMaid Newsletter: https://zenmaid.com/newsletter — Filthy Rich Cleaners episode with Marco (Chicago) on buying a long-standing cleaning business: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7fC5SLJQGo&vl=en — Stephanie's YouTube video on managing your money as a cleaning business owner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVZbZWbhKoA 👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com 📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/resources/ ✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/ 📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

Meghan Caicedo went from crying after shifts at a senior home to running her own cleaning company with her husband — and getting booked solid just four months after making it official. Now, she's hit the wall every owner-operator knows: she can't let go. In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Meghan, owner of Caicedo Cleaning in Alberta, Canada, to work through the fears that keep new owners stuck in the field. Stephanie lays out the systems that make handing off clients' work, plus a live teardown of Meghan's website and marketing. 📌 What You'll Learn — Why standardized checklists are the foundation of getting out of the field (if surgeons need them, so do cleaners) — How to transition long-time clients to a new cleaner without losing them — Why client notes in your scheduling software stop customers from having to repeat themselves — Why a card on file matters most on move-out cleans — How Google My Business beats Facebook groups for finding clients who are ready to buy — The pie analogy: what happens to your income when you hire your first non-family cleaner — Why your website has to answer "why you?" instead of listing generic services Resources Mentioned — ZenMaid (scheduling software and client notes): https://get.zenmaid.com/ — Serene Clean's client guidelines: https://serene-clean.com — Caicedo Cleaning: https://caicedocleaning.ca — Caicedo Cleaning (Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61589992966246 👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com 📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/resources/ ✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/ 📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

Raising prices on 97 clients sounds terrifying...until you see the numbers 👀 In this solo episode, Stephanie answers listener Lorraine's question about how Serene Clean's flat rate transition is going. After seven years of hourly residential pricing, Serene Clean rolled a flat rate switch and a price increase into one change, and Stephanie shares the financial results, learnings so far, the pushback they got, and what she'd do differently. 📌 What You'll Learn — Why to roll out flat rate to new clients first, then transition existing clients in batches — The real numbers: $7,693/month gained, $3,321/month lost, and a 12% cancellation rate — The exact price increase email Serene Clean sent, plus and how a five-year client negotiated to a middle ground — How to handle clients who think in hours, and how "priority cleans" replaced limited hour cleans — Why production rate auditing is critical once you charge by the job instead of by the hour — The mistake Stephanie made by not telling her cleaners about the switch, and why your team should always be in the loop Resources Mentioned — Flat Rate Email Estimate Template ($20) — available on Stephanie's website along with her checklists, documents, and bundles: https://serene-clean.com/downloads/flat-rate-estimate-email-template/ — Serene Clean's cleaning checklists — available on Stephanie's website: https://serene-clean.com/bundles/ — ZenMaid Mastermind Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/zenmaidmastermind — ZenMaid's weekly newsletter: https://zenmaid.com/newsletter 👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com 📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/resources/ ✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/ 📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

What do you do when a hotel calls and needs 10–15 cleaners a day, seven days a week, and you only have until the weekend to deliver? If you're Nick Spagnolo, you hit the ground running. In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Nick, president of Spag N Shine LLC in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Nick left a banking career during COVID, started cleaning houses with his mom, and has since grown to around 20 staff members by becoming the "one-stop shop" for apartment buildings — janitorial, turnovers, carpet cleaning, floor stripping and waxing, and more. 📌 What You'll Learn — How to become the one contact property managers call for everything, and why that builds unshakeable contracts — How to break into carpet cleaning using your chemical vendor's free demos, training, and equipment support — Why joining your local apartment association can unlock a whole new tier of commercial work — How Nick priced and staffed a hotel contract requiring 10–15 cleaners a day during COVID — The real cost of company vehicles and the $500 car allowance system Nick uses instead — Why staffing agencies can tarnish your name (including the story of a drunk worker, a gun, and a parking lot fight) — Why staying on top of your insurance broker matters Resources Mentioned — Spag N Shine (website): https://www.spagnshine.com/ — Spag N Shine (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/spag_n_shine/ — Spag N Shine (Facebook page): https://www.facebook.com/p/SPAG-N-SHINE-100063507854791/ — ZenMaid Software: https://get.zenmaid.com/ 👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com 📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/resources/ ✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/ 📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

What happens to your cleaning business when your key employee goes on vacation for a week or two? For a lot of owners, things break. That's why in this episode, Stephanie shares how Serene Clean is preparing for office manager April's upcoming three-week absence, a situation that would create total chaos for a lot of businesses. Stephanie talks about the documentation gaps that April's prep work uncovered, how she's been breaking April's role down into daily, weekly, and sporadic tasks, how they're replacing SOP booklets with quick Loom recordings, and how they ran practice payroll rounds months in advance just in case. 📌 What You'll Learn — Why to treat a planned absence like an audit, not an emergency — How to break any role into daily, weekly, and sporadic tasks (and assign each one a due date) — Why quick screen recordings beat a 30-page SOP nobody will read — How practice runs expose the gaps in your documentation before they cost you — The field-tested handoff method Serene Clean uses for both clients and office tasks — What to pause during an absence to keep the workload steady — Why thorough documentation makes your business more valuable to a future buyer Resources Mentioned — Buy Back Your Time (book): https://www.amazon.com/Buy-Back-Your-Time-Unstuck/dp/059342297X — Loom (screen recording software): https://www.loom.com/ — ClickUp (task management): https://clickup.com/ — QuickBooks (auto-invoicing): https://quickbooks.intuit.com/ — ZenMaid (client details and invoicing notes): https://get.zenmaid.com/ 👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com 📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/resources/ ✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/ 📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application