Smart Cleaning School

I have been habitually late my whole life. This is not new news to long-time Smart Cleaning School Podcast listeners. In fact, I blamed it on my mom in a past episode. Let me first right a wrong. My mom declares that it was not her that was always late when I was a kid. Yes, our family was always late for events (all of them). But my mom has edited my blame from her to her husband, my step-father Paul. Sorry Dad. You're the culprit of lateness. I was influenced by this as a kid and carried lateness into adulthood. It wasn't until a few pivotal times that I learned some things that would change me. One is from the Royal Rangers Ministry that I am very invested. I've been to leadership training camps with the Rangers and hear this from the beginning to the end. "5 minutes early is on time and on time is late." The other is from my Pop-Pop. I shared in "He Built You a Clock" how my Pop-Pop showed me all throughout his life that being on time was important. It showed others that you value their time. I learned this on the weekends growing up and learned lateness during the week. At the age of 45, I can say that I finally get it. I don't want to be late anymore. I want to show people that I value them by being there on time. In fact, I want to be early. Does this relate?

How do you change? It seems so silly to ask, but let's break this down. You and I have been so programmed to leave the house at the exact time you need to get there on time. In many cases, we leave a few minutes later and believe we can make it up with going faster. We leave no margin for traffic, for forgetting something important at the house, for anything that could go wrong. In fact, we try a sort of inverse margin by leaving late and trying to miraculously make up the time. This margin is called a buffer. I want you to hear some notes from one of my favorite books called "Essentialism" by Greg McKeown. This comes from an article from mentalpivot.com.

Chapter 15: BUFFER: The Unfair Advantage

• “A buffer can be defined literally as something that prevents two things from coming into contact and harming each other.”
• Buffers are effective strategies for dealing with the unknown and circumstances beyond our control.
• “The essentialist looks ahead. She plans. She prepares for different contingencies. She expects the unexpected. She creates a buffer to prepare for the unforeseen, thus giving herself some wiggle room when things come up, as they inevitably do.”
• Extreme preparation vs. ideal circumstances as illustrated in the story of Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott in the race to the South Pole. Amundsen build slack and buffers into his plan with food/supply caches, redundant supplies and frequent trail markers. Scott’s planned for the best-case scenario and once external circumstances upended Scott’s plan, his team paid the ultimate price.
• As a rule-of-thumb: Double your time estimates.
• Planning Fallacy: Human tendency to underestimate how long a task will take (even if they’re familiar with the task and have done it before).
• Questions to ask when building buffers for personal projects:
  1. What risks do you face on this project?
  2. What is the worst-case scenario?
  3. What would the social effects of this be?
  4. What would the financial impact of this be?
  5. How can you invest to reduce risks or strengthen financial or social resilience?

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My wife and I were enjoying breakfast at Postively 4th Street Cafe in Ocean City, NJ. We love this place and especially the lattes. Oh my, they are good! During our connecting time, we were searching for ways to improve our business and effectiveness as parents. I asked the question. "How can we become 10 Talent People in each area of our life?" This is a reference to a story that Jesus teaches in the Book of Matthew. I'll read it.

Matthew 25:14-30 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents. And likewise he who had received two gained two more also. But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money. After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them. “So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.’ His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’ He also who had received two talents came and said, ‘Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them.’ His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’ Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’ “But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents. ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
We are Christians, so this has significant meaning to us. When I asked the question to my wife, "How do we become 10 Talent People", it was our desire to be the 5 talent servant who invests his five to make 10. We want to make 10 talents in every area of our life. From this question, multiple breakthroughs occurred. I'd like to share one of them with you as I believe it will help you a ton. In the Four Windows episode, I painted the image of a window with cross lattices that makes 4 individual panes of glass in each window. Each of the 4 panes represents something in our life.
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I could talk about Clark W. Griswold for hours. He is one of the best characters in American cinema, hands down! Clark is a man with a big heart. He loves his family. He desires to create memories that will last a lifetime. He is a dreamer and has HUGE ideas. Everything I've just said describes me to a tee and I wonder who else it relates to. But I need to pop the balloon now. In part 1 of my Don't Be Like Series, we examined Owl from Winnie the Pooh. Owl is a highly intelligent creature with a desire to own the room. He wants everyone to hear how smart he is. Owl does not know how to read the room. He will tell you all about him on the side of the river as Pooh and Piglet are heading toward the waterfall cliff. Don't be like Owl. Clark W. Griswold has a glaring blind spot too.
Ellen says this early in Christmas Vacation. "I think you're forgetting how difficult it's gonna be having everyone in the house at the same time." Clark responds "They're family. Christmas is about resolving differences and seeing through the petty problems of family life.... All my life, I've wanted to have a big family Christmas (he grew up an only child)." Ellen responds. "It's just that I know how you build things up in your mind Sparky. You set standards that no family event could ever live up to." Clark... "When have I ever done that?" Ellen goes on to name every event over the past few years. This is the perfect lead in to this episode. Clark only sees the best case and everyone else sees the reality. In the first movie, Clark had a big dream to take his family cross country to see all of the sights and go to Wally World. He was overly optimistic and had no idea of the potential downside and issues that would happen. His wife knew the potential and reality but was afraid to talk to Clark about it. She just went along. As every disaster happened, she was prepared to deal as she always did. Every time something got in the way of Clark's perfect vision, Clark would simmer and his internal pressure cooker would rise. Ellen would go with the flow as she knew the reality of what Clark was doing and expected something like this could happen. Again, Clark internalizes everything. He was in shock and felt like it was all going wrong. We laugh at his responses because it's a movie and Chevy Chase is a comedian. They never talked reality and Clark kept pushing toward a pie in the sky optimistic idea that would never really happen. It comes to a head when they arrive and the park is closed. Do you remember the Wally World scene where Clark blows a gasket, punches the moose nose, and proceeds to hold the security guard (and legendary comedian John Candy) prisoner with an air rifle. They ride on every ride and eventually get arrested. The owner of Wally World relents because he feels bad for Clark and the family. Christmas Vacation ends in similar fashion. Clark blows a gasket when he doesn't get his big Christmas bonus. He planned everything in advance. The family swimming pool. Crazy Eddie kidnaps Clark's boss and again Clark gets off. Ellen has a way of smoothing over the situation every time. Clark never learns though. It makes his character one of my favorites. I truly relate to him. Real life is the craziness, not the optimistic, never-go-wrong illusionary world of Clark W. Griswold.

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I used to go shopping at Aldi for Teresa after work during the pandemic. Aldi is a small store, but that didn't help me find anything. I would have a texted list. Inevitably, I'd spend 15 minutes finding the first item and then call my wife. She would literally help me find everything else on the list from memory. I was the arms, legs, and eyes. She was the brains. Men, do you relate? Ladies, do you do this for your men? Here's where it gets better. A few times, I went to Aldi with my oldest son. We were like Tweetle-Dee and Tweetle-Dumb. I would never want to see the surveillance tapes of us wandering the isles.

Teresa and I were on our way to our annual honeymoon retreat and stopped at a grocery store on the way there. We had breakfast and dinners cooked for us, but needed lunches. I am not a grocery shopper. I rather dislike it. The only thing worse than going grocery shopping is clothes shopping for me. However, my wife it's an excellent grocery shopper and an excellent clothes shopper. One of the last items that we were looking for on this grocery trip was flavored water. These are the drops that you can put in your water to make them taste like fruit. They're pretty good actually. We were somewhere in the back of the store when she thought of buying the flavored water drops. I had no idea where it would be as the grocery story may as well be the Amazon rainforest to me. I'm clueless where to find anything. I know there are signs, but they are not helpful. Anyway, Teresa guided us to the flavored water in less than a minute in a grocery store she was never in. She picked it up, put it in the cart, and was ready for the next thing.

My initial comment was, "Wow, how did you find that so fast?!", but playing it off more as a joke. Then I thought about it. If I was given flavored water on a shopping list from my wife and I walked into the store I would have been there for 15 minutes walking every aisle until I found it. The more likely scenario is I would have walked down every isle and not found it after 30 minutes and then asked someone for help. I could have asked someone for help in the beginning but I'm a guy and I don't do that. I would have wandered aimlessly and eventually found that item on my list, been frustrated about it, wasted time, and would have even disliked shopping even more. I am highly inefficient in a grocery store because I don't like grocery stores and avoid them as much as possible. I don't know where things are. Teresa is completely different as she shops for our family on a regular basis. She shops in multiple grocery stores and understands the basic layout of a grocery store. Apparently, there's a system involved where certain types of foods are always grouped together. Instinctively, Teresa knew it would be with the water bottles or with the soft drinks or juices. This is common sense, but apparently it's not common to me. Because she knows the grocery stores so well, she can go into any store and quickly identify, find, pay, and get out efficiently. I am building a case. Are you tracking where I'm going, solo cleaners?

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I recently revealed the "The 4 ISO Model Fundamentals " as Financial, Strategic, Mindset, and People. It doesn't matter whether you own a solo cleaning business or a catering company. If you want to grow your company to create the life you've dreamed of, you'll need to master these fundamentals. I am not a caterer... obviously. I can't coach caterers. I can't coach photographers or digital agencies or doctors. I'm a 16-year solo cleaner that has optimized 2 solo cleaning companies to over $50,000 profit per year on 2 cleaning days per week without employees, subs, or drama. I've successfully sold one solo cleaning business for $80,000 and I've successfully scaled another solo cleaning business to allow my family to go to Florida for the month of February the past two years. I have mastered these 4 fundamentals for winning with a solo cleaning business and therefore, I am highly qualified to be your coach if you're looking to master your solo cleaning company.
In that podcast episode, I stated that I wanted to lay out the 4 fundamentals in simple terms first. Then, I promised to follow-up with episodes adding more depth to each. Today, we start with the first one called FINANCIAL. There are thousands of cleaning business owners in Facebook cleaning groups. I have interacted with hundreds and personally coached dozens over the years. The ones I've coached have been side-hustlers, startups, solos, and striving to 7-figures. I have enough data to make this bold statement.
Of the 4 fundamentals of a successful solo cleaning company or any cleaning company, the most lacking skill is Financial Fluency. In my experience (and the combined experience of other reputable coaches in the industry), over 95% of cleaning business owners do NOT know their numbers. They are Financially Illiterate.
This is scary as these cleaning business owners go year-to-year making jokes about "sucking at math" or "not knowing where they are". It's not funny. It's sad. 95% of you RIGHT NOW are literally treading water and about to drown. You are one bad wave or rip current from financial bankruptcy and you don't even know it. 90% of you are anxious, stressed, and overwhelmed because you don't know where you stand. When you are Financially Illiterate, you are standing on sinking and shifting sand. You have literally nothing firm to build on. So what do you do? You continue to work harder and harder and hope that the money works out. Enter geniuses like Mike Michaelowicz and his book "Profit First". Mike was Financially Illiterate until he took the first step. He went from not-knowing his numbers to knowing his numbers. This didn't make the business any better. But it did allow Mike to place his feet on something firm and something he could build from. His stated mission is to help the millions of us in the same place and to eradicate entrepreneurial poverty.
My friend Ellen was once in this position. She ran a successful cleaning company with 20 team members and close to a half-million in revenue. She did not know her numbers at all and she was the first to admit it. I helped her set goals to over a 3-month period to learn her business through a Profit and Loss Statement or a P&L. Once she understood her P&L, she was able to set financial goals and track her business through a financial dashboard. Ellen has grown quite a bit since this major change. There are thousands of Ellens' out there, so don't feel bad if that's you. We will address all 4 fundamentals over time.
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