I am so excited for you to listen to this conversation with Nick.
It was spectacular.
He's got some crazy stories.
First off, cleaning hotels, which we have never ever talked about on the podcast that I can remember, and employees getting into gunfights?
What?
Stay tuned for that.
And little content advisory: I did swear in this.
So if you got little ears.
Put them away, or save this one for later.
Enjoy!
This is Filthy Rich Cleaners presented by ZenMaidâthe podcast where real cleaning business owners share what works so you can earn more, stress less, and make your business filthy rich.
Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast.
I'm your host Stephanie from Serene Clean, and today's guest is Mr. Nick Spagnolo, and he is the president of Spag & Shine LLC, which is an absolutely spectacular business name, might I say?
And he opened his business similar time zone to me; he's been following along, and I'm so excited to have him on.
He has grown his business from zero to around what 20 staff members so far, which is pretty darn fast!
And he is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
I can't wait to hear your story, Nick.
Thank you for joining me today.
Thank you for having me.
Absolutely.
Tell me, Nick, what were you doing before you got into cleaning?
So a little bit of background about me: my family.
Owned a chain of Shop 'n Save grocery stores.
I ran one with my brother in high school and a little bit after high school, of course, you know, going to work at a very young age as well.
After that, my dad ended up retiring, and I ended up getting my paralegal certificate and working in the banking industry.
After six and a half years of that, when COVID hit, there were no real fine guidelines in the banking world, so we were getting shipped home.
Everyone, there were no guidelines in place, so my mom was.
Actually, cleaning a few houses, and she was always OCD when she did it.
I was growing up, swiping the floor five times a day, doing the S-wipes keeping the dirt with you, you know?
So I kind of piggybacked off her, helped her with a few clients, and it just kind of skyrocketed; just took off and really focused in on apartment buildings.
Tell me more about that.
Do you mean move-outs or turnover?
Is that type of thing?
It's a one-stop shop with that.
It's an endless tap of resources.
I mean, from Janet Daily janitorial services.
I mean, if you're getting an apartment building that has 700 plus residents in it, they need cleaning on a daily basis.
And with the way that apartment buildings are going now and the luxurious lifestyles that they want to bring to those complexes, I mean, they have outdoor doggy areas, you know, courtyards for cleaning grill areas.
So they need well-staffed buildings.
And then with that comes the turnovers.
With that comes carpet cleaning.
With that comes floor stripping and waxing.
I mean, it's justâa one-stop shop.
So, even going along the ways of helping them with, if they need window cleaning, you know we'll go ahead and get a company for you.
Don't worry about that; we're going to take that off the property manager's plate.
You don't need to worry about the cleaning at all.
We are your one-stop shop.
Really interesting because I think a lot of listeners want to do that and be that one contact so that they can, of course, benefit from, you know, divvying out and brokering out that work.
But I think in practice it can be difficult to do correctly because now you have other people coming in and you're putting your name on their work; you're using independent contractors.
So I wanna dig into that a little bit to go over how do you accomplish that?
Especially, are you doing the like floor stripping and waxing?
Are you guys doing the carpet cleaning that type of stuff?
Yeah, we're not subbing enough.
Got it.
We're okay.
Doing it cool.
They're giving us the opportunity to do it right.
We built that trust.
We built that relationship.
They bring up, Hey, we are looking to get our carpets cleaned.
You know, is that something you'd be interested in?
Let me buy a carpet cleaner and see if I can make it happen.
And then now they're turning you into a small carpet cleaning company.
Yeah, yeah.
What has the learning curve been on that?
And the reason I ask is we attempted to get into carpet cleaning, and then I shut it down because I was like, "I'm not doing this right."
Nor do I want to invest the time to learn how to do it correctly, so we just stopped.
And I'm like, that's not what we're gonna do right now.
However, obviously, you can make a shit ton of money carpet cleaning, so I'd love to.
We don't talk about it a lot on the podcast, if you don't mind, can we take a little bit of time?
What was that learning curve like, equipment, all that stuff for anybody who is interested?
So it all started kind of with the apartment buildings and then my cleaning supply vendor.
He was trying to push us into trying different things for floor cleaning, and when we got approached with the carpet cleaning, I asked him if he can provide those tools and solutions.
I don't want to buy a machine that I gotta find a third Third-party vendor to come in and do maintenance.
Can you guys maintain this on-site?
Does it come with a warranty?
I don't want to have to fumble and fool around with this on-site.
Will you come show me how to use it?
Nice, yeah.
And all of that, you know, they will respond if you reach out to them and you talk to them.
They will say, "hey, let me come do a demo and run through a hallway."
And show your team how to use it.
And we could do an orientation.
Have a professional show us how to do it.
I get trained on it now.
I'm the professional showing you on how to do it.
If there's any errors on site, okay.
Now I'm intrigued.
So this is a Pittsburgh specific vendor or is this a national line?
That does this.
Yeah, I don't know.
Which are vendors in your area?
I don't know if they're kind of like the same as us.
I have WB Mason, I have Pick Chemical, so they provide us like floor cleaning solutions.
If I want to order Dawn dish soap off them instead of like Amazon or something like that, just their like cleaning solution vendor, I guess.
I got you.
Yeah, because that really helps.
Because the biggest like concern I have with carpet cleaning is just yeah the equipment, the learning curve, having my techs know how to operate it effectively, so that is cool that they will provide that resource.
I'm curious if you, if somebody was interested in getting into floor care like you are doing now, what are the biggest mistakes you think that they could run into?
Just like your recent podcast with playing with that floor scrubber machine, don't try and use it day one.
You're listening, Nick.
I appreciate it, thank you.
Yeah, yeah, we actually have a floor machine as well, so I have an I-mop that I use to cut down time with those big apartment complex floors, lobbies.
You know, you're going to be mopping for days, especially in the salt season.
You know, when the winter comes and the maintenance people are throwing salt everywhere.
I mean, it's a hurdle in itself.
So that was a really good podcast, but just the carpet cleaning, you need to make sure that your vendor is there to help you, you have the support, you have the time to learn how.
And you're not rushing into it; you're easing into it.
You know, you don't want to get 75 jobs and now your job oneâyou're struggling to get it done because now, now you're justânow you hate it.
You already hate it before it even starts.
Is there any looking back things that you would have done differently with taking on these additional pieces of work?
Obviously learning the equipment, but looking at like even subbing out window cleaning because that's you do go find a vendor for that or are you doing that yourself?
No, no, we will hire if we get a window clean contract or put it upon the tech there and just kind of train them on window cleaning techniques.
I really strongly believe in training and prepping before the job.
You know, you have to have the foundation before you jump into it.
I really appreciate that perspective because a lot of times when I am like hopping on a consulting call, I have gone on so many websites where they list out that they do everything rightâthey're doing all this one-shop stuff.
And they're struggling even accomplishing the cleaning, so I'm just like if you can't even do the cleaning, which is I would argue the simplest.
Yeah, got to get the cleaning done first.
Yeah, the simplest.
Like you're struggling to actually be able to maintain high standards in that.
And it's no offense, but it's like all of these other things is much more difficult, right?
We're talking about more technical equipment, chemical know-how, all of that stuff.
So yes, like if you're gonna hop into more things, it's like the way to do it with integrity is to know the service in and out.
Yeah, and if you're trying to dip your toe in it, you could even offer to a residential client that you have as an add-on.
You know, if you want to try it first, even ask your vendor that is supplying you chemicals if you do have one wholesale.
Do you provide the equipment?
Do you provide the solution?
Do you mind coming to give my residential client a demo?
And they get a free carpet clean out of it.
You know, and it doesn't cost you anything.
That's really good advice there.
So do you have an actual like truck-mounted system then?
No, ours are all portable.
Because it hones in on the apartment building specifically, because we're not limited to the length of the hose.
That makes perfect sense.
We do more hose less suction.
Yeah, that makes sense because we do have one, our one big federal account that is part of the deals.
We carpet clean there, so we have an onsite like guy, and it works.
It works pretty good, so I really should revisit it because I know we can make a lot of money.
I think I was just like absolutely I was scarred.
So I'm like I'm not touching that for a while.
Floor stripping and waxing is kind of like a lost industry now.
A lot of people can't find people that can do that, so that's another untapped resource right there.
But it is time consuming.
Oh yeah, we've definitely got requests for it, and I know one guy who does it in our town who is older?
But the problem and why I don't want to touch it is, it has to be done at night a lot of times, like for the stores, and I'm like I don't want to do it.
If it's overnight, I will probably pass on it.
We don't do a lot of them.
We just kind of offer it to our apartment buildings, just as we do with other services.
They're they're relaxed with us.
We don't have to do it at night.
They'll shut down that section during the day and say, okay, we'll use this laundry room floor.
You everyone else has to use floors five six and seven, and then you're doing one two three.
You know?
Yeah!
Oh, this is good stuff.
I'm really happy we're talking about it.
I'd love to; communication is key, yeah, yeah, with the client.
It's a mutual relationship, mm-hmm.
It really isn't.
It sounds like when you build these trusted partnerships with these apartment complexes; the sky's the limit with kind of money.
I'd love to hear, it sounds like these are fairly high-end apartment complexes.
However, have you walked in on any gnarly ones?
Like, I want to hear.
Have you, haven't tell me the nasty stuff, Nick?
You know, I like that, Oh!
I mean, we just had a problem today where someone rushed out and the cleaners were going through the drawers.
And there's roaches crawling all through them.
So now you got to go to the maintenance, tell him to shut it down, and then that kind of pushes.
That deadline for that property manager back because they're not getting their turn on investment either.
Because now they can't run it out as fast, you know?
It all works alongside each other you know, I mean, I've had you know, poo on the wall.
I mean, over-over clogged toilets, the water still running, and the floor damaged.
But then there you go, we have a carpet cleaning extraction machine.
We could pick up 23 gallons of water in three minutes.
There's an emergency service.
That's the thing, yeah, when you're able to offer that, it's like hey, you got this problem and I'm ready to solve it.
That's awesome, do you you know, with turnovers like this?
And say somebody wants to proposition or they're trying to get these these accounts.
Do you find it best to offer them pricing based on square foot, based on number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and be like, these are the starting points."
Like how do you do your pricing for these guys?
When you talked about your hourly, I always did a flat rate.
I always did a flat rate.
I always try.
I'm very good at Excel sheets, so I try and make fun ones to make it very simple for me to do on the road.
But I found that.
In my head, I'm gonna do your hourly method right.
But I'm not gonna let anybody else know that I'm doing that hourly method in my head, and I'm only gonna come see what I see now.
I'm not gonna give a blind estimate because you and me both know how many times that bit you in the butt.
Yeah.
But like I'll do that $55 an hour, and I'll say, you know, I know how long it's.
Going to take, and then that gives me that flat rate price, and then I might add a half hour on top.
Sure.
Okay.
Just for the oh shit moments, you know what I mean?
Mm-hmm.
You know, I didn't see this baseboard was so greased up in the kitchen now; I'm scrubbing it for five hours.
You know, but with those turn services they do a budget every year.
Oh, interesting!
So you get to increase that budget every single year, and after five years that budget gets big.
You know what I mean?
So, if you do work with their budget, the first year, the they might give you three apartment buildings.
Hey, they might be in New York now.
You just expanded out of state because you're that good and they trust you so much.
I joined the local apartment association in Pennsylvania and went to the trade shows and sold Spagin Shine.
And kind of just compromised the industry of the apartment building world in Pittsburgh, and kind of just honed in on all of that.
And they recognized us at every single event that we went to and just everywhere they looked, they saw Spagin Shine.
You know, what I strive for is our customer service.
My COO, the company ZenMaid, she is a golden goose.
I mean, she will work night and day with me.
We call it Spag and Shine cleaning at night three years ago.
You know, doing the carpet clean, floor stripping, waxing, and trying to do the janitorial services all once in one night.
You know, we had fifteen people running seventeen different ways.
Oh my gosh!
That's amazing.
That's a great tip of having that good team.
The trade show thing like that?
I don't want to gloss over that because I've never heard of that before.
That these apartment, but like what is this?
Apartment buildings have like a trade show?
They have apartment building associations, so I guess you could kind of say it.
Kind of is like I guess the Zen Maid in the apartment world, if that makes sense.
But they help each other out with networking, so it's just networking.
You know, you're meeting maintenance people, floor people, plumbing, electricians.
Yeah, yeah.
That it's a vendor show, you know what I mean?
But it happens twice a year, and throughout the year they also have events, and you have the opportunity as a vendor that signed up for the association to come and partake in that.
And now I don't think it's for everybody; you have to have a very good outspoken personality and can walk up to somebody in the corner of a room and say, "Hey, how are you doing today?"
You know, "You got to sell yourself."
And with me doing all that stuff, I was able to sell a one-stop shop service industry.
You know, I'm your Walmart.
You know, you could come buy groceries and get your tires done here.
You know, but that's kind of like what the association is reallyâwhat took us off from?
Getting stuck at that revenue spot, and thank you, Susan, for giving me the opportunity with the PAA.
She, so I learned that with being involved at first.
With the apartment association and them inviting me in and opening, me up to the world of the association with the trade shows and selling yourself, and encouraging me to do it.
And if you are, you really have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable or else you're not going to grow.
You know, it's the way it is.
You seem quite extroverted.
Do you feel like sales came naturally to you, or is that something you've had to work on?
Well, from my father owned Shop 'n Save, so anytime a customer walked by, you always had hey, how you doing today?
You know, yeah, you know, here next up on this Filthy Pod Cleaners podcast is apartment buildings.
You know, isn't I was thinking, Nick, I'm gonna cross off and take a break.
That's great.
So, the voiceover and selling myself in the banking world.
I was in collections when I started.
Oh my!
So, I had to be on the phone, you know, ten hours a day on an automatic dialer just going and going and going.
That sounds horrific.
I'm not gonna lie; that sounds like an awful job.
I'm happy I got cleaning work.
Yes, yes, okay, okay.
So, you know, we've kind of had this has just been a really interesting different conversation.
So, I want to go back to earlier on.
You know, you started what twenty twenty twenty twenty one then with COVID September this month?
Okay!
Oh, there you go, congratulations.
And so, obviously, COVID was hitting.
You did some houses with your mom.
Was the thought like, what is your guys' split now with residential, commercial, slash the turnovers?
Like, what does your business look like now?
What's it made out of?
Well, and you know, at first.
You know, we always go through the hurdles with insurance learning.
Right?
I thought apartment buildings were considered commercial, and they're actually considered residential.
So you know, going through that with the insuranceâI would sayâwe honestly have a mix between the both of them.
And I cross-trained everybody; everybody is cross-trained.
You know, there's notâI can't do that.
I'm not trained.
No, we're not doing that here.
I really took part in your Indeed podcast, and you know, I tried the not paying for it for the longest time, and I was struggling so hard with it.
But I was sticking to what you were saying, and Andy called me one day and said, "Let me just talk to you and tell you what you got to do."
And I listened, and he said, "Pay-to-play."
You know, get that listing up on that front page.
Get those a+ candidates and you know get through them quick.
And I kind of tied that in with my banking with the collections and getting through the phone calls and getting payments on the phone.
Because the faster you get through the call, the more chances you are to get a payment, right?
So the faster you get through the cleaners interviewing and trying them out and getting rid of them, I know it's kind of cold.
Blooded, but you're not wasting time, and your cleaners on staff are not seeing you waste time because they get frustrated with that as well.
I'm glad you brought that up.
Of like yeah, I was just so pigheaded about like I didn't want to pay because I didn't have to before, but we can't do that anymore.
I had 17 ads going.
I was.
I know it worked so good, damn you, indeed.
Yeah, but it's so true.
Of just like that's just not the world we live in now.
You have to pay in order to get up to Google Ads.
Got me on six grand, oh my God.
They captured.
Charging me and charging me.
Ah, good lord!
I was over it.
Yeah, yeah.
I was so mad.
So annoying, but yeah, we had a gal who started two weeks ago, and then six days in she quit and she was like, "I don't think I can hit this standard consistently."
Like you guys seem great, but like this isn't for me.
And it was like that sounds like a failure, but it's actually a good thing because it's like great.
She like we didn't put her on a full schedule.
We, you know, it was quick; we actually didn't even get through all of training.
Like she realized like this is not for me, and we were clear with it, so it's like people think they can do it until they go do it, and then they're like oh shit I can't do this.
We had one this week show up for two days and then quit.
So yeah, but rather be that.
I see, Oh, thank goodness!
I didn't load them up on the schedule, right?
So it's so true.
Okay, so you know, you started out cleaning with your mom.
You started.
How did you start getting those clients after that?
Like was it just word of mouth?
Like how did you originally start getting clients?
I always like to know like what was working.
I was a part of Home Advisor when it was Home Advisor, and then they merged with Angie and things like that.
But I got a whale at the beginning with Home Advisor.
I ended up getting a hotel, and they needed about 10 to 15 cleaners a day.
Holy shit!
Seven days a week?
Oh my god!
Eight hours a day, eight hours a day.
Holy shit!
I went into this meeting, and when the guy was telling me, he's like, "So how are you gonna bill me?"
And I'm like, "I don't know how many rooms you got."
And he's like, "What do you mean rooms?"
I'm like, "I don't know.
I'll give you like per room clean."
He's like, "No, I need people here all day long, man.
I need people here doing housekeeping and getting through the rooms and vacuuming hallways," and I said, "Would you be opposed to an hour per cleaner rate?"
And he goes, "No, that's what I was expecting."
So, I was kind of negotiating with him.
And I'm all forâI'm all for transparency.
IâI âI feel like that goes a long way when you're upfront with people and they won't screw you over in that, and they'll appreciate the outcome and they'll see what your worth is if you actually work hard.
So he was like, "How about 25?"
I said, "You know, how about 30?"
You know?
And he goes, "No, I can't really do that."
And I kind of got up, and he goes, "Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, a couple dollars ain't gonna make or break me," and I said, "All right, let's do 28 then."
You know?
Yeah.
So he said, I shook his hand right there.
So he said you need to get this done by this weekend and it was like a Wednesday, so I had to hit the ground running.
Holy shit!
I ended up emailing him and said, you know, I got five cleaners for you that you know just work with me.
I'll get them by the end of the week.
And he goes, that's fine.
Just send them.
I like your work ethic because I was CCing him on all the emails because coming from the bank, it's an email game at the bank.
You know, you're cc'ing your boss, your boss's boss, his boss's boss.
So, I was real good with the email game.
So I just kept him on the emails, and he saw how hard I was working.
Trying to get cleaners and setting them up for interviews and showing them around the place, and working with their management, you know, because the manager doesn't want to really do too much.
He wants to make sure that enough is off my plate as possible.
Yeah, it's the point of going outside of employees like.
That's the whole point, yeah, yeah.
That's the whole point.
So I will take as much off your plate as possible, just let me do my magic.
It's just transparency.
Holy shit.
How long did you have that account or do you still have it?
I had that for about two years, and it was a solid foundation of the company, helping me grow the residential and commercial side of things.
It allowed me a lot of time to make money while being able to work at night, because in the hotel industry, it's twenty-four seven.
So, they had workers from like 1 a.m.
To even 10 a.m., and so I'd be, you know, doing the invoicing in QuickBooks and hiring at night at 1 a.m.
And I would still be getting that cash flow coming in, so I wasn't really wasting time in order to grow the company.
This is insane!
I've never heard somebody say they had a hotel or something like that.
It's not something I would ever look at because of the money obviously.
I wouldn't even look at that now, but to get started, it was COVID.
So everything was shut down.
So they still needed hotel people to work, but everyone was scared.
Mm hmm.
You know, and no one knew how to do hiring at the time.
Because I mean, it changed up the world.
Like the hiring and firing and the employing people.
People didn't want to go to work, and they didn't have to.
You had to learn and adapt, and find out new ways to hire people.
Do you think?
I mean, nowadays, like, would you pursue hotels?
Like, I'm just like, would you recommend this to people if they wanted to try it?
Because I've never done it, so, and I'm like, I don't know, there's enough money.
I always say, you know, if you do the math at the top of your head.
Right now, if you had 10 cleaners a day, let's just say five days a week, forty.
Hours a day, you're making, you know.
Let's say you're charging them $28, you're paying the cleaner $18.
You know, you got that $10 difference per hour per employee.
It's the volume.
It's good to have, it's definitely time-consuming.
I mean, it sounds like an absolute bitch to manage.
Like, I can't imagine it's awful, and the invoicing is awful.
And you know, you have to have timesheets because you're relying on the people there to make sure your people are clocking in, and then they're saying they're just signing in at different times.
There's so many hurdles that you have to overcome.
So I would say, at this point of time.
Probably not go back to it, but I'm grateful for the opportunity that I've had for it.
I can so relate to that sentiment of like wouldn't do that again, but I'm glad I did it.
Yeah, yeah, it was fun.
It was fun.
Oh, that's crazy!
What a cool.
I've had I've had stories from my cleaners saying that they walked in and a whole pizza is shoved in the toilet with it just running over the toilet.
Oh my god!
Vomit everywhere.
I mean you got it.
You gotta think they don't care about these places, you know?
Yeah, and I have talked to people, and we've hired people actually at Serene Clean who have who've done hotel cleaning before.
I don't prefer hiring people who've done hotel cleaning frankly because they were just pushed so hard to like fast, fast, fast.
It's not detailed.
Yeah, exactly.
It's and so like it's kind of hard to break that habit sometimes.
Not telling you guys not to hire those people, but just keep that in mind: you're gonna have to watch that.
But yeah, they've seen some some nasty stuff, some gnarly stuff, because obviously a hotel has got to be absolutely disgusting.
So, like when I, okay, like when it comes like bodily fluids and stuff.
Obviously, you have to clean that in a hotel.
Like how do you?
How do you handle that?
So the way that I managed it was I kind of...
I gave you the worker.
You needed to provide the cleaning solutions, the made carts, PPE, yeah, all that stuff.
So it was all on the hotel to provide me with all their things that they're used to because I didn't want to bring something in and then let's say I just damaged a whole entire interior carpet.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Theseâthey're expensive stuff in the hotels, so I don't wannaâI'm not putting something on your cabinets and tables and that you don't want me to have.
But I mean, like, it's a fast industry, so you got to get in and out of that hotel room, so I mean, there were times where my cleaner only got two rags for a whole day.
Oh my god!
Everybody listening, please wipe down your hotel rooms like take a little cleaning kit with you because that's fucking disgusting.
The quality that I instilled in my company when I would send my residential team down there and not myâI called it separate teamsâyou knowâbecause it was too deep.
Yep.
So when I would send my residential team in there, they would not want to go back.
They would come up to me and say, "Don't ever send me there again," and I will do whatever you want on this side.
Yep, yep.
But it's like a recipe for failure because you're simplyâyou are set up to fail if you want to clean like we all are used to cleaning in a house, right?
Thorough, detailed, you knowâall of thatâlike you justâyou can't do that, and likeâit isn't really even allowed, which is unfortunate.
You know, that would be really disenfranchising as aâas somebody doing that job.
I'd be really frustrated, like I can't even do a good job, like because there's not enough time.
Yeah.
Interesting.
That's really fascinating.
Quick little break here for the audience to take a look at some images from our Instagram stories.
Break here.
If you have ever been listening to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast and thought, "Oh my gosh, Stephanie would die at this story," well, guess what, guys?
I want to hear that story!
Okay, we are looking for guest applications for the show, and I know many of you have never been on a podcast before, but those are my favorite episodes.
To be frank, it is the owners who are just here to share their stories.
So, if you are an owner who wants to share your story, or perhaps you would like to have a free consulting call with me and ask me your questions live for everybody else to learn fromâthat is.
Also, an optionâand then finally, if you know somebody in our industry, you have a friend or somebody that you look up to and have learned from, who you think would be a great guest option for us?
Please go to the link down in the bio, and we would love to see you apply or nominate them.
And we will take it from there.
And I would love to have a conversation with you and get to know you more closely.
Back to the show.
Yeah, it took.
It took somebody the best employee that I found was with a little bit of background in that industry.
I've had a girl that could do two rooms at once and just like do two beds at once with the sheets.
Oh my god!
I was like this is this is wild.
Yeah, that's amazing.
Oh my gosh!
So yeah, no wonder like that's a really good start and huge colossal undertaking for management for sure.
But what a what a good leg up for you to get going.
So talk to me about the management side.
You said you know your CEO is incredible.
How did you find her?
What does the office look like now for you?
And who does what do you got field leads?
Tell me about your structure.
So I started from a garage.
We actually have a commercial facility now, so we run out of that.
And I would say my I kind of with that I tied in.
I wanted to not only are you going to be working for me, I want to grow you as a person and employee.
My COO of the company ZenMaid is phenomenal.
I actually got her through notary school, and now at our commercial facility she has an office and she notarizes there and she runs the day-to-day.
I mean, I'm so out of the day-to-day that I couldn't even tell you our clients anymore.
You know, residential ones.
But she, so I have a CEO and then I have a director of quality control and then I have two team leads.
And right now I am fine-tuning all of those roles because when you're getting into the 20-plus employees, that is it's not like you're managing five anymore with just filling up their schedule with that many clients.
And I'm trying to explain that to the manager of the company, the COO.
That we have to start delegating a lot of these responsibilities because it's now not just five invoices a day; it's thirty-five invoices a day.
You know that's very time-consuming.
We're getting five estimates rolling in a day.
You know then we got to fill them out.
You know, it's very time-consuming.
It's a lot on your mental health.
And then, if you're also, you know, she does have a handful of clients like I do.
My apartment buildings, the property managers, I'll go ahead and clean their houses as well.
Now, I'm not gonna send you my golden goose.
Yes, yeah.
You want impressive?
Zena is my Golden Goose, and I'm going to send her to.
Clean your house.
So you are happy.
And when it comes to budget time, she's the one.
I'm going to talk to.
Yeah, that's so smart.
Yeah.
So, just fine-tuning the leadership right now is what I'm really working on because, like I said, the last five months I've been out of the field because at the beginning of the year I was doing you know, third shift, fourth shift, growing.
The company hiring, doing that different take on Indeed.
And if you are short-staffed, you know I'm in the field cleaning.
I'm in the field.
I'm after work checking the COO's work, making sure no money is going out the wrong way possible.
Making sure all the books are good, doing the meetings with the accountant, with the insurance, making sure none of those errors happen.
So, just fine-tuning the leadership right now is what I'm really working on.
Because I feel like expanding those rules and delegating those tasks are the next level to grow Spag and shine to the next level.
To get 10 more cleaners.
Absolutely!
You put on your intake form some nightmare scenarios, like recruiting companies where you used like or something along the lines of, what did you say that was so like intriguing to me?
Of staffing agencies, and their employees threatened my actual employees.
So what happened in the hotel at the beginning?
I had five of my workers down there.
They needed like, let's just say hypothetically twenty.
So I reached out to a staffing agency to help me a little bit in my time to get to where I have to be.
And you know, I told the staffing agency, you know, they need to wear a bag and shine shirt.
You know, they're representing Bag and Shine, but they're also working for this hotel.
And at the same time, hotels have unions.
There's a housekeeping union.
Oh really?
Good.
They're probably current employees.
Their current employees are not happy with us coming in.
But a way around it is if it's COVID and you can't hire people, you still need to fulfill the hotel requirements of the customers.
So either way we were coming in.
But I needed help, so I hired outside, you know, a staffing agency to pick up my slack a little bit.
And I get a call and employees yelling at me.
You know, the other Another Spaginshine employee was here drinking on the job.
He got all drunk on lunch and threatened me with a gun.
I said, "Oh my God!
What are you talking about?"
Now the hotel is calling me on the other line telling me that now they're fighting in the parking lot, and now I'm running down there getting in the middle of these.
The things that you think you're gonna get a call, you know.
Hey man, you know, day's going good down here.
Don't worry about stopping down.
No, no, no.
I got gunfights going on.
Oh my god!
I don't mean to laugh; that sounds horrific.
But like that, I feel like that's like the quintessential: "like oh, you want to open a business?"
Like well, here you go."
So, like, like I said, we were with them for a couple years, and that could tarnish you hiring a staffing agency.
That could put a bad name in your mouth or in your on your name.
Yeah, you know, I've I actually have never shared that on the podcast.
I did use a staffing agency once, and they like recommended.
Like two people, and we didn't hire any of them because I.
Was like, "this is so like, you have to be literally like a cleaning like God" in order for me to pay this price?
Like, I just I couldn't stomach; like it's so expensive.
And I was like, "like, for how long?"
And I'm like, "I get it."
The staffing agencyâthey're providing Valuable service, but I simply cannot and will not.
I would refuse to pay that; like I'm not going to do it.
I will do anything else.
So I'm curious, anybody in the comments if you guys have ever successfully used a staffing agency?
Like I said, I tried it once.
I was like, nope, this ain't for me.
A little edge upâjust don't be super truthful at firstâand then when you're actually telling them your hourly rate, say $10.
Yep.
Yeah, exactly because, and that's the problem is like it was even when we were paying a lot lower than what we do now, and it was like it was so expensive.
I was like, we can't; like we're not going to make any money, and there's no guarantee these people are gonna actually work out.
I'm like, it just didn't make any financial sense to me.
So that's why we've never gone that route.
But obviously, they exist for a reason.
When you find a good one and you want to hire them, off them, I mean they're charging you their yearly salary basically.
Yeah, it's crazy.
Yeah, it just doesn't make any sense.
So like if any staffing agencies are listening, exactly.
I'm just like it's just such a high turnover industry; like no matter.
What you do is just I don't know.
It doesn't seem worth it to me whatsoever, but okay.
So you're at about twenty staff members now.
Looking back on the different stages of the business, what do you think has been the most challenging stage?
Or even if it was a revenue number, a number of staff members where you were like, "I am losing my fucking mind right now."
Like, what tell me when was that?
When were you losing your mind?
Is it right now?
No, no good.
I would say when I tried doing the company vehicles.
Ooh!
Tell me about that.
That was awful.
I mean, the insurance alone on having multipleâI had four company vehicles, I think at one timeâand one got totaled.
Now that team was down; I had to pair them up with the next team.
That car was broken down that day.
The other cleaner crashed the other one.
I mean it wouldâI was so stranded at that time providing company vehicles.
You know, of course.
Things go wrong at the perfect times, right?
So you know having all those cars down and all those staff members with no vehicles because I wasn't.
I didn't.
I didn't hire only people with that requirement, yeah, of course.
Cause you're like, why would I?
Yeah, Hey, you could get here right, so I would say that was probably a really hard time because that was like a good six months of and I felt bad too.
I didn't want to just fire the employees.
That you know, accidents happen.
But I would really say that was a strong hurdle, and then getting over that, coming out of that, and hiring people with vehicles and mandating everyone has to have a vehicle.
You know, having talks with the employees that didn't have vehicles, hey, listen, I'll put you in an apartment building where it only takes a to B.
That's where you go for right now until your car situation gets fixed.
That's another advantage.
If you have apartment buildings, they can fill in hours because they need deep clean somewhere somehow, or a hallway needs vacuumed.
So the way we got out of the vehicle situation, I mandated that you have to have one: you have to have a valid driver's license, you have to have insurance.
And you know what, for me doing this, we'll give you a $500 year car allowance.
Now, with that, you can give us our maintenance receipt, gas receipts.
We'll pay 25 percent of it.
It's just so I'm not getting hit with a $500 bill by X, Y, and Z employees, and gas receipts will probably pay the full amount, just because you know gas is high right now.
And we'll do that as a courtesy of the company.
So that's kind of what we do, and I pay straight time through.
So you clock in at the beginning of the day, and you clock out at the end of the day.
You get paid all the way through, plus a $500 car allowance.
Nice.
That's very generous, and a great way to handle that.
I'm really happy that you're sharing this.
Because a lot of people aspire to do the same.
And even my Stephanie's ego.
She would love to be a part of this.
Fleet of vehicles, but never is this going to happen.
Right?
Like because it justâit makes like itâlike take the money out of it alone.
Right?
Take the cost of vehicles and all of that stuff.
Like the amount of time when it comes to the maintenance.
And like we've got two work cars, and there's always something wrong.
It seems like they gotta get taken to the shop.
So one of my managers has to be running cars, and that costs me money and time.
And then yeah, if something happens, and yeah, we've totaled employees go in and eat it and make it dirty.
All these things they want to do even though they're notâthey're not supposed toâor yeah, they stop at the strip club on the way home, right?
Like all of these things that they're not supposed to be doing.
And like you know, I mean, for us that because we're cleaning it, so they can certainly stop.
I heard you do strip fun.
I was like, that's wild!
We did one; we did one, and they no longer have it.
It's a little dirty in there, huh?
Yeah, well, it wasn't even thatâthey canceled on us because not because they were unhappy, but one of the dancers wanted to make more money, and so he gave it to her yeah, that's a lot of times when we lose commercial accountsâis internalâyou knowâthat type of handoff.
But that's beside the point.
I find, yeah, vehicles like we had two of them; we've had two vehicles totaled, and so we just canâwe always have two because one when I'm in Wisconsin.
I need a car, and then my quality control personâshe likesâone of them is dedicated for her, and I love it for brandingâit's fantasticâbut it simply, financially, it just doesn'tâit's such a fucking nightmare.
So, anybody listening, please really crunch the numbersâand not just the numbers, but the time, and also, yes, relying on staff members who do not have vehicles, which I know some of our listeners theyâthey simply.
Feel like they have to, or they have to have people carpooling or driving.
The least you can rely on that, and you only hire people who have vehicles.
Like it, we simply won't hire a single person without a vehicle.
Like it's just you don't even get to the interview.
I know it's hard to think, you know?
Hey, I need cleaners so I need to do what I got to do.
But the amount of time you're wasting on that part of the company where you think you need that instead of honing in on getting the good cleaners.
That are, you know, not saying their bad cleaners but cleaners that are all around contributing to the company, and you're not just being stuck with one sort.
You know, it will advance you a lot.
Gosh, you've had some really big lessons over the years.
I was just dealing with a cleaner this finding a two-year-old cleaner I let go two years ago, and I'm still hearing that she's stealing my clients, stealing out of clients.
You know, and it's wearing my shirt.
So, as for your As for your uniforms back, holy shit!
Oh my gosh.
Like I don't even...
I mean, I guess you could file a police report for like theft, because that is technicallyâthat's insane.
So, I mean, I guessâI guess sheâI guess she took a few of my clients and has a few other clients, but she's still wearing my stuff.
So, I guess it was a Sheets employee telling my employee when they were on lunch breakâyou know, she's cleaner for my mom.
Have you ever had a problem with her?
You know, yeah, we haveâwe actually had her, you know, cash a check for a customer that tipped her a year later.
You know, oh my gosh!
You know, the mobile deposit and take it to the bank.
You know, so so she's like we're having problems at my mom's house; she's ninety two, and there is jewelry and money missing.
You know, and it's just like any.
Any if there are customers out there watching, you know, please don't just go with the cheapest price.
We're bonded and insured.
We can, if we if one of our employees takes a well, we could we could replace it.
We could take care of it.
That's why we have insurance.
Yeah, it's so true.
And like what you just said, like what you guys just heard Nick say is exactly how we should be educating clients when they're like, "Well, I can get Sally down the street for cheaper."
And it's like you don't understand.
Not saying Sally's a bad person, but what you are paying for is insurance and peace of mind that if we do something wrong, we can be held liable.
Whereas like individual cleaners are like dust in the wind, like and they can just frolic and get away with things again.
No offense to anybody who is an individual cleaner.
I'm not saying you're bad.
I'm saying that as respect the hustle.
Yes, exactly.
We all like, of course.
And there's lots of them listening.
The point is that as a business, we pay for these things so that we can sell guarantees.
We can sell peace of mind and protection for the client, right?
And yeah, it's just gosh.
That's really frustrating.
I'm so sorry that you're dealing with that.
Hey, it fuels me.
It fuels me.
That's what I like to say.
That gives me energy to.
I'm that one where if you're gonna screw me over, I'll put a billboard outside of your house and lights, and you're going to see my name for the next five years.
You know?
Yeah.
That's me.
Yeah, the best revenge is personal excellence and success.
So that's how I see it is just be better.
Just be better.
You know what I mean.
Like that's what I try to do because I have lots of former employees who've gone and started cleaning businesses in my area, and I'm hey karma's real.
Yes, it is.
It is.
Speaking of Karma, obviously.
Personal Excellence.
How do you think the cleaning business has changed you, especially coming from such a professional background like you're very professionally developed?
It sounds like.
How has this grown you?
The service industry is a completely different ballgame.
I mean, it's it has made me really appreciate the valuable, having a valuable team and sharing the same.
The team sharing the same vision as you, and Without the Spag and Shine employees, I would not be where I am today.
And I thank them so much forâI guess I'm sure you've experiencedâemployees coming back at the end of a day, and you're still doing your office work right.
And they going, "Oh, about time!
I get to sit back."
Been a long day, and it's like I got ten more hours of work, dude.
You know?
Just sharing the same vision and allowing me the time to work and grow on the company, and not being stuck in the field next to them every day.
And them giving me just having trust in me to grow the company and give back to the company.
No, absolutely.
I think thatâthat team appreciationâit goes so far.
And even like we had one of our staff members at their year anniversary, and like how are we doing?
Like you know, what can we do better?
And like her feedback today was just like, "I've never worked for such a generous company," and like, it like.
Reading that, like that's made my whole day.
It's like top of mind, like okay, what matters to me is what they think of us, right?
Like how do they actually feel about working for us?
Like that's what makes me feel amazing because you know they're gonna take care of the clients.
Like if you just take care of them, they're gonna take care of the clients.
You know everything works together.
It's a perfect circle.
You know, if you're giving me time, I'm giving you time.
Everyone's getting happy.
You know, absolutely.
And I will build any employee that wants to take a chance and try something.
If they need help with something, I don't mind.
You know, your experience with growing Serene Clean and my experience with growing Spagin Shine.
We could educate people that actually want to do something.
That's the value that comes to the table with me.
You know, you could talk to the boss.
You're not another number in the corporate.
No, absolutely.
And I also think that's a really cool thing about being part of a community too.
Is like we can lead by example with how we treat our staff and how we treat our community and hopefully have an influence.
And other businesses as well.
So it just like the results and influence can permeate much farther than just our companies, which is really really cool.
So what's the goal for this year, Nick?
And what is the five-year goal?
Do you have specific ones in mind?
So I would tone down on the numbers.
Like you said, you're working with ZenMaid to get that implemented in the program, and I cannot wait for that to happen.
If I could have one wish, it would be that the ZenMaid appointment clicked, completed, and it linked up with QuickBooks and automatically sent the invoice.
Yes, the API, yeah, mm-hmm, phenomenal.
Yes, QuickBooks integration.
It wouldn't be a separate audit check that I would have to do because you're paying an employee forty hours a week.
Where if ZenMaid made that, they could charge an extra ten bucks per person a month and make.
A lot of money, but I would say my turning in on the management, making sure that is all fine-tuned, and then I would like to get into expanding out of state to our other apartment buildings since they are you know, cross state.
What state?
I don't know what's next to Pennsylvania.
So Pennsylvaniaâthey have one in New York, Ohio.
My other complex that I have has one in New Jersey.
So just being able toâmy accountant's from Ohio, so I'd probably focus on Ohio first, just to do that one stop.
You know, hey, I met you finally in person.
You know, for real.
Yeah, that's kind ofâI would say getting out of state.
You know, we do a few contracts out of state, but it's not really steady out of state.
I'm afraid; I'm nervous to tiptoe.
Well, I wonder how you like?
How do you staff them?
How do you staff them currently?
And how do you manage those people?
We so out of state, yeah.
So it's not steady.
So it's like once a year we'll go up to the apartment building and do a deep clean, or do a carpet clean.
For a week, and you know I'll pay a hotel up there for a couple weeks and send a few staff members like that.
Got it?
That makes perfect sense.
But yeah, I understand the nerves though.
Even just like you know we don't go across to Minnesota even though we get tons of quote requests just because like the taxes and the laws and the insurance is very different than Wisconsin.
And I'm like I just don't even want to open that can of worms even though I could make you know it's literally the same distance for us compared to some houses we do.
Like when I'm just like I don't right there?
I can make I can make, right?
That's what always gets you.
You know, like look at all that money I could get!
But yes, I'm like nope let's not do that.
So I understand your reservations, but clearly you've got these really great relationships so it'd be cool to see you explore them.
I'm able to tiptoe.
I'm tiptoeing.
Mm-hmm.
That's that's I don't want to rush.
Yeah, you know?
Yeah, no, I totally get it.
I'm curious when it comes to commercial, is there any?
I like to ask when people do commercial.
Do you have any no goes of people?
You're like, "Nope, don't want to work with that particular type of account."
Like for example, for us, with restaurants, right?
Like we're like, "Fuck Restaurants," We're not doing, yeah.
I noticed you said that on your recent podcast.
I so with restaurants, I set like a clear expectation.
Like I'm not going in your hood vents, yes, Exactly, yes, I'm not cleaning those man.
Like you gotta that's a specialty service.
Like I'll I'll explain what my range of scope is because that's why there are those specialty service companies.
Because they hone in on that niche.
You know, they're good at that.
So I'll do your walls, I'll do your grease plates, I'll do Deep clean on your oven.
I'll go I'll pull the stuff out, go underneath.
I got the floor machines to help us out.
But I just set clear expectations.
There's not really something I will not do.
Yeah, there's no limit.
I don't really have a I'm not a big fan of salons like hair salons.
What?
Those black mats suck.
Oh, yeah, the hair mats, you got to pick up 19 of those and stack them.
Up and go underneath them, and it's just and then getting between the leather chairs and getting all the hair with the crevice tools.
I've had an employee do $3,000 worth of damage, oh, to a salon, wow, scratching the leather chairs, scratch in the kick plates, the mirrors, just using all the attachments without the guards on it.
You know, because we have backpack vacuums, so you know, Atrix backpack vacuum, not familiar, no.
So they have like a metal pull at the end and that can scratch.
Now, if you're trying to get in all the crevices of the chairs and stuff, you're scratching leather.
I mean, I had to.
Pull out my handyman ways and figure out how to fix all of this.
So you avoided an insurance claim, like you were able to actually fix it?
Yeah, I was able to fix it off.
And I mean, I even peeked in the morning to see them looking, and they were up real close, looking at the scratches.
You know?
Yeah.
Oh, what a nightmare!
Oh my goodness, that sounds horrific.
I was very nervous.
Yeah, yeah, good job.
That's pretty MacGyvering it.
That's amazing.
Did I'm curious.
Like how specifically did you do the stainless steel repair kit?
How did you do all of these things?
When I bought the commercial building, the previous owner left a like car like polishing machine.
And I bought the parts for that and used that on like the you know how the stands at the salon have the mirrors and they could spin.
So that black shiny part, that's what they scratch, so I had to polish that and get that out.
And then with the leather.
Chairs.
I had to use a magic eraser with leather repair like cleaner solution, and just kept rubbing and rubbing and rubbing for like good two hours on every single chair.
Oh my god!
It was awful.
That it soundsâit worked.
It worked.
It works.
Yeah, that sounds like torture.
I bet you were just so thrilled to be doing it.
Yeah, I fired them.
That was a staffing agency.
Yeah, that was a staffing agency.
Another vote against staffing agencies?
Yep.
Stop!
Don't use staffing agencies.
Oh my gosh!
Whoofda!
That's...
That's pretty crazy.
Okay.
Yeah, we've done.
We have.
I think we actually do some swans right now.
It was probably that fear of that experience that makes me not want to do it.
Yeah.
No, I get that.
I totally understand.
We have that with dentist offices even though, like, that you know, they commonly reach out.
We actually had one that we canceled on.
They just reached back out to us and we said no again because they're like, "no," like we don't want these.
Like it's just they're so catty and mean and like just ridiculous, ridiculous.
And I'm not trying to stereotype at all.
This, you know, obviously we have you know nasty people in all sorts of accounts, but like it's just been across the board at dentist offices; they are a lot of times cheap and they've just been impossible to please.
Like, and it is like this is not worth it for us.
Hey, sometimes you got to fire.
Exactly.
Well, this has been amazing, Nick.
Any other words of wisdom?
If anybody wants to get into what you do specifically with the apartment, complexes, with the floor care kind of being all in one again, like.
I don't have a lot of people on the podcast who do what you do, so I want to hear any and any further pieces of advice.
Honestly, I would say just what like I said before.
Just make sure you have the insurances if you're going to start expanding into those realms.
Because when you start getting into the specialty services like floor care, carpet cleaning, you know, you can make a big oh.
You know, you know, the luxury apartments, if you have your cleaners jumping on the counters, you could really break an expensive marble counter.
You know, or use the wrong product.
You just need to make sure you have the insurances in place and make sure you have a good broker for insurance.
Because if you don't stay up on it, I made a thirty-thousand-dollar mistake.
I paid too much in workers' comp, and I should have been way more on it than what I was that year.
And that could have been a part-time.
Employee, you know it could have boosted me faster with not making that error.
Oh, I mean, I can so relate.
I think I made a whole episode about me overpaying for years for insurance and now we're saving like $14K a year.
And I'm like, that could have been so many things.
So yes, lesson learned, please guys.
And take the time to watch Stephanie.
No, thank you, Nick.
Ah, you're so sweet.
Thank you, thank you.
I'm so happy that you find it valuable and I appreciate your time.
I've been there from day one with ZenMaid.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, that's amazing!
Day one.
That's incredible.
Yeah, Amor, you know, I remember his leadership team was talking to me at the beginning as their workers, you know.
So it's nice to see how far all of us have come at the same time without even really knowing each other oh, that's amazing.
Yeah.
Oh my gosh, that's so cool.
I didn't know that.
Obviously, I have been since day one too.
So it's really cool that it scaled really well for you as well.
So how cool, Nick?
Oh my gosh!
If people want to follow you or your business, what are you comfortable putting out there?
SpagAndShine.com.
Hell yeah!
Again, that brand name.
Come to our website.
I took your advice on that too.
Hell yeah!
Oh my gosh, that's amazing.
Thank you so much, Nick.
Please everybody, if you got any questions for him, leave them down below.
Leave them love.
Hit that like.
Hit that subscribe.
And we'll see you in the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners.
Bye guys.
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