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- [00:01]
A
This is the $60,000 a month remote leaning side Hustle. What's up? What's up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to the side Hustle show. It's the entrepreneurship podcast. You can actually apply. And here's the opportunity. Helping homeowners get the help they need and helping on the ground professionals get the work they want and making a margin in the middle and doing it all from home, even if you have no experience in the service your company is ultimately providing. It might sound a little bit crazy, but hey, it's a crazy world that we live in. Today's guest has taken that model and really run with it, growing from zero on a path to a million dollars in revenue as a side hustle in his first two years as a remote cleaning entrepreneur from nebraskaelitecleaning.com Skylar Sullivan. Welcome to the side Hustle Show.
- [00:41]
B
Yes, sir. Thank you, Nick. I appreciate it. Looking forward to talking here and me as well.
- [00:44]
A
Stick around. In this one, you learn how Skylar landed his first customers and cleaners. Right? You got to play both sides of this. How he markets the business today and how he manages the communications and logistics of it all on the side from his day job. But I want to know about your first booking. You put this out into the world, and somebody raises their hand. Some stranger customer says, yeah, come on by. Can you do my house?
- [01:04]
B
Yeah, totally. First time, I didn't even know what I was doing. It took me a while actually, to get the LLC and all that sort of stuff. But finally, a couple months in, I actually get it, and I start using Angie leads. You know, everybody kind of knows about Angie.
- [01:16]
A
Formerly Angie's List.
- [01:18]
B
Sure, yeah, Angie's List. So you bid on the leads. Each lead's like 35 bucks. The first one was a guy who called me and said he just needed the basement really, really vacuumed. I said, okay, we vacuum. He's like, will you shampoo, too? I'm like, no, not really. But we'll vacuum, you know? Anyways, I sent a cleaner there. I didn't really know her, and she said she would do it. So she goes, doesn't make it to the whole clean. She has roaches on her. Says she had to run out. She said there were mice everywhere. She's seen them. So she's unhappy. She's mad at me. The customer is unhappy because, you know, it was unrealistic expectations because I didn't ask the right questions. And now the money he paid me, he wants to take all his money back, and the cleaner's mad. So it Was like a complete train wreck for the first clean.
- [01:55]
A
Yeah. You're like, wait a minute, this sounded so much easier on paper. Like, what are you supposed to do in that case? Are you supposed to get, like, pictures of the space in advance? Dance? Like, it's hard to give a bid over the phone or online if you don't know what you're walking into.
- [02:06]
B
And that's what we do now. We do. We get pictures and we, you know, you can get a feel after doing so many of these things. What's going to be good, what's going to be bad? Just kind of talking with them. That was my first one ever. I didn't know, you know, I didn't know to ask about bugs when he told me the rating was going to be a six, you know, and then they're, they're trying to figure out how they're going to pay for it. Like, there's a lot of red flags that I didn't know were red flags at the time.
- [02:26]
A
Interesting. So that's one Angie's one platform to get leads. What. What happens after that? You decide, look, that that's gotta be a one. Does that become common? I just curious what kind of situations you might find yourself in on a. On a. As a new cleaning startup.
- [02:41]
B
Yeah. So that happened and I was just like, kind of blown away. I'm like, man, there's other people doing this. This can't be the way it is all the time. Right. Like, I really fought because I got some money out of it. I don't know, it was probably a couple hundred dollars. And I said, hey, let's just make a deal. Like, I'll take $100. That way I didn't lose money on the deal and I could pay the cleaner something. So we made some sort of deal and I was just like, glad I was done with it. The second clean was another Angie deal. And the lady called and she had a parrot and there was parrot poop and animal crap everywhere. She didn't had a clean in years. We get there again over to like, it was a train wreck. The cleaner gets there. I mean, this is a. Not a hoarder house, but just a disgusting, disgusting house. I'm talking like food of the animal everywhere. Like, there was mold in the kitchen or in the bathrooms. It's always not even safe, you know, and then you've got the poop from the parrot. So I said, yeah, we're going to do a great job, get it all clean. Then I have to end up calling her and saying, like, we can't do it. She's ticked off. And so I have a couple issues right early.
- [03:40]
A
You're. You're really selling this.
- [03:41]
B
Yeah, well, it started off tough. It's definitely started off tough.
- [03:45]
A
I appreciate you not sugarcoating it and saying, yeah, it's all been sunshine and unicorns and rainbows here. So that's. That's all good. Now the interesting part here is, like, you've got to play. You kind of got to balance the demand side. Like, as my marketing ramps up, as I start to get customers and leads, but also making sure you have the cleaners available to go out and fulfill the work. And so it sounds like you had some cleaners that you had recruited to go out and do it. Like, okay, I'm going to start to fill up your schedule. Is that where new cleaning businesses have to start with the. With the labor, with the professional, like, fulfillment side?
- [04:18]
B
Yeah. Well, that's a great, great question. And just to kind of answer what you're saying about, like, start off tough. It does start off tough. And just to play on that real quick, it started off so tough that, like, my first three, I booked a recurring clean, and I was like, I was thinking I was so good, right, Because I was decent at sales. But then our fulfillment wasn't good enough. And so she canceled. She was ticked. She wanted to give me a poor review. And so I remember sitting in my. In my kitchen with my now fiance, and she goes, you can quit. You don't have to do this. So she told me, I'm sitting here, I'm like, I've never been a quitter. My. My background is a Division 1 college basketball coach, so I'm inherently competitive. She goes, you can quit. And I go, I'm not quitting. Heck no. And that was like, I'll never forget that moment because it gives me chills, too. Because that day I was like, I'm going to spend this entire Sunday finding better people. And I kind of did, but, I mean, I worked at it, so. And so that's. That's. That part.
- [05:08]
A
Can I pause there? I think that's really important to have somebody in your corner who is rooting for you and either pushing you, like, say, hey, look, it's okay. You don't have to do this. You don't need this in your life, and that's totally fine. And in the opposite corner, it could be like, hey, you. You're going to get through this, right? It's. It's, you know, just a low period. And the sun's going to come up tomorrow and we can figure this out.
- [05:29]
B
Yeah, exactly. So that's what I was thinking. I'm just like, hey, I just got to find a couple more and we just got to get done. So that's what I spent the day doing. And. And things got a little bit better after that. But that was like a moment where it's either fight or flight because things had gone really poorly for like the first three weeks or a month, you.
- [05:44]
A
Know, Was there any market research that went into it? Well, I'm in Omaha or, you know, how many other cleaners already exist in this area? How am I ever going to compete with people who already have dozens of reviews? Is there anything that, like that. That goes into it when choosing a market or a niche or just saying, like, look, I can. I know this is a game I can win.
- [06:04]
B
The most important thing is doing it where you're at. Like, what I've learned because I've tried to think, oh, this is so easy. I can do it in different areas even now. And it's a lot harder to do it when you're. When you're not in that location because I'm able to do networking here. I'm able to just be boots on the ground if something goes wrong. I've gone to the cleans and done some quality control myself. So I would definitely say doing it where you live helps so much more rather than being like, hey, Tampa, Florida is a really great economy. That'd be a great place. I just, it's so much harder when you're not there. I feel like you got it.
- [06:32]
A
Yeah. Even though it's like you're not necessarily on the ground inside every house, it's still like there's, there's a presence. And I'm kind of with you versus saying like, oh, the, the keyword research or the data pointed to, you know, this mismatch between, you know, the population and then the number of service providers. So there's clearly room over here because you kind of. You need those service providers to be your fulfillment arm for sure.
- [06:53]
B
And used to meet with them before interviews. Interviews. I'd be like, let's go meet in person. Yeah. And so I think that just that sort of stuff helps to, you know, they know who they're working for and they know it's because there's not always a lot of, A lot of action with me and them because I've, you know, I've got multiple cleaners and multiple jobs. I can't see them all every day.
- [07:09]
A
What's that pitch? Or what's. What's your recruiting look like? Trying to find somebody like, hey, I've got this idea. I want to start this cleaning business, but I need people to help me do the cleaning. And like, what's that outreach like?
- [07:21]
B
Yeah, well, everybody's cleaned. I've cleaned before, you know, don't love it, but everybody's clean. And so cleaning to me is like, you don't have to be a star or machine. Yeah, we can learn all. Learn tips and tricks and be more efficient, be better. But if you're just detailed and diligent, anybody can do it. If you're high character, detailed, and diligent, you probably, anybody can do it. And then after that, I mean, there's tips and tricks for different chemicals, but. So that's what I knew. That's what I knew, is that it doesn't take a master. I just need to find some people who are probably good and maybe they've worked in a hotel or something like that. So I would use indeed, Facebook a little bit, but Craigslist, indeed, indeed was really, really helpful at first. And then after I found a couple, we would. We would use referrals from cleaners who kn. Other cleaners who, you know, had worked out. So what, what's that pitch like, though? The pitch is like, hey, I just created the. An elite cleaning company, a company that I'm looking for pros. We are pros. We have. We have a professional mantra, and I'm looking for pros like you, based on your resume and who you are. You know, does this sound like something you'd be interested in? You know, getting some. Making some more money and taking more jobs. And most of the time it's yes, not always, but most of the time.
- [08:20]
A
Okay, so it's like the pitch is, well, you know, we're. We're building this elite culture. We'd love for you to be a part of it if, if that's a fit. And we'll help you fill up your schedule. We'll. You get more hours.
- [08:30]
B
Absolutely. Yep, Exactly. We'll fill up, help you fill up your schedule. All you have to worry about is doing the cleaning. We'll do the, you know, the scheduling, we'll do the, the notes. All you have to do is just show up, do the cleaning. You have to worry about reschedules and collecting payments. We'll take care of all that for you.
- [08:46]
A
Got it. And so that it appeals to the people who want kind of like an easy button way. I mean, of course, it's still manual labor. But like they don't have to be the entrepreneur, they don't have to be the marketer, they don't have to be the administrator. Like they can just be. You just show up and do show up and do the work. You know, I think a lot of people are looking something like that.
- [09:02]
B
Yeah, exactly. Advertising. They don't have to worry about sales, negotiation with customers, customer cancellations, getting payments. You know, in the communication with customers, it can be literally 24, seven, like we'll get calls, texts from people and all day, all night. And so if you're not an entrepreneur, don't have that mindset. You can get walked over by customers as well or taken advantage of what's.
- [09:22]
A
Typical in terms of an hourly rate or a payment per clean. Or how do you think, how do you have things structured with the cleaners?
- [09:28]
B
We like to be around that $25, $25 an hour. Ish. Because they're also supplying equipment of their own equipment as well, their own cleaning supplies and driving there. So $25 and then they get tips as well. And it can be a little bit higher but around that.
- [09:42]
A
Got it. Okay, so that's helpful on the recruiting side. Let's talk about the customer acquisition side. Aside from these first couple jobs that did not turn out so well, like when do things start to turn around? Do you start to see consistent lead flow, recurring bookings, stuff like that?
- [09:57]
B
Some people would say, or just do home cleaning because everything else is sticky, sticky in a negative way. If you' doing janitorial or if you're doing commercial. And I would get these calls and I would just be like, hey, like it's money, let's see if we can do it. And so I ended up getting a pretty nice commercial deal that was like over 10,000amonth. And that helped me just get momentum. It helped me get momentum because my margins were high on it still. And it helped me really think really, really futuristic about the business. Not to mention also having a day job helped me think futuristically about the business. I was never in this short term mindset, like, okay, let's make this quick money right now and keep moving. I was always in a long term mindset, like, I don't really need this money right now. I have a day job. And so I could just think futuristically.
- [10:36]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [10:37]
B
So from the advertising perspective, I mean, I use Google. I tried thumbtack, I tried Yelp, I tried it all. And then even investing into my SEO or search engine optimization and trying to get more Organic. So, yeah.
- [10:49]
A
How did the. How did this $10,000 a month commercial building find you?
- [10:53]
B
It was a school. It's a private school. Private church, Catholic. And I'm a Catholic. I'm Catholic as well. It's actually my parish. Just by pure luck, they called our company. I answered the phone, and they were looking for a different provider for their Catholic school and church for the Catholic school or diocese, like the. And so I was like, okay, yeah, like, let's do it. Let me come by and check it out. And I didn't even know how to quote it. I didn't know what I was doing with quoting it.
- [11:15]
A
But that was the next question. Like, how do you come up with price?
- [11:17]
B
Yeah, I was just, like, trying to figure out, like, maybe my charge rate was really, really high too. But I also wasn't figuring out, like, how long would it really take. I was like, way underbidding on the. How long it would take, but I was way overbidding on the price, so it kind of even itself out. That makes sense. I didn't know how to quote it, but I just threw a number out that I was like. I was pretty sure if we got it, I wouldn't lose money. I did an interview with a couple of the people there, and they liked me. And they're like, I believe in this guy. I think he'll figure it out. So we start off with one person there, and then we went to two. And they kept giving us more and more responsibility. They kept kind of firing their W2 employees and having us take on more. So it was one to two to three. And then we ended up having four people there five to six days a week. And we fulfilled it. It was a lot of cleaning, a lot of work, but it ended up being really good. So how they ended up just calling me. I was advertising with Google, and he just gave me a call and we ran with that one. Now, what I'll say with this too, is that it wasn't always easy, but I protected that account. Like, when you have a big account that is more than probably 50% of your whole portfolio. Because at first it was. I protected that thing with my life. When anybody, whenever. When anybody called from there, I was the one that I wanted to answer. I want to talk to. I wanted to solve the problem because everything's not always perfect there. What happened was a cleaner would miss. I didn't really always have backups there. So we've had three people. One was sick, you know, who went in there and did the cleaning for four hours that night. Night.
- [12:35]
A
It's got to be you.
- [12:36]
B
Exactly. And I was in there, I was like. And I'd be so ticked. Like, dang it, I have to go spend my freaking night. The NBA playoffs are on or something. I got to go spend my night. It's going to take me five hours. And it did. I'm like. And I. And you know what? The next morning, you know, I woke up sore. Sore. Because it's daunting work.
- [12:51]
A
It's, you know, it's labor. Yeah.
- [12:52]
B
Yeah. But I protected it and I made sure that we, we fulfilled it every night. We didn't miss. We ended up having it for a couple years.
- [12:59]
C
More with Skyler in just a moment, including how he gets local leads from a networking group. And what happens when cleaners try and poach customers right after this. Running a business is hard. If it were easy, everybody would be doing it right? You got a to do list a mile long and a dozen different hats to wear. Well, here's a resource to help lighten your load. I'm excited to partner with Gusto for this episode as they've been one of the most recommended services by guests over the years. Gusto is the easy, affordable online payroll, HR and benefits tool for modern small businesses. In fact, they help over 300,000 businesses like yours take the pain out of tasks like payroll tax filing, direct deposit, health insurance administration, 401k benefits, onboarding tools and more. Whether your team is 1099 or W2 or a combination of both, of course, do your own due diligence. Check out their reviews online and I think you'll find some common threads in the comments about ease of use, great customer support and great value. And here's the deal. To help you get started or to make the switch from another provider side Hustle show listeners get three months free. Just go to Gusto.com Sidehustle to start setting up your business today and you'll see what I mean when I say easy again. That's three months of free payroll at Gusto.com Sidehustle that's Gusto. G-U-S-T-O.com Sidehustle with our partner Airbnb. You already know that you can turn your home into an income generating asset when you're not using it. But you might not be sure where to start. Well, well, here's a little secret. You ever wonder how some entrepreneurs seem to get so much done and they make it look so simple? A lot of the time it's not about being the expert but it's about finding qualified people to help you out. With Airbnb's new co host network, you can hire a high quality local co host to take care of all the details of hosting your home, starting with creating an eye catching listing and even styling the space. And then they'll help you manage reservations, communicate with guests, and even provide on site support. You provide the space, they handle the details and you get paid. Now that's a side hustle I can get excited about because when I'm traveling for work or with the family, I don't really want to be glued to my phone. Here's a way to add extra income without extra stress. Get started today by connecting with an awesome local co host@airbnb.com host okay, so.
- [15:19]
A
They found you through a Google Ad. You've mentioned Angie, you mentioned a little bit of the SEO. Starting to build up a presence for the website itself. You know, thumbtack exists. Maybe not as easy picking or as lucrative as it once was with $7 leads. You know what else is a lead source these days?
- [15:39]
B
Yep. So I also joined a networking chapter. What it is is we meet once a week and there's business owners and people in different trades from. In my city, from, you know, all different trades. There's realtors, mortgage lenders, loans, electrician, plumbers, heating, air conditioning, pretty much, you name it. Every trade should be in there. Not every, exact.
- [15:56]
A
What's it like a bi. What's the bni?
- [15:59]
B
Yep.
- [15:59]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
- [16:00]
B
So we're all in there. And the whole point is, is like if you ever need a service, use each other. And it's, you know, it's a really cool thing because you're friends with these people and yet we don't ask for discounts. Right. So you, you, everybody pays regular price, but if you need a service, use each other. And so those guys use me as well. And you know, I use them as well. And it was just a good way to kind of get things rolling that way as well and kind of bring in more just from the networking aspect is the rule.
- [16:26]
A
Like we can only have one service provider in every industry or niche. Hey, we need a cleaning guy. So you're welcome in.
- [16:32]
B
Exactly. Yeah, one in one of each. Exactly. So no more other cleaners can be in there. We're the exclusive cleaner of the group. There's only one plumber in the group. Only one realtor in the group. Yeah. Otherwise there's just different groups.
- [16:41]
A
Yeah, that's true. I guess. Go start a spin off your own chapter. If you're number two in line, like, okay, fine, well, I'm making my own group. I remember going to a couple of those meetings for the painting business.
- [16:50]
B
Oh, you did painting.
- [16:51]
A
Okay, yeah, we'll pass referrals along. It's almost. You kind of need that group of individuals where you occupy cleaning as like that little sliver of brain space. Like, okay, ding, ding, ding. Oh, I have a guy. I know somebody I gotta refer somebody, you know, whether it's, you know, web design or pressure washing or, you know, anything online or offline, if you can occupy that little bit of referral brain space for people. So if ever that comes up, you're like, hey, you ought to talk to so and so. Like, I think that's a good place to be.
- [17:18]
B
Yeah, it is. You know what I've learned from it too, is like, being in people's homes is very personal. It's sacred almost, really. Like, we're not changing somebody's tires, we're going in their home. It's their, their, their personal space. And so if it's a brother or sister or best friend, like, if things go totally haywire, we laugh, it's fine with an acquaintance, like, it could potentially ruin a friendship. You know what I mean? Like, we're, we, we meet each other, but we're not best friends. And so what it's been interesting is like, my, my price structure isn't the lowest in the city. We're definitely above average on pricing. I think we're very fair. We're not the highest, but we're also not the lowest. I tell people that. But what I'll tell you is that what you're going to pay for is you're going to pay for positive communication. You're going to pay for us showing up, us doing the work, and us making sure it's done right, you know, because a lot of this, a lot of times people don't show up, who charge lower. And what, what happens is we get a lot of calls that people say, hey, I need a cleaner. What. What happened to yours? Because I used to have a cleaner. They don't show up anymore. What do you mean? Well, they don't show up. Okay, how much were they. Were you paying previously? $10 an hour. Right. Something that's not even realistic.
- [18:19]
A
Yeah, that's why they didn't show up.
- [18:20]
B
Yeah, exactly. They went to get an office job because they can't afford this life. And so point is, yeah, we're gonna be a little bit more expensive. So if you can find Sheila down The street, you can do it. And that's what some of the people in our, in our group, they don't always use us for home cleaning. In fact, none of us use them use us for home cleaning. And that's fine because maybe they have their own people, but we, what we've gotten luck with is like using it for businesses, commercial cleaning. So that's been good. Good.
- [18:41]
A
When you're going out to bid a job or even submit an estimate on a job, how are you thinking about the margins? Like cost of labor? Like, do we want to do 50, 50, do we want to do 60? 40? Like what, what makes sense there?
- [18:53]
B
When I do residential, I've got it down to a pretty good area where based on the square footage and based on the extras, I know how long it's going to take. And based on that, I've got a flat rate price. We just do flat rate. Flat rate makes it easy because I know how long it should take my cleaner and everybody can be paid. If my cleaner is faster and they do a great job, hey, kudos to them. They like that better. If it takes them a little bit longer, well, you know, I got to do better on my estimation, but only in certain situations where I do an hourly rate. Only if I'm, you know, because my job as the owner of this company is to try and solve problems. So if I can't figure out if my clean is 400 and all they have a budget for is 200, well, then let's see, what can I do for them for $200? And so maybe I'll do an hourly deal. Three hour maximum. The problem with doing an hourly deal is that now the customer thinks you should have got more done in three hours. So that's why I try and stay away from it. Because then they want to complain about.
- [19:43]
A
But then on the flip side, like if you do flat rate and they're in and out in, you know, an hour and 15 minutes, you're like, well, dang, you know, then you start calculating the hourly rate in your head too.
- [19:50]
B
Exactly, exactly, exactly. So it works. Everybody does it. But at least it makes it easier and cleaner for most people. You don't have to watch the clock when we do a flat rate. So I usually do the flat rate. To answer your question on the margins, it depends. Every cleaner has a little bit of a different situation. Especially when I first started, I was giving more to my cleaners. Now it's a little bit less. But that's also because we've built a brand and reputation that if they work with us and they're good, they're going to continue to get jobs. And so I've built that brand for years, whereas they can just show up today and get jobs.
- [20:21]
A
Yeah.
- [20:22]
B
So with that being said, it's anywhere from 40% to the cleaner to 60% and I don't want to, I really don't want to pay my cleaner much less than about $70 per visit generally just because of the time, the gas and all that. Like the way the world is today. If you pay somebody 40, 50 bucks to go spend an hour and a half, it's tough. I think.
- [20:43]
A
Yeah, that's helpful and that's interesting to hear. Like, okay, starting out, I'm willing to accept a lower margin again because I still got the day job right. I'm building this brand and then as that reputation and branding improves, then kind of like Nike or like North Face or these elite brands or, you know, high prestige brands where it's like, yeah, there's some, there's definitely gonna be some more margin built in.
- [21:05]
B
Yeah, I would try and do that, but. But also with that being said, there's more margin potentially on some of these jobs, but there's less margin because now I've got to update my CRM, so that's going to cost me more money. I've got to. I've also helped people out with supplies. If it's going to be, if they're going to be there all the time, then I'll let them loan, I'll loan something to them. And then I've had to hire more people. There's more helpers now. Like I don't have. I'm hiring more people to help in the office so they have to pay them as well. So.
- [21:30]
A
Yeah.
- [21:30]
B
And then also with residential compared to commercial, it's going to be a different margin. A lot of times commercial is, it's a tricky one. Sometimes you can only get like 20, 30% margins when you're competing with the ABMs of the world because they hire employees and they'll hire employees for minimum wage at 14, 15 an hour and they're willing to take a 30, 40% margin and just keep on, you know, stacking as many accounts as they can. Whereas I would do more quality than.
- [21:53]
A
Quantity where you could be 40 to 60% on residential.
- [21:56]
B
Yeah, I won't just go 40 to 60% on a commercial job. I'll never win that. I might only be able to say if it's 150job, I might only be able to tack on 30% of that, which is another 30, 40 bucks. I might only make 30, 40 a day on it. So I'm willing to do that if I'm able to get more quantity. But it just has to be for the right value.
- [22:17]
A
Sure, yeah. Higher volume. Instead of coming back every two or three weeks, it's coming back every night. Okay, that makes. Man, this is super interesting stuff. Do you have a picture of the pie chart between residential and commercial as it stands today?
- [22:30]
B
I don't have an exact picture because it's kind of ever changing. That's the thing with this, too, is like the churn. Right. So there's always churn. And what I like to look at, I just made up this stat on my own. But we used to have. I used to always track new recurring revenue every month. And I want. And I. You know, in my personal opinion, I like to get over 2,500 per month new recurring revenue. But. But that doesn't track the churn, which, in cleaning, it's finicky. And so people are going to naturally churn. You want to keep it as low as you can. But so if we lose a couple, if we lose a weekly customer, that's $300 a week. I just lost over $1,200 a month, you know, and so I track now net recurring new revenue. Net new recurring revenue, which is take my churn. Take my new recurring revenue minus my churn, Average it out. And that's what we, you know, that's our new growth. I've been at like 600amonth on that over the past six, seven months. It's kind of a new thing I'm tracking, which seems to be. Okay, not as much of a growth as I thought. But you know what? People are finicky. They're going to naturally churn. You just have to try and keep it to as much to a minimum as I can.
- [23:28]
A
Okay. This is like, I added three new clients, but I lost one. Right. It's like as long as the number stays positive, the business is growing.
- [23:35]
B
Exactly. Now, the only thing is, I don't even care as much about how many customers I add, because if that one customer was a weekly customer and they were paying 300 a visit, I lost 1200 revenue. But if I only get three more new recurring customers in there once a month at 300amonth, I still lose because I only gained $900 that month, but I lost $1,200 because that customer was so valuable.
- [23:56]
A
Yeah. And there's more logistical complexity in dealing with More people rather than less.
- [24:00]
B
Exactly. Yeah.
- [24:01]
A
It is a good business. From the standpoint of there is this recurring revenue component where stuff is going to keep getting dirty, you want to keep coming back. What reasons do you find? People say, ah, you know, I got to put a pause on this service. I'm going to try somebody cheaper. I'm going to bring it in house. What do you see reasons for that churn?
- [24:20]
B
Obviously, price is always going to be a big one. Hey, we've got stuff going on. Or maybe, hey, we're going to be going to Florida for the winter, so we're going to be gone. But price or we're moving. That's. That's always it. But then if you want to dig deeper, which I always want to find out, like, okay, well, this price has been working for you for four months. So what's going on? And sometimes I'll just go radio silent or they'll tell me a number. And if they tell me a number and I can work with it, I say, let's try this. Or we can negotiate. Right. Or if they're just at this crazy number that doesn't even make sense, we have to let them go. But, but sometimes it's price. Right. But other times it's. I don't even, they don't even really want to respond to me. And so I've had. That's the other thing I have to guard against is poaching for my current cleaners.
- [24:59]
A
Yeah.
- [24:59]
B
Because it can happen.
- [25:02]
A
Okay. Okay. Yeah. They're like, why, why are we paying 50% over to here to Skyler? We could just do this deal direct.
- [25:07]
B
They try to, they'll try to. And so the customers will try and get. We don't. We try and keep the limitation of how much. My cleaner has their phone number, but you can't always. They might, you know, my cleaner might go there and they might exchange phone numbers. Or if your cleaner doesn't. Getting a lot, a lot of work from you, they, you just don't know. They might say something. And I bet they have because I've gotten customers telling me, hey, they're trying to, they're trying to like, cut you out. Just so you know. They tried to get me. I've gone over to people's houses and asked them personally because they just out.
- [25:34]
A
Of the blue quit anything you do to prevent that.
- [25:38]
B
I try and put them on the stand with me and we just talk and they say, you know, did you say something and did you by chance talk about doing this cheaper? Did you guys talk about money. But then they always answer the right questions. So then the other thing I've done is like, okay, screw this. My sister, she lives not too far away. We'll send her to her house and I'll see if the cleaner is going to try and leave a business card or leave a phone number.
- [26:02]
A
You got like a spy on the inside?
- [26:03]
B
Yeah, I got a spy. She's an inside spy. So, Kurt, you know, my sister, she gets a, she gets a free clean. So she's happy.
- [26:10]
A
Yeah.
- [26:10]
B
And she just needs to report to me if I got a poacher.
- [26:12]
A
Oh, funny. Oh, that's great.
- [26:14]
B
So that's kind of how that works there and then. Then I mean, obviously if they're poaching, we've already set clear expectations. That's a no. No. And so, you know, I would let them go then.
- [26:24]
A
Okay. Anything else? On the inbound customer lead flow side, especially in the early days, leads, the.
- [26:30]
B
Cleaning business has really changed. It's, it's just like, it's like buying businesses right now. Buying businesses is super duper hot. I feel like, especially on Twitter. And what it was like a year or two ago was cleaning businesses. And there was. What I'll say right now is that I joined a cleaning academy as well. And I, and, and I joined it with Johnny Robinson and Sergio with hsa. And those guys are awesome. They're very awesome. And so doing, coaching through them and doing lessons. HSA and Johnny and Sergio and Trevor, getting people off on the right foot and really getting them results.
- [27:02]
A
Anything specific that they helped you with on the marketing side?
- [27:05]
B
Yeah, for the marketing is like Google pay per click ads. I didn't really do a whole lot of. But local service ads, people use Google local service ads ads. So I'd use that. And we had just a lot of word of mouth, like passing out business cards, going to Realtor's house, trying to meet with people like meet with realtors as well and just going to an open house. So they give me tips and tricks to do that. Facebook posting, posting in mom groups, stuff like that. So those guys would always be like, hey, try this, try this, try this. And it works. It works.
- [27:33]
A
Yeah. Start to give, you know, cast a. Cast a presence online and in person. I like the Realtor angle of, you know, what are the potential lead fountains where it's like instead of this one to one, hand to hand, you know, okay, I got, I got somebody. It's like, well, who knows lots of potential customers or they need this house staged and cleaned and, or, you know, they're just in and out of lots. They know lots of different people in town. That's a good way to go. And these different mom groups on Facebook. One thing that I just think is interesting about the cleaning business in general, like, I think back to like my childhood in my neighborhood growing up, I don't know if anybody had a cleaner or was this just something we didn't talk about or like, like, I don't know. But like now it's super, super common. Like for our neighbors. You see the car, you see the little made car pull up and stuff, it's like become a thing. Like so the point I'm trying to make is like the pie has gotten a lot bigger and obviously there's more competition, but it's still super fragmented. There's not any one national company or brand that like, you know, has a commanding market share here. It's still super localized, super mom and pop, super fragmented. And so that's where, where the opportunity lies to come in and build something like a Nebraska elite cleaning with almost 300 reviews on Google now. So there's something going on there. I do want to talk about how you have generated that volume of positive.
- [28:48]
C
Feedback, how Skylar is collecting those Google.
- [28:50]
A
Reviews, the other tools and tech he's.
- [28:52]
C
Using to manage the business, and how he's running this thing on the side from his day job right after this. In the next 60 seconds, 23 hires.
- [29:00]
A
Are going to get made on Indeed.
- [29:02]
C
I'm excited to partner with Indeed for.
- [29:04]
A
This episode because when it comes to.
- [29:05]
C
Finding your next team member, the best way isn't to search at all. Instead, let them get matched to you with Indeed. Indeed's powerful matching engine helps you find quality candidates fast. And you know it's not just about speed of execution. 93% of employers say that Indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared with other job sites. Plus, Indeed helps you ditch all the hiring related busy work.
- [29:29]
A
You can use it for scheduling, screening.
- [29:30]
C
And messaging all in one place. That's why I'm turning to Indeed for the next role I need to fill. So why not join the more than three and a half million million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast in side Hustle show listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility@inn Indeed.com Sidehustleshow just go to indeed.com Sidehustleshow right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Sidehustleshow terms and conditions apply. Need to hire you need indeed.
- [30:07]
B
Yeah, well, we've had a lot of customers and so we always, I mean, I have a couple of assistants as well and it's just important for us that I want to do quality quality control as kind of as soon as we can after the clean. Like quality control to me just means let's talk with the customer, let's make sure they're happy. Another thing is I always want my cleaner to do a walkthrough, make sure that the customer is happy when we're done. And so I mean, obviously not always, but almost obviously almost always we have good feedback and so, so when that happens, hey, would you guys help us out? We're a small local business and we could really appreciate a Google review. And just by simply asking and especially trying to strike the fire while the iron's hot right after the clean and getting that done, people will more often than not do it.
- [30:48]
A
Yeah. The next closest competitor that shows up for me when I Google omaha Cleaners has eight. So it's like really? Oh gosh, 293 for Nebraska Elite Cleaning. Next guy, eight. So it's just like, oh, clearly these people who are serious about the business, this is the one they gotta hire. And you might find that, you know, whatever, you know, your niche plus locality is like, it might not take, I mean if you can hit double digits, right? It's, you know, I was always trying to get to double digits on like book launch reviews. It's like there's certain, you know, it might not take very much to really stand out against the competition. So it's an interesting way. Anything tools and tech wise that you're using either for that review collection or if that's just hand to hand. Hey Mr. And Mrs. Smith, you know, thanks so much for having us over today. Let's take a look around. Anything that we missed, we want to make sure you're happy. Would you mind helping us out? If you are happy, happy. Here's the, you know, QR code, like here's the link to the Google review or whatever. But anything else that helps run the business from tools and tech and scheduling and phone management, like all the different.
- [31:45]
B
Pieces here, there's a, there's a few different softwares and I, and I use one as well that will automatically, once when a job is completed, send over a text message to the customer that they can give us a review.
- [31:56]
A
Ooh, which one is that?
- [31:57]
B
It's called Nice job. I think it's about $75 a month. But what it does is it sends reviews a Review right to the customer. And then it follows up like a day or a couple days later, and then a couple days later again and with an email. So it'll continuously kind of hit the customer. And if they had a good experience, along with us potentially texting them and saying, hey, you know, did you have a good experience? Okay, well, you leave us that review, then maybe they say they will on a Tuesday and then they forget on Tuesday and then they get our text, automated text from nice job on a Thursday. Then they maybe do it, you know, so that helps to get those as well, along with just the personal part of it. We try and give them a call and ask for one as well if they had a good experience.
- [32:34]
A
Got it. Cool. How about on the scheduling and team management side?
- [32:38]
B
Yeah. So on the scheduling and team management side, I would say, well, it's gotten bigger. And so having a day job, I couldn't do it all, so. And it was hard to let go because as a business owner, you think you're the best and you know you're the only one that can do it. So it took like the 8020 rule. If you let 80%. 80% of the job can be done by somebody else at a good level and not too much to do too much micromanaging. So I got a couple assistants. I actually have four now. They help with all the scheduling. They do all the inbounds for me, take our inbound calls, and they deal with most all customer interaction except the stuff that I do in person and do the scheduling and do the customers and also deal with my cleaners. So we keep those guys pretty busy generally.
- [33:19]
A
Is there a phone system or a, like, scheduling app software that they're using to say which people need to go where at what time?
- [33:26]
B
So Booking Qual is what I use for the CRM. Booking Quala. And it's pretty nice. And a lot of home service, home services, I believe, use it. I think it can be used for like lawn care, handyman, probably like carpet shampooing companies. So it's pretty handy there.
- [33:42]
A
That's a new one. Booking Koala. Like, we've had people mention Jobber in the past, but I never heard of booking Koala.
- [33:47]
B
Yeah, Booking Koala. That company's doing pretty darn well. So I think it's 57amonth. Or you can go if you have like more than 50 providers, then it goes over up to like 1 1, 157. But it's relatively cheap. $57 a month. I use booking Qual. I use open Phone for my phone system. And that way everybody. I can always see who's responding to texts and calls and who's on a call. So that. That makes it pretty easy as well. And then we use Slack. I. I communicate with my assistants via Slack, so we can just, you know, have good communication and a plan.
- [34:18]
A
I want to commend you for plugging all our sponsors in this episode.
- [34:23]
B
I know, right? I didn't mean. I didn't know if this, you know, if it was a sponsor episode, but. Yeah, absolutely.
- [34:28]
A
Yeah, indeed. Has been great as a sponsor. OpenPhone has been great as a sponsor. There's, you know, maybe. Maybe as we keep going, we'll. We'll check off a couple more here.
- [34:36]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [34:36]
A
Right. No, you're doing. You're doing awesome.
- [34:38]
B
But yeah, no, we use a lot of different tech and just try and automate what can be automated and keep the personal touch alive as well.
- [34:44]
A
Yeah. One thing I forgot to clarify on the. On the cleaners themselves, you mentioned, hey, sometimes it's better to have them as a W2, and maybe under the eyes of the law, they are. If they're working from you, communicating with you every day. Like, do you have that structured as contractors or their W2 people under your brand?
- [35:02]
B
Yeah, they're structured as subcontractors. And we have them sign a subcontractor cleaner agreement as well, so they know they're a subcontractor. And before I kind of even get them onboarded to do cleans, I have them fill out a 1099 form and sign my cleaners agreement and get insurance. I have insurance, but I also want them to have insurance as well. Well, so everybody's insured in case anything happens and. Absolutely. Things break.
- [35:26]
A
Yeah. And if they were already doing, you know, freelance cleaning gigs, if something they.
- [35:29]
B
Probably already had, you know, they should have it. But I would say probably like 20% of them only have it. Maybe less. Like, not very many have as many as you think. But yeah, they should.
- [35:38]
A
Like just a general liability policy for, you know, you're in somebody's house and you break something.
- [35:43]
B
Exactly. Like up to. I think up to a million is what it is kind of the standard there. So like a million dollars, and it's probably about $50 a month, right? Around 50amonth for both parties. And yeah, we just structured as a subcontractor. Why? Because there's payroll taxes, there's workers comp. There's a lot of other things that come into play. And then when you have them as a W2, so it's a little bit cleaner as a subcontractor, but you also have a little bit less control. I can't really tell them what to do, how to do it. They can still, you know, not take jobs. Yeah, they can kind of work on their own schedule and I can't really tell them how to do their work. And they can, they can work for another company too. They can work for me and three other companies.
- [36:21]
A
Sure. And you kind of get the impression that that is how somebody is going to fill out their schedule as like a free agent almost. Well, I'll do some work over here. I'll do some work on my own and fill in the blank with something else. Maybe it's cleaning, maybe it's not. But I'm going to piece together this income from a few different sources. So you got the day job, you got the cleaning business, you're buying up a carpet cleaning business, you're starting all this other stuff. Talk to me about a day in the life. How do you juggle all of this stuff? And all of it's like, sounds like you got a great team of assistants of handling the day to day bookings. But I, there's still going to be fires to put out. There's still like other things like what's. Walk me through a typical day if there is such a thing.
- [37:01]
B
There's so. There's so many fires to put out and that's like what I am like being a business owner and everybody knows it, but I'm a professional firefighter like every day. You know what keeps me sane? I try and always get myself a lift in just to like say at least I invest in myself today in some capacity. So I try and be as healthy as I can, get a lift in if I can and, and then try and eat healthy. But a day in the life. So when I first started this business, it take the advantage I had or have or had was I'm single, I'm single. Oh, I had a girlfriend, but I didn't have kids. And I also worked a job or do still work a job that's in sales. So there's a little bit of flexibility as long as you're hitting your numbers. And so I always hit my numbers and so there was flexibility and so I was able to kind of move around but it wasn't uncommon for me to work from 9 or 10pm till till 3. And so it first started just being okay, I'm gonna quit at 2, then it started being a quit at 3, then I'm gonna quit at 4. And so like I've gotta, I've got to continue to be better about sleep and being more healthy and in that way because right now my health is probably not great. But it takes so much work especially to get things going.
- [38:03]
A
What are you doing during that time? Like nobody is available to talk to.
- [38:05]
B
You at 2:00am no, nobody's available to talk to. But I've got a list like of things I need to do. We, we. I want to get like shirt shirts that for us to wear that people are. My cleaners can wear if they so desire, pay them more. But it's better for my brand, my books too. Like so the, the finances part of it, I've got to continue to keep up with that. And who, who still owes me money. Right. And so people that we usually do credit card payment prior to. Because I don't want to mess around. If you don't pay me, we have problems.
- [38:33]
A
Sure. Okay, fair enough. I do appreciate you sharing. Like, look, this was, this was a lot of late nights trying to get this thing off the ground. And yeah, those hours have got to come somewhere. There's, there's a way to structure it in a way that doesn't require you a ton. Like you know, during the 9 to 5 during the day to day. But there still like some heavy lifting, like just something doing the volume that you're doing doesn't, doesn't happen without effort. And it's, it's good to hear that like. No, no, no. There was some sacrifices made.
- [38:59]
B
Yeah. Just to kind of keep up with everything because your cleaners are constantly kind of need to paid. So I'm kind of like a piggy bank in some ways because they weren't paid and they weren't paid today. And it's not uncommon. Like we had 22 cleans in a day and that's a lot of moving parts. A lot of moving parts. And if somebody doesn't show up, I need to have a backup and so on and so forth.
- [39:17]
A
Is there any tool or system that you can use? Because yeah, you're collecting revenue from the customer and then you got to pay 40 to 60% of it out to the cleaner. Like is there some way to automate that or do you have to like Go Schedule 22 transactions, you know, each day?
- [39:32]
B
Yeah, so the booking quality integrates with stripe and you know, so free plug to stripe there again. But anyways that integrates and it holds a card and so if it's a recurring clean, it'll just charge as soon as Our cleaner clock clocks out so the card's charged once they clocked out and that collects the payment.
- [39:51]
A
Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out because it's a lot to keep track of mentally and so it sounds like the booking koala is helping. It's okay. This person logged this job or this many hours so they are owed this much and we collect it like it's tied to that card. Swipe from the customer and then make it more seamless, I guess.
- [40:06]
B
Yeah, it's a little seamless. But the thing is when you get commercial jobs too, that can be somewhat difficult because they usually don't pay. It's usually a net 15 or net 30, 30. And if it's thousands of dollars, I've got to front that to labor, you know, and I won't get that check. It's going to be a check payment too. It's going to be a couple weeks later. So that's just one of the small. It's a small challenge, but it's okay. It's worth it.
- [40:26]
A
Right. So you got to have some cash flow to be able to make that float.
- [40:29]
B
Exactly. You have to have a little bit more cash flow to make that work. Yep.
- [40:33]
A
What's surprised you the most over the last couple years of building this?
- [40:36]
B
You can make money doing anything. Like if you want to cut trees down, I guarantee you can make money. As an entrepreneur, there's always ways to make money. Just think of something that people pay for and you can do it your yourself. I don't want to have self limiting beliefs too because like when people say you can't do that. Why not? Why not? So self limiting beliefs is one thing that you can, that you can make money in two things. And the other thing is like we literally, in my opinion, I think you can accomplish anything you want to do. It's just about what you'll sacrifice. Because I've seen it every time, like if I want to continue to coach, I could just had to sacrifice a little bit longer for a little bit more and I could have done what I wanted to do. Same thing with this business. Like we can probably continue to grow this as far as we want to go. It's just about what you'll sacrifice. How many more fires do I want to put out? Right. Because there's more, more money equals more fires. But truly like you can make so much money through this, through, through being an entrepreneur if you are willing to withstand a lot of pain and some, some pain. I'm not going to say it's all pain. But, like, I was talking with the person I built the business from yesterday, and she goes, that's a business owner. Right. Like, it sucks most of the time until we go cash that check. Right. That's, like, usually the best time. And so being a business owner, small business owner, like, a lot falls on our shoulders. But I enjoy the. I enjoy the. The daily adventure, truly. Like, the roller coaster and like, winning. Winning or like, hey, we did a great job. Let's keep on pushing forward. Like, I actually enjoy that. And I don't really think of it as work. Like, to me, it's. It's actually pretty fun.
- [41:56]
A
Yeah. If you can turn it into a game, if you can have fun doing it, recognize that, you know, you're privileged to be able to play it. Yeah. And, you know, try and play it at a competitive and high level and get better every day. The advantage is like, no two days are the same. Which is as kind of exciting.
- [42:10]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [42:11]
A
And a bit grateful to have a lot of job or like, you know, at least my one corporate job was like that, where it's like, you're driving around, you're talking to different people. There wasn't a whole lot of monotony to it, which I think helped.
- [42:20]
B
Yeah.
- [42:20]
A
But. And then as a business owner. Right. It's just professional firefighter. What is. What's going to happen today? And then trying to build systems and processes around, like, okay, I can squash out this fire, but how do I make sure it doesn't flare up again and getting better about that.
- [42:34]
B
Yeah, exactly. And so. And my assistants are huge for me, you know, having them. And just, I guess I spend a lot of time with them, so I don't talk to the customer a whole lot anymore, but I spend hours with them, giving them direction on, hey, here's what we. What I need you to tell this customer or tell this cleaner. Here's what we're going to do there. And just giving them a general plan, but kind of having them execute it. Yeah, having them execute it. So they've been huge.
- [42:58]
A
Are you going to expand geographically if you want to keep putting out more and more fires as the revenue grows, Are, you know, franchise this thing nationally. What's. What's next for you? You going to sell it?
- [43:08]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So great question. I mean, do I want a franchise? I never thought I wanted to own a cleaning business. So, you know, who knows? But right now, that's not necessarily something I want to do. Do I want to eventually sell it? Yeah. And probably just continue to, to grow, I guess, but eventually sell it. But do I want to go to a different area? Like I said before, I kind of tried that and I did it in Texas and it worked. I mean we've, in a year, I don't know if I've even done done. I don't even think I've done a hundred thousand dollars in sales, which would be 12 times 8. That's not even, probably 10,000amonth, you know, so that's not real. That's not really, really that big. It's actually probably really small. Maybe, maybe less than a hundred thousand. So to think that you can scale.
- [43:47]
A
It and you, I don't know, I pause you there. I imagine a lot of people listening be like, dang, we can't use the word only in front of ten grand a month. That's still pretty significant. From something, you know, to will something into existence from 0 to 1. That's pretty big deal.
- [44:01]
B
Yeah, you're so right. Yeah, great point. It's, it's small and it's hard to keep up and I'm not, I'm not pushing as much effort into it. Like I could probably hire somebody to cold call companies and you know, push more reviews there and also push more up, you know, SEO or online stuff there. But I'm not. So do I want to grow one another place only over acquisition, probably not starting from the ground up again. Would I sell it this one someday? Yeah, I would sell it, but not because I don't want to do it. I like doing it. I like what I've built, but I always kind of want to keep leveling up, whatever that may be.
- [44:33]
A
Growth through acquisition. Now you're getting into different niches kind of in the home services space like carpet cleaning and painting and kind of you follow the same playbook. You think the same playbook is going to apply across different verticals.
- [44:46]
B
I think there's some similarities, but there's definitely differences too. The good thing about cleaning is that it's recovery occurring. Okay. That's your best thing about it. It's pretty low ticket. We could be doing 150 jobs. And you know, by the time, if I'm a lot of times a business owner maybe, maybe makes 15 to 30% of their gross sales. 15 to 30%. If you're on the high side, like you're doing awesome.
- [45:06]
A
Yeah, after, after playing for the cleaners and all the other overhead and marketing and stuff like that.
- [45:10]
B
Yeah, exactly. Because there's just always more, more fees and so if I make 25% of 150. That ends up being like 40 bucks, something like that, right?
- [45:17]
A
Yeah. So very much a volume game. Right. Like, how do we keep stacking, Stacking up these recurring clients.
- [45:22]
B
Exactly. So recurring is good. In it, the low jobs are not so good. And then you get the customers who can be, who can be difficult because they have expectations that, you know, their grandma used to pay somebody 20 bucks an hour. So now you know that that's the difference in it. But like, whereas the other trades we talked about painting, it's a much higher ticket. Average average ticket for that is a couple thousand. For carpet cleaning, the average ticket's a little bit higher as well. So when you're higher, when your ticket's higher, I think you can market different, differently. Where like door knocking, I think can be more valuable with those other ones, with those other trades, potentially not as much as with cleaning. You don't need to go knock people's doors. There's not going to be an roi. I think the marketing is going to be a little bit different. That'd be the biggest thing that was.
- [46:01]
A
That was the, you know, my experience. You know, knock on doors, try and sell some paint jobs. Hey, can I come back this weekend to give you an estimate? And lather, rinse, repeat.
- [46:09]
B
Yeah, great point. That's the thing about that, like, painting is very, very impressive person. I mean, I've got it. I've got to go to their house, I've got to do an estimate, I've got to spend a couple hours with them just to hope I get a shot. Right. And whereas cleaning, I've got it pretty much automated. I don't have to go there unless it's going to be a commercial clean. Then they want me to meet with them. So that's the flip on those two.
- [46:29]
A
Yeah. Well, this has been fascinating. I've been taking a ton of notes. I think it's really an interesting niche. It's really interesting illustration of something that you could do across any number of different niches. Again, nebraskaelitecleaning.com is where you can find Skyler. We mentioned Home Services Academy. This was Johnny Robinson. Johnny was on the show a couple years ago talking about his window washing business at Squeegee. God. Follow along with Johnny over there. Always interesting stuff. Let's wrap this thing up with your number one tip for side Hustle Nation.
- [46:58]
B
I just think if you stick with something long enough and you're willing to get your teeth kicked in long enough, you'll succeed. Like, truly, if you stick with it. Long enough and you're willing to get your teeth kicked in. You can do it. I've always said, too. Life is like, you can get anything you want done, just about what you'll sacrifice. If you want to sacrifice, you know, a Saturday here and there for 30 minutes, being on the phone with a customer. Customer. And you're willing to do that, you can make it. You know, there's different things like that, but at least to start. But my number one tip is just like, stick with it and give something a good shot. If you want to try something, it can work.
- [47:27]
A
Yeah. That's an interesting reframe about sacrifices. Obviously, sticking with it. Persistence, grit, all that. Like, I'm on board with that. But then this idea of, well, what are you going to sacrifice? Right. And you can think about in the, you know, pie chart of your day, hey, look, we're all dealt 24 hours in a day. If I want to build something, I'm going to have to reinvest some of these hours somewhere else, somewhere that they're not currently being used for. And that might feel like a sacrifice. What are we going to do? It's like somebody always talks about, you know, the word decide is like, from Latin, like to cut. It's like, well, what are you going to cut? Right? And then it's like, well, now I'm going this way because I cut off that other thing with my decision. And it's like, I guess it's maybe from incision. Probably the same route, but that's interesting. Yeah. What are you going to sacrifice?
- [48:03]
B
Yeah, it's so true. My sacrifice have been, hey, we have a new cleaner. I got to go see. I want to see how she did. I know this is a vacant house. I'm going to go drive there tonight. But for me, it's kind of fun. Like, I'm going to go drive there. I'm going to go test her out and see if she did. But it also can be seen as a sacrifice. I think those are probably the two biggest things. Right. It's like, it's. I'm either giving it my time or I'm giving it a headache and I'm trying to put out a fire and deal with a mess.
- [48:23]
A
Yeah. I'm reminded of that line that, you know, an entrepreneur is someone who's willing to live a few years like others won't, so they can live a lot of years like others can't. And that's definitely something that has stood out in this conversation along with the idea of being able to have a longer time horizon, being able to say, like, look, you know, the day job's okay. I don't need to, I don't need to make rent tomorrow. Like, if it takes a little bit longer, like, that's totally fine. Building the team, building the reputation, building the, you know, that incredible online reputation for the brand, such that when you show up in person, there's like this preconceived notion of what that experience is going to be like based on the online presentation. It's that branding, that positioning. I think Nebraska Elite Cleaning has done an awesome job with all that. So kudos to you on, on everything that you built and everything that you'll continue to build. We've been talking cleaning today, but that's not the only service that you could apply these tactics to to get your creative juices flowing. Make sure to grab your free listener bonus for this episode. It's my list of 101 service business ideas. Just head over to the show notes for this episode@side hustlenation.com Skyler S K Y L E R or follow the link in the episode description. He'll get you right over there. Again, that's 101 service business ideas that you might be able to apply some of Skylar's marketing playbook too. And live a fulfillment playbook too. But big thanks to Skyler for sharing his insight. Thanks to our sponsors for helping make this content free forever. You can hit up side hustlenation.com deals for all the latest offers from our sponsors in one place. Thank you for supporting the advertisers that support the show. That is it for me. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you're finding value in the show, the greatest compliment is to share it with a friend. So fire off that text message.
- [49:58]
C
Hey, check this out.
- [49:59]
A
We could totally do this. Look at what this guy's built. Until next time, let's go out there and make something happen and I'll catch you in the next edition of the side Hustle Show. Hustle on.