How to make $1000 per day cleaning carpets

Dex: 0:04

Hey, welcome to another episode of In the Black. This is Your Boy Dex, and I'm doing something a little bit different with this particular episode. I'm actually bringing back a former guest because he has a new business and caveat listener. He's also sold that business. So there's just a little bit of extra stuff going on here, but I, it's super interesting. So this is gonna be a throwback to one of the previous episodes, Maids of Marietta with Sean. He is, our guest today. I'm not gonna talk too much, we're just gonna get into it. Sean, what's going on with you,

Rashawn: 0:48

What's up Dex? Thanks for inviting me back, man.

Dex: 0:51

bro? , thanks for coming back, man. You know, I love talking to my people.

Rashawn: 0:56

Oh yeah. Nothing wrong with it, man. I'm all here for it.

Dex: 0:58

I know and I can't believe I'm doing this one sober too, cuz I gotta get up in the morning, but

Rashawn: 1:04

Oh, well. Too bad for you, man. I'll drink for it. I got a little shot thing that I found at my in-law's house. I drink that now.

Dex: 1:10

so jealous right now. So jealous. So you have the maids of Marietta, which is primarily residential.

Rashawn: 1:19

don't, not, yeah, mainly residential, but we did some commercial stuff too, but I, I remember I told you we were changing the name, doing the name change.

Dex: 1:27

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Rashawn: 1:29

We did change that name. So that name is Clean Scheme, so we actually sell it on that name. And, um, but yeah, that's, yeah, we changed it to clean scheme because once we, we did a lot more, we moved into a lot more commercial too, the Maids of Marietta sounded more like a residential name, so we decided on something that kind of covers.

Dex: 1:48

Got you. got you. Man, that's a good plan, dude. How's that working out for you so far?

Rashawn: 1:54

Yeah, so I mean, it picked up for a while, man. Um, we, I, I'm gonna tell you man, it's I'll, I'll talk all about the business, but we made some changes late last year, not just with the, uh, additional business, with the corporate clean part of it, but we literally just got rid, not rid of it, but we, the cleaners that we had, we gave them the clients that we had. So everybody, we were using all our subcontractors and everything like that. We were, we took a step back from clean scheme. So like when I tell you we had a year and a half, like it was an enormous year for clean skin. We were so busy last year,

Dex: 2:44

Wow.

Rashawn: 2:45

Yeah, it, it was, it was wild because we picked up a lot of commercial gigs and we got, you know, we were, we ended up starting to do a lot of the cleanings ourselves. So I, I can't remember the last time we spoke, but I believe last time we spoke, we, we were actually, subcontracting everything out.

Dex: 3:04

Yeah.

Rashawn: 3:05

That's where we were. Okay. So we had sat down and discussed, the money that we were making, we, we were splitting it with the subcontractors, but we were like, well, you know, what if we, you know, did the, did it ourselves or something like that, you know? Cause one time we had a cleaner that didn't make it to a job. We had to actually just, we couldn't find anybody else. And we basically had to go do it.

Dex: 3:26

Yeah.

Rashawn: 3:28

yeah, it was, it was crazy. We had to figure something out. We had to go buy cleaning supplies. It, it was, it was wild. But we, we got into it, but we, you know, ended up cleaning it. But after that, I was like, my wife was like, you know, maybe we could do this, you know, ourselves and just keep a hundred percent of everything, you know. So we did make that switch. We started cleaning things ourselves, man. We were getting bookings left and right. We had our regulars, we had people that were every two weeks. We had people that were monthly. We had some people that were weekly. So it, it, it got really, really busy, but it got to the point where we couldn't keep up with it. So we, man, it's, it's a lot, man. When was the last time we talked,

Dex: 4:18

It's been a minute, bro. It's been a

Rashawn: 4:20

man. A lot has happened Dex oh my gosh. So, but yeah, I, I, I just.

Dex: 4:29

Now you quitting on me man. You make a million dollars

Rashawn: 4:31

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not, that's not what it is at all. I'll wish, I surely wish, but the cleaning industry is definitely, you know, money to be made. But it's, it's, it got tough for us to continue to do it ourselves because of time-wise,? Cause we only had a small window, uh, things we could do during the day because, you know, we got three kids,

Dex: 4:54

Yeah,

Rashawn: 4:54

so, you know, kids start getting out of school. And that, that started getting really, really hard for us. So we had to kind of step back and basically later, later in the year, or Yeah, later that year, well, 2022, we had to switch it back over to subcontractors, which was fine. We still had the same list of people that we were working with. They stepped back in and started helping us with a lot of the clients that we had. We did give up the commercial ones. We were working on, we, we, we picked up some, it was about, It was something, it was like an IT company in Smyrna area. A dental office? We were working with, it was a, a doctor's office. We were cleaning, we were cleaning a real estate office down over there. It's like a, some, some area where like a bunch of restaurants and bars are Smyrna, I can't really think of the name of it. So real estate office. Over there was another real estate office off of, uh, south Cobb. We were cleaning this nonprofit building too. So we picked up a few. Uh, also our clubhouse at our, in our neighborhood, we have a clubhouse that we clean too. So we were, we picked up all of that, plus the residential. So we started doing just the commercial ourselves and then southern out, the residential.

Dex: 6:11

So,

Rashawn: 6:13

Once we sat back and thought about some things, the money just wasn't making sense on the commercial side. It was a lot of logistics, a lot of driving around. Now I'm not gonna lie, that the jobs were easy themselves. It was just how, I guess, all we had to do for the amount that we were getting, if you know what I mean.

Dex: 6:33

yeah, the, the, the cost analysis of it, you know, your time

Rashawn: 6:37

The cost now. Yes, yes. So it, and then we were having to find, you know, babysitters with the kids. Cuz sometimes we have to go to these places after working and have to go to these places at night sometimes just to get it done. We have to weekend to do it, but who wants to spend their whole weekend, you know, trying to clean 5, 6, 7 buildings sometimes. So it's, yeah, it got really, I wouldn't say outta hand, but it got really, um, it was, it, it drug us. It really drug us

Dex: 7:05

Overwhelming.

Rashawn: 7:06

it's, it's. Yeah, it was definitely, I wouldn't say overwhelming, but it was just the amount of work, it just made us tired, got, we got burnt out really quick. Because the amount of money just didn't make sense for what we were doing. And we, so we backed out of those. We gave those back to the, um, it was a company they, that subbed them out to us as their, as their commercial cleaners. So we gave that back to them. And, we still had our subcontract for of residential. So, and then, we picked up the carpet cleaning. So that's basically what we're here to talk about today. I've been talking for a while, so is there any questions you need to ask? Cause I've been talking for a long time. Cause a lot has happened,

Dex: 7:50

Nah man. It's, it definitely sound like a river of consciousness going on, that's for sure. The, um, I

Rashawn: 7:56

man. It's, it's a whole lot that happened. Go.

Dex: 7:58

many, how many residential clients did you have on a, you know, on any given month?

Rashawn: 8:06

Oh man. Regulars. I don't know their names. I'm, I'm trying to

Dex: 8:10

I mean, you don't, I I don't

Rashawn: 8:11

places that we went. Yeah, I'm not gonna give you their names. I'm trying to, I'm thinking I'm going through the houses in my head right now, so I'm counting the houses cause I've been to 'em mall.

Dex: 8:20

1, 2, 3 Main Street. Yeah,

Rashawn: 8:23

yeah. Not, not the addresses. I, I don't know the dresses here like that yet. But,

Dex: 8:26

of it as a dresses or you think of as.

Rashawn: 8:29

just the house, the picture of the house in my head, that's the, so that's all I can see.

Dex: 8:33

Gotcha.

Rashawn: 8:34

Um,

Dex: 8:44

Do you need more fingers?

Rashawn: 8:47

no, no, I'm just going down the line.

Dex: 8:50

You realize this is being

Rashawn: 8:51

okay. That.

Dex: 8:51

right? I'm gonna make fun of

Rashawn: 8:53

Yep. Nine,

Dex: 8:54

Okay.

Rashawn: 8:56

Yep. Out of fingers now. Uh, yeah. I mean at least 15 or more.

Dex: 9:02

15 or more.

Rashawn: 9:03

I would say 15 or more. Yeah.

Dex: 9:05

Okay. So

Rashawn: 9:07

Yeah. And they can go up because of new clients and stuff like that.

Dex: 9:09

okay. And you gave those away or did you sell them to yourself? Contractors.

Rashawn: 9:17

Well, we've made so much over, uh, from the subcontractors with the clients. Cause like we've had a mix, like the subcontractors basically have subcontractors who also have teams. So the cleaning industry is like, it, it, it could take you down a rabbit hole, man.

Dex: 9:33

Yeah,

Rashawn: 9:35

yeah. It could take you down a rabbit hole. Cause every cleaner you see, they have a team of three or they may have a team of five, which also those five individuals have their own teams. It's like everybody's subcontracting everything.

Dex: 9:45

and everybody just takes a little layer off the cake, right?

Rashawn: 9:48

basically,

Dex: 9:50

Uh,

Rashawn: 9:51

And, um, so we didn't charge them for it, it was just cause we've already made money off of them doing the work anyway. Over this time we just, the cl we let the clients basically choose who they wanted because they've had, sometimes they've had two, maybe three cleaners clean their house at one time. They know if one was, you know, one was missing or not missing, but if one couldn't make it, we'll have someone else go out there. One of our better ones, I would say, to go out there and basically we asked the clients what they, we told 'em what we were planning to do, that we were ba basically backing out of it. And we basically asked them what they wanted, which, which cleaner that they wanted to come. So most of them picked pretty much the same cleaner. And she, from the start, she's been with us from the start and she just, you know, just high praises on her cleaning. She's really good, like on, on it. Just, and she has teams as well, so, Most of our clients picked her and she's basically took over the rest, like everybody that we had for the most part. Now, of course, over time some people's, you know, they don't stay on, they don't stay every two weeks or every month, all the for, years. Some people do, but it's rare. But some people drop off, some people come back, then they drop off again. It's like they, they pop in and out here and there. So, but the ones that have, that have the clients that have been with us since the start, those are the ones that went with this one clean that we've had that they chose. So she has those now and they're just, you know, discussing everything with her directly.

Dex: 11:23

Okay.

Rashawn: 11:24

But I got a feeling it was one that we've had. It was, uh, it was two Airbnbs that we cleaned. We've been with them since the beginning. They found us on Google and we had been with them since the beginning. Very nice people and they. I got a feeling though, if something goes wrong with him, he's, the guy's probably gonna call us. He's like, I know y'all don't do this anymore, but can you please come do, do your boy a favor. I know what he's got. I got a feeling. He's just seems like one of those type people.

Dex: 11:49

Yeah. Yeah. I mean businesses, relationships, man, it really, it really is, you know, they relate to how well you fix their problem. You solve their issue

Rashawn: 12:00

Mm-hmm.

Dex: 12:01

and, you know, people go with what they know. So.

Rashawn: 12:05

Yeah. He, he is a really cool guy. Really cool guy. Well, the cool family, it was him and his wife. They got, it's almost like an oasis in the middle of Marietta. It's, it's crazy. It's like, you would never know this thing is, man, they got like a lake. It's, it's insane what they have back there. I'm like, how did y'all even find this?

Dex: 12:21

yeah. Well, you know, that gets into it though. Are you keeping up with the trends of, Airbnbs having issues and not getting bookings and things like that?

Rashawn: 12:35

Well, you know, I, I own, I think I talked to you about that. I think I own, I own some real, uh, everybody's back in Nashville. So are you talking about like current, currently what's going on with

Dex: 12:45

The ones that you're cleaning and people having to call you for that is, that's something that you're keeping an eye on. Well, I guess you were keeping an eye on, since you're switching over to

Rashawn: 12:56

We no longer, yeah, once we handed those over, I'm not worried about that. Like, no, we, we are not keeping, I'm not asking them how things are going. No, like once we, once we signed off and handed those off, we were done.

Dex: 13:10

I guess I'm asking it from the perspective of a person that would want to get into this particular industry is there is that, a line of revenue that they would keep an eye on. You know how that's changing. I understand with

Rashawn: 13:26

Oh yeah, definitely.

Dex: 13:28

Yeah.

Rashawn: 13:29

Yeah, definitely Airbnbs. That's, that's gonna always be a money maker for cleaners. I think the fight for cleaners between Airbnb hosts is the amount that they're paying. So sometimes you're run into a host that's just, just not a good host. They don't want to pay the cleaners. What, what is really, what is really owed, because if you have a high cleaning fee, you, it, it kind of correlates with how many bookings you have, you know. So some people may charge a free cleaning fee or whatever, and they'll just increase their night, their rates per night. To fit in the cleaning fee. Some people will, have lower rates per night, but have a cleaning fee. But, and a lot of the people that use Airbnb, they complain about, he's like, if I stay at a hotel, there's no cleaning fee. But I was like, it probably is. They just got a hit inside the cost. You know, there's a lot of surcharges and hotel taxes and stuff like that that are, that are in the cost for hotels. But how do you know that the cost is not blended in with your nightly rate?

Dex: 14:25

Oh, it is. It's just nobody wants to be nickel and dimed, you

Rashawn: 14:29

Yeah, that's the thing. But Airbnb, they make it clear this is your cleaning fee, and that cleaning fee basically goes directly to the cleaners that are cleaning and turning the Airbnb. So I would say if you do want to get into the cleaning industry, and um, AirBnBs is a nice way to start because for the most part, If everything goes away with the guests, it's usually very easy and very quick money. If it's a small, like apartment 1, 1 2 bedroom, you should be in and out of there in 30, 45 minutes and onto your next one. They're very fast because there's rules in place and most Airbnbs that require the guest, you know, to, you know, take their dirty laundry off, put it somewhere, or throw it in the washer. It depends on where they stay at. Some may require 'em to just throw it in the washer. Don't start it, just throw everything in the washer. The cleaners will take care of everything else. Some require that all dishes be, if you use a dishes, throw a dish, throw it in the dishwasher and run the cycle,

Dex: 15:29

That.

Rashawn: 15:30

do that in that way. When the cleaners come in, they just take the dishes out and put 'em up. So,

Dex: 15:34

ends up answering my next question because I was gonna ask, are you responsible to wash the sheets and put them back on the bed, make everything neat, just basically reset the property?

Rashawn: 15:46

It's very host specific. So, uh, I'll say how I ran mine. Uh, I actually cleaned mine and I, I did clean mine and did everything myself. Like sometimes my family would help me, but I'll just do it myself. And what I would do, each bed I had, uh, and the one I had, it was, uh, it sleeps, it slept six, it was a two bedroom, two bath, two full bath house, and it slept six people. So every bed I had, multiple sheets, multiple duvets. So that's the way I'm not waiting on things to wash and dry and reuse them again. And I honestly, the washer that was in the unit I had wasn't really that good. So I ended up taking it to everything and bringing it to my house and washing it there. what I would do, I would just take out the clean sheet. Clean duvets and put them back on the beds, put the new pillowcases on there. Everything had sets of three for each bed. So I was never waiting on anything to dry or complete a cycle, because that takes up too much time. Most, it's very whole, specific though. Some may require you to do that, some may not.

Dex: 16:49

Well, what are the percentages of hosts that are absentee that just they're not in the same state or they're not anywhere near the property?

Rashawn: 17:00

The, I can't give you a percentage, but I'll say this. Um, they may not be outta state. Most may live inside the state, but I would say majority of the Airbnbs you stay in, nobody's living there. It's just strictly an Airbnb.

Dex: 17:22

Yeah.

Rashawn: 17:22

You got some Airbnbs where people rent out their own houses or like certain sections of their house, like basement or like a top level that they don't go to an attic that they converted. You got some, you got live in Airbnbs and you got some that are basically non-owner. No owners living there in the Airbnb. So, but I would say it is more non-owners on the premises than owners on the premises, if you get what I'm saying.

Dex: 17:48

Yeah, as this, I, I could picture a lot of people just going around buying Airbnbs or managing Airbnbs and they don't live in the same state. Perfect example. You live in Georgia, your Airbnbs are in Nashville.

Rashawn: 18:04

They were now, I was, now I would live in Nashville when I owned these. Now I, I can be included in that percentage. Cause I did have one in Costa Rica at a time.

Dex: 18:14

Oh, okay. I don't remember the invite for that one, but you know, I guess that's a different podcast.

Rashawn: 18:19

Uh, that one came as a fluke man, honestly. But yeah, I did have one in Costa Rica, so I actually flew down there to meet the guy. I met with them, stayed in the place and everything, so they, you know, great people. I met them through, it was like a buddy of mine. Uh, she was a gym mate and she was talking about him down there. Was a good friend of hers. He was actually from Chicago and then, you know, he had moved to Costa Rican and lived there. But the visit, we ran it for a little while and then, COVID hit and then that kinda froze a lot of stuff around, so it just, that's when everything, I just got rid of everything at that point. It was, COVID was weird. It was a weird time. But,

Dex: 18:56

Yeah.

Rashawn: 18:57

but yeah, so I was included in that percentage of being a living, basically living in another country, running an Airbnb. So it was very interesting. But yeah, I would say, The, there's more percentages of people doing that than, actual people living in the home and operating it.

Dex: 19:13

Okay, so you migrated from residential into more commercial. You ended up picking up a carpet cleaner basically starting a carpet cleaning business. Tell me about that process in the beginning, getting the equipment, the whole nine.

Rashawn: 19:33

man, it, oh man. Carpet cleaning world is a completely different world from regular residential, commercial cleaning. It is completely different for one, you, you, I will say this, you get, you can charge more depending on the house. You can charge more for like a regular cleaning of a house than you would for carpet cleaning, but you get paid quicker and you get con, you can do more in the day than you could. Cleaning a house. So let's say you charge on average maybe one 50 to $200 to clean, maybe. It also depends on your prices to clean. Maybe, um, let's say a three, three bed, three bed house or something like that. Actually not three bed, maybe a two bedroom house or apartment or something like that. You charge one 50 to $200 and that, that should take you in the carpet cleaning world. That should take you, depending on your machine and what you, you know, what you're running. Uh, if you're fast, that should take you at least maybe an hour. So you're in and out within an hour and you made like 150 to $200

Dex: 20:47

Oh

Rashawn: 20:49

Yeah, that's the difference who I'm going with this. So when you're cleaning a house an hour, you're just now, you're still probably downstairs on the house, you know, probably touched maybe two rooms at that point.

Dex: 20:59

yeah.

Rashawn: 21:00

Maybe three, but you've still got the rest of the house to go. But now this, that same two bedroom house, you can probably charge, depending on what they're asking for. If it's a deep clean, you can probably charge maybe two 50 for it. But you also, it's also gonna take you three, four hours to do that, one home for that two 50. So, for carpet cleaning, you made, let's say, let's just stick with one 50. You made that one 50, but you did it in an hour, and then you do another home after that, that you can charge, that you charge actually 2 25 and you got in and outta that one within an hour as. So now you can see the difference. So now you are only two hours in, not including like drive time, but you're two hours of work, like actual manual work that you've done and you're sitting at 3 75 for the day and you still got a good chunk of the day left while you, the other people are still working on that same house.

Dex: 21:53

Uh, yeah. Yeah,

Rashawn: 21:55

that's why so many, that's why carpet cleaning is a very, I would say it's a big business. Cuz you got your Stanley steamers, they've been around for a while and you got your zero risk. They're carpet cleaners. You got, you got your big name people, but you also have a lot of the small, small people. You know, it's a lot of carpet cleaners that are out there. Your people, you'll see people driving around that just have carpet cleaning on their van, just driving around. You got some people with their, business names, carpet cleaning because it's, it's good money. Good. I was, yeah. Good quick money that you get. For carpet clean. That's why I wanted to make the clean, do an extension of that for Clean Scheme under it and, and when I bought the van, so I'll, I say how I got it, it's crazy because you can pretty much get a van. You know, they're selling them everywhere. You can get 'em custom made. Um, don't get me started on how many brands of what they call truck mounts. So if you got a van, those are actually called truck mounts. You got your portables that you drive around, you gotta fill up the water, cleaning carpets and stuff like that. But you have your truck mounts. They're like, you know, you got your motor, it's like a motor. You got the water heater in the back, you got your hoses, all your wands, all your chemicals, all that's inside that van, that's called a truck mounting. The truck mount itself is actually the motor that's running the suction and pressure wash and stuff like that for the carpet. That's what they, what they call the truck mount. It's actually on the van driving around with you.

Dex: 23:18

Okay.

Rashawn: 23:19

So basically attached to the van. So they got different brands of those. Some are, um, Like one is a butler. Those are actually, you know, you got different types too. You got some that, um, have like a, like a lawnmower engine that you start and it runs the pump and the solution lines and stuff like that. But you also have one, the other type that's attached to your engine drive train. And so you have to leave your car, your van running while you're cleaning to order to operate that type of truck mount. So that's very specific in carpet cleaning. But I'll stay pretty broad with it. Cause you know, I can, that'll be all day trying to talk about the different types of truck mounts.

Dex: 24:00

All right, so soup to nuts. What are, what is somebody looking to invest in something like this if they wanted to get started? I'm not talking about websites or anything like that. I'm talking about strictly get the equipment and go.

Rashawn: 24:17

Uh, I would suggest buying used, new can run you upwards of 45,000 plus depending on the brand that you get. Some I've seen charging 80 plus, 80,000 plus for brand new truck mounted vans, but they're using like basically brand new vans, brand new equipment and they're charging 80 grand for it. So I would basically go used. Um, you can check, there's different ones. There's like carpet, clean, um, there's a website, of course. eBay. You can check on eBay. They're on eBay. Craigslist, Facebook marketplace. What is another one? It was another one. It's like a little off website. It's like carpet cleaning vans.com with carpet clean. I think it's a carpet cleaning vans.com. That's a site that the sales carpet cleaning vehicles,

Dex: 25:07

uh,

Rashawn: 25:08

is funny because that's how this guy found mine, but I found mine actually. Uh, and there's uh, plenty of carpet cleaning groups on Facebook and that's actually how I bought the van. I found another one. The band I found and bought was basically from a Facebook group,

Dex: 25:23

Okay.

Rashawn: 25:24

and he happened to be down the street. His company, he owned a company, a carpet cleaning company. He's been in business for 20, 30 plus years. And, um, yeah, he was selling one of his vans. He owned four of them and he sold me one of them. So he was actually guy out in Douglasville and happened to be, he was like basically 15 minutes from where I live at. His wife is the one that reached out to me saying, because I was asking in a group, cause I had done the research and, you know, telling about the van, I'm looking for the budget I was in. And his wife had actually reached out to me, was like telling me basically your husband was thinking about selling his van and this is his number, he'll contact you or whatever.

Dex: 26:03

uh.

Rashawn: 26:04

And we ended up talking, I learned basically everything from that guy. He was a very, very stand up guy. He taught me everything cuz he is been around so long. He was like, I'm not finna just sell you the van and just, you know, you know, enjoy, you don't go have fun. He broke everything down. He let me use the van. He took, he came on. He let me go out some of his, cuz he has tons of commercial accounts,

Dex: 26:28

oh.

Rashawn: 26:30

so he cleans carpets at old Charlie's, like multiple old Charlie's, multiple red lobsters, multiple Longhorns. He does some residential, but I think most of his contracts come from commercial, commercial jobs. He said he's cleaned entire apartment buildings.

Dex: 26:46

Uh

Rashawn: 26:47

It's, he's big time, big time dude.

Dex: 26:50

oh. Yeah, so he's just kinda weeding off his lower accounts and just basically trimming the fat on what he can do.

Rashawn: 27:00

we're not really, cuz he's still, he's still growing, but he's, he's trying to back out, let somebody else take over because he is older.

Dex: 27:07

Okay.

Rashawn: 27:08

he was a older guy, so he was like, I'm not, you know, I'm not gonna be getting climbing in the back of these vans too much longer. I'm, I'm getting older. I'm trying to, pass this off and just kind of operate the business and not work, you know, work the business, you know.

Dex: 27:19

Gotcha.

Rashawn: 27:20

So I bought the van from him and I, I will say, if you can find one, you can definitely find many of them under $20,000. Decent, decent vans under $20,000. The main thing is just to make sure they, the vans don't have high miles. Like hot miles on them and make sure they kept up with the maintenance on the vans. Also, make sure the machines themselves don't have a ton of hours. I would say if you could find them, like most of the engines last about two, maybe 2,500 hours, 2,500 to 3000 hours on one of those truck amount. So if you can find it definitely under $2,500, that would be a, that would be a good one. But definitely if you're starting out, I will go just do your due diligence on the van, get it checked out by a mechanic unless you trust the person you're buying it from, get it checked out by a mechanic to make sure you're not running into a money pit. There's also, carpet cleaning, the places that you can go to get your carpet cleaning truck mount checked out too. So if you're gonna buy one, definitely, definitely do that as well because you just don't wanna buy something that's a money pit, you

Dex: 28:29

Yeah,

Rashawn: 28:29

Um, you just never know why people are selling. But luckily this guy, he man.

Dex: 28:34

Uh,

Rashawn: 28:34

You gotta be weary of some people. But this guy basically walked me through every single thing and he was like, I'm not just, you know, gonna sell you the van. I'll just, I'm gonna actually show you everything. He's, he's been to some of my carpet cleaning. He'll show up at some of mine just to help train me of how to speed up, how to do certain things. He showed me how to do the stairs. He showed me what chem he, he, when I bought the van from him, he cleaned everything. He gave me all brand new chemicals, which he didn't have to do because chemicals are expensive.

Dex: 29:05

I was

Rashawn: 29:06

bought all chemicals. Like, yeah, that's, that's just probably your highest expense outside of maybe gas, would be buying chemicals for your carpet cleaning business.

Dex: 29:16

okay. So how does one of these machines differ than, you know? One that I could go buy a grocery store and rent for a day.

Rashawn: 29:30

All right. This is the main difference with that. For one, you're gonna spend hours doing it with that machine. You're gonna be stopping, it's gonna take you probably, depending on how much carpet you're doing, it could probably take you all day with one of those little bit, little bitty machines because you can only cover so much area without having to stop, dump out the water, put in fresh water, and then new chemical in, and then start again. But then you go a little bit longer and then you gotta stop, dump it out, dump out the old water, put in new water, and put in new chemical. Like I've had to use those machines before so I actually know the difference. Cause I've had to do my grandmother's house before and then she always got this rug doctor, and she didn't, it wasn't the biggest house, but it still took me forever to do it because you can't go fast with those. You gotta go slow.

Dex: 30:18

Yes.

Rashawn: 30:19

her carpets were , man, her carpets were so dirty, but, but she, she had a lot of, her sons were living there and stuff like that. So,

Dex: 30:26

Yeah, don't put grandma on blast, dude.

Rashawn: 30:28

Yeah, I'm not, yeah, I ain't gonna put her on blast. She was a good lady, but I, I always helped her out because she, yeah. Don't get me started on that. but yeah, so it just took me forever because you have to stop and, and refill and you stop dump, refill, put in new chemical bin, start again, stop dump, refill, put in the chemical light when you do that. I feel like I was doing that every shoot, every five to five to 10 minutes,

Dex: 30:58

Oh,

Rashawn: 30:58

so you can see how, yeah, it, it could do like, because those machines are small, they can only handle so much, especially if the carpet's like really dirty. You gotta get it cleaned out. Otherwise, it's just gonna be recycling, dirt, dirty water.

Dex: 31:10

yeah. Yeah.

Rashawn: 31:10

So, so you can tell, like with doing those, it's gonna take you hours with a carpet, cleaning truck. Now the suction is 10 times more powerful. So by the time, by the, the same time that they're swiping, like they're, there's a, on the wand that you're using, It has jets that shoot the chemical and water down into the carpet that's cleaning it, and by at the same time it's going to the carpet, the suction from the truck mount is actually picking that water back up. So that's why it's able to dry so quick. That's why they're able to move so fast. So that's why you can do basically an entire house if you're good, an entire house, depending on how big it is within an hour and you're out of there with that rug doctor, you'll probably still be doing that one room by the time they get done with the entire house.

Dex: 31:53

Okay, so,

Rashawn: 31:55

So that's the major difference.

Dex: 31:56

so how many of these jobs could you do in a day, in like an eight hour day, you

Rashawn: 32:02

Eight hour a day, depending on the size of the homes, if you want to keep it steady. Let's say they're all three bedroom homes and you're only doing a three. Let's say you're only doing three bedrooms.

Dex: 32:15

a living room.

Rashawn: 32:15

three bedrooms and a hallway because you know each, you can charge for everything, man. You can charge for a room, you can charge for a hallway, you can charge per stair. Some people do whole staircases as one fee. Some people do per stair as one, one fee and people pay it. And that's why some of these jobs, these carpet cleaners make, they can leave a house, they'll work for an hour and a house and leave out making three 50 to $400 on one house.

Dex: 32:39

Oh yeah.

Rashawn: 32:41

Yeah. So it, it's crazy the amount of money you can make. So it's really the, how you price it and how you, you know, handle, handle your business. But, um, what, what was the question originally?

Dex: 32:53

How many jobs could you do in a day? Like, like

Rashawn: 32:56

Okay, so yeah, if we kept it as three bed, three bed, every home you did was three beds in one hallway.

Dex: 33:03

Uh,

Rashawn: 33:05

Uh, that right there, depending on how big the place is, I'm gonna just. Most of the time you'll say the hallways right there and the bedrooms are all together. You're in and outta there. It's probably 30 to 40 minutes. So I would say 45 minutes tops, you should be in and out of there.

Dex: 33:23

Okay.

Rashawn: 33:25

So if you just take that 45 minutes and then count for like drive time to wherever your next location is, and man, if you got the energy, you can at least do five, six homes.

Dex: 33:37

Oh wow.

Rashawn: 33:39

And just imagine if all of them are $200 a pop.

Dex: 33:42

Okay. Yeah, I can see how,

Rashawn: 33:44

So yeah, so it's, it is nothing for a carpet cleaner. If they're working, working maybe four to five homes, they're, they're, they're bringing in thousand thousand dollars a day.

Dex: 33:54

Okay, so,

Rashawn: 33:55

And I actually got introduced to the carpet cleaner. Nstitute, well, one of my good friends from high school, he's like big, big in real estate. He owns a lot of real estate. But he started, he's always been like an entrepreneur type. And he started the carpet cleaning business itself. And now he's franchising that. So I've actually met with one of his, franchisees in Atlanta. I've actually, helped. He trained me a little bit too, cause I was talking to him about it. He was like, man, he was like, I've been telling you you need to switch from like, cleaning homes to just doing carpet cleaning because it is like a world of a difference, the amount of money you can make. So he was like, he told me about his franchisee here. He said he makes a thousand dollars a day. And I went, I went with him on a couple of his jobs. He was, he had I think four booked in one day. Um, I only went to one of them

Dex: 34:42

Uh,

Rashawn: 34:43

because it was, it was a bigger house. And all he did, he cleaned, uh, one sofa. He had to clean the sofa. He charged 200, 220 $5 to clean that one sofa. That did not include the carpet cleaning he had to do. So he did. He did a master bedroom, he did a hallway, he did another bedroom. So he did two bedrooms, a hallway and stairs and a sofa. I think he got 500 plus dollars on that ticket. I think he was there for, probably longer than he would've been because he was training me and he was training also somebody else that was working for him. And I was just kind of helping him out, moving hoses and stuff like that. But he was probably, I think he, it took him about an hour and a half on it, but he walked out with $500 on that one and then he had , another one to do after that.

Dex: 35:34

Damn man.

Rashawn: 35:36

Yep. Lady was nice too, man this, the lady was nice. Everything worked out. He just, you get in there, you just work quick. You know what to do. And he was the one man team for a long time. He was the one man guy, so he was still in and out.

Dex: 35:47

Really?

Rashawn: 35:50

One man team, it's just him. He gets in, gets it done. But he's younger, but he's also, that's what, my friend was telling me, when he's his franchisee, he was like, he makes like a thousand dollars a day, especially in high season, probably more than that.

Dex: 36:04

So what's the percentage of customers that come back, let's say in like three months or six months? They're like, yo, I need my carpet cleaned again. Mr. Kitty

Rashawn: 36:15

seem like with that they only suggest you cl clean your in every maybe I think it's eight to eight to 12 months, every eight to 12 months possibly.

Dex: 36:26

Okay.

Rashawn: 36:28

But that was like if, you know, if you got kids, a lot of stains and stuff like that, you know, you can probably do it sooner, maybe every six months or so. But like I said, they wouldn't suggest more than eight, you know, every eight to 12 months or so for carpet cleaning. So you're not talking about monthly, you're not talking about monthly customers. So unless. Something comes up, they make a stain. But the thing is most, like most carpet cleaners, they're not gonna come out for just one room. So like most carpet cleaners have a minimum. Some are $99. It's like you, your back, your, I can't come out and do one room. Let's say they charge $35 per room. It's like, look, there's this stain in my, this room. I just need this room done. Okay, well per room is $35, but there's a minimum for me to even start up my van and get out there. And that's 99 or the minus is 1 25. It was like, it doesn't matter. Just come out here. I need this one room done. I'll pay the 1 25. Okay. All right. I'll come out there and do that one room for 10 minutes.

Dex: 37:21

so

Rashawn: 37:21

Am I in there? Maybe 1 25

Dex: 37:23

so they gotta go out uhhuh, I'm sorry. They, so the customers have to go out and pour coffee in different rooms in order to make it really worth their time.

Rashawn: 37:33

Not really. I mean, it's up to, depends on who the customer is. Some customers may not want to deal with it, they just leave the stain there or they try to get it out themselves and cause even more of an issue and, you know, turn the carpet white, you know, because it done messed up something. But, um, some of 'em may actually come in and just, um, they say, look, I'll pay it. Just come out and do it. You know, some people don't care. They'll complain about it, but some of, most of 'em, they'll just like, just come and do it or whatever.

Dex: 37:59

let's backtrack to these chemicals. Are they, they're specialized, obviously. Do they come in like hypoallergenics or smells like new car or something like that, or?

Rashawn: 38:12

I wouldn't say somethings like new car, but they do have like decent sense. So one of the, one of the chemical, um, Basically, I would say like a concoction. He taught me his, he said his had been featured in magazines and stuff like that, but his had a citrus smell, so it was like real, like orange smelling, like real clean smelling. Summer lemony, uh, you know, you're not gonna have like a new car smell, but most the one I used was like a real citrus smelling type.

Dex: 38:40

Oh, that sounds pleasant.

Rashawn: 38:42

Like now some they're powder. You got powder liquids, I mean, not powder liquids. You got some that are powders and we mix together. And then some are liquids that you mix sometimes. And these are all highly concentrated, so you're not gonna just find them anywhere.

Dex: 38:55

Yeah. So I, and in fact, that leads to our, my next question. Where do you find that stuff?

Rashawn: 39:01

Most of the time you usually get it from like a carpet cleaning company, like sell, like, it's like, I wouldn't say a wholesaler, but they're like a supplier for most of the carpet cleaners around town. So most of the ones in Georgia are in Norcross. They are, um, yeah, for some reason, I don't know why that is. They're way in Norcross and they, they do all the maintenance on the carpet, clean vans around here, probably. They have the supplies, they have the chemicals. Some of the chemicals you can buy from this place called truck mount forums.com. So, uh, truck mount forms, they have your wands, the brand new wands, they're kind of expensive, but they have your wands, they have your chemicals, and each place has kind of like their own set of chemicals. You may not find the same chemicals in multiple places, so you have certain, each place may carry their own, not their own brand, but like certain brands of chemicals. And most people just kind of do work by trial and error. They've worked so many years in the carpet cleaning industry. They found what works for them and what works best. So they'll stick with that.

Dex: 40:04

Huh. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. So, you know, let's take a old dude who's doing a g a day. How much of this carpet cleaner would he be spending per month? Just ballpark it for me. Okay. So, dude, who's making, or who's doing. day in, in carpet cleaning, approximately about how much is he spending per month on the solution itself?

Rashawn: 40:37

If he's overusing, he's probably going through, I think what the guy told me, he said more than 50% of your costs is gonna be from chemical.

Dex: 40:51

Okay.

Rashawn: 40:52

Yeah, more than 50% of your cost is chemicals and then the rest is probably maintenance on the van. Then you got gas and stuff like that. But majority, yeah, I think over its probably over 50%

Dex: 41:04

Okay. So like, so like $200, $300, 40, what are we thinking per month?

Rashawn: 41:12

Uh, yeah. Again, depending on if he's overusing or using too much, I would say about four, $500

Dex: 41:18

Okay. Per month.

Rashawn: 41:21

that actually could be weekly, you

Dex: 41:23

Oh, weekly. Okay.

Rashawn: 41:24

about Yeah. Cause you're talking about, um, like these, these, these containers are like 40, 50, 60 up efforts of a hundred plus dollars per gallon thing that you get.

Dex: 41:38

Uhhuh.

Rashawn: 41:38

you gotta, that adds up over time. And it's not like you're getting, like, it's not like you see those big like oil barrels. It's not like oil barrels are back. It's literally. You know how you would see like a big whey protein type bottle type thing in the

Dex: 41:53

Uh

Rashawn: 41:54

Yeah. They, they look like that.

Dex: 41:56

oh yeah. Some kinda on some g C type bottles. Yeah.

Rashawn: 42:01

like at Yeah. Size wise. Yeah.

Dex: 42:03

Okay. And,

Rashawn: 42:05

And also like, you know, your, you know, like they say, you know how a bleach bottle looks, some of 'em look like that too.

Dex: 42:12

okay, so the, so once you have the van, you have the equipment, your one monthly cost is getting, Back and forth, whatever your, your, um, whatever your internet and marketing costs are, and then this cleaning solution, those are your monthly costs that you can pretty much depend on.

Rashawn: 42:35

Uh, monthly cost. Yeah. If you're going to do marketing, uh, unless you got our clientele already. You gotta figure out your marketing. That can be the Groupon, which your Groupon is free. They just take it on the backend. Uh, a lot of 'em use Groupon. Some people use Facebook marketplace. Some people use Facebook ads, some people use maybe Instagram ads. It's pretty much up to you what you wanna do. Some people use Google Ads, some people use Google Local service ads. Those are actually different.

Dex: 43:04

yeah.

Rashawn: 43:05

So, uh, Luke's Google local service ads are actually cheaper than the Google Ads, but, and we got a lot of our business from Google. Local service ads,

Dex: 43:15

So about, using old dude again, if he's getting, if he's getting all of his calls just from the Google ads, approximately, what is he spending on that?

Rashawn: 43:30

uh, really depends on how you set it up. Cause like they can do it per call that you get, that you, you know, turn around. But I think it was ours. We were doing per week. So we, we basically, you pay up to like a max of how long you want them to run it. So let's say you set the max at $200, they're gonna keep running that until the, the clicks add up to $200 for that week. So it's really, it is up to you how much you wanna do. So the more you spend on it, the more calls you're going to get.

Dex: 44:00

Okay. Yeah.

Rashawn: 44:01

if you set the amount of $400 they going, you gonna be ringing off the hook

Dex: 44:05

Oh, okay.

Rashawn: 44:06

a week or something like that, you'll be ringing off the hook. Or if $200, 200 to $400, you're gonna be ringing off the hook. Like when I was with the guy that makes a thousand dollars a day, I mean, I don't know how often that is, but majority of the time he does, he was booking calls while he was sitting there cleaning the upholstery at that lady's house.

Dex: 44:21

Oh

Rashawn: 44:21

he'll get a call, he is like, yeah, I can clean it for this, and then he'll book it then. So he was getting calls while he was, he was getting calls the whole time I was there,

Dex: 44:29

Wow. Okay. So is

Rashawn: 44:32

he, he runs, he runs multiple, so he has Groupons out there. I don't know if he had Google ads out there, but he had, he had a Facebook ad out there. I cuz I've seen his Facebook that comes across my feed sometimes. And, he had some other, multiple other avenues that he's using for, carpet cleaning. So yeah, he was getting calls the whole time we were there.

Dex: 44:54

Okay. Okay. So he, he doesn't have anybody automating that process for him or anything.

Rashawn: 45:01

No, but he needs to, cuz he could probably do a lot more.

Dex: 45:04

Yeah. I mean, plus

Rashawn: 45:05

Cause I told you he was the one man band for a while.

Dex: 45:07

Yeah, you were saying that, I mean, it would really streamline the process if he did that. He would just, when he is on the job, he can just concentrate on doing the job and then maybe he'll get a notification on his phone. Oh, you got another

Rashawn: 45:20

I think he did mention he was looking to start get a va because I asked him, I'm like, you need, you think, I think you need to get a VA because you getting a lot of calls, man.

Dex: 45:28

Yeah. Well, hey,

Rashawn: 45:30

VA could book you. While you here doing this work, you can already have your calendar filling up without you missing anything.

Dex: 45:37

hey. Shout out to, past episode Karette Troutman, big ups to her. She, uh, I did an episode of, uh, a woman who actually runs a VA service,

Rashawn: 45:49

Uh, that's awesome.

Dex: 45:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now I think about it. I have to edit that one. So there's that. But, uh, so future shout out to her. She's awesome. The, um, it's kind of funny because what I'm finding with a lot of these small businesses, they don't automate a lot of their processes. You know, they, with a lot of customers, they don't always talk to somebody even ordering a pizza. Now you, you get on an app or you get on a site, you add your toppings and it gets sent. Next thing you know, you got a pie showing up, or you go to the store and you pick it up. But how much of your time do you think would be better used if that was automated?

Rashawn: 46:40

Oh, shoot. How much time?

Dex: 46:42

Yeah.

Rashawn: 46:44

Plenty of time. Like, there's a lot of calls that we, like when we were cleaning houses at the time, like when we were first beginning, we were missing calls, um, potential bookings because we couldn't answer. We're too busy cleaning. You don't really feel a vibration or you don't hear the phone. That means you go back and then you hear a voicemails like, hey, you know, coming back on this. And then you realize you missed two or three calls from people trying to get their house clean. So yeah,

Dex: 47:09

Oh,

Rashawn: 47:09

save like it, I wouldn't say time-wise you wouldn't save it. You just, it makes your business. You could grow a lot, lot quicker and, and keep your calendar full with the VA rather than losing, you know, gaining time because you're still gonna be cleaning, but it's time that you don't have to go back trying to, you know, chase people. You get 'em when they're actually right there. That's when you run the most, is when they're calling in looking for this instead of going back and just kind of reacting. You're being proactive in.

Dex: 47:43

Yeah, absolutely. I was asking that question to segue into, our sponsor, Dexstar Media, that it's a great place to go to get search engine optimization, especially amongst the local. It is a great way to get more customers shore up your reputation and automate your process. Honestly, whenever I have to talk to people about that, I ask them, do you make money talking to a customer or working for your customer? And they'll always tell me they make it doing whatever it is that they do, not hunting down the new people. So if you can invest a little towards that, I, I would always tell somebody, Do that because it's gonna save you a lot of time and it's gonna help you, you know? I guess in this case you could plan your week a lot better. Y Oh, I, I got a job on Thursday. Oh, I don't have a job on Friday. Or probably in this industry. It's sounding like they stay busy constantly. Is that accurate?

Rashawn: 48:47

Oh, yeah, depending on, especially not the season's about to pick up, spring cleaning and summertime stuff, they're about to stay vicious. I think the slow period for carpet cleaning is like after the holidays, so January. Maybe a little bit into January, it's kind of still busy. And then after that, it kind of tapers off a little bit until like spring.

Dex: 49:07

Okay. So what's the ideal customer that uses your services? Who uses your services the most when it comes to carpet cleaning?

Rashawn: 49:17

Uh, of course, residential homes use it a lot. Ideal customer, for me, the ideal customer is not someone that's not going nickel and dime you basically as the carpet cleaner business. It's like, well, well, they said they're gonna do this. I, I talked to somebody else. They said they're charged. Okay, well, we'll go with them. You have to get to that point because people, they literally will call around, even in the residential cleaning side, they wanna nickel and dime everything. They don't want to, we'll be telling 'em what the price is. That's the price. It's like, well, AJ charged us. Okay, we'll go with. That's like, kind of how you do that is like cheaper go with them. That's our price and that's how you have to be in the industry because there's nothing wrong with people shopping around, but I'm not gonna lower my prices because you think you found a better deal over here. But from what I've learned, most people will call back after the cheaper person came in and messed up something. So the guy that I, um, yeah, the guy I was working with, he is, um, he had to go do, he had to go fix other people's mistakes because they chose not to go with him the first time. They were the cheaper guy and then they come because you got a lot of people that are undercut, you know, they charged him like 70, $80, but they probably don't know what they're doing. And they come in and mess up stuff and then they call somebody else to come in and try to fix it. He said, this is what he makes a lot of his money is fixing other people's problems. So fixing other cleaners issues basically.

Dex: 50:53

okay. So what about, property managers? Do they, have a, do you have a rotation of property managers that are like, Hey we need this apartment on Friday, or this set of properties on Wednesday?

Rashawn: 51:09

Yeah. Most times they already have that lined up. They have like a carpet cleaning company or whoever is, you know, approached them first. They probably have somebody already on contracting in the books. I know, because they like, each time they, they need a carpet turned around. They're not gonna be searching for a carpet cleaner. They already have somebody. The apartment I used to live in was like years ago. They, it was this company, well, I, I ain't gonna say the company, but, I've seen them come in and clean their apartments. Like soon as somebody's moving out, they have, the days that they're moving out, they're in there ready to go. Like they're cleaning the carpets. If they need to be cleaned, they're not replaced. But if they're need to be cleaned, they're already, they're ready to. I've seen them in and out doing multiple units at a time, and they're gone. So it, yeah, it's a quick process because, apartments are probably really easy. They're really easy to do because it's all one level. So, and most of 'em one bedroom, two bedroom, maybe three at the max, maybe.

Dex: 52:02

Yeah,

Rashawn: 52:03

So those, that's, that's easy. Those are easy to do.

Dex: 52:06

in

Rashawn: 52:07

The only hard part of our apartments is making sure your hose can reach wherever you're gonna go. So, you know, you got sometimes upstairs and you may be long hauls and something like that. You gotta make sure your hose can reach to wherever you're going. That's the only issue you'll probably run into with apartments. And a lot of apartments you have to probably use when they call a portable unit, like a commercial portable carpet cleaner. It still has a wand and stuff like that. It's a lot stronger than like a normal rug doctor, but it's not as strong as having your truck mount. But sometimes your truck mount just can't reach like really far. Cause I think most of the truck mounts have like 200 feet or 250 feet maybe. Maybe the max is about 250 feet of like holes that they could use for like the vacuum hose. Some people can get up to 300 feet, but in most cases, on average it's like 200 feet.

Dex: 52:56

well the physics of trying to move that air along a long hose like that, you get kind of diminishing returns. So that makes sense.

Rashawn: 53:07

you do. Yeah. The longer it is, it does make, you know, it makes, makes it not, not as hard. But those tho mean, I tell you, those machines are strong, man. The suction machine machines are extremely strong. Like if they're not working properly, they could basically, the structure sensor is so strong, it can basically cave the machine in on itself if it's not working properly.

Dex: 53:26

Oh, oh,

Rashawn: 53:28

It's really, really strong. Like you talking about 15, like could basically hold a, hold a bowling ball in the air type suction

Dex: 53:35

Oh,

Rashawn: 53:36

to 15 to 16 pound bowling ball.

Dex: 53:39

oh, that's, um, yeah, that's that industrial grade right there.

Rashawn: 53:44

Yeah, it's serious. So it, yeah, it could definitely, like the machine, like it doesn't like those, all of 'em come up what they call a blowoff valve, and if that thing doesn't work or it's set wrong, that the, what they call a waste tank is where all the waste water goes, that is suction from the carpet. That tank will basically cave in on itself. It'll just basically sh scribing up to like a can.

Dex: 54:05

Wow.

Rashawn: 54:06

Yeah. That's how powerful it's,

Dex: 54:08

That's pretty nuts. So that gets me to another question. I guess my mind is just all over the place. The wastewater, do you dump it right then and there, or do you take it off property? How do you get rid

Rashawn: 54:24

Yeah, most of them. So they initially they gonna say, you go to like a car washer, dump it out. But I believe that most car washes don't allow you to do that. They don't want you to do that. But you're not supposed to put it in like regular, like rain, water drain or anything like that? Either. Somewhat. I've heard of some people doing, they say they do, they have like a spot, like they're, sometimes they have like if they own a warehouse, they have an area over there, then they can dump it. They have like a, like a waste area at their dump, like at their shop that they can use. They dump it in. But some people, they would just work from their home. They just kinda, they may have like a backyard area, they'll dump it in their backyard or something and just let it filter from.

Dex: 55:06

Uh

Rashawn: 55:07

But, uh, other than that, they don't really, they're not supposed to put it down like regular rainwater drains and stuff like that. That's actually illegal. They can get fine for doing that.

Dex: 55:15

Or a home drain, they can't put it down a home

Rashawn: 55:18

Yeah. They can't go like out Yeah. A home drain. They can't do that either.

Dex: 55:22

Wow. So it's not like there's an opportunity for somebody to come in and basically pick up the waste water from them, or even just switch out tanks for all these different businesses that are, or these

Rashawn: 55:35

Potentially, but potentially, but I'll be honest, most carpet cleaners are probably cheap. They're not for the pay, the extra cost for somebody to come do that, they'll just do it illegally.

Dex: 55:46

Wow.

Rashawn: 55:47

just, they'll gladly do it illegally without paying somebody.

Dex: 55:50

Because the fine isn't high enough.

Rashawn: 55:54

it could be high enough. It's just a matter of them getting caught doing it.

Dex: 55:57

Got you.

Rashawn: 55:58

It's just, yeah, that's what it is.

Dex: 56:01

so those, those chemicals are strong enough to wear. We just don't pour it everywhere. Right.

Rashawn: 56:08

Yeah, you can't just pour it everywhere. Yeah.

Dex: 56:10

Got you.

Rashawn: 56:11

And you talking about the waste water, like some of these, you know, the amount of like chemical, not the chemical itself, it's just the dirt also from the carpet. Like sometimes that water comes out black from how dirty stuff is,

Dex: 56:23

Oh,

Rashawn: 56:24

and it smell like smells and Yeah, it's just, yeah, it's a, it's a whole lot.

Dex: 56:29

uh, so let's get into this. This is the first time I've ever had to ask this question on this podcast. What made you decide to, uh, get out of that business or sell it all together?

Rashawn: 56:44

So with me, I was still working, so it was hard for me to balance the cleaning sound of, even though we were using the subcontractors and things like that, it was hard for me to balance all of that. I mean, it was, I can only do so much to, to say,

Dex: 57:03

Yeah.

Rashawn: 57:05

because, you know, I had a plan of using it for like the weekends

Dex: 57:09

Mm-hmm.

Rashawn: 57:10

just to, you know, build up clientele. But it was like, I've been working all week. Sometimes we may have to clean, you got kids, I don't wanna spend my weekends doing this. You know, then that's taking more time away from the house one time away from the kids and the family while I buy cleaning carpets. So, but they worked great for a while. I mean, some days, I made, decent money. Cause sometimes I would go out during the day, like on a lunch because you know, I told you you could get in and out like 30, 45 minutes or so. I'll go out on the lunch and do a house and make a quick hundred $50, $200 right over, you know, just real quick,

Dex: 57:43

That's not bad,

Rashawn: 57:44

but. amount of time it needed to really build and go. It's, it's hard to do with a family. Bills don't stop. We got a big mortgage here, we got, all these bills we got, kids we're raising. So it, like, none of that stops when you're trying to, you grow a business. So that's, that's what got really hard for us for the cleaning side. Now, the cleaning side, she handled a lot of that and I did the carpet cleaning side. She would come along to help with me just to set up the wands and stuff. But other than that, I did the cleaning and the chemical spraying and area rugs. I did all of that stuff. I did everything. I just needed her help to hold the hose to make it, you know, speed the process up. But

Dex: 58:22

Uh,

Rashawn: 58:23

other than that, it's just, you know, the bills don't stop, and it's kind of hard. With everything we have going on here. You can't just, quit everything and just don't do that. Even though people make it seem like that in social media that you just quit your job and just don't do it. You can't do that all the time, especially if you got like a big family raising kids got all, you got grown person meals, they don't stop. So yeah, you gotta be strategic in, in doing that. So I think, and I'm gonna be honest man, real transparent guy. I, I, I'm very transparent, so I don't think we were ready for that. I think we were just jumping the gun. I, I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't think we were ready to jump into that area yet,

Dex: 59:04

Okay. Okay. That's humble.

Rashawn: 59:06

of the business. I think we were just moving too quick just to, cuz I just, I was looking at the money aspect of it, it could be easy cuz by the time I started doing those cleanings myself, they just started, once I turned on our Google local services ads, I was booking carpet cleaning jobs that quick.

Dex: 59:23

Huh?

Rashawn: 59:24

was like, well, Brandon did more than any time to go out and do it. Sometimes they'll come in all the time and then some people will book, some people wouldn't. But you can't quit your job, based on a couple here, a couple there, it's gotta build over time. But I didn't have the time

Dex: 59:40

To scale

Rashawn: 59:40

like I had to drive. This is so, you need drive the energy to do it. You need to drive to do it and time to do it. I had to drive and the energy, I just didn't have the time.

Dex: 59:52

Yeah. Too busy. Guest starring on a podcast and stuff. I get it. I get it. Mr. Popular? Yeah.

Rashawn: 1:00:00

busy drinking, man. I playing.

Dex: 1:00:02

Uh, yeah, I know. Oh man. So how long do you think it would take somebody, they started on January 1st, they got the van, they're ready to go out and get their first job. How long do you think it would take to scale to the point they could replace everything else?

Rashawn: 1:00:24

Depends on what they're coming from. So like if you're only making talking about replace their income,

Dex: 1:00:32

I mean, or basically to the point to where they could just do that full-time or are we looking like two months, three months, four months? If that's all they did all day.

Rashawn: 1:00:45

if that's all they did all day, they had good marketing skills, they booked like a lot of the calls that came in, if it also depends on what their bottom line number is, what they need per month. So you may, you'll be surprised, you could probably make what you need in a month in a week and you should be, you could be set a whole month, but you know why stop there. So it's, uh, I would give it a, I always say give it a good, good six months. I would say always give it a good six months cuz you know, it, that gives you enough time to, I wouldn't say really weather the storm, but you can learn a lot about the industry, learn a lot about yourself. You can go, you probably go through a lot of changes within six months. So I would say always give it six months. I wouldn't rush it,

Dex: 1:01:30

Yeah, for sure, for sure. So what is the next business for you, man? What is, what's it,

Rashawn: 1:01:38

Even though we gave that up, we gave that a really strong, that did really well for us. But, and I think with the cleaning, cleaning side of it, Tea, , we took a step back. She ended up giving, she's a data analyst now, so she picked up a job as a data analyst and I ended up getting, I got a, not a promotion, but I either to get another job in, uh, hr. So I work in like the IT side of HR now. So I'm in r i s. So yeah, team works for healthcare type of data analyst role. I'm in hr, I s so right now, you know, cause of course we got the grown person bills over here.

Dex: 1:02:16

course. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Rashawn: 1:02:18

yeah. So we gotta take care of all, take care of homes, still raising kids and stuff. So that, that, that's going well. But we're still business savvy. We're still the little entrepreneur, entrepreneurial couple. We are looking into something online now, so we're doing, we are looking in the drop shipping and logistics, like that type of thing. So we're still researching that right now.

Dex: 1:02:41

uh,

Rashawn: 1:02:42

And we are, that's the avenue we want to go down. So we're still following that because it allows us to still kind of own a business. But you're like the middle man. Sort of like we were with the cleaning business in a way. We're just not having to do anything besides for post or list.

Dex: 1:02:59

I can tell you a lot of mistakes that I made doing that I can. Yeah, man, I made a lot of mistakes and I did a lot of learning, but based off of everything that I learned, I would definitely do that again, man. Zero

Rashawn: 1:03:15

yeah, it's, from what we're seeing from the research we're seeing, man, it's, it's insane the amount of money people are making out here. Like insane and let, it's just crazy, man. Like, I was like, this is this world. I mean this, this is insane what you could do.

Dex: 1:03:35

Well, let's do this, man. Let's get one major takeaway from you and I wanna wrap up this episode cause I, I gotta pick your brain about that.

Rashawn: 1:03:48

Okay.

Dex: 1:03:49

take away on building a carpet cleaning business. Go.

Rashawn: 1:03:56

All right. One major takeaway. One, have the drive, have the time, but also everybody's situation is different. So just because we have a family doesn't mean you can't do it, or that person can't do it with their family as well. So our setup is just. Then, I wouldn't say that most people just are set up in what we want for our family is just different. Some people with a family may be able to rock it out and handle it, but unfortunately we could not at the time, but if you have the time of the drive, you can pretty much get you a van, find you a decent van on any of those sites I mentioned earlier, make sure that truck mount works. Get a mechanic to check out a van, get a carpet. Now don't go to the mechanic for the lawnmower engine that you have for the truck mount. Go to a carpet cleaning company like was, I can't even think of the name of it. Whatever. There's, wherever you are, you can look up a carpet cleaning, like maintenance or supplier or something like that. They usually work on the truck mount themselves as well. Take that van or have the person meet you there with the van to help them look it over as well, because if the van is running your truck mount, is it, then you are already, you're already operating the black Yeah. So make sure you do your due diligence. That's a, that it goes across the board with anything. Do your due diligence. Don't just buy blindly. Test drive it. Like, just like you would buy a regular car test. Drive the van as well. Listen to the engine, take it to a mechanic. Take the truck mount to a mechanic. Not a car mechanic, but a carpet cleaner mechanic. Another major takeaway, if you're just starting out, try to find one under $20,000.

Dex: 1:05:42

Now that's a van and machine, right?

Rashawn: 1:05:45

That's Van Machine. They should be attached together. Make sure everything's working, make sure like the people you're buying from, they have their logs, they have their books, they have their maintenance records. If they have none of that stuff, then that may, it may not be a good buy. They have nothing to show that they took care of the truck mount or that they took care of the band that operates their business. If they have nothing to show for it, you might wanna pass on it.

Dex: 1:06:11

That makes sense, man. That makes sense, man. I, I think my, uh, guidance counselor could have pointed that one out to me. And so for anybody out there that's listening, I would explore into this man, cuz I, it sounds like it's a pretty viable business. It really, really does. It's definitely doable. Yeah.

Rashawn: 1:06:33

Training. Oh man, the training. Watch, it's not something you can just jump into and clean properly.

Dex: 1:06:39

Uh,

Rashawn: 1:06:39

Make sure you meet, if you do buy from somebody. I, I got lucky with mine. He was a very humble guy. He basically taught me everything he knew. He trained me. He took me on his jobs. I went, I was out cleaning restaurants with him till three in the morning one time.

Dex: 1:06:54

Yeah,

Rashawn: 1:06:55

he was that type of guy showing me everything. This is how you do this. This is how you do that, this is how you mix this. He wrote down certain chemicals. He wrote down where I need to go buy chemicals, where I need to buy wands. This is all you need to do. Make sure you, if you can, buy somebody that's willing to work with you and help you along the way as well, and not just sell you a van.

Dex: 1:07:17

yeah, definitely.

Rashawn: 1:07:18

tip.

Dex: 1:07:19

Man, that education's more valuable, dude. That knowledge is way more valuable.

Rashawn: 1:07:25

I was doing all that before I even did my first carpet cleaning thing. So I was out at night with him and his employees, helping them out learning the ropes before I took on my first client.

Dex: 1:07:35

Uh oh, that's it right there, man. That is it. Yeah, I definitely wanna wrap this up for anybody that's out there, definitely go to intheblack-podcast.com, check out more information. They'll be show notes. Upon this particular thing. I'm gonna have some links going up and after my man, Sean does the job, the drop shipping, we are going to definitely have another episode on that. I'm just gonna put that out there now. But, yeah, so go to intheblack-podcast.com. Follow us on your favorite podcast platforms, Google, Spotify, apple, or wherever you listen, I would. Definitely. If you like the show, share it with a friend. If you don't like the show, share it with two people you don't like. That's even better for me. There was also a link to, if you wanna support the show, there's also a link to uh, buy me a coffee. I am down for that cuz right now I'm tired. So there's that. Anyway, from a man, Sean, I am Dex. This is in the Black and we will definitely see you next time.