RaShaun Davis - Maids of Marietta

Dex: 0:06

Hey, welcome to another show of in the black. I have the real king of Zamunda up on this show.

Shaun: 0:13

You really

Dex: 0:14

yeah, I really said that. all right. This is my man, Sean. He owns a cleaning business, that has kind of an interesting approach to. So everybody, I don't know if we can hear you clap or not, but just go ahead and do it anyway. What's going on, Shaun? How you feeling,

Shaun: 0:32

What's up D I'm doing great man, late night, but, doing all right. Doing all right.

Dex: 0:37

We each have our respective sauces.

Shaun: 0:40

Mm-hmm

Dex: 0:41

Yep. For anybody that can't see right now, I'm drinking a little whiskey because I have, I'm doing a little research for another podcast. I'll let y'all know about that later. And I guess Sean decided to join me with his own libations.

Shaun: 0:54

There we go cheers to you.

Dex: 0:56

Cheers to you. So, anyway, thanks again for coming onto the program. So just to jump into it, tell me about your business. Okay.

Shaun: 1:07

Well, this business actually started, uh, my wife was looking at, uh, doing, we started initially hiring subcontractors and, she was, took a course, basically. She learned it from like, she saw like something online. She took a course about this information and how these people were. Cleaning houses, but they weren't doing weren't the ones cleaning the house. So we initially started on that route and we were hiring subcontractors. We were getting the job. So basically we were like a liaison, like right in the middle. So we were the, the tech people to call it, but we would find the clients we'll find the cleaners, put 'em together and we'll get, get us a cut without even cleaning the home.

Dex: 1:52

That's. Yeah, that's perfect, bro.

Shaun: 1:54

That's how it started out. Yeah. That's how it started out, but it's not all peaches and cream, man. Not all

Dex: 2:01

it usually isn't man.

Shaun: 2:02

It, it was, it was rough to find, subcontractors, initially, cleaners that, you know, were trustworthy that, you know, these are people we haven't met. So like some of them, we had to come clean our house just to see, you know, the cleaning style they showed up on time, things like that, just like our own little checklist or check off list type of. And

Dex: 2:23

waters.

Shaun: 2:24

yeah, test the waters. Some of them, we went strictly off of their reviews that they've had online or their presence online. How many teams they had. And we went from there just to start, you know, giving them jobs. We would go from based on what the client said, because it was heavily online. So the client had to leave reviews. They were checking in with us at all times. The client was the cleaner was so, but we made a shift later, maybe a few months later. So we started this maybe late, last, late, late 20, 20. And we ended up shifting probably February, March of this year, 2022 and the issues we ran into. So I guess, you know, you want me to talk about this now?

Dex: 3:07

Oh, by all

Shaun: 3:08

just open, just open over. Okay. So it was going well at first, I mean, we were getting bookings man, and they were just coming in, calling all the time. We were just phones, just ringing out the hook. So we would try to find cleaners and then sometimes, you know what we would bid on the job or. The cost that came up for the job, some subcontractors, they wouldn't accept it because it was, I guess the amount was too low for them because what we would do, we would have a certain amount and we would kinda raise the price a little bit, because since we're taking a little bit off the top, we gotta make it worthwhile for the subcontractors. And some of the subcontractors wouldn't accept the amount that we would do. So we have to hurry up. Let's say we only have maybe three teams, right. If all three of them decline it, we gotta hurry up and go find somebody to get this booking, these people are already booked. They book online with their card, cuz they have to book online to lock off the date that they need for their cleaning. So they can't move forward without it. so we have somebody book. You want to make sure you have a cleaning that can go and show up and go there because the system was set up to actually let them know who was the cleaner and when they were gonna be there, things like that. So we were running the issues with, certain subcontracts. It was like, well, that's too low for, you know, for us. Cause we would do a split with them. So we would be like most times I think we started out 70, 30, I think it was a 70, 30 split. We would keep 30, they'll get 70 of. but, some of them, they were kind of, you know, some of the subcontractors could get greedy, they could be a little bit greedy. So, sometimes we would have to go out and try to find somebody really quick. And then, so these, these are the issues that made us switch, make the switch to where we're doing the cleanings ourselves. So, and I'll get into that a little bit later. The issues we were having with some contractors. So of course they were declining jobs that we would get and. What would happen is they were, we've had some where they didn't show up at all and didn't, didn't tell us they weren't gonna make it. They didn't say what the issue was. We may hear from them the next day or something after the cleaning was over. Yes. So one, at one instance, we had, we've had some subcontractors where now this was one where we were going off reviews and just kinda word of mouth for a cleaner, but send me the one. It was like a post construction cleaner. Now, granted, Some clients, they do lie about the, the level of cleanliness of their home. They will

Dex: 5:29

some hoarders

Shaun: 5:31

will absolutely lie. So this one lady we had, and she had some renovations during their home. So.

Dex: 5:37

Uh,

Shaun: 5:38

This was actually a learning lesson for us because we sent someone out there. They were sending us pictures as they were, you know, they got their own time and started cleaning. And we found out that it was a lot worse than what the client was saying. So there was, you know, construction dust, everywhere. There was dust on everything you can think of. What we booked for was just like a normal cleaning, but this is more like a post construction cleaning that requires probably 10 times more than what you paid. And so the lady, the girl that went to clean it, she, you know, did the best she could. She sent us pictures. The pictures looked great until later that night, when the client came home and she saw. like the floors. It was, it was so bad, man. Like the girl, she, and it what's crazy is the cleaner knew that it looked really bad. She just did her job and cleaned upstairs, cleaned downstairs, left, you know? And we got,

Dex: 6:35

minute.

Shaun: 6:35

go ahead. No,

Dex: 6:36

did the client send you like an Instagram filter of like a clean room or something? Like, was it just from a different angle? They had one clean glass or, yeah.

Shaun: 6:47

So the cleaner was so cleaner was there during the daytime so we could see like, but she had just freshly mopped the floor. So it looked shiny. It looked clean to us. You know, she would show like windows that were, you know, wiped down and clean. It looked clean through the picture and that's one of the problems doing it that way, because pictures really don't show the full, you know, full detail of it. So. Now when the client got back home, she was sending us pictures. It was dark when she got back home. So it was some stuff on the glass that was still there. It was like, when we got there, it was like paint. It's like dry paint or some like putty stuff on, on the windows, easy to get off. But I don't think the previous cleaner, just even tried to do anything with it. Also the floor is like, once they dried. It was just a, it just looked like snow smeared around on the floor. It was bad windows. The windows is just look, you could see all of the white marks white marks on the windows, bad, bad, bad. Uh, it was dust all over handles, still dust on like fixtures and stuff like that. So that was the first, um, as subcontractors as well, since we were like liaisons, that was our first cleaning we had to do on our. Because the client was mad at the, at the cleaner, because she came, you know, when she came home, she, they do a final walkthrough at the end of all of the cleanings before we leave. So she did a final walkthrough and she kept telling the girl was like, look, look at the floors, you know, can you redo these? Because look at 'em, you know, basically they look bad or can you redo this? Instead at a certain point, she just kind of got tired of, she was like, you know what, it's fine. You know, you just go ahead and go or whatever. Yeah, cuz the cleaner cleaners probably get an attitude with her. That lady she's from a, she was, uh, she was a little snappy, but grant where she was from, I think she's from like, like up north north, she was from up north north, like the, Boston, New York kind of, kind of, yeah, the snap. She was a little snappy and she just kind of ended it there, but she gave us a call and started sending us pictures and everything. And I was. We were going back and forth. We were saying, well, this was a part of the cleaning. You didn't say this was the issue, but this, this and that. So we ended up, we were talking amongst each other. We was like, look, we're gonna have to go out there and see this because the pictures you can't tell and us being liaisons, we have a company to keep, you know, reviews higher because when the clients are leaving reviews, they're leaving reviews for our company. Not for the cleaner, the cleaner may have their own different company. but they're leaving reviews for our company. So we have to make sure that client is happy.

Dex: 9:17

Okay. So I'm a little confused. How come this contractor didn't do they bid on their own stuff and then they also do yours or.

Shaun: 9:28

they have, like, let's say they have their own company. Let's say we are ABC cleaning company and they're XYZ cleaning company, but a lot of cleaning companies do this to get more work. So you would go out and find a cleaner, that's say she doesn't know how to do like online marketing or, YouTube market, Facebook marketing or something like that to get more clients, she's just kind of maybe word of mouth, but she's looking for more business. So she will come to somebody like us and subcontract with us and she'll agree to the split because then the contractor has what the split is gonna be. We'll bring you clients and that'll be that basically. And you can let us know if you wanna do the job or not. We'll explain what it is. It could be like a three bedroom, two bath house. You're just doing a standard clean or deep clean or something like that. So that's kind of how we shape it. But they will accept it if they want to, because they're already on our list of people that we've found and they've accepted our contract. So we just kind of go down our list.

Dex: 10:21

Got you. And how many of these subcontractors do you have then? Or.

Shaun: 10:26

Uh, now we we've brought it back down to like maybe two because now majority of the cleanings we do now, Things have

Dex: 10:33

Oh, okay.

Shaun: 10:34

So there, that was a segue into why we changed over to doing it ourselves. It's because we went out there, we had to go buy the cleaning supplies to go, trying to check out what this lady's house looked like when we got there, man, it was horrific, man. It like, it don't even look like anybody been here to even clean, like it was bad, bad. So, we ended up just basically doing a whole, a whole additional cleaning just to make. To her liking and stuff like that. So she was moving that day. And what she was trying to do was just be able to move in, just set the stuff down and be done with it. But at threw everything off when she got there and nothing was really cleaned, but, we ended up getting it done. She loved it after we got finished, cuz I was trying to figure out a way to get the floors looking decent at least because you got construction dust everywhere. I'm like this stuff is rarely, it's probably never gonna go anywhere. You're gonna see it all the time, but I've tried to figure out a way. So we used, a Swiffer and it helped tons, just a regular Swiffer. It helped a lot. And she was like, oh my God, this is already looking much better. So we got all the dust off. We would just really just fine tooth with a fine tooth comb. We went through there and was just killing it, man. Got that done. And then we noticed, because we kinda lost on that one because we still paid the previous cleaner, but we still had to go out there and clean again because she didn't want the previous cleaner to come back and clean. Cuz that's what we normally would do. If they have a problem, we'll send a cleaning that came out there to redo the cleaning, but she didn't want that cleaner and we didn't have anybody else that can go out there. So we, we had to go do it. That's what opened the door for us doing it, our ourselves. So what made us continue to do it? T my wife, Tierra, she was researching just the amount of money we were splitting with the cleaners. And she was like, well, what if we, if we do it ourselves, we can keep a hundred percent of this. So,

Dex: 12:29

yeah, that's how that works. Yeah.

Shaun: 12:30

Yeah. So at the time she had a lot more free time. I had free time, so started doing it and things just took off from there. Just took off from there. So now we're down to maybe two subcontractors and when we initially started, there were some homes that the ladies got used to the subcontractors that were cleaning the homes and we still get paid off of those, but they do the cleanings of those homes while we do our own. so, yeah, so we are still doing the split with those original subcontractors. For some of the original homes we started with that do like a monthly subscription or every two weeks or every week or every three weeks week and split it up that way for 'em. However, however, often they want to clean their home. We can split it up that way for 'em. And from there we just kind of still, like the thing is we already knew how to book it because they was, they were calling us. To come clean their home. So we just booked it for ourselves and put it on our calendar and we would just go out and do the cleaning.

Dex: 13:24

Oh, okay. Yeah.

Shaun: 13:26

things changed really quickly because, the goal initial goal was to replace my wife's income and I was not gungho about it, but I told her, I was like, look, if you can replace your income by the end of the end of this month, it was like we did half a month and she almost basically got. Almost half of her income that she was making that month in half a month.

Dex: 13:49

Oh. Oh,

Shaun: 13:50

So I was like, so we haven't done a full monthly, yet full month yet. I said, okay, let's go through this month. This was in, what was it? February? So March was like a half a month. And then we did May was a full month. No April. So did April's a full month in May, the April full month. She had already. Match. She already got her income match, actually not even match. She went over her income that she would make and that's take. Yeah, that was gross. She made, she brought home gross. What she would make from her job gross. She already bypassed that. So, and this was net operator. This was like profit that we were, you know, keeping. So she was still over what she would make at her job. So she quit in May and she's doing it full time and I'm still helping. And so now, we're looking to do, we still do residential cleanings, and, but right now we're trying to, dig into commercial cleanings because those contracts last, once you develop those relationships, those contracts, they last a long time for cleaners at certain, commercial properties. We like today I was talking to you earlier today. We went to three different buildings. All of them have, three amounts that they pay per month for the cleaning. So we would be like the subcontractors for this lady. So it, it is, it's kind of flipped now we're the cleaners, but she, she also cleans too. She just can get the contracts. She just can't keep up with these that she just got now. So we went out there to meet with her. She wants us to take 'em, but they are some huge buildings. We're gonna figure out, I think we're probably gonna do it because we were saying, you know, you never know what could come from it. You know, develop those relationships. It's a big relationship industry. And it's really hard to get into the commercial side of cleaning wise because they, the contracts are so long with the people they already have. So you really it's it's once you get in, it's like, okay, your foot's in the door now. So.

Dex: 15:42

In there like swimwear, huh?

Shaun: 15:43

Yeah. So you can try to, you know, kind of, you know, well, yeah, we've been cleaning this place for, you know, such and such years now, you know, no complaints, no issues, you know, nothing's missing, you know, the main, main thing they look for is trustworthy integrity. They don't want, you know, they don't people coming in to stealing this stuff, you know, going through people's things, stuff like that. As long as you got a track record of just doing what you need to do, get it done, and it's looking good. you're good in the commercial world. So that's, or I think we are gonna move forward and maybe two of them, one of them was a bit much, the way that lady described it. I was like, I don't think we want to deal with this. Uh, this is sounds more of a headache than anything and we gotta it's it's a tight timeframe that you gotta do it too. So, yeah, I think we're gonna go with two of the commercial contracts that we, went to see today, but yeah, it, it changed the game. And so now the goal. Yeah, the goal was to get, replace her income, let her quit. So she quit, early May and she's been doing this full time. So now it's my turn. So that's what we're working on building towards now.

Dex: 16:44

What did she do before? If you don't mind me asking.

Shaun: 16:46

She has been in medical fraud for many years, so she was always a, for the most part, a remote worker. Specifically, she was in Medicare fraud. So she worked for different contracts, government companies, and they had contracts for like certain regions of the country and they would handle the cases that came in for Medicare fraud on that one. So she's been in fraud for a long time.

Dex: 17:09

Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's dope, man. Yeah.

Shaun: 17:15

Yeah. She, I don't, I'm not gonna say she loved it, but just brought in some good money. So she

Dex: 17:22

Hey. Yeah. Hey man, you gotta find them criminals, bro.

Shaun: 17:26

Yeah. Yeah. And when I tell you, man, some of the stories, my goodness, go ahead.

Dex: 17:31

what did you do before getting into the cleaning then? Since we have sort of her story.

Shaun: 17:38

well, I mean, I've, I'm kind of a Jack of all trades, man. I've I before? Cause we moved down here from Nashville, Tennessee.

Dex: 17:45

Yeah.

Shaun: 17:46

So we moved down here in July of 2021, and then we started a business late 20, 21 as, as we moved to the house. So they, we, the house was finished in August. We closed in September. And then we started that business in like November

Dex: 18:00

oh, wow. Yeah.

Shaun: 18:02

I was a real estate agent in Nashville. Had some Airbnbs. I, I was a musician, so I was a drummer for my home church at the time. So I was playing for them for seven years at the time. So I'd been playing drums for them for seven years, every Sunday. Oh my goodness. Every Sunday. It was a, it's a long time, but, I took a little break in between, but I had been at that. I had played drums at that church for a total of maybe 14 years altogether,

Dex: 18:31

Oh, wow. So you,

Shaun: 18:32

Yeah. I started playing it when I was 12. Yeah.

Dex: 18:35

Yeah. You picked up roots, bro. Yeah.

Shaun: 18:37

Yeah. So I had, I was, you know, I was born and raised in Nashville, so that was my home church. I was born into that church. So I was the first drum they ever had. I was 12 and then I went to college, so I took a little break off and then came back to play again some years later. So then I stayed there for another seven years too. We moved down here to. but I was, that was, I mean, I did a lot of stuff, so I was selling real estate, you know, I even helped my church. They bought another church. I was a realtor for them buy another church.

Dex: 19:04

Oh, wow.

Shaun: 19:05

I've done, I've done quite a bit, man. So sold houses, bought houses, you know, and all that's now. And, but I still did full time too. So my full time was a payroll. So I still worked in a payroll for a company. And for a while, Until probably here recently I was working remotely, still doing a position I did in Nashville for a company up there in payroll.

Dex: 19:27

Oh, okay. That's cool, man. That's cool.

Shaun: 19:30

Yeah. So, but all that changed when we moved to Georgia. So I lost, I dropped the musician, the real estate. I did transfer my real estate license down to Georgia. The only thing I did was the purchase of our home here. I was a realtor on that one. So that was probably the only thing I've done with my

Dex: 19:43

saved you a couple bucks that way. Huh?

Shaun: 19:46

Yeah. Yeah. Got a little, like, got a little change back. Got a little change back from the purchase. Yeah. Little, little

Dex: 19:50

up. So take me through like a typical day with cleaning, you know? Oh, just so we have be only because we haven't said the name of the company it's maids of Marietta. Y'all can look it up. There will be information in the show notes, but, but yeah, take me through that typical day dude, after coffee.

Shaun: 20:10

After coffee. Yeah, I got, oh, lemme tell my wife is so tough in the mornings, man. I gotta hurry up getting my breakfast, getting my coffee. It's like, look, I just woke up. Gosh, I can't eat, drink my coffee this fast. Geez. I'm tired. All right. But. Typical day, man, we usually have an arrival time, for the first cleaning of a day. Usually between eight and 10 in the morning. So we got kids and so we gotta get them dropped off at camps and, you know, daycares and stuff like that. So we got three kids, one goes to one camp and then the other two go to a different camp and it's on opposite sides. So we gotta get them there. And then from what the, with those drop offs, we ended. Take, you know, then we go to the first cleaning after that. So we, we always give him an arrival window of between eight to 10, same thing as like a cable guy or something like that. Yeah.

Dex: 20:56

Yeah. Except that you don't call you don't come in four hours later. Yeah. I'm talking to you, Comcast I'm.

Shaun: 21:04

man. Oh my God. Don't get me started on Comcast, but they would like, yeah, here's here's this window that he can arrive from 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM. What. No, no, but not ours. Ours is like a two hour window. And once we get there, we'll start the cleaning from there. We'll know ahead of time. Cause they've already, as I explained before, they've already booked, you know, this day, this time and their card is already on file. So. We just show up to the address, get there, start the cleaning. The, we usually start, if it's, uh, upstairs, downstairs, we usually start up top and then work our, uh, work ourselves down. Or if it's like a basement, if it's not too much to do in the basement, we'll probably start in the basement. Then go back to the top and work our way down. But it, it, the strategy changes each home we go to because the layouts are so weird. Sometimes strategy changes a lot and we try to, you know, keep it efficient so we can get in, get out because time is money in the cleaning industry. So you gotta get in, get that clean, make sure they're happy. Make sure you do a good thorough job and then move on to the next clean. If you got one that day.

Dex: 22:07

Got you, man. So like how many can you do in a day then?

Shaun: 22:11

Right now it's just me and her. We do have a helper sometimes it's actually her. I say her brother's fiance. It's her brother's fiance. She'll help us sometimes on cleanings. And you know, when I tell you she comes to help it just man, it's we get through stuff so fast, but just a third, but us two, we usually can do maybe two in a day. But we've haven't, we haven't tried three, but we probably could do three in a day. If we had our helper with us, we probably could do three in a day, but three, three standard cleanings in a day, maybe two deep cleanings, but definitely three standards in a day.

Dex: 22:42

you wanna give her a shout out

Shaun: 22:45

Who's at the, um, helper.

Dex: 22:47

yeah.

Shaun: 22:48

Oh, well her name's Danielle, so I that's

Dex: 22:50

shout out Danielle, I appreciate

Shaun: 22:51

my wife's brother's I would call her fiance, I guess, or girlfriend, my wife, my wife's brother's girlfriend.

Dex: 22:58

Okay. She kin, she kin.

Shaun: 23:00

Yeah. She's been around for a while, so,

Dex: 23:03

so besides the whole bidding and everything and people not showing up, what else did you, what, what didn't you expect that ended up hitting you when you got into this?

Shaun: 23:15

All right. So was it before we started doing them or. It's

Dex: 23:19

As soon as you started doing it, what was this? Like? Okay. Maybe

Shaun: 23:22

we started cleaning ourselves.

Dex: 23:24

Yeah.

Shaun: 23:26

Uh, let's see now. Oh my God. When we were first starting. it was one house we did, it was actually down the street from us. And it was a massive house for two people to do as a deep cleaning. So deep cleaning with ours includes a like, like baseboards and you know, more detailed cleaning. So you got you wiping down cabinets, you know, they may have stains on to make sure their cabinets are nice and shiny. And it, it is it, the deep clean includes everything in the standard, but it adds in. The baseboards and this house was huge. So it's a lot of baseboard in this house to do. When I tell you this was one of the, uh, we had just kind of started doing 'em on our own. So we were still trying to figure out methods and being efficient and speed and stuff like that.

Dex: 24:12

Yeah.

Shaun: 24:13

Took us eight hours to do this house, man, eight. Hours we started and it was right down the street from us. We started at like nine in the morning. We didn't leave till after five. Like it was all day long, but it was, but they, I mean, they, they had pets and everything, so it was a lot of pet hair we had. It's just a lot of stuff we had to do, but we recently did the house again and we had our helper with us. We were, we were in and out in like an hour and half. So it we've gotten a lot faster. So, I didn't realize the time and the strategies needed that. That was be, that would be one of my topics the time. And the strategies needed to really get in clean thoroughly and get out quick that that takes work. That's that takes study. You gotta study, you gotta research. You gotta look at videos. You gotta look at what other people are doing. You gotta join these cleaning groups and stuff like that. It all makes a difference, man. You've really gotta study the craft to really be good.

Dex: 25:06

Look at you, man, that kind of segues into my next question. What systems have you put in place to maintain quality and control? You talked about your checklist.

Shaun: 25:18

Yeah, so we, we have a checklist, but it's just, Well, of course we know it because we do it all the time by ourselves, but we get the check. We got the checklist from somebody else who owns like a million dollar plus cleaning company. So this is what's helping them keep it go fast, stay fast and, you know, be thorough and efficient. So we got their checklist and this is kind of what we touch on. Also just, you know, techniques and stuff like that that comes into play to help you, get quicker and wait, repeat the question again, so make sure I'm going.

Dex: 25:47

What's the what systems have you put in place to maintain control?

Shaun: 25:51

Systems. Okay. Yeah. So definitely we always going into the home. We, we will initially start now with somebody books we'll have the address. We do like a Google street straight view just to see what the house looks like. And we can, and I could tell from there's like, look, all right. So square footage wise, I've been in a lot of homes. She's been in a lot of homes we can tell. All right. We can get, get in and out of this house pretty quick. We've been in some 1300 square foot homes. We've been in some 3000 plus square foot homes. Just like we can we'll know ahead of time. Okay. We're gonna, this is gonna be a lot more space or we can tackle this first and do this. So our method of math is madness is that don't split up. So we've learned that if let's say you, one personnel does one room, I'll go do another room. That's not efficient. So. If we're in the mat, we're starting in the master bedroom. Let's say it's the furthest room back. Let's say we go upstairs. And there's a big hallway and there's a room in the very back and they're, and they, they pay for that room. So we'll start our way in the back, work our way to the front. So it's just you creating a strategy because you gotta get in there and see what it looks like first to start planning this. So we work out, you know, from back to front and from top. That's kind of how we do it. That's our strategy going in. And we always tackle the room together. We never split up unless they get done with their portion first, then they move on to the next item. So let's say it's a small room in the back and it's like a standard clean. So that means basically I'm just vacuuming the floors and they're, you know, dusting and stuff. So I may start off for the dusting at the top. She'll be wiping down the dust from like, you know, maybe picture frames in the room or dress, chest of drawers and stuff like that. Bed frames, stuff like that, wiping down dust like that. And then once she gets done with that, she'll move on to the next one, which is usually like a bathroom attached to that room. She'll move on starting that bathroom. And then I'm finishing the vacuum and then I'm boom, I'm moving to the bathroom with her to start the dusting at the top. And I'm usually in charge of vacuum and she always tells this is a side note and I get fired almost every day and I think I got fired today. I just, she didn't say it yet, but we'll see on the next job if she invites me, but, I vacuum way too much, man. I vacuum like ridiculously

Dex: 28:05

that's a problem.

Shaun: 28:08

Time wise. Yeah. Can be. Cause I I'm literally time wise cuz she was like, I keep telling you to use this Swan to do the dusting at the top. I'd like to use the vacuum cause I'm like, I know it's gone with this vacuum. I'm just suctioning everything, everything I will, it will suck the paint out the wall. That's how strong this vacuum is. But.

Dex: 28:26

yeah.

Shaun: 28:27

Yeah, it's, I vacuum too much and it does take a while. I've noticed that today in the house that we did, we could have got done. I, I stretched it out in the extra 30 minutes without my extra vacuum and we could have been done like an hour and a half. So yeah, it was my fault today and her and her point was proven. I did tell her that your point was proven. I'm sorry,

Dex: 28:45

That's how you keep the business in the.

Shaun: 28:48

Yeah, man. And she keeps saying that I was like, okay, I'm fired. I'm sorry. I'm fired. I know but, uh, but yeah, so that's how we kinda, you know, map it out. Uh, that was the question, right? I was still in that same question.

Dex: 29:04

Oh, yeah, you're great, man. You're

Shaun: 29:06

All right. So that's how I map it out. That's how we map it

Dex: 29:08

bro. Nailed it. So you did, you did speak about how some of your contractors that you work with. They don't, they don't necessarily do any marketing. They just do everything off of word of mouth. What sort of marketing do you do to sort of stand.

Shaun: 29:25

The ones that really work work for us is really just Google, like simple Google, Google ads and stuff like that. Just pay Google directly. And, they, all the calls will come in. You know, if you have a big enough marketing budget on there, You know, you set the time you set down what you look for. Let's say you put in your information and on Google and what your services are. So let's say you do deep cleanings, standard cleanings. You do, let's say, floors or something like that, just in general. And you can mark those items on Google. So if anybody searches for those items and you've paid for an ad on there, you're gonna pop up first and you're gonna be Google verified. So a lot of people. Trust that from Google cuz it's of course Google. So that's how we get a lot of our, a lot of our clients.

Dex: 30:13

So, do you do display or do you just do organic search or do you do PPC pay pay per click

Shaun: 30:21

No, it's like we only pay for the lead when they call. So if we get a call, they call from the, from the link there. I think they'll click on Google and they'll call the number or something. So if they

Dex: 30:31

so it's cost per acquisition.

Shaun: 30:34

Yeah. So if they call, cause sometimes we can call back, let's say they call trying to let's say it was a wrong number. They call trying to see if we can, you know, do y'all do laundry. It's like, no, we didn't mark that. I don't know how you found us. We don't do LA like, I don't know how you found us, but uh but they, we can, we can call back and dispute that, that lead because it was nothing that we do. So that's kind of how it's.

Dex: 30:57

So what if somebody were to get into this business? What kind of CPA are they expecting to pay for something like this?

Shaun: 31:04

What is our number? I wish you, I wish you would answered the question earlier.

Dex: 31:08

Of course

Shaun: 31:09

do my wife notice number? I, I can probably call her and she can probably tell me, but, it's a pretty low compared to the amount we get. It's it's pretty low amount.

Dex: 31:18

like $2, $3.

Shaun: 31:21

Uh, it's definitely under 10, you know, if we do it right, it's definitely under 10,

Dex: 31:26

Yeah. And

Shaun: 31:27

but you're also.

Dex: 31:28

your.

Shaun: 31:29

Yeah. So you also, your return on that could be three to 400, you know, on a cleaning from a, a $8 call or something like that. So you think about that, but also if you think about it weekly, cuz we make, we pay, it's like a weekly amount that we will pay up to a certain amount on Google ads, how it works and the more you pay, the more you really gonna get, that's kind of how it looks at. So, if you're paying like 200, you can expect maybe to get. Maybe over a thousand or so that week, but if you're, if your budget, cause I know some big companies, their budget's like $4,000 in a month, they're making $40,000 a month. So you see how that works.

Dex: 32:09

yeah, yeah. That's what's up man. That's what's up. So. the one thing I wanted to do with this show is really highlight people's process and, and how they get into it. Some of the little simple things, you know, so that marketing information is really key. What are some of the costs that people don't completely understand? I mean, Windex has a, you know, a certain cost, you know, vacuum cleaners has a certain cost. What's the bare minimum somebody can get in with this. I know they can't just pick up a Dyson and just roll with.

Shaun: 32:41

you really can just show up at what you have, honestly, but it's, it's not gonna be a good cleaning. So initially we had the, these salesmen came to our neighborhood and we got suckered into buying a Kirby. Now, granted, this Kirby is absolutely amazing.

Dex: 32:59

they are top notch, butter scotch, man. I gotta give it to 'em man.

Shaun: 33:02

this Kirby is absolutely amazing. So we didn't have a backpack vacuum at the time I was using the Kirby. So I'm like, look, we don't pay all lot money for this Kirby. We're about to use this at these folks homes. So, and this thing it's, it's, it is commercial grade. This, you can, you can probably suck up the hardwood floors in here with that vacuum, man. It's ridiculous. But we were using that in these people's homes initially,

Dex: 33:24

So if Kirby wants to send us a check for that, just they can do that. I can give you the address. Just go ahead.

Shaun: 33:31

well, yeah, actually they should send it to me. salesman that came to my house, man, he was absolutely amazing. I was like, there's no way I'm not buying a vacuum from you, man. No way. I'm not buying this vacuum.

Dex: 33:41

They are good,

Shaun: 33:42

amazing. He was good, man. I had to give it to him. I'm like, yeah, I'm not gonna leave you out here and be handed it, man. I'll buy it. Do you, do you have the baby version though? Cause this was a little too expensive.

Dex: 33:52

yeah. Yeah. That's true. Let me ask you this, you know, What do you need to expand your business? Do you need to hire that same Kirby guy? Do you need to hire more people? Because we, we, you kinda figured out, you know, what it costs as far as marketing, you know, you spend $200, you get a thousand back. So.

Shaun: 34:12

So it's, or, or more back, it depends on, you know, how you, you know, what your prices are and things like that. So, and how many people you book? We, um, To expand you. We really just turn up the marketing budget. You can, it's like a faucet man. You can just turn it on and turn it off. So let's say, say you got a vacation coming up. You can turn off that marketing budget and just kind of the people that we have that are recurring you. Can you. either push them out until you come back from vacation or have some subcontractors come in and, you know, still get paid off of it while you're on vacation, but it's not gonna be as much as you doing it yourself, or you can just, most of 'em they'll wait on you because what we've noticed, you build relationships with these people and they just want you to come in there and clean their homes. They don't want new, they don't wanna learn, get to know any new people. They don't want a lot of new people coming into their home. So most of the time it's like, look, we're gonna be outta town this week. And. You know, we can either have somebody, a subcontract to come in and clean it. It's like, no, we'll, you're waiting, you know, until you come back. So most times you can just push it out to another date. But expansion wise really just increasing that marketing budget and, offering the additional services too. So. Right now we're trying to, cause of course we got the regular residential cleaning and we're moving to commercial. Commercial is an, an expansion of your cleaning business too. But also I'm looking into starting a carpet cleaning division of this, of Maids of Marietta, but we're actually gonna change the name a little bit because commercial wise Maids of Marietta it doesn't ring. Well, it, it sounds better residential, more than commercial.

Dex: 35:44

Yeah. Okay.

Shaun: 35:45

So we're gonna change the name to, it's not official yet, but maybe can I say it on here?

Dex: 35:51

If you want to, it's always on you, man.

Shaun: 35:54

Yeah. But no, since it's not official, I'll wait.

Dex: 35:56

All right. But as soon as this official, we'll post it on, on the site, man. So.

Shaun: 36:01

Yeah, yeah. Do that. But yeah, we are gonna change the name and it basically is gonna be like a division of Maids of Marietta. So, but it's gonna have the carpet cleaning. It's gonna have the tile and ground cleaning hardwood floor, like waxing, stuff like that. So that's gonna be my expertise in what I'm studying and getting into. So, but we're still gonna be cleaning homes and this is a, another expansion of it. So that's just gonna increase the income from it, both sides.

Dex: 36:28

Yeah. That's what's up man. That's what's up? What advice would you give for someone who wants to start a cleaning business?

Shaun: 36:36

just start, man. It even, even with any business, just if you got an idea, if it, if the, if the, I guess the market is out there for it, definitely do your research. But if the market is out there for the business idea that you have just go for it, you know, long as it's not, you know, especially if you're on a budget, you know, everybody doesn't have. Thousands of dollars is lying around. They can just throw into a business. So if you're on a budget, you know, do the research first. And if you can get started with little, little to nothing, just start, you know, it'll, it'll, it'll come, you know, just initially gotta work your way up, you know, start with free Facebook marketing, you know, word of mouth, join groups or whatever business that you're in. So for cleaning wise, you know, you can start in like cleaning groups, you know, I've seen a lot of, of people start with Airbnb cleaning, cause there's so many of them. You can start at Airbnb cleanings. You know, they're simple, they're quick turnarounds. Most of the time, they're not filthy. Most of the time also the cleaning supplies that you need are already on site anyway, because the, owners will keep the supplies there. They have like a supply closet for you. You go and just use their stuff and clean it and you get paid.

Dex: 37:43

that blows my mind, cuz I just, all this, this entire time, I just thought you brought your own cleaning supplies, but people provide some of their own.

Shaun: 37:50

yeah. For, for Airbnbs. Yes. Some residential home that we clean, they do have particular things that they like. So there's one lady we had, she likes a certain name brand, a floor cleaner or floor for her hardwood floors. And so she has that there and she allow us to use it on her floors to. So some people have their particular taste, but most of the time we use our own, just cuz we know and we we're just used to it. We just have a little carry bag, grab it out the trunk, take it in there. We're just yanking stuff outta there as we need it, toss it back in there. We're good to go. Unless, unless we're like running low on something, then we may use there stuff. But other than that, man, when it comes to just businesswise and cleaning, you could start with really whatever stuff that you have in the house to clean. You really literally can, you can just put it in your car, take it, what you get your broom, Swiffer, dry mop, you know, vacuum that doesn't have to be a backpack vacuum, but. I would say the backpack vacuum is way easier. It cut so much time down on cleaning and stuff. So I would definitely advise getting a backpack vacuum, and they're not as expensive as you think. So we bought our first one. It was actually, I think it was from Walmart. It was a ergo. It was just like 200 something dollars. And this thing has about the same suction power as the Kirby. It's, it's sick, sick.

Dex: 39:10

You can't say that, man. We're not gonna get that Kirby check

Shaun: 39:13

Right. but I mean, I still, yeah. Dang, lemme

Dex: 39:17

Yeah, I know, man. That Kirby check was good too,

Shaun: 39:20

Can edit that out. Cut that

Dex: 39:21

Yeah. I'm gonna go ahead and no, I'm not.

Shaun: 39:23

That part out and just blend what I just said together.

Dex: 39:27

whiskey's kicking, so that's probably not gonna happen, man,

Shaun: 39:32

But yeah, man, when it comes to cleaning bed, just start, man, just cuz you can really literally do it on your own. Alright. And also with the stuff you have in your home already, you go on Facebook and those cleaning groups, Airbnb cleaning, group groups, local cleaning groups, community groups. Somebody's looking for a cleaner somewhere. and you can just reply to it. You know, like a lot of people have found jobs, just replying to what people asking for, you know, cleaners and they'll talk back and forth and then they'll eventually, you know, set a price and they'll come clean it home. So it, you can really literally do that for free,

Dex: 40:03

What sort of pricing should people start charging people at? So if

Shaun: 40:08

I guess this is start

Dex: 40:09

or

Shaun: 40:10

say what? So what.

Dex: 40:11

I'm sorry, is it a per square foot or.

Shaun: 40:15

Now commercials, I think commercials a lot doing during square, like for square foot. That's how you use, for commercial square foot, a lot of homes, you know, cuz it's so the, I will tell you this about the cleaning industry, especially residential, the prices are so broad that. It doesn't really matter. Like if somebody finds you online and your price just seems reasonable, they're more than likely gonna book with you. So, but I'll tell you this. So for like, uh, 1500 square foot home, a regular three bed, two bath, home, like let's say just, you know, two level home, the prices could range from somebody charging a hundred dollars to clean that to $600 to clean that it's so broad.

Dex: 40:59

Oh, wow. Okay.

Shaun: 41:00

Yeah, it's really broad because you know the bigger name of the company, they're gonna probably charge more and somebody's gonna pay it, you know, but you also have people down here that are just getting started and they're charging, oh, they just want to get in there and just make the money. I'll charge you a hundred, you know, there's really no set standard. So best thing to do. I, I would honestly say don't be the cheapest. Don't be the most. Find like a good median in the area that you in the, the, I guess the price range that you want to be in for, not price ranges for your business, but let's say median income level that you want to be in and homes that you want to clean. So focus on what they're making and just kind of set your prices according to what, you know, the homes that you wanna focus on are in.

Dex: 41:53

um, You gotta tell us though, where can people find you find the best cleaner in all of Marietta, Georgia?

Shaun: 42:01

Marietta, um, Hiram powder Springs, uh, Douglasville, Lithia Springs, the best clean that's the yeah. Cobb county. We cover all the Cobb county. So, we have not crossed in Atlanta yet. I don't think she, we don't wanna drive that far. Cause we got

Dex: 42:14

Nah, nah, man. It's good. Yeah, of course.

Shaun: 42:16

Uh, we we're still in Cobb county right now. Kennesaw. We got a lot of homes in Kennesaw. We got some in Marietta. We got a lot in Douglasville. Lithia Springs, powder Springs, actually some around the neighborhood too. So it, it just, it's just growing and growing and growing. It's just, it's slowly, it's fun to watch because it grows fast but slow at the same time. And everybody, you know, you want those recurring contracts because. Money that, you know, you're gonna get every month and then all the new people like icing on the cake. So it, it is pretty cool, but, definitely Maidsofmarietta.com. I'll give you the update on, and you can actually book online too, so you can give us a call or you can book online yourself. You can pick out what you want. It's just a la carte on there, man. You could, you know, pick and choose what you wanted. If you just want a room clean, put on the room, clean, but also a standards come with like any common area. So like living rooms will wipe down kitchen stuff like that, all that comes with like a cleaning, but you have to have like a bedroom on there, like one bedroom and one bath will clean everything else too with it. So, but, yeah, maidsofmarietta.com right now. And once we lock in the new name, not even the new name, it's just an addition. Add. Part of Maids of Marietta. So once we lock that in, I'll give you that information too.

Dex: 43:31

You know what that sounds like to me, that sounds like a whole nother episode of in the black

Shaun: 43:36

Yeah, yeah. It could be.

Dex: 43:38

bring you on man.

Shaun: 43:39

Yeah. Yeah. Do that, man. Bring me, I talk more about.

Dex: 43:42

We can crack out the old whiskey and rum and whatever, you know. Yeah, man, we could definitely do the things. All right, folks. So for everybody listening right now, I'm going to keep everything in the show notes. Once again, I would like to thank my man Rashaan Davis, over at Maids of Marietta for dropping some Sage knowledge. If you guys have any questions. By all means, feel free to check out the notes. Please check out the next episode. I don't know who it's gonna be, but it's gonna be good. All that's all we give you is the best Sage advice from the best people in their respective industries. So thanks again for listening to in the black, find us on Spotify, apple, or wherever you listen, uh, follows on all social medias at, in the black podcast. And you guys have a great day. Okay. From a man Rashan Davis. This is decks and I'm out. Cool, man. I think that went pretty well, bro.

Shaun: 44:40

That was pretty nice, man.