Filthy Rich Cleaners: The Cleaning Business Podcast

ZenMaid
  • 4.6 (44)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Daily

Filthy Rich Cleaners is the free cleaning business coach you never knew you needed. Hosted by Stephanie Pipkin, founder of Serene Clean, every episode delivers real, tactical advice you'd normally pay for in a consulting call. Honest stories, proven strategies, and tips from people who've built successful cleaning companies, whether you're just starting out or ready to scale. We're here to make you Filthy Rich 💸

  1. 8h ago ·  Video

    #180: How to Hand Off Clients Without Losing Them, with Meghan Garner

    Meghan Caicedo went from crying after shifts at a senior home to running her own cleaning company with her husband — and getting booked solid just four months after making it official. Now, she's hit the wall every owner-operator knows: she can't let go. In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Meghan, owner of Caicedo Cleaning in Alberta, Canada, to work through the fears that keep new owners stuck in the field. Stephanie lays out the systems that make handing off clients' work, plus a live teardown of Meghan's website and marketing.   📌 What You'll Learn — Why standardized checklists are the foundation of getting out of the field (if surgeons need them, so do cleaners) — How to transition long-time clients to a new cleaner without losing them — Why client notes in your scheduling software stop customers from having to repeat themselves — Why a card on file matters most on move-out cleans — How Google My Business beats Facebook groups for finding clients who are ready to buy — The pie analogy: what happens to your income when you hire your first non-family cleaner — Why your website has to answer "why you?" instead of listing generic services   Resources Mentioned — ZenMaid (scheduling software and client notes): https://get.zenmaid.com/ — Serene Clean's client guidelines: https://serene-clean.com — Caicedo Cleaning: https://caicedocleaning.ca — Caicedo Cleaning (Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61589992966246   👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com 📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/resources/ ✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/ 📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

  2. 5d ago ·  Video

    #179: Update On Our Transition to Flat Rate: Numbers and Lessons Learned

    Raising prices on 97 clients sounds terrifying...until you see the numbers 👀 In this solo episode, Stephanie answers listener Lorraine's question about how Serene Clean's flat rate transition is going. After seven years of hourly residential pricing, Serene Clean rolled a flat rate switch and a price increase into one change, and Stephanie shares the financial results, learnings so far, the pushback they got, and what she'd do differently.    📌 What You'll Learn — Why to roll out flat rate to new clients first, then transition existing clients in batches — The real numbers: $7,693/month gained, $3,321/month lost, and a 12% cancellation rate — The exact price increase email Serene Clean sent, plus and how a five-year client negotiated to a middle ground — How to handle clients who think in hours, and how "priority cleans" replaced limited hour cleans — Why production rate auditing is critical once you charge by the job instead of by the hour — The mistake Stephanie made by not telling her cleaners about the switch, and why your team should always be in the loop   Resources Mentioned — Flat Rate Email Estimate Template ($20) — available on Stephanie's website along with her checklists, documents, and bundles: https://serene-clean.com/downloads/flat-rate-estimate-email-template/ — Serene Clean's cleaning checklists — available on Stephanie's website: https://serene-clean.com/bundles/ — ZenMaid Mastermind Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/zenmaidmastermind — ZenMaid's weekly newsletter: https://zenmaid.com/newsletter   👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com 📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/resources/ ✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/ 📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

  3. Sep 29 ·  Video

    #178: How to Win Apartment Building Cleaning Contracts, with Nick Spagnolo

    What do you do when a hotel calls and needs 10–15 cleaners a day, seven days a week, and you only have until the weekend to deliver? If you're Nick Spagnolo, you hit the ground running. In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Nick, president of Spag N Shine LLC in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Nick left a banking career during COVID, started cleaning houses with his mom, and has since grown to around 20 staff members by becoming the "one-stop shop" for apartment buildings — janitorial, turnovers, carpet cleaning, floor stripping and waxing, and more.    📌 What You'll Learn — How to become the one contact property managers call for everything, and why that builds unshakeable contracts — How to break into carpet cleaning using your chemical vendor's free demos, training, and equipment support — Why joining your local apartment association can unlock a whole new tier of commercial work — How Nick priced and staffed a hotel contract requiring 10–15 cleaners a day during COVID — The real cost of company vehicles and the $500 car allowance system Nick uses instead — Why staffing agencies can tarnish your name (including the story of a drunk worker, a gun, and a parking lot fight) — Why staying on top of your insurance broker matters   Resources Mentioned — Spag N Shine (website): https://www.spagnshine.com/ — Spag N Shine (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/spag_n_shine/ — Spag N Shine (Facebook page): https://www.facebook.com/p/SPAG-N-SHINE-100063507854791/ — ZenMaid Software: https://get.zenmaid.com/   👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com 📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/resources/ ✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/ 📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

  4. Sep 24 ·  Video

    #177: Stop Letting Your Business Live in One Person's Head

    What happens to your cleaning business when your key employee goes on vacation for a week or two? For a lot of owners, things break. That's why in this episode, Stephanie shares how Serene Clean is preparing for office manager April's upcoming three-week absence, a situation that would create total chaos for a lot of businesses. Stephanie talks about the documentation gaps that April's prep work uncovered, how she's been breaking April's role down into daily, weekly, and sporadic tasks, how they're replacing SOP booklets with quick Loom recordings, and how they ran practice payroll rounds months in advance just in case.   📌 What You'll Learn — Why to treat a planned absence like an audit, not an emergency — How to break any role into daily, weekly, and sporadic tasks (and assign each one a due date) — Why quick screen recordings beat a 30-page SOP nobody will read — How practice runs expose the gaps in your documentation before they cost you — The field-tested handoff method Serene Clean uses for both clients and office tasks — What to pause during an absence to keep the workload steady — Why thorough documentation makes your business more valuable to a future buyer   Resources Mentioned — Buy Back Your Time (book): https://www.amazon.com/Buy-Back-Your-Time-Unstuck/dp/059342297X — Loom (screen recording software): https://www.loom.com/ — ClickUp (task management): https://clickup.com/ — QuickBooks (auto-invoicing): https://quickbooks.intuit.com/ — ZenMaid (client details and invoicing notes): https://get.zenmaid.com/   👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com 📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/resources/ ✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/ 📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

  5. Sep 22 ·  Video

    #176: How Dave Camenga Built a Thriving Janitorial Business with 30+ Cleaners

    Dave Camenga started cleaning houses in fifth grade (yes, really). 11 years later, he owns a thriving commercial janitorial company in Baltimore with 30 cleaners and hundreds of monthly cleans. In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Dave, owner of Dave's Cleaning Consultants in Baltimore, Maryland, who shares how he skipped college to go all-in on cleaning. His nightly janitorial teams of 4–6 people clean eight offices a night, and he shares why old-school direct mailers still land him massive commercial contracts. Dave also talks about the hardest parts of the business, including letting go of a five-year employee, firing disrespectful clients, and protecting a zero-drama company culture.   📌 What You'll Learn — How Dave structures teams of four to six cleaners to service eight offices a night — Why "hire slow, fire fast" and always-open interviews protect your best people from burnout — The direct mail system that landed a $150,000-per-month commercial contract — When to fire a client — even one worth $7,000 a month — Why being coachable matters more than 30 years of cleaning experience — How to command respect as a young owner by never asking staff to do what you wouldn't   Resources Mentioned — The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes (book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591842158?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback — Q&A with Dave and Carolyn Arellano: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dzZLaEjX1k — Dave's Cleaning Consultants on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davescleaningconsultants/ — Dave's consulting services: https://www.davescleaningconsultants.com/   👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com 📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/ ✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/ 📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

  6. Sep 17 ·  Video

    #175: Every Software I Use to Run My Cleaning Business

    What software does it actually take to run a $100K+/month cleaning business? In this episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners, Stephanie goes through every single tool she pays for, including what it costs, who uses it, and why she picked it over the alternatives. You'll hear about how her team relies on ClickUp for task and lead management, QuickBooks for bookkeeping, OpenPhone for client communication, Slack for team communication, Gusto for payroll, Loom for process documentation, and more! Stephanie also shares how AI has transformed her operations, and how you can use similar takeaways for your own business.   📌 What You'll Learn — How Stephanie uses ClickUp as her CRM, task manager, and weekly time-blocking system (especially helpful for ADHD brains) — Why every cleaning business needs bookkeeping software, even if you have a bookkeeper — Why you should never use your personal phone number as your business line — How to use Loom + AI to create SOPs and delegate without repeating yourself — The case for regular software audits and being ruthless about canceling what you don't use — Why the first-response speed of AI tools is becoming a competitive advantage for owners   Resources Mentioned — ClickUp: https://clickup.com/ — ProcessDriven (Layla's YouTube channel and ClickUp course): https://www.youtube.com/@LaylaPomper — The ZenMaid Mastermind Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/zenmaidmastermind — QuickBooks: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/ — OpenPhone (Quo): https://www.quo.com/ — Slack: https://slack.com/ — Claude: https://claude.ai/ — ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/ — Acquisition.com: https://www.acquisition.com/ — Indeed: https://www.indeed.com/ — SignRequest: https://signrequest.com/ — Gusto: https://gusto.com/ — Loom: http://loom.com/ — Trainual: http://trainual.com/ — Canva: https://www.canva.com/ — Guideline (401k): https://www.guideline.com/ — The Gift Card Cafe: https://www.thegiftcardcafe.com/ — MailChimp + Zapier: https://mailchimp.com/ — Best Damn Bookkeeping Service (Dan): https://bestdamnbookkeeping.com/ — CleanCon (Austin, TX — end of September): https://www.mycleancon.com/   👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com 📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/ ✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/ 📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

  7. Sep 15 ·  Video

    #174: How Cold Calling Built This Commercial Cleaning Business

    Ty Severa is a former dispatcher and police officer who walked away from a guaranteed pension to build a 98% commercial cleaning company staffed by first responders and their families. In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Ty, Owner of First Response Building Services in Roanoke, Virginia, who grew from three accounts and $1,600 a month in recurring revenue to 12 accounts by year-end. He shares how cold calling became his highest-leverage marketing channel, and how flat-rate pay lets him maintain a blended rate around $33 an hour while keeping margins healthy.   📌 What You'll Learn — How to leave a stable career and replace the income with recurring commercial revenue — Why cold calling gets easier the moment you reframe it as solving a problem instead of selling — How to use the gatekeeper as an information source instead of an obstacle — Why commercial sales cycles take months, and how to build a follow-up system that survives them — How flat-rate pay works in practice, including the buffer Ty builds into every bid — How to build a blind inspection system triggered by staffing changes and suspiciously fast clean times — Why written scopes of work and infestation clauses protect you on deep cleans and post-construction — The hardest truths about commercial: low-bid government contracts, after-hours phone calls, and big accounts with no juice to squeeze   Resources Mentioned — BNI (Business Network International): https://www.bni.com/ — First Response Building Services (Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/p/First-Response-Building-Services-61564978374874/ — First Response Building Services (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/firstresponsebuildingservices/   👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com 📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/ ✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/ 📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

  8. Sep 10

    #173: Why We Turned Down a $50,000 Cleaning Account

    A national big-box retailer offered Serene Clean a $50k-a-year account to clean three bathrooms. Easy work, centrally located, daytime hours, yet Stephanie declined to bid it. In this solo episode, Stephanie walks through exactly how that decision got made, including the pros and cons her manager brought to the ops meeting, the one non-negotiable that outweighed every positive, and the counter-offer they made before walking away. She also gets honest about why her answer today is different from the answer 23-year-old Stephanie would have given, and why comparing your year one to someone else's year one will lead you to the wrong decisions.   📌 What You'll Learn — Why the fastest path to growth depends entirely on what you're actually willing to sacrifice — How to evaluate a large commercial opportunity by its worst-case scenario, not its best — Why weekend work carries a management cost most owners never price in — How to counter-offer and reshape a job before you decline it — Why "I don't want to" is a legitimate business reason once you've built the foundation for it — How to tell the difference between discomfort that means grow and discomfort that means walk away — The real test of whether something is actually a non-negotiable for your business   Resources Mentioned — The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt (the ZenMaid Retreat book club read): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1565114248?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback — CleanCon — Austin, Texas, end of September: https://www.mycleancon.com/ — The ZenMaid Mastermind on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/zenmaidmastermind — Serene Clean: https://serene-clean.com — Filthy Rich Cleaners Ep. 108 with Yari Isling on walking away from a large post-construction bid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEF0xJm1DQI   👉 Try ZenMaid free for 14 days: https://get.zenmaid.com 📞 Stephanie's Consulting & Resources for Purchase: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/ ✉️ Subscribe to ZenMaid's Weekly Newsletter: https://www.zenmaid.com/newsletter/ 📋 Apply to be a guest on Filthy Rich Cleaners: https://get.zenmaid.com/guest-application

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4.6
out of 5
44 Ratings

About

Filthy Rich Cleaners is the free cleaning business coach you never knew you needed. Hosted by Stephanie Pipkin, founder of Serene Clean, every episode delivers real, tactical advice you'd normally pay for in a consulting call. Honest stories, proven strategies, and tips from people who've built successful cleaning companies, whether you're just starting out or ready to scale. We're here to make you Filthy Rich 💸

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