Filthy Rich Cleaners: The Cleaning Business Podcast

ZenMaid
  • 4.5 (40)
  • 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. 2d ago

    #167: Groundhog Day: Why You’re Dealing With the Same Sh*t Every Day

    Ever woken up and thought, "Didn't I deal with this exact same problem yesterday?" 🥴 In this solo episode (inspired by a groundhog hat and the movie Groundhog Day), Stephanie breaks down why cleaning business owners keep reliving the same problems on repeat, and how to stop. She separates the recurrences you can never eliminate (call outs, cancellations, client questions) from the ones that should never happen twice, then walks through the systems Serene Clean uses to handle both.   📌 What You'll Learn — The "three-time rule" for knowing when a recurring problem needs a system — Five questions to ask about any repeat issue: can you automate it, templatize it, document it, delegate it, or prevent it? — How Slackbot autoresponders train your team to communicate fully the first time — Why a policy is a decision you make once instead of a thousand times — How ZenMaid's updated digital checklists let you print and share live cleaning checklists with clients — How to build a call-out protocol so a cleaner calling in sick doesn't derail your whole day — The first step to systematizing anything: write down what you did the last time it happened   Resources Mentioned — Stephanie's free Slackbot Autoresponder download: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AICmhBWQ_Pt1_ZJzPMQxnBV4ppD7k1Kp/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=109299880459560603683&rtpof=true&sd=true — Serene Clean's client guidelines: https://serene-clean.com/wp-content/uploads/2026-Client-Guidelines-5-7-26.pdf — Buy Back Your Time (book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/059342297X?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback — The ZenMaid Mastermind Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/zenmaidmastermind — The ZenMaid newsletter (respond with questions for future episodes): https://zenmaid.com/newsletter   👉 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

  2. 4d ago

    #166: From $700 to $13K/Month in 4 Months — Katie Wilson's Playbook

    Six months into her cleaning business, Katie Wilson has already hit a $13K revenue month, fired a cleaner for time theft, lost half her team in 48 hours, and pulled off a 40,000-square-foot post-construction clean with four days' notice. This episode is, if nothing else, a presentation on figuring it out as you go.   In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Katie Wilson, owner of PrismPro Cleaning Solutions in Wichita, Kansas. Katie left a long career in banking and car sales to build a cleaning business she never intended to clean for. She shares how she's grown it, including Google Local Services Ads, free cleans for social proof, production rate audits, and a hiring funnel that intelligently filters candidates before she interviews them.    📌 What You'll Learn — Why Google LSA leads beat pay-per-click and why answering the phone fast closes nine out of 10 callers — How free cleans build reviews, referrals, and the social proof that makes paid leads convert — How production rate audits improve pricing and scheduling — How Katie's audit caught an employee clocking out from home — The Loom-based hiring funnel that filters out candidates who can't follow instructions before the first interview — Why your close rate drops when you raise prices, and why you shouldn't panic or lower them — How Katie assembled a crew of solo cleaners on Facebook to complete a 40,000 sq ft post-construction job in four days   Resources Mentioned — Stephanie's consulting services & business bundles: https://serene-clean.com/consulting-services/ — ZenMaid scheduling software (GPS clock-in/out, before & after photos): https://get.zenmaid.com/ — Profit First (book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/073521414X?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback — Cleaning For A Reason: https://cleaningforareason.org/ — PrismPro Cleaning Solutions website: https://prismprocleaning.com — PrismPro Cleaning Solutions Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PrismProCleaningSolutions/   👉 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

  3. Aug 13

    #165: How to Scale Commercial Cleaning Without Losing Quality

    Growing your commercial accounts is exciting until quality starts slipping. In this episode, Stephanie answers a listener question from Cameron of Virtuous Cleaning Services: how do you grow from 12 to 25 commercial accounts while keeping quality high? Drawing on Serene Clean's 77 commercial accounts (16 added this year alone), Stephanie breaks down the five systems her team uses to onboard new facilities, hand off accounts between cleaners, and catch problems before clients have to complain twice.   📌 What You'll Learn — Why cleaning checklists and walkthrough videos are the foundation of commercial quality — How to arrange checklists in the order a cleaner actually moves through the facility — Why a field lead should attend the first cleaning of every new account (and every cleaner transition) — How monthly check-in surveys and quarterly in-person walkthroughs keep feedback flowing before frustration builds — Why escalating after a complaint — with extra quality checks and proactive follow-up — keeps commercial clients long-term — The scope-of-work traps (floor machines, expendable supplies, "groundskeeper" duties) that can sign away your profit before the first clean   Resources Mentioned — Stephanie's quality control system breakdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5VddPy1IYs — The ZenMaid Mastermind Facebook group (free, no ZenMaid subscription required): https://www.facebook.com/groups/zenmaidmastermind — CleanCon in Austin, TX — coming up at the 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

  4. Aug 11

    #164: What Cleaning Business Owners Get Wrong About Pricing, Branding, & Content

    What does the team behind your scheduling software REALLY think about the cleaning industry? Stephanie interviews four of ZenMaid's employees at the 2026 ZenMaid retreat in Barcelona, and the answers might change how you run your business.   In this special on-location episode, Stephanie sits down with Jorge (Head of Customer Success), Chris (full-stack developer), Nicole (Senior Content Marketing Manager), and Jim (Head of Design). They share what support tickets reveal about how organized a cleaning business really is, why hiding your prices can win you more clients, how to build a brand that actually fits your company, and the content mistakes that can erode customer trust without you even realizing.   📌 What You'll Learn — The support-ticket "tell" that reveals within five minutes whether a cleaning business is organized or chaotic — Why removing pricing from your booking form can eliminate an entire sales problem and create more human connection with customers — Jim's two-part branding framework for small businesses: authentic visual identity plus a core belief you build everything around — The two content mistakes that make cleaning businesses look unprofessional: inconsistent branding and inconsistent posting — Why customers stop trusting a business that hasn't posted in months, even when the reviews are great — How to bring retreat-style team bonding to a cleaning company where everyone works solo   Resources Mentioned — CleanCon (September 28–30 in Austin, Stephanie will be there): 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

  5. Aug 6

    #163: How to Know When You're Ready to Hire Your First Cleaner

    Brooke Kerstetter built The Neat Nest from nothing. She didn't have a background in cleaning or business role models, but now, almost a year in, she's running eight-hour cleaning days and considering making her first hire. In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Brooke, owner and founder of The Neat Nest in State College, Pennsylvania, for a consulting-style deep dive into the operational gaps that hold back a solo cleaner. They cover pricing mistakes, the difference between flat-rate and hourly work, why organizing services need their own model, and all the math behind bringing on a first employee.   📌 What You'll Learn — How to calculate your production rate and stop underquoting jobs — Why organizing services should be billed hourly and treated as an add-on — What actually needs to be in place before you hire your first cleaner — The right way to think about a family business partnership (and how to protect the relationship) — Why raising prices and dropping a client can free up the time you desperately need — How to escape the "notebook" trap with scheduling software before chaos multiplies   Resources Mentioned — The Second Shift (book on household labor equity): https://www.amazon.com/Second-Shift-Arlie-Russell-Hochschild/dp/0380711575 — The Four Tendencies (book by Gretchen Rubin on internal vs. external expectations): https://www.amazon.com/Four-Tendencies-Indispensable-Personality-Profiles/dp/1524760919 — Profit First (book on managing business cash flow): https://www.amazon.com/Profit-First-Transform-Cash-Eating-Money-Making/dp/073521414X — The Neat Nest on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Neat-Nest/100064185693597/   👉 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. Aug 4

    #162: The Mother-Daughter Duo Running Two Cleaning Companies

    Two cleaning companies in one family! In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Kyleigh Lipsitz of The Blissful Clean (Grand Rapids, MI) and her mother, Lisa Temple, founder of Maid in Michigan. Lisa built her business from a stack of handwritten calendars, and Kyleigh took that framework and scaled her own business with software. They run separate residential cleaning companies two hours apart, but come to Filthy Rich Cleaners to share the systems, hiring philosophy, and sales approach that took Lisa's business to $1M in recurring revenue, and to discuss how Kyleigh is following the same playbook.   📌 What You'll Learn — Why switching from teams to solo cleaning increased pay AND efficiency — How to move from in-person walkthroughs to phone estimates without losing sales — Why phone estimates can actually protect you from underquoting bad jobs — The right way to position your business to attract better technicians — Why "the customer wants to say yes" should change how you sell — How delegating the phones and admin work unlocks real growth — The hard truth about AI phone assistants for cleaning businesses (and why they canceled theirs) — The compounding profit effect once you scale past break-even   Resources Mentioned — ZenMaid (scheduling software both businesses use): https://get.zenmaid.com/ — Debbie Sardone (Lisa's business mentor / paid coaching program): https://debbiesardone.com/ — The Blissful Clean — https://theblissfulclean.com — Maid in Michigan — https://madeinmichiganllc.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. Jul 30

    #161: How Vanessa Muir Doubled Her Cleaning Business's Revenue in One Year

    Vanessa Muir turned her knitting-group side gig into a cleaning company that doubled its revenue in a single year. In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Vanessa, owner and founder of The Cleaning Guild in Fredericton, New Brunswick, to unpack how she built her business from two knitting-group clients into a six-person team. Vanessa shares the real numbers behind her pricing evolution, how she landed (and priced) her first big commercial contract, why she's walking away from a $4K/month account, and the hard-won lessons from firing her first three employees.   📌 What You'll Learn — How to price your services as you scale from solo cleaner to a team (and why hourly-then-flat-rate beats flat rate for first-time cleans) — Why some commercial contracts should be dropped even when they look "big and juicy" — The warning signs of a bad hire — How to transition long-time clients off of "only me" and onto your team — The exact metrics to start tracking first: leads, close rate, recurring conversions, and net MRR — Why tracking monthly recurring revenue changed everything for Serene Clean   Resources Mentioned — The Cleaning Guild: https://thecleaningguild.ca/ — ZenMaid (scheduling & booking): https://get.zenmaid.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

  8. Jul 28

    #160: Rose's Playbook to Attract the Right Client at the Right Price

    Rose Cavanaugh started cleaning houses in 2019 as a newly single mom who needed to make money. Seven years later, she runs a 175-client cleaning business with 15 techs and an office manager, and, best of all, she is 100% out of the field. In this episode, Rose sits down with host Stephanie to walk through how she built Patriot Endeavors / Rose's Cleaning Services in rural Central Texas. She talks about the terror of the first hire, learning her worth on pricing, closing nearly every walkthrough with confidence, and building a "family first" culture in a high-turnover industry. She also shares the systems shift — ZenMaid, QuickBooks, ACH invoicing — that lets the business run without her.   📌 What You'll Learn — Why "I'll take any job" is a survival mindset you have to outgrow once you hire staff — How to build pricing confidence: do the walkthrough, vet the minimum first, and never budge on your number — Why selling the value (not the price) is what closes 9 out of 10 walkthroughs — How to relay client expectations to your team so quality doesn't get lost in translation — The "family first" flexibility that turns parents and single moms into your most loyal staff — Why letting go and delegating is the hardest skill for a growing owner — How switching to ZenMaid, QuickBooks, and ACH transformed operations (and why losing a few clients was worth it)   Resources Mentioned — ZenMaid (scheduling software, digital checklists, notes, client management): https://get.zenmaid.com/ — Rose's Cleaning Services: https://www.facebook.com/p/Roses-Cleaning-100066975405899/   👉 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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4.5
out of 5
40 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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