On this episode of the Huge Transformations Podcast, Sheila Smeltzer sits down with Thomas Dodson, owner of Classic Clean Company in south central Kentucky, to talk about building a simple, steady, and highly trusted cleaning business in a small market. Thomas shares how Classic Clean started almost by accident after his wife was ready to move on from home health work. What began with just $310 in sales during their first month has grown into a 10-year business offering residential cleaning, janitorial services, post-construction cleaning, window cleaning, pressure washing, soft washing, and other complementary cleaning services. This conversation is especially valuable for home service business owners who are trying to create dependable recurring revenue while keeping their operations simple and professional. Thomas explains why janitorial work became such a powerful foundation for the company, how recurring commercial accounts helped stabilize revenue, and why training technicians on the actual science of cleaning is so important. Sheila and Thomas also talk about ISSA training, SOPs, employee hiring, core values, showing up on time, clear expectations, billboards, Google Ads, predictive targeting cards, expanding into a new market, and using window cleaning as a strong entry point to sell additional services. The biggest takeaway: business does not have to be overcomplicated to be successful. If you answer the phone, show up when you say you will, communicate clearly, train your people well, and keep your systems simple, you can build a trusted company that lasts. Resources: Classic Clean Company Classic Clean Company Facebook ISSA Cleaning Industry Management Standard / Training Resources Claude AI Good to Great by Jim Collins The Art of War by Sun Tzu The Huge Convention The Huge Insider Newsletter Signup The Huge Insider Podcast Downloadable Action Guide The Huge Mastermind Information Page Huge Foundations Facebook Group Transcript: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Huge Transformations podcast. I'm Sid Graef out of Montana. I'm Gabe Torres here in Nashville, Tennessee. And I'm Sheila Smeltzer from North Carolina. We're your hosts and guides through the landscape of growing a successful home service business. We do this by interviewing the best home service business builders in the industry, folks that have already built seven and eight figure businesses, and they want to help you succeed. Yep. No fake gurus on this show, just real life owners that have been in the trenches and can help show you the way to grow profitably. We get insights and truths from successful business builders, and every episode is 100% experience, 0% theory. We are going to dig deep and reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly. Our guests will share with you the pitfalls to avoid and the keys to winning. In short, our guests will show you how to transform your home service business into a masterpiece. Thanks for joining us on the wild journey of entrepreneurship. Let's dive in. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Huge Transformations podcast. It is Sheila Schmeltzer, your host and contributor, coming to you from southeastern North Carolina and my home shop facility. I apologize if it's a little echoey, but this is the real deal. Uh, today we've got Thomas Dodson. Thomas owns Classic Clean Company out of southeastern Kentucky, and he's been in business for 10 years, and we're gonna get to Thomas today. Welcome, Thomas. Good morning. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm good. Good. Um, well, it's exciting to have you on the show. I know that, uh, this is one of your first debuts on a podcast, and you told me earlier that you like to listen to the Huge Transformation and listen to everybody's stories that we interview. I do. I, I like to listen to them, especially when I travel. I like to turn on the podcast and listen to everybody's stories. Uh, it's interesting to see where they're at, where they came from. Um, it's always interesting, and everybody has a really diverse story. Um- Yeah. That's great. Um, tell me, can you... Is there anyone that kind of stands out, where you said, "Wow, I learned a lot from that," or, "I really resonate with that"? Is there any particular episode? Not really right off the top of my head, but I'm a, I'm a connoisseur of information. I, I read and listen and, and try to gather information constantly, whether it's books or industry material or, you know, just somebody else I know that has, has done well in whatever industry they are. Or, or, and even somebody that's not done so well. I mean, sometimes there's a lot to be learned from the guy who didn't do well. Um- Mm-hmm ... you know, so I'm always consuming information, and I always dig, uh, something out of every podcast that I find helpful. Yeah, I agree. Are you like me? 'Cause I went to college but dropped out. Did you go to college and finish, or do you have a degree in anything? I went to college with an animal science degree. Uh- Okay ... and I probably, like, um- 15 hours graduating. Okay. Um- You had 15 hours to go? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But I... And the small town that I'm in, I grew up in the automotive industry. Um- Okay ... and we had a Chevrolet dealership here, and that's, I couldn't wait to get back, uh, and, and get to work in the dealership. And so, uh, you know, just as soon as I could break free, um, I broke free. Um, but I, I liked college. I went, I learned, um... I took the classes I wanted to take and learned what I wanted to learn, and brought that back with me when I came, so, um, but it, it's, it was a good experience. Um- Good. Good. Yeah, so, um, but you said animal... Animal science. Animal science? Yeah. Okay. So I just need to know real fast, we're gonna move on, but what does one do when they have an animal science degree? Um, you know, you're, you're talking about nutritionists, you're talking about- Ah ... uh, anything in the, in the agricultural industry related to animal. Got it. Okay. Great. Okay. I can see that in southeastern Kentucky. Yeah. I can see that, yeah. Okay. So how did you get in to starting Classic Clean, and tell us about Classic Clean, who you are today, and how you got started. Well, like s- earlier, nobody aspires to start a janitorial service. It wasn't in my bingo card when I went to college. Uh, I never, never dreamed of being, uh, in this industry, but, uh, I grew up in the automotive industry in a small community, and there got to be a lot of pressure from the economy and from General Motors and others, you know, to kind of get rid of their small dealers. So they, they made life hard for their small dealers in rural areas. And so we closed our dealership and then went, uh, spent some time in the trucking industry, uh, then done a little bit of manufacturing in a building that we had. We built some farm equipment and stuff. But it seemed like every time I got into a new venture, I was always running into, uh, economic pressures that I could not control. Um- Okay ... you know, so, um, the more I looked and, and the more I thought about it, I thought, you know, the service industry is where our economy's going. You can't outsource it. It's not gonna be produced in China. So- Um, I got to looking at different models, uh, different things that we could do in the service industry, and the, my wife, we were just dating at the time. She was doing home health, and, um, a lot of her customers, it was mostly hospice-type customers were- Mm-hmm ... they were passing away, and it was a rough, uh, time for her, and it, it just looks like a hard business for anybody that gets close to their clients. Um- Sure ... and, uh, so we just, she's like, "I don't know that I can keep doing this." And, uh, and I said, "Well, here's an idea. Let's just start a cleaning company." And, um, so she said, "Okay," and, um, "Whatever you think." So over supper, I started a cleaning company. Um, and our first month in business, which was June 10 years ago, uh- Okay ... we sold $310 worth of service the whole month. Okay. And she was like, "I don't, I don't think this is gonna work." And I said, "Well, let's just, um, let's just hang on for a minute. I think this will work. We just need to, need to keep on." And, um, 10 years later, we've got, um, on any given day, 10 to 15 employees. Great. So, um, did you have any formal cleaning experience, your wife have any formal cleaning experience? Mm-mm. 'Cause, you know, a lot of companies that start, a lot of companies that get started in the cleaning space do not have any formal training. Did you? None. Yeah. Other than what my mama taught me when I was growing up. Right. Yeah. That was the extent of it. But- And then we all have our preferences on products and ways to do things and whatnot, and you're right. It's probably taught down, brought down from generations of watching our parents and grandparents do these tasks. It's- I learned real early in our process that that was a problem. Yeah. Uh, because I, I knew that there were ways to do things, and I knew that there was ways that we were doing it and it was wrong. Yep. Uh, so, uh, we, we took, uh, took the chance to go to an, uh, CRC class- Okay ... in Atlanta, uh, the home technician, um, certification. This is, this is part of, um, ISSA? Yeah. Love that. Good. No, so that was a three or four day experience, and that was, that was beneficial. We still use that today. I still use that manual today, uh, to go back and, well, we build our SOPs and our processes. Yep. Uh, we all go back to that manual. Um, so that got us on the right track, and, um- And that kind of, and the biggest problem I think we have is when you hire a new cleaner is breaking them from those habits that they developed over years or, or going off information that they picked up that's, you know, Facebook hacks and- Yeah and things just are not, they just don't work. And, you know, you can wind up damaging somebody's
