Interview with Chris Mondragon, Owner of Queen Bee Cleaning Services

I'm here with Chris Mondragon, owner of Queen Bee Cleaning Servicess, and they're growing so fast he's put me to work as well. So let's get hustling. Last time we talked to Chris, Queen Bee has crossed the seven-figure annual revenue. That's pretty incredible considering him and his wife started the business in 2015 with only $5,000. If you invest money right from the get-go, you will scale so fast. Out of that nest egg of ways to generate business, what's giving you the best ROI? I spent thousands of hours, thousands of dollars perfecting the perfect formula, right? And you're willing to share all those amazing secrets with our viewers? Absolutely. If you are a regular UpFlip viewer, you probably recognize Chris. In our last interview with him, he shared his insights on how to start a cleaning business. And today, we're chatting with him about his growth tips and scaling hacks. Today we're following up with Chris to see how Queen Bee Cleaning Services is doing now, what's changed since last time, and how he scaled his business to a million dollar plus annual revenue. So let's go catch up with Chris. How you doing Chris? Hey Paul, how you doing? Good to see you again. Good to see you, yes of course. We're back at your crib. Oh, welcome back. There you go. Absolutely. Guys, don't tune out because we're going to drop some bombs again like the previous video. Chris, for those who are new to Queen Bee, tell them a little bit about when and why you started the cleaning business. Yeah, of course. So it's been seven years now. It started in 2015. My wife was the one that planted the seed on me. She was already cleaning homes for another person. She's like, we should start on the beginning. I was like, maybe now I don't want to do that. The house cleaning world is like. I don't see myself doing it, but it's been such a good decision. What were you doing when this decision was made to get into cleaning? So I was in car sales. I was working in a car dealership. I had benefits. I had everything you could ask for, right? But the idea of having to start your own, it was always there in the back of my mind. I was like, well, let's give it a shot and see what happens. You had a little hesitation from just nice, comfortable car business to cleaning. Yeah. It's just a completely different change of directions. And that was where I was like, well, I don't have experience with it. I don't know if it was going to work. but I was like, nothing hard to try. Cool. How has your team grown since we last chatted? How many employees do you have right now? So we currently still have 22 employees. It is so tough to find quality employees. Here's the thing, we don't... really suffer when it comes to getting people in but the problem is once they go in work for a couple days that's when people realize like you know what maybe it's not for me i see so you know house cleaning sounds fairly easy and it's it's an easy job but it's physical so after eight hours of cleaning you'll be like wow you're saying there's a lot of turnover a lot of turnover that is true it is something that i'm trying to figure out a way to attract better quality we have raised or rates accordingly especially because everything now is going up so So that has attracted more people, right? But the problem is they think like, well, I'm going to make $20, $22 an hour cleaning homes. We get people all the time, but a couple of days, they're like, what? In terms of scaling a cleaning business, what does it need for it to scale? Are there systems, tools? I could imagine there'd be a lot. So give us a quick Snapchat. No, for sure. Well, one of the best things, the first things you need to have in place is cleaners, right? Without workers, you know, you can't, okay, getting a customer is easy. It really is. But if you don't have field workers, you know, you're going to have to be doing it. And so you really need to have cleaners first. So definitely get at least two or three. And then the second part is we'll be having a scheduling software. So keep everything organized so that way you remember to create the invoices, charging people at the right time. So I think those two are the most critical parts that you need at the beginning. I can imagine a nightmare of schedules, 30, 40 units having to be cleaned. How did you deal with that initially? Oh, it was chaos, just like you said, because there was really no softwares out there back in 2015. So I was trying to patch everything. I was doing the scheduling on Google Calendar. I had the invoices on Google Sheets. It was just all over the place until I found the software, and then from there it was fairly easy. easy to scale. Boom, growth scale. It really is. Okay. What are the one to two biggest factors, Chris, that contribute to your growth? I think the two biggest factors is having a customer service. It really is that the most important one. And the second one, it's simple. And a lot of people and a lot of small business owners overlook that. But if you think about it, you know, when people are looking for this type of service, they don't have the time to be calling around. So if you answer the phone call. You get it. So that's the number one, the most important one. And I think the second one is just investing 10% out of the gross back into the marketing. So Google Ads, Jelp Ads, I'll never stop that. Throughout the year, I have that. So I think those two things, so exceptional customer service and online marketing, you'll grow any business fast. Talk to us about the workflow with Queen Bee. You get a job request, the scheduling, the phone calls, the setup. How does that work? Just really quickly fly through that. Yeah, so usually works like this. We get a call, we provide a quote over the phone, and once the customer agrees to the price, we collect the credit card. You always want to collect the credit card. You don't want to chase your money. You know, with that, we put them into a calendar or a scheduler. So we look at the calendar based on zip codes, right? So that way, the VA is going to get a call, look at the zip code, look at the calendar, see what spot is available with that route, and then we assign it. At that point, the cleaners get a notification on their phone, like, there you have a new job, this is the address, and then they can accept it or they can reject it in case they can't do it. So essentially, that's what happens. Let's say they accept the job. What happens now is they go and clean. And to make sure that every time everything gets done correctly, so there's nothing missed, we have an app. The same app actually has a checklist. So we use that. We use a checklist because, you know, we used to do paper checklist. But what happened, you know, the cleaners, they will just check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check. And then they'll leave it. And then customers will call like, well, they forgot this. And so we figure, OK, let's figure out there's an app that allows us to do that. And there is, and so Jobber is. So you put a checklist and they cannot complete the job if they don't complete the checklist. So they really have to take their time to go into each room, make sure everything is checked off, and then they click complete. At that point, when they click complete, we get a notification, the customer service department runs the cart. and then we send them the review request. And then the following day, that's when we call them and say, Hey, we want to make sure that everything went fine. Would you be interested in signing up for recurring service? So in a nutshell, that's pretty much the workflow, how it works. When a cleaning business is struggling, What would your one piece of advice to them be in terms of identifying it, getting over it, and growing? I guess it really comes down to what you said, you know, identify what is really causing the problem. What's stopping you from moving the needle forward and then fix it. In my case, I'll give you a good example. When we started, I did not like the fact of doing in-person estimates. I was the bottleneck. I decided, you know what, let's change it. Oh, light bulb. Let's make it faster. Let's make it easier. So I start selling over the phone and then voila My wife was not a fan of that because she's like how can you sell it without seeing the home? I'm like, obviously we're doing it this way and it's not working either Let's try to see the place. So I always try different things, right? You never know you might you struck, you know lock at the first time you change and then you know move on from that Is that the only way you price you people can't get a proposal online via for me yet? so so I actually have three different ways so and then I found out that there's different types of customers. I have a booking form where you can literally go and buy. If you don't want to talk to anyone, you can definitely go and sit and do that. Select your package, whatever. And then select it, and then we'll go and take care of it. The other way is people don't like to put their credit cards online, so I have a quote form as well for that. Interesting. So, like, okay, just give me your information, and then we'll email you, and then we'll call you to provide you with a quote. And then number three is over the phone. Hey, you know, tell me how big it is, how often you need it, do you have any pets? And then based on that, I'll tell you the price and of course I said hey, you know, this quote is you know subject to change Based on the actual condition of the home What systems and SOPs do you have in place to continue growing? I mean I can imagine there's a lot so what are you software scheduling? There's quite a bit of software right you know you have to have a scheduling software, a phone system, internal communication system, ticket system for your customers so nothing gets missed through the cracks. There's a lot of software that you need to put in place in order to run this all machine. Which one or two can you mention Nate? One of the great question most of my meetings I run it from from my phone using an app called Slack. So inside of Slack, it's an internal communication platform where I have channels just for about every scenario. Cancellations, new charges, everything. So-You got Slack, what else is on there? I have RingCentral. So that's just for having the virtual assistants answering the phone in the Philippines. And ultimately I have Jobber, which is what I have for all my jobs, creating the invoices, keeping all organized in my routes. Would you guys like to have your own seven- seven-figure cleaning business like Chris? Well, UpFlip and Chris partnered up and developed a complete blueprint that you can use to start your own seven-figure cleaning business. Paul, this Blueprint reveals critical information that I've learned over the years through my mistakes and failures. It covers things like how to dominate your area using Google Ads and SEO, how to find Airbnb customers that pay you good money for your services, how you can outsource your customer service department to other countries so you can scale your company even faster. It also teaches you how to hire and train your cleaners so they become efficient. And also, it comes with all the manuals, templates, and instructions on how to run your business smoothly. It really is. It is a step-by-step framework in how to start, grow, and explore your cleaning company at 7FiguresPool. Guys, you know that everything we do is top-notch and this course is no different. It's like buying a franchise. It has everything you need. It covers all aspects of starting, growing, and scaling a successful cleaning business and on top of that you get Chris's support. So don't delay, the price will go up. Go to upflip.com forward slash cleaning dash business dash course or click the link in the description below. Right, Chris? That's right. You know, let's say you have a system in place, the business continues growing, and at some point you realize, okay, this system's no longer... the next step to continue scaling. What things do you look for as a business when you know it's timed? Okay, we need to implement a new system. That's a great question. Let's say, for example, the calling feature, right? When I started, I was using Google Voice, and it worked great, but then I started realizing there was a lot of missed calls. I'm like, what's happening? It's like, oh, because we're already on a call, there's no way for me to forward to another caller. So I was like, well, calls, I don't want any missed calls, right? A call could be potentially worth thousands of dollars. So I decided to implement a different system that is more robust, allows us to take on more calls. There's a call waiting feature for us. So it really is just a better system. So it really comes down when you listen to your employees. That's one of the things. I actually learned this from a book from Paul Akers, Lean. And it's all about cutting waste. And so the way I do it, because I cannot test everything, I ask my employees, you know, they are the field workers. Tell me what can I do? What can we improve? Same with my customer service. I talk to my VA, say, hey, tell me what can I do? What software do we need to make your life easier? When you're about to test a new system, don't cancel the other one. Just try for a month and see if it's actually going to be a good fit. Most offers give you a 14-day trial. Really, almost everything. So you can use those 14 days, try it, see if you like it. Transitional period. And if you like it, then you make the move. Okay. And by the way, you guys, he mentioned Paul Akers. I want you to check out that episode. We've got a number of episodes with Paul. They're incredible. Check them out in the link below. Chris, well, it's one thing that you did early on in the game that helped set you up for where you are today and continuing to grow. I think I mentioned it earlier and I'll mention it again. It's just online marketing. A lot of companies, they still want to grow, you know, by referrals and whatnot. And you still grow. but very slow. If you invest money right from the get go, you will scale so fast, but at the same time, try to protect your reputation. I think if you put marketing, but then protect your reputation, get reviews, that's a perfect recipe for success. Awesome. And I know you spoke about a lot more details, you guys on our podcast. So if you're looking to dive into more details, check out our podcast. When you get a chance, upflip.com forward slash podcast. His episode is episode six. I believe you guys will greatly benefit. So check it out today. Check it out. Chris, what are you spending on a monthly basis for advertising? I know you mentioned earlier 10% you put back into marketing. That's right. Give us a quick breakdown of how that's 10% is allocated. For sure. So my biggest channel that I am spending the most money on is Google local services. So we were spending 4,000 and we're spending 5,000 just in that. And so now we're combining that with Craigslist ads, Yelp ads, and Facebook ads. What's your total budget? So that's 10,000 right a month. It's quite big. So, but the most amount it goes to Google local services. That is the number one, so about 5,000 a month. And now we're spending, let me see, it's 2,000 in Yelp ads, and then it's about another 1,000 in Facebook. So Craig Leacy would be the, the least expensive of them all. But it still works, you know, it has a lot of traffic in it. So I still get some business out of that. Out of that nest egg of ways to generate business, what's giving you the best ROI? Is it Google? Google Local Servicess by far, you know, these customers, their buying intention is higher. So cause they're literally searching house cleaning area. And then when they call you, they're literally ready to roll. If anything, the other companies is more like lead generation, so you still need to work those leads. But Google Local Servicess, they're ready to purchase your service. In terms of services you offer, I know we mentioned Airbnb. You guys know he does a lot of that. Give us a quick 30-second blip into all the services that you offer and those that maybe you want to add later for more profitability. Absolutely. So yeah, we do Airbnb. That's our bread and butter, essentially. We do house cleaning, which is the standard deep cleaning and move outs. And then we recently added the carpet cleaning. So I didn't want to invest in a truck mount. I said, let's test it. Let's see how we do. So we bought a portable machine. It works great. And so I think we're going to be able to do that. we're really going to move into the truck mount for, you know, in the next coming months. What's making you think carpet's a good addition? So essentially all the customers that we service on a recurring basis, they're the ones like, oh, do you offer carpet cleaning as well? So it's not as recurring as the cleaning. like every month, but it's like every three or every six months, but I figured well they're already our customers, it's very easy just for them, you know, to offer another service and they'll buy it. They're giving you the feedback? That's right. That hey we need this. And then it's like, it's time to open it. Why do you think cleaning businesses fail, Chris? What happens? I think the number one reason cleaning businesses fail is because the lack of customers. So they don't know how to bring more customers. So it really comes down to that. And then the little customers they have, eventually they cancel. Is it a good idea or do you think there's a downside? to growing a cleaning business too fast? Like what? Yeah, I think, you know, that also creates, you know, a lot of problems when you're growing too fast. I guess what you need to focus at the beginning is put your processes in place and then you stick to them and then that will make it even easier for you. And actually you still scale fast, but you know, in an organized way. No process, growth, disaster, right? Disaster, it's a reciprocal disaster. I think it happened to me in the first year. We were growing fairly fast without systems and I had everything inside my head It was like terrible only for so yeah for so long and then But that's when you start implementing systems and what kind of you do to make things better. It's super important All right, let's do blitz With Chris, thank you guys for submitting all your questions. First one's from Delilah Mast asked, how do you train employees to clean with the same level of excellence? That's a great question. The way we do it, we send them with a team that is already experienced and we tell them our process, right? Make sure that you check everything on the checklist and then that way, they're going to learn it very fast. That's it. Marvin Robinson's asking, what is the secret to getting Airbnb clients? Oh God, you won't have any problem getting an Airbnb. They're just exploding in popularity and I don't think there's enough cleaners out there. The business is going to be calling you, really. It's so much popular. It's huge demand. Okay. Rodney's asking, what's the best way of finding employees? God, in my case, just combining every platform that you have that are, you know, I have Indeed, Craigslist, and Facebook groups. A lot of people are asking what website builder and booking software you use. So for my website builder, I use WordPress. And for my booking and scheduling software, I use Booking Guada. And I'll show you how to optimize them inside the course. Okay. Mimi's asking if you can share the secret in being profitable in Airbnb. What stands out? Don't offer just cleaning. Offer a one-stop shop for them. Think about it, the Airbnb host, they need laundry. They need someone to inspect the homes. They need someone to make sure that everything is running. So offer a wide-growth service, co-hosting is called. Awesome, okay. Andres is wondering if you worry about your workers taking your clients and working for them on the side. Never, there's actually a way to prevent that. It is when you hire them, you have them sign a non-solicitation agreement that is totally enforceable. That's how you protect yourself. Exactly. Alex is asking, what business book has the biggest impact on you and why? Two Second Lean. After I read that book, it really opened my mind that there's a lot of waste in your processes and your work and even your home. And if you apply those rules in the book, it will certainly change your life. The other one is E-Myth book. So essentially have your business run without you. Awesome. You guys will share those books to the lucky winner if you guys just comment below on how we can improve our podcast. podcast. Since we last spoke with you, what's changed in the business and how has that impacted your growth? Well, yeah, one of the bigger things that we did is that we moved from storage units from the last time that we show you guys. It doesn't have any heating there, so it's kind of harder during winter. So we move everything to a new storage unit that has heating inside. So having a warm, nice location, it's certainly improved. Still waiting to find the right location for the office, but you know, the price is still going up. So I'm just waiting for the right time. So last time we spoke, you were talking about hitting the 1.5 annual revenue mark. Did you reach that goal? We were just short from that. It was 1.4. The last month of December really slowed down, but we were just short of the goal. But this year, for sure we're gonna get it. We're probably gonna be looking at 1.7. Wow, okay. Yeah. So we're here at the new location where Chris operates his business Ads, right? That's right. Why don't we go show you guys an inside look. I remember being at the other one. Yeah. It was slightly a different orientation, but what do you do here? What happens at this location? So the other location that we had, it didn't have heating, so we decided to move in here. It's a little more warmer. And so we have here... All the cleaning supplies that are for our Airbnb customers. So this is all the supplies for refilling all our units. Cleaning supplies. This is actually cleaning for us, some gloves. So essentially we use this for storage, so all the girls come here. Essentially they grab the bags. Yeah, just like before. Just like before, uh-huh. And so now we have more marks on like this is king size. And then, yeah. And so the only, I guess the only downside about this is just, you know, cause it's not right in the entrance. So we had to drive, but it's better than the other one. But that's scaling and growth. At some point I can see yourself having your own Storage, location, profit margins. Has anything changed over the last year for you in terms of profit margins and where do you want to be and where are you at now? Great question. So I'm currently at 15% net. Ideally I really want to be at 20. Kind of hard with now with the new insurance rates, so I'm going to be stuck with that for the next three years, essentially. Is that industry standard, 50%? Even businesses that have 60%, 70% monthly contract? Definitely, yes. But this one, because you need labor in order to produce, it really takes a big chunk out of that. And then also you need to protect them against accidents, and that insurance is also taking a good chunk of that. People watching right now realize how difficult it is and challenging, especially in these times, to find Reliable employees, right? Right. So how do you? Where do you look for them? How do you find employees whether they stay or not? and then how do you take care of them to keep them as much as possible back in the day? We was only relying on on indeed So I was running ads on indeed try attracting some people and I still do but now I combine other two platforms Because really I cannot grow if I cannot find people so right I'm spending ads on indeed So there's number one Craigslist ads. That's number two and then Facebook group guys Facebook group it's been actually great. Top performer? What would you say? I actually, I think we got two of our best cleaners came from a Facebook group, so totally free. So definitely just combining these three platforms and just constantly be recruiting. So again, one of the things that I've been able to do and keep my current employees with us, is just you know, creating that company culture that I mentioned on the previous video is just really, you know, celebrating their birthdays, you know, taking them to, uh, you know, family gatherings every now and then. So, so yeah, it's, I think it's one of the best things I've done really make everyone part of the family, like, like align them with the same goal that we had. So we all embrace it and we move forward with it. What do customers look for typically out of a cleaning company? I think this is actually very important to mention. They're not really looking for the for the cheapest price. They're not looking for the cheapest price? Some do, right? But people that really have, you know, homes, they actually live there, they were looking for quality. You know, essentially, you're not selling them a cleaning, you're giving them their time back. Because essentially, they're not going to spend three to four hours, you know, we're going to do it for you so you can do other things. So it's all about the quality. And then just make them feel that when you know when they're when they're finished. I love when they get this text of like, you guys did amazing, my house never looked this clean before. So it's a really good feeling to have that, right? And just giving time back. And what are your biggest struggles as a business owner right now? And how has that changed? changed since we first met. I think my biggest struggle is still being finding employees. It really comes back down to that. You know, the amount of people looking for cleaning services, business are now opening. So business is out there. We constantly get calls, but we don't have the people to do it. So we turn them away. My biggest hurdle, my biggest impediment is just finding the right people. And you work through that difficulty, right? In thorough at the course. So I'm just want to bring that out again, that there's so much that we can do. can do. Absolutely. We talk forever about it. That's why the course would be important. Absolutely. The course really covers everything that you need to do in order to attract them, how to match the pain, how to train them, everything in between, guys. I think the most critical parts of the industry is having your team or your field workers ready to roll and train so they can perform. Okay. What is your biggest monthly expense? Let me guess. Probably labor. Yep, that's the one. We've talked about it in our previous video, but anything else you want to add in terms of how that's changed over the last year for you? Yeah. Any other overhead? So every year you get your workers'compensation, industrial insurance adjusted. And then we had a small accident this past year, and that affected our rates quite a bit. So I guess from the biggest expense that it was labor, now my workers'compensation is right about there. Does it go down after a period of time? That's what I asked the person. So what happens? And so after three years of not having any accidents, they readjusted again. Wow, three years. Do you mind sharing what happened? Yeah, so it's actually a very-A learning opportunity? It's a learning opportunity. So it was one of those old windows that you pull up. Wow. And so the lady was cleaning it, but we didn't think about putting something to hold it in case it dropped. So the window fell on her hand and fractured her hand. Oh, wow. So she couldn't work. And so essentially your insurance, the industrial insurance only goes up. when the worker cannot longer work for a certain amount of time and then need to get paid. I need to be in the insurance business because I pay a premium every month and then when something happens to use that premium they'll pump up your premium after that fact. You're like what? I know that's right. Are you implementing any strategy? ...for lead generation. Besides the Google and the Yelp, are you actually doing outside of that something else to just bring more business? Absolutely. So the way we do it, I have my VA's scrape data from Zillow. I tell my VA's, okay, go and go to Snohomish County, scrape all the resources that you see for realtors in this area, come up with a list, and then we call them, just set up an appointment, and then that's what I go. So definitely that's what we do for lead generation. So your VA's do, on Zillow, they do look for Airbnb's? as well? No, not Airbnb, just property managers, realtors, real estate agents. all that and we come up with a spreadsheet and then literally call and call email and so that's what we do what percentage of you know new business coming in is coming in from that strategy so it's not you know that crazy but we get about you know if we contact a hundred realtors at least 10 or 12 are going to say yes that's so it's not bad you know it's not that crazy but it certainly helps and then what i like about working with realtors is that these homes are empty they're used stage so there's no grease there's no you know the bathrooms are fairly clean clean. Yeah. So the job is fairly simpler versus an avid home. What is one important business lesson that you've learned in the last 12 months and how did that impact you moving? forward what can you say? I have a great one it starts documenting your processes for any business right if you're starting obviously you know there's uh the ways to do it by trial and error and that's okay but start documenting everything you know create videos especially videos you know record what you do so that way in a few years uh max you're gonna have a library of everything that your company goes through so you can onboard someone give them access to those videos you know they learn the systems very quickly so definitely document everything from Earlier, your question was like, what is the flow of having a customer service it and what happens? Literally document that, take it out of your head, write it down, and then put it in a document. What this does, not only is it going to make your company move faster or smoother, but essentially when you want to sell it, that's what the value comes in, right? That instruction, the standard operating procedure of your company, this is how you run it. Here you go, and it's more attractive for people to buy it. In terms of managing a team, Chris, what tasks are good to delegate to staff? And then which ones do you handle personally yourself? So I try to delegate as much as possible, really. From the customer service, that's the first thing I delegated. My wife's now, you know, finally out of the field and delegating all the jobs to the girls. So really to delegate as many things as possible so you can really focus on the money-making activities. Which in my case, I'm always looking for contracts, right? I'm visiting apartment managers or property managers. I'm looking for movies. visiting realtors, putting myself out there. You know, you cannot just be waiting for people to call you. If you combine that versus actually going out and you know, going and say, hey, my name is Chris, I run this company, blah, blah, blah. They always give you an opportunity. So that's what I do. I just like look for more contracts. We, in real estate, we call you the rainmaker, right? You're out there. There you go. There you go. Pouncing more clients. Pouncing outside. That's right. That's awesome. Goal setting for queen bee. How do you do it? If you want to reach 1.7, now you're thinking 2.5, what are some crucial components to setting a goal? Well, yeah, I think that's a great question. So one of the major components that you need to be tracking is how many bookings are you getting, right? So get an average of how much are you doing. And then to say, okay, how many customers I need. in order for me to get to 1.7. So it kind of worked the math backwards. So it makes it easier for you, right? So like, okay, I need 25 more recurring customers in order to get to 1.7. Okay, great. So now we're focused on getting recurring customers. So that will be one of the KPIs that I track. So how many customers I'm getting. I need to track also how many cancellations I'm getting because there's also churn. You know, people cancel. Another goal that I always set up high is try to get as many reviews. I noticed when my business crossed the 100 review mark, literally it was very easy for me to sell the service. There's trust there. There's social proof that you know what you're doing. For me, I really want to get as many reviews as possible. So the way I look at it, right, we service hundreds of homes, and I wish every customer would take the time to leave it. Not everybody does. So that's what we do. We call them back, say hi, what's everything, and try to make as much as possible from that one sale and to turn them into a long-time customer. Do you have some kind of CRM? CRM for goals? Yeah. So, for example, I use ClickUp. So, ClickUp, it's a great software. And essentially, it keeps you organized, right? So, you can delegate, okay, this team, the customer service department, your job is to collect three more real estate agents. So, call them, set appointments for me, and I'll go. So, we put all those goals. We have monthly goals, quarterly goals, and then yearly goals. And then as we go, we adjust. We didn't reach the goal. what did we miss? How do we get there again? So it's always like set your, your, your short term goals, midterm goals and long term goals. How do you get your employees? Do you do anything specific with employees that are coming on board to get them up to speed? Now we know they're experienced, right? Because you asked for experience, but anything specific that stands out that you do? The only thing I do right now is just as soon as we get a new applicant, I send them with a team that has experience. And then I just say, just follow them, look at their processes. The first day, you don't even worry about cleaning. Just go and look at other people. Obviously help. when you can, but just get a sense of how it's going to work. Then the following day, I used to send just one trained person with a new person. And so we split them, right? And it's really hands-on training. All I look for is just if they have work in similar industries like hotel or probably they have tried. other cleaning companies. Back in the day, I would not hire people with other cleaning companies. And the reason why for that, it was because they usually have their own ways of doing things. So when they come to you, and it's like, well, you need to do it this way. And then they saw hardwired into the always. So it was hard for me, but I'm like, you know what? Everybody can learn. Everything is not that hard. So just giving the opportunity to learn a different process. Tell me about your quality service guarantee because not everyone does that. Why is it important for those looking to start the cleaning business to have that as part of it? You really want to make it as easy as possible for the customers to do business with you and one of those things is offering peace of mind. Say hey, we do charge a high fee, but we want to make sure that you're happy. If we miss anything by any chance, just give us a call. We will go back to Reclean at no charge. We really want to make sure that every customer is happy. So we're really making a great effort to do that. Do you pay for this or is this you market it and say we guarantee it? Or what's behind this quality service guarantee? Oh, it was just really used to convince the people to say, hey, you know, because usually my biggest objection when I'm on the phone is like, oh, maybe it's just too much. I'm not in my budget. I see. And then that's when I say, well, listen, you know, I have the quality service guarantee. You can choose to go with another cleaning company, but if everything goes wrong, then you're gonna have to call me, I'm gonna have to redo it. When it comes to strategies, I think there are certain strategies that work at some point, and then as you grow, scale, they no longer work. Can you think of those changes that you've made for yourself? Yeah, so I think one of the platforms I'm gonna probably drop for good, it's Yelp. The amount of business is not there. We get a lot of leads though. Lots of leads, hey, I wanna quote, I wanna quote, and I respond to everyone. What's the drawback for you personally? I don't know. Some people love Yelp and it works for them. Exactly. Yes, but what works for me won't work for you. If that works for other person, go for it. But in my case, it used to work. I will get leads and I will get converted those leads. It seems like we're just spinning our wheels. So we get a lot of money. There's nothing not moving the needle forward. It comes down to people are really looking in other areas. I think Google is really taking over after they implemented the reviews. You know, more people just going to Google to find most of the stuff they're looking for. If you could sell your business today, what do you think you'd sell it for? I think that's part of your exit strategy. It really is. It really is. So probably going to run it for another four or five years and really sell it. I'm thinking, you know, right now with the 1.5, 1.4 million, I can easily ask two times that. And revenue, so that will be three to four million dollars for the business as of now. I think you want a little too much because it's always a multiple of the net. Of the net? I thought it was like more of the gross. That's a great question. But it will, you know. But you got to grow it to that point because yes, it's definitely a big industry. That's cool. This has been fun. It's been incredible. Paul, always a pleasure with you guys. It's always fun you guys and then check out that course if you're still watching, you'll greatly benefit. Absolutely. Well, that's a wrap with Chris, the owner of Queen Bee Cleaning. I hope you guys took away a ton. Take a second, like the video, subscribe to our channel and hit the bell so that you don't miss any of our amazing content that we create for you.

That's pretty incredible considering him and his wife started the business in 2015 with only $5,000. If you invest money right from the get-go, you will scale so fast. Out of that nest egg of ways to generate business, what's giving you the best ROI? I spent thousands of hours, thousands of dollars perfecting the perfect formula, right?

And you're willing to share all those amazing secrets with our viewers? Absolutely. If you are a regular UpFlip viewer, you probably recognize Chris. In our last interview with him, he shared his insights on how to start a cleaning business.

And today, we're chatting with him about his growth tips and scaling hacks. Today we're following up with Chris to see how Queen Bee Cleaning Services is doing now, what's changed since last time, and how he scaled his business to a million dollar plus annual revenue. So let's go catch up with Chris.

How you doing Chris? Hey Paul, how you doing? Good to see you again. Good to see you, yes of course.

We're back at your crib. Oh, welcome back. There you go.

Absolutely. Guys, don't tune out because we're going to drop some bombs again like the previous video. Chris, for those who are new to Queen Bee, tell them a little bit about when and why you started the cleaning business. Yeah, of course.

So it's been seven years now. It started in 2015. My wife was the one that planted the seed on me. She was already cleaning homes for another person.

She's like, we should start on the beginning. I was like, maybe now I don't want to do that. The house cleaning world is like. I don't see myself doing it, but it's been such a good decision. What were you doing when this decision was made to get into cleaning?

So I was in car sales. I was working in a car dealership. I had benefits.

I had everything you could ask for, right? But the idea of having to start your own, it was always there in the back of my mind. I was like, well, let's give it a shot and see what happens.

You had a little hesitation from just nice, comfortable car business to cleaning. Yeah. It's just a completely different change of directions.

And that was where I was like, well, I don't have experience with it. I don't know if it was going to work. but I was like, nothing hard to try. Cool.

How has your team grown since we last chatted? How many employees do you have right now? So we currently still have 22 employees.

It is so tough to find quality employees. Here's the thing, we don't... really suffer when it comes to getting people in but the problem is once they go in work for a couple days that's when people realize like you know what maybe it's not for me i see so you know house cleaning sounds fairly easy and it's it's an easy job but it's physical so after eight hours of cleaning you'll be like wow you're saying there's a lot of turnover a lot of turnover that is true it is something that i'm trying to figure out a way to attract better quality we have raised or rates accordingly especially because everything now is going up so So that has attracted more people, right?

But the problem is they think like, well, I'm going to make $20, $22 an hour cleaning homes. We get people all the time, but a couple of days, they're like, what? In terms of scaling a cleaning business, what does it need for it to scale? Are there systems, tools? I could imagine there'd be a lot.

So give us a quick Snapchat. No, for sure. Well, one of the best things, the first things you need to have in place is cleaners, right? Without workers, you know, you can't, okay, getting a customer is easy.

It really is. But if you don't have field workers, you know, you're going to have to be doing it. And so you really need to have cleaners first.

So definitely get at least two or three. And then the second part is we'll be having a scheduling software. So keep everything organized so that way you remember to create the invoices, charging people at the right time. So I think those two are the most critical parts that you need at the beginning.

I can imagine a nightmare of schedules, 30, 40 units having to be cleaned. How did you deal with that initially? Oh, it was chaos, just like you said, because there was really no softwares out there back in 2015. So I was trying to patch everything. I was doing the scheduling on Google Calendar.

I had the invoices on Google Sheets. It was just all over the place until I found the software, and then from there it was fairly easy. easy to scale. Boom, growth scale. It really is.

Okay. What are the one to two biggest factors, Chris, that contribute to your growth? I think the two biggest factors is having a customer service.

It really is that the most important one. And the second one, it's simple. And a lot of people and a lot of small business owners overlook that.

But if you think about it, you know, when people are looking for this type of service, they don't have the time to be calling around. So if you answer the phone call. You get it.

So that's the number one, the most important one. And I think the second one is just investing 10% out of the gross back into the marketing. So Google Ads, Jelp Ads, I'll never stop that. Throughout the year, I have that.

So I think those two things, so exceptional customer service and online marketing, you'll grow any business fast. Talk to us about the workflow with Queen Bee. You get a job request, the scheduling, the phone calls, the setup. How does that work?

Just really quickly fly through that. Yeah, so usually works like this. We get a call, we provide a quote over the phone, and once the customer agrees to the price, we collect the credit card.

You always want to collect the credit card. You don't want to chase your money. You know, with that, we put them into a calendar or a scheduler.

So we look at the calendar based on zip codes, right? So that way, the VA is going to get a call, look at the zip code, look at the calendar, see what spot is available with that route, and then we assign it. At that point, the cleaners get a notification on their phone, like, there you have a new job, this is the address, and then they can accept it or they can reject it in case they can't do it.

So essentially, that's what happens. Let's say they accept the job. What happens now is they go and clean.

And to make sure that every time everything gets done correctly, so there's nothing missed, we have an app. The same app actually has a checklist. So we use that. We use a checklist because, you know, we used to do paper checklist. But what happened, you know, the cleaners, they will just check, check, check, check, check, check, check, check.

And then they'll leave it. And then customers will call like, well, they forgot this. And so we figure, OK, let's figure out there's an app that allows us to do that. And there is, and so Jobber is.

So you put a checklist and they cannot complete the job if they don't complete the checklist. So they really have to take their time to go into each room, make sure everything is checked off, and then they click complete. At that point, when they click complete, we get a notification, the customer service department runs the cart. and then we send them the review request. And then the following day, that's when we call them and say, Hey, we want to make sure that everything went fine.

Would you be interested in signing up for recurring service? So in a nutshell, that's pretty much the workflow, how it works. When a cleaning business is struggling, What would your one piece of advice to them be in terms of identifying it, getting over it, and growing?

I guess it really comes down to what you said, you know, identify what is really causing the problem. What's stopping you from moving the needle forward and then fix it. In my case, I'll give you a good example. When we started, I did not like the fact of doing in-person estimates. I was the bottleneck.

I decided, you know what, let's change it. Oh, light bulb. Let's make it faster.

Let's make it easier. So I start selling over the phone and then voila My wife was not a fan of that because she's like how can you sell it without seeing the home? I'm like, obviously we're doing it this way and it's not working either Let's try to see the place. So I always try different things, right?

You never know you might you struck, you know lock at the first time you change and then you know move on from that Is that the only way you price you people can't get a proposal online via for me yet? so so I actually have three different ways so and then I found out that there's different types of customers. I have a booking form where you can literally go and buy.

If you don't want to talk to anyone, you can definitely go and sit and do that. Select your package, whatever. And then select it, and then we'll go and take care of it.

The other way is people don't like to put their credit cards online, so I have a quote form as well for that. Interesting. So, like, okay, just give me your information, and then we'll email you, and then we'll call you to provide you with a quote.

And then number three is over the phone. Hey, you know, tell me how big it is, how often you need it, do you have any pets? And then based on that, I'll tell you the price and of course I said hey, you know, this quote is you know subject to change Based on the actual condition of the home What systems and SOPs do you have in place to continue growing?

I mean I can imagine there's a lot so what are you software scheduling? There's quite a bit of software right you know you have to have a scheduling software, a phone system, internal communication system, ticket system for your customers so nothing gets missed through the cracks. There's a lot of software that you need to put in place in order to run this all machine. Which one or two can you mention Nate? One of the great question most of my meetings I run it from from my phone using an app called Slack.

So inside of Slack, it's an internal communication platform where I have channels just for about every scenario. Cancellations, new charges, everything. So-You got Slack, what else is on there? I have RingCentral. So that's just for having the virtual assistants answering the phone in the Philippines.

And ultimately I have Jobber, which is what I have for all my jobs, creating the invoices, keeping all organized in my routes. Would you guys like to have your own seven- seven-figure cleaning business like Chris? Well, UpFlip and Chris partnered up and developed a complete blueprint that you can use to start your own seven-figure cleaning business.

Paul, this Blueprint reveals critical information that I've learned over the years through my mistakes and failures. It covers things like how to dominate your area using Google Ads and SEO, how to find Airbnb customers that pay you good money for your services, how you can outsource your customer service department to other countries so you can scale your company even faster. It also teaches you how to hire and train your cleaners so they become efficient. And also, it comes with all the manuals, templates, and instructions on how to run your business smoothly.

It really is. It is a step-by-step framework in how to start, grow, and explore your cleaning company at 7FiguresPool. Guys, you know that everything we do is top-notch and this course is no different. It's like buying a franchise. It has everything you need.

It covers all aspects of starting, growing, and scaling a successful cleaning business and on top of that you get Chris's support. So don't delay, the price will go up. Go to upflip.com forward slash cleaning dash business dash course or click the link in the description below. Right, Chris? That's right.

You know, let's say you have a system in place, the business continues growing, and at some point you realize, okay, this system's no longer... the next step to continue scaling. What things do you look for as a business when you know it's timed? Okay, we need to implement a new system.

That's a great question. Let's say, for example, the calling feature, right? When I started, I was using Google Voice, and it worked great, but then I started realizing there was a lot of missed calls. I'm like, what's happening?

It's like, oh, because we're already on a call, there's no way for me to forward to another caller. So I was like, well, calls, I don't want any missed calls, right? A call could be potentially worth thousands of dollars. So I decided to implement a different system that is more robust, allows us to take on more calls. There's a call waiting feature for us.

So it really is just a better system. So it really comes down when you listen to your employees. That's one of the things. I actually learned this from a book from Paul Akers, Lean.

And it's all about cutting waste. And so the way I do it, because I cannot test everything, I ask my employees, you know, they are the field workers. Tell me what can I do?

What can we improve? Same with my customer service. I talk to my VA, say, hey, tell me what can I do? What software do we need to make your life easier?

When you're about to test a new system, don't cancel the other one. Just try for a month and see if it's actually going to be a good fit. Most offers give you a 14-day trial.

Really, almost everything. So you can use those 14 days, try it, see if you like it. Transitional period. And if you like it, then you make the move.

Okay. And by the way, you guys, he mentioned Paul Akers. I want you to check out that episode. We've got a number of episodes with Paul.

They're incredible. Check them out in the link below. Chris, well, it's one thing that you did early on in the game that helped set you up for where you are today and continuing to grow.

I think I mentioned it earlier and I'll mention it again. It's just online marketing. A lot of companies, they still want to grow, you know, by referrals and whatnot.

And you still grow. but very slow. If you invest money right from the get go, you will scale so fast, but at the same time, try to protect your reputation.

I think if you put marketing, but then protect your reputation, get reviews, that's a perfect recipe for success. Awesome. And I know you spoke about a lot more details, you guys on our podcast. So if you're looking to dive into more details, check out our podcast. When you get a chance, upflip.com forward slash podcast.

His episode is episode six. I believe you guys will greatly benefit. So check it out today.

Check it out. Chris, what are you spending on a monthly basis for advertising? I know you mentioned earlier 10% you put back into marketing.

That's right. Give us a quick breakdown of how that's 10% is allocated. For sure. So my biggest channel that I am spending the most money on is Google local services.

So we were spending 4,000 and we're spending 5,000 just in that. And so now we're combining that with Craigslist ads, Yelp ads, and Facebook ads. What's your total budget? So that's 10,000 right a month. It's quite big.

So, but the most amount it goes to Google local services. That is the number one, so about 5,000 a month. And now we're spending, let me see, it's 2,000 in Yelp ads, and then it's about another 1,000 in Facebook.

So Craig Leacy would be the, the least expensive of them all. But it still works, you know, it has a lot of traffic in it. So I still get some business out of that. Out of that nest egg of ways to generate business, what's giving you the best ROI? Is it Google?

Google Local Servicess by far, you know, these customers, their buying intention is higher. So cause they're literally searching house cleaning area. And then when they call you, they're literally ready to roll. If anything, the other companies is more like lead generation, so you still need to work those leads.

But Google Local Servicess, they're ready to purchase your service. In terms of services you offer, I know we mentioned Airbnb. You guys know he does a lot of that.

Give us a quick 30-second blip into all the services that you offer and those that maybe you want to add later for more profitability. Absolutely. So yeah, we do Airbnb. That's our bread and butter, essentially.

We do house cleaning, which is the standard deep cleaning and move outs. And then we recently added the carpet cleaning. So I didn't want to invest in a truck mount.

I said, let's test it. Let's see how we do. So we bought a portable machine. It works great.

And so I think we're going to be able to do that. we're really going to move into the truck mount for, you know, in the next coming months. What's making you think carpet's a good addition?

So essentially all the customers that we service on a recurring basis, they're the ones like, oh, do you offer carpet cleaning as well? So it's not as recurring as the cleaning. like every month, but it's like every three or every six months, but I figured well they're already our customers, it's very easy just for them, you know, to offer another service and they'll buy it. They're giving you the feedback? That's right.

That hey we need this. And then it's like, it's time to open it. Why do you think cleaning businesses fail, Chris? What happens?

I think the number one reason cleaning businesses fail is because the lack of customers. So they don't know how to bring more customers. So it really comes down to that.

And then the little customers they have, eventually they cancel. Is it a good idea or do you think there's a downside? to growing a cleaning business too fast?

Like what? Yeah, I think, you know, that also creates, you know, a lot of problems when you're growing too fast. I guess what you need to focus at the beginning is put your processes in place and then you stick to them and then that will make it even easier for you. And actually you still scale fast, but you know, in an organized way.

No process, growth, disaster, right? Disaster, it's a reciprocal disaster. I think it happened to me in the first year.

We were growing fairly fast without systems and I had everything inside my head It was like terrible only for so yeah for so long and then But that's when you start implementing systems and what kind of you do to make things better. It's super important All right, let's do blitz With Chris, thank you guys for submitting all your questions. First one's from Delilah Mast asked, how do you train employees to clean with the same level of excellence? That's a great question. The way we do it, we send them with a team that is already experienced and we tell them our process, right?

Make sure that you check everything on the checklist and then that way, they're going to learn it very fast. That's it. Marvin Robinson's asking, what is the secret to getting Airbnb clients? Oh God, you won't have any problem getting an Airbnb. They're just exploding in popularity and I don't think there's enough cleaners out there.

The business is going to be calling you, really. It's so much popular. It's huge demand. Okay.

Rodney's asking, what's the best way of finding employees? God, in my case, just combining every platform that you have that are, you know, I have Indeed, Craigslist, and Facebook groups. A lot of people are asking what website builder and booking software you use.

So for my website builder, I use WordPress. And for my booking and scheduling software, I use Booking Guada. And I'll show you how to optimize them inside the course. Okay.

Mimi's asking if you can share the secret in being profitable in Airbnb. What stands out? Don't offer just cleaning.

Offer a one-stop shop for them. Think about it, the Airbnb host, they need laundry. They need someone to inspect the homes.

They need someone to make sure that everything is running. So offer a wide-growth service, co-hosting is called. Awesome, okay.

Andres is wondering if you worry about your workers taking your clients and working for them on the side. Never, there's actually a way to prevent that. It is when you hire them, you have them sign a non-solicitation agreement that is totally enforceable. That's how you protect yourself.

Exactly. Alex is asking, what business book has the biggest impact on you and why? Two Second Lean. After I read that book, it really opened my mind that there's a lot of waste in your processes and your work and even your home. And if you apply those rules in the book, it will certainly change your life.

The other one is E-Myth book. So essentially have your business run without you. Awesome.

You guys will share those books to the lucky winner if you guys just comment below on how we can improve our podcast. podcast. Since we last spoke with you, what's changed in the business and how has that impacted your growth? Well, yeah, one of the bigger things that we did is that we moved from storage units from the last time that we show you guys.

It doesn't have any heating there, so it's kind of harder during winter. So we move everything to a new storage unit that has heating inside. So having a warm, nice location, it's certainly improved. Still waiting to find the right location for the office, but you know, the price is still going up.

So I'm just waiting for the right time. So last time we spoke, you were talking about hitting the 1.5 annual revenue mark. Did you reach that goal?

We were just short from that. It was 1.4. The last month of December really slowed down, but we were just short of the goal. But this year, for sure we're gonna get it.

We're probably gonna be looking at 1.7. Wow, okay. Yeah. So we're here at the new location where Chris operates his business Ads, right?

That's right. Why don't we go show you guys an inside look. I remember being at the other one. Yeah.

It was slightly a different orientation, but what do you do here? What happens at this location? So the other location that we had, it didn't have heating, so we decided to move in here.

It's a little more warmer. And so we have here... All the cleaning supplies that are for our Airbnb customers.

So this is all the supplies for refilling all our units. Cleaning supplies. This is actually cleaning for us, some gloves. So essentially we use this for storage, so all the girls come here.

Essentially they grab the bags. Yeah, just like before. Just like before, uh-huh. And so now we have more marks on like this is king size. And then, yeah.

And so the only, I guess the only downside about this is just, you know, cause it's not right in the entrance. So we had to drive, but it's better than the other one. But that's scaling and growth. At some point I can see yourself having your own Storage, location, profit margins. Has anything changed over the last year for you in terms of profit margins and where do you want to be and where are you at now?

Great question. So I'm currently at 15% net. Ideally I really want to be at 20. Kind of hard with now with the new insurance rates, so I'm going to be stuck with that for the next three years, essentially.

Is that industry standard, 50%? Even businesses that have 60%, 70% monthly contract? Definitely, yes.

But this one, because you need labor in order to produce, it really takes a big chunk out of that. And then also you need to protect them against accidents, and that insurance is also taking a good chunk of that. People watching right now realize how difficult it is and challenging, especially in these times, to find Reliable employees, right?

Right. So how do you? Where do you look for them?

How do you find employees whether they stay or not? and then how do you take care of them to keep them as much as possible back in the day? We was only relying on on indeed So I was running ads on indeed try attracting some people and I still do but now I combine other two platforms Because really I cannot grow if I cannot find people so right I'm spending ads on indeed So there's number one Craigslist ads.

That's number two and then Facebook group guys Facebook group it's been actually great. Top performer? What would you say? I actually, I think we got two of our best cleaners came from a Facebook group, so totally free.

So definitely just combining these three platforms and just constantly be recruiting. So again, one of the things that I've been able to do and keep my current employees with us, is just you know, creating that company culture that I mentioned on the previous video is just really, you know, celebrating their birthdays, you know, taking them to, uh, you know, family gatherings every now and then. So, so yeah, it's, I think it's one of the best things I've done really make everyone part of the family, like, like align them with the same goal that we had. So we all embrace it and we move forward with it.

What do customers look for typically out of a cleaning company? I think this is actually very important to mention. They're not really looking for the for the cheapest price.

They're not looking for the cheapest price? Some do, right? But people that really have, you know, homes, they actually live there, they were looking for quality.

You know, essentially, you're not selling them a cleaning, you're giving them their time back. Because essentially, they're not going to spend three to four hours, you know, we're going to do it for you so you can do other things. So it's all about the quality. And then just make them feel that when you know when they're when they're finished.

I love when they get this text of like, you guys did amazing, my house never looked this clean before. So it's a really good feeling to have that, right? And just giving time back. And what are your biggest struggles as a business owner right now? And how has that changed?

changed since we first met. I think my biggest struggle is still being finding employees. It really comes back down to that. You know, the amount of people looking for cleaning services, business are now opening.

So business is out there. We constantly get calls, but we don't have the people to do it. So we turn them away. My biggest hurdle, my biggest impediment is just finding the right people. And you work through that difficulty, right?

In thorough at the course. So I'm just want to bring that out again, that there's so much that we can do. can do. Absolutely.

We talk forever about it. That's why the course would be important. Absolutely. The course really covers everything that you need to do in order to attract them, how to match the pain, how to train them, everything in between, guys.

I think the most critical parts of the industry is having your team or your field workers ready to roll and train so they can perform. Okay. What is your biggest monthly expense? Let me guess. Probably labor.

Yep, that's the one. We've talked about it in our previous video, but anything else you want to add in terms of how that's changed over the last year for you? Yeah. Any other overhead?

So every year you get your workers'compensation, industrial insurance adjusted. And then we had a small accident this past year, and that affected our rates quite a bit. So I guess from the biggest expense that it was labor, now my workers'compensation is right about there.

Does it go down after a period of time? That's what I asked the person. So what happens?

And so after three years of not having any accidents, they readjusted again. Wow, three years. Do you mind sharing what happened?

Yeah, so it's actually a very-A learning opportunity? It's a learning opportunity. So it was one of those old windows that you pull up.

Wow. And so the lady was cleaning it, but we didn't think about putting something to hold it in case it dropped. So the window fell on her hand and fractured her hand.

Oh, wow. So she couldn't work. And so essentially your insurance, the industrial insurance only goes up.

when the worker cannot longer work for a certain amount of time and then need to get paid. I need to be in the insurance business because I pay a premium every month and then when something happens to use that premium they'll pump up your premium after that fact. You're like what? I know that's right. Are you implementing any strategy?

...for lead generation. Besides the Google and the Yelp, are you actually doing outside of that something else to just bring more business? Absolutely.

So the way we do it, I have my VA's scrape data from Zillow. I tell my VA's, okay, go and go to Snohomish County, scrape all the resources that you see for realtors in this area, come up with a list, and then we call them, just set up an appointment, and then that's what I go. So definitely that's what we do for lead generation. So your VA's do, on Zillow, they do look for Airbnb's? as well?

No, not Airbnb, just property managers, realtors, real estate agents. all that and we come up with a spreadsheet and then literally call and call email and so that's what we do what percentage of you know new business coming in is coming in from that strategy so it's not you know that crazy but we get about you know if we contact a hundred realtors at least 10 or 12 are going to say yes that's so it's not bad you know it's not that crazy but it certainly helps and then what i like about working with realtors is that these homes are empty they're used stage so there's no grease there's no you know the bathrooms are fairly clean clean. Yeah.

So the job is fairly simpler versus an avid home. What is one important business lesson that you've learned in the last 12 months and how did that impact you moving? forward what can you say?

I have a great one it starts documenting your processes for any business right if you're starting obviously you know there's uh the ways to do it by trial and error and that's okay but start documenting everything you know create videos especially videos you know record what you do so that way in a few years uh max you're gonna have a library of everything that your company goes through so you can onboard someone give them access to those videos you know they learn the systems very quickly so definitely document everything from Earlier, your question was like, what is the flow of having a customer service it and what happens? Literally document that, take it out of your head, write it down, and then put it in a document. What this does, not only is it going to make your company move faster or smoother, but essentially when you want to sell it, that's what the value comes in, right?

That instruction, the standard operating procedure of your company, this is how you run it. Here you go, and it's more attractive for people to buy it. In terms of managing a team, Chris, what tasks are good to delegate to staff? And then which ones do you handle personally yourself? So I try to delegate as much as possible, really.

From the customer service, that's the first thing I delegated. My wife's now, you know, finally out of the field and delegating all the jobs to the girls. So really to delegate as many things as possible so you can really focus on the money-making activities.

Which in my case, I'm always looking for contracts, right? I'm visiting apartment managers or property managers. I'm looking for movies. visiting realtors, putting myself out there.

You know, you cannot just be waiting for people to call you. If you combine that versus actually going out and you know, going and say, hey, my name is Chris, I run this company, blah, blah, blah. They always give you an opportunity.

So that's what I do. I just like look for more contracts. We, in real estate, we call you the rainmaker, right?

You're out there. There you go. There you go.

Pouncing more clients. Pouncing outside. That's right. That's awesome.

Goal setting for queen bee. How do you do it? If you want to reach 1.7, now you're thinking 2.5, what are some crucial components to setting a goal? Well, yeah, I think that's a great question.

So one of the major components that you need to be tracking is how many bookings are you getting, right? So get an average of how much are you doing. And then to say, okay, how many customers I need.

in order for me to get to 1.7. So it kind of worked the math backwards. So it makes it easier for you, right? So like, okay, I need 25 more recurring customers in order to get to 1.7. Okay, great.

So now we're focused on getting recurring customers. So that will be one of the KPIs that I track. So how many customers I'm getting. I need to track also how many cancellations I'm getting because there's also churn. You know, people cancel.

Another goal that I always set up high is try to get as many reviews. I noticed when my business crossed the 100 review mark, literally it was very easy for me to sell the service. There's trust there. There's social proof that you know what you're doing. For me, I really want to get as many reviews as possible.

So the way I look at it, right, we service hundreds of homes, and I wish every customer would take the time to leave it. Not everybody does. So that's what we do. We call them back, say hi, what's everything, and try to make as much as possible from that one sale and to turn them into a long-time customer. Do you have some kind of CRM?

CRM for goals? Yeah. So, for example, I use ClickUp.

So, ClickUp, it's a great software. And essentially, it keeps you organized, right? So, you can delegate, okay, this team, the customer service department, your job is to collect three more real estate agents.

So, call them, set appointments for me, and I'll go. So, we put all those goals. We have monthly goals, quarterly goals, and then yearly goals. And then as we go, we adjust. We didn't reach the goal.

what did we miss? How do we get there again? So it's always like set your, your, your short term goals, midterm goals and long term goals.

How do you get your employees? Do you do anything specific with employees that are coming on board to get them up to speed? Now we know they're experienced, right?

Because you asked for experience, but anything specific that stands out that you do? The only thing I do right now is just as soon as we get a new applicant, I send them with a team that has experience. And then I just say, just follow them, look at their processes. The first day, you don't even worry about cleaning. Just go and look at other people.

Obviously help. when you can, but just get a sense of how it's going to work. Then the following day, I used to send just one trained person with a new person.

And so we split them, right? And it's really hands-on training. All I look for is just if they have work in similar industries like hotel or probably they have tried. other cleaning companies. Back in the day, I would not hire people with other cleaning companies.

And the reason why for that, it was because they usually have their own ways of doing things. So when they come to you, and it's like, well, you need to do it this way. And then they saw hardwired into the always. So it was hard for me, but I'm like, you know what? Everybody can learn.

Everything is not that hard. So just giving the opportunity to learn a different process. Tell me about your quality service guarantee because not everyone does that. Why is it important for those looking to start the cleaning business to have that as part of it? You really want to make it as easy as possible for the customers to do business with you and one of those things is offering peace of mind.

Say hey, we do charge a high fee, but we want to make sure that you're happy. If we miss anything by any chance, just give us a call. We will go back to Reclean at no charge.

We really want to make sure that every customer is happy. So we're really making a great effort to do that. Do you pay for this or is this you market it and say we guarantee it? Or what's behind this quality service guarantee? Oh, it was just really used to convince the people to say, hey, you know, because usually my biggest objection when I'm on the phone is like, oh, maybe it's just too much.

I'm not in my budget. I see. And then that's when I say, well, listen, you know, I have the quality service guarantee.

You can choose to go with another cleaning company, but if everything goes wrong, then you're gonna have to call me, I'm gonna have to redo it. When it comes to strategies, I think there are certain strategies that work at some point, and then as you grow, scale, they no longer work. Can you think of those changes that you've made for yourself?

Yeah, so I think one of the platforms I'm gonna probably drop for good, it's Yelp. The amount of business is not there. We get a lot of leads though. Lots of leads, hey, I wanna quote, I wanna quote, and I respond to everyone.

What's the drawback for you personally? I don't know. Some people love Yelp and it works for them. Exactly.

Yes, but what works for me won't work for you. If that works for other person, go for it. But in my case, it used to work. I will get leads and I will get converted those leads.

It seems like we're just spinning our wheels. So we get a lot of money. There's nothing not moving the needle forward. It comes down to people are really looking in other areas. I think Google is really taking over after they implemented the reviews.

You know, more people just going to Google to find most of the stuff they're looking for. If you could sell your business today, what do you think you'd sell it for? I think that's part of your exit strategy.

It really is. It really is. So probably going to run it for another four or five years and really sell it. I'm thinking, you know, right now with the 1.5, 1.4 million, I can easily ask two times that.

And revenue, so that will be three to four million dollars for the business as of now. I think you want a little too much because it's always a multiple of the net. Of the net? I thought it was like more of the gross. That's a great question.

But it will, you know. But you got to grow it to that point because yes, it's definitely a big industry. That's cool.

This has been fun. It's been incredible. Paul, always a pleasure with you guys.

It's always fun you guys and then check out that course if you're still watching, you'll greatly benefit. Absolutely. Well, that's a wrap with Chris, the owner of Queen Bee Cleaning. I hope you guys took away a ton. Take a second, like the video, subscribe to our channel and hit the bell so that you don't miss any of our amazing content that we create for you.

Transcript for:Interview with Chris Mondragon, Owner of Queen Bee Cleaning Services

Transcript for:
Interview with Chris Mondragon, Owner of Queen Bee Cleaning Services