Episode #54 - Maximizing Monthly Cleanings: Strategies for a More Profitable Schedule & Setting Boundaries in House Cleaning Biz

Ever felt like you're spinning your wheels with monthly cleaning gigs that just don't pay off? Join me and my industry comrade, Kimberly Gonzalez, as we peel back the layers on how to transform these appointments into the golden slots of your schedule! 

We're talking hard-won wisdom on pricing strategies that keep the lights on and the sponges soaking. We really do talk about pricing them the right way and how much time allotment you should give before you increase the price even higher.

Plus, I'll let you in on an exclusive scoop about a business model that might just revolutionize the way we think about monthly clients. Keeping my fingers crossed that one of those cleaning business owners reaches back out to me or if you are a Cleaning Business owner who does this please reach out.

As we turn the page, strap in for a candid look at if you are still the only one cleaning or if you have actual cleaning tech's.

Here's where the rubber meets the road with strategies that ensure you're building an enterprise, not just clocking in and out of jobs. We'll tackle the nitty-gritty of niche cleaning quandaries—like waging war on nicotine stains—and share insider tips on pricing, payment, and maintaining your cool when clients' expectations soar sky-high.

It's all about staying true to your vision, nailing down those professional boundaries, and never compromising on what makes your service shine.


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Questions? Feel free to reach out!
Kimberly Gonzales: info@purevergreen.com
Shannon Miller: cleaningbusinesslife@gmail.com

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To order All-Natural Cleaning Products: www.PÜREvergreen.com
See Shannon's latest courses: www.KleanFreaksUnversity.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

recording in progress. Welcome everyone to cleaning business life, and I'm here with my wonderful host, miss kimberly gonzalez. Kimberly, why don't you guys?

Speaker 2: 0:12

take it away. So, shannon and I are going to be talking about monthly cleans. I think we both have a take on this. I know for me it's different, um, and I know you have a different take on it, but that's what we're going to talk about, like the pros and cons of having monthly cleans. So, shannon, what I have to ask cause I know what would your what are your thoughts on monthly cleans and when did you first, like, get started on those?

Speaker 1: 0:38

You know, when I was brand new, it's always like you know, walking through the snow with bread, bread, bread, bread bags on my feet. It's always like I feel like an old lady sometimes when I say that. But in any case, when I first got into the industry I just took on anybody. I didn't care, I was just trying to get money in my pocket and I didn't really price the monthlies the way they should have been. And I know we've talked about monthlies before in the podcast. But I have a couple of other points of view that I wanted to share. I was hoping to actually get a guest on. I just couldn't make it happen and she only services monthlies.

Speaker 1: 1:20

So I wanted to give you guys that opportunity. So, as soon as I can, finagleagle a time because it is a most good friday people are getting ready to spend time with their families and they're doing everything that they need to do to, you know, celebrate the day. Um, I, I just couldn't coordinate with this individual. But I do have a couple of people who only their whole cleaning business is only monthlies. That's all they serve. So it's uh's an interesting, it's another swing in the other direction. I felt obligated to you guys, because you know how I'm always curious about how things work and what the profit margin is and all that other stuff, to see if it's beneficial for you. This could be a model that you totally love, because monthlies are a slower pace than regular maintenance or you don't have to do speed cleaning in a monthly, unless you have two of them, and then you know if you're getting enough money from each monthly. It could be $1,000 a day and that's not a bad gig either, right, but I used to price monthlies based on how many hours I thought it was, and then I decided I don't remember when at some point, if I was going to keep monthlies on that they needed to hit a certain price point to me for me to hold the marker on the schedule for them. Because if you have a monthly, it's taking up space for a weekly or biweekly Yep. And if you can get a weekly, that's, like I said, a golden unicorn. If you can get a biweekly, that's not bad either, right, that's, like I said, a golden unicorn. If you can get a bi-weekly, that's not bad either, right? So if you can have someone, you visit someone's house twice versus once, then that's more income to your bottom line and that's more beneficial for you. And then if you can have it happen every week, that's a golden unicorn. So there is that element. So you have to be able to price a minimum price and then add on from there.

Speaker 1: 3:10

So you've all heard me talk about monthly starting at a certain price point. So I believe last year they were $175. Didn't matter on the size, that was the starting price for you to even be considered to get on my schedule. And then this year they're about $200 to $225. I just picked up actually three who were $275 and $325, respectively. And those are just monthlies and it's a nice gig. And you all have heard me talk about the time allotment for a monthly. So when I'm saying $200 to $225, that's the starting price. That covers three and a half hours of labor. If you feel that the house is going to take more than three and a half hours of labor, obviously you need to up the price accordingly. I hope that kind of makes sense. What about for you, kim? What did you? What are you doing? Well, I obviously what did you do?

Speaker 2: 3:58

I did monthlies for a while, but then it got to a point where I was getting more calls for weeklies and bi-weeklies and that's something that I really wanted to fill up my schedule because for me that was good money and even with my weeklies I still charged a good penny.

Speaker 2: 4:13

So I eventually just started phasing out monthly. So when people started calling and saying, hey, and this is a good marketing tool for you guys too, if you want to do it this way, you know I have them call and be like, yeah, I'd like to get a monthly clean, and I'm like sorry, right now we're not offering monthlies, but I can get you in biweekly. This is our rate for biweekly. And it was really cool because I was able to like upsell them to the biweekly and or even the weekly and say you know what I can get. You was nice because they were searching for a monthly, but then I was able to put them into a biweekly and sometimes a weekly if I was lucky. Most of my schedule was filled with weekly clients, which I loved because our schedule was full and it was packed.

Speaker 1: 5:01

And it makes it nicer that way. Excuse me, I just got over from having some sort of cootie head cold thing, um, so you have to make sure that you are deciding. Um, we flat out, you know that I I'm totally against every three week cleaning. Every three weeks. I need, I only want every three weeks and I know that it's 17 visits in a year and monthlies. If you really think about it, or if you do them every four weeks instead of once a month, it's 14 visits versus 12. And it ends up being a good get if they're priced accordingly.

Speaker 1: 5:31

And when I mentioned, I used to just price them for whatever they were. So, hypothetically speaking because we know I can't add when I'm doing any of this stuff, I'm going to whip out my calculator. So if you were to charge hypothetically and this is not even today's national average, but for easy math, if you took $50 an hour and you multiplied it by the three and a half hour timeframe for a monthly, that would be $175. Now, if you were pricing, if you're at $40 an hour and you wanted to charge that, then that would be below that. That would be $1.40 for the monthly and you have to think of how much is each spot on your schedule worth? And each spot on your schedule according and I talked to some of the big boys in the last week or so right now they're getting on average and that's not including monthlies on average, their average ticket, even weekly, is $200 to $225. On average, their average ticket, even weekly, is $200 to $225. And that's across the board. Just because of how high priced everything has become with labor, payroll taxes, workman's comp, general liability insurance, any insurance costs for vehicles If you have vehicles, not vehicles, I mean there's all of these elements that you have to pay into Automation, email marketing. I mean all of the stuff that goes along with having a legit business.

Speaker 1: 6:47

So you need to make sure that if you're at the buck 40, it's really disheartening for me to listen to you guys. I mean some of you guys take on these really large homes that are 4,500 square feet, homes that are 4,500 square feet, and you've taken them over from somebody else and they were a buck 50 and you're still taking it over and you've been cleaning them for two years. You've never given them a price increase and now you've kind of waved this little golden nugget in front of them and said by the way I'm going to give you a price increase and they're affronted Like how dare you? You know, and it's they don't care, they're house poor. I keep saying this over and over and over again. I'll probably say until I'm blue in the face.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Larger houses are house poor 99% of the time. Those guys don't get it. They buy in because it's a fantastic deal, so everybody else has to pay the price because they got a fantastic deal. So every service provider, from your landscaper to your painter to your contractor it's this us against them and it's not. We're a cohesive relationship that provides a service that saves people time. That's the whole selling point of having a professional service is that you are selling time.

Speaker 2: 8:01

You're giving people their time back, especially with busy moms and I know, like shannon for me, when they even said something like remotely over 3 000 square feet and they're like yeah, I'd like to get a monthly clean for my 3000 square foot home, I would always say I'm fortunately we can do the monthly cleans, but you know it's we do them under like this amount.

Speaker 2: 8:21

So it was like for the bigger houses I said we recommend we do them bi-weekly because you know that they don't have time to clean it because the house is so big so they're not going to be able to get to all the areas. So if you're going to do those big houses and you do the monthly cleans, you know you can either say yes or no, like yes, I'll do it. But if this is the rate and do the higher rate and expect to clean it and expect more dirtiness because you know they're not gonna have time to clean such a huge house, or, like you said, you know tell them that they need to do biweekly, like they only take biweekly cleans for that big of a house.

Speaker 1: 8:54

Right, and if you have the larger houses you're going to have to, it's going to be 350, 400 bucks, $500. And the reason why you're charging top dollars because normally that's going to take up most of your day, especially if you're out. If you're out solo cleaning in your business instead of working on it. It's five and a half hours a day. On it it's five and a half hours a day, so you're not going to. It's going to be hard. You're going to be exhausted because you have to focus on monthlies, because you can't feather dust through the whole house and then you're going to have to try to squeeze in a two hour house and then you're going to be all pooped out. The kids are going to want dinner and it's just like you have to be able to compensate for the that time. If you have a cleaning tech out there doing anything and you have multiple cleaning techs, then yeah, it's a great thing, but if it's just you, you have to really kind of think about you. Know what that entails.

Speaker 2: 9:39

How many houses can you do like that are smaller, like the 2000 square foot, and not get many of those? So like, let's say, you get a house at 6000 square feet and they only want the monthly, but yet you can do like three of the houses in that you know that day and make more money.

Speaker 1: 9:55

Right and it's, it's legit. I mean, I had a nicotine call yesterday for 6,500 because the guy smoked in the house. I'm like that's going to be five grand. And I go and, by the way, I need a 50% deposit. I go how tall are your ceilings, Right? He's like well, there's one part where it's 20 feet. I go, we won't be able to get up there without scaffolding and that involves extra money on top of what I just quoted you. But he's like I can't believe that's what it costs. I go.

Speaker 1: 10:19

This is where you realize that your head is 14 pounds. Have you ever washed walls, buddy? It's just like because you're looking up and you're using the flat mop and you're going up and down and you have to wring it out. You have to wear long gloves when you do nicotine cleaning because you're absorbing all of the nicotine. You will have shakes at the end of the day, so make sure that you are.

Speaker 1: 10:40

If you can find three monthlies at 200 bucks each, that's 600 for the day, versus the one large cleaning that you made 350 bucks on. So I hope that kind of makes sense on what you're going to take and what you're not going to take and then hopefully I can pin down some of these others who just service monthlies and it ends up being this idyllic pitch. I'm like I just totally want to know all of the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. I'm trying to decide what the price is and all the other stuff. So just think twice and you can do whatever you want.

Speaker 1: 11:14

I'm just telling you from my experience what we do. So we have a minimum charge. It covers a certain amount of time. If they go over that certain amount of time, we charge extra on top of the base price. And make sure that you're charging accordingly because, as I mentioned, you're not going to be able to feather dust a monthly cleaning, especially up here in Northern Arizona. If you go out to the Paulding, it's a dust bowl. I feel bad. I've been out there for anyone. Any ash fork, seligman, it's all where the train runs through, it's all. It's just dust.

Speaker 2: 11:45

And you know those bigger houses, like you said, you know that they don't get to those areas, so it's going to take twice as long.

Speaker 1: 11:51

Yeah, it's a 45 minute commute, so make sure you're charging travel time. We still get your nail calls. I don't know why anyone would want to live. And it's beautiful back there. It's all ranches, horses, horse ranchers, cat ranch. Back there there's been two major shootouts in the last year over drugs back there. Like it's got to be. There's a couple of marijuana farms back there, but I don't know why anyone would want to live. I mean it's it's it's 60 miles in the middle of a Valley, in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 2: 12:20

I remember that fire. You guys had the Yarnell fire.

Speaker 1: 12:23

I remember that Right, and that's when the, those, the, the 19 passed away, and so it's an interesting dynamic for sure. So make sure that you're charging accordingly for your monthly clients. Make sure you're getting credit cards on file. We're still having a lot of issues. I can see where people are not wanting to pay.

Speaker 1: 12:42

There's nothing worse than having to wrestle with somebody after you've done the job. I mean, I've never seen it more so perverse over time. You can't get a job, you can't agree to a price, do the job, do the all the bells and whistles, and then the homeowner goes we need to negotiate, cause I don't feel that it's worth what you're wanting to charge. Who does that? Do you walk up to the homeowner and go okay, we're going to cut your paycheck. Let's see, you were, you were naughty on this day right here, so we're going to chuck off 50 bucks right there, oh. And then you sexually harass somebody, miss Susan, yeah, we're going to chuck off 75 bucks right there. And then you went to the potty and you missed the potty, so that's 50 bucks right there, oh, yeah, we're just going to take that off. It's just like come on, people, it's not. And those are extreme. I'm not being serious, that's a joke. I meant it to be funny, but it's. It's, it's. It's getting to that point where you don't renegotiate the price after you're done.

Speaker 1: 13:40

You only renegotiate the price on extreme circumstances when you blunder it. So and and the the expectation is really high right now because pennies are tight and people are expecting you to walk on water, and I have to remind people all of the time I'm like you know, if I could walk on water, I would be doing something else, and that kind of humbles them and reminds them that we are just humans. I am not the Lord Almighty on top, I'm just a small peon in the bigger scale of what's going on worldwide. And, seriously, if I could walk on water, I would not be here doing this or telling you guys all the crazy stories that I know, or laughing with Kim over the jokes we tell before we come on. I just I wouldn't be doing it. I would be doing other, greater things, right, but I think that we get so worked up over and Kim and I have talked about this several times we have this problem and I'm considering it a problem now because I'm seeing it everywhere Everyone thinks they're entitled to so much more than what they're entitled for.

Speaker 1: 14:42

Yes, provide a service. Yes, we provide a product. Yes, we give customer service, but there's this subsect of our society that is running around causing havoc and not being grateful for any of the things that we have. We have still a pretty good lifestyle here in America, comparatively speaking to other countries. We are very privileged. And for people to go around because they're an influencer and demand that people give them whatever, because I know X amount of people, we could all do that right, but we don't. You have to choose Humble yourselves, be humble and be grateful for the things that you are provided, because that can be taken away at any time. You just don't know. Life is very short, so don't go around and this is mostly for the people who probably will never listen to this podcast, because I know all you guys are a great group of people. But there is this whole weird dynamic that is happening. We're watching it on the airlines. How many American airline episodes do we need to see before everyone goes? Maybe I shouldn't fly on American airlines. It's really kind of a crazy concept. Like you know, you don't know you could get on a plane and the door could pop off at any time and there's a whole dynamic on why that's happening and we won't discuss that here. But don't go around thinking you're entitled to everything. Don't go around asking for discounts. Don't go around.

Speaker 1: 16:11

You owe me this because I'm I've graced you with my presence. I'm at the point where I just won't engage with you anymore. I get a lot of messages on Messenger over you owe me this or I owe you that, and legitimately, if I promise you something and I forget. I literally talk to hundreds of people every day. So, yeah, sometimes people can fall through the cracks. I'm a mom of two small kids. I got businesses four businesses that I'm running. I'm a mom of two small kids. I got businesses four businesses that I'm running. I'm getting ready to start a fifth venture. Things can happen if I don't write it down in my thing, say, hey, you promised me this, hit me up, but don't jump in my face and say you owe me and you better give it to me or I'm going to do all these crazy things. Don't threaten me with a bad review. I'm happy to give you whatever it is. I'm a very generous and transparent person.

Speaker 2: 16:59

Don't abuse it.

Speaker 1: 17:01

But don't overstep the boundary. So we all have boundaries. I mean, kim's had her own experiences with people wanting extra things and I get that too. But Kim gives you extra things. How many people do you order from get a handwritten note with a drawing on it? Do you know how long that?

Speaker 2: 17:22

takes Shannon, Like it takes a lot. It's a generous offering of creativity and you are getting for buying the product BioClean. Yeah, I give a lot and I've had people are like well, I want free shipping. I'm like do you know how much I shelled out last year for free shipping?

Speaker 1: 17:30

Like unfortunately, for economical circumstances, we can no longer offer free shipping. It's just, I could do it once in a while, yeah.

Speaker 2: 17:37

So I'm like it's be thankful for the little things, like notes and you know, like having people talk to you and just you know love you up, be thankful for those things.

Speaker 1: 17:46

Right Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration. I cannot emphasize that enough. Collaborate with your clients If you feel that you know you want more business from them. We all know that in-person direct referrals are the best way to get them. If, if you can get your clients to do it, reward them If they give you a customer and that customer bites and they sign on for regular service. Give them their next free cleaning for free.

Speaker 2: 18:11

I know we're working on something right now for my orders, my clients that my customers that have ordered and have been with me the longest and stayed with me. I have like a little gift that I'm working on for them.

Speaker 1: 18:22

Right. Or you know, maybe you'll do a membership where you get X amount of products for a month for X amount of dollars. Who knows? Everybody's doing memberships. Even Target is offering an exclusive low-end membership to get extra special deals. Everybody's going into the membership thing. So maybe you start a membership cleaning site. If you do, I want to know because I'm going to talk to you on the podcast so I can pick your brain and figure out what that entails. But yes, please be grateful. Please show that you are showing reciprocity and that you are a kind-hearted individual. It can be disheartening when you look the first thing in the morning in your messenger and someone has just like reamed you slapped you over something really silly and ridiculous, and usually everything is what is marie foronello saying?

Speaker 1: 19:10

everything is figureoutable, right. So, maria, if you're listening to this podcast, please, please, shout out.

Speaker 2: 19:17

Like, come join us.

Speaker 1: 19:19

She would be pretty wild to have on. But yeah, it's a. It's an interesting dynamic and I really am proud at watching how far some of you guys, as business owners, have come. It makes my heart feel so full when you say, oh my God, I just hit 500,000. I couldn't have done it without you. I mean it just like. It makes me like I'm going to start to cry. It makes me want to tear up, because I love seeing all of you guys be successful.

Speaker 2: 19:48

That's all that Shannon and I want. We want you guys to be successful. We want to see you grow. We want to see you be thankful for things giving back.

Speaker 1: 19:57

Definitely. Well, if you have any further questions about monthly clients, please reach out. You can catch us on the email, and it's when you have too many emails to remember Cleaning Business Life. So that's Cleaning Business Life. So C-L-E-A-N-I-N-G. Businesslife at gmailcom. We do not have a website. We're still working on that. Maybe next year, once we get some sponsors.

Speaker 1: 20:25

Yes, we're still looking for sponsors and we're also looking for interesting guests. So I've had a lot of people pitch for other motivational speakers and I haven't really seen anything that isn't. I am only interested in cleaning related. I know that sounds snooty. I want you to be part of our industry. I want you to be part of our thing. I think it's great if you're an inspirational speaker for whatever you're doing and I think that's awesome, but I'm not. I want you to be cleaning related. So maybe one day we'll change that, but for now I just want it to be clean. I want you to be in our industry. I want you to understand what the mindset and what we're going through, because you'll understand better.

Speaker 2: 21:04

Exactly. Well, join us for our next episode. You guys and thank you guys for listening Be sure to subscribe and share. We love it when you guys share our podcast because you know it just gets a word out. So thank you guys.

Speaker 1: 21:17

Thank you, see you guys. Oops, I just hit the mic, ta-da.

Speaker 2: 21:23

Bye. Guys, Bye.