More Than A Side Hustle
More Than A Side Hustle
Ten Years In Business And Marriage
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We've been married 10 years, built a cleaning business from zero, launched CBU with no product, and watched our students do over $21 million in revenue.
Here's what we actually learned.
In this video, you'll learn:
✅ Why we started a cleaning business one year into marriage (and why Jhanilka said no)
✅ The IG Live moment that accidentally launched Cleaning Business University
✅ The biggest obstacle in business that never goes away — no matter how big you get
✅ How to build a business that runs without your hustle (systems vs. grind)
✅ What 10 years of showing up online actually produces
THE TRUTH: None of this was planned. We started with a wedding hashtag, moved to a city we didn't know, and figured it out as we went. If you're waiting for the perfect moment — this video is for you.
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Anniversary In Panama And Timeline
SPEAKER_01So today we are celebrating 10 years married. Yes, yes. We are currently in Panama, so we're in a hotel room. So our kids are in front of us. If you hear mommy, daddy, some background noise.
SPEAKER_00So if you guys don't know, we are celebrating 10 years married. Literally, today is our anniversary. Thank you. 10 years ago, we started this whole like social media journey. 10 years ago, we started this hashtag theheart trimony.
SPEAKER_01Thank you guys for saying happy anniversary. A lot of question we got today was like, does it feel like 10 years? And I'm like, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Definitely doesn't feel like 10 years.
SPEAKER_01So we want to talk about our story, how we know each other, or what? Where do you want to start with?
SPEAKER_00So I want to say what's up, Janice. What's up? Say Hooper. What's up? What's up? Zach and Delta, what's going on, guys? Keisha, what's up? Keisha. So some of you guys are in CBU. We definitely want to shout you guys out. 10 years ago today, we decided to uh tie the knot. We decided to tie the knot. We made it official.
SPEAKER_01And then when we think back, it's like who picked that that we know that you did. Because his birthday is in May, and it's like it's a lot going on in May. Then there's Mother's Day. And then if you're a parent or a mother, there's a lot happening in May with school graduations and teachers week and all this stuff. So I would have picked a different month had I been thinking ahead. So how what made it what made us start the cleaning business?
SPEAKER_00That's a great question.
SPEAKER_01So we've been married now for 10 years, and that's what we're celebrating today. But we've known each other since was I going to junior high school or high school?
SPEAKER_00I would say junior high school into high school.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because you're like two years above. So we've known each other for a really, really long time. We're talking over 25 years old.
SPEAKER_00So from like 12. So 12, 13, 14, around that time.
SPEAKER_01So dated in high school.
SPEAKER_00Not 2012, like 12 years old.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And I'm 40. I just turned 40 as well. So y'all can do the math.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it's been a while. Then when he went to college, we separated and then got back together once I graduated college. So that's been full trajectory or full trajectory.
SPEAKER_00I graduated college in 2008, which is a long time ago.
SPEAKER_01It's just it's a lot of years flying around. Got engaged in 2014, and we actually got engaged when we were here in Panama. My family is from Panama, so we were a family reunion. So we got engaged out here in 2014, got married in 2016, May, and then moved to Dallas because we're originally from Brooklyn, New York. I don't know if we said that. Moved to Dallas in June of 2016. So we've been in Dallas now for the past 10 years. Our two daughters are born and raised there. And then in 2017, which answers your question, in 2017, the beginning of the year, top of the year, we started to pay off our debt. We started listening to Dave Ramsey, started paying off our debt. And then in November, we started a cleaning business. So that's just a full kind of circle of how we got there. There's more details in between, of course, but that's just a little bit of exactly how we got there. And so the question was why we started the cleaning business, right? Or what made us do it?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So around that time, we started building a heart trimony page. So everything that you guys are watching here is the heart trimony. And we started it because we were just moved to Dallas, and this was our wedding hashtag the heart trimony, right? Which is a mix of our last name. Heartzug and matrimony. So the hard trimony is literally a combination of matrimony and our last name. So what you're looking at here was literally our wedding hashtag. 10 years later, this is just our wedding hashtag. While we were going through that journey in New York, being newlyweds and living in a new city, living in a new state, we were just posting content online around getting out of debt, around starting businesses, or not even starting business, just starting side hustles. And during that time, I was consuming a lot of content online. I was consuming Dave Ramsay, I was just consuming side hustle pro, side hustle nation, side hustle school. During that time, it was just side hustle everything around 2017. There weren't many black people in that space that I resonated with. So when we found some people like Rich and Regular was a good one. So once we started seeing married couples, married black people talking about financial literacy, that's when I started going all in. Because it was just Dave Ramsay. And that was that's my guy, that's my goat. But after
Debt Payoff Sparks Cleaning Business
SPEAKER_00a while, you start to find people you resonate with. So around that time, I started seeing people talk about side houses and building businesses. And it was like, why can't we build a business? Who says we can't pay off debt, right? And um, I came across a story of a kid in college building a laundry/slash cleaning business in his dorm room. And I reached out to him and I'm like, yo, how'd you build this cleaning slash laundry service drop-off in your dorm room? And to find out he had a whole empire in college. And he gave me some game around it like we could do this for a cleaning business. And I started once I once you go into a world, so a lot of you guys may have found us because you may have started Googling Side Hustle, you may have Googled families or businesses or entrepreneurship or cleaning business, and then we show up. Yeah, so then we start showing up in your algorithm. So once I went into that world, I started seeing people building these businesses, local businesses, whether it's lawn care, handyman, plumbing, cleaning was a big one. And then that's when I started diving in. It's like, oh, we can do this. That was really the beginning of our journey. I saw somebody else doing it back in 2017. I said, Why can't we do that? Like if a kid in college could do this, we as two grown-ass adults could figure this out together. And I bought the idea to Janoka, and that was where we started at.
SPEAKER_01So let's be clear about entrepreneurship and running a business and things like that. None of us have ever run a business or anything in that capacity. I have one uncle that used to do like have his own store in like a Manhattan building, and he did that. And he was always big on you should sell this, you should sell that. But that never clicked to me, right? We didn't have any business background or anything like that. So when he bought the idea of starting a cleaning business, and I'm like, why? Why would we do that? Like we had a lot of student loan debt, and I'm like, it's just part of life. You'll pay it off when you pay it off. What's the big deal? We've never spoke about starting a business. Why get into this? So he bought the cleanup business maybe back in like June of 2017. And we didn't start it until like October and got it live in November. But that was a big, I guess, conversation for us as to why are we doing this? Why do we, you know, we're pretty, we have a good enough income. There's no need for us to do this. Things like that was part of our conversation during those first like one, two years of being married. Essentially, we started a business a year and a half into being married. I don't know if I recommend that for everyone to like set the foundation, but we've also, like we said, known each other for a very long time. So I don't know if it's the same, the same thing. But yeah, we started the cleaning business and we started it. I want to say we went live on Thanksgiving Day. We went live on I want to say Thanksgiving Day, and then on Black Friday, the day after we got our first, we got our first cleaning. I know people always ask, like, how quickly can it happen? That's how quickly it happened for us. I know it doesn't always, you know, pan out that way, but that definitely was our story and is our story now. Somebody said, What was your biggest obstacle? Now, are you acting like within marriage or within the cleaning business? Which one? You gotta what'd you say? Uh-huh. We gotta be more specific with that. Because today we're talking about everything business. The first year, the biggest obstacle was I think eight months in. We were trying to figure out if it was worth it because business was slow and things like that. But I would say the biggest thing continues to be finding good people to work for you. So, like the contractors, that's always I say that like look at your job. There's probably people that you work with, you're like, I don't know how they still have a job. So finding good people to work in the business continues to be the biggest job.
SPEAKER_00And I would say the biggest obstacle in business and in marriage is the unknown things, right? You're like, at some point you think, oh, it's just going to be easy, just going to be it's always going to be something that you're going to learn, right? The first year in anybody's business is going to be, am I going to keep doing this? Am I going to stay active? Is this going to be profitable? And then you really don't know, right? You get some signals, just like in marriage, you get some signals like this thing could work out. There is no guarantee that this is going to be the thing that's going to change your life. So for us, like the cleaning business today, we have the cleaning business university, which we're talking about, we have the software, but the cleaning business today for us is not the main source of our income anymore, right? We've built so many things outside of that where it's just a piece of our lives. But when we first started, it was everything to us.
SPEAKER_01And it like just to touch on what you said with the cleaning business, it allowed us to start and own what we we actually bought a VA business, but then we ended up selling it or closing it. We also was able to get rental property with it. So, yes, what it was for us eight years ago is not what it is for us now. And that's okay, right? Everything can be like a starting point when it comes to that. Which by the way, our cleaning business is currently 997. If you didn't know, we're running a mayhem special right now. So if you want that, let us know. We could drop that link for you.
SPEAKER_00What was your biggest obstacle? Yeah, just like I think one of the quotes that we see all the time that you don't know until you know. And then even when you think you know, you don't know. So just staying the course, I mean not our actual program, like course in general, like staying in the course, trying to figure it out, getting around like-minded individuals, those are things going to be challenging. How do you know to go 100% with this venture with no background? It's so many different people who advertise ideas that sound good but can be questionable.
SPEAKER_01I think you have to do your own research on what you feel comfortable doing because I think you can make that decision as to what you're comfortable with. In regards to going in with something with no background knowledge, that goes back to what he's saying, the fear of unknown. I guess if you look at life as like I'm gonna learn something from it regardless, I know sometimes it's like, well, it feels like a loss. Maybe it's a loss of money, but it's not a loss of knowledge and other things, right? So there's other things that you can learn and take it in other places. I don't have to stick with this forever if it doesn't work out. And that's okay. Because everything is not gonna work out. You know, when you first do anything, you're afraid of it and don't know. But at this point, especially
Obstacles, Hiring, And The Unknown
SPEAKER_01when you talk about many different people advertised, there is a lot of information out there. And I think if you do your own vetting and research, you can find someone that you resonate with and actually trust. At the end of the day, you don't know anybody personally to know for a fact, right? But there are things that you look out for that you feel like you're connected to someone or you trust them even more. And I think you just have to follow your gut in that in that way.
SPEAKER_00And I'll say all information is the same. There is no one that's you know, people say, Oh, I found a gap in the market. I don't believe in a gap in the market. Every single thing that you're doing has already been done by someone else. Are you building Tesla? Are you building Amazon? Are you building Google? Are you building SpaceX? If you're not doing any of those things, every single thing that you want to do has been done by someone else. So I don't believe that when people come to us and say, what's the difference between your program and somebody else's? It's all the same information. The question is, who do you resonate with and who do you trust and who do you see yourself in? So when we invest now, you know, we invest thousands of dollars, like the last program we joined was probably like $15,000. It wasn't about the information, it was about who we resonated with and what they could provide, and then we feel like we can get an outcome from that. You follow someone, you watch their YouTube, you watch their Googles, you join a live like this, you get them off the normal path, and then you say, Oh yeah, I can rock with them. Oh yeah, the information seems legit. Oh yeah, I feel like I can get something out of that. For the cleaning business, it wasn't like something that we knew for a fact that it was like going to be like, oh my god, this is gonna be life changing for us. It's like, oh, we're gonna try it. Yeah, worst case scenario, you get a lesson, you don't get a loss, you get a lesson. That's why I say you don't get it, you get a loss, right? So that's how we feel. I've been following your business program for the last few months, and it's very been very inspiring inspiring to me. Thank you. So that's why I'm like, people like, oh, what's between this program and this program? I'm like, if you get me on a sales call, what you guys are getting here today, once you guys are when you're in our program and you see us on live, these are the same people you get. We're not putting on a facade, you're not putting on anything. This is the people that you're getting. So that's why we advertise it that way.
SPEAKER_01I was informed that when you enroll in CVU, you have access to the community for a year. If so, why only one year? We find that generally people so let me rephrase that. You could pay for it after a year. The package of the 1497 gives you the community and access for a year, but if you want it to continue on, you can. We have many people that do. But the one year, we find that if you give somebody two years, they're gonna take two years. If you give somebody, you know what I mean? So most people get their business up and running within the two to four month frame, and then they can ask questions and do what they need to do all throughout that time together. And so that's why we give the year. The year is actually lenient. We're we've considered many times to just give like six months because sometimes people fall off, things like they don't have that urgency anymore. And if you know, like, okay, maybe I only have six months, you're probably gonna stick to it more. That's kind of the reason behind that. We've done this program now for the past six years, and we've been just measuring our student success. And that's all part of the decisions that we make when it comes to how much time that we give, essentially. So, right now, with the special that we're running for 997, you get access for um, and we'll see what people kind of do with that information, with having access to three months.
SPEAKER_00And a real another reason that we do it for we used to do lifetime access, but again, we have to, there are teams, there are people that that we that support, there's operations. So to support someone for a lifetime, think about how long that is. What do you have lifetime access to? And like in real life, think about it. Everything's an ongoing uh cost. So it's an ongoing cost for us. There's an ongoing cost of time, not even just money, it's time. Again, us supporting you, us helping you. Then we have coaches, we got team members. Like Janice is in there, like she does live calls with you guys, right? So imagine someone who comes in five years from today who hasn't done anything. That means that we gotta support you from ground zero after five years. So that's really the reason for it. And like Jenoku says really about the urgency aspect of it. That's really the main reasons from it. So, one of the reasons that we started sharing online, we really started with just the debt, the debt story. So, us paying, just us paying off the debt. That's where our journey started. Us doing fitness, us talking about family, like things like this. Because really online, we like I said, we didn't see many of us doing this 10 years ago. Now it's a lot normal for people to be sharing this much of their lives online. And we found a lot of inspiration from the people that we did follow back then when they were sharing their journeys online, they were getting into the game, they were paying off debt, they were starting businesses. And we said if we can learn from somebody else who looks like us, imagine how many people can learn from us by us just sharing our journey. So that's why we started sharing it online back in 2016. So, another reason people say, What's in between your your what you guys do and what other people do? We've been doing this now for a decade. So, people you can scroll on our page and see some of our very first posts a decade ago when we started the business, when we got our first client, when we were on Good More in America, when we were trying to pay off the debt, when we got our first rental car, when we got our first rent to property. Because you'll see people all the time that say, You guys, you know, have inspired me to think about business, to think about paying off debt, to travel more, to save more, to start a family. Um, what you learned into your girls. Time's like this. So Lonnie's like, oh, you're gonna do a call with some people. So sometimes we'll be like, uh, sometimes you don't feel like it, right? You're like, uh, today is an extremely busy day. We are planning our anniversary, like what we're doing tonight. We got vendors that we gotta meet with. We had somebody come in, one of our um, one of our vendors was in there helping. And we're like, man, we still gotta have this call because we planned it. It was like, who planned this call on our anniversary? It's like, oh, we did. But it's like you don't remember that. You get to do these things, you don't have to. We get the ability to hop online in the middle of the day and hopefully inspire somebody. Hopefully, give some game, hopefully answer some questions. When you change your mindset from you have to do to you get the ability to, sometimes we gotta use that a lot. It's like, damn, we gotta show them today. It's like, no, we get the ability to show up on live
Choosing Mentors And Explaining CBU Access
SPEAKER_00and have a couple people join. Show up and answer some questions, show up and help somebody.
SPEAKER_01What's the most memorable destination that y'all traveled to? I would say either South Africa or Maldives. South Africa, we did a safari and our oldest was with us. So I would say that was that would be it.
SPEAKER_00That was memorable. Maldives, Dubai was our uh first big trip after we paid off our debt. So we went to Maldives in 2018. We went to Dubai in 2018, which is almost a decade. We was in Dubai in 2018. That's we went there. That's almost a decade ago. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so those would be my two memorable trips.
SPEAKER_00I think South Africa for me was our most memorable trip because no, actually, you know what? I'll say Maldives was the most memorable trip because that was when we realized that we could run our lives from anywhere in the world. We being remote could be you living in one state and running it from another. We was on the other side of the world, so that was when we was like, Oh yeah, this thing could actually work. So we ran our business, that was a good one. And I think South Africa, when we took our daughter to the safari, that was a memorable moment. And people talk about having those core memories, that was a big one for us. Somebody asked, like, what made you keep going when it felt like nobody was watching? That's a good one. We sent out the email and we was like, we got 20,000 people on our email list. We had six people register for this live right now. You don't know when people are gonna show up. We don't live right now, we don't know how many people are there. I think um after a while, you just realize you can always repurpose content, you can always do something else with it. We could turn this into an email, we could turn it into a podcast, we could take this offline and send it out. Um, we could turn this into short form content, but we continue to share because we know if you realize you might be able to help one person answer a question that gets them unstuck. So if you feel like you can help at least one person do something different, then it's always going to be worth it. When you talk about showing up, right? When you talk about showing up like this, and the question was, what do you do when nobody you feel like nobody's watching? Could you imagine showing up to an IG live and somebody tell you to do something and you go and do it immediately? And not only does it change your life, it changes thousands of other people's lives. I could not fathom 10 years ago showing up on live, and then that allowed us to be on Good More in America, CNBC News, Black Enterprise, and more importantly, changing and helping thousands of people launch businesses, launch businesses that we had no idea about. But yeah, but sometimes you're gonna do something, nobody's gonna show up. Then the question is what happens the next time you show up? Are you gonna think about if nobody shows up then? Would you start this journey again now being 40 plus? So I just turned 40 guys.
SPEAKER_01Which journey?
SPEAKER_00This journey, yeah, which journey, whether it be the business or social media. I don't think I would change anything about our journey.
SPEAKER_01I think everything is necessary. In the moment don't feel necessary, though. I can be very honest with you. It feels very like, why me, or should this be happening? But I think everything happens for a reason. I know that's a cliche thing, but I absolutely believe that everything happens for a reason and helps you to make you a better couple, a better person, or whatever it is that you're you're going through. I think it's necessary. So I wouldn't necessarily change anything either. Like I always say, if we didn't leave New York, our life would be completely different. I don't think that we would have ever started a business. I don't think we'd have ever paid off debt because why the people in your environment aren't necessarily doing that. I'm not saying they're not doing anything, I'm just saying there's no reason to change because why am I working at a gym for $9 when I could be at brunch right now? Or I have a cousin having a baby shower. So I need to be, I'm doing other things, right? So had we not got out got out of our comfort zone and left New York, our life would look differently. Could be in a good, a better way. I don't know, but it just would look differently.
SPEAKER_00I think there needs to be more people. So to answer your question from my perspective, would you start this journey again being 40? I wish there would be more people who are our age sharing this type of journey. Because when you go to events, you know what's like, I'm one of the oldest people here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Talking about marriage, family, being black, money, business, nine to fives are just sharing the journey online.
SPEAKER_01Because when we started the events that I've attended, and it's not just the events I attended, it's what people are throwing, and the people that's showing up actually are like the 24 or whatever the case can be. And it's like, uh, we don't, we're not living in the same world. We just absolutely not. With me being married with a bunch of kids exactly, it's just a different world.
SPEAKER_00So when people come to like another thing is like, oh, I saw somebody doing the same business model you got. I'm like, there is nobody 40 with kids, not 40 yet.
SPEAKER_01Let's be very clear.
SPEAKER_00There is nobody in the upper 35s, 30s with kids, families who are at a high level with their nine to five. So, yeah, you could see a 25-year-old, 30-year-old, whatever doing what they're doing. There is nobody in this space that looks like us, sounds like us, and have done it the way we've done it in this space. So when people go like, what's the difference? I'm like, there is no difference. Like if the information is not the same, you're not buying information. I get really serious about that. I'm like, you could go with whoever you want, but the people that we have are in our community, the people who we have surrounded by us in our lives is not the same. So, what's the best way to get independent contractors for your business? I love that. I love that.
SPEAKER_01What's the best way to get independent contractors for your business?
SPEAKER_00We still keep it similar, we still keep it the same. We're gonna say our best platforms are still indeed, and then word of mouth. Those are the routes we go. Like Janoka even joins like like next door, like Craigslist or groups, and she literally takes flyers and business cards of people who are advertising their cleaning services, and she sends it to our operations manager. Like, these are people who have businesses
Showing Up Online And Working Remote
SPEAKER_00that are looking for more work, and we send it right to them, right to the operations manager, call them, interview them, get them on a schedule. So the best way to get independent independent contractors for us or cleaners is still going to be in D and it's going to be word of mouth referrals. Those are the best routes we go with for our teams or just people who are advertising their services. So that still doesn't change. Those are gonna be the best opportunities for us. A lot of business owners are gatekeepers. We can't gatekeep, we've been doing this now for 10 years, right? So when people even come to our work like, oh, I can't, you know, join your program or you know, financially, go to our YouTube. Our first YouTube video was in 2017. We wasn't about the cleaning business then, but there's still content on there that we post specific questions around the cleaning business, but it's all there.
SPEAKER_01Was it challenging starting your remote cleaning business while still maintaining a regular nine to five job? I would say yes, but there's some nuances to it. So I was working from home. I would get off at four o'clock, ballast time. And so that time we did not have any kids. And so it was like, okay, what do we do now from four to 10, 4 to 11, whatever time we was going to bed. Anthony was the director of his job, so he had a bit more flexibility in that way. But like when the phone started ringing off the hook, essentially, that's when we hired like a VA to do that. Because that was the piece that was like, we're losing our money because we're missing calls, right? So it wasn't so challenging because a lot of times we would do the work after work or on the weekend, essentially. That was when we built the business after work on the weekend, not during necessarily work hours. I would do interviews sometime from like four to seven p.m. or on a Saturday, calling people, things like that. So we just made it work around our schedule because we had to, there was no option for us, and that's how we kind of operate with it.
SPEAKER_00It has to work or it has to work, right? Just because we're not running our cleaning business day-to-day anymore, there's other work that we have to do. So this is a version of work for us. You see us, we got our daughter right here. We got family on the balcony. It's like, oh yeah, you guys are on vacation, but this is a formal work to us. This is a part of our business, this is a part of our brand, this is part of what we built over the last decade. So it might not look the same, you know, based on where you are, but it's going to look different based on what season of life you're in. So, was it hard being a newly married couple or starting a business at the same time? Jinoga says everybody shouldn't work together.
SPEAKER_01I do believe that all married couples shouldn't work together. I think you have to know yourself and be honest about that. Some people like clash all the time, just like some personalities. Some people say opposites attract, but in that, I don't know that everyone should work together. So, starting the business at the same time, it wasn't that difficult. And I think knowing each other for so many years makes it a Different. It doesn't feel as new, like, oh, yes, we're newlyweds in a new state, but it didn't feel that rough, at least, because we're both was on the same page. Or if there's information I didn't understand, then Anthony would make it clear for me so that I did understand. It never was just like, well, I'ma just do this anyway. You know what I mean? So I think a lot of that overcommunication is helpful as well.
SPEAKER_00I think with couples, I was talking to a couple who just joined Clean the Business University and great couple, but I I had to give them the advice. I was like, especially as a man, sometimes we want to lead our family, which is what we should do as providers. But in order to lead, we got to be able to follow. Let me repeat that. In order to be able to, if you want to lead, you also got to know how to follow. So for his wife's perspective, he needed to know how to let her lead and him follow in certain aspects. So in our respective marriage, I'm a leader in some out some aspects. And then my wife is a leader in her aspects. Like she was the leader when it came to hiring, when it came to customer service. And I had to follow her lead on that aspect. And I was the leader when it came to technology, when it came to the marketing, when it came to sales. In order to be a leader, you gotta know how to follow sometimes. And I think that goes not only in business, but also on your marriage, too. That was a lesson that we learned because even when I have an idea, like this was an idea. This what this didn't just happen out of nowhere. It was an idea. And the idea was we're gonna go live on our anniversary. It's like we're gonna go live on our anniversary. Wow, we got this one here, this one here, family knocking on the door. And it was like, you know what? She was like, here's what we need to do before that could happen. And I'm gonna go set up, I'm gonna make sure we're good here. She's gonna make sure the kids are good. You also gotta like your spouse.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a big one. I didn't feel like getting into Elma Anniversary.
SPEAKER_00So we were talking about CBU, and we went from documenting our cleaning business journey online to showing, you know, you guys and people online how to do the same. And the hard trimony really wasn't a plan. It would just happen to be when we stopped hiding from what we were building because we didn't know again, people we didn't know people went to learn about the cleaning business.
SPEAKER_01You start to overthink, and people were like, people are already doing it, so do they really want to hear from us? But everybody has a different perspective, no matter what you think, no matter like, oh, there's enough trainers out there, there's enough this. There's something about you that makes you different. And I think that is something that we had to say to ourselves when we started talking about the cleaning. Mind you, back then I did not hear anyone talking about the cleaning business. I just simply believed no one would be interested. That was a different, it wasn't really necessary. You know how many ads I get now on this? Oh no, I see people now, but at that time, I didn't really see anyone talking about the cleaning business. I just felt like, oh, it's gonna be boring. Nobody wants to hear that, essentially, until people did want to hear that. And sometimes being that specific niche is what helps you to grow because it's a little different from what other people are talking about.
SPEAKER_00I think as we've grew, as we've evolved, the main talking points have changed, right? So now we talk less about when we first started, it was our debt freedom journey to family, and then we start talking about the cleaning business, and then for a moment in time, it was only us talking about our cleaning business, right? It was like our cleaning business. Now you're seeing us talk about other things on our page again, where the cleaning business is one aspect of it, but cleaning business university is a huge part of our lives now. As we've grown,
Couple Roles, Systems, And Closing Q&A
SPEAKER_00as we've evolved, as we change, the focuses have changed as well. So, like we were literally, I was filming an ad for Clean the Business University about a payment that came in because literally, while we were at the pool, a $500 client just booked our cleaning services. But we don't talk about it as much as anymore because our students and what they've been able to accomplish is way more important than us talking about, you know, the $500 payment that we just received by the pool, which you will see an ad about because it did it did happen in real time, right? But now it's just about our students and what they've been able to accomplish and them helping each other and them launching their businesses, right? And it's really back to what 10 years really told us about systems, right? We like the business is still running because of systems, not our hustle. And but it's a small part of our journey now. So if y'all got any questions, man, feel free to drop it, drop it in the chat. Have y'all ever thought about franchising?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we've thought about it, but never done it, never like did full research on it, but we did consider it.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's kind of what Cleaning Business University is, where you're getting our frameworks, you're getting our tools, you're getting our resources. The only difference is you don't have to use everything we say. So a franchise means that if we tell you how to market your business, you have to market your business that way. So when people ask what's the difference between Cleaning Business University with a franchise, we give you the playbook, you have to run it, and you have to do it the same the way we tell you to do it. So there is very little leeway in terms of what you can and what you what you can and cannot do in a franchise. Let's say you have to market this way, you have to market this way. And they say this is the advertising you have to do, it's the advertising you have to do. The sales you gotta do, here's the scripts you have to do. So there's some pros and cons of it, but we do so many things now, just like we do we want to add that layer to our lives. So we still got clean to business university and we got our software as well, and we got kids. So great question. We would rather give you guys a playbook, let you run, and let you support and support you along the way versus telling you and guiding you on how you got to do it. Did you eventually become an S-corp? Yeah, when you get above like $50,000, it makes sense financially to become an S-corp, but I'm not an accountant or a tax specialist. You should definitely consult with them on that. But yes, we do have it, we do have an S-corp. Would you ever do a meet and greet in person? We've done three.
SPEAKER_01We've done three, I think, so far. Two of them was kind of like VIP days where our students were invited to, but then we had another one at Top Golf to celebrate one of our students.
SPEAKER_00So we've done a podcast. Was that the same?
SPEAKER_01The podcast was one two, so that was four.
SPEAKER_00So we've done it.
SPEAKER_01We've never done one that was just kind of like socially let's meet at a bar and show up. We haven't kind of done something like that. We've considered it logistically wise. We're trying, we always like second guess ourselves on, you know, if we tell people to show up and nobody shows up, or should we charge a fee so that people are more serious? And what's enough for people to come, you know?
SPEAKER_00What's enough for people to take it serious?
SPEAKER_01People to take it seriously.
SPEAKER_00You gotta get babysitter. Do we bring the kids? Do we not bring the kids? If you don't show up, is it do we do it locally? Do we do it somewhere else? And like, do you want it? Would you pay for it? It has to be worth the time and energy. And we show up, so it's like we gotta make it worth it. We're and we've done free things. It's not a problem doing that, but it's just like logistically, our babies like to do so. We do we've done IG lives where we had to get babysitters so that we could give all the games, we could do our community calls. Sometimes we hire babysitters to come do our community calls so that we can focus on our our community. We have to pay to get help sometimes, right? So we're not opposed to it, we're absolutely open to it. We've done four so far. We might do one this year, maybe, maybe not. It's not on the agenda right now. But yeah, we're open to it. We've done them in the past, we've done four so far over the past 10 years. We've done four. And all of them have been over the last four years. So thank you for asking asking that. So again, if you're on here, you got any questions, drop them in the chat. But we again we appreciate you guys tapping in. We've told you guys that you know you could join CBU at our anniversary special. That link is in the chat. And if you've been thinking about CBU and you're on the fence, you know, you could tap into our worlds. We want to thank you guys for celebrating with us in the set. 10 years of the heart ceremony. Literally, this page has been around for for over a decade. YouTube since 2017, man. Sharing the journey, family, kids, friends, community. We've met, you know, we met tons of people. We've been invited to speak. We actually got invited to another stage. We've been invited to speak on stages just because we're sharing our journey, you know, with you guys the ups, downs, the goods, the bads. But again, if this can inspire a person to start something and change their life, to impact somebody else, man. This is what 10 years means to us and where we're headed. So, you know, CBU is now six years, harmony is now 10 years, man. We got our software tidy track that we just we started about two years ago, man. Man, we've we've done, we've done a lot. We've helped, we've helped people start some things, and that's the goal. Just share your journey, man.
SPEAKER_01So I hope you guys have a good one. Thank you guys for joining us on the QA and even on IG Live. We appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00We appreciate y'all tapping in, man. Thank you. Just thank you for being here. Thank you for supporting us, and just thank you for for stopping by. See you next time. Peace.