Cleaning Business Life
Cleaning Business Life is the podcast for cleaning business owners who want to build a profitable company without sacrificing their entire life to do it.
Hosted by industry leaders Shannon Miller and Jamie Runco, the show brings real-world conversations about pricing, hiring, leadership, systems, boundaries, profitability, and sustainable growth.
With more than 240 episodes rooted in actual cleaning-industry experience, you’ll hear the lessons, mistakes, hard decisions, and strategies that business owners rarely talk about publicly.
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Cleaning Business Life
CBL EP 163 How to Stop Chaos in Your Cleaning Business (Pricing, Scope & Leadership Fixes)
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In this episode, Shannon Miller and Jamie Runco break down why chaos in your business isn’t a personal failure — it’s a leadership signal. They discuss the difference between growth chaos and self-created chaos, how underpricing and unclear scope create daily fires, and why structure, consistency, and enforcement are the real solutions to long-term stress.
Thanks for tuning in to Cleaning Business Life — the podcast for cleaning business owners who want to build a profitable, sustainable company without burning out.
Hosted by Shannon Miller and Jamie Runco, each episode pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to start, grow, and scale a cleaning business — covering pricing, systems, leadership, boundaries, and the real conversations most people avoid.
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— Shannon & Jamie
Tempo: 120.0
SPEAKER_01Welcome back to the show. I'm Kenny Miller with St. Frick University here with Damienko. Today we're talking about stopping chaos, why your business feels out of control, and what actually fixes it. We're breaking down growth chaos versus self-created chaos. I'm familiar with both. How underpricing and unfair scope create daily fires, and what changes when you stop reacting and start enforcing. Let's get to it.
SPEAKER_00Progress. Welcome back. Hi, you guys. Welcome back to the show. Today we're going to talk about stopping chaos and why your business feels so out of control and how to fix it. Yeah, we're going to give some insights. Yes. I feel like gosh, how many of us have just it always feels like chaos? This is where I'm like, okay, the reason why it feels like chaos is I'm going through a growth spurt. I've come to realize that this is a growth spurt of something, and that's why it feels because we get stuck on being comfortable. Yeah, comfortable. Okay, everything's working. Let's not change anything. But you can't, you can't. That's not growing.
SPEAKER_01And sometimes we'll squat there. We're like, yeah, this feels good. I can do this.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I can do it. Okay. We're, you know. I I will say that I do get a lot of analysis paralysis. That means that I will analyze the numbers over or or whatever the case may be, over analyzing trying to put together my employee handbook. Oh, I and it feels like chaos. So I get so like I'm analyzing everything over and over, and I analysis, paralysis is what I call it. I just stop and cannot make a move.
SPEAKER_01I could see that being a thing for sure. Um, because it can be it's it's a bigger project, right? Everyone's like, you need an employee handbook, you need an employee handbook, you need an employee handbook. There are actually two that have been borrowed. They're not mine, copyright, but you could take segments of them. I'm not infringing on copyright. I'm just saying that you could probably borrow for initial language, and you could actually have one of the AIs help you with the final part of it, especially the legality. I went to an AI seminar yesterday because I wanted to see if there was anything I didn't know. I didn't know there was an actual AI just for legal things. Oh, okay. There's a specific AI for medical things, there's a specific AI for legal things. Don't ask me what those are, but I was like, I got notes. I was like, God, this would be interesting because I it would be nice to have, you know, if you had a legal question, I'm sure there's a certain format you have to do. I don't know if it's paid or unpaid, if it's like Chat GPT or not. So I I think that you could make quicker work out of it, but it is a larger project because you're taking like like we like Jamie and I have talked about, you're taking what's inside your head, the experiences you've had thus far, you're articulating them and like almost vomiting them out on paper. And you're like, does this make sense? And then then then there's a procedure, right? If this situation happens, and and not everyone has time to go look at the three-ring binder, right? I I've mentioned in the past, maybe not here, I used to work for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They legitimately, you know, those really thick binders they sell at Staples or Office Maps, yes that are like five inches across. Their employee hand because the Metropolitan Museum of Art has been around for over 100 years, was two, two of those puppies. And they expected you to read all that paper. I'm like, I'm not fucking reading that.
SPEAKER_00Let's not happen.
SPEAKER_01Yes, pissing. I just want to know if I have a problem. What thing I should do. It's like paragraph three, you know, you know, section four, blah, blah, blah. And then it read like a dental history, right? I'm like, this is really like not interesting reading at all. So it was very painful. So I can understand why it would, but if you have if you want a point, a starting point, start somewhere, and you have to like enough in time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's been enough thinking about it. It's time to actually put it in place. And that's why I wanted to bring that up, is because this is something that we're talking about. What chaos inside your feel what it kind of feels like. And to me, that's what it feels like. But we're gonna give you small achievable steps, like the podcast said in the beginning, small achievable steps to implement how to fix this.
SPEAKER_01And and I think before we well, let me premise it with this. If you have chaos, it's not a direct correlation to you, it's not a personality flaw. It's just because you haven't addressed whatever the issue is. So don't take chaos as a personal decision. Just know that it's something that's it's asking for your attention so that you can resolve it, so that you can move on to the next thing. Right. And I've noticed that if you don't choose to resolve it, it just festers and then it gets really big, and then you have this massive explosion, and people could quit, customers could leave, you know, those types of things. And you work really hard to get where you are. So, you know, you have to unfortunately you have to address the chaos, whatever that is. And that's a big difference between growth and being self-created chaos. Sometimes we see this a lot. I do it myself, self-sabotaging, right? That that dialect in your house, I am not worthy, I am not worthy. What do I do this? What do I do here? Oh my god, I'm not worthy. Do you still do that, Jamie? I I know I do.
SPEAKER_00Every once in a while I get like a foster syndrome. Yes, I felt like that, especially whenever I started, whenever I was able to buy purchase a house, like I felt like I had no, I just felt like I had no business being up this high. And not not, I'm not not to sound privileged or anything, but to think that because I'm I'm telling you guys, I did not think I would be anywhere close to this four years ago, whenever I started. I thought, oh, this will be a great way to earn a little bit of extra cash, that I can pay off some of these credit cards, credit card debt, credit card debt that uh because I was very naive and silly with credit cards back in the day. They all do it, yeah. And so I'm I was needed to a way to earn extra money and just whatever. And then whenever I started taking it serious, and to within my first two and a half years, three years before the three years, I was able to purchase a home. Right. So that imposter syndrome it sneaks up on you. It affects everyone whether they say it or not. Making a a new product that has creeped, like I I would I never thought I'd be anywhere's where I'm at. And that's not in a bad way either. I'm not thinking of this in a bad way. I think that I have blown people's minds that have known me for 30 years or something. You know, both of my parents are no longer here, but I I think that people are just like, wow, they would have never suspected that I would have be here. And yeah, imposter syndrome sneaks in not as much as it used to, because now I'm like, well, I have every freaking right to be where I'm at. I built that damn thing, you know. But you know, bringing on something new, a whole new business, which is some cleaning products, I see it creep in sometimes.
SPEAKER_01So I think that I think that with any project you do, it can creep in until you're you're I think that also while we're talking about this, when you get to a certain level of success, a lot of people are not comfortable with a success, so they self-sabotage. Right. They do stupid things publicly or say things publicly that they really shouldn't be saying, or then they won't take it back, or they won't retract what they said, and they said, Well, I'm entitled to say it. And then we all kind of look and go, Ooh, right. So that a lot of that is self-created. I know a lot of people, I'm not going to name names because I'm not wanting to shame anybody who have gotten themselves in a certain position, and then they become this entity to deal with this containment that needs to happen. And they they create this chaos, right? And then they then they're like, well, then the victimhood comes in, right? You know, I for those of you who don't know a little bit about my background, I was actually a handicapped child and I had the piss beat out of me all through sixth grade. I was like picked on every day from third grade to sixth grade. I I it was awful and I wouldn't want it to go on anybody, but it makes you bootstrap a lot of things and it comes with a certain amount of grit, and it's not like I survived. It it gives me background on why I do what I do, right? I'm not about public shaming, I'm not about calling people out. Or get into a certain financial aspect in our industry or not a financial aspect, they just become a leader, and then it becomes this whole dynamic of I'm not, I'm gonna say this because I can. And you don't want to create it's hard enough as it is to make it in this industry and be successful and be long-term, like 15 years like me, if you self-sabotage yourself is basically the long dissertation. Oh no, jump down that far.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they create chaos, they have created chaos, they need to get control. These some of these people need to get control of the chaos that they have created and try start to fix and build because they are leaders, right? Um just because you've made it to a certain achievement doesn't mean you get to be assholes, you know.
SPEAKER_01Right. And we won't go into detail what we've seen in her, but we've all seen it. You know, we all I'm eating popcorn. Ouch, right?
SPEAKER_00So and there's yeah, there's several, yeah. So in this episode, we're going to cut why chaos is a leadership signal, not a personality flaw. That's so true. The difference between growth, chaos, and self-created chaos. How underpricing and clear scope create daily fires. Oh my gosh, that's a big one. That's huge. Why being flexible often destroys consistency, the systems that remove chaos without burning you out, and what happens when you stop reacting and start enforcing.
SPEAKER_01These are all big topics. So we kind of went over the leadership signal and the difference between growth chaos and self-created chaos. The underpricing and unclear scope creates daily fires. And what that means to me, and we can see what Jamie has to say after I say it, is Shannon picks up the phone, takes the sales call, Mrs. Smith goes, Hey, can you guys get this chandelier that I have hanging in my foyer that leads up the stairs with a high duster? And then Shannon says, without thinking about it, because I don't do this at all, I'm not allowed to answer the phones all the time for a lot of reasons. But okay, sure, no problem. The cleaning tech can, you know, take a wand, a Swiffer wand or whatever and get it. Well, the cleaning tech takes a Swiffer wand, touches it, like ding, and the whole chandelier falls on the ground, impales the cleaning tech, and you got a workman's comp case, and then you have damages because the chandelier had glass beams that bounce on the floor and hit the wall. I've actually, we've talked about this specific incident um more than one episode. So you just inadvertently, not only did you not charge for it, you've caused a workman's comp claim and then you've caused damage in a client's home. Whereas if you said, no, we are not able to do that, you need to call the Shandelier place that comes up from Scottsdale, and they're happy to, you know, lack it or whatever they do to clean those types of things. So that was beyond the unclear scope. So that's what we were talking about. So, or it happens a lot with waiting tables, right? How many if I gave I've given the example of the ranches, right? You go to a restaurant and Susan gives you 10 ranches when you really only need two, and the other person who's brand new, who's been trained thoroughly, only gives you the two ranches, and you have a cow and you let the other girl know by lighting her butt on fire that normally Susan gives us 10. Why can't we have 10? And then the new employee goes, Well, we have to charge you for each and every one. So again, the scope.
SPEAKER_00So I call this scope creep, right? It starts off so slowly, too. It does, it sneaks in there. Um, again, if you go back and listen to the podcast, I don't know which episode it is, but uh we talk about the five phases of basically building your your business. I believe we talk about a little bit of scope creep. However, we want to take the emotion out of everything, right? I have built a system to if they wanted it an add-on room to add a room on that they don't normally have.
SPEAKER_01And why it costs more money, right?
SPEAKER_00Right, right. So it has it's structured in my employees. My team leads know how to go in there because they have permissions and to add on an extra room and what it charges, and boom, it's there. My clients have been, they they know, they know that we don't allow for scope creep, and I don't call it that, but that's in effect what it's called, right? Little by little, they they they add a little bit, or you you know, you go there for a maintenance clean and you end up trying deep cleaning every time, and it's like no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01Can you not do this bedroom and clean the can you hard scrub the master bath? No, not without extra money.
SPEAKER_00No, we needed we we needed to schedule extra time right for that. That has to be scheduled. My uh cleaning techs, they have to they gotta be on a schedule, they have a checklist, digital checklist. The client sees the digital checklist that they have to go off of by, and they have to be done at a certain time because there's a second client after that client gets checked exactly second client afterwards, and so it's all got to be scheduled and paid for, right?
SPEAKER_01So, and and then if you don't charge, it I believe we uh we did have another podcast about you adding on items and doing things for free, so you can check out that episode. I don't remember what episode it was, and then why being flexible often destroys consistency? So when you allow it for the the when I first got into management back in the day, they the biggest lesson I ever got was I had to be consistent. So if I'm gonna do for one, I have to do for all. So if I give Susan the exemption to not have to charge for that ranch dressing, then I have to not charge for ranch dressing on all of the rest of the tables. Or if I give Susan the free scope, and I, you know, this is why the 50% commission off of the oven cleanings came about too, because I wanted to make it worth their while so that they knew that if they upcharge, they also got a $45 bonus, right? So that was on top of their pay that they were making. And it had to be realistic because again, you just the second client's not going to be mad, they're gonna be mad when you're late. Or they're you know, they're then their day is inconvenient. So it'd be it's just kind of inconsistent. So you have to have that in your structure of your schedule. And if you don't, then it becomes a problem. Like I mentioned, I have a client who has been monthly for five years now, and this last year has been a little rough for her, and she's always canceling. So I finally called her the other day. I'm like, hey, what's what's going on? And push comes to show it. I realize that she's going through cancer treatment. Well, it's helpful to know this, right? I don't want to push her off the schedule if she's having cancer treatment. I would only want to push her off the schedule if she was being chronic and it was being intentional. And she's like, unfortunately, because of my doctor's appointments, I've had to shuffle things around. I'm really sorry, and thank you for keeping me on the schedule. I know how hard it is. But I didn't before I was just getting irritated, right? So that's the kind of flexibility you need to have in those types of circumstances, and you can decide whether you want to accommodate someone who's going through treatment from cancer. Maybe you can't, maybe your schedule's too tight to do that. And you say, Hey, I'm gonna have to pull you off the schedule. And when it kind of stabilizes, I can put you back on the schedule. But with cancer patients, you want to make sure that their environment stays clean so they don't get infected and all that other stuff.
SPEAKER_00So absolutely, and it's so hard because they still have families to take care of, and and you know, yeah. But you do the flexibility, does come you you can make your own decisions how you want to run your business. This again, it's the beautiful thing about this, is it's your business at the end of the day, but you do have to have something structured so that it's easily followed by somebody other than you, right? It cannot live up in your head constantly. I mean, if you're a solo cleaner and and this is not throwing any shade to our solo cleaning business friends, none whatsoever. This is we're we're talking about when we're ready to start scaling and taking on employees, and you know, don't get like me with the analysis paralysis, too. But so what happens whenever you stop reacting and start enforcing? Things look a little different, don't they? That you start putting them.
SPEAKER_01You do you do get pushback initially because they've not had any boundaries. Like you're you know, remember when you were a teenager, you have to be home by nine o'clock. Well, why do I have to be home at nine o'clock? All my friends can't hell out until 10. Right?
SPEAKER_00That's what it's like. Let me tell you how this looks in our business. I upped the I had somebody do a scope creep with me. I had pulled off two rooms to accommodate a certain price for this person. Come to find out, this person just is constantly on the phone talking bad, according she's home, she's an old elderly lady, about all these other different businesses, and and she's always trying to get something extra out of. Well, I I've I dealt with her for probably a year and a half, and I upped her price, and I said, Good news though, we can either take those two rooms off completely, but you're still getting a 15. Wait, no, it was yeah, no $10 increase. Which is small, which is small, or we can leave them on and you can do the $25 price increase. She made sure she got that day done and I knew it was coming. I was like, Well, which one would you like to choose? Right, and she goes, I would like to cancel. And I was like, Thank you. Thank you. Trash took out itself. I you know, no offense, and I feel I I would love to warn all my other cleaning business owners out there of this person, but I am so happy to have her off of our schedule. Wasn't we weren't nobody was making any money. The only person that was really making the money was the cleaning tech. And I I think I was starting to go almost into the red, and it was it was made no sense at all.
SPEAKER_01You were paying for the privilege, and a lot of people with bad habits will continue to have bad habits uh until they run out. I mean, I've known I've come across people in my town. We have 60 microcleaning companies in my town, and we have five big boys who've gone through every single person. And I mean like, and I've had to tell people very gently, and like, you know, you've gone through every cleaning person in town that says a lot blanket statement, right? Well, what do you mean? Nobody knows how to clean. And like, look, there are 60. micro cleaning companies and five big boys. That's 65 businesses you have gone through because no one can make you happy, you might want to consider cleaning it yourself. And then it became the how dare you, how dare you, how dare you? I'm like, well, you know, my schedule, you know, me. My schedule's full, even though I want to stick the finger in her face. My schedule, I have a wait list until about April. Would you like me to put you on there? Well I guess so. And then she'll actually call me back to see in April if I have any room. I'm like, no. Oh no, no, no. Yeah, because I'm like, she's a pain in the butt.
SPEAKER_00I've had somebody and she's called me back twice. I and the last time I don't think she realized it was like I've dealt with you before. I've I've actually whenever I very first began I cleaned this house five bathrooms and I'm just like and and it was she says it was so much I got five bathrooms.
SPEAKER_01She has gone through every cleaner right now she's with somebody that's solo apparently and she's seen one of my ads on the local thing and she goes I just think that's great but I have this cleaner now that is just she thinks $75 is an an hour is oh no oh no no is what she told me and I said no actually that sounds that sounds about right she broke it down to hourly i i was like you know that's and thank goodness i i i have not heard back from her and whoever is cleaning her house continue to get that $75 an hour i know that i i knew that she was charging flat rate so good for you if you end up listening to this i because i know it so they're out there and we still deal with that i i ironically you know it's funny we keep progressing along but there's still those are old articulate individuals who want to make everyone else miserable just keep on marching on and you don't give them any thought that it happens well those that's when the decisions of uh of emotional instead of structural this is how the chaos starts to simmer down because you it's not such an emotional decision you have your structures in place this is what you've built you've already built that you're it's in there it's not such an emotional decision right it makes it easier and it makes it easier not to react to so when it's emotional you don't take it personal you're and it's like you know my schedule's full and they'll call back a third time I'm like oh I'm really sorry my schedule is full and then you know it's just constantly just smile say with a smile I'm sorry my schedule's full and they'll eventually get it like wow her schedule's really full and it admit then it becomes a whole entitlement thing I'm gonna get on that schedule and you're like no you're not my schedule's full no it'll always be full but yeah but you're also setting up your boundaries right there right right and then the pricing problems always show up as an operational stress boy I can't tell you how much that person being on my schedule was so stressful and it was just a keeping my fingers crossed nothing bad happens keeping my fingers there was a thorn in my side I'm just exhausting yeah so and it'll be it I I made a system I it protects me my employees our energy and I continue to stay in that leadership role showing my cleaning tax that you know what we don't have to deal with this and so yep protecting your time your energy and your role in in the business yeah so having structures in place is super important whether you start big or small usually the structure goes like this you're you're bootstrapping and you're like oh my god how do I you know then then the price thing comes up and then you have to have the price conversations and then we have to have the price increase conversations and then at that point you're gonna start to add in structure a little bit of a contract agreement here a little bit of contract agreement there. And then the reason why is because you want to put a stop this fits within this boundary and if it doesn't fit then I can't accommodate you this the reason why we charge 250 bucks for a monthly cleaning isn't because I want to stick it to people because genuinely that's what it costs to keep a $250 clean on my schedule in a monthly capacity if I'm not making that it's not worth it to sit on my schedule.
SPEAKER_00So that eliminates a lot of people that's going to eliminate grandmas and grandpas who cannot afford the 250 bucks which is fine and it covers three and a half hours of labor and the reason why we do that or three and a half to four hours is so because monthly cleanings take more detail there's not a lot of feather dusting you can do in a monthly you have to wipe a lot of that stuff there's a lot of more maintenance because it's been a longer period of time and and you know and you that's how I spin it too that I'm like there's more dust there's more accumulation it's not a quick wipe because they don't walk in those rooms so they don't see how much and you're like we're like whoa and it that stuff that you learn as you go along that oh monthlies do take a little bit longer you need to learn your production rates you gotta learn that is something there's a podcast about that too. Yes I cannot stress that enough that is something that goes all into this your production rates we won't talk about KPIs here either.
SPEAKER_01But this is just how to stop some of the chaos in your business baby steps we look forward to your questions again if you're looking to sponsor be a sponsor on the show we have all kinds of sponsorship packages please reach out to myself or Jamie we're happy to sit down and talk to you about what your needs are and obviously if you have time and you remember give us a five star review that tells the other algorithm that hey we're worthy I think we reach more people like you guys that are listening and just just starting off and and some people and not not everybody's just starting off either you know I don't matter this podcast is for anybody and we hope that we're reaching new heights and new people and we just absolutely love you guys.
SPEAKER_00So we'll talk to you guys soon.
SPEAKER_01Take care bye music going on all right that's the episode if your business feels less chaotic take this with you chaos is a leadership signal not a personality flaw fix the structure and stress drops if you want help installing pricing boundaries scope control that actually sticks go to cleanfreaksuniversity dot com and if this episode helped you leave a five star review it helps more cleaning business owners find the show see you next time
