Growing Your Business Too Fast Will Screw You (Here’s Why I Took 8 Years)

For the first 8 years of running my window cleaning business, I didn’t chase rapid growth.

No massive teams. No crazy overhead. No “scale at all costs.”

And honestly… I’m glad it worked out that way.

In this episode, I break down why growing too fast can actually hurt your business—and how staying small gave me something most people skip: time, freedom, and real skill.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What's up guys? Welcome back to Clean for Profit. I'm just running a solo episode this afternoon. You'll have to forgive my voice a little bit. I got uh I got allergies. Uh we got lots of oak and ponderosa pine here in Northern California. And it hits me pretty hard this time of year. So I'm gonna try to keep the uh sneezes and sniffles to a low, but we're just gonna see how that goes. It doesn't always go as planned. I just wanted to take a minute to talk kind of casually about what's been going on in my business and how you know you don't want to grow into a business that you're not ready to grow into, basically, is kind of the the theme that I want to get out here. So I'll I'm gonna start by just talking about what's been happening at a high level uh during 2026 for my business. I filmed this on March 15th, it's a Sunday, and a lot has been happening. The uh the Facebook ads that I've been running have been absolutely printing money. Um I'm super grateful for Dave uh to Dave for showing me how to set those up properly. Uh we would be way further back than we are right now without those if we were just relying on organic and LSAs. Um, you know, those have those have brought us in indoor hangers for that matter. Those have brought us in a fair amount. But the Facebook ads have really brought it to a whole new level, and that's been awesome. I bought a new van a handful of weeks ago. It's been sitting so far. We're uh we have a wrap design that just got approved, and it sounds like that's gonna be templated and going into the shop next week. I'm really excited for that. The van is a a uh Ford Transit 250, so it's a bigger van, and we're doing a full wrap on it, and it's gonna look sick. I'm really excited to be getting into something that looks that legitimate after uh like eight years now. Uh, you know, I started this business when I first started in a Subaru Forester, which I think a lot of you are probably in a similar situation. It's like you have a car, it's not optimal for what you're trying to do. Um, because unless you want a truck, like there really are no vehicles other than vans and trucks that are optimal for this business. So you're like buying a minivan or operating out of a Nissan Pathfinder or something like that, and just kind of trying to make it work. Uh and for me that was a Subaru Forester, and then for the last five years or so, it's been a Toyota Sequoia, which has worked pretty darn good. There's a reason I haven't upgraded in this time. The Sequoia is a fantastic truck, it's SUV. Uh, it fits all the gear that I need, and uh yeah, it's good, but it just doesn't look as like amazing as it could, and it's getting up there in miles. We're we're at 231 now, and it's in need of some work. So, anyways, we bought that van. We got a new wrap coming. With that, has come a ton of new gear. I don't know if it's in frame right now, but I've got my new Zero uh Pro Max Plus, I believe it's called, I'm forgetting. Um it's a dual stage uh dual stage waterfront pole tower. I'm stoked. We got another pole and we got a splitter, so we're gonna be able to run two poles simultaneously. Um and I finally got uh something that I've wanted for a while. I'll show you guys watching on video real quick. I got a uh Wagtail squeegee, so this side is the pad, and then you can flip it over, and you've got your squeegee, and this articulates. So now we have a lot less of a need for tricky interior ladder work, which is great because we work at a lot of high-end residential, and uh basically as far up as we can reach with a pole, which is 40 feet, uh, we can use the wagtail if we have enough skill. So really excited to give that a go. And combining those with the tech pads will be great as well. Next uh next thing is we have new employees. Um, just one right now. I hired one technician and he's catching on great. Um, he's gonna be up to speed probably in another two to three weeks of training. He's getting really accurate with a washer and a squeegee. Uh so now it's just about uh getting him a little higher up, so getting him on ladders and increasing speed overall, which is about as much as I can ask for for someone that's only been working for two weeks. The guy's been super reliable so far. Umly downside is he's you know he's uh enlisted in the National Guard and he's going to officer candidate school in August. Um so you know, it's mid-March, April, mid-June, July, August, you know, we got four and a half months with him. So he'll be like, that's gonna help a lot, but it is a temporary solution. Um, but fortunately he's leaving during the end of the year. You know, it sounds like as long as he doesn't get caught up in, you know, what's happening in Iran um or something else that he would like to come back. Um this is a good opportunity for him. He was working a job that was like way too far of a commute for an organization that wasn't pleasant to work for. So this has been a big upgrade for him, and uh I've been super grateful for his reliability. Um I need at least two more technicians to get on and help me because we've been so busy. It's been really cool. I think that my goal from a personnel standpoint, well, lastly, we're hiring an administrative assistant soon. So I'm in talks with somebody pretty seriously. We're actually doing an orientation tomorrow um on how to use my business phone uh number. So I'm currently working on building out like a call center workflow, basically, that implements a lot of automations. So like when I get a new Facebook lead, for example, it automatically gets put into a workflow that assigns the administrative assistant the first call, and then based on the outcome of that call, they mark it. And depending on what it's marked as, it goes on to the next automation, reschedules the next call, or schedules an automated text, uh, automated breakup text at the end after three reach outs, three, four reach outs, something like that. That's still in the works, but the phones are overwhelming me, man. I mean, right now I make about 30 phone calls on average per business day, and I need to get that outsourced reliably because that's a whole part-time job. Um, so I'm excited to get that outsourced. Uh, it's really cool being in this position because if I can get that figured out, we're gonna have the biggest year ever, and I won't be on the phones past April, which is really amazing to think about because I've always been less efficient because I'm being pulled away as a solo operator from my work um by other work. Um so my work on the field is taken away from my work in the office, my work in the office, and you know, vice versa. Um, so that's pretty interesting. Estimates, if you hadn't already guessed, from that call volume are completely out of control. Um, it's Sunday today. On Friday, I did 21 estimates, which is so much. I booked on Friday. I booked on Friday, I booked 30% more in revenue than my average month last year, which is staggering. Um, and it's mid-March, which is not for us at least peak season. April, May, and June tend to be where we kind of peak out, but we've had a pretty stable season since moving back here. So I don't think it's gonna calm down too significantly. So the implications for that are crazy. That was Friday. Tomorrow I have 16 estimates. So the velocity of demand that's coming in is amazing but overwhelming. In the past, um I've experienced uh a fraction of this growth, and I have always kind of paused when it started happening. So as a solo operator or a guy with just one helper, um it becomes really easy, especially because we relied so much on organic in uh in like my for the first time I did this down here in California, the second time I did it up in Bend Oregon. Um, we relied so much on organic that it you couldn't exactly turn it on and off like a spigot because organic doesn't always work that way. But like when we were in Bend, for example, all I did while I was there, man, was post on the local next door page, and that supported my business um really, really reliably for four years. Uh, and I never grew beyond that. And whenever I got too busy, I would just dial back on how frequently I was posting. Instead of posting once a week, I wouldn't post for two months, or I would post once a month, or once every two weeks, or whatever it was. Um so I was always contracting whenever this growth started to happen. And this is the first time that I've ever really leaned into the growth that I've ever really gone, I'm getting really busy instead of shying away. What can I do to sustain this velocity of business that's coming in without it all being on me? Which has been really interesting because this is the first time I think one of the keys to that is this is the first time that I've lived in an area where I knew I wanted to be long term. Before, you know, when I lived down here previously, we were living with my parents and we had our first child, our first son. So obviously we weren't going to be staying for forever. And we knew that. And the same thing was the case when we moved up to Central Oregon. Um, we have family out in Portland, but other than that, it's kind of a desert for us out there in terms of like family that lives up there. So that was more of like a going to establish our family independently kind of move, and we had a feeling that we might not end up staying there long term. Um, because surprisingly, it's more expensive in Central Oregon than it is down here in California where we live. Um but yeah, man, I mean, next month is April, and it will be one of the top ten biggest months ever, and we're currently weeks out. So we have we have 22,000 plus scheduled for April. Uh, and it it depends on how really the bottleneck is people. Like it depends on how how trained up my first employee is if he can do jobs solo next month. Because right now he's working part-time with me Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Because he's not trained up, I don't want him to be out there independently yet, but I need to be doing estimates sometime. So Mondays and Fridays I'm doing estimates. So I need somebody that's trained up and can do Monday Monday through Friday, ideally. Um, and then I can do estimates on those two days still and be independent and have independent workers out delivering work uh reliably, which is another help for the administrative assistant because we'll have quality assurance calls on a regular basis that'll be done by somebody other than me. Um so I mean, what's my point here? Um, you know, I was in a coaching call with my coach Nick about two weeks ago now, and he told me that this growth could have happened a long time ago, but that I wasn't ready. And he's right. I mean, I'm not I'm not monumentally more intelligent than I was, you know, three, four years ago. I I'd say I'm probably a little bit wiser, I'm certainly more patient. But um one of my favorite parts of this business is that you can do whatever you want with it. Like if you want to be a solo operator or have one helper, you can do that. You can do that for a season, you can do it for your whole career, uh, and there's nothing wrong with that. And that's what I did until you know, until now, until the coming like the next couple of months from now. Like my goal is to have two leads trained up by the end of the season and hopefully carry them over into 2027 so that that year we can have leads that can train technicians um and you know, hopefully have a self-replicating personnel machine. But anyway, my point here is that you know, I spent I've spent seven, eight years in this business as a solo operator and I have loved it. Um there's certainly been moments where it feels like I'm just stuck in the truck uh because uh the revenue is completely dependent on me uh having a squeegee in my hand. And that can be overwhelming. Um but it also affords you some ability to do whatever you want with the business. Like I'm I'm moving into a I'm moving into a place where I'm intentionally trying to grow, and that's what I want to do. But you know, I have people that are gonna be depending on me now year-round for income, and I don't want to let them down. And so in a way, it's like by getting more detached from the day-to-day activities of the business, I'm actually investing more into the business than I ever have. Um, because there's people that depend on me. And I didn't want that until recently. I didn't want the growth that necessitated that uh dependence from from other people. Because I was becoming a dad. Um you know, I have three boys, the oldest is seven, uh, and that's when I well the oldest is six. And like over the last five, six years, I didn't care about growing this business, and I don't think I should have, because I've spent so much time investing into being a young father and into growing the family and investing deeply in the family, and being a solo operator and running a window cleaning business has allowed me to do that, and so I've just been really like I'm really grateful for the opportunity to to do that, to be a solo operator. It's been so cool. And I also didn't really know what I wanted to do uh for that time. And so I spent a lot of that time like the last seven, eight years, learning. Um I've had several like I've had a bunch of I've had a bunch of jobs that kind of are scattered throughout my window cleaning career. Collectively, I've spent about two and a half years in sales. I spent the better part of a year and a half after cleaning, doing window cleaning days, learning software engineering. Um I've learned a lot about how to code, how to build websites and applications, and um most importantly how to problem solve, how to not pull my own hair out when stuff comes up, um, and how to think to an extent like an engineer, which has been extremely beneficial and has informed my business building quite a bit as well. Um and then lastly, I've learned a lot about general business ownership, and I'm kind of taking a dive into leadership now because I'm finding that you know you can only grow an organization at the speed that you can develop great leaders. Otherwise, you're just building a house of cards. So I'm trying to learn about leadership. I'm trying to learn about how to be a servant leader. I'm trying to learn about how to correct people without uh micromanaging. I'm learning about enforcing standards and writing standards down and detaching personal preference from what's best for the company, things like that. And if I had just pushed growth back then in the window cleaning business, I w I wouldn't have sustained it. I didn't have the interest or a good reason to do so. And now my interests are kind of coming to a confluence. You know, the sales, the software engineering, and the window cleaning have all made me really interested in helping other businesses grow and retain their clientele, which is what I'm starting my agency for. Um yeah, I haven't talked a lot about it because right now I'm focusing on building the window cleaning business into like a model for what's possible in part through what I've learned uh and what I'm incorporating into my agency offer, which is basically like building a great website for your business with dynamic forms that instantly notify you when you have a new lead. And through building review and retention systems into your business. So like we use uh a CRM, and whenever we set a job to complete on that CRM, it gives the client a tag and automatically asks them for a review via text message two times over four days. Uh, but then it also puts them into a rebooking workflow so that it reaches out to them at the six and twelve month mark, um, basically prompting them to rebook your services, uh, which I'm super excited for. Uh we have dozens and dozens of clients from this year that are currently in that workflow. We launched it for our business just a couple few months ago. Um, and I'm really excited for what that's gonna provide. I think that that's gonna be a high five-figure return on investment. And you know, my offer I think is gonna end up being a few hundred bucks a month, and so being able to, you know, put back 10, 15, 25,$30,000 into a business for, you know, several hundred dollars a month is a great return on investment. So, uh, anyways, uh that's kind of like all of my interests over the last 10 years basically have kind of come to a confluence where now I can now I'm working towards using everything that I've learned and all the things that I'm really passionate and interested in uh together to help other people. I'm really excited for that. And uh which has kind of honestly busted the myth that like for me you should follow your passion. You know, I'm 31. I think my whole generation heard again and again and again that they should follow their passion. Which like the opposite has kind of happened for me, man. Like I've spent the last 10 years trying to figure out how to make money in a way that's like conducive to my personality. And I've tried a bunch of things that I've been decently good at uh but not ultimately interested in pursuing heavily long term, like cleaning windows, software engineering, sales, uh, for example. But the confluence, like the combination of those things together leads to a really uh interesting solution that I'm super passionate about bringing to the marketplace and helping other people with. So I'm very passionate about that. But you know, ten years ago, if I had spent if I had spent a week with a career counselor, there's no way that we would have come to the conclusion of like, hey, you should build a window cleaning business and also learn about sales and how to use software to help your small business so that you can leverage your window cleaning business long term into like building it into a model to help other people build their businesses as well. Like it's such an obscure outcome. Uh and yet I'm so passionate about it and excited to be working diligently towards it. So, anyways, um, you know, I I want to do these solo episodes every now and then to just kind of give you more kind of personal insight into who I am and where I'm trying to go. I appreciate you guys all being here. Um, these are still the early days of this podcast, and I've just I've developed so much, and I have my attitude has changed so much just as a result of talking to Dave, uh working with my coach Nick, and knowing that there's some of you out there, you guys have been reaching out to me, either asking for advice or just like saying that you've been digging the podcast. Um, you know, I met Stevo the window cleaner. Guys, like kind of a big deal in my in my world. Um I'm just super grateful for the opportunity that this podcast has provided so far. Uh and like you're you're you're part of that, you're like the main part of that. The fact that any of you are Listening is amazing. And so I just wanted to take a moment to thank you and give you some more perspective on who I am. Um yeah, this has been Clean for Profit and uh thanks for being here. We'll see you next week.