Carfagno Cleaning is a corporation with various divisions. We have a this podcast and the Solo Cleaning School. I serve team cleaners in the SMART Cleaning Tribe. This all falls under my 'consulting' division. My main division is my own solo cleaning business that I am rebuilding in the Philly suburbs after sellling my first one to Ian Traynor of Albany Pure Cleaning. I hope you've been enjoying this podcast and the journey I've taken you on.
This week was a short one as Thanksgiving cut off 2 days and my family was traveling to New Jersey for a long weekend. I started the week with a meeting with Ken Byler of Higher Ground Consulting. I met him and really connected at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon a few weeks ago. This was a fun meeting. I am used to asking questions and listening, but I met with a greater master than I. Ken skillfully got me to talk the whole time and then asked how he could help me. I literally ran out of time to help him. You got me, Ken! Anyway, here's the answer I gave him. "How do I best use or network in the chamber?" Ken's answer floored me. He said this. "Find out the available Chamber committees and see where you can help. They meet once per month for an hour. Pour into it and show your value. This builds relationships with chamber members and raises your level of trust. From here you will Get a name for doing and contributing. Others in the chamber will want to connect 1-to-1. Set the meetings and connect more. This will lead to lasting relationships, leads, and it helps the community through your chamber leadership efforts." This was a drop the mic answer.
Outside of cleaning the usual 2 offices, playing a Thanksgiving flag football game that ended in an emergency room visit, and going to NJ for excellent family time, there was one other thing I did this week. It took me all week! I worked on the 3 proposals for Gary Volpe. This is a huge opportunity. One is for his main offices & showroom, another for the chamber offices inside of his building, and the third for his old building. This was a job much larger than I usually do, so I had to connect with a janitorial business owner for his opinion and he helped quite a bit. Gary's building is 13,000 sqft of office and showroom space. The other 25,000+ sqft is warehouse space. I estimate that I would be cleaning between 40-50% of the 13,000 sqft every week. I won't bore you with the math here, but I was able to scale his large business to a size that I am used to cleaning. This gave me a ballpark for where his building should price. Trust me, it took a long time to figure this out and hours of itemizing his large building. I was able to complete the 3 proposals and email them at 10pm on Tuesday. This barely met my promise to get it done by Tuesday. I was so happy to pour so much effort into giving well-thought out proposals and even more thrilled to be done!
I mentioned the power of the new Google My Business offering in my last update. I collected my first review this week. Yay! My goal is to get 20-25, so this is a great start! I just need to keep asking. And isn't that a great message for all business owners. Just keep asking.