Filthy Rich Cleaners: The Cleaning Business Podcast

Two cleaners, the same feedback, but two completely different reactions. This told Stephanie everything she needed to know about who stays and who goes at Serene Clean. In this episode, Stephanie talks about why she views accountability as the single biggest predictor of whether someone will succeed on your team (or in your business). She walks through two active situations in her company right no...

If you're burnt out doing every clean yourself but terrified to hire, you're not alone! In this episode, Stephanie welcomes back Simone Angell of The House Mum to talk about a question posted in the ZenMaid Mastermind: how do you transition from doing all the cleaning yourself to building and leading a team? Simone, who just hit 30 employees running a luxury household-management company in Austral...

It's not a matter of IF you'll break something in a client's home, but a matter of when 😬 It happens to every cleaning business owner, and in this solo episode, Stephanie talks about things she and her team have broken, damaged, and replaced over seven years at Serene Clean — from a faucet that snapped in her hand to a priceless glass statue that couldn't be replaced. She breaks down who's respon...

Hiring is hard, but firing is harder — especially when it's the first time you have to do it.  In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Lee Anne Chevalier, owner of SerenLumi in Ithaca, New York, just hours after she performed her first-ever employee termination! Lee Anne walks through her decades in cleaning, rebuilding her business from rock bottom after moving states, and the timely story of a...

Stephanie used to spend nothing on job listings for years. That's all changed now, and in this solo episode, Stephanie walks through Serene Clean's real numbers behind a month of aggressive hiring. She shares the May 2026 hiring funnel — from applications started to retained hires — and how much she spent on Indeed to get there.    📌 What You'll Learn — Why free job listing hacks on Indeed no lon...

Most cleaning business owners obsess over hiring, but few ask the people who actually stay why they stayed. In this in-person episode, Stephanie sits down with Ashley Seekamp, one of her very first hires at Serene Clean and now her longest-tenured cleaning technician at nearly seven years. They talk candidly about what it was like to build the company out of chaos, the growing pains of adding stru...

Owners are often terrified to raise prices, and Stephanie Pipkin completely understands why. In fact, her team, including Serene Clean's Customer Relations Manager, Katie, just did it across the board, but they came out with their highest close rate in years. In this special in-person episode, Stephanie sits down with Katie to break down the whirlwind of May: a price increase on 72 existing client...

ZenMaid wants to be more than your scheduling software. In this episode, Stephanie sits down again with Amar Ghose, CEO of ZenMaid, to talk about how ZenMaid is thinking about the maid service industry and the problems it's setting out to solve. They talk about using AI as a thinking partner instead of a decision-maker, the new tools coming out of ZenMaid (MaidPop, the customer portal, and a train...

After seven years, Stephanie recently built a real career path at Serene Clean, but it looks nothing like what most cleaning companies do. In this episode, she unveils the new four-level career path she launched: Cleaning Tech 1, Cleaning Tech 2, Senior Cleaning Tech 1, and Senior Cleaning Tech 2. She breaks down why she intentionally left some roles vague to future-proof the business, how she tie...

Matt Ricketts went from being a furloughed pilot back in the 2008 economic crash to owning a residential cleaning company doing $6M a year, but he didn't plan any of this. In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Matt Ricketts of Better Life Home Services to talk about why he decided to own a cleaning business after being furloughed from his pilot job, and how he eventually scaled to 60+ cleaners...

If you're prepping every cleaner's kit, tolerating time theft, or trying to force the wrong person into an office role, this one's for you 🥴 In this episode, Stephanie breaks down three examples from the past week of cleaning business owners doing too much, including why your cleaners should be responsible for their own kits and supplies, why time theft is a non-negotiable firing offense, and why...

Krista Radau didn't set out to build a cleaning empire; she just needed to help pay the bills! Six years later, she's running Extreme Clean Solutions in Oklahoma City with her husband, son, niece, and now her mom, and growing 30% a year without spending any money on ads 🤯 In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Krista to talk about starting a cleaning business in November 2019 (right before COV...

Reviews are the lifeblood of a residential cleaning business, and the companies racking up hundreds of them have a system in place, including Serene Clean. In this episode, Stephanie breaks down exactly how Serene Clean has collected 471 (!!!) Google reviews, 64 Facebook reviews, and dozens of video testimonials over seven years. She walks through the leave-behind cards, QR codes, email signatures...

Most cleaning business owners think they have a hiring problem, a marketing problem, or a cash flow problem, but Dan Platta disagrees. He says they actually have a clarity problem 🤯 In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Dan Platta, owner of Best Damn Bookkeeping and former operator of multiple cleaning, window, and home service businesses across the US. Dan breaks down the "Purgatories of Sca...

Free PR? Sign us up! It's not as far-fetched as it sounds, and Stephanie's team pulled it off last month with one well-crafted email. In this solo episode, Stephanie breaks down the exact media pitch her executive assistant, Veronica, used to land Serene Clean in two local news outlets in April. She talks about why charitable giving has been baked into Serene Clean's brand since its inception in 2...

Reagan Bell was fired from a toxic cleaning job at 18. Four years later, she's running her own organic cleaning company in Orlando, and about to take it fully remote. In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Reagan, the 22-year-old founder of Bell's Organic Maids, to talk about how she turned getting fired from a chaotic contractor job into launching her own business from scratch. They cover the...

After seven years of being known as "the hourly girl," Stephanie made the change she swore she'd never make 🤯 In this solo episode, Stephanie walks through exactly how and why she transitioned the residential side of Serene Clean from hourly to flat rate pricing — on both maintenance cleans AND initial cleans — while keeping her cleaners on hourly pay. She breaks down the profit reasoning, the op...

Ryan Williams spent two years at ZenMaid helping cleaning business owners better run their companies...then he bought into one. In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Ryan, co-owner of The Villages Maid Service Hot Springs location and VP of Revenue at ZenMaid, to talk about what changed when he went from giving advice to living it. They talk about classic hiring chaos, the feast-or-famine pend...

...and it worked! Well, kind of. In this solo episode, Stephanie talks about her experience at the Acquisition.com scaling workshop, which she took her entire management team to. Hosted by Alex Hormozi's team, she got to ask him a question directly about how to fix an ongoing issue at Serene Clean and walked away with the clearest game plan she's ever had for breaking through her revenue plateau....

Shannon Miller has been in the cleaning industry for 16 years, sold one company, is preparing to sell another, and coaches thousands of owners a year through Klean Freaks University. She's seen it all, and in this episode, Stephanie sits down with Shannon to unpack the realities of building, scaling, and eventually selling a cleaning business. They talk through the classic W-2 vs. 1099 debate, why...

Most business owners say they don't have time to read. But Stephanie has built a 7-figure cleaning company, and these books are a big reason why. In this solo episode, Stephanie breaks down every book that has had a lasting impact on her life and her business. From heavy personal reads on trauma, suffering, and purpose, to tactical frameworks on delegation, cash management, sales, and systems, she...

What happens when a corporate sales executive burns out so badly that her brother jokes she might end up on World News Tonight? She moves to Boulder and starts cleaning houses!   In this episode, Stephanie sits down with Natalie Mikishko, owner of Majestic Domestics and Clean Conscience Cleaning Service in Boulder, Colorado. Natalie walked away from a career that spanned HR training, grocery purch...

Most cleaning business owners think checklists are unnecessary friction and just another paper to hold onto. But Stephanie thinks they're one of the main reasons she built a million-dollar company, and she's ready to convince you 😉 In this solo episode, Stephanie breaks down every angle of why Serene Clean has used a physical paper checklist at every single residential appointment since the very...

Revenue is down $25,000, yet profit is up 53%. How does that happen? And what does it actually mean for the business? In this solo episode, Stephanie walks through her full Q1 2026 financial and business review for Serene Clean (the same report she presented to her management team that week). She covers the data analysis she did to uncover her insights, why revenue is down but profit is up, and th...

She left nursing, started cleaning for friends as therapy, and accidentally built an 18-year cleaning empire in one of the wildest cities in America. LaShanda Brown has seen (and cleaned) everything 👀 In this episode, Stephanie sits down with LaShanda, owner of Sweeping Hands Cleaning Service in New Orleans, Louisiana, to talk about how she transitioned from a decade-long nursing career into clea...