Smart Cleaning School

 This episode was inspired by my friend and upcoming guest on the Smart Cleaning School. Vincent Pugliese is a coach, speaker, author, and mastermind leader. I was at his Total Life Freedom Retreat in St. Augustine in February as I've mentioned in a few recent episodes. It was so helpful and inspiring to be around 20 other entrepreneurs from around the country with ranging backgrounds and exp...

 I was in a 4-person mastermind breakout group that I mentioned in " Confidence Creates Success ", where we each helped the others grow the next level. One of the members was Matt Peet. Matt has become a good friend and is a conference videographer extraordinaire! He does all the video work for one of my favorite conferences, Podcast Movement. You've got to check out his website, Re...

 There are multiple pieces of glass and mirrors on a car. They are designed for visibility and safety. The windshield allows you to see what's in front of you. The side windows allow you to see what is coming at you from the sides. The side-view mirrors allow you to see your blind spots. The rear windshield gives you visibility behind you and rear-view mirrors allow a quick glimpse of what&ap...

 Two recent conversations have ignited my excitement about our industry. In my interview with Ricky Regalado , he shared industry growth stats that floored me. Has the number of new cleaning business owners doubled due to the pandemic? A few short months later, I met with commercial cleaning industry leader Ed Selkow for coffee. Our conversation lasted 3 hours and I took so many notes. Ed will abs...

 In my " January 2022 Freedom Update with Coach Josh ", I inferred that we qualified for the trip to Florida that we booked after " A New Freedom Vision ". I had just onboarded my fifth and final cleaner to cover our tenth and final building. The other 4 C3 Team Members were all doing well and Florida was inevitable. We had fought hard for several months and especially over the...

 I was so honored when Kevin called me after crossing the one million dollar mark. That conversation lead to an expert call on the Smart Cleaning Tribe and a podcast interview with Kevin. I took clips of both and created this "best-of" episode. After hearing Kevin's take on stewardship, I completely changed my pronouns as well. It's not MY business. It's HIS business and I...

 I met a new friend recently from Newcastle, South Wales, AU. Dave Reeks is the owner of The Finest Clean in that area and is a new Solo Elite member. Dave has a ministry background and recently moved. He found the cleaning industry and got super excited about the potential of having his own house cleaning business. We were able to connect on Zoom with the goal for me to help him. But really Dave....

 In " Building My New Cleaning Network I ", I shared my marketing strategy from the summer of 2018 after moving back to the Philadelphia Area. I was scrappy and willing to knock on doors to say, "Hi, my name is Ken Carfagno." My friend Kevin Lacombe did the same thing in his new solo cleaning business when I was coaching him in late 2018. I knocked on 13 doors in the same town...

 In " Building My New Cleaning Network I " , I shared the mindset of how building your network is similar to building a water well. You can't just turn on the faucet to get water. Here is the conclusion to this October 2019 episode. 

 This episode was recorded in October 2019 as I launched my new cleaning business in the Philadelphia Area. We are so accustomed to turning on the faucet and immediately getting water. But that's not how it worked for our early settlers. They had to dig water wells and later, water pumps. They had to put in the work first to build the system for obtaining water. That's what this Best-Of...

 I have been fortunate to interview several visionaries in our industry over the past year. This interview with Ricky Regalado was different. He is such a visionary that he inspired me to do greater things in this amazing industry. Take the time to listen to this one all the way through and then listen again. You will not be disappointed.   The first portion of the interview covers Ricky's up...

 Over the past several months, you have seen a tremendous shift in my personal cleaning brand as it moved from Carfagno Cleaning (50% house cleaning / 50% office cleaning) to Carfagno Commercial Cleaning and the C3 Experience (90% office cleaning). When I cleaned houses in my first solo cleaning business, I had a certain type of house and customer that I wanted. This is what made me so successful...

 About a year ago, I had a conversation with Carrie Miyazono. She is the owner of Kaizen Cleaning in Chanhassen, MN and a Black Belt in taekwondo. Her solo cleaning business is highly niched to clean martial arts dojos. These schools have students sweating up the mats every day of the week. In many cases, the owners are either cleaning themselves or have a staff member do it. Therefore, Carrie fou...

 There is only one true video game console. It's called NES or Nintendo! And within the NES world, there is only a few real games. They are everything Super Mario, Mike Tyson's Punch Out, and Contra! Where are all my Gen X'ers? And yes, Gen Y'ers too? Let's talk the brilliance of the game Contra in this episode. No. It's  not going to be this. " Ken, it's up...

 This month's Freedom Report starts with a clip from a call with Coach Josh. I had accomplished a lot in December as you heard in the last report , adding 5 new buildings and 1 new team member. The 5 buildings added $3,800 per month of new revenue and brought us to 13 buildings and 5 houses to delegate. The new team member would take 3 of the buildings, leaving a lot more still to delegate. I...

 This episode of the original Solo Cleaning School is one of my most downloaded ones to date. I have personally heard several stories how this episode along with a few others helped someone start a solo cleaning business as a side hustle. I can't tell you how exciting that makes me! I wanted to make one update to this episode based on where I am in my personal business in 2022. If you've...

 I brought Molly Moran onto the Smart Cleaning Tribe in December 2021 as the 4th expert in the 7-Figure Series. Molly started Green Sweep NM in 2009. She lives in Albuquerque, NM. She grew her business to $600k in 6 years with basic systems and a split of 50/50 commercial & residential. Molly decided to sell the commercial side of her company to focus on houses. After 2 more years, she built t...

  The FAA requires a runway length of 7,500 feet for a 747 airplane to take-off and land. This length adds on considerable margin for slippery surfaces from poor weather or possibly malfunction. Have you ever noticed how exact air traffic control and schedules are? Your plane has an exact take-off time. It takes a few minutes to depart from the gate and taxi to the assigned runway strip. Then it s...

 I have shared highlights and interactions from the Smart Cleaning Tribe that I facilitate every Monday. This past week's call was wide-ranging in topics, but one issue spoke to many in the Tribe. Communication. When you run a solo business under $100k, it's fairly easy to maintain all communication of email, texts, and online messages with your customers. For the most part, solos have u...

 We discuss a wide array of topics in this podcast episode anchored on our belief system. What is the underlying characteristic that has helped Debbie Sardone succeed in each of her businesses? It's her belief and conviction that what she is doing is right and is helping people. This conviction creates the self-confidence to take massive action and the massive  action leads to massive results...

 It's time for another Tim Ferriss Podcast reference. Oh my. David Blaine the magician was such an entertaining 55 minutes!  There were so many actionable words of wisdom. The one that got me to stop and listen again was this one. David told the story when he was a young magician doing street magic. He was in an airport and he got some bags mixed up because they all look the same. He said I t...

 Welcome to the next Solo Saturday! I'm here for you solo cleaners. Have you enjoyed these bonus episodes just for you? We're just coming off the Christmas Season, New Year's, and now we're hard at work setting 2022 goals. I want to share a scene from one of my favorite movies, " It's a Wonderful Life ". This scene is a turning point in George Bailey's life...

 After a networking meeting, I was out in the parking lot chatting with my friend Gary Volpe as we were both making our way to our vehicles. The topic of telling our story came up and Gary lit up!   " Ken, we have a great salesman who is selling windows for $1,200 each that normally go for $800 each. He sells them at a 65% closing rate. This is insanely good in this industry and probably any...

 I ended the November Freedom Report with peace. We had brought our plan to go to Florida to God and asked Him to show us the way. We had over 20 job applications come in with no new hires. I personally connected and made initial connection to 240 local office cleaning prospects and followed up with close to 100 phone calls to find out if they had a cleaner in house or outsourced and if they were...

 This episode was the turning point of my 2021, where I publicly announced that I was changing my business model from solo cleaning to building a team. If you're new to this podcast, here's why this is so significant. Around the cleaning industry, I have been known as the solo cleaning expert. I have built 2 solo cleaning businesses to $60,000 income per year on 2 cleaning days per week...