I’ve met a lot of people in the cleaning business industry over the last couple of years. Most of those connections actually came from online interactions, through LinkedIn or Facebook or someone in Atlanta checking us out on Yelp and then reaching out via our website (Maid to Glow).
I briefly touched on the importance of being active on LinkedIn and joining relevant Facebook groups in my guide on landing commercial cleaning clients. Worth a read if you have time!
I’m a member of quite a few cleaning industry groups on Facebook. I was browsing posts one morning and came across this post on my feed and I got super PUMPED:
I loved seeing Bojan’s success and reached out to him via Facebook to see if he would be interested in talking about his experience and success.I really wanted to hear a success story from someone using Maidily. After some back and forth he agreed! Here’s the interview log below:
==================================================================
“Introducing automation to my business I was able to dedicate more time to the growth and get where I am today. It really comes down to working smarter, not harder.”
=====================================================================
Mony: Thanks for the shout out on Facebook – we really appreciate that! Can you tell us a little more about yourself and how/why you decided to enter the cleaning industry?
Bojan: Hey Mony, no worries! You’re the one that created Maidily and helped me get where I am today.
Anyways, yes – let me introduce myself to everyone. I graduated from college in 2019 at the department of Online Media & Internet Marketing. Afterward, I decided to set out and fulfill the plan that I envisioned a long time ago. The plan only had one clear direction and that is – to work remotely and travel.
Starting a cleaning business was the perfect opportunity for me to fulfill my plan. The neighborhood in downtown Baltimore where I lived had almost no reliable cleaning services nearby, so hiring a cleaner was a real hustle – too much work to get my 1 bedroom apartment cleaned.
So with that said, I knew that since we have many high-rise buildings around there were plenty of people in my shoes. The demand was there, but it seemed very difficult to find a reliable service – especially one that didn’t require phone calls for estimates or in person consultations. That’s where I stepped in.
Mony: So basically you were looking for freedom to travel between the US and Europe to see family! Starting a maid service business and automating it has allowed you to do that, right?
Bojan: Exactly. I wanted to travel freely as most of my family was in Europe and I found myself across the pond (USA). Having a 9 to 5 job would have made seeing my family much harder.
Sure, I did work 9 to 5, even more, once I first started out as it was basically only me working in the company – I was the one doing the cleaning. However, the long-term plan was already in place and that’s of course hiring and automating.
Having a degree in online media and internet marketing helps so I was aware of the online business model – how it works, the benefits it offers – freedom – and much more. I knew that automation equals scaling! And it truly does since now I operate a cleaning business with over 15 cleaners! None of that would be possible without having some aspects of my business automated.
Mony: What were some of the challenges you faced while starting your business?
Bojan: As I mentioned previously, it was only me working in the beginning. Making schedules, landing clients, getting the equipment needed, going in the field and doing the cleaning… Man those first few months were rough.
That’s one of the biggest challenges I have faced so far. Not giving up and believing in the goals I’ve set.
If I didn’t set the end goal of automating the business so that I can focus on growing it and operating it remotely – I’d probably give up after the first few months. Setting the goals made me stay on the road when times were rough.
Mony: Were your intentions to fully automate Cleaning Frenzy there from the beginning or was your business more hands-on (manual) when you first started?
Bojan: Honestly yeah. I’m an internet marketer myself so I was aware of all the benefits automation can offer me. I gladly accepted them.
Automation is one of the main reasons Cleaning Frenzy has over a few hundred recurring monthly customers.
Mony: Awesome, congrats on that success! I love that we are playing a part in your success. How much work do you put into managing Cleaning Frenzy now?
Bojan: I’ve finally reached the point where I can enjoy reaping the rewards of success. I spend around 2 hours daily at most managing Cleaning Frenzy now. Much better than the 10-12 hour shifts I used to do when I first started out.
Regular workday averages around 1 hour and I can spend the rest of the day doing whatever I want. Whether it’s improving the business or just playing ball with my dog, Krux. He’s an adorable pup by the way!
Mony: Do you have assistants that help you manage schedules and jobs? How do you get customers (jobs) since you’re so hands off with your business?
Bojan: Fortunately, I do. Marija, my secretary, is here to help me along the way. She now handles most of the work and she does it better than I used to do it. It’s really important to find a person you trust along the way and share the workload.
Not only will it ease the burden on your shoulders, but it will also help you grow as now you can dedicate more time to the growth.
Mony: So what you are telling me is that you don’t have to constantly take phone calls and/or constantly drive around to do estimates?
Bojan: Those times are behind me. As I said, my assistant takes care of this type of work so I’m generally pretty free from calls and on-site visits. I do take commercial calls and do on-site visits for any commercial projects that require that before we bid on them.
Most of my work comes down to making sure the workflow is smooth and undisturbed. The best thing is I do this remotely with the help of Maidily.
Mony: How are you taking payments? When your customers book online do they use a credit card?
Bojan: Well, we require credit cards at checkout! We have integrated your – Maidily’s – pricing calculator and booking form on our website and that’s probably been the single most impactful move I made that led to growth.
But we also take bookings over the phone if someone does not want to fill things out online. Around 20% of our customers still book us via phone and that’s something we don’t want to miss out on.
We used to take cash and check, I used to collect those but once I started growing I just had to focus on other things to keep the growth going.
So I’ve been using Maidily’s Stripe integration for payments and it’s eliminated a lot if not all of that paper chasing I’ve had to do in the past when I first started.
We have everything automated so they get charged 1 day after the service date.
Mony: That’s amazing. I bet that saved you a lot of past due balances. What about your cleaners – how do you manage them? How do you create your schedules and send assignments?
Bojan: That’s probably the most important aspect of our day-to-day operation – and it’s something that I still have my hands on.
Marija who manages everything, creates the schedules based on everyone’s availability starting with any unassigned jobs in the scheduling view. We send out customer reminders 3 days prior and then 24 hours prior to the job through email, once those final reminders are out we officially send out the job assignments for the next day.
All of the cleaners that work for us are paired in teams of 2 and they can access their own schedules in Maidily. They can see their customers, assigned jobs – check in/out and so on.
The job assignment emails we send over are just the final confirmation for the jobs the next day.
One of the things I still work on is approving the schedule so once I approve it it gets sent out to our cleaners.
Mony: What’s the future looking like for Cleaning Frenzy?
Bojan: Honestly, I think I found a working business model for Cleaning Frenzy and I’m going to keep working that well into the future!
I’ll continue expanding by entering different cities/surrounding areas – if there’s low competition. With this sort of hands-off approach there’s really no limit on expansion. The automation enables me to enter remote areas and manage the business without having to physically be there.
I’m very excited about the future and I appreciate the help from everyone on your team that on-boarded us.
Mony: Thank you Bojan for taking the time to share your story with me and everyone reading. What you’ve done is amazing and impressive to say the least – looking forward to seeing where you are in the future, hopefully we can do an update on this interview next year!
Leave a Reply