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I started this podcast on October 10th, 2019. I never imagined that cleaners would listen to me talk. Listen to these stats for the Smart Cleaning School Podcast: 20 years of cleaning experience and 8 years of coaching accessedDownloaded in all 50 states and 150 countries.500 total episodes3 individual episodes with over 1,000 downloads175,000 total downloads1,000 hours of my life invested into training solo cleanersI am so proud of this work. It has been meaningful and transformational for thousands of listeners. Many have told me that this podcast has literally helped them start and grow a successful cleaning business. That thrills me. ​ As great as these last 6 years have been, I realized that it was time to make a major shift. I encourage you to listen to the last two episodes entitled, “Patience Vs. Prudence” and “Celebrating 20 Years in the C3 Experience”. I need to take my own advice and exercise prudence. This podcast and my 1,000 hours needs to end, so that I can re-invest that vital time into the C3 Experience. I also started a podcast in 2024 for my local chamber to interview top business leaders. It’s called the “Leadership Lens” and allows me to utilize my podcasting skills to enhance the local community. That excites me! This was a difficult decision to reach, but I know it’s the right one. Who knows, I am purposely leaving a door open by only closing down Season 1 of the podcast. I will likely release stand alone episodes and interviews when I’m so moved to do so. Now to the most important person in the Smart Cleaning School Podcast… YOU! What happens to you and your training? Let me be very direct. I have given you 500 episodes of the best business owner mindset you can get to grow your cleaning company. How much did it cost you? Nothing! Here’s what you do next. Listen to as many of these free episodes as you want.Apply what you learn! Nothing happens until you take ACTION!Schedule a free Strategy Session with me to discuss immediate issues in your business.Subscribe to Private Coaching with me to take your solo cleaning business to the next level! It’s that simple. I am not going anywhere. I am still coaching solo cleaners to optimize, so they can decide to STAY, SCALE, OR SELL. I hope to hear from you soon. Thank you all so much for being a part of Season 1 of the Smart Cleaning School Podcast. 

“Introducing the C3 Experience” released on October 14th, 2021. I had just given our family cleaning company a major brand change from the solo residential business to a commercial cleaning company with a team. Our family had “A New Freedom Vision” to live in Florida for the full month of February 2022. The company model would have to change. Over the next 8 months, we poured ourselves into this company to create the C3 Experience. We wanted to attract new customers and employees to our company core values of Excellence, Ownership, and Safety. We wanted to grow through these core values to accomplish our mission statement to our community. “1,000 smiling faces every Monday morning in the professional, financial, and medical office spaces we clean in the Indian Valley.”We wanted to serve our Lord Jesus through the company vision he gave us. “C3 is a Ten-Talent Company (Matthew 25:14-30).” ​The company had to completely transform. Those 8 months were so difficult, but we achieved our goal and enjoyed a full month on the Gulf Coast of Florida in February 2022. It was a trip of lifetime for our family of 7. They will never forget, nor will Teresa and I. We were so grateful. For the next 12 months, I poured myself into the community and serving my local chamber however I could. I joined the Membership Committee and called on other members to survey them. I participated in the chamber’s 5 year strategy meetings. I attended multiple networking events and even spoke at a few. We were rewarded with new customers. Our reputation grew and high-caliber employees were finding us. 2023 was a breakthrough year! We loved Florida so much in February 2022 that we hit the goal to do it again in February 2023. C3 was selected for the Cornerstone Award for Small Business of the Year in our chamber in March 2023. Our reputation grew more. More importantly, we really felt like we were making an impact in our community and living out our mission, vision, and values. I joined a coaching group with other growing commercial cleaners in April 2024 and started implementing better systems in 2024. This allowed C3 to take on our first two 5-night per week clients. This was a huge step. C3 was now serving every night of the week. We updated our mission statement in early 2025. “5,000 smiling faces every morning in the professional, financial, and medical office spaces we clean in the Indian Valley.” A few weeks ago, C3 reached a significant milestone. On July 25th, 2025, C3 celebrated 20 years in business. It’s hard to believe that 20 years ago, Teresa went to our county clerk to open Carfagno Cleaning so she could clean apartments part-time. It’s been an incredible journey. We’ve poured ourselves out in this company through sacrifice, commitment, and excellence. It has not been easy. Most days didn’t go as we had hoped. Nevertheless, we kept our faith in what God was doing through us. We remained patient when other well-wishers around us told us to quit. We invested time and money into a business that looked like a loser. Yet, here we are. I am thrilled to announce that our family has decided to celebrate this 20-year anniversary in a big way. We are knocking one more bucket list trip off the list. The Carfagnos are traveling through 11 states in a month from the Dakotas westward with a focus on Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. This is the trip of a lifetime. The kids are so excited. Our team is excited for us. Friends in my chamber are cheering us on. Read the rest of this article at the Smart Cleaning School website

I purposely re-released “Excellence Vs. Perfection” last week. Many solo cleaners struggle with perfectionism. They are under a belief that ‘good enough’ is when the perfectionist is finally happy… and they are never happy. Over-cleaning is problematic for multiple reasons. It costs the solo cleaner time and money because they are at each house or office a lot longer. It also dissolves trust with the customer because they don’t want you in their house for 6 hours! Do you know what customers want? It’s pretty simple. They want their house or office cleaned well. They want to be happy when they come home or enter their office. They want to get the cleaning at a great value. This is where excellence comes in. The solo cleaner needs to shift their mindset to ‘good enough’ is when the customer is happy. Trust me. It takes a lot less to make the customer happy than a perfectionist solo cleaner. ​ There is a balance. The solo cleaner does need to have a way to measure their quality and relate that measurement to customer happiness. In C3, that measurement is a quality score of 8.0 out of 10.0. Excellence is anything over an 8.0. Perfection is 10.0. If the cleaner doesn’t have this measurement system, they may not clean well enough and the customer is not happy. That is also problematic. There is a balance between Excellence and Perfection.  I’m not a solo cleaner anymore. We have a team of 10 solo cleaners at C3. I am having a blast finding and training great people to clean at the company. I have a problem though. I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to following the rules. It’s in my personality type. Therefore, I struggle with employees failing a quality inspection or not following company protocols or not being responsive or a customer late on payment. It strikes my ‘that’s not fair’ gene.  My gut in each of these cases is to act and penalize the employee, acting swiftly to follow the protocol. That approach does not work! My coach, Josh Melton, has taught me that we need to be relationship-first with team members and customers. He doesn’t jump to conclusions. Maybe the customer is having issues with the parent company or the computer system crashed and they can’t make payment yet. Maybe the team member is dealing with something in their health or family and they didn’t have the time to follow the protocol. Maybe they couldn’t concentrate on hitting the required quality level. There are all kinds of maybe’s. Josh taught me to be patient with people. Assume the best and give them a chance to explain themself before you execute a verdict! Recently, I had an interesting scenario play out. I found a high-quality prospect in my hiring pipeline and offered her a job. Then I waited. She seemed to have a lot going on in her life and I wasn’t impressed with her responsiveness. I was patient like Josh taught me, prodding her along from step to step of the onboarding process. Here was the problem though. I needed to fill that position for the benefit of the company by a certain date. I also need to know that every C3 hire is responsive. This candidate was not checking the boxes. Ultimately, I decided to be bold and direct. I was kind. “Responsiveness is vital to your success and our success at C3. You are not as responsive as other new team members we’ve had success with in the past. It doesn’t seem to us that you truly want this job.” She replied and confirmed my suspicion. Her life was too busy and this second job was a bit too ambitious. She thanked me for being honest and turned down the job. I was able to move on to the next candidate and fill the position in a more prudent manner. Read the rest of this article at the Smart Cleaning School website

 Perfectionism is a big problem in the cleaning industry. It took me over 15 minutes to say it in the podcast. It's really not that complex. Perfection is working hard to make YOU as happy as possible and you may never get there. Excellence is working hard to make THE CUSTOMER as happy as possible and you absolutely can get there. How do you know if you've made them as happy as possible? You ask them how you've done. I consult with cleaning company owners all over the country and so many struggle with perfectionism. It cost them time, which equals money and profit. I believe that Perfectionism and Excellence are on opposite sides of the same spectrum. You've got to work to the best that you can. but doing it with excellence is different than doing it with perfection. Your customer will feel the difference and so will your bank account! 

There are too many overwhelmed, overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated solo cleaners. They want more than showing up to clean every day. They want to get traction with their businesses. Optimizing accomplishes this. You want more margin, more choices, more balance, and more freedom in your life. Why else would you be running your own business in the first place? Optimizing accomplishes this. I share a third straight Solo Elite clip in this episode. The first two addressed these two points I just made. This one is meant to build the dream and show you that freedom has many levels. You can and will get to each level if you set goals, stay in accountability, follow the ISO Model System, and persevere to completion. We’ve personally done this. That’s why I can teach it. It’s also why we are taking our next freedom family trip in a few weeks. I’ll tell you all about that in the next episode. ​ Are you interested in private coaching with me? Check out www.smartcleaningschool.com and book a free strategy call. 

We are getting closer to the end of season 1 of the Smart Cleaning School Podcast. We are in the middle of a series on the 3 S’s, which stands for Stay, Scale, or Sell and represent FREEDOM for the solo cleaner. In the last episode, I shared a clip from a Solo Elite Membership Call from late 2024 focusing on creating margin. Margin is vital. We need margin to make more choices. We need more choices to have more balance and freedom. This episode shares another clip from Solo Elite. This one shows you what to do once you’ve created margin. You optimize! ​ Optimizing gives you the balance you want. There are 3 steps to optimizing. Get Faster at Cleaning - As you implement the Optimizer Tools of the ISO Model, you get faster at each house or office. This allows you clean more in less time.Charge More Over Time - As you clean longer and develop your systems, trust, and expertise, you will increase the perceived value of your “product”. Charge more over time.Increase Profitability of the Business - You especially need to know your numbers for this one. Print out your Profit & Loss (P&L) and study it. Solo cleaners range in profitability from 60-95%. Optimizers are over 85%.  In the next episode, I’ll pull it all together with the big picture roadmap from an overwhelmed solo to an optimized one. 

In this episode, I share a short clip of a Public Service Announcement I made last November in the Solo Elite Membership. It’s a PSA for all struggling, overwhelmed solo cleaners. First, let me say a few things. You are the one that overscheduled yourself by never saying ‘No’. Take ownership of that. ​ You are the one that priced as little as you did. Take ownership of that. You are the one that didn’t know your numbers and acted without any strategy. Take ownership of that. Great, you took ownership. It’s time to give you hope and show you how to optimize your solo company and earn freedom. This first message is about creating time margin first. That is vital. No margin equals no choice. Margin means choices.  In the next episode, I’ll share another clip of the 3 steps to optimizing. Enjoy. 

I have an announcement to make. This is episode 493 of the Smart Cleaning School Podcast. I will be ending season 1 at episode 500. Why? What does that mean? All these questions will be answered in these final 8 episodes, where I’m focusing you on the end of the solo optimization rainbow. It’s called the 3 S’s. That’s the series that season 1 will end with. What do you do when you get to the top as a solo cleaner? In the past 2 episodes, I’ve discussed the 3 S’s or Stay, Scale, or Sell and when a solo should scale. I’ve talked about this a lot throughout this podcast. This episode is different. I want you to trust who you’ve been listening to. You should only follow coaches who have DONE what they TEACH. I have. You should only listen to those that have the fruit on the tree that you want. I do. I’m qualified to teach you because I’ve done what I teach. ​ In this episode, I share a short clip of a monologue I had on a late 2024 Solo Elite Membership Call where I share my successes as we approach 20 years in business. I hope you enjoy it. 

I am excited to share this clip from the Solo Elite Membership! A few weeks ago, I ran my first Zoom call for the members to meet each other, dive into a topic, and ask questions. It was a great call. Afterwards, I pondered the idea of sharing a portion of the call with my podcast audience. It's a 16 minute clip from a 90 minute call, where I shared my journey openly on scaling with employees. Many ask me when can I hire and scale. I firmly believe that you need time and money margin to properly scale a cleaning company. You can do this right away if you have time and money. Or you can do it the way I teach. Here you go! Enjoy! ​ You can optimize your solo cleaning business to earn full time income through part time cleaning without the drama of employees! When the time is right, you can scale with employees like me and they won't be as much drama! Get access to this game-changing training for only $57 per month or $597 per year in the Solo Elite Membership atsmartcleaningschool.com/elite. Members get access to the full ISO Model Course to optimize your solo business, plus access to the Solo Elite Community, bonus podcast content, access to private coaching and additional courses at 50% off! You can also sample the membership with our brand new "Backstage Pass", which is found at smartcleaningschool.com. 

The summer is finally here! This is both literal and figurative. We just celebrated Memorial Day as the weather is heating up. Just like the 4 seasons of nature, my business is entering a new season. After selling my 1st solo business in 2018, we moved to our hometown and stayed indoors. I tried everything in my power to build my coaching and consulting business in 2018 and early 2019. I stayed indoors as much as possible as I didn't want to clean. This was winter. Ultimately, I needed to get outside again and start planting seeds. I started this podcast and my aggressive networking plan in late 2019. This was the start of Spring. By the beginning of 2021, our new business was cranking and I was able to work on my consulting business again. My cleaning business was optimized and it was comfortable outside. Spring was coming to an end. But with anything, being comfortable is not a good place to be. I needed to get my hunger back and stretch myself. I need to put on my shorts, get outside and enjoy the weather. A New Freedom Vision was placed in my heart and we needed to enjoy this summer in the winter by spending a month in Florida in February. This would require me to scale my business beyond the comfort of Spring into the dog days of Summer. This will pay off because Fall represents the harvest of all seeds sown in the Spring. I am so excited to reach that season and earn my family's financial freedom!  Now that you've got the seasonal perspective of my new Philly cleaning business, I'd like to announce a segment change to the podcast. I've been sharing weekly updates on my Carfagno Cleaning business since inception in October 2019. However, I've been adding more and more value-packed influencer interviews and snippets from expert calls within my paid groups, that I don't have the space to continue them. For this Summer season of Carfagno Cleaning, I will shift from weekly to monthly updates on my cleaning business. I will not share every detail as I have been. I will share relevant wins, struggles, and lessons that I feel will best support your own business growth. Most importantly, I will keep you updated on the progress of my efforts to scale my business so this long-time solo cleaner can get out of the field and live a life of time, money, and location freedom. Read the rest of this article at the Smart Cleaning School website

Let's continue the Control Series! My first episode was "You Must Let Go of Your Control", where I shared a few major breakthroughs in my recent ability to let go and trust others. It was an important therapy session. I continued this recently with another breakthrough about your business is not you and viewing trust and control like a rope. Check out part 2 of the series called "The Trust Rope". This is the 3rd part that goes the complete opposite direction! Are you ready? I shared a Facebook post in early January that got a lot of comments and it wasn't because I did a good job. It was because I did a bad job and owned it. One of our largest customers dropped us. They accounted for 10% of our monthly revenue. It was painful. Their reason for dropping us was quality. Apparently, one of their bathrooms developed an orange film on the sink and our company left it there for weeks. There are so many angles I could take this. I could tell you about the onion principle, but I'll save that for another time. Instead, I want to take their reason at face value. They cancelled service because we didn't meet the quality specifications they required. In the first 2 episodes of this series, I honed in on breaking the control and perfectionism I had over me for years. It didn't bother me when I was a solo cleaner, but it reared its ugly head when we tried to grow a team. I had to change and I did! I gave some rope and then some more and then some more. I was checking the quality of each of our locations each month to maintain quality and keep our customers happy. But something happened that is scary. I got careless and allowed some buildings to go unchecked for more than a month because I had other things  I had to do. Somehow, I pulled a total one-eighty going from an obsessive need to check every building every time to not checking at all. This wasn't true for all of our buildings, but it was for this one. After getting fired, I realized that it had been 3 months since I inspected the quality. 3 months! I could have seen the orange film if I simply would have done 1 measly inspection. 45 minutes of my time could have prevented the loss of 10% of our income. This was a tough pill to swallow. I gave away all of the rope and it cost me. Let's talk about two words. Quality and control.  Quality is simply the level of performance or service that meets spec. It's not perfect, but it does meet expectations. That's quality. Control is the process or system of maintaining something. Put these two words together and you get a vital component of running a successful cleaning company. Quality control is the active feedback loop that maintains the expectations of the customer and keeps them happy. I used to be obsessive on QC, ensuring 100% compliance to every detail, every time. This was unscalable. In late 2022, I went to the other side where I nearly stopped all forms of QC, which is a slow death to any company. Here's the simple lesson. Don't operate on the extremes. Define quality in your organization. Train it. Inspect it. Maintain and work to exceed it. This will give you the balance to keep your rope light, burden-free, so your cleaning business can grow. I offer free coaching calls to listeners of this podcast. Do you struggle with quality control or perfectionism? Book a free coaching call on the Smart Cleaning School website at www.smartcleaningschool.com to talk about it! You can also check out the many free & paid resources available on the website as well. I look forward to helping you! 

This week started with content batching. Batching is an optimizer's tool for ultra productivity. Every month, I create blogs, podcasts, and videos for Carfagno Cleaning and Solo Cleaning School. It takes a ton of time to do each week. I used batching in my cleaning business and in other areas of business over the years. When Teresa's mom was available to watch the kids overnight, we jumped on the opportunity and grabbed a hotel for the night. I got so much done as I batched blog after blog after blog. We also enjoyed time together, so it was a win-win. The following day, I rented an office from my MCBA friend Vernessa Hopkins. Vernessa owns H3 Business Services in Harleysville, PA. The office was perfect and I was able to record all of my podcasts for the upcoming month. My batching goal was to invest a few days and dollars to complete all of my content for a month. I accomplished that! Please keep this in mind. The portion of my batching that related to my solo cleaning business was a small part, so it may not be necessary for you to batch your content. However, you may start sending out newsletters a few times per month, maintain your website, and repurpose content to Facebook and Google My Business. Batching would be a great idea for you at that point. I've been tracking each of my offices from Saturday to Saturday, so I know how long they are taking. Plus, I've made changes to get faster. Over the weekend, I had a difficult email to send. One of these office cleaning clients took me longer because of paint speckles and glitter on the floor as well as increased kitchen areas. I knew I'd have to say something or scope creep would get me! [Before continuing, check out the bonus video, "How do I Deal with Scope Creep" on the Solo Cleaning School YouTube Channel. You'll learn how easy it is for your clients to unintentionally take advantage of you.] When the scope of work increases over time, it causes our cleaning times to increase. The great majority of cleaning companies will NOT raise the price as the scope changes so slowly they don't notice it. Not me! I recognized the potential Scope Creep setting in and knew I would have to send a difficult email. I used the sandwich technique with praise and gratitude in the open and close of the email. In the center, I laid out the areas where the scope has increased. Then I shared how this affects my company. "I clean five offices every Saturday right now. I'm in the process of adding more as well. So when one office starts taking me longer, it ends up costing me money. I'm sure you understand!" Then, I offered possible solutions which either forced them to take ownership and have the staff do more end-of-day cleaning or I would submit a new proposal with higher prices for the increased scope. I was nervous about the outcome as it was surely possible to lose the client, but I had to do this. It's my business and I must run it like one! Fortunately, they responded with consideration and we worked through the solutions together. Ultimately, they decided to take ownership for one portion. The other part, where they've added more kitchen appliances, we decided to alternate half-and-half each week. They gave a little and I didn't raise my prices. It also raised my image of trust and professionalism. Read the rest of this article at the Smart Cleaning School website

I've broken a lot over 15 years, but it's all relative. I have two mindsets to discuss before I share my cleaning misdeeds. Your auto insurance company keeps actuarial tables and knows exactly how much an accident costs on average. These numbers are taken into account when you get and pay your annual insurance premium. In fact, it is designed to be a win-win. If you get into an accident or not, the insurance company still makes money. They win. Plus, your accident or claim is covered so you don't have to pay out of pocket. If you cost the insurance company too much money, they will raise your premium to ensure they make a profit and you can still be covered. Insurance is a product. We insure many things. One of those things is our business against general liability and bodily harm. Your business insurance company has the same actuarial tables and business model. I personally pay $550 per year in general liability and yes, I've had to use it once. The first mindset to take is this. You need insurance because things WILL break or get damaged!I'm a former General Electric mechanical engineer and Six Sigma Green Belt. Six Sigma is a design system to minimize defects to 6 per million opportunities. It's an extremely difficult high bar in engineering design to achieve, that's why companies like GE and Motorola in the 90's and 2000's thrived. As a cleaner, I touch 500 things in each house or office. Over my 15 years, I've cleaned an average of 250 houses and 250 offices or 500 cleans per year. If you multiply the this out, I've created 3,750,000 opportunities to break or damage something. I call this a defect. Over this same 15 year mark, I have 75 defects. Continue the math and you'll conclude that my defect rate is 20 per million opportunities. 5 sigma is 233 defects per million opportunities. I've been cleaning for 15 years right on the cusp of 6 Sigma. In fact, I am literally a 6 Sigma Green Belt in my defect rate over the past 5 years as most of my 75 defects happened in the first 10 years. Therefore, my rate of damage or defect is as good as GE designs the airplane engines you fly with!Side note: If you're struggling with breaking or damaging things, first evaluate your defect rate. Feel free to assume 500 opportunities per house or office. Secondly, if your defect rate is over 50 per year, you need to make changes in how you clean. A few simple system changes and routine can fix it. Read the rest of this article at the Smart Cleaning School website

I've been cleaning homes since 2006 and have noticed a dramatic increase in home security as technology improves. Alarms have gone from wired to wireless. Cameras surveil various angles and locations of the home. Garages have keypads. Families are more secure than ever and they can do so at an expense less than it used to cost. This happens so predictively that economists give it a name. The early adopters pay the most like cell phones in the '90s or tvs in the '50s. Once the technology reaches critical mass (around 10% market penetration), the technology floods the market until it cheapens with market saturation around 90%. This is called 'S-Curve' economics. As a side note, this is a fascinating phenomenon to study. Home security has undergone the same S-curve. Check out this statement from a recent article on the state of home security. "Around 20% of homes in America have security systems, but this percentage is expected to increase over the next five years. In fact, experts predict that the number of homes with security systems will increase by 64% in that time period." The early adopters of home security were in the '70's, '80's, and '90's. It took 40 years for home security systems to reach 10% market penetration or critical mass. It has taken roughly 10 more years to go from 10% to 20% of all homes secure in the US. This article predicts a jump to over 80% in the next 5 years! That's an 'S-curve' for sure! But I ask you. Is this normalizing effect causing homeowners to feel over-confident? Unfortunately, I've noticed another trend. Homeowners are forgetting to lock their windows at an increasing rate. I'm a detailed house cleaner and clean complete kitchens and bathrooms, baseboards, wood trim, light switches, window ledges & sills over the course of time. I treat every client as if I was cleaning for my own family. Therefore, I'm a noticer! One of my clients was away for 5 days vacation and scheduled cleaning on the day of their arrival home. While I was there, I noticed that all 4 windows on the first floor were unlocked! These 4 windows happened to be the ones to the left and right of the front door on the porch. This discovery made me uneasy, so I locked them and notified the family. They were so thankful. I notice unlocked windows more often in upstairs bedrooms. However, you'd be surprised how many windows I've locked in my 15 years cleaning houses on the first floor! I'm not a psychologist, but I will hypothesize. We are placing too much trust in our technology. Many homeowners in suburbia believe that their neighborhoods are safe. Therefore, they can leave their car doors, front doors, and windows open. If there was an intruder, the alarm system would pick it up. I learned recently from a bank professional that criminals are getting smarter too. They are not the Water Bandits from "Home Alone" that can be thwarted by a 7-year-old boy with lots of toys, tacks, and tar. These criminals are timing their crimes to steal from moms while they drop off kids at daycare. They target shopping parking lots. And they target the most "trusting" homeowners. I'm sure this is not new to anyone reading this. Read the rest of this article at the Smart Cleaning School website

I host an accountability & mastermind call every Monday for the SMART Cleaning Tribe. We are a family of cleaning service owners with teams (that used to be solo). I'm the architect of this group of amazing people, always looking for the 1% that desires to set monthly SMART goals and be held accountable to their achievement. Check out the episode "The Accountability Roadmap" to learn more about the 1% club We had an interesting discussion this past week on the topic of client scope creep. This is when your original housecleaning scope of work increases with the changing dynamics of the family or home. We went around the group sharing how we each deal with this. Toward the end of this discussion, one of our members hit a home run. Kate Sloan is the owner of Chicka Chicka Broom, which services Montgtomery, MN. She said. "I train my clients." Obviously, I could not let that slip through the cracks and asked her to explain. Kate contrasted the typical house cleaner to the perceived in-home experts such as electricians, plumbers, carpenters, and HVAC technicians. "Why are they viewed as experts and get expert-level prices and many devalue cleaners wanting to pay the minimum?" The answer is simple. Most clients are moms with cleaning experience. They can clean, therefore they don't see our craft as a specialty. Plumbers and electricians do work that the mom cannot do, therefore they are experts and can charge expert prices. One of the best ways to level-up as a cleaner to an expert or specialist is to acquire specialized knowledge. One example is taught in my "9 Mistakes in Disinfecting". If 90% of our clients are disinfecting incorrectly and we know how to do it right to protect their families, our value increases. This is the process to becoming the expert and separating from the typical cleaner. One further point on mastery comes from Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" book. He claims that it takes 10,000 hours to acquire expert status at any task. If you clean 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, you can achieve mastery in 5 years! Many of us have achieved this. Not many moms have, no matter how long they've been cleaning. What if they clean 2 hours per day and 6 days per week? It would take over 16 years to reach mastery. Some moms have achieved this and most have not. Make sure to study this episode as it holds a vital key in pricing to start earning you top income as a solo cleaner.