Lighting for Profits - Episode 141

This week on the show we welcome Debbie Sardone, from humble beginnings as a cleaner, transformed her job into a seven million dollar empire with Buckets & Bows Maid Service, Inc. She now leads the world's #1 Residential Cleaning Business Academy, CLEANING BUSINESS FUNDAMENTALS, and owns SPEEDCLEANING.COM, crafting her line of eco-friendly products. Debbie's philanthropic endeavors include founding Cleaning For A Reason, aiding over 50,000 families battling cancer. A renowned speaker and author, she's been featured on Fox & Friends, Oprah, and recognized with prestigious awards like L’Oreal Paris Women Of Worth and Points of Light Award.

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Episode Transcript

Welcome to lighting for profits. All light. All light. All light. Powered by Emory Allen. Get rid of your excuses. Your number one source for all things, landscape light. That's where the magic can scale a business. We really had to show up for each other from lighting design, install, sales and marketing. You're a scaredy cat salesman. We discuss everything you need to know to start and grow a successful landscape lighting business. What do you think a hippo has to do with your business? Right. Usually it's some weird childhood thing, some bully kicked your butt.

I think the key factor here is trust. Here is your host, Ryan Lee. All light. All light. All light. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the number one landscape lighting show in Lewisville, Texas. That's right. We are going worldwide today bringing on an amazing guest from Texas, Miss Debbie Sardone, you guys. And uh believe it or not, I didn't know who our guest was up until maybe a year ago. And now that I do, I don't know if she knows this, but she's one of my mentors. So I'm really excited to have her on um super successful lady and uh just an inspiration.

So uh make sure you stick around, we're gonna get right into the show. I've got just a couple of announcements, but I'm not gonna do my monologue thing because I've got so much good content from Debbie that we're planning on. So, uh we're gonna have her on in just a minute. But if you're looking to start or grow a landscape lighting business, you're definitely in the right place. Uh We are gonna educate, motivate and help you dominate. OK. That is the purpose of this show. And I want to remind you if you, if you ask, what is it, what does the Bible say, ask and you shall receive?

Uh I'm still asking for reviews you guys. So if you want to give me a five star review on Apple or Spotify, please help a brother out. I really appreciate it and uh do a good turn daily. Uh And by the way, since I started asking you guys, my reviews are going up so you can learn a lot from that. Uh What would happen in your business if you asked your clients for reviews, right? And so I'm extremely grateful for those of you who have already done that for me.

Thank you. Thank you really appreciate it. And we're starting to share some of those on social media, but if you have not shame on you now, I know life is busy. You got lots of stuff to do. And uh so I'm just asking again if you've got just 2030 seconds and it's hard to do like if I could just send you a link, I would, but you send them a link and you have to scroll down and stuff like that. So I would really, really appreciate you guys hooking me up.

And uh by the way, guys, it's already happening next month, next month is landscape lighting live, San Diego. And uh so if you have not got your ticket, make sure you get it. Now, this happens every time we do these events, they sell out, they sell out quickly and uh and some people are left on the outside and I promise you this is gonna happen. We, I mean, I'm being like obnoxious about this, you guys, I'm emailing, I'm posting on social media, I'm doing all this stuff and then there's gonna be people that will go.

Oh I didn't know you were doing that event. It was already. It's like, oh man, they're like, can you get me in? I'm like, no, we're friends. I know but we have a limit. You know, there's a thing called capacity. Uh So make sure to go to landscape lighting live. com, get your ticket. Now, bring your team, bring your new salesperson, bring your new installer, make this a team event and don't just get trained yourself but train your team. I think that's been a cool theme. We've at our last one, we had probably five or six companies that brought three or four people was really, really cool.

And, uh, this landscape lighting live is the first time we've done something on the west coast. So this is super exciting. It's in San Diego. I mean, come on, it's gonna be perfect. Um, and, uh, but we're, we, we're working on something that I can't spill the beans yet, but we've got something pretty. It's gonna make this event more unique than anyone we've done. And, uh, it's gonna be awesome. I just, we're gonna do it. I just haven't finalized like the details yet, but that's gonna be amazing.

And it's, we've got our four mentors, ok? We've got Greg Matthews, Brandon Miles, uh, Andy S Swindler and Captain Matt. So the five of us are going to be putting on this training experience for you. Uh, in the past, it was a lot of just me, right? And that's just one person's experience in life, which is good. But now it's great because we've got these four mentors all from different parts of the country, all different levels of success in their business and all different ways that they succeed.

So, uh, there's gonna be a lot to learn. I hope to see you there in San Diego. And, uh, of course, we always want to thank, uh, Emery Allen for their, uh, partnership and their support and just wanted to play some funky music. What's the best way to stand out of the crowd while being different, set yourself apart from others in the lighting industry and impress your customers by installing emery allen lamps on your next project. You'll discover a higher level of quality across the board from the lamps themselves to the top tier customer support.

You can expect to get if you have any issues or questions right now is the best time to make the switch getting started in this new year, this new spring. Just email Tom G at Emory allen. com. They will hook you up. You guys just mentioned, you heard about him here on lighting for profits. Just email Tom G at Emery allen. com. That's Tom Garber. Tom G at Emery allen. com. And uh again, a lot of people have been like I went to their website. They don't have the best pricing.

Well, that's because you didn't follow my instructions. Email Tom G at Emery allen. com mentioned. You heard about him here in lighting for profits, mention my name, whatever you gotta do, he will hook you up with some awesome pricing. I promise you. You will not be disappointed. So, uh guys, just a reminder, landscape lighting, live. com, go get your ticket now coming up just next month, it's gonna be in sunny San Diego. Just come for that, right? Uh But right now it's time to welcome our guests.

Let me know if you guys are here if you're ready to get our guests coming in we'll get our music going. Let's get her coming. Are you guys ready? Let's go. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. How are you doing, Debbie? Oh, lie. All, lie it all lie. Ryan. Doing great. So honored to be on. Oh, I love that. You, you, you can pick up quick out here, you know, I love it. I'm a quick start. You are a fast learner. I love it. Well, I am so excited to have you on.

I, uh, I, I literally, I didn't even know who you were until about a year ago. And then like, once you get like sucked into your aura and your funnel and your vibe, it's like you, you can't leave. I absolutely. I know it's awesome. And I'm like, wait like this, this lady is now my mentor and by the way, you probably just found out. Um, so it's awesome. I'm like I needed, I needed Debbie in my life and now I have Debbie in my life. Thank you.

Oh, you're sweet. You're too kind. Um, I have enjoyed so much learning about the lighting industry and getting to know you. And it's pretty cool how the service industry is so similar, whether it's cleaning homes or consulting or power washing or lighting or landscape. There's, we all have the same challenges and the same problems, the same pain. So it's fun to learn from each other and to learn from an outsider. So our thinking isn't too inbred. Yeah. No, I love that aspect of it. I like to think, well, you know what, I'm going to start this coaching business for lighting people.

I should go find a mentor, I should go find a coach in the cleaning space. Like that doesn't even make sense until it's like, no, it makes perfect sense for the reasons you just mentioned. So already the ideas that you've given me, like, well, have you done this? And I tried this early on and like all those little things just help me think so much different than I would on my own. So it's been awesome. Well, tell us a little bit about yourself. Um I wanna, I wanna kind of touch on the fact that you like right now you have the largest, you know, cleaning coaching business.

I'm not even sure how you, what you call it, but it's, it's amazing business, but you got your start years ago doing your own thing, right? Tell us a little bit about that. In fact, and you know, this yourself, Ryan, the, the best people for us to help are people we used to be right. That that's the best person for me to help. It's the best person for you to help. So I was a struggling cleaning business owner just like the people I helped. So we have the largest, uh the number one residential cleaning business owners academy in the world.

We have over 500 active members and we have our big conference coming up in April. And um I started out doing the work like so many people in the cleaning industry started, I don't have a college degree. I had no formal training. My husband was a police officer, which meant we were broke and I just started cleaning houses for extra income because I knew I could clean and fast forward 30 plus years. We now have literally one of the largest residential cleaning companies in the nation. And the best part I was telling you about this earlier, Ryan, the very best part about our business is it's 100% self running.

I've been retired from that business for more than a decade and instead of it shrinking and collapsing and going in decline when the owner steps away, which often happens, it's grown and it's thrived and we do over 3 million. We have over 60 employees and it's created a lifestyle with time and money freedom that I could start my nonprofit and I could start a consulting business. So, you know, I'm glad I still have that business and it's a lot of fun, but I don't have to work in it anymore and I'm really glad about that. Right.

That's incredible. It's so cool. And I think about the cleaning industry, I don't know much about it, but $3 million seems massive for a cleaning company. It is in the residential space now, in the commercial janitorial space. A small to medium sized business starts at about 10 million, 0003 to 10 million. But in the residential cleaning space where your average job ticket is 100 and $65 right? A $3 million maid service puts us in the top 1% of all maid services in the country, including the franchises. And that doesn't happen by luck and it doesn't happen because you just happen to be in the right market.

There's tiny strugg struggling businesses all around me and my market isn't even that big. It literally happens through systems processes, differentiation, marketing. And it's, if it's possible for me, then I'm telling you, it's possible for just about anybody out there. I love it. Well, I think there's so many reasons I li I really like you, you got your energy, you got your positive attitude but like you're so relatable and you don't, you don't speak at people, right? And I'm like, like just like you said, like, well, if Debbie can do it, like I can do it, you give us hope, you know, and um I think, well, it's true Ryan because I never had the advantage of going to college.

So sometimes people think well, because I dropped out of college or I never finished high school or I got married too young or whatever and I got, I did all of those things. I did finish high school, but I got married at 18. I had my first baby. At 22 I had never read a business book in my life and I started cleaning houses just for a job. If I can build one of the top 1% businesses in the country. I am telling you with the right mentors, the right system, the right knowledge and the right grit, meaning you don't quit the right grit.

I'm telling you the sky is the limit in this country with what you can do as an entrepreneur. It is limitless. So yeah, I'm very excited and I have a lot of energy around talking about business and it doesn't matter. And aren't you glad Ryan that we are in the service business that our business isn't technology with all this A I and IO and I mean, all these other industries are being replaced, they're nervous, no one else. There, there are no robots putting toilet, you know, hands in the toilets of, of homeowners and dusting and vacuuming floors and dusting furniture.

So it's, it's exciting to be in the service industry at this time. Uh in America. It really is. I I just think your su your example of success is so awesome because in the landscape, lighting industry, an average ticket is between five and $10,1003. So you have like, you know, for, for some reason there's something about the million dollar mark, right? Like not a lot of people even get to a million dollars in any like small home small business. Right. But in the landscape lighting world it should be way easier, especially if you're telling me, average ticket 165 we're going to 5 to 10,000.

Why can't we get to 35, 1030 million with landscape lighting? Exactly. So, out of all the entrepreneurs in this country, I just pulled up my empire code out of all the entrepreneurs in the country and it doesn't matter what industry they're in. There's only about 700,000 out of like over 25 million people who say they're, they're in business for themselves. There's only around 13003,000 that hit the million to $3 million mark. So, just like you said, it isn't common. And I do believe because up until the million dollar mark and usually right around a half a million, 600,000, 400 to 600,000, their business feels more like the valley of despair than anything else.

And so people choose to not grow any further because they don't have enough of themselves to give. It's like I can't multiply myself any more. I'm already working 16 hour days so they either stop growing and just settle for where they're at or they throw in the towel, like in my industry. They, or, or in your industry, they throw in the, uh, the Clippers and they quit and they go back to their corporate job or worse, they start something else because they think the grass is greener on the other side.

It isn't. So I think most people experience that valley of despair, which happens below a million dollars and they either stay stuck forever or go do something else. And I call that quitting while they were 3 ft from gold. I love that. So, how did, how does someone get past that? Like, do you remember being in that phase where you're like, like I do, I remember thinking I should just go get a job. Like this would be way easier. I was making more money. I had the time freedom.

I didn't think I did. And do you remember what that was for you that like allowed you to power through that 533%? And I do think most entrepreneurs that have powered through the valley of despair. They remember that point in time like you do where you were about to quit everything and go back to whatever that was. One of our CBF members, one of our cleaning business fundamentals members shared with me how she was just scrolling through the internet thinking I'm gonna go find a job and go back to the nonprofit world.

That's how bad business was that. She was gonna go back to the nonprofit world and you know, they don't pay well. And I remember that day sitting at my kitchen table just trying to figure out how to divvy up my customers, fire all my, my employees and just go back to cleaning and having no responsibility. I was so frustrated, I was ready to throw in the towel. I had employees. I had customers but I didn't have systems and processes and it wasn't long. It's kind of like you've heard the phrase when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

Well, it wasn't too long after I decided something has to change. I either need to quit and go do something different or I need to break through and stop doing this and get to the next level. This stuff in the middle was killing me too many hours, not enough pay and a ridiculous amount of stress. And I was very fortunate. I had a very supportive husband, but I can't imagine if I was a single parent or a spouse that didn't have the patience for me being gone all the time doing estimates being stressed out.

And I reached that point where it was either do or die. And I found a consulting firm. I hired a coach and you, you have to think about this, Ryan. This was before the internet. I was gonna say this was before coaches were like a thing. There, there was no such thing as a coach. The only thing you thought of when you thought of coach was like a football or a basketball. There was no business coaching that I had ever heard of. How did you find the consultant?

My father in law worked for a company called George S May consulting. And they were out of Chicago, Illinois. My business was here in Texas and he had seen me grow and sr and struggle. And I went to him and I said, do you think your firm would take me on as a client? And this was ages ago? And he said, well, first of all, you have to have at least 10 employees and you have 10 contractors. So I don't know that they'll take you on. And second of all, it's very expensive.

And back then it was, and we started down that path of me applying to see if they would even take me on as a client. Now, can you imagine that? I'm like, please take me on as a client. Please take my money and through a series of discussions and an application process, they decided to make an exception because all of my cleaners were contractors back in the day. But technically they were employees, right? They were just 1099 employees and they took me on as a client. Now get this Ryan.

So this is why I don't have a lot of compassion or sympathy when people say, oh, your program is expensive, right? I'm like very my, my patients are thin, thin in terms of compassion when they say that because over 30 years ago, it cost me $40,000 to hire that company and I did not have the money. You gotta remember I was a broken business owner. My personal paychecks were bouncing so I didn't get to cash all of my checks. Some weeks, I'd have to tell my husband hold our check, don't deposit it.

We, we've got to cover payroll and rent and that was just a mess. My husband was a police officer. So that means just enough money to pay the bills. That's all that is. And I found a way. I did not find an excuse. I found a way. Now we maxed out every credit card we had, we went to the bank and drew out a line of credit. I mean, to this day, I'm pretty sure we had an extra child and I think we sold one because we only have two now and we did pay that bill.

But you were not part of Dave Ramsey's course. Correct. Oh, no, I, I, you know, and, and to this day, if you're going to invest your money in the right thing, I do believe in credit credit. Got me out of the valley of despair. Nine months after I hired this consulting firm, I finally broke through the million dollar mark, which had been impossible. Now, you got to think about a million dollars 25 plus years ago would be like breaking through to the $2 million mark. Today. My fees were more than half back 25 years ago when I broke the million dollar mark and it was all because I worked with consultants who came into my business.

You gotta remember. There was no zoom, right. No zoom. No such thing as webinars. By that time, there weren't even tell us seminars, which is what I started with in the coaching business and they flew their team of consultants to my business. That's how they did it back then. So I'm paying their airfare, their hotel, their meals, their hourly rate to work 0003, 15 hours a day with me. And we worked on my business for two years. So I'm sorry, two weeks, two weeks, I ran out of money and they flew home.

Oh, gosh. But, but the stuff they showed me it wasn't complicated but it wasn't obvious and I would never have figured it out on my own. It wasn't complicated because when they showed me certain things, I mean, I had a big old knot on the side of my head. By the time I left I kept going, why didn't I think of that? It seemed obvious after someone else shows you the way and I immediately implemented every single thing they taught me during that two week period of time, my business turned around, we broke through the million.

Now, there was no ongoing coaching and training that was not a part of their formula. And so yes, I did slide backwards and I had problems over the next few years. So I didn't have ongoing coaching and mentoring in my life. But it showed me that there's always someone ahead of you that can show you the way. And I've never since not pursued outside experts to show me the way. And so every time I get stuck, I get someone who's way ahead of me to show me to the next level and to the next level because there's a new devil at every level.

And so I'm a firm believer in coaching. I know you, I know you guys do coaching and of course I do coaching, but I don't care who you work with, just make sure they're the best and get them to show you the way it changed my life. That that right there is so good. There's so many things to break apart on that. Like I, I love that you were willing to do that because most people aren't, you know, and that's like the first thing, it's like, how do you get in that mindset?

I was broke. I didn't have $40,000 sitting around in the bank account. I was broke well. And if like, you know, there's always like the what if scenarios I there's people that like, like I feel like because you paid that like because it hurts so bad, you had to go leverage all this debt on all the credit cards. You were gonna listen to everything and not just listen but implement everything they said. If it was a free webinar, you might implement one or two things, but you don't really have to at that point, like you had to be, you were all in.

Well, I burned the boats, which is one of the phrases, one of our CBF members use when they join my program. I literally burn the boats. In fact, I told my husband, if this doesn't work, we'll just file bankruptcy and go out of business anyway, because I'm at my wits end, I'm at on my last leg. And so I burned the boats. It's like this will either work or I'm out and because I burned the boats, there was no way back. I followed everything they told me.

I did not argue. I implemented like a machine because I was in a hurry to pay that debt off and I reaped the most incredible results to this day. I look back and I wish they were still in business. I outlasted them. I tried to look them up years ago to say because of you, I have this beautiful nonprofit that has served thousands of families who are battling cancer because of you. I'm helping entrepreneurs all over the country and when I went and researched them, they're gone.

So I don't know what happened. Maybe their founder passed and they didn't have succession planning, but I didn't, I have outlasted my mentors. It's kind of crazy. That's such a cool story. I appreciate you sharing that. I uh I, I wanna now kind of transition and be like, ok, at what point did you decide, you know, how, how long did that take to get to like cruise control where it didn't require you to be doing everything in the business? I would say within a few years, my business was so healthy that I was able to step back and work less.

I wasn't able to go 100% absentee owner. But because I was so committed to their advice and their advice was literally run your business on systems, not on grit. Now, that's how I break it down today. I'm sure those weren't the exact words they used back then. But I under stood the concept they taught me was your business must run on systems. And every time something isn't working, don't change your system, go find out who changed it and isn't following it anymore, right? Because your systems and your core fundamentals don't really change your tactics change.

Uh You know, Yellow pages used to be how we all marketed. Now. It's Google ads and Facebook and that's gonna change again. So I fully understood that they taught me your business needs to run on fundamental principles and systems. And when it doesn't work, don't change the fundamentals, go find out what got changed on you. And so whenever I'd hit a brick wall, I would get stuck or things would get chaotic, I wouldn't start changing everything I would realize. Huh. We've gone back to some old bad habits or something in the tactics has changed, not my system, the tactics.

So I would just go focus on well, what tactic needs to be updated, right? What technology needs to be updated, what marketing source needs to be updated, what pay threshold needs to be updated because those things change but not my core system. And so once I did that, then I would take a step back and work less but not be 100% absentee and see how my team did. So it got to a point where over time I didn't come in until 10 a.m. and I left every day at 3 p.m.

Then I got to the point where I was able to tell my team, I don't work on Fridays anymore, don't call me. And of course, when I was able to start that, that was back when I had a pager. Nobody had cell phones. So not working Fridays and not being disturbed was easier than it is these days. No, 911 pages. Page 11 stupid, 1003 pages. Yes, that's what they would say on the pager. But I just started out gradually delegating to my team learning how not to micromanage my team when I hand it off a responsibility, right?

I had to learn the hard way that you hand it off. Don't look over their shoulder and micromanage them, right? Don't second guess them when you have fully delegated a process. And so over time, I just carved out more and more time away from the business. And then when I was at the business, I was strategic, I didn't step in and start the doing. I would be ST strategic. When I was at the business, I would simply step in and coach and mentor. I, I made myself unnecessary in each of the roles that I used to fulfill each hat.

I used to wear the salesperson, the bookkeeper, the, you know, angriest customer service rep. And I eventually handed off all those hats and I never stepped back in and took them back over. That's great advice. I, you know, I remember when my business was in that phase, I would go in and then I would screw things up and my office manager would be like, why are you here? And I, I felt like I wanted to be important again, you know, and I had to learn that lesson the hard way.

And she's just like every time you come in, like we got it and then you come in and you want to like re invent the wheel and you want, it's like we got it. So and I learned, yeah, if I left and I went and did the things that I was good at and I wanted to do it, it was more successful. So by nature entrepreneurs, most of us were visionaries, which means we are disruptors, right? So once we delegate and people, we have the right people on the bus and we've delegated correctly, we didn't abdicate, we delegated and we have the right metrics in place to make sure that they're staying on top of things. Right.

Then when we tend to step in and try to help, we simply disrupt everything. Right. And sometimes disruption is good. But other times, disruption is frustrating for the employee. And just like you, I had to learn that I didn't have, I didn't struggle with, oh, I, you know, I still like to feel needed or important. I struggled with feeling guilty and I know a lot of business owners struggle with feeling guilty. Right. So they step back in and they see the phones are ringing and one employee comes in and slams her keys on the desk and says I quit, you know, and you see your office measures kind of stressed out and you see your sales team going, oh, brother, how am I gonna cover these jobs?

I just sold and so out of guilt, I would try to step in and help. Right. And I had to finally learn. I need to get over feeling guilty by stepping back and letting them run the show. They are happily running it. They are extremely competent and it just makes them feel less competent when I step in and help. So I had to learn, just keep your mouth shut, stay out of it. Let them run things and they grew in my absence. So, what does that tell you?

I love it. Yeah. II, I don't know if I read it somewhere or someone told me that test your business and that kind of speaks to what you're talking about. It's like, don't answer your phone for an hour or a day or, you know, eventually a week or a month, like, test your business and you can find what's broken and then you can coach and you can mentor. Hey, here's what maybe should have happened. You know, here's what about this? What about that? And uh that's a great, that's a great way to find your weaknesses and, and allow your team to grow on their own.

And you know what? I found a lot of times I would wait, I would be like, OK, I'm not gonna answer this phone call and I would wait like four hours. Hey, I was calling you back. Oh, we got it figured out. Perfect. I just removed myself from the situation like you said, and that's, that's the key to growth right there. And you also have to learn as the entrepreneur and maybe the one who's better at each role because you created every role and you mastered every role before you delegated it.

You actually have to learn to be content with good enough. Yeah, maybe you could have Upsell them more. Maybe you could have satisfied that customer without giving away such a refund, right? You need to learn to be satisfied with good enough because OK, maybe you would have handled it more perfectly. But sharing that with them, demoralizes them and sharing that with them makes you necessary to your business. And that's the worst thing for an entrepreneur is to be needed in the day to day operations. So learn to be happy with good enough, you know what their solution was good enough.

It didn't break your business. Everything's moving forward, go forward with good enough. I love that if, if everyone could just take that away from this podcast, literally, that that's just so liberating because we are such visionaries that has to be our way and it has to be this way and it's gotta be perfect and it's like we, we can't be perfect in wearing all those hats. Even if, if we wanted to, we, it's just not possible. We're holding ourselves back, we're holding ourselves back. Because if I jump in and get involved, what innovation have I stopped working on?

What thinking and planning that only I can do isn't happening because I'm distracted and I've gotten myself back involved, right? It's not happening. My most brilliant moments were when I step away from my office, step away from my business for a period of time. And I think about my business and I innovate and I create some of the best thinking times are on an airplane where I'm trapped and I can't do anything but think and plan and write out ideas. Love it. Ok, so you get your business to the point where it doesn't rely on you as much.

When did you decide? You know what I've, I've got some uh ability to help others. I, I wanna get into coaching. I've, I've got a proven track record of success. It's funny, I can actually remember the point in time when my coaching business was launched in my mind, it wasn't launched publicly, but it was about 18 years ago. And I shared with some colleagues, I said I have my exit strategy and it is not selling my cleaning business because back then all the conversations around people who were like tired of working in the business, tired of being a part of their business, they wanted to retire and sell.

And I, I said, I don't have to sell my business. I'm going to launch a coaching business. And back then I started out just serving and helping people for free to the point where I didn't have enough time left over in my day. And then I had to start charging, but just easing away from the business and declaring in my mind, I'm ready to help people. There's so many people struggling in their business and these concepts that I learned over the years and the systems that the George S May company showed me to implement these concepts seem to be universal to every cleaning business owner I talked to.

There isn't a unique question. They bring me there isn't an oddball scenario that I've never encountered. They were all the same. I literally had a cookie cutter formula to help people solve their business problems. And that's when I knew that's my exit. Right. Because honestly, Ryan, if I didn't have something else to go do, I would have stayed working in my business because I loved it and I like to stay busy. I'm, I'm never gonna retire. I finally admitted to my husband a few years ago. You know, I was that phony person that when people would say so, Debbie, when are you gonna retire first?

Internally? I would get mad and think, well, what do you think? I am old? But then secondly, I would think, well, that's what everybody does is they retire. So I would make up some answer. Right. Like, oh, I'll probably retire when I'm 65. That was years ago. I finally told my husband years ago I said, you know, I'm never going to retire. And he looked at me and he laughed and he said, I know I've known that for years. So if I didn't have a chance to go on and help other people in a different way, I would have continued working in my business.

That's an interesting concept because I think that's so true for all of us, we just feel the time that's given to us. So if we have five days a week, we work five days a week, we have seven. If, if someone said tomorrow, we have 10 days a week to work, entrepreneurs would figure out a way to work 10 days a week. Right. So it would take 10, it would take 10 days to get the job done. It would Park Parkinson's law, the time, you know, expands to fill the container you put it in.

So when I told my office, Ryan, I only work three days a week now. So I made years as the years went by, I finally made the declaration, I'm off Fridays and Mondays. So when I declared I only work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, I got all my work done, they got all their work done. It wasn't a problem. So then by the time I was ready to say I'm retired, I don't come in anymore. They were like good because when you do come in, you just disrupt things.

I mean, they were already done with me and I was already done with them. I was just hanging on. I love that. Well, it's, it's almost interesting because I, I think people get torn and it's like they hear of like multiple streams of income and there is something to be where it's like too scattered. But I, I love the idea of building your business to run without you and then not selling it because a lot of people are like, oh, I wanna sell my business. I'm like, why, like, what, unless you're, do you have like, a plan because, like, you're not gonna get as much money as you think that you're gonna get for your business.

And they, these businesses are too hard to build, but once you do build them, they're cash kings. Right? And so why not enjoy the long term benefit of having that business? And then what you did is genius. Give yourself a new hobby, give yourself a new job. Give yourself a new business to work on that, to distract you so that your main business can now run itself and, and multiply, I love that. Yeah, I had to have a new project. Most people sell their business because they're fed up with it.

It isn't true that they're, that, you know, there's just so successful, they want to sell it. Most people sell their business when they're fed up. Either it takes too much of their time, uh, or they don't make enough money or both. And then you don't get what you feel it was worth. Like you said, you almost never get to sell it for what you think it's worth because an investor doesn't want to buy a job and that's what you're selling. And so I knew I needed to get my business.

If I was ever going to sell it, it needed to be self running because nobody's going to buy a job and so you have to make your business self running if you ever hope to sell it. But then once it's self running, kind of like the book I read years ago by John War Low. Uh, I think it was built to sell once you get it to the point where it's self running and it's a cash cow. You're like, hm. Why would I sell it? I, I make six figures a year of passive income and all I do is an hour to an hour and a half a week.

Coach, my one leader, I have one direct report in a business that has over 60 employees. Why would I sell that? It's, it's fun. It keeps me current and it fuels my knowledge for my other ventures that are all tied to my original business. I mean, all of the businesses that I have started, including my nonprofit involve the cleaning world. So like you talked about sparkly objects. The only time I chased a sparkly object, I went way out of my vertical into an industry. I know nothing about was arrogance.

I bought a retail business, a fabulous little wine boutique. And I figured, well, I've got all these other businesses, a successful nonprofit that runs itself. I bought the speed cleaning brand. We have this manufacturing business where we manufacture and ship ecofriendly cleaning products, tools and equipment all over the world. I got this cleaning business. I got this coaching business I can buy this retail business and it won't need me either. Well, that was arrogance. I failed so miserably at that sparkly object. It wasn't even funny. I failed miserably.

I've learned to stay in my lane. Do what I know and do what I already have a passion around and I'm an expert at and so I'm staying in the world of cleaning. I don't dare step out of my lane. Well, you're, you're doing a fantastic job. So I don't know why you would try to get into the wine business right now. Well, it was fun while it lasted. We had great wine parties and I learned a lot about wine, but I lost over $250,000 before I pulled the plug and said, maybe we should close this thing down.

So let's talk about your coaching. What's the name of your coaching? Business, cleaning business fundamentals. It is the number one residential cleaning business owners academy in the world. We've created more mop free millionaires than anyone on the planet. I love that saying, that's the goal, right? That's the goal for all your clients. A mop become a mop free millionaire. That's right because, uh, now we don't work with the people who do the cleaning. We work with the owner, right? We work with the owner to help them get out of the field and stop cleaning the people who owns the business and they're trying to hire staff and expand and, and get to the next level who ultimately want to put the CEO hat on, put down the mop forever and build an empire and that's who we work with.

And we get the best results in our industry. It's, it's incredible to see the lives that change as a result of our program. Well, it's interesting because once I did meet you and became aware of your name and stuff like that. Now everyone I meet is like, yeah, Debbie Sardone and I'm in her program and all this stuff. I'm like, that's just like how life works, you know. So maybe I did know you, maybe I did know your name before. I just didn't recognize it. So, um, now I see it, I see people getting massive, massive success.

What, what are some of the things when they join your program? Like, what are the common denominators that they all are struggling with? And I bet you see this common denominators, these common denominators in your program as well. They're probably very similar. But the number one common denominator is, the owner is still involved in delivery, right? So the owner is still the one who has to go out and help the team clean or the owner is still cleaning some of the accounts or if they maybe step up a couple of levels, the owner is still doing the training, but they don't do all the cleaning or the owner has to go out and inspect the houses.

So way too often the owners are, are too involved in the actual delivery. Right. Doing the cleaning. And then some of them managed to get out of that and they enter into the valley of despair. They're trying to get to a half a million and beyond, they don't clean anymore, but they're just constantly managing 5003 cleaning technicians that keep turning over and over and over again. So they're not adding staff, they're replacing staff. Well, that'll keep you from ever getting to a million dollars. And that's where I was.

I hadn't been cleaning when I hired the coaches, I've been out of the field for a few years, but I was just replacing cleaners who quit. I wasn't adding cleaners so I couldn't get to 25 employees and 30 employees and I didn't understand that every single employee had the potential. Now in date, today's numbers, every single employee working for me full time in today's numbers had the potential of generating 90 to 100 and $20,000 in revenue. So I still, as an owner made the mistake of thinking my $5000 a year weekly customer was more valuable than my $90,000 a year employee because one motivated full time cleaner, not even working full.

Um, uh, overtime can generate to my business 5003,000 to 100 and $20,2100 in revenue. I didn't understand these dynamics. And so my employee turnover was outrageous. I was like every other business owner out there underpaying and making excuses. That's what I was doing. I was underpaying and making excuses. Well, I pay better than, uh, ABC cleaning company. Ok. Well, look at their results. They, they have high employee turnover too. Why do I compare myself to somebody else who's failing? But I was doing that and that's what business owners do.

That is gold. That is, they're, no one thinks about that. I mean, most people think, oh, an employee, I can't afford that person. That's an expense. And it's like, well, hold on, like maybe, uh maybe on your, in your books, it shows up in the expense but it is an investment and like you just say, in landscape lighting, it's anywhere from 21300 to $253,2000 revenue per employee. So it's like you should be looking for opportunities like work. Like, how do I get as many people as possible to work for me?

Right. Uh because you're adding that type of revenue to your business. It's that mentality that an employee's payroll is an expense. Like you just said, no, it isn't. That employees payroll means you can generate like in your business, possibly $2100,2500 in revenue. It's just like marketing people say, well, I can't afford marketing. It's expensive. No, it isn't. It's free. Marketing is free if you, if you invest your marketing dollars in the right places, marketing is free. Same thing with employees. If you invest in your employees and you attract the right people and you have the right culture fit and you create a job that's worth staying for your employees are free.

So if your employees are are not free, you're just doing it wrong. My employees are free. I I ran into the same stuff and like you said, it, it really is just business in general, small business because I was so focused on the marketing for the client and, and what could I do to convince them to stay with us and all this other stuff? But it's like, what, what did I ever do? How much marketing did I do to recruit? You know, and one of our coaches, Dan Platt, I, who I think you might know, um, he's, he's one of our, our coaches and he teaches us, he's like, man, you know, the average landscape lighting, what's the lifetime value of a landscape lighting client?

It might be 43,24 on average, you know, like that's even kind of a high number for the average company. You compare that to the average value of a, a team member could be in the millions, you know, I mean, it's, it's kind of a no brainer 25%. What are we doing as business owners to create a job people don't ever want to quit. So we don't look at it that way. Right. One of the things I teach when I'm, I'm speaking on employees and employee engagement and so forth is I talk about the inverted triangle, right?

So you look at people's org chart in their business. You got the hot shot up at the very top, right? The little pointy top is just one hot shot. The owner, the president, the CEO and then of course, the triangle gets wider and wider as the base and all the peons and the nobodies are the, the delivery team, the cleaning technicians, the guys doing the lawn, whatever. And I say no, we need to flip that org chart upside down and make an upside down triangle to where the peons.

That's the owner, the nobodies. That's the president, the CEO, the important people, the vips, the big wide base, the VIP S are the people out there in the field pushing a mower, pushing a mop, scrubbing a toilet. Those are the VIP S we have to flip our org chat or who's the most important person in the company, not ABC doctor client who uses our service every week. The VIP is my internal client, my employee who's generating, like you said, hundreds of thousands of dollars to my business.

Why am I not rolling out the red carpet for them? That's I'm on my soapbox. I'm on my soapbox now. I know. Well, see, this is why you need a constant mentor too. Like you said, like you hired that firm and then you struggled and stuff because you didn't have them. And like, even our conversation now, I'm like, thinking, OK, how can I be a better leader within my organization? Why have I not flipped my, like, I know this stuff, I'm hitting myself against the head. It's so simple, Debbie, why, why am I not doing it?

So, even today, I'm changing as a leader in my organization based on this conversation. So it's that constant reminder, it's the constant check ins and accountability and things like that that really help you keep progressing. Here's the thing, there's a new devil at every level, right? You guys have reached a and and unusual level, right in your business that so many people want to know what, you know, and they want to learn from you, but we're never done growing, we're never through expanding and there's something about getting around other experts going to your conference, networking with each other at your conference and hearing what that guy is doing and hearing what that guy guy is doing.

You all of a sudden, look at yourself and go, why am I not doing that anymore? How many of us, especially as this past year was a little bit more difficult as everything was easy, right? After COVID, right? Customers were jumping in our bucket. Um and, and then in 215 we had to work harder to get customers, right? And so how many of us spend? So much time, money and energy winning customers, keeping customers and how much time, money and energy and brainpower do we put towards lifting our employees?

Making our employees feel like I am never gonna quit this place. I love this place. These people respect me. They're developing me. They treat me like gold. I'm never leaving here. If we put as much time and energy into our employees as we do in finding a new customer, we wouldn't have near the customer turnover we have because happy employees create happy customers, I think. Ok, so uh Alex or Mosey has the book 100 million offers or whatever. And it's something like make an offer so good that they'd feel stupid saying, no, I paraphrased Debbie Sardone says, make an offer so good to your internal customers that they'd feel stupid leaving 100% 100% create a job so good they don't want to quit and, and most people aren't focused on that.

I love that. That is so good. So, you know, the American dream is to do what you've done. Like you, you could stop now and I know you're not going to, we're in a mastermind together and you're, you're, you are not, you are serious when you're never gonna retire. But you know, it's exciting to see your success. People get people are uh you know, the, the book, my talks about like people don't start a business because they're entrepreneurs and you didn't either you, you were just cleaning, trying to make money and then you learn these things.

But why is it so hard? Like, why is entrepreneurship so hard for people? Well, there's several reasons. Right. I'd say the first reason seems like it would be the easiest thing to fix. But the first reason is our mindset is screwed up. Right. It's, it's not even our skills. Our skills aren't the hardest part. It's our mindset. We don't think we can do it. We think it's the economy, not me. We think it's all that cheap competition out there working against me. So our mindset is probably the hardest thing to overcome.

But the other thing around hard is any worthwhile thing is hard, right? Any worthwhile thing is hard. You, if you want business not to be hard, then you'll probably have a very average mediocre business. Well, I don't want average and I don't want mediocre. You know what a good marriage, it's hard. You have to work hard at a good marriage. Being amazing parents is hard work. If you do the easy stuff, yeah. Eat whatever you want. I'm not going to get in that fight over broccoli again. Right.

If we choose the easy way out, we will have mediocre or subpar results. So everything in life that's worth it is hard. A good marriage, great relationships with your family. You gotta work really hard about that, especially in the world of politics. Uh You have to work hard at being healthy, right? You have to work hard at being physically fit. If you do what's easy, you're gonna be unhealthy, overweight, can't even climb stairs. So, everything worthwhile is hard. Choose your hard as Josh likes to say Josh Latimer, one of our mentors, choose your hard.

It's hard being broke. It's hard being stressed out. It's hard never being able to afford the things you want. That's hard. But it's also hard being successful. You gotta work hard, you gotta read books, you gotta pivot, you gotta get around mentors, then you gotta go back and implement. That's hard too. But choose your heart. You are awesome. It is so good. So you, the first thing you said was mindset. What, what can someone do if they're struggling with that? They, they find themselves blaming other things, right?

Other c Yeah, it's, they're victim of their circumstance. Like is there any tips, books, tricks that you, that you do in your life to stay positive? Because you, you're, you're like miss positivity. I love being around you. I feel, I feel better when I like today. I was looking at my calendar and I wasn't feeling that good this morning and I saw, well, we got Debbie Sardon at three, so I'm gonna have a great day. Like, I'm not even kidding. I was like, that's fine. If it was someone else I'd be like, yeah, but I, I was excited.

So what what are your tips to stay in this positive mindset? Well, I do, I am naturally a very positive person. My husband used to tease me all the time that, you know, I could see uh the good in anything even bad. Right. So sometimes there's a little bit of a natural bent, but it's also a learned skill. And so there's the concept of the victor victim mentality. And if you are ever saying they them it when you're referring to struggles, business failures, uh business plateaus, you can't break through, then you're probably blaming instead of solving, right?

So if you're blaming anything or anyone, you are not solving. But if you are saying me, I, you know, um myself, then you're accepting responsibility and you're more likely to look for a solution. And so you have to train your brain to never accept that. It's the economy, it's the pandemic, it's the lazy labor force. It's the cheap competition. You can never go there because we can't change those external factors. Guess what? The pandemic snuck up on everyone in the world right now. Yeah, you'll have a short period of time where you go down, but you can bounce back up which many of us did, who had mentors and coaches in our lives.

Um I can't control the economy. I can't control inflation. I can't control it. So I, I must not ever say, well, maybe when the economy recovers I can succeed or I can grow. I must never say that. I must say, huh? What do I need to do different in this economy? What do I need to do different to survive this really high inflation? What do I need to do different? I just took back all the power I took back all the control and now I can pivot.

The answer has always been me. Look in the mirror and go, what am I doing wrong? What do I need to change? What old habits have creeped back in? What stinking thinking am I allowing in my brain? And when I do that, I solve my problems, it starts with starts with me, it starts with me control the controllable and those other things are not controllable so they're not controllable. So learn to pivot. So Ryan, this is why. And I, I know I probably sound like a broken record and but I'm such a firm believer in coaches and mentors.

Um This is why you must work with true experts, not the guy who bought somebody else's course. And now they're going to teach you for less. You need to work with real experts because real experts have knowledge and expertise so that when the things change around you, like the economy, the things are out of your control. Authentic experts who have been there who have lived through multiple recessions. I lived through 911. My business survived 911 and survived the pandemic. It grew through the pandemic. It grew, all my businesses grew, uh, except for my nonprofit but work with somebody who's been there so that when things change, they can guide you through the pivot because most people don't know how to pivot.

It's like we're always pivoting about every few years we're pivoting. Oh, I love that. No, you do not sound like a broken record, by the way, I'm, I really believe it. This is great stuff. I love it. Let's you mentioned your, uh, nonprofit. I want to make sure we touch on that. What is it? And why did you start this? It's my pride and joy. It's why I'm wearing pink. I wear pink almost every time I step on a stage to speak. Um, I started my nonprofit about 18 years ago and I wasn't, you know, 53% absentee owner back then I answered my phone.

I was sitting at my desk, I can remember it like it was yesterday. Literally, I was sitting at my desk, the phone rang and a lady said I'd like a quote for cleaning my house. So I gave her a price. I was in business mode and she said, oh, I can't really afford that right now. I'm going through chemotherapy and radiation for cancer and I'm not working. So I'll call you when I get back to work and she hung up the phone and Ryan, this was before the days of caller ID. And I remember looking at my phone thinking, why didn't I give her the cleaning for free, why didn't I just say, oh, we'll come out and clean for you for free.

So that day, an idea was born and I met with my staff, we all just kind of did a huddle in the hall and I said, if this ever happens again because I was, you know, semi absentee at the time. So I wasn't always in the office. If this ever happens again, you just give her the cleaning for free. Don't call me, don't ask me, you don't need permission. Just do it if a woman calls, she needs her house cleaned and she's got cancer, give her the cleaning for free.

So that day out of a missed opportunity, an idea was born, we implemented it. And then years later as I began to share this and I began to be a speaker and I talked about cause marketing and how it had affected my business. The fact that we were doing this. Um I inspired other cleaning business owners who said, well, I wanna do that too. How do you do that? How do you find the cancer patients? How do you keep people from taking advantage of your generosity? And that's when I said I need to start a nonprofit.

And so we went nationwide. We started a nonprofit. Fast forward. 18 years later, Ryan, we've helped over 53,000 families get their homes cleaned 100% for free, no strings attached while they were battling cancer. And we've done that through our network of over 1300 cleaning companies spread out all over the US and Canada and they are serving patients in their community through cleaning for a reason. And it's just been the pride and joy of everything I've done, including making millions. My favorite thing is when we give away what we do for a living.

That's my favorite thing. That is so amazing. Like 53,000 families. That is insane. That is crazy. So, I mean, that's amazing. Like I don't even know what to say. Congratulations. It's crazy. Well, and I can't take credit for it. We've done a few 100 of those free cleanings through my local cleaning company. But it's these cleaning companies all over the US that are willing to raise their hand and say I'll clean for free. Sign me up. It's incredible. That is so cool. All right. So that's called cleaning for a reason.

If people want to get involved in that, how do they sign up as a cleaning business? Can they donate money? Like how do we, how do we be a part of it? Both? So if somebody owns a residential cleaning business and they clean houses for a living, they should join cleaning for a reason. The goodwill, the cause marketing the incredible beautiful pink logo you put on your website, on your home page. That alone will draw business and it'll make all the free cleanings you donate worth it.

And it is, you know, it's very limited what you have to donate. It doesn't break anybody's bank. So if you own a cleaning company just sign up and be a volunteer, I make nothing. I don't draw a salary. I get nothing. I'm a board member. I actually have to pay to be on my own board. So it doesn't benefit me financially. So if you own a cleaning company, join cleaning for a reason, if you have a service business of any kind and you're serving people, people's homes, like landscaping and lighting and, and cleaning and whatever else, carpet cleaning, you should be a part of cleaning for a reason.

As a sponsor, you can help us raise funds that creates awareness and cause marketing for your own business. We need donors and we need fundraisers. We have a very simple, super simple fundraising app where you can set a goal and just push out that link and with no effort and no money of your own, you can help us raise funds so we need all the help we can get. We really do. Yeah. That's awesome. I'm gonna, I'll, I'll check that out because I didn't even realize that, you know, I thought it was for. org. Yeah.

Ok. Cool. That's very cool. And then, uh, you've got your live event coming up, uh, next month as well. Uh, tell us a little bit about what that is, is and who that's for. It is literally the largest residential cleaning business owners specific conference in the world. We'll have about 500 people there uh for three full days of training. And this year I'm teaching the millionaire maker method and we're gonna be talking about how to uh create career cleaners, how to finally get profitable, how to scale and grow through marketing, how to train faster and better all those things.

The cleaning business owners struggle with three full days, networking with the most. Do you think I'm high energy? You should see these mop free millionaires, right? They are so proud of what they've been able to achieve with their business. 500 energized, motivated entrepreneurs who want to share their knowledge and network with each other. It is like a dream come true if you're in the cleaning business. So it's in Dallas, Texas, April 4, 5 and six, about 15 minutes from DFW airport. So easy to fly in from almost anywhere in the country.

We're staying at a gorgeous resort, the OMNI Hotel. We've uh uh, snagged a a screaming good rate and they can register at CBF live. com. Ok. Cool. And just to confirm, that's not that you don't have to already be in your coaching program. That could be any cleaning business. Anybody who owns a residential cleaning business should be there. You do not have to be in my coaching program. Ok. Sweet. That's awesome. Well, um gosh, thank you, Debbie. I feel like you dropped a lot of gold. I was just hoping for one or two little things, but we, we talked about recruiting stuff that I was not on my list.

Uh So that, that was really, really good. I, I really, really just wanna thank you for your time and thanks for being so gracious with all the stuff that you've learned in your career so far. Well, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be on your show. I love what you're doing with the lighting community. Um I think entrepreneurs are uh are the lifeline of our country. Entrepreneurs are the job creators and America needs the entrepreneurs. So I thank you for what you do, helping people succeed in business.

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And we, I agree with you on that, that front. That's we're, we're doing this for the same reason. So it's, it's awesome to uh do it alongside you. Thank you. All right guys. What you guys think? Let me know if you guys watch this live, let me know in the comments. Uh That was awesome. Thank you, Debbie. I hope you're having a fantastic week. I'll see you in a couple of weeks at our mastermind. That's right. Thank you. All right guys.

Take it easy. Have a good week. Don't forget, keep moving forward.