A lot of cleaning business owners start out thinking the main goal is simple.
Get more clients. Do more cleans. Make more money.
But after a while, many of them realise something uncomfortable. More jobs do not always mean more freedom. Sometimes more jobs just mean more stress, more admin, more complaints, more cleaner problems, and more pressure on the owner.
That is why Carolyn Arellano’s story is worth paying attention to.
Carolyn is based in New Jersey, USA. She is the CEO and founder of Spotless Cleaning Services and the founder of Cleaning Business Mentor. Her cleaning business started in 2018 with her sister, Hannah. They were not starting with a big office, a huge team, or some perfect business plan. They started because they needed to make money, so they cleaned homes full time.
Within the first year, they brought in a little over $320,000 in revenue.
By the end of that year, they had grown from two sisters cleaning homes into a team of eight people, including six team members plus Carolyn and her sister.
That is impressive, but the real lesson is not just the revenue.
The real lesson is what had to change inside the business.
Carolyn had to stop being only the person doing the cleaning and start becoming the person building the company.
That is the shift many cleaning business owners struggle with.
