Broke With $100 → Built a $4M Cleaning Business Without Ads ft. Johnny Robinson

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welcome to the level up podcast i'm your host paul alex i went from being a comp to a eight figure entrepreneur that helps average people like you and me make money every single day i created this podcast to help you get motivated and to crush your goals let's win together remember i have your six get ready to level up right now

Hey guys, and welcome back to the Level Up Podcast.

This is Paul Alex.

I have another phenomenal interview with a very special guest by the name of Johnny.

Johnny, in 2017 started a cleaning business with his best friend that he met in middle school, guys.

And with $150,

they ended up building a multi-million dollar tangible cleaning business, guys.

And in 2022, they ended up transitioning into the online space and helped over 3,000 people in North America start successful cleaning businesses.

And now he's here today at the level up.

Ready to tell you everything from A to Z, how you guys can do it, and also to inspire anybody who wants to start a side hustle to turn into a full-time income.

Johnny, welcome to the show, brother.

What an intro, man.

Thanks so much for having me.

Hey, man, excited to be here.

When I'm on this Celsius, I'm on.

Free promo.

Sponsors, see, Emilio had it in the background.

As you guys know, Emilio is the rock star, producer, and sound engineer that makes the level up, the level up.

With that being said, guys, Johnny, so you just came back from Vegas.

How was your flight, bro?

It is terrible, man.

It is terrible.

We were just talking about it.

Yeah, no, it's terrible that Miami Airport's no joke, dude.

Dude,

it's no joke.

Like, my wife, she has so many things to say about Miami airport, dude.

Like, it's it's insane.

Like, it's control chaos.

I've never experienced anything like it, dude.

And I've done a lot of travel this year, going to different events, stuff like that.

And, you know, I'm pretty used to it.

But, I mean, just getting took us an hour to get to the gate.

Like, we're talking after that, took an hour to get the Uber.

Yeah.

Just a terrible experience.

But Miami's been cool so far.

Yeah.

And

did you work on your Espanol?

No, I didn't.

I should have.

I should have because nobody, like, I was trying to door dash some food last night because I was starving.

I got in super late.

I was trying to talk to the Uber driver.

They both spoke Spanish, and I couldn't communicate with them.

So, uh, going back to Vegas, I might have to open up the Duolingo app or something like that.

Dude, dude.

100%.

And I'm half Mexican.

So it's like every time I talk to, like, especially the old school Mexican dudes, they're like, what do you mean you don't speak Spanish?

Right.

I feel kind of bad, you know?

It's all good, man.

It happens.

So, with that being said, let's dive into your background, dude.

What inspired you and your business partner, Sergio, to go ahead and start an actual cleaning cleaning business in 2017?

Well, dude, funny enough, actually, actually similar to you growing up, I wanted to be a cop.

Oh, shit.

I was actually an explorer, and I was going through the process of becoming a cadet.

Did you tell me this?

No, I didn't tell you this.

Dude, that's badass.

Save it for the podcast, man.

Come on, Brandon Hurst.

You got a free fire.

You're here for this, man.

Come on.

So I wanted to be a cop growing up.

And so growing up, my mom...

Pretty much raised me on her own.

My dad wasn't involved in my life kind of in and out up until about I was a sophomore in high school, so maybe 14, 15 years old.

And then he passed away.

He's an alcoholic.

Oh, man.

I'm sorry.

And so, no, no, appreciate it.

Then my mom

was like, hey, or I want to be a cop.

I was like, hey, mom, I really want to be a cop.

I'm like telling her this in high school.

And she's like, all right, I'm going to sell my house.

And we are living in a small town in Southern California called Hesperia.

If you've heard of it, Victor Phil Apple Valley called the ass crack of Southern California.

Terrible.

And so I was like, I really want to live in Orange County, mom, because there's better opportunities.

I really wanted to work for an Orange County PD.

So she sells the house, which she worked her ass off to save up and purchase.

And she's like, all right, I'm betting this on you.

You better do this.

Move to Orange County.

We start renting this house for $3,200 a month in the city of Orange.

And she goes, or she's like, all right, go ahead, do your thing.

I go become an explorer because I'm just turning 18 at this point.

And what happened was

I become an explorer and I get yelled at by this

woman cadet.

She starts yelling at me, and that's when I'm like, I can't take this.

She starts calling me a sheep or something like that.

She's like, I'm a wolf.

You're a sheep.

Something like that.

And I'm like, yeah, this is not it.

So I come back, I tell my mom after she had bought me the boots and the freaking mag light, flashlight.

And I'm like, I'm not doing this.

She's like, the fuck you aren't.

Like, what do you mean?

Like, no, I'm not.

And so she's pitched like, well, you need to get a freaking job.

So I go get a job and I was a water water park lifeguard.

Yep.

And I was making like 10 bucks an hour or something.

This is 2016.

Yeah.

And she gives me her car that she has a $450 a month payment on or something like that.

And I go to work for two weeks.

I get paid and I get paid like 600 bucks after taxes.

I'm like, this is BS.

I'll go to my mom.

I'm like, mom, it just seems like I have this car so that I can go to work just so I can pay for the car.

And she's like, yeah, welcome to the real world.

She's like, that's part of the plan.

And you know, you're covering my car payment.

Yeah.

I was like, okay.

I was like, so I was like, I got to figure out a way to make some money.

This is BS, dude.

So I go to Sergio.

I was going to college two full-time.

Yep.

And so is Sergio.

And Sergio is my best friend from the seventh grade.

And so we're still hanging out after high school.

And we go to the beach one day.

I was like, dude, did you know you didn't need a degree to start a business?

I thought you needed a degree to start a business.

And I had found out through the internet you didn't.

And so with this newfound knowledge, I'm like, hey, dude.

Did you know you didn't need a degree?

He's like, no, I didn't.

I thought you needed one too.

Because we both come from families where there's no entrepreneurs.

Nobody really, quote unquote, like made it or has been entrepreneurial.

So, um, I was like, You want to start a business?

He's like, Nope, I'm going to school for civil engineering.

I'm cool.

I'm going to make 70 grand a year after I get out of college.

So, I'm like, okay, nice.

And so, I'm still thinking, I'm still on this like business kick.

I'm thinking of ideas.

He calls me a week later after he found a Gary Vee video, and he's like, Dude, and he got declined at Arby's, like, they wouldn't hire him because he was trying to get a job.

Oh, shit.

And so, he's like, Yeah, dude, let's start a business.

I'm like, All right, let's do it.

And so, it was between landscaping or window cleaning because the question was, How do we make money yesterday?

Yeah.

Like as soon as possible.

Like we have to start paying some pills.

And so it was between landscaping and window cleaning.

And landscaping just seemed like way too hard.

It was hot at the time because we were during summer when we were starting.

And so we picked window cleaning.

And originally we thought we were going to go sit at the gas station and clean car windows.

Like we didn't know window cleaning was a real industry.

People are actually thankful.

Did you guys buy like squeegees?

Well, Sergio was like yeah dude, let's do window cleaning like all right and I Google window cleaning thinking like because I had had reluctantly agreed I was like dude, we're not gonna make no money, bro.

Would we be homeless?

Like we're gonna go sit on the freaking

gas station and freaking

but anyways, he's like, yeah, I'm down.

I'm not opposed.

I was like, all right, whatever.

And I Google window cleaning and then come to find out like people with houses pay for it, people with commercial buildings, storefronts.

And so I'm like, oh, dude, this is like a real thing.

So we start watching different YouTubers on these guys that are like showing us like how to actually clean clean windows.

Yeah.

Start a window cleaning business, like very in the trenches, hands-on.

And so with $150, I put in $75, he put in $75, and we bought a squeegee, a couple

polos from Walmart, and it's called a bucket on the belt.

So it's like a, you put your squeegee in there, your applicator, so you can clean the window.

Johnny, like before you continue, dude, how much did you have in your bank account when you went ahead and took $75 from your bank account, dude?

I probably only had like 100 because right before that, we were going to start a t-shirt company.

Oh, okay.

And we paid $300 for a logo.

Oh my goodness.

We never used it.

We never used it.

It's so real, dude.

You know how many logos I've bought for different ideas and never did anything with it?

I think a lot of people can freaking like resonate with that.

Well, dude, we didn't know Fiverr existed, right?

So it was like we went to 99 Designs.

Oh, yeah.

They were freaking milking you guys.

Yeah, dude, milked us, bro.

So we spent like, we had probably like 300 bucks a piece in our account, maybe.

And so we both put in $150.

to pay for that logo.

And then I remember Sergio was drawing little designs on his notebook.

And he's like, all right, dude, how do I take this and put it on here like to the computer screen I'm like yeah dude this is not the business for us bro so we scrapped that like day one after we paid for the logo and that's when we came up with the window cleaning but yeah 75 bucks 75 bucks dude and we just uh Walmart Polo squeegee started going hitting the ground running um going to different storefronts and the first one we did was a

because he was living with me and my mom at that same at this point and we were actually sleeping on the same bed together I love that on the same queen bed in my room so like while we were going to college college and trying to build this, and so we would wake up.

Do you guys have pictures of pitching?

Like, you have pictures of, like, dude, this is what I'm doing.

I don't like to post them.

It's kind of sus.

Amelia was like, whoa.

It's a little sus, bro.

So, but yeah, I've got them.

I've got them for sure.

Maybe we can pop them up on the screen.

So

let's dive into like, okay, let's dive into the serious stuff right now, guys.

The serious stuff is client acquisition.

So, sales, how are you guys getting leads?

Especially in the beginners, dude.

there's a lot of people here that are like paul i suck at sales i was like me too bro like hey this is why we learn right we have to start from somewhere so you guys just invested 75 each you guys are living in the same room you guys are in college i mean you guys have that abundance mindset of in the entrepreneurial spirit but at the end of the day dude you guys are just starting out is your mindset right now like hey dude let's just try it out and see how it goes Dude, our mindset was literally like, yeah, like, let's just go knock on doors.

And if we knock on a hundred doors, there's one that's going to say yes.

Like, what?

I love that.

Because especially Sergio he was going to school for engineering he ended up getting his degree in engineering yeah he's very analytical yeah and so he's like dude if we go knock on a hundred doors what are the odds that one says all of them say no like the odds of them saying no all of them is a lot lower than one saying yes so i was like yeah that's a good point let's just go knock on as many doors and so our pitch was hey can we clean your windows paul and you would say no and i would go are you sure You don't want us to clean your windows?

And that was our pitch.

That was literally it.

It was a terrible pitch.

I'm not saying that's a good pitch, but it's like

that was a pitch.

And then the first one we did,

they said it was a donut shop on the corner of where we were staying.

And they were like, Yeah, we will pay you if we like it.

Like, hey, that's close enough.

Like, screw it, whatever.

Clean two windows, clean them.

And they're like, Yeah, it's good, but like, here, here's some donuts.

They paid us in a box of like their old donuts because it was like the afternoon at this point.

So that was like our first paid job.

And then such an awesome story, dude.

I got paid for my first job in my cleaning business with donuts.

I love love that yeah and so we're excited but i mean donuts weren't gonna pay the bills right so then we drove down the street and we ended up going on a heater dude like we we hit uh this

auto repair shop it's called green auto repair still remember the name andy green dude shout out to him he uh did not need his windows clean dude his windows were screwed up like i'm talking like debris everything from all the auto repair but he saw us we were you know 19 at the time young he just wanted to support us and so i remember thinking like

what do you want to quote this, bro?

And Sergio's like, I don't know, dude, like, 30 bucks.

I'm like, how about 40?

Remember, we were shitting bricks at $40.

And I was like, all right, let's go pitch it.

I was like, all right, dude,

we do it for like $40.

And he's like, yeah, let's do it.

And we were like, oh my God.

Yeah.

Aha moment.

You're like, dude,

40 bucks, bro.

And so we clean it real quick and he pays us.

And then we go across the street to this burger joint, Omega Burger.

And we go there and we pitch him 50 bucks every month and he takes it.

Nice.

So

there was 90 bucks there.

Then we go to this old Ford auto parts store across the street from that one.

And there's a ton of glass.

Like we ended up actually retaining them for a really long time.

But we pitched them for 80 bucks.

And so we had made 80 plus

170 in like an hour.

And we were like, dude, you can make some serious money doing this.

And it was a good thing that happened, though, because after that happened, We went two weeks straight without getting a client.

Yeah.

And so we were just leaning on all that recurring that we had built up.

But if that didn't happen, I don't know if we would have still been in the window cleaning business because we got really lucky with the string of clients that were saying yes.

And then we just couldn't get another one until finally, answering your original question of the client acquisition, we were like, okay, we started stacking these storefronts, but we weren't making that much money.

And we're like, dude, we have to stack a bajillion storefronts if we ever want to make real money.

So let's figure out how to get into residential because I would look at the pricing on these other competitors' websites and they're charging 200, 300, 400 bucks for some of these bigger houses.

In Orange County, there's massive homes.

So I'm like, you know who what would work is if we called the top two, three house cleaning companies on Yelp

and they don't offer window cleaning services because they don't carry the insurance.

So what if we just call them and ask them, hey, why don't you send us all of your window cleaning clients?

Because you probably get people that ask you for it.

And I'll just send you 15 or 20% back to you and we'll take care of the whole job.

And so that way, you know, you're paying for these leads.

You can get an additional 15, 20% off the lead.

Why not?

and so i call the first two the first two on yelp and i pitch them and like yeah let's do it i'm like no freaking way and so the top two cleaning companies on yelp dude on yelp start sending us all their traffic basically for uh people who need window cleaning we got to like 10k a month off that dude that's insane yeah that's insane because that's like one of the most expensive overhead expenses when it comes to business dude is client acquisition.

You guys figured out a simple way to go ahead and leverage another person's not only brand, but like actual clientele, like their portfolio, dude.

That's fire, bro.

Good job on that one, man.

Thanks, man.

Yeah.

And so then we had a sit-down meeting with one of them.

And one of them's like, you need to get on, you need to build your reputation on Yelp.

You need to get reviews.

We get so much business from Yelp.

And we're like, okay, we're listening.

And so they're sending us this work.

We're doing it.

And we're starting to grow the business and make some money.

And then

we start asking everybody because we're still in the field.

I'm doing all the work.

We're doing all the work.

I'm on the inside, Sergius on the outside.

And I got, I got into a habit of every time I started to clean the windows inside, there'd be the homeowner there.

And I would always ask them, hey, like what do you do for work?

I started to ask them about themselves.

People love to talk about themselves.

And so they started telling me about it.

And funny enough, a lesson I learned here was like 80% of my clients had built a business or built and sold a business.

Yeah.

And I'm like, okay, like.

It's great mentorship.

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

And so I'm like, okay, this is interesting.

Like, I'm picking up on this pattern.

But as I'm talking to them, they're getting to like me because I'm like, I'm I'm like very inquisitive and wanting to get to know like oh wait what business do you run how do you get your your clients how long have you been doing it etc etc and

I would then ask them for a review at the end and so slowly but surely we ended up building this huge reputation in Orange County with like hundreds and hundreds I think maybe almost a thousand five star reviews at this point currently but we started to build this reputation the more and more reviews we got the more calls we started to get and we're like all right let's do the same thing but on google my business it's now called google business profile but started doing that on Google Business Profile, and then we started to rank on Google.

And so then we're like, all right, well, if we're already getting all this organic, like free leads, like, what if we just spend a little bit of money on Yelp?

Started spending money on Yelp.

And because we had that good reputation, people were calling us and closing.

We're spending like four grand, three, four grand in ads, and we're getting like a 16 to 20 to one return on our ad spend.

That's fire, dude.

Yeah.

That's so awesome.

Just because we have a reputation, it's exactly what I teach my clients, too.

It's like, hey, build your reputation.

Like, yes, spend a little bit at the beginning, but ask everybody for a review.

And I'm talking, as soon as that clean is done, pick up the phone.

Like, and people be like, oh, that's not scalable.

Like, why don't you have a VA do it or your team do it?

No, you personally, the owner, so you don't ever lose that relationship, call them and say, hey, how was the clean?

Oh, my God, it was great.

Awesome.

Hey, we're a small but growing business and it keeps us at the top.

Would you mind leaving us a review?

And if they say yes, then you have free rein to follow up with them until the end of time until they leave that review because they told you they'd leave you that review.

Johnny, one thing I like about your approach, man, it's very similar to my approach.

I always tell people, I i always talk to friends and and and mentees that always say like hey dude like how were you able to scale your business but then also how do you know all these people that have been successful just like you dude you and sergio right and uh i love your guys story because it's so inspiring that you guys are leading by example dude leading by example there's a difference between being a leader and being a boss you guys are a leader because you guys actually went ahead took the initiative to do the testimonials instead of hiring a va instead of getting an assistant instead of hiring and delegating that right off the top right you guys took the steps the initial steps to go ahead and and build the foundation and show your people how to get the job done dude and that's what everybody needs to do when they start a business you know big loop in that yeah absolutely man it's huge and that went a long way for us and we ended up that's how we built like if you're listening to this you've got time go google window cleaning orange county

orange window cleaning was the company that's the name of the company and it's going to show up number one on map pack and it'll either be right above yelp or right under yelp it goes back and forth yeah and it's just because we focus on providing a great service and doing a really good job at building a brand and reputation in home service businesses.

That's how you win.

Like if you can build that brand and get a bunch of five-star reviews and simply by just asking and you can layer some tech onto it to help you out, but that's how you win.

Yeah.

And do you still have some clients that like are still unconnected with you and Sergio directly, dude?

Like they just hit you up, like, I don't know the owner of the company and they hit you up directly like, yo, and like they're probably bigger accounts.

Yeah, I still get calls to this day from, because piece of advice,

don't put your personal business phone number in public.

That's what we did, dude.

That's what we did.

And so, to this day, like back from 2017, 2018, I still have people that reach out to me and they're like, Hey, can I get my windows clean?

I'm like, Yeah, let me connect you with Victor, the new owner.

Um, and so I'll connect them.

And I've had some people reach out and be like, Dude, I saw your content, like, one of your videos popped up, like, Crane to you and Sergio.

You cleaned my windows in 2018.

I'm like, Let's go, dude.

Hell yeah, I love that, man.

I love that.

So, okay, so you guys end up growing that 2022.

What happens in 2022 that you guys are like, yo, let's, I mean, that's right after COVID, right?

Where do you guys get the idea of like jumping out online and start bidding an info product around the experience and what you guys have built for the last few years?

Yeah, so what happened was

in 2021, I would say the later half of 2021, August 2021, I started tweeting and I had the handle at Squeegee God.

It's still my handle, Squeegee God.

That's so unique, dude.

Yeah, yeah.

So I had Squeegee God and I'm tweeting about this window cleaning business and I'm posting pictures of our trucks and we're wrapping our third truck.

And people are like, man, it's like, and I'm talking about how I'm a college student.

I'm like, oh, this 22-year-old kid is like killing it on window cleaning.

So I'm amassing this following on Twitter.

And it was just when this corner of Twitter called like small business Twitter, money Twitter started to really grow.

And so I was able to kind of catch that wave and like this window cleaning thing.

And people were finding it really interesting how I was running it remotely.

Because we ended up using contractors and just really, really getting good at sales and marketing and the customer experience.

We could start to sub out the work because workers comp was a pain in the butt I won't get too too crazy into that But like we were just getting waxed with W-2s right and so people were like oh, this is cool like I've never heard of like this remote window cleaning thing

and I'm starting to get DMs.

Hey, how do I do it?

How do I do it?

I stumble across a book called $100 million offers.

Oh, yeah.

Such a great book.

Yeah.

So I'm like, oh, dude, he ran this company called Gym Launch.

Like, I could probably do the same thing, just call it a clean launch.

I love that, dude.

So Actually, we ended up calling it a squeegee launch because we were going to do window cleaning, but we realized we actually had enrolled a couple of people as window cleaning clients, but we were like, you know what, this is going to be very challenging.

You're going to have to do the work yourself, bust your back, get some ladders, come out of pocket for a bunch of expensive equipment.

I want them to start the remote way, these people that are asking me how to do it, but it's not going to work in every market.

And

I'm thinking like 10 steps ahead where it's like, I want to scale this already.

I'm thinking in my head, like,

it has to be house cleaning because house cleaning is will work in any market.

The abundance of contractors that you can hire that are available to you are everywhere.

So I'm like, it'll work in house cleaning, but I don't have the authority in house cleaning.

So I can't ethically and morally sell somebody and teach them how to do house cleaning, even though I know I could do it because it's just selling a different service.

Let me go get the experience.

So what I did was My mom was still in that same house that she was renting in Orange County and rent was like $3,300, $3,400 a month.

And I'm making good money with the window cleaning business, but it's not to the point where I'm like, hey, mom, here's five grand a a month, here's 10 grand a month.

Don't worry about it.

So I'm like, let me knock out two birds with one stone.

Let me retire my mom because she was driving Uber full-time.

I'm not talking like 40, 50 hours a week, dude, like 80 hours a week, like sun up to sundown, Monday to sometimes seven days a week, but mostly Monday to Saturday.

And she sits at the airport all day because it's when they get the surges.

Of course.

Yeah.

And so I'm like, all right, I'm going to retire my mom with this remote cleaning business, and I'm going to build the authority and my following by live tweeting the whole process, making a bunch of content about it.

And so

with a new Amex gold card, we opened, put two grand of ad spend on that Amex gold card, hired the cleaners, set up all the software.

I said, all right, mom, don't drive Uber this week.

Just here's the phone, here's the software, here's how you work it.

Just pick up the phone, say the words, and see how much revenue we can do.

That first month we did 12 grand of revenue with four grand of profit.

The next month we did 20 grand of revenue with eight grand of profit.

And to this day, she hasn't touched Uber

since January of 2022.

Dude, that's fire.

So like, how is that feeling as a son to retire your mom from working Uber seven days out of the week?

80 hours, dude.

That's 80 hours in a car.

That is literally backbreaking, bro.

Like, it is.

And I can tell you from experience because I worked 80 to 100 hour weeks.

I was a cop in the city of Oakland in California.

And dude, just sitting in in the crown bank, bro, for like 40 hours, right?

It's just like, dude, it sucks, right?

Yeah.

So like,

man, respect, bro.

Like, you retired your mom, dude.

I, I, I really love that because was that your biggest why?

Your biggest why behind doing all this was like, dude, I want to take care of my mom.

The biggest why was, yeah, I had to grow up real quick.

I had to be a man, dude.

Like, I watched my mom struggle.

Like, like,

this podcast would be three hours long if I told her whole story about what she had to go through to get me back and

get her life together.

Yeah.

But to see that, and it's like, dude, I kind of freaking become a man very quickly here, you know, when I was an adult.

And so it feels really good.

And it feels even better now because those numbers are cool.

But now she just hit $40,000 in April.

That's what I'm talking about.

And she texted me and she's like, I finally did it, son.

Because that's, you know, $40,000 means it's halfway to a million dollars a year.

It's about 500K a year run rate.

Exactly.

And so she's all stoked.

And that business now does anywhere between 15 to 20K a month in profit.

And the cool thing about the cleaning business, it's recurring.

So like, if you just do a good job, you should walk into more and more revenue every single month.

Exactly.

And so it's even better now, dude.

And she's like telling me, I've made more money than I ever have in my life.

Like, this is, it's really cool.

It's fulfilling.

And she's getting remarried now.

And it's a good feeling, dude.

Dude, I love that.

You basically allowed your mom to live life by design.

And for every single entrepreneur, every single mentee that I've had, like, I was asked, like, hey, dude, like, why do you decide to come work with me or any other mentor or entrepreneur?

and they go dude because the foundation that you have with your why and dude your why that's the reason why you're successful bro i i just want you to know that like and i'm pretty sure you already know that but like dude like i just i see it like the the energy like the passion that you have it's just like like you said dude like the vehicle was cleaning it's not the sexiest thing it's not when i started atmz law enforcement detective in oak

bro i had an ex that broke up with me my mom was just like bro you're a cop like what are you doing Right?

Everybody doubting, haters, but I did it because the long-term vision, just like you, 10 steps ahead, I was just like, okay,

I can grow this, become financially free, and then I'll figure it out, right?

So that was your vision, dude.

So now you build a successful, tangible business with your best friend.

And now you're building a successful info business because now you have 3,000 clients in North America.

So let me ask you, dude, what's next?

Dude, it's HSA.

Do write or die HSA, Home Service Academy.

When I say HSA, but Home Service Academy is the company where we help people start cleaning companies.

It's all one-on-one.

So, like, we're very hands-on with our coaches and me and Sergio.

And we do the whole shebang live events, all that stuff, too.

It's really cool, but like, I think in our space, there's a lot of people who like to offer hop and they'll run a company when it's hot.

Like, because, dude, when we started Home Service Academy, like right after that whole thing with my mom,

we launched Home Service Academy and we did pre-sold the program and we sold 15 people we collected $50,000 of cash nice in two weeks pre-selling it and then with just those 15 people we're like all right for three months we're gonna make sure we get results so we didn't sell anything for three months then we just got results for them and then come April of 2022 we I had been assembling a team because I'm like all right yeah these people are crushing it so I was like let's let's roll out I was just getting clients from Twitter so let's roll out LinkedIn

short form TikTok Instagram YouTube and long form YouTube and let's turn on paid.

So I got this team together and I took all that 50 grand and I put it right back into

assembling a team.

And then we went zero to 2.8 million in nine months.

And

it's just insane the success we're getting.

And there's a lot of cool places we can take HSA, whether it be like, hey, we can start to buy a lot of our clients because they're getting big, dude.

Like our clients that have been with us for three years, four years, some of them are doing $150,000 a month.

Like that's a solid, it's a real tangible business.

That's what I'm talking about.

So it's like, yeah, you can trade that business.

You can sell the business for multiple of its of its profit, its earnings.

So there's a lot of cool things we can do with this.

And are you guys teaching how to exit out of like selling your own cleaning business as well?

Yeah, 100%.

So what actually is really cool is we'll have people who are like 50, 60 grand a month, and then we'll have another client who's at like 20, 30.

Yeah.

And they'll be like, hey, dude, can you find a buyer for my business?

I'm like,

hey, let's say Lee, for example, Lee is one of our clients.

She's in Wichita.

She's bought two businesses now for HSA.

Like, hey, Lee, you want to buy this company?

Boom, connect them.

And just by being in HSA, you're like,

you get access to the kind of like the deal flow if you ever wanted to go grow through acquisition.

Wow.

That's amazing, dude.

Yeah, pretty cool.

That's amazing.

I love that.

So let me ask you, like, if somebody wanted to go ahead and start their own cleaning business, they want to get more information.

What would be some, I guess, good websites or, you know, where could they find you to go ahead and find this information, brother?

We put it all out for free on YouTube.

We've got whole hour plus long videos where I go through everything.

I don't hold back.

Like, if you want to start a cleaning business, you can just watch our free stuff and build it that way.

Like, I think, like, we've helped, when I say we've helped 3,000 people, that's through HSA.

Yeah.

Through our content, it's probably double, if not triple.

Absolutely.

Because I look at our affiliate payouts from Booking Koala.

And we've sent so many people their way.

And it's just from people who watch the Twitter or read the Twitter or

watch the YouTube videos.

So

100% YouTube, Johnny and Sergio on YouTube.

If you want to watch free stuff, and then we have a whole book we wrote, 120-page book, Everything We Know About Cleaning.

um so if you watch some of those videos you can get the book for free too

pdf version i love that dude i love that so let's talk about uh let's switch gears now to more of like the digital marketing side of things how did you guys learn digital marketing dude because like back in 2020 you know what the middle covid um you know i i was billed 12 to 15 000 in residuals off atms it allowed me to reduce my workload from 80 hours to 40 hours and then i was just like all right well let me go do something new right because i got all this time right because everyone is locked in their houses so then i jump back on facebook dude i get targeted by russell brunson and i get targeted by dan henry read digital millionaire and uh russell brunson's book changed my life dude read it eight times um and then the rest is history dude april 2020 i start diving deep into invested ten thousand dollars into a course myself into digital marketing and i was like you know what dude People don't like the police at the time, you know, because the whole BLM thing.

And I was just like, I can't start a program on how to be a cop because nobody will buy it.

So I was like, I'm going to go ahead and start a business on, you know, the UTM business.

And I was just like, all right, I'm going to do this.

And I end up doing it, dude.

And it takes off around March of 2021, doing my first six figures.

And, dude, the rest is history.

I had to figure it out, dude.

But it was like six months of hell where I was just like, I did not know what I was doing, bro.

Like, I don't even know how to navigate IG sometimes.

right now, right?

But I've been in the digital marketing game for five years now.

So what were the steps that you took in order for you and Sergio to to learn the digital marketing game?

That's a great question, man.

So remember that book I told you I came across $100 million offers?

Yes, sir.

So we read that book and we were like, wow, okay.

I didn't even know this world existed.

Like similar to you, I didn't know this was a thing, dude.

And his whole,

what happened was that whole first second page when he tells his story about, hey, when you have a grand slam offer, it's like instead of stepping up to the

base and hitting a home run and scoring a max of four runs, you could, if you have the right offer, you could hit the ball and you could score a max of a thousand runs, 10,000 runs.

And I'm like,

thinking about this, I'm like, okay.

So we go through the whole book using the book as our like guide.

We come with an

yeah.

And I just start tweeting, bro.

Hey, here's a direct account link, book on my calendar.

Dude, why Twitter?

Out of everything.

Why Twitter?

Because for me, it was Facebook.

And people were like, bro, nobody uses Facebook no more.

But then like $200,000 a month later, like.

That's where I had my following, dude.

I just had my following there.

And then people were, like, I would post a tweet and I knew the I knew how to write a tweet to where I could get like a hundred thousand views on it.

Wow.

And so I was I was going insanely viral like all my tweets were and so I would write a thread and then at the end I'd be like

I'll be like this simple service business would give you $65,000 a month.

Here's exactly how to do it at the end of it.

And if you wanted you want to learn one-on-one with me book directly on my calendar direct link to Calendly.

They would get on my

call with me.

And I didn't know like high ticket say like high ticket sales or anything.

Like dude, I was selling like $12,000 dollar light installations in the window cleaning business I had no problem with sales like that was they would get on I was closing like crazy on these people and given they were warm right they're coming from a aren't my audience

but yeah we sold that first fifty thousand and then I was like okay well I had already built up a skill set and everything I knew in the window cleaning business What I didn't realize was it's a little different in the digital space, but we were able to ride the fact that we were the first ones to do remote cleaning.

Nobody was doing remote cleaning.

And

we got up to about 120K a a month in spend with it.

And so we started to

get all these eyeballs around remote cleaning.

And then

what happened was, so you see your first six months was hell.

Our first nine months was like, dude, our freaking shit doesn't stink.

Everything I touch turns to gold, bro.

Like, you were those guys.

Like,

that's the mentality we're on.

Dropping freaking like 50 grand on masterminds, dude, going to stockdale, partying.

That's wild.

Like,

yeah, it was ridiculous.

That mastermind did help me out a lot, though.

Which mastermind was was it?

Cole Gordon, Closers.io.

Oh, yeah.

Figure Border.

Yeah, dude.

I'm back in it now, actually.

So I just re-upped for a second year.

But

joined that and started to really get a taste for like, oh my God, dude.

Like, we were paying ourselves like, fuck, like 70 grand in dividends.

I remember one month in 2022.

And we were like, you and Sergio are like, we made it.

Yeah, dude.

Sergio, we ain't never going back.

And burnt the boats.

And so we had, dude, we had this third business partner in Canada that we brought in because our dumbasses, like hindsight's 2020, but like, we were like, well, we don't know how to run Facebook ads, so let's just give someone a third of the business.

Holy shit.

Guys,

this is awesome.

I love your story, dude.

Because most people are so stingy.

Most people, you guys are like, yo, we don't know Facebook.

Let's just get a partner and we'll figure it out from there.

I love that, dude.

That's in perfect action right there.

Something I would do.

Yeah, yeah, dude.

Well, hindsight, that was kind of stupid, though.

You don't know what it is.

But that's how you learn, dude.

Yeah, you learned it, dude.

It was a really expensive mistake.

Yeah.

But you learn from it for sure because now we know how to freaking run some ads and do that stuff.

Yeah.

And so what happens is we're trying to scale this.

2023 comes along.

We're still growing.

We add another million dollars to the business.

We're still doing about 4 million,

but way less profit.

And I'm starting to look at the ads.

And it's because the ads are like,

we don't have a back end, and we don't have like the ads aren't where we need them to be.

At least three.

The rowass isn't there we're at like one row as 0.9 row as i was looking at like dude this is

so i'm like i'm like i'm going to our partner who runs the market like dude what's going on like let's hire some some consultants to work with you man so i get bringing like the best dudes in the space that i know and i'm like all right this guy doesn't freaking help you crack it dude like something's wrong and so going into 2024 He's meeting with them.

And one day I call him because the ads are just still shit in the bed, dude.

We're just like breaking even, breaking even.

I'm like, and now our back end's starting to kick up too.

So I'm I'm like, we really got to crack in like the front end acquisition because that's how we're going to continue to scale this business.

Because

our fulfillment's crushing it.

People are getting insane results.

They're wanting to sick with us for a long time.

But we're having trouble on paid getting consistent clients.

So I call the dude that's consultant for our CMO at the time.

And I'm like, hey, dude, off the record, what's going on?

He's like, I don't know what the hell he does all day.

I'm like, damn.

So that next Monday, me and Sergio sat down.

We're like, hey, do we want to buy you out?

And this was July of 2024.

Oh, snap.

So this is recent, dude.

A year ago.

That's wild.

Year ago, bro.

So we buy him out.

And

then I become like CMO.

And so I'm like, forget the ads.

We're not doing ads anymore.

Right.

Because it's just eating away all the profits.

So we're going to lean on organic and we're going to start to do affiliates.

Because I'm like, look, I don't know how to run ads still at the time.

And, but what I am good at is I'm good at sales.

So if I can say, hey, Paul, why don't you promote Home Service Academy?

You know, maybe I'll promote you.

Do a little swap.

I can, instead of closing, you know, one deal, I'll make close 20 deals from your audience.

Absolutely.

So we started to do that.

We started to replace the traffic with affiliates.

I love that.

And so what was cool about that is we actually ended up opening up affiliates as an acquisition channel.

And now we have a whole team built around affiliates and it's consistent.

Then we have organic, which is also consistent.

That took us three years to kick up, especially on YouTube.

And then we,

through networking and trying to close affiliates i found a guy who used to run the media for v shred okay a million dollars a day in spend yep yep and so um he was like i was hanging out with him in vegas i bought him a steak and i guess he really liked me because he's like dude i'll help you with your ads how did you meet him dude because your network is your net worth so like people are probably like they're mind-boggled right now they're probably like dude johnny like you're already making money dude obviously you could go ahead and connect with these like high earners and these people that like like have these skill sets.

But like a regular person like me, like, how am I able to go ahead and take the opportunity?

How am I able to go ahead and get an abundance of network like you?

That's a good question.

Yeah.

So what happened was what I ended up doing was I went on a crazy event spree at the beginning of the year.

So from like January up until I'm still doing it, dude.

I'm still, I'm here in freaking Miami, dude.

So you're talking about you're going on podcasts, you're going on conferences, you're doing keynote speeches and stuff like that?

Yeah, exactly.

And so if you ask how you do that, what happened was I was just like, how do I get to more events?

And who do I need to?

I sent out a tweet, right?

And so maybe if you don't have an audience, this looks like maybe you go to your immediate network and say, hey, do you know anybody who might, you know, be in the space you're looking to get into?

And start to build a connection with them, start to ask them questions.

Because what I did was I just tweeted, hey, who's running affiliate offers for high-ticket info?

And somebody responded and tagging this dude named Pedro.

Do you know Pedro?

Pedro.

Matos.

What's self-publishing?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I do.

So I connect with Pedro and and Pedro's like, yeah, dude, let me show you what we're doing.

Yeah.

I'm like, and he introduces me to the whole affiliate world.

And he's like, I like to get my affiliates through events.

We do cold outreach.

We do it this way, that way.

I'm like,

okay.

And so he's like, let me make a couple intros for you.

I get introduced to a dude at this big company that does about $120 million a year.

It's like biggest, one of the biggest info companies in the space.

I get connected with their head of partnerships.

Me and him end up becoming friends because when

he ended up being like, hey, you want to come speak at this event?

I just had someone fall out.

I'm like, yeah, dude, I'll come speak.

It ended up being a pace and Worby event, dude.

Nice.

And Russell Brunson was in the lineup.

Never spoke before.

Never had spoken in my life on stage.

Done like webinars and stuff.

And that's badass.

And I had to be the opener.

I'm like, yeah, dude, how many people are there?

He's like, oh, dude, it's like...

200 people.

I get there.

It's 400 people.

All of them paid 35 grand to be there.

I'm the fucking guy opening it up.

I'm like, I love that.

I'm shitting bricks.

Dude, I love that.

I'm shitting bricks, bro.

Are you in the back last day?

i'm literally in the back

i was in the back bro i was in the back i'm like

i'm like dude

i had to take two dumps bro yeah

is sergio there sergio's there with me and what do you what is he telling you he's just like he's like you're gonna be cool bro yeah he's like you're fine bro you're good

he's in the back like

you got this dude i'm like stressing represent bro

and i'm like all right dude i'm gonna get up and teach him how to scale a business dude ended up crushing it and it was just a value talk And my CT at the end was, hey, follow me on Instagram.

I converted like 90% of the room to follow me on Instagram.

And so

me and this guy, Brandon, ended up just becoming the best of friends.

And to this day, like I was just hanging out with him a couple weekends ago.

And then he intros me to people.

Pedro intros me to people.

And then because I'm now friends with them, I'm like, let me start going to some events.

I go to Affiliate Summit West.

I go to ClickFunnels.

I start getting invited to these different masterminds that are like, hey, this mastermind is only real estate specific.

Like you have to be invited.

But because I'm putting together dinners in Vegas, like that's the big thing with me is like I like to put dinners together.

Smart.

So when I'm in Vegas, I know all the managers at all the nice restaurants.

So they're going to show out a little bit, especially if I tell them, hey, like let's,

I've got this important like business meeting.

I'm bringing a bunch of business people, like send us like a muse or something, right?

Like chef will custom make appetizers is really cool.

And so I'm putting together dinners every night.

And keep in mind, I'm investing.

These dinners are not cheaper, bro.

Like two grand, three grand a night.

No, of course, dude.

Yeah.

And

it's an investment, though.

yeah that's what i'm saying it's an investment and so i'm putting together groups like 16 20 people and and through this people just they started calling me johnny vegas at these events bro that's a badass game bro johnny vegas they started calling me johnny vegas and so uh that's when i just speed i basically sped run like knowing everybody in the space just from like a couple events i went to and then they invite me to events then i'd go to those events and then i get invited to more events um and then i'm into masterminds as well you know you know you remind me of my other friend his His name's Eddie Malouf.

He owns an agency called Bad Marketing.

Pretty sure you know Eddie.

But Eddie, the reason why they're so successful in their agency and they've been able to get very high-end clients is because he has the power of network.

He has mastered that.

And I'm a big believer in that.

You know, I have been able to work, thankfully, with some really successful entrepreneurs, some really good guys, just like yourself, that have connected me with going and speaking in conferences, keynotes, dude.

And that all converts.

That all converts, dude, especially if you have a very inspiring story like yours, right?

I'm pretty sure you told this story at Pace Morphe's event.

Oh, yeah.

And you crushed it because people can relate to that, dude, especially like with your parents and Uber and the pain of like seeing your mom, dude, like work and like you just want to retire her because she raised you as a kid, dude.

It's very inspiring, bro.

That's good.

I appreciate it, man.

No, it is.

It is.

And a lot of people are going to resonate with that, dude.

Yeah.

They are.

So

from there, so you're a master networker now.

And then now,

I mean, okay.

So, yes, you have the economy going on, but are you guys working on any other projects?

No, no, dude, just growing.

We're big on focus, man.

Okay.

Just huge on focus.

Like, you know, if we want to work on other things, like, we're going to test out rolling out a window cleaning offer next month.

Nice.

Because we, like, why haven't we done that?

You know, like, all of our expertise is pretty much in window.

Not that we're not experts in house cleaning, but like window cleaning, I know from everything from doing squeegeeing myself, like, I know what squeegee replacement blades you need, like what's good and what's bad to that level.

So it's like, why haven't we done that?

So we're going to test that, and that'll kind of scratch my itch of like wanting to go into other opportunities.

But I just see Home Service Academy as such a good opportunity whether that to continue to scale and grow.

And we can take a lot of routes with it.

Like I said, we could franchise, we could do a roll-up,

we could do a software because we have so much inbound demand that people want to start cleaning companies, existing cleaning businesses coming to us saying, hey, I need help growing.

So for us, it's just like stay focused, keep making content, keep tinkering and getting better little improvements and continue to scale the business.

Dude, are you planning on staying in Vegas?

No, I'm moving.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm moving.

It depends on the month you ask me, dude, because someone's like, dude, I love Vegas, especially like during ClickFunnels.

It was really fun because I'm like, okay, I'm in my city now.

And

it's been nice because I've got a lot.

I'm really tapped in in Vegas now.

Right.

And everybody knows you, dude.

You're Johnny Vegas.

Everybody knows me in Vegas.

So it's nice when people come in because I can show someone a little bit of a better time, just like I'm sure you can in in Puerto Rico or here in Miami, right?

Yep.

And so going back to the reason for the move is just to get more locked in because I live on strip.

Someone hits me up, hey dude, I'm in town every weekend, dude.

I shit you not every weekend.

I'm in town, bro.

What are you doing?

And then I'm like, I don't want to say no because I'm getting FOMO because I'm like, I haven't seen this person.

It's probably be fun.

But then you maybe stay out a little too late.

Exactly.

Exactly.

It's a fun city.

Yeah.

No, I can imagine, man.

Well, I mean, good for you.

I love the life that you build.

Life by design, dude.

Make it happen with you you and your passion and and just your core values dude it's it's about what you do and what you can do with the mind so with that being said dude uh this is as you guys know the love of all podcast with paul alex we have gone ahead and helped a lot of people with self-help self-help believing in themselves and mindset that's the biggest thing dude we don't monetize this we don't have sponsorships because guys we have to be honest we haven't gone out and monetized this for but we want this to be free value so we bring guests like you do just to give them the sauce give them inspiration.

And look, hopefully somebody listens to this.

And guess what?

You're going to change more lives, dude.

And that's what it's about, right?

I hope so, man.

So with that being said, imagine 100,000 people are going to listen to this, which they are, dude.

Happens on every Saturday episode.

Okay.

All right.

So what do you have to tell the audience right now that just heard your story, dude?

Give them a couple of words of motivation to help them level up.

It's a good question, man.

I would say

a couple things.

I would say a couple things.

I would say, one, if you just stick with something, there's a million ways to make a million bucks.

And if you just stick with one thing for a long enough time, you will make money in whatever it is.

Whether it's cleaning, ATMs,

it's setting up pumpkins on your porch for other people.

I know someone doing that.

You can make money doing anything as long as you stick with it for a long enough time, Horizon.

And if you're ever doubting, when in doubt, just default to logic, right?

Like I said at the beginning, would it be unreasonable if I call 100 businesses, are all of them going to say no to my services or my offering?

Probably not.

It's probably more unreasonable that all of them would say no than one to say yes.

And so I think a lot of people get too emotional when they're trying to grow their business, trying to start their first business, whatever that may be, when it's like, just think about it logically.

Is there somebody else who's built a million dollar cleaning business?

Is there someone else who's built a million dollar ATM business?

Are they smarter than you?

Maybe.

Maybe they're not though, right?

Because there's hundreds of thousands of people have built these million dollar companies.

Like, what, why, why, what makes you different, right?

Why can't you do the same thing?

So that's what i would leave the audience dude i love that i love that when when when i came into the online space back in 2020 i looked at people that were making a hundred thousand dollars on info products and i was just like what is making them so special

and i'm like trying to funnel hack dude you know funnel hack for for all the listeners right now if you guys are not in digital marketing funnel hacking is when you look at somebody's process in the online space and you're trying to figure out what works for them what's getting them client acquisitions what's getting them clients how their sales process why the company is so successful and one thing I always tell, path of least resistance, right?

Path of least resistance.

Work smarter, not harder, folks.

It's 2025.

You got to leverage technology, dude, and processes, right?

And even me, I'm an old school millennial, dude.

I still love to door knock.

I still love to call, right?

But is it

as effective in 2025 now?

Not as much as DMing, right?

Not as much as going ahead and paying ads or tweeting, right?

And do they still call it tweeting, dude, now that it's converted to X?

I still call it tweeting.

I know people are gonna listen to be like, it's cold X now, but X, Twitter, whatever.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's awesome, dude.

I love that.

It inspires me to go ahead and venture off to new channels that, you know, I haven't checked out before because I'm big on just Facebook and Instagram.

I'm starting the YouTube.

I'm going ahead and now doing the LinkedIn and the Twitter.

And dude, it's awesome.

I love to see people like you and other entrepreneurs kill it in those spaces, dude.

So can I just say one thing about your thing right there?

Because you're like, like, I'm funnel hacking one quick tip that I love.

My favorite term is R D.

Yeah.

Rip off and duplicate.

There you go.

Just rip off and duplicate.

There you go.

Someone's already doing it and you know they're making money.

You can just, you know, tweak it a little bit.

Rip off and duplicate, guys.

All right.

It's, it's not saying doing shady business, but it's just working smarter and harder.

And just like when you were reading 1 million offers

or offers,

it's gym launch.

Clean launch, yeah.

Clean launch.

Clean launch.

How'd you find the name?

Don't worry about it, bro.

You know, it's phenomenal, dude.

With that being said, dude, anything else that you want to leave the audience with?

I think that's it, man.

I think we're good.

If you want to, you know, hit your boy up, Johnny and Sergio on pretty much all socials.

Johnny, the CEO, is my personal.

It's my new business-specific personal account because me and Sergio have always run it joint.

So I have a new Instagram if you want to connect with me there.

I read them all.

But most importantly, I just want to say, dude, thank you so much for having me, bro.

Absolutely, dude.

Absolutely.

Anytime, dude.

And then, once again, for the listeners and the viewers right now that are watching us on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube, what was the YouTube channel where they can learn all about this, bro?

Yeah, we have Johnny and Sergio, and then we have Home Service Academy.

Johnny and Sergio is a lot more tactical.

Yeah, and then what is the best way to contact you personally, dude?

Because I already know there's going to be people that want to pick your brain.

They're going to want to talk to you directly.

Yeah, hit me on Instagram at JohnnyTheCEO.

There you guys have it.

That's another fire episode here on the Level Up Podcast with Paul Alex, guys.

Look, Johnny and Sergio, they're killing the game in the cleaning industry, and they can show you exactly how to do it too.

Now, with that being said, share this episode with someone that you care, you love.

You want to help them change their mindset and actually level up.

With that being said, leave a five-star review on Spotify and Apple Podcast, guys, and also subscribe on YouTube.

I'll catch you on the next one.

Thanks for listening up to the Level Up Podcast.

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