Teacher Turns $1K Into a $50K/Month Cleaning Empire ft. Yianni Avgerinos

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Welcome to the Level Up Podcast.

I'm your host, Paul Alex.

I went from being a comp to an 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.

What's up, guys, and welcome back to the Level Up Podcast.

My name is Paul Alex, and today we have another interview with another successful serial entrepreneur, guys.

And you guys are going to love this.

You know, I usually interview people that start from humble beginnings, just like myself, guys.

You know, I was in law enforcement.

I was in corporate America.

I did ATMs.

I did, what is it, credit card machines,

consulting now.

And now, you know, I have mentees from Harvard, from Penn State, all these Ivy League schools.

And, man,

it is.

Awesome, guys.

And if you ever wanted to go ahead and build your dreams, this is going to be the interview that you guys are going to want to listen because it's very inspiring.

Okay.

I want you guys to meet my special guest, Yanni.

Yanni is a school teacher that is transitioning now to a serial entrepreneur in the cleaning space.

Yeah, you heard it right.

In the cleaning space, you're probably like, what is that, bro?

Like, what do you mean?

Housekeeping.

Guys, you guys are going to hear it.

Okay.

So if you guys have been looking for any ideas, if you guys have been looking for inspiration, this is the story to listen to.

Yanni, welcome to the show, brother.

Paul, thank you so much.

Thanks for having me here.

Absolutely, dude.

How you liking Miami?

It's phenomenal.

The weather is a bit warmer than Chicago.

I'll tell you that.

Yeah.

It's a bit warmer than Chicago.

Fourth time here.

Yep.

But I'm just super, super honored to be here today.

Thanks for having me at your place.

You know, great, great studio.

Appreciate it.

Looking to share beautiful things with like-minded people.

No, absolutely, dude.

And that's what it's about.

You know, the level of podcasts, we've been able to scale quite fast for the podcast that we've had now here for a little bit over a year and a half.

And it's just simply because it's about self-help, dude.

It's about what's in here, right?

The heart, dude.

Just like our conversation.

Guys, if you guys, you guys didn't know because, you know, it was just us and Emilio back here.

But, you know, we had like an hour and a half conversation.

It should have been recorded.

It should have been recorded.

It was fun, right?

It was fire.

It was fire, bro.

But to go on with that, now it's your guys' turn to listen to Yanni's story.

Okay.

So, Yanni,

talk to us essentially why the cleaning business.

Why are you going ahead and already painting that vision that it's going to be a hundred million dollar business for you, dude?

Like, what do you see for yourself doing the cleaning industry you know I look about by myself I actually started a cleaning business back in 2021 which is just after COVID

and you know my background is actually in education I've been teaching for almost 10 years

PE and health teacher for third, fourth, and fifth grade.

So I do have that background, that level of experience when it comes to working with children, working with adults and teachers, collaborating and wearing different types of hats.

And I always knew in the bottom of my heart that I wanted and needed more in my life.

I come from a great family

and born and raised here down in Chicago.

I should say up in Chicago, right?

And my parents were immigrants of our motherland.

And

just seeing my dad, right, over the years, growing and selling his restaurant business for almost 40 years, just really inspired me.

And just being in hospitality, just being in customer service, I always knew that I always wanted more and to give and provide.

Yeah.

Right.

And to make some kind of impact.

And I feel like cleaning, specifically cleaning, what's interesting is it's a multi-billion dollar industry and it's now still freaking growing.

Yeah.

Right.

So I got into it because I always had a passion in cleaning.

I had a passion in teaching.

So I kind of meshed those together

during COVID, those COVID years.

And kind of crazy, I'm like, how do I start?

any business.

It was my

first real

business venture.

And I started cleaning houses of my own.

And I started, I was very hesitant in the beginning walking in people's homes.

And I didn't know about commercial cleaning.

I only had one vision fixed-minded on housekeeping, on residential cleaning, right?

And pretty soon, clients started like my service.

I loved to clean.

It was my passion.

But I quickly realized within six months, I'm like, I can't be doing this by myself.

So I started hiring cleaning techs, house cleaning ladies, made a lot of mistakes, overpaid my people.

I didn't know how to manage and hire and recruit the right way.

It was a great learning curve for me.

Fast forward five years, we have a team of 25 cleaners.

We have partnerships with all their cleaning companies nationwide in different states.

We're collaborating on bigger commercial cleaning contracts now.

So essentially, we have two divisions within our company, residential.

and commercial cleaning services.

Wow, I love that.

So let me ask you a quick question.

So it gets to a point and, you know, essentially

I'm thinking this started this as a side hustle, right?

Because it wasn't your main source of income in the very beginning, right?

Exactly.

And it was the same thing for me, man.

When I started my very first business, I mean, I've been a senior entrepreneur now for like two decades, but, you know, I stopped.

in the entrepreneurship game to go ahead and work in corporate america and then law enforcement and then it came back in the game right yeah so with that being said um it started off as a side hustle at what point what was the moment dude paint the picture for us okay because i'm a big storyteller i love movies bro So paint the picture the day that you were just like, I can scale this.

You know, like, I think I might have to go ahead and transition into actually being an entrepreneur and I know how to, how I'm going to make it work.

Very good question.

My first aha moment was my, I would say it was six to 12 months into the business from 2021 to 2022.

And I was teaching there in a day.

And at the time, we were teaching remote on Zoom.

Yeah.

Teaching, right?

So we would finish at one o'clock.

So this is right in the middle of COVID.

I guess just after.

Just after.

Yeah.

But there were still restrictions and masks and people freaking out back then.

Right.

Different times then.

But

I think because of COVID, that was almost like a catalyst for me.

I'm like, wow, people are now really prioritizing cleansiness

and quality control in terms of cleaning services for their facilities.

I mean,

I've connected over the years with other

commercial genital cleaning companies.

And they were doing electrostatic disinfecting.

And they're making a killing.

But I was more focused on what I was good at.

So I focused on residential first.

So my first aha moment,

me teaching,

making $2,000 to $4,000 a month extra by myself, I mean, I was hustling.

I would be cleaning during the weekends.

I'll be cleaning in the evenings after school.

So that was my life for the first two, three years, while also helping my working and assisting my dad at the restaurant.

So

I've always worked long hours.

I guess the second aha moment was year two to year three.

At this point I had

about ten cleaners.

Yeah.

Revenue is growing.

Yeah.

Did not know how to manage.

I was learning along the way.

Hearts and business coaches along the way.

You know, and get me wrong.

I guess captured and absorbed a lot of good knowledge and information.

Most of it was just fluff, you know, and until I found someone that actually understood the game and where I've hired up my business consultant two years ago.

So I do go a lot of love and respect to him.

He now lives in Europe.

I love that.

Yeah, we're so connected to this day.

Yeah,

I'm doing great right now.

But the aha moment was back in 2021, the first six to 12 months.

And I'm like, I could scale this thing.

This is a scalable business.

Why?

Because the cleaning industry is a high-demand industry.

It's not the most sexiest business for certain people, right?

I'm not selling cars.

I'm not selling jewelry, whatever.

Cleaning services, right?

And I quickly realized there's different niches, there's different avenues within the cleaning industry.

There's strip and waxing, there's Airbnb, which I've dabbled a little bit, which I may revisit in 2025.

There's floor scrubbing, there's window washing, there's carpet cleaning, there's daily janitorial, there's one-offs, there's kitchen cleaning.

The list goes on, right?

So

fast forward five years now,

almost five years,

the vision here is to grow this thing and focus more on the commercial side.

Because I've reached in the past eight months,

almost a year, and scaling nationwide.

So

I had a, to be honest, to answer your question, I had a lot of breaking points or aha moments.

It's kind of like hard to remember exactly the year and time, but.

Yeah, no worries, dude.

It happens.

You know, it's entrepreneurship.

At the end of the day, you know, it's about the journey, dude.

And, you know, with every nude level, there's a new double, just like we were talking about, right?

So essentially, as you grow, I'm pretty sure you're going to have other aha moments, right?

So with that being said, why choose, I guess, going to the, what would you say, the industrial side?

Or is it the corporate side?

Yeah, so there's, so there's, there's, I guess, three divisions.

Residential, commercial, and industrial.

Okay.

Industrial is more like factories,

assembly lines, warehouse spaces,

more industrial, right?

Commercial is more office spaces.

Corporate is like a space like this, right?

Providing cleaning services for common areas, such as the bathrooms of this building, the elevators, right?

There's a niche for that still.

No, no, no, there is.

And I don't believe AI, AI, a whole different topic, right?

Yeah.

I am leveraging AI in certain aspects of my business, right?

But in terms of cleaning, the actual labor itself, there's still certain things that I believe for the long term, it won't be taken away by AI.

Got it.

Right.

But like warehouse spaces where there's less foot traffic, overnight cleaning for big, let's say a hundred thousand square feet two hundred thousand square feet warehouse spaces yeah we could put a robot in there to clean right yeah but daily janitorial weekly cleaning services you need an actual physical person to do that job and i do see the future in growing this business there's so much opportunity out there there's property managers facility managers that i'm working with nationwide that are subbing out contract work at a national level.

And they have corporate clients like the Walmarts, the insurance companies.

And I've tapped into those networks too a little bit the past eight months.

That's why I've seen such a huge growth spur.

But also, I've acquired the right skill sets, right?

Fine-tuning my sales skills, fine-tuning my collaboration skills and negotiating conflict if there's any conflict, right?

How to empower people within my business, right?

We have a whole onboarding process.

We conduct weekly group interview calls for techs, right?

Let's say five people show up or ten people show up.

We have a whole onboarding process once they reach the first checkpoint, right?

And now I'm training my admin assistants to do that.

So delegation was another breaking point for me.

And I really started delegating a year and a half ago when I met my business consultant.

Correct.

Yeah.

So here's my quick question for you.

How are you finding your leads right now?

Good question.

It's a combination of different things.

I would say heavily more on cold calling

and networking.

I've dabbled in Facebook.

I've dabbled in Instagram.

I didn't see great results.

I don't know what I was doing.

I'll be honest, right?

Something that I would believe you probably go through like LinkedIn for like B2B.

I was going to say, B2B, LinkedIn is very powerful.

I admit some great connections through LinkedIn because there's that level of credibility.

People see your resume, your background, your history, your experience.

And

there's that level of not just respect, but credibility and trust.

Right.

Anyone can make an account on Facebook.

Of course.

There's certain, There's a level of,

again, credibility qualifications on LinkedIn.

And that's where we, we're using

an AI tool, but where we do outreaches every day.

Right.

Maybe 20 to 40, or I think it's 10 to 20 connections and then X amount of

messages that we send out.

I'm fine-tuning the follow-up game.

That's...

That's the bulk of your business, right?

Following up with the right people and following up the right way.

And then, yeah, networking calls, networking events.

I have been so busy in time constraint with the

with the teaching job.

By all means, listen, I'm not doing all this because I hate teaching.

I'm doing this because I'm grateful for teaching.

Of course.

If it wasn't for teaching, I wouldn't be the man I am today.

Of course.

And probably,

I don't regret one bit of teaching.

It is still my passion.

I love kids.

I love students.

I love working with teachers and parents.

You know, bridging home and school is very important.

And me working at a tier one school or, you know, low-income areas, some kids live a very rough upbringing.

And you need a certain personality.

You need a certain level of empathy for these children.

Yes, you do.

And I teach third, fourth, and fifth grade PE and health for about 10 years right now.

So I've learned, I've learned a lot

in that career.

And I've been pouring in certain skill sets from the teaching job to my businesses.

And yeah,

as you know, I started the ATM business a couple of years ago with A-Team Together, which by the way, if you guys are serious in building residual income, you should definitely sign up with A-Team Together from A to Z, how to start, scale, and even exit your ATM business, which is I

just did just recently, right?

I had six ATMs.

My vision was originally, you know, 30 ATMs, but

I decided to take the route of cleaning.

Yeah.

And again, there's not to bash ATM.

ATM is an awesome ATM, an awesome business model, right?

But once you find something that really works and you love and have a passion for, you double down on it.

Oh, yeah.

That's one tip I could say.

I always tell people, you know, Yanni, is I always tell people there's stepping stone businesses.

There's stepping stone businesses.

So ATMs, like for me, when I first came back into entrepreneurship, like, and I was serious about it, right?

Back in 2018, man, while I was in law enforcement myself,

is that I was just like, dude, I'm not going to do ATMs forever but I'm gonna do ATMs now right and I didn't know ATMs was gonna lead me to the online space right which is remarkable because now I'm able to meet connect with good entrepreneurs like you dude like you know other people like just all the different people that I work with now are associated with

opportunities that I've gotten through the online space and just the connection right because you meet your tribe dude you meet people that you want to be around

right and it's very hard to find that in your city sometimes so with that that being said, number one, I love the fact that you talk about your core values and how you being a teacher actually builds you up to be an entrepreneur, dude.

If it wasn't for teaching, I would not be here today.

Yeah.

I mean, it gave you the skills.

It gave you the skills to have empathy.

It gave you the skills to actually look at it from a human aspect, especially with children, dude.

But I believe, like, you know,

you know, yeah, employees are not children, but at the end of the day, employees, you have to have some emotional intelligence to run a business as a leader.

Yes.

As a leader, dude, because there is such a thing as being a good leader and just being a boss, right?

And people do not like working for bosses anymore.

Especially.

I preach that too.

I preach that too with my people.

Not be bosses, but be a leader.

Yeah.

And that's our job as business owners to start developing leadership within your organization as soon as possible.

Oh, absolutely.

What do you think is the number one, or let's say top three?

Let's make it easy.

Top three characteristics that someone who is looking to be a CEO somebody who's looking to be a business owner that they need in order to run a successful company that's a very good question I actually wrote these three down I've kind of revamped three four or five things over the years and I take notes of myself and how I've developed in my business but

number one is having faith in God it all starts from above.

Yeah.

Right?

Praising the Lord and having faith in God, which ultimately will empower you to have faith in yourself.

There's times where you'll be stuck in a rut and nobody will be able to help you, right?

And sometimes you've got to find that strength, that faith within, right?

So God is number one.

Number two is surrounding yourself with the right people.

Environment.

And by doing that, you got to have some level of the right mindset.

So that ties into number three, having the right mindset.

Well, having the right mindset, some people have the right mindset, but they live on a scarcity lifestyle or a negative type of thinking or lower level thinking.

And they could be great, awesome people.

They could be angels, right?

But unfortunately, some people don't have that right mindset, but most importantly,

have the strength to take massive action.

Correct.

Right?

And yeah, it's baby steps.

When you first develop or create something, it's going to be very challenging at the beginning.

You have no idea what you're doing.

Right.

And that's what I did for the first three, four, five years now.

And I'm still learning to this day.

By no means, I'm a mastery in what I'm doing, but I've learned a lot and I'm grateful for it.

And I'm looking to not just scale the business and make more money, but really empower people, bring opportunities for them, for their children.

That also ties into teaching.

Like for me, that makes my freaking day.

I know it made a difference for this cleaning tech or my supervisor.

I have prepaid people in advance, you know, for appreciating their hard work and their dedication.

So going back to your question, I go on tangent sometimes.

God, mindset, and massive action.

Those are the two main ingredients, right?

If you don't have those three things,

I mean, what?

90% of businesses fail in the first five years.

Yeah.

OPA cleaning will be in the trajectory of profitability moving forward.

I love that.

I love that, dude.

And that's what it's about, dude.

And I mean, that's why you're doing it full-time now.

That's why you're going to scale it.

And you have your vision, you know, of hitting your numbers, eight figures, then nine figures.

and uh for a lot of people they can't they can't even see running a successful business to start off with especially when they're starting off as a side hustle they can't even conceive it yeah no and it's very true man but how are you supposed to conceive something that you're not familiar with right the majority of humans right especially myself i'm an average guy blue-collar guy came from uh poverty came from an immigrant family uh my mom very hard worker single mother dude um but at the end of the day she showed me how to work hard she showed me good morals she showed me core values but she didn't show me how to work smarter.

All right.

And just like you said, dude, there's so many different ways to make a million dollars.

But it's just like, there's two things that we want to figure out here, guys.

Especially you guys listening right now on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube, especially with Yanni's story.

And we had this conversation for about an hour and a half before the pod.

We did.

It's just like, there's so many ways to make a million dollars, dude.

But, you know, which way do you want to take?

And then how long do you want to actually go ahead and

invest as far as time to get there, right?

Sacrifice.

And that's the thing, dude.

Like, you know, I'm 37 and for me.

You look phenomenal at 37, by the way.

Thank you.

Thank you, bro.

Like 30.

31 the most.

Thank you, bro.

I appreciate you, man.

Thank you.

But what I tell people is just like with me, I had my mindset of like, hey, dude, you know, I need to go ahead and hit the pavement running in entrepreneurship because I feel like I started late.

Right.

But people will tell you, dude, yeah, people will tell you, especially when on social media, you have a lot of 20-year-olds are glorifying, hey, you got to be a millionaire before you're 21.

Otherwise, you haven't made it in life.

Right.

So you hear that on a daily basis, and you're just like, shit, what did I do wrong?

Right.

And it's just like, you know, it's not real, dude.

It's not sustainable.

The average person, when they hear that, they get discouraged.

100%.

They make up excuses.

100%.

And they don't even try.

Or they just dabble.

They just give up.

They give up.

They give up.

People like us who are built differently, because I know we're built differently.

Yeah.

Okay.

We hear that.

We feel that for many years, but that's just a motivator for us to push us harder.

Yeah.

And then surround yourself with people that want to challenge you in a good way to push you forward in advance so we can all win together.

Yeah.

I'm all about that model.

No, that might be, right?

Yeah.

No, absolutely.

Same.

So

what it comes down to, and the reason why we're saying this is because, Yanni, you did something that I think every single entrepreneur needs to do when they're starting any type of business.

And what you did correctly when you told me right before the podcast is like, hey, dude, you know, as I was doing this as a side hustle, figuring out the clean business, I was working the logistics.

I was actually doing the work, actually doing what my employees do now.

It is key to lead by example, guys.

Everything that I go ahead and have done from day one, I've done everything, dude.

Customer service.

I've been the email threads.

Email threads.

I've done the marketing.

I've done the sales.

I've been the

guy on the camera.

The cleaner.

The cleaner.

I've done it all, dude.

You know, and to think, look, at this stage of the game, for me to be like, no, I don't do that because I get paid too much money is complete bullshit.

I will still go ahead and do that at entry-level position if I have to.

And that's what a true leader does, dude.

And that's what I like.

That's what I like about you, Yanni.

Thank you.

Is you actually doing

the foundation work.

You did the foundation work.

Now you're able to skip your nine to five and go ahead and start your dream of starting a cleaning business, which is going to be your first stepping stone into building wealth for you and your family, your future wife, your future kids.

And you're going to make it happen, dude.

I'm going to make it happen.

There's no way of going back right now.

No.

And all way of doing things.

That's it.

And I think that there's different levels of mindsets when you grow spiritually,

financially, physically.

100%.

100%.

So let me ask you this, man.

Your dad, I want to talk about your dad real quick.

He built a restaurant for the past 40 years.

Did you ever like...

Did you like ever get like mentorship from him?

Did he ever say like, hey, Yanni, you know, this is what it takes to run a sustainable business for 40 years?

Yeah.

Yeah.

First of all, I've learned a lot of, a lot of good life learning lessons from my dad.

And if you have an immigrant parent, which I know you do too,

well, coming from their motherland, they have natural wisdom.

and knowledge that still applies to this day.

Absolutely.

And I'm grateful for that.

A lot of famous quotes and just metaphors,

which has to do with the mindset, which has to do with

having a good soul and helping other people around you.

I've learned not just hospitality, but I've learned how to serve other people.

And my purpose in life is service.

Yes.

So, yeah, I get paid last, but I want to make sure people get happy.

I want to make sure they're happy because if they're happy, that really makes me happy.

I don't rely on their happiness, though.

I'll make that clear.

I don't rely on their happiness.

I have,

you know, I'm grateful to be.

you know, to be a Greek.

And being Greek is a big part of our blueprint,

part of our identity as Greeks.

And I'm sure you've met some Greeks before.

And

I've learned to persevere.

I learned what hard working actually means.

I've learned what it means to work your nine to five from teaching and then go straight to the restaurant and help cook food.

Quick side note, if you guys haven't visited, Mr.

T Zeros

in Schiller Park, Illinois, just 10 minutes away from Wahert Airport, we're known for our Euro, our Euro sandwiches.

We're known for our Greek chicken.

I love that.

If you guys want some Greek food,

think of it as a taco stand, but for Greeks,

it's not a sit-down, but it's more fast food.

Yep.

Greek American fast food.

Yep.

We're there for almost 40 years.

And I've helped my dad develop his website, connected, integrated, Uber Eats, RubHub, all that good stuff, online ordering.

And I'm grateful for my dad.

I'm grateful for my mother.

I'm grateful for my family.

I've learned a lot from them.

But

if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here.

There are certain things, though, that our immigrants still hold to this day, which sometimes does not always align with how we operate here.

Right.

Because there they had, there was more arrest, there was more fear, you know, coming from the country, did not know the language.

My dad went to school.

He got a degree in a bachelor in engineering or computer science.

He ended up being a restaurant owner, right?

He was working multiple jobs.

My mom got married at 17.

He's eight years younger, eight years older, excuse me.

He was at 25 years old, you know, sleeping three four hour days for multiple years building his business that was like a

that was always inspiring to me and it's kind of funny ever since we're little my dad goes don't get into the restaurant business yeah yeah i mean dude that's you know parents are always gonna warn you

they want to protect their kids they want to protect you dude but but listen what would i want to operate a business no because i know how it is I would prefer to operate a cleaning business, right?

What I'm good at.

I would love to be an investor, maybe, or an owner or a co-founder of a restaurant and help it help built it, but to operate it, not my thing.

Because I've been there.

I've been there, right?

But I've learned certain ways of communicating with certain people.

I learned Spanish along the way.

My man.

You know,

I'm at, what's it called?

100% fluent in Spanish, but unpuito enclosed.

Siablo, me, siablo.

Mi Grigo and ingrecia, si.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, the basic words, and just to communicate with, you know, certain workers my dad had in the past, and then hiring hiring the right people

but also treat not just paying them the right way but treating them the right way culture is everything dude culture that's how you keep people yeah and that's how my my my I didn't learn about the call trip aspect from my father

I that that came from teaching that came from my personality my dad has zero tolerance and he has zero patience kind of funny he's more old school yeah but I love and respect if it wasn't for my dad you know he paid for our colleges I'm one of four kids I wanted four kids I'm the second kid in the family you know if it wasn't for my dad and my mom I wouldn't be here today either right so it all stems from that.

Yeah.

It all stems from that.

Right.

And I think that

having your identity and your roots is so important.

Right.

So important.

But I also believe having your own personality or flair is also

amazing.

Yeah.

It's also impactful.

Right.

Right.

So, yeah, I've learned a lot about hard work from my father.

I learned a lot about perseverance.

I learned about customer service and the customer is always right kind of mentality.

Absolutely.

Right?

Gotta serve.

And that's what kind of drove me into the service-based business, which is cleaning services.

I love that, dude.

I love that.

Humble beginnings, you know, you're sharing your story, your family values, core values that your dad brought up to you, and you helping your businesses.

That probably inspired you to go ahead and start businesses and guided you to go ahead and actually have that entrepreneurship spirit and mindset, right?

So let's talk about mindset real quick, dude.

And then, and then what we want to do is a little mini master class on the initial steps that someone can take, one of our viewers or listeners on Spotify or Apple or YouTube, guys.

Make sure to share this with a friend.

It's a very valuable, valuable interview we'll have here with Gianni, where you could do

basically just your first initial three to five steps on how to set up everything that you need to do a cleaning business, dude.

Because you know it, dude.

Like, you're the man.

You're the man with the plan, right?

So let's go ahead and talk about mindset real quick.

Now, how old are you right now, Dionni?

I just turned 30 on February 20th, dude.

Prince Prime, 30 years old, dude.

I love that.

Man, I can still remember when I was 30 like last year, but I'm 37, seven years later, guys.

So, all right, dude, let's talk about mindset.

Now,

when did you initially think of becoming an entrepreneur?

What year?

What was what age were you?

2018,

first job after college as as a teacher assistant for a P, a department at a different school.

And that job got me this job.

I was always researching, reading.

Yep.

Big fan of Tony Robbins, by the way.

Oh, yeah, Tony Robbins is awesome.

Carnegie.

Yep.

And that was like, I guess, the way beginning, building, I guess, the foundation of my mindset.

And I always knew that I could do more because my older brother had different businesses in the past.

Now he's into like food, food, food plans, food prepping, right?

With his wife there.

Um, and seeing my dad being an entrepreneur, a restaurant business owner, and then seeing other people online, right?

After reading and researching, I'm like,

pretty soon I could be doing the same thing.

Pretty soon I could be my own boss, right?

At the time, I didn't think of maybe empowering or leading others.

I just thought of having a side hustle.

So I did start as a side hustle first, but I did have some level

of a mindset where

won't any i won't let i won't and let anything or anyone um stop me in persevering in something you know what if it doesn't work it doesn't work out you know there's there's a list of a million things you could do start crossing them out the ones you don't want to do and that's what i did so uh around age 21 to 22

okay around age 21 to 22 is when you first started doing entrepreneurship you started doing your due diligence you started researching uh you know reading tony robbins dale carnegie great books man like i love rich that poor dad yeah um yeah um rape kayasaki yeah

you got it you gotta listen

so uh so with with that um okay and then now finally uh going into your 30s dude now you're living the dream uh you're transitioning now full-time into entrepreneurship building this uh seven to nine figure cleaning business um with that being said what do you think was the delayed gratification between the age of 22 to 30 that you're finally now going full-time into entrepreneurship and i always tell people this, like take, take my life, for example, dude.

I was

18 years old, I was doing nightclubs from 18 to 24, but then around the age of 21, I was working in corporate America.

So I was double duty.

And the reason why is because my mother, my parents, my siblings, my ex-girlfriends at the time, they were just like, hey, get a real job.

Get a real job.

So to me, it was always that voice in the back of my head that was just like, dude, like, should I get a real job?

Like, what should I do?

Right.

So at the end of the day, what it comes down to it, did you you have a similar experience or did you tried multiple ventures and just failed like

what was your journey yeah yeah so this was my first year after after college getting my teacher assistant job a TA position for a different school and like I said that job got me this job right

wow just just different milestones now looking back it's like wow all these things happen right what was the delayed gratification basically like from the age of like 21 22 where you first started going into entrepreneurship and then by the age of 30 now you're going full-time into building a seven to nine figure cleaning business like why essentially why did it take so long because a lot of people they think that once they start researching or studying to do entrepreneurship or invest into like a first program

analysis paralysis my friend analysis paralysis okay so that that that's what it was for you analysis paralysis a combination of that but also time constraints with my corporate job got it so i knew i i even told my parents you know and they're like and they're and you know they're very hesitant leaving last year even too like yeah you sure you know you shouldn't do it there's benefits yeah but way more benefits on the flip side if you actually grow and scale a successful business.

Absolutely.

Right.

Yeah.

So I was always been a risk taker.

And

I guess a couple other business ventures in the past where I actually wanted to start my wholesaling real estate business.

Right.

My ex-business partner, we part our ways, whatever.

It was a great learning experience, I have to say.

Then I got into like trading Forex and crypto and stocks.

Made some money, lost a ton of money.

That was a great learning experience for me, too.

And then I got, and then COVID hit.

Then COVID hit, right?

Along the way, I was building certain skill sets, right?

Communication, confidence, right?

Oh my God, confidence.

And once you start winning, you get more confidence, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, absolutely.

Then I got into the cleaning business, right?

Right.

Just after COVID, I'm like, what else can I do?

I love cleaning.

I've always been a clean freak.

I've always been a clean freak in the family, one of four kids.

I was the one in charge, assigning different cleaning tasks, hilarious.

My mom will tell me what to do, and then I'll kind of assign them to my siblings, my sister, my brother.

You know, you sleep, I vacuum, you wash the dishes, right?

Take out the trash.

And yeah.

And then fast forward five years, I got 25 cleaners on staff right now, collaborating with six companies, other cleaning companies and facility maintenance companies nationwide.

And I always thought small.

Now I'm thinking big.

Like the market is huge.

Huge.

Huge.

Huge.

I mean, just Chicago alone, the market in Chicago, which complemented me branching and growing in Indiana as well.

Yeah.

And landing those grocery stores, by the way.

I love that.

Yeah.

I love that, dude.

So, okay.

Our listeners, they focus primarily on mindset, self-help, self-education.

That's why people listen to this podcast, dude.

We grew to the top two business podcasts now, up to this year in 2025, guys.

And

it's such a blessing.

Yeah, I mean, I got to give it up to Emilio, the guy behind the camera, guys.

Emilio is this shit.

So, with that being said,

a lot of our listeners, whenever they do DM us or send us a message or email, they always say like, hey, dude, like we'd really love the fact that you bring on these different guests.

And they actually go ahead and give us advice.

So if right now somebody was to ask you, dude, how could I go ahead and get started?

Okay.

And you, and

here's, and here's the test, okay?

Because I like tests.

Clarity, clarity is everything in business.

Clarity, okay?

So a confused buyer will never buy.

okay?

So, uh, this is why I bring on the experts in specific niches and industries, guys, because, dude, you're the go-to.

You're the go-to in the cleaning industry.

You're going to blow up, dude.

I know you are.

You have a heart of gold and you're going to inspire a lot of people.

You know, thanks for that.

So, with that being said, give us a short masterclass, let's say five minutes or less, dude.

Just let the audience know or the listener know how they could go ahead and jumpstart a cleaning business and land their first job.

Amazing.

Well,

this will be relating to me when I first got started, which by the way, I had a different mindset.

But I always knew I wanted more.

So I think that the number one ingredient to success

is God.

Having faith in God, right?

Submitting to God is going to be challenging for some people, but that alone is the umbrella.

Having the right mindset and taking massive action.

So I was always the risk taker.

I always wanted to learn more, learn more, absorb more, absorb more, and then started taking actions.

And I knew from the beginning, I knew I will make mistakes.

Right.

So

I started cleaning houses by myself.

I wanted to test it out.

The test went well.

It was, I think, three to six months.

I got incorporated in January of 2021.

And do you think it's important in the very beginning stages of building, like, let's say a one-man or one-woman cleaning business, right?

Because it started off a side hustle.

Now you have 25 employees.

But do you think it's important to take out like an LLC?

absolutely okay absolutely and operating any operation or business you have to have a certain entity for different reasons right for um uh protection security but also tax advantages okay right and just structuring yourself for success for the future yeah which will ultimately help you and other things you may also venture in like real estate yeah and and and protecting and preserving your wealth uh against inflation which inflation right now is crazy yeah it is it's always changing um but yeah from starting the LLC it's very easy You could go to your attorney.

You could do it yourself.

Go to your state.

You can make an LSC in Wyoming.

I know there's benefits in Wyoming and Delaware.

But if you live in Pennsylvania, if you live in Texas, if you live in Illinois, go through the state.

If you want to make it even easier for yourself, which I created the Illinois ATM

Solution Company,

I went to, they changed the name.

It was Inkfile, and now it's called Busy.

Yep.

Busy.

Busy.

Two E's, three E's, right?

And then from there, you have to, to, what I've learned is focus on your RGAs.

What are your RGAs?

Your revenue generating activities.

What are you doing every hour of the day?

What are you doing every day of the week to attract the right people to get business in the door?

Right.

Every day is a launch in the beginning, right?

And this is why most businesses fail in the first five years.

I think 80 or 90% of all startups fail.

I mean, one of them is because of cash flow.

mindset and not focusing on your RGAs.

I'm really, I've learned that a year and a half ago from my business consultant.

Cash flow.

Cash flow based.

Cash flow.

Cash flow.

Sales does it, does, does, does work for everything, guys.

It fixes everything in business.

So, okay,

so you set up your LLC, and then I'm pretty sure you have to allocate a certain amount of money to cleaning supplies.

So for a beginner, let's say they're doing one man, one woman show, they want to land their first client, they don't want to overspend.

What would you say is about the average you would spend on like a set of cleaning supplies?

Literally under $1,000.

Really?

It's not a big investment.

Man,

that's remarkable, dude, because a lot of people, they're like, I need need tens of thousands of dollars.

I need hundreds of thousands of people.

You're not buying a business, right?

$50,000, $100,000, or $1 million to buy a business.

If you want to start from the ground up and be the entrepreneur and be the CEO of your own company, you have to start from somewhere.

So specifically for cleaning, less than $1,000 to get everything all set up.

I love that.

All your documentation, right?

Your articles, all that good stuff.

And start getting basic supplies.

Start cleaning small houses.

Start cleaning barber shops on a weekly basis.

and things just start adding up from there, right?

Yeah, your vacuum cleaner,

Shark, I get Shark, which is like the one tier below of Dyson.

I think Dyson's a bit overpriced, but they're a great model, right?

Shark is one of our,

I guess, repeating kind of equipment that we use.

We have our tornado backpacks, our tornado vacuum backpacks for more commercial spaces that we use.

You need your mop bucket, your mop, some gloves,

Windex paper towel, your toilet bowl cleaner.

I mean, that's under $1,000.

Let's be real, right?

Absolutely.

And then you buy in bulk every so often, right?

And you find a good vendor to supply.

As you scale, you're going to eventually find a vendor that can help you

maintain your materials.

Any good vendors you would recommend for the audience that's listening?

Yes, I do.

I do.

They actually, they changed the name from Seaway Supply Store in Illinois, from Bellwood, Illinois, or Maywood, I should say.

And now they're called Brady IFS.

They're a national

cleaning supply store.

Okay.

Right?

Brady IFS.

Just let them know that you heard it from Yanni.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A quick side note, part of my vision to be a full in-house facility maintenance company.

So we won't be just doing cleaning here long term.

We'll be doing maintenance

for the entire building.

We'll be building and starting our own.

supply janitorial store.

Nice.

We could supply chemicals, vacuums, and distribute nationwide.

Nice.

That's part of my vision.

That's how I'm going to hit 100 million.

Yeah.

No, that's, that's, that's, that's huge, dude.

Yep.

So, okay, so from that, um, you got your established, you got your foundation, you have your, uh, your supplies, so your logistics.

Now, let's talk about one of the most important aspects.

Here you go.

Business.

sales.

Sales.

Sales.

So how do we generate leads?

How did you generate leads in the very beginning?

Just to clarify for our listeners and viewers that are now just tuning in right now.

And what would you recommend that they do, especially from a beginner aspect?

There might be some people that are listening to this, dude, that have no sales experience.

They might be like, you know, scared to talk to people, dude.

What's the path of least resistance just from you, man?

Leveraging platforms and building your skill sets and scales and being comfortable and confident and talking to people.

I start off with basic platforms.

One is called Nextdoor.com.

Nextdoor.com.

Another one's called Care.com.

I think they're based somewhere in Europe.

But you make a little profile of yourself.

Hey, I'm Teresa.

I'm a housekeeper.

I'm a nanny.

I'm a dog sitter.

I'm a dog walker.

You make a little profile.

You put your credentials.

You put how much you charge.

And I started getting testimonials, or I should say, reviews.

And the beginning, before I got incorporated, I was getting...

Clients loved me.

At first, I was very hesitant, right?

Walking in people's homes and cleaning.

Me being a male, right?

In the beginning.

But people eventually loved me.

I started cleaning.

So leveraging Care.com and next door, like in the way beginning.

Cleaning houses and selling cleaning services for houses is so much easier than commercial spaces.

I will tell you that from experience.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And then leveraging Facebook, making a Facebook profile for your business, Instagram page.

And just

start small.

Post once a week.

Then seven times a week.

Then seven times a day.

That's my goal.

Oh, yeah.

No, absolutely, man.

And that could become easier with processes and automations, man.

So maybe after the podcast, we could go ahead and just give you a few tips and strategies on how to do that.

I would appreciate that.

But

yeah, brother.

So what would you say is a good starting point for a beginner to charging for the services?

A good starting point.

That's a very good question.

It's a very...

not a difficult question.

I know it's going to vary based on like square footage and all that jazz.

Yeah.

But let's say like a 1,200 square foot, 1,500 square foot house, how much would you charge for that?

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of variables.

Scope of work, how many bedrooms, how many baths, right?

Is this an apartment or a single-family house?

Yeah, I mean,

ranging standard cleaning-wise, $100, $200

in that range per visit.

Now, if it's a reoccurring client, which we do have weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, we do have those incentives, right?

If we could lock in and provide consistent cleaning for a house, a homeowner, right?

If it's weekly, there's a discount, obviously, right?

But that's the range, 100 to 200.

On the deep cleaning sides, right?

During spring cleaning season, which right now we're freaking busy, right?

Ranging between $300 to $600

per

deep cleaning.

We do a lot of move-in moveouts as well.

We have a great relationship with Killer Williams based in Lincoln Park, Chicago.

So we do a bunch of moveouts for them for the real estate firm there as well.

So then let me ask you, since you started off as a one-man team, now you expanded over to 25 employees, what is a reasonable size portfolio for one person to handle?

You mean one, you're asking for one cleaner?

How many houses they can or yeah, yeah, basically, one cleaner, dude.

It's gonna come down to their availability and commitment levels.

So let's say you have a full-timer.

Let's say you have somebody for like 40 hours a week.

Sure.

What would be like reasonable to start delegating?

Because remember, like my mind right now, guys, I'm thinking like an operator, right?

Yeah.

You're telling me this high-level overview of your business.

I'm just like thinking, okay, so if I was to get like five cleaners and they worked 40 hours for me, how many houses could I delegate?

We'll do the math.

I mean, it comes down to the hours too, right?

So

we typically pay for labor cost 16 to 22 an hour depending on your you know uh level experience yeah reliability first three months we get on them onboarded we have all like a preliminary phase if they pass the evaluation and no bad reviews from customers yeah we get a we give them a dollar raise nice right so we typically charge depending on the house and also the city you know

40 to 50 dollars an hour that's the range yeah right so let's say what what's the average it's a cleaning time that it would take yeah four hours four hours four hours a cleaning job?

Probably

10 houses a week.

Yeah, so I was gonna say like two houses a day.

Yeah, yeah, that's actually a dream, a cleaner's dream to do two houses a day.

Two houses a day, so ten houses.

Man, that's pretty good.

But the thing is, not all cleaners do work full-time.

They have other jobs.

It's a part-time.

It's a part-time thing.

And that's where you could start.

That's where you could leverage as the business owner and accommodate their schedule as well.

And then I had the experience where cleaners have quit their jobs to work full-time with OPA.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's awesome.

And so I have three or four cleaners for

since the beginning, for four years right now.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

How's Antarisa?

Dude, shout out to them.

I mean, I'm just saying, dude, it's hard to find good people to work for, man.

And, you know, I always say, like, that means you're leading by example.

You probably showed them, like, hey, I did this and they'll probably respect you for it, dude.

You know?

Thank you.

And I know that's huge in sales, especially, right?

It's huge in sales.

You got to sell the vision, that's just to the client.

Exactly.

Also to your providers and your cleaners.

Absolutely everybody, dude.

Everybody.

The sales process never ends, right?

Customer service is part of sales.

So with that being said, dude, we're coming up to the end of our interview.

So right now, let's say you have

100,000 people listening to this, which it's very possible, right, Emilio?

Hey, that'll be possible.

Obviously, Paul.

Obviously.

So, all right, you're going to have 100,000 people.

listening to this when it goes out within a 30-day range and it's gonna be inspiring.

They're gonna be like, dude, that's badass.

He was a school teacher based out of Chicago, now full-time entrepreneur doing his own clean business.

And they're gonna be like, bro, how can I connect with this guy?

How can I go ahead and talk to him?

How can I go ahead and network with this guy, right?

Because your network is your net worth, guys.

So, Yanni, give us a few words of encouragement to the person who wants to actually start this business that right now is unsure of themselves, dude.

This is the level up.

It's about helping other people, dude.

So, what do you have to tell to that viewer right now that's listening to you, dude, that's on YouTube, that's watching your interview, and it's just like, yo, like give us a word of encouragement bro yeah

number one like i said before have faith in yourself have faith in god right

number two having the right mindset number three

surrounding yourself with the right people and i would say number four take extremely massive action don't be afraid of failure start today don't keep pushing the deadline to next week to next week start today start accepting that failure failures and mistakes will come and you have to accept that and that will also

build some character in you as well.

And I've learned in business this, that in business, you have to fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee sometimes.

Dude, that's it.

Right?

Muhammad Ali.

Muhammad Ali.

That's right, brother.

Right.

So

take a leap of faith in yourself, right?

And try it out.

Absolutely.

And try it out.

Absolutely.

And never quit.

Right.

And keep surrounding yourself with the right people.

And that's part of...

The motto here, right?

Like keep leveling up.

And this is why I came in today.

That's it.

Good to you.

You have to, man.

You have to keep leveling up, guys.

And as you level up, there's always going to be obstacles.

There's always going to be roadblocks.

But with good people, good culture, and good surroundings, dude, you could go over everything, dude.

You can expand.

You know, life is short.

Go for it.

Make it happen.

Go for it.

Right?

Go for it.

Go for it.

So with that being said, where can they find you, my man?

Yeah.

You can find us at opacleaning.com, which, by the way, if the camera's right here, that's our logo.

Opa.

Opa Cleaning.

Love it.

We named OPA because it is a catchy name.

It's also Greek.

Yep.

Right.

And we have a lot of European customers as well in Chicago.

And just a really catchy name.

I think OPA is a very universal phrase to use.

Absolutely.

Even with the Hispanics, too.

So we love OPA.

Our customers love that coming in.

We're your OPA cleaners, right?

But yeah, www.opacleaning.com.

You can find us on Instagram.

Same thing, OPA Cleaning.

And then Facebook, Olpa Cleaning, O-P-A-A2As.

Cleaning.

Right?

You can also find us on LinkedIn as well.

Yeah.

Love that.

Love that, guys.

There you guys got it.

Yanni, the owner of Opa Cleaning out of Chicago, Illinois, guys.

Guys, that wraps up this episode.

This is the Love All podcast with Paul Alex, guys.

Make sure if you're listening on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube, guys, you leave us a five-star review.

Guys, we have been top two in the past few months in the business category, not just because of who we are, but because of what you guys are making us out to be.

And right now, we're here to help people, guys.

So at the end of the day, your network is your net worth.

Just like Yanni said, hey, if he could do it, you could do it too.

Make it happen for yourself.

I'll catch you on the next one.

Thanks for listening up to the Level Up Podcast.

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