IAM696- Business Owner Provides Residential Cleaning Services

Mari Millard is currently the owner of Two Maids & A Mop a residential cleaning company servicing Northern Va., Montgomery County, and DC. Before business ownership, Mari was involved with numerous start-up companies within the data and research space. Currently, she lives in Arlington, VA with her spouse, two children, and two dogs.

• CEO Hack: Learning from others and business owners
• CEO Nugget: Start sooner and be careful with projections
• CEO Defined: Leveraging all resources in the business

Website: http://twomaidsalexandria.com/

www.twomaidsrockville.com

www.twomaidschantilly.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TwoMaidsAlexandria/
https://www.facebook.com/twomaidsrockville/
https://www.facebook.com/Two-Maids-A-Mop-of-Chantilly/

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Transcription

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[00:00:02.20] – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

[00:00:29.89] – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Mari Millard of Two Maids and Mop. Mari, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:40.89] – Mari Millard

Thank you for having me.

[00:00:42.70] – Gresham Harkless

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Mari, so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing. Mari is currently the owner of Two Maids in a Mop, a residential cleaning service based in Northern Virginia and serving Montgomery County and also the Washington DC area. Before business ownership, Mara was involved with numerous startup companies within the date and data and research space. Currently, she lives in Arlington, Virginia with her spouse, two children, and two dogs. Mari, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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[00:01:22.09] – Mari Millard

Absolutely.

[00:01:25.70] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I know I read a little bit, in your bio, but I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper. Can you tell us a little bit more about what I call your CEO story? Will that you kinda start, get started with all the awesome things you're working on?

[00:01:28.09] – Mari Millard

Yeah. Well mean, I think I knew from an early age that I was destined to own my own business. I mean, as my friends were playing with dolls and other things, I had, like, a little office in our living room, and I would fire and, people all day long in my in my imaginary office. Nice. I mean, I think it was kind of a destiny. You know, I always I always knew I wanted to own my own business. I just never quite knew what I wanted to do. Ultimately ultimately ended up getting my MBA. I came out to DC and started working with some startups and loved that opportunity because it got me close to the action. I also was able to observe, how things can go really wrong.

And I worked, one of the first businesses I worked with. Fortunately, the owner had started he was a serial entrepreneur, so he had significant back in. So, you know, our first product, we were building out some data kind of platforms for the sales community to use. And we'd spent a good year building out this platform and ended up having to scrap it because it wasn't quite the mark kinda where we well after we got into it, we kinda learned the market didn't really want that. They wanted something else. But Oh, wow. I mean, that was a year and a million dollars in. And it was, fortunately, we were able to kind of redirect and and really create a successful, product. He ended up ultimately selling that company for a hundred million dollars.

So it was a happy ending to the story. Yes. But during that, you know, I realized that it takes a lot to to build out a product from scratch, from inception to this brilliant idea to, like, delivering something that's, that's, you know, that's gonna actually, bring back an ROI. And from that, I realized I wanna have a business, but I also wanna have a successful business. I don't want to, you know, spend millions and millions of dollars on an unproven concept. I didn't wanna do that. I wanna take the time and energy. So I started to learn more about kind of franchises and businesses like that and realized, I could take a successful kind of concept and just replicate that and add my own kind of flare and kind of the kind of things that I'd like to do to that, and that might be a better opportunity.

[00:04:17.10] – Gresham Harkless

That makes sense.

[00:04:19.50] – Mari Millard

Yeah. So that's how I started to kind of kind of go down down that road of, looking at different opportunities. You know, not starting something from scratch, but really looking at other successful companies and getting involved with those.

[00:04:35.50] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I think that's the biggest thing, that I've heard, you know. I think there even is kind of like a misconception around, you know, businesses themselves. I think you want to have those replicable, if that's even a word or if I just made it up, processes within your business. And I think that you know, each when you're starting up a business, you're trying to basically create that franchise model, so to speak. But those franchises are actually really great franchise franchises at least are those that have that model and have created, you know, in one area or one section. And then they have the opportunity to kinda have that, be duplicated in so many different areas.

[00:05:10.69] – Mari Millard

Yeah. Absolutely.

[00:05:13.10] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I know, I touched on a little bit when I read your bio, and then, of course, we touched on a little bit as well just now. So could you tell us a little bit more about, you know, the franchise you have, the two maids and a mop, and what exactly you're doing and where you're serving?

[00:05:26.50] – Mari Millard

Yeah. So so I've I've been involved with mixing them up now for almost four years. And when I got involved with the business, I took over an existing location. So my first, become stores, but my first office had been had been in business for two years and they were really struggling. And so when I came in, I took over that one. We made a lot of changes. And, you know, some of the challenges we faced so Two Maids and a Mop is headquartered out of Alabama, and most of the stores to that at that point, were kind of down in the south. And, you know, DC is a different marketplace. And so some of the things that they were trying to do that worked really well in Alabama weren't working well up in DC.

And so for example, the requirement done in Alabama is all employees must have a car and be able to you know, we reimburse for mileage, but all employees have to have a car and and be willing to drive that. Well, here in this area, a lot of people take, you know, you know, take the metro, they take mass transportation. So we were where they were struggling to hire. And there were so there are lots of things like that. There were the pricing was too low. You know? So so I one of the first things I did was increase the pricing, because I was actually at a networking event really early on after I just purchased the the company, and, I had my shirt on, my two-made shirt, and a guy walked up to me and said, hey. I use you guys. You guys are the cheapest company out there. So at that point, I realized, wow. We've got a pricing issue.

[00:07:16.19] – Gresham Harkless

We. Correct.

[00:07:17.19] – Mari Millard

We don't need to be the cheapest service out there. So, again, we made a lot of tweaks, and then and that kind of helped us really pick up momentum. And then we opened up our second office in Alexandria about two years later, and then recently, we just opened up our third office in Chantilly, Virginia.

[00:07:39.39] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I definitely love that, and I think too, it kinda speaks to I think sometimes when we hear franchise, we automatically think that, you know, you don't have the flexibility to do that. But I love how your background, for one, it sounds like you have the background in being able to kinda test out things, create ideas, see opportunities, and understand that it is a different market and be able to kinda bring that, as you said, that individuality, that flare, that that success formula, I guess you can say, to the franchise that you were that you bought into.

[00:08:07.30] – Mari Millard

Yeah. And, you know, and I think what's kind of interesting too is that a lot of people who get into a franchise kind of I think it's dangerous. Like, I'll talk to prospective franchisees and they'll ask me about the support, and they get hung up on the support from corporate. And and and I always tell them, I mean, you know what? I mean, at the end of the day, it's your business. Mhmm. And, you know, you can't expect anyone else to come to your rescue. I mean, you can expect them for help, but, again, at the end of the day, it's your business, and you've gotta be willing to do whatever it takes to get it done. And I always caution kind of prospective owners. Like, if you're not willing to do that, this isn't the right business. I mean, you've got to be you've gotta be mindful that things are gonna happen, things are gonna go wrong, probably almost just about daily, and you've gotta be able to react to that and and and and just keep moving forward.

[00:09:05.60] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. It makes so much sense. I usually joke and say, like, every entrepreneur or business owner's second job is is a firefighter just because you have to be able to kind of put out those fires and those unexpected things that happen, almost consistently across all industries and all types of businesses. So, if you're, not, you know, not aware of that or not, you know, don't wanna take that on, then it's definitely something, that you wanna kinda maybe, reconsider or find some other way to to kind of, you know, get into entrepreneurship or in business as well. So, I definitely appreciate that. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce. This could be for yourself individually or for your business, but what do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:09:46.70] – Mari Millard

I think always I've just every day I've worked really hard. You know, you know, regardless of what it is, you know, every day, I try to do something to positively impact my business. So if that means you're making a new, you know, connection, new network connection, you know, reaching out to a client, trying trying to hire a key employee, trying to come up with a new marketing thing. You know, every day, I try to figure out something I can do to improve my business. And, you know, the idea is that they're not always huge things, but it's that accumulative effect, you know, over you know, if I'm doing it every day, there's just there's gonna be a compound, impact ultimately where there will be some dramatic, kind of improvements in my business.

[00:10:40.79] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:10:51.50] – Mari Millard

Yeah. I think one thing, I like to do is learn and learn from other business owners in a variety of kinds of people. Like, you know, I just recently read, you know, CEO of Disney's book, which is fascinating. But I'll read all different types of things because there's you know, so many people have have experienced things that that can be applied to any type of business. And then I think it helps too to be creative when you're, you know, learning about other businesses and other struggles in different industries and sectors and such. So that's what I like to do, just constantly trying to learn something new.

[00:11:35.00] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of CEO mean to you?

[00:11:47.39] – Mari Millard

For me, A CEO just means leveraging all the resources of your business to their fullest extent. So that means, you know, your people, that means, the way you use your finances to leverage those effectively, you know, the capital, how can you leverage that to return a great, you know, the best ROI? So can you know, using a bonus creating a bonus program to, you know, get some further gains out of your employees? Is that the best way to use some of your capital? Is it to try different marketing tactics?

Are there some other capital investments you can make that would that would kinda launch your business further? To me, I think that's what being you know, for me, you know, you know, my role is pretty pretty wide and broad. And so that's what I'm always trying to think is how can I propel the business by the choices I'm making and how we spend our money to for example, for our third our most recent office, we made the decision to buy an office condo, be because we thought it would be a great investment for our business? So it's just constantly trying to figure out how can we, you know, expand our business broader and make it bigger and better.

[00:13:17.60] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. And that and that makes so much sense. And I think that having that, you know, creativity or that perspective is so necessary and needed in, you know, in all times really because you have to figure out what kind of, I guess, triggers, for lack of a better term, you can do to kinda help, you know, the business to propel forward. And I think that, you know, putting on the hat and kinda understanding how you can make those changes and those adjustments, can, you know, have a tremendous impact when you have that mentality kinda going in. So definitely appreciate that perspective and that definition, and I appreciate your time even more. What What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you guys are doing to serve the, the area.

[00:14:00.70] – Mari Millard

Yeah. Yeah. If people ever want to reach out to me or to learn more about a business, you can go online to Two Maids at Two Maids Alexandria. That's two maids a l a l a l e x a n d r I a dot com. And then our our number for that office is 07:03 two one four two four two four. Again, that's 07:03 two one four two four two four. You know, you can ask them if we can get in touch with me. If you're ever looking at considering a franchise or business opportunity, you know, I've talked to many people about that before, and, it's it's always I think it's always helpful. I know when I was looking at getting into businesses, I talked to anyone and everyone who would speak to me because I think it's just great to have as much information as you have because it's a really big decision to get into business for yourself. And I think it's important to kinda understand yourself and the opportunity and to see if that's the right fit because, you know, I've seen numerous people not make it because they just weren't geared right for the ongoing, trauma from a business, and they just couldn't stomach it.

[00:15:24.79] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. Well, I definitely appreciate that Maureen, and we will have those links and information in the show notes, but appreciate the reminder. I think that most people when, you know, they look at business, they forget it's all about trying to mitigate the risk as much as possible. And I think that one of the ways, of course, you can do that is by having as much knowledge and information. But I think, you know, as you say, we're talking about, you know, franchising or running a business or doing that, but also about yourself because you wanna make sure that you know that maybe even more than the business itself because you wanna know how you react to a lot of these traumas and situations and, and disruptions that happen in the business world. So I appreciate that reminder as well too, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:06.00] – Mari Millard

Yeah. Well, thank you. It was great great speaking with you.

[00:16:09.39] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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