Why Did This Couple Choose Two Maids?

This is a transcript from Episode 40 of The Franchise Champion Show.

Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

Alan: My guests today are a husband and wife team who took a leap into franchise ownership with Two Maids and hit the ground running in a way that turned heads across the entire franchise system in just under two years. They've built something that most franchisees spend a decade chasing. Jared and Chantel Trujillo, welcome to the Franchise Champion Show.

Jared: Hey, thanks, Alan. Appreciate it.

Chantel: Thank you. Thank you for having us.

Alan: Yeah, I'm so glad you guys are here. I'm excited to learn more and share about your background as well as the Two Maids brand. Before we get into Two Maids, give us a quick picture of what your lives looked like prior to franchising. What were you both up to? Jared, we'll start with you.

Jared: I've been in the restaurant business my entire life. Crazy to think I'm still in it — almost 30 years going into this industry. And really what it came down to is I was doing the restaurants, Chantel was doing some life insurance at the time, and we were just looking for opportunities to find something we could call our own. Something that would be just for us down the road.

And lo and behold, Chantel had a franchise business consultant she was in a networking group with. I was looking for something — I didn't know what it was. Anything from an Amazon store to whatever it could be that we would own down the road. We ended up meeting Jen with The Entrepreneur's Source, and she kind of started walking me through this whole idea of being a franchise owner, which I'd never considered. That's kind of where it started.

And from there — wasn't it Chantel, maybe a month or two — I was like, I'm going to own something. But initially I was going to do this as an absentee owner, with Chantel still following the plan with financial advising.

Alan: Okay. Chantel, tell us a bit about your background and what you were doing before this.

Chantel: Long story short, I've always been in retail sales. I have a lot of retail sales and management experience. And what happened is I got laid off, and then I started looking at different options. Because after I got laid off, I was doing my resume and I was like, man, all these corporate places I've worked at — I got laid off at every one of them. I'd been giving them 5 to 10 years at a time, and then you walk in one day and it's, "Oh, sorry, we're doing a realignment and your job is no longer available."

Alan: Oh man. That's brutal.

Chantel: So I had started looking around and ended up looking into financial advising. You have to do a ton of networking for that — 50, 60 hours a week, plus networking on top of it. And I got invited to a group where, like Jared said, I met Jen with The Entrepreneur's Source.

I was like, Jared, you really need to talk to her. This might be a great opportunity. The big thing for me was it's free to talk to her. You don't have to pay just to sit down and talk. Because he was still trying to decide where things were going to go since I was planning to stay in financial advising.

And then one night we sat down and did a pros and cons list — what would it look like if I stayed doing financial advising, versus coming on board and running Two Maids, because after three months of looking, Two Maids just kept drawing our eyes. I guess you can see which one won, because here I am today.

Alan: Writing that pretty clearly. Okay, so let's jump in — tell us about Two Maids. What does the brand do, and how do you improve the lives of your clients?

Chantel: We're a residential cleaning company, and we help people save time in their lives. In this day and age, we're all super busy. Most households have both parents working. You've got kids' sports, family stuff — there's just so much that keeps us busy. We're here to help people save time and energy and put their focus where it needs to be — on their family and their time together. We come in and take care of the house cleaning.

Alan: I love it. And I can tell you without hesitation, my wife would choose our cleaning person over pretty much anyone else in terms of level of importance. It really does make such a huge difference — keeping things orderly and clean and allowing us to spend more time together without worrying about that part of the household. So that's awesome.

Okay, so how did you end up deciding this was the brand for you guys?

Jared: I think really what it came down to is, as we were going through the process with our coach, we were having conversations with people and looking at different concepts, and everything about Two Maids we liked. From the bright pink to the systems they had in place.

One thing that really stood out is you could get pricing or book a cleaning online. We hadn't really experienced running a cleaning company, but we knew we wanted our house clean. So I started doing research and found that most competitors didn't have that tech advantage — Two Maids had a bit more of one. You could pick up a cell phone, put some information in, get a quote within about a minute and a half, and schedule your appointment right there. Most other competitors? They have to visit your home before you get pricing, or the pricing is very vague.

And then when we started researching what cleaning companies are projected to do in the future — with more dual-income households — it just made sense. We were both in the service industry, we understood people's needs, and everything was lining up. The pink, the Two Maids name — we just kind of liked everything that came with it.

Chantel: It's pretty much everything he said. At the end of the day, it's been an amazing company even from the very beginning — before we even decided to go with them. They do a team meeting to introduce you to their team, and I thought that was really cool, how involved they were even before you signed on the dotted line. Even to this day, you can still feel the love and the care that the franchisees have for the company.

Alan: That's awesome. So Chantel, you were working as a financial advisor doing all this networking, and the original plan was for you to keep doing that — this was going to be maybe an absentee business. What made you decide that Two Maids was going to be your full-time gig instead?

Chantel: A lot of it had to do with when we sat down and did that pros and cons list. In financial advising, you still have to go out and find your own clientele. I did it for a full year and it was a struggle — I didn't feel the help and support to get me to the level I wanted to be.

And there was just something else about being able to be a manager again, being in control a little bit more. In financial advising, you're not as hands-on as you'd want to be.

I was also able to have more family time by running this. I could go to my son's Mother's Day tea that his class did for us. I didn't have to worry about getting that approved. It just made it a lot more family-friendly for me.

Alan: That's awesome. I feel like that's why the majority of people I've worked with get into franchising and owning their own business — the control of their time. Being able to do things with their kids or whatever their family needs at the moment. Even if you're working a lot, especially at the beginning, you can at least control when that is.

So tell us about what the first year was like for you guys. You mentioned in the intro you killed it your first year in the system. What was getting out the gates like?

Jared: Training was amazing. It wasn't a ton — 3 or 4 days over at the home office in Alabama. You got to meet the team, they showed you how to clean a house, and from there, it's your business. That was the biggest key. We understood from the get-go that if we wanted to be successful, we were going to have to put in 100% effort into all of it.

And a lot of our success came from how we set ourselves up — we talked about Two Maids a lot and started getting the word out early. So when we opened up, we literally hit the ground running. I don't even know if running is the right word — more like long-distance sprinting. And I don't even know if we've stopped.

From there, we learned a lot — hiring, staffing, what equipment works. It took three different types of vacuums to find the right one. It took a couple different mop situations to figure out the correct way to get the cleaners to use them. Little things you don't think about. I think in the first 90 days, some things were trial by fire, some things they told you and it worked great. But it was humbling in the beginning because you don't know what to expect until you really get into it.

Alan: What was it like for you, Chantel? And maybe describe your roles — what Jared takes care of versus what your role is in the business.

Chantel: Jared does all the back-end stuff — social media, marketing, designing things, and a lot of the financials. I run the day to day. All the hiring, all the scheduling with customers, pretty much everything in the daily operations.

When we first started, they told us — and kind of scared us a little — "Hey, you need to hire four people, and hopefully one or two of them show up." So we hired six, thinking we didn't want to not have enough people if jobs were coming in. And actually, all six started with us. They all showed up.

Alan: That's impressive! Good job hiring.

Chantel: But also — we didn't wait until our doors opened to start marketing and networking. I was already networking when I was doing financial advising, so as soon as we were for sure Two Maids owners and had an opening date, I rejoined all those networking groups immediately and just started talking about Two Maids.

So we had a lot of business already on the books before we even opened, because we started talking about it two months out. We didn't wait until the day of and say, "Oh by the way, hey, Two Maids is open now." We were two months out like, "Hey, we're opening, this is our open date." And I think that's what helped us the most in hitting the ground running.

You can't be afraid to tell people what you're doing. Give your business card out to anyone and everyone. Even though Jared is not in the day-to-day as much, he still carries business cards on him and he's constantly handing them out.

Alan: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I love it. You guys started that process really early before you opened your doors so you could hit the ground running.

Chantel, what does your day to day look like? For people not familiar with this type of concept, what is your role, and what does your team look like?

Chantel: Right now I have 17 cleaners, an assistant manager, and another office person who helps with telemarketing, phone calls, answering phones, and scheduling. When I come in, we normally have a 10- to 15-minute training or just get everybody up and running in the mornings — you still need your coffee, 8:00 is still kind of early, you've got to wake up a little bit. Get them assigned to their jobs and out the door so they're starting their first cleaning by nine.

And then while they're gone, I'm doing admin, paperwork — it never stops. Networking is a big piece too. I do one networking event every week, Jared does one every week, and then we have others we attend. We do up to 20 networking events a month roughly. Almost every day we have something going on.

Alan: That's great. Getting it out there — it clearly works. So Jared, let's hear more about your end of the business — where you spend your time and how you juggle that with your other work.

Jared: I've been with this restaurant concept for almost 20 years. Shortly after we became owners of Two Maids, the owner decided to retire, and a group of us took over ownership. So I was fully involved there — full days, 9 to 10 hours in the restaurant business.

On the Two Maids side, I help out with some additional marketing and social media posts. I go through every month and balance financials, and I work closely with our accountant. In the beginning I was probably doing 5 to 10 hours a week in Two Maids. Now it might only be about 5 to 10 hours a month, total.

It's rare that I ever have to go in and clean. Sometimes I'll help Chantel pick something up if it's just easier for me to take care of it. But mostly my stuff is the back end. We'll talk through things together because we're in this together, and I can sometimes be a sounding board for her on HR and accounting — I've been through a lot of the same things in hospitality.

Quick pause. Jared just said something worth sitting with: $1 million in month 16. No cleaning experience. But they knew people, they knew customer service, and they picked a brand that matched who they already were. That's not luck. That's fit.

Finding that fit is exactly what I do. I help driven professionals identify the specific franchise that matches their background, their goals, and their life — at no cost to you. Head to athletetoowner.com.

Alan: I'm curious — a lot of people consider working together as a husband and wife team and wonder if it's going to work for everybody. It was on the pros and cons list, I'm guessing. How has that been for you guys? And are you ever able to really turn it off?

Chantel: I think we've actually grown closer. Because this is his business too, he's more understanding when I have to work late or go out to clean and we have to rearrange things in our schedules. It's easier for him to have that understanding because he owns it as well.

And it's the same with our kids. If there's something I can't do, I'll say, "Hey, daddy's going to do it instead," and even our kids are like, "Oh, it's okay, mommy." Because our kids call it their business too. It makes it easier for the whole family to have those discussions and have that understanding when things come up.

I can turn it off pretty easily. Jared doesn't always get to turn it off, because by the time I'm already done with it after ten hours, that's when he's just starting to dig into it. So he'll want to talk about something at nighttime and I'm like, I'm over it. But overall, I think it's been a great ride for us. It's really brought us closer together and given us more understanding of each other's strengths and weaknesses. And that's where he comes into play — if I'm struggling with something, I can call him and he'll walk me through it. It's nice to have that sounding board, to bounce things off and come to a better understanding together and make a hard problem an easy solution.

Alan: I love to hear that working together has actually brought you closer. And being able to bring the kids into the picture and having them see you guys working hard and running your own business — that's an experience most kids don't get. They're probably getting a lot out of this that will help them down the road.

Let's go back to your first-year performance. You comfortable talking about how you guys did in that first year?

Jared: Yeah. They give you kind of a baseline when you first open up — you're going to do a few thousand dollars in your first month, and then it's going to start going up. But we actually did almost double what our projected first month was in our first week.

And then our real first month — because we started the last week of September — we were coming in around $20,000. Sometimes those numbers don't get hit until later as you grow. But because of the preparation we did beforehand, it really helped out.

Honestly, we've never looked back. On average, we improved each month by almost 15% over where we started. I like to nerd out on Excel spreadsheets, so I ran a whole report on it.

I wanted to see black a lot faster because I knew we'd be in red in the beginning — that's known in the business. We did an SBA Small Business Express loan, about $150,000, to open our two territories in Albuquerque and Rio Rancho. But one thing we didn't realize is that with fast growth, you spend more money. We started with enough equipment for four teams, and before we knew it we needed enough for ten teams within the first 6 or 7 months. More vacuums, more supplies, more towels, more of everything to keep up.

But we did really well. I commend Chantel and the team over there — we wouldn't stop taking clients, and we still don't. We achieved the fastest-growing Two Maids in the network since it opened in 2002. We've been the fastest store to $1 million — we hit that in 16 months.

And we don't look back. Our projection is to build a $3 million cleaning company in Albuquerque and Rio Rancho. We're a little over a third of the way there, and we did that in about 18 months. If we can get there by year five, I think that's feasible and that's a really great thing. But there's a lot of moving parts — the busier you get, it doesn't get easier. More people, more problems. The financial side gets easier in ways, but there are always challenges.

That's why we bought into franchising. Could we have done this without the playbook? I don't think so. They have all the systems in place. We were learning brand new — we'd never done cleaning other than around our own house. But we owned it. We followed the playbook to a T, and it's really helped us be successful.

Alan: That's great. A couple of really good lessons in there — one being about growth. You're bringing in all this extra income, but that requires all this additional investment in equipment and other things. It's not all just revenue. Now, I know both of you mentioned that on occasion Chantel has to go in and do a cleaning herself and fill in. For those out there who might be thinking a cleaning brand could make sense for them — can you tell us about staffing? What are the main challenges you've found?

Chantel: Staffing is probably the biggest challenge across the board. You're going to find your core people, but then you're going to have an ever-revolving door with some others. A lot of people come in thinking cleaning is easy. It's actually not — it's very labor intensive. And it's also a lot of customer service. People don't always realize that. You have to deal with your customers and make sure they're happy in their homes.

Right now, our biggest struggle has been Indeed. They recently changed their whole system, so now we've had to adjust the way we put out job ads. For a while we just weren't getting any applicants and were trying to figure out what was going on. Turns out Indeed changed their whole process without letting a lot of businesses know. So now it's a catch-up game.

And then there's the no-shows. People schedule to come to a job interview and then they don't show up. I've heard it's a common thing across industries — out of ten scheduled interviews, you might get 2 to 3 show up, and maybe one of those is someone you can actually hire. Staffing has always been our biggest challenge, even more so right now because of the Indeed changes.

Alan: Yeah, I almost wish there was a way to track how many interviews someone didn't show up for, so you could filter those out. This kind of reminds me of when things were challenging coming out of the pandemic — staffing was really hard, and then it eventually mellowed out. This might be a wave we're on. But that's the hard part about being a business owner: you have to stay ahead of these things.

Jared: Exactly. We've already started talking about it — we've heard that every tax season people tend to leave, so next January and February we're going to do more aggressive hiring to offset anyone who might not come back after tax season. It's a learning engine that keeps going.

And staffing is always going to be a thing in the service industry, regardless. The restaurant business and residential cleaning are very similar that way — very similar type of workers, labor-intensive. You just learn how to manage it better over time.

Alan: Any business is going to have its ups and downs, and every business owner is going to face challenges and have to figure things out. So let me ask you each individually — Chantel, we'll start with you. What advice do you have for anyone considering making the switch? Maybe they're in the corporate world right now, or they've been laid off and they're trying to figure out what the next thing is.

Chantel: I would say to really look at what you want out of your next chapter. I think that's the biggest thing — what do you want out of it? And make sure whatever you choose is going to help you get to those goals.

Our goals were to have more family time, more leniency. Not having to worry about getting a vacation approved, or walking in one day and getting laid off. So you really have to sit down and decide what's most important to you. Is it the stability of a 9-to-5? Are you okay with the uncertainty that comes with owning a business?

And you have to examine what you want for the future, not just what's happening today. Right now I'm in the day-to-day 100%. But my goal is to eventually back off a little — and you can't do that in a corporate job. You can do that in a business you own, because you're training people to take your place over time. That's what we really wanted — planning for our future, not just for today. And this was our way of doing that.

Alan: Fantastic answer. I really appreciate you adding that piece about planning for your future and knowing where you want to be. A lot of people get into it, get super focused on what's right in front of them, and don't implement that longer-term thinking early enough. Great answer, Chantel.

How about you, Jared?

Jared: Chantel took my answer.

Alan: You've got to give a different one.

Jared: What I would say is: when you're looking into owning a franchise, make sure it's a concept you can relate to. There are hundreds of options out there, so pick something you truly understand. We both understood customer service. There were options for medical or teaching franchises, and I can't relate to medical or teaching. Yes, those might sound great in some ways, but I can't connect to them — which would mean more struggles.

The customer service aspect that comes with a cleaning company — I understood that because I dealt with it my entire career. Chantel dealt with it in retail, in a call center, in all these different roles. There were all these things that made it make sense. And then we just had to learn to clean. We knew it was mostly about people — we were going to people's houses.

And with that, you have to own it. Nobody will love your business like you do. Don't go into this thinking you're just going to buy a business and it's magically going to produce dollar signs. That doesn't happen. You have to be dedicated. You have to put in the effort. Sometimes you've got to think about it after work — that's just part of it. But nobody's going to put in the same effort that you will.

I've seen people go into this fully absentee and they weren't prepared for what it actually takes to get it to where you want it to be. Make sure you know the concept, know what you're doing, and that you're going to be able to give it your all. Because if you don't, you're going to have more challenges.

Alan: Well said, Jared. Well said. Thank you both so much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure getting to know you and hearing all these words of wisdom on how you skyrocketed in that first year and continue on that upward trajectory. Thank you for joining me, and congratulations on being franchise champions.

Jared: Thank you.

Chantel: Thank you.