We were lucky to catch up with Claudia Torres recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Claudia , thanks for joining us today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

Green cleaning is our specialty, that’s how we’re breaking the mold of traditional cleaning services. We’re proud to say that we are Organica Green Clean, a residential and commercial cleaning service in Tucson, Arizona. We are fully inclusive, running our business on our passion for sustainability. Organica Green Clean is owned by my partner and myself. We are women-owned, LGBT, and we celebrate our neurodiversity. We love that we’ve built a community that shares our vision to provide a service that does not exist in Southern Arizona, creating accessibility and employment opportunities. We’re changing the industry to share the benefits of green cleaning such as healthier living spaces, cost effectiveness of making your own cleaning products from simple ingredients, highlighting that sustainable lifestyles are not just trends. We’re all about clean homes and a clean planet! From our services, educational components, and supporting other small businesses for supplies, we want to continue making a positive impact on our local economy.

Traditional housekeeping businesses might take the route of standard cleaners and we greatly respect their work. We’ve changed the tide by showing green products can also do the same job, as efficiently, and reducing health risks associated with traditional cleaning products. Our metric for selection of the the products we use is matched in the Environmental Working Group (EWG) website as EWG approved. These are safer products such as the ECOS brand which is also women-owned.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Sustainability and green cleaning are the foundation of Organica Green Clean, our residential and commercial cleaning service in Tucson, Arizona. With a small loan from friends and family, my partner and I were able to launch our business. Before we started our business, things were a bit chaotic in our personal lives, leading us down this path. My partner came out as transgender, our grandmother was seriously ill, and I was working a full-time job at the University of Arizona. Our personal need for a green cleaning service came about when our grandma was placed in hospice care at her home. We needed to clean her home before her arrival. We realized that her standard cleaning products could cause negative effects in our situation. We swapped them out for our green products. When the time came, our grandmother passed away peacefully. Our second need was finding a way for my partner to stay employed through their transitional period from male to female.

Through this tumultuous time, we added another life changing element where I ended up quitting my job, hopped into my co-owner role of Organica Green Clean, networked full-time, and we started cleaning!
Our cleaning experience came from what we were taught by our mothers who also worked in the industry. We often helped them during their jobs. We’ve applied all our combined skills through our education and professional development into a giant pool to launch our start-up and we’ve been operating for a year and half now.

Who utilizes our services? There has been such an incredible interest from families, parents with fur babies, and individuals/businesses that highly value sustainability. This has become a great educational opportunity to help clients make easy swaps, we’re able to clean their homes and make a difference. There’s a hidden element of healing that we provide for our clients. A clean-living space is a powerful boost to improve your mental health. Our background also helps our clientele of LGBTQ+ individuals where they might be hesitant to hire a cleaning service. They don’t have to worry about anything and are excited to see how our business creates a positive impact in the LGBTQ+ community.

We place great value in our ability to be innovative and creative thinkers. In building our brand, we built a service that is affordable and maintained our authenticity. We love our craft of leaving homes looking beautiful, clean spaces for many incredible opportunities – to create memories with those you love most. It has been very exciting to build Organica Green Clean and incorporate products that we produce ourselves such as air fresheners that are also eco-friendly.

Entrepreneurship is important for people of color, minority groups and especially tapping into spaces that are new and innovative. I am a first-generation here in the United States and this is truly a homage to my parents who worked very hard. It doesn’t matter where you come from or what you look like. We hope to inspire others to work towards creating something that they’re passionate about, obtaining generational wealth to pass down, and living a wonderful journey even with its ups and downs. The payoff will be significant because you will impact so many lives in a positive manner, meet many incredible people and ultimately being true to yourself.

Any advice for managing a team?

I’ve managed several teams in many fast-paced settings such as retail, fast food, in my position at the University in a non-profit management environment. Managing a team and maintaining high morale falls on listening to your team and reciprocating the work and energy that they put in. I want to provide a workspace of high energy and positivity. In the cleaning business currently, our work is very labor intensive. We have to meet tight deadlines. Being able to delegate tasks, having the team feel comfortable in their assigned spaces, and making sure we are successful as a team adds to high morale. At the end of every cleaning job, we do a team check-in as a group to ensure there is open communication and we can correct any issues or note our personal wins.

How do you keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty?

We keep in touch with clients and foster brand loyalty through our personal interaction, face-to-face and build relationships to ensure we benefit their day-to-day dynamics. Providing cleaning services is an interesting profession because we enter private spaces and learn about situations that might be occurring in the client’s life. We feel truly honored to build trust. Our clients know that they’ll have a consistent team, and we will always provide an exceptional job. We offer peace of mind and make sure our clients have time to spend on what matters most. Transparency is also very important, especially with our products utilized, any bumps along the road and celebrating our wins. This is fostering the Organica Green Clean brand loyalty.

We also use other methods such as social media engagement, newsletters, being consistent with networking. It is very important to me to offer support to other small businesses in the community, whether it be collaborations or marketing. We also want to ensure we have a community component to our business. We are members in the LGBT Chamber of Commerce and offer support to the local radio station, KXCI. KXCI is an independent, community-run radio station here in Tucson, Arizona. Our clients also value this component of Organica Green Clean that makes us stand out as a small business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://organicagreenclean.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/organicagreenclean/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Organica-Green-Clean/100089062091214/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/organica-green-clean

Image Credits

Headshots credit to Regal Fierce Media, Daniel Calderon (Photographer)
Living Rooms Space (Julia Van Valkenburg, Realtor)