We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kenetia Lee. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kenetia below.

Kenetia, appreciate you joining us today. Often the greatest growth and the biggest wins come right after a defeat. Other times the failure serves as a lesson that’s helpful later in your journey. We’d appreciate if you could open up about a time you’ve failed.

There is a quote that I live by, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill

Since starting this business in 2016, I’ve felt like everyday I receive an education in resilience and courage. I learned early on opportunities are always lurking right around the corner and if I can find the courage to show up and continue to sharpen our tools (staff/operations/processes), something will present itself.

Last year, we worked with a client who would not have a production meeting with us before their event. They had completed the event before and told us they felt confident they knew the number of cleaners they needed and did not need assistance with placement of dumpster. Basically, for us to just show up. Turned out this time around the number of guest they had was 5x’s what they expected and they had 1 dumpster for a 5 block radius at the far end of the event, making it almost impossible to empty trash in a timely manner. Needless to say, we were under staffed, our client and our staff were overwhelmed and overworked. No one left the situation happy. We failured miserably, but it taught us to insist on a pre-production meeting or gracefully let the potential client know we are unable to service their event. The negative impact for all involved, just isn’t worth it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

PopUP CleanUP is an event cleaning company headquartered in Los Angeles since 2016. Our core competence is providing event cleaning before, during, and after large scale events from 150 to over 100,000 people and for event venues with an emphasis on customer service and craftsmanship. Our services include pre-event cleaning, live event porters, post event cleaning crews, restroom attendants, scullery and bussing services, trash management, pressure washing, floor detailing, event rentals and so much more. We have experience on a wide range of projects from branding activations to fashion galas, awards shows, sporting competitions, food festivals, block parties, and events occurring at multiple locations simultaneously.

A few of our past events serviced have included Nike branding events for the NBA and MLB All-Star Games, the NAACP Awards, multi-location activations for Amazon Foods, several California Nurses Association rallies at the Sacramento Mall, One805’s Maroon 5 Concert for first responders, and several football clinics around the 2022 Super Bowl LVI.

PopUP CleanUP is a certified business and proud member of the Culver City Chamber of Commerce, Sacramento Asian Pacific American Chamber of Commerce, NAMC and Los Angeles Business Connect. You make the moments memorable. We’ll take care of the mess!

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lesson I had to unlearn is being a lone ranger. Previously to starting PopUP CleanUP I was a makeup artist and an author, I’m an only child and needless to say my entire life up until I started to hire employees had been based on my sole efforts. About four years into building the business I found myself spinning my wheels wearing just about every hat in the business, from bookkeeper, operations, supervisor, marketer to human resources, I was feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, when a speaker from a chamber event I attended suggested that I apply for Multicultural Entrepreneurship Program at USC. It was a turning point in my personal and business, growth and development. It was their I learned how to build up my team and create processes, systems and structures for them to succeed independently of me. I was no longer working as a solopreneur and it was refreshing. The year after the program we doubled our revenue and had our first double digit net profit.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Our absolute best source of new clients is word of mouth and referrals. When I first started the business I would network with a bunch of different chambers that were within 5 to 10 miles from the office, this helped people get familiar with me and the name of our business. People from those chambers would refer us to different business owners that needed commercial cleaning which grew our reoccuring business. It wasn’t until I joined BNI in Beverly Hills when I learned how to perfect my pitch and ask for event cleaning. There are a ton of events that happen in and around Los Angeles and as big as this market is, the events industry is pretty small and so we get passed around from one event producer to the next. The good and bad news about most of our business being referral based is when there is an human error others hear about it, when there is good news others hear about it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://popupcleanup.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/popupcleanup/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/popupcleanupwest/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/popup-cleanup/
• Twitter: https://x.com/popupcleanup