We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lisa O’brien a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Lisa , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Who is your hero and why? What lessons have you learned from them and how have they influenced your journey?

My mom is my hero! She is a hero to me because she has persevered through things that I don’t think I would be able to. She has self taught herself so many things. After leaving my dad, she had to figure it all out to make a life for her two girls. She was 29. She came back to St. Louis and bought a home in Kirkwood. Cleaned houses to be able to be home for us after school. Turned that into a small business. Learned how to do all of that on her own. She just never ever gave up. She took my sister and I on amazing vacations to tropical locations and even other countries, Europe. It was pretty amazing. She rescues animals, she designed her yard to look like the tropical islands that she loved. Her yard was featured in STL At Home magazine. If she puts her mind to it, she makes it happen. It is pretty amazing to watch. Needless to say, that has been instilled in my sister and I. I think when one of feels like we cant make it, the other kicks in and says, “you’ve got this” and so we do.
When I moved back from California, I went into business with her and we tripled the business. We had up to 15 employees and very happy clients. I have since taken over and downsized. I still have many of the same clients we have had for years!! With COVID and just ready to lighten the load, I only have two to three crews now.

Lisa , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

All About Cleaning Inc is a small residential/office/construction cleaning company. We are family owned and have been in business since 1975. My mom started the business. AAC takes a lot of pride in what we do. We are a small, fully bonded, and insured co. We clean from very small homes/apartments to very large ones. We also do vacancy cleanings with realtors and anyone needing cleaning before moving. We have worked for custom home builders for years doing post-construction cleaning. What sets us apart is that because we are smaller, the clients know all the employees and feel comfortable with the familiar faces coming into their homes. Our employees genuinely care about their work. They also know the kids and pets by name, so it’s a personal feel.
It has not been a smooth road. This industry is hard work. Finding employees that care about their work, are willing to work hard, and have a strong work ethic is not always easy. I have one employee that has been here 14 years!! She is a client favorite. The others are amazing as well! I strive to stay above a competitive market wage. I am fortunate that my clients truly appreciate our service and the employees, so they are willing to pay what it takes to do that. We have had a few mishaps along the way, but I would say I have been lucky to be able to raise my twins working from home. I am a single mom. I could take and pick up from school, help at school, and go to the games, so I appreciated that!
I also got my Real Estate license when my ex husband and I were just separating because we used to flip houses. That has been helpful in my cleaning business as well.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

There have been two times in my 30 years of being in this business that could have broken us. 2008 and 2019/2020. When we had the economic crisis, it obviously affected everyone, so anything that was considered a bonus or luxury in life was the first to go. There went everyone’s cleaning. I went down to literately one employee and myself for a little while. That is when I decided to take my business down to 1-3 crews once we did start to build back.
Also with Covid-19, well, we all know how that went. I did see something beautiful through all of that time. People really showed up for each other. I helped my employees as much as I could, some of my clients continued to pay even though we were not cleaning them. We took food baskets and groceries to our elderly clients. After awhile we could go back with masks etc. and with a full blown new structure, so we could all stay safe.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

As with all business, you have to advertise. We have done all but T.V. advertisement. Yellow Pages!, Chamber of Commerce, flyers, mailers, websites. I have designed and done most of that part of the business as well, until the last several years. Of course now we have social media which helps a lot. But to be honest, our best source of advertisement has been word of mouth! I have been very grateful to have clients that love our services, so we now do friends, family, kids of our longtime clients that now have their own home and family! It has been great and very appreciated! We do offer an incentive/gift to those that refer All About Cleaning.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://allaboutcleaninginc.com
• Instagram: @all.about.cleaning.inc
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100048136007586
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/all-about-cleaning-inc

Image Credits

Christina Miller
Tereasa Bierman
Andria Hanak
Haley Langston
Sidney Becker
Jayden Rodenmeyer