How Maid Brigade of San Diego County Went From 1 or 2 Google Reviews a Month to About 40

How did a global brand marketer end up owning Maid Brigade of San Diego County?

Adam Ziegelman did not set out to own a cleaning company. His background was mostly digital marketing and sales for consumer products, outdoor gear and travel companies, where the brands he worked on were national or global.

He had always had an entrepreneurial bent and wanted to work on something local. He spent a couple of years on due diligence, talking with people who had bought other kinds of small businesses, and by his own account was not that interested in a franchise. Then Maid Brigade, in his words, “sort of fell in my lap.”

Two things sold him. His rule was to work with people he liked, and he liked the people. Then he learned the company used only non-toxic materials in the home, which he said flipped a switch for him. He started the business in July 2022, about three and a half years before the interview.

What was the hardest part of starting a house cleaning business from a garage?

Finding good employees at the very beginning. Adam was working out of his garage, so a candidate could come to his house for an interview or meet him at a coffee shop, while a competitor down the street had an office. Getting across the line meant buying the first car and outfitting the first team.

The other hard part, he said, was his own ego. He went into homes and cleaned alongside his crew. He still does it every once in a while and thinks the crew appreciates that he is not afraid to leave the office. He joked that his back may not allow many more houses, which reminds him why customers need the service.

It helped to be in a franchise. He said he can pick up the phone and tell an owner with 20-plus years in the system that he is about to make a mistake and ask what to do.

How does Maid Brigade of San Diego County keep cleaners and customers happy?

By asking one question about everything: is this safe, and do people feel safe? Adam calls cleaning one of the hardest jobs there is. A team may clean five homes in a day, with a different personality and a different pet in each.

So the test covers the whole job:

• The cars the teams drive.
• The materials they clean with.
• The coworkers. Someone a teammate does not feel safe working with is not welcome.
• The customers. He wants customers who are grateful for the service, and describes the relationship as a “mutual-respect society.”

When a customer is difficult, Adam talks to the customer first. If it continues, he switches the team. If it still continues, “we’ll fire the customer.” He traced this back to his earlier career, where he felt he was one board meeting away from losing his job, and said he never wants his own staff to feel that way.

For customers, it is the little things. A team that finishes 10 minutes early looks for one more thing to do, such as setting up a child’s stuffed animals in a funny way. Every cleaning ends with a couple of pieces of chocolate and a handwritten note, and sometimes a Milk-Bone, since most customers have pets. If the team sees an outlet that looks burned out, they send the owner a photo.

How much big-brand marketing carries over to a local cleaning company?

The method carried over, and the pace changed. As a marketing lead in small, growing companies, Adam’s approach was to learn a skill himself and then hire people smarter than he was, so he could ask the right questions. Starting small put that in reverse: he had to do everything himself again, including Google pay-per-click advertising.

He had consulted for small companies on Google Ads 20 years ago and said the platform is now “a hundred times more complicated.” He relearned it by questioning salespeople, watching YouTube and asking other franchise owners. More recently he found an outsourced agency and asked for weekly one-on-ones, which he said raised his game. He expects that agency to get his business, and he likes being able to open the account and make changes himself.

What he enjoys is the speed. Moving half a percentage point on the shelf at a national grocer could take six, eight or 12 months. Local marketing shows cause and effect much sooner. He also said no single thing does it. It takes a basket of things, and he is still working out how much to invest in each.

How did the company ask for reviews?

Lightly. On the follow-up call after a clean, Adam would ask how it went and, if the customer was comfortable, invite them to mention the cleaners by name, because he loved seeing those names online. That brought in maybe one or two reviews a month. Reviews mattered to him as part of that marketing basket and as a way to stand out from competitors, and by his estimate automating the request produced about 40 in the first month.

What would he tell an owner who is struggling?

His first answer was a joke: “Run.” His real one was about effort. Adam said he believes every day that he can outwork anyone in his industry, and that an owner with anything less than that energy will not succeed. The learning comes with the hustle.

He added two habits from sales. A couple of no’s early in the day just gets them out of the way. And keep a sense of humor.