Victor Lizano has spent more than 30 years in financial services, much of that time working alongside small and medium-sized businesses as a banker, mentor and advisor. Today he applies that experience to the cleaning industry as co-owner and general manager of Amazing 360 Commercial Services, LLC, the Indianapolis-area company he runs with his wife. He is also a bank vice president.

The company works on two fronts. It provides commercial cleaning services, and its training academy teaches ISSA and OSHA protocols entirely in Spanish to a Spanish-speaking workforce.

Lizano shared his vision in an exclusive Straight Talk! podcast taped during a break at the 2026 ISSA VEO Conference in Dallas, an event spotlighting Hispanic leadership in the cleaning industry.

A training gap he saw firsthand

The academy grew out of a class Lizano took himself. He sat through the same OSHA course many frontline cleaning workers complete and came away troubled by what he saw.

“I kind of did an undercover boss situation where I took an OSHA class that most of our frontline workers would take and realized that the quality of the training and the language of the training was not appropriate for the workforce up at the front line,” Lizano said. “Therefore, a lot of risk was happening, a lot of safety issues, a lot of incidents were happening, just because of the simple fact that people weren’t learning what they needed to learn in their own language.”

Rethinking the fear of borrowing

Technical skill keeps a crew safe and productive. Growing a company takes financial know-how as well, and here Lizano runs into a cultural habit. Many owners in underserved communities, he explained, do things the way a parent or grandparent taught them and steer clear of modern tools for accessing capital.

“They want to bootstrap everything,” Lizano noted. “A lot of underserved communities are taught you don’t borrow money, because it shows that you don’t know how to run your business. I always say that the American way is always to use someone else’s money.”

He makes the point with a scenario most cleaning contractors will recognize. A small company needs a utility van or truck that costs $80,000. The owner works, saves and pays for it in cash.

“Then, on the weekend, that truck sits there and makes no money for them,” Lizano said. “So I tell them, no. Finance the truck, do monthly payments, and take $70,000 and inject it into your company for new employees, new systems, new trainings.”

Owners come around, he added, though it rarely happens overnight. “It’s hard, but, yes, eventually, they get it, and that’s what makes them successful.”

The pushback usually traces back to a single idea few small business owners ever learn.

“The concept of leverage is not taught to business owners,” Lizano stated. “Credit is either debt or it’s leverage. If you misuse it, you create debt. If you use it correctly, you create leverage.”

Build a board you can trust

Every cleaning company is expected to deliver quality work. Lizano believes owners also need a circle of trusted professionals around them, which he calls their “phantom five” board of directors.

The first seat goes to an insurance agent who protects everything the owner has worked to build. Next comes an attorney, since owners sign and issue contracts every day. An accountant helps guide pricing and keeps a close eye on profit, loss and margins. A banker can cover costs and bridge gaps when cash runs tight. The fifth seat is more personal.

“Of course, the person they depend on most, who they put their trust in, their mentor, their advisor, whether it be their pastor,” Lizano said. “In many cases, their spouse.”

When pricing isn’t the real problem

Lizano views pricing through a banker’s lens. A healthy pricing structure covers the company’s base cash flow costs and leaves enough margin to take on more debt, which in turn funds growth. Some owners discover their prices are fine and something else is holding them back.

“Maybe it’s not your margin. Maybe your margin is in the right place, but you need more volume,” he explained. “So it’s not always pricing that stops you from growing. Sometimes it’s just volume.”

Room for everyone at the table

Amazing 360 competes for cleaning work in the same markets where many of its trainees operate. Lizano sees no conflict in helping them get better. He borrowed an idea he credited to Oprah Winfrey to explain why.

“It’s not a problem of having a seat at the table. It’s a problem of making a bigger table,” Lizano said. “There’s enough business for all of us. We just need to learn how to bid properly, how to have proper cash flow, how to leverage capital so that we can be competitive to have a seat at a bigger table.”

His outlook has deep roots. His father built and operated retail and wholesale businesses for more than 50 years, and Lizano credits that example with shaping the service, integrity and stewardship he tries to pass along. He and his wife also volunteer with grassroots groups, regional business organizations and nonprofit boards focused on creating the next generation of Hispanic entrepreneurs.

Hope as the next step

Lizano left Dallas with a message for the owners he serves back home. They can grow into government contracts. They can move from subcontractor to prime contractor. Background, he stressed, is not the limit.

“Just because they might have a language impediment, or because they’re a first-generation immigrant, does not mean that they are not going to be able to be competitive,” Lizano said. “They just need the tools of understanding, and they need to learn.”

The first things he planned to carry home were simple ones, he shared: hope, inspiration and a hunger for education, “to teach yourself how to get to the next stage.”