Articles – Residential Cleaning

Leverage, Language and a Bigger Table

By |2026-10-07T12:25:44-05:00October 7, 2026|

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. ...

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When Growing a Company Means Growing Yourself

By |2026-10-06T10:33:44-05:00October 6, 2026|

Nancy Galván started Unica Enterprises in 2007 with a business plan, a pile of debt and no clients. Nearly two decades later, the Dallas-based facilities services company employs more than 185 people and serves DFW Airport, local municipalities and federal agencies across North Texas. At the 2026 ISSA VEO Conference in Dallas, where Galván was ...

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Planning for the Day the Sole-Source Contracts Stop

By |2026-10-06T09:46:15-05:00October 6, 2026|

Unica Enterprises had been in the U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) 8(a) Business Development Program for about a year when it landed its first big federal job. The contract, at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, was worth roughly $750,000 a year. At the time, the Dallas janitorial company was bringing in about ...

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Before the Forecast Becomes the Emergency

By |2026-10-06T09:34:53-05:00October 6, 2026|

A flooded parking lot can stop a business cold. A heat wave that drags into its second week can do the same, as can a hurricane that knocks out a key supplier 500 miles away. Severe weather rarely shows up at a convenient time, and the damage often reaches past the building it hits. Steve ...

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Why Comfort Is the Real Crisis

By |2026-10-02T04:45:09-05:00October 1, 2026|

Debbie Sardone never set out to build a business. Early in her marriage, she and her husband were poor enough to qualify for government assistance, though pride kept them from accepting it. He worked three jobs and eventually went back to the police department for a steady paycheck. She started cleaning houses out of the ...

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From the Cart to the Corporate Office

By |2026-09-30T16:26:37-05:00September 30, 2026|

Frontline turnover in commercial cleaning runs at an estimated 200% a year, and each departure costs roughly $3,500 to replace. Labor is already the largest expense for a building service contractor. Channing Johnson, president of KB Building Services in Nebraska, considers turnover the industry's biggest problem and one it rarely puts enough effort into solving. ...

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When Debt Becomes a Growth Tool

By |2026-10-01T10:26:14-05:00September 29, 2026|

Plenty of cleaning business owners take pride in owing nothing. They’ve paid off the trucks and equipment, and nobody at a bank has a say in how the company runs. Steve Mastin, chief financial officer of 4M Building Holdings in St. Louis, knows owners like that. He described a friend, a local businessman who pays ...

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The Missing Piece in Every AI Rollout

By |2026-09-29T11:49:42-05:00September 29, 2026|

New AI tools show up faster than most cleaning companies can evaluate them. The harder question, according to two speakers at the 2026 ISSA VEO Conference in Dallas, is whether the people expected to use those tools will trust them long enough to make a difference. That question drives “Leading with AI and Humanity in ...

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Immigration Pressure Hits the Cleaning Workforce

By |2026-09-28T15:07:56-05:00September 28, 2026|

Juan Carlos Cerda has lived in the United States since he was three. He grew up in Dallas, graduated from Yale University and now serves as the Texas state director for the American Business Immigration Coalition (ABIC), a bipartisan group of more than 2,000 CEOs and employers pushing for immigration reform. He is also a ...

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Hidden in Plain Sight

By |2026-09-23T09:43:03-05:00September 22, 2026|

The cleaning and facility solutions industry, represented by ISSA, which we are proud to be a member of, is never short on conversations about labor. We talk about recruiting, turnover, attendance, training, safety, reliability, and retention, while wondering where to find people who will show up, follow the process, care about quality, and take pride ...

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