Episodes

In this episode Neel and Johnny chat with Sergio, Johnny's business partner in Orange Window Cleaning, about their recent sale of the business. While Sergio and Johnny had always had a goal of growing a business to $10M, they realized over time that the vehicle they had built was not going to get them there without a much higher commitment of money and time. By contrast, another business they had built did have that potential, and they realized over time that they couldn't succeed in that busine...

In this episode Neel sits down with Dan Andrews of the Tropical MBA podcast. Neel reveals that Dan is the one who first used the phrase "remote local business" to describe what Neel was doing at MaidThis. Alas, there will be no royalty payouts if the podcast ever sells for a billion dollars :-) Neel and Dan discussed: how to disconnect your location from your earnings to live remotely why remote-first businesses should really spend time on their first few job postings how Dynamite Jobs (one of D...

In this solo episode, Neil offers 8 Pillars he uses to audit and improve his personal life. A couple years ago Neil was happy with how systematized his business was, but was shocked as to how not-systematized his personal life was. Inspired by Gary Keller's The One Thing , he created a monthly and weekly system to help him level up in: Health and Vitality Friends and Family Productivity and Performance Lifestyle and Wealth If you want the other four, and how you too can consistently level up in ...

In this episode Neel interview Mike Grigery of ClickCallSell.com to get the scoop on how to market your local services business. Mike has helped hundreds of companies execute thousands of marketing campaigns and he's been Neel's business coach for sometime. He definitely knows what he's talking about when it comes to home services and how to properly market them. Tune in to learn: The importance of LTV The relationship of brand awareness and online reviews to conversion rates The power of social...

In this episode Neel and Johnny talk about the impact of sharing what you've learned in business. After five years of grinding and building a window cleaning business, Johnny packaged what he learned to create Home Service Academy, which is an e-learning platform that helps people build their own home services business. Neel packaged what he learned after years of building MaidThis in a single location to go the franchisor route. It's important to share the information you learn, because You can...

In this leisurely spitball episode, Neel and Mitko Karvoshki talk all things remote work and digital nomad as it applies to different spots around the world: who's winning, who's losing, and who's underrated. If you don't know Mitko, you're missing out! He runs Parable , which produces HBR-style case studies on online bootstrapped businesses and has a weekly newsletter called Remote Insider (subscribe here ). You'll hear Neel and Mitko rap about: Who's winning lately (Bankso, Portugal, and Mexic...

In this episode Neel and Johnny discuss various pieces of software that they use to run their businesses. There was clear agreement on some of the big hitters today, like Slack (can't live without it), G-Suite (tons of tools), and Loom (great for training). But there were also some different companies and use-cases discussed: Neel shared his love for Launch27 as his CRM with ActiveCampaign as the email outreach arm of that CRM Johnny loves BookingKoala and uses integrations from NiceJob to get l...

In this episode Neel and new co-host Johnny Robinson offer a blueprint for earning your first $10k from scratch without reference to cleaning companies, a sector both of them have had a lot of success in. Neel and Johnny outline: where to find subcontractors and how to pay them the importance of the "money milestone," earning that first dollar on the Internet why there really is no such thing as "market saturation" They both also recommend $100M Offers by Alex Hormozi to give you outlines and id...

In this episode Neel and David discuss David's three-month meditation teacher training course and what his future looks like. His last appearance featured his explaining what he had to do in order to be gone that long from his businesses . This podcast originally began as a co-hosted effort between Neel and David but this is the final episode of that era, as David moves on to what's next in his life (which does not include running a podcast). David shares what his teacher training was like (whi...

In this episode Neel offers thoughts on how to make your Remote Local business better prepared for recessions. Neel takes a two-pronged approach to preparing for recessions. First, he focuses on insulating the business, which can include estimating a percentage dip (25% at MaidThis) and adjusting accordingly, which can include cutting expenses, speeding up receivables, and getting promos ready for email and phone reach out to existing customers. Once that's secure, you can look at opportunities,...

In this episode Neel welcomes Keith Levenson of Angela Coté Inc . to talk about franchising. Keith got his start in franchising by actually helping a family entertainment center go through the process themselves. He then took an opportunity to become a franchise advisor, helping dozens of brands grow by focusing on franchisee growth. Neel and Keith also discuss: Who should franchise (and who shouldn't) the differences between an emerging franchise business and an established one (and who should...

In this episode Neel is joined by Johnny Robinson to whiteboard some Remote Local business ideas. Johnny has been on the pod before but we kick off the episode with a brief bio to catch up listeners who may not have heard him before. Neel and Johnny then go back and forth, trading possible ideas with their pros and cons, including: mobile car detailing (both Neel and Johnny love this idea, but the low average ticket amount is a concern painting (there are some challenges in making this remote, p...

In the second of an ongoing series on EOS, Neil shares his adaptation of Gino Wickman's Entrepreneurial Operating System, and how he's used it to great success at MaidThis. In this episode Neel gives strategic tips for how to deal with specific aspects of "EOS Lite," including: creating vision (dump the fluff, focus on what's real) developing KPIs via scorecards (lagging, not leading metrics that matter) and rocks (measurably quarterly goals that are reported on each week ) running Level 10 Meet...

In the first of an ongoing series on EOS, Neil shares his adaptation of Gino Wickman's Entrepreneurial Operating System, and how he's used it to great success at MaidThis. Things Neel learned in the process of creating an "EOS Lite" include: how to have quarterly meetings that ran like clockwork and had clear and measurable KPIs how an org chart can help you figure out which roles really matter how clarity on core values in concert with the org chart led him to clear out some poor fits the GWC (...

In this episode Neel shares what he learned catching up with dozens of digital nomads (past, present, and future) at a Dynamite Circle conference in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. He found out that: Travel is definitely back (except for parts of Asia, which remain closed) The Western Hemisphere, particularly Mexico and Latin America, have profited from Asia being closed Many used the last two years to create permanent home bases where they travel from There are still plenty of new nomads entering the...

In this episode Neel sits down with Donald Spann to look over the pros and cons of the various remote local business models he has tried. Like Neel, Donald was part of the Launch27 crew, aka the "cleaning company mafia," which came out of a subreddit thread back in 2013. While Neel has continued to grow his cleaning business, Donald has exited his and iterated around remote local concepts. Neel and Donald chat about How Donald started Vicki Virtual, a fully remote call center service, from obse...

In this episode Neel shares different ways to think about exiting your business, including his own current plans for MaidThis. While some might say that you need to know what your exit plan is before you even start your business, Neel very much advocates for starting first and thinking more short-term, in terms of one year. He goes on to share four frames to use when thinking about exiting a business: No strategy (buying a job) Scale and sell to private equity Legacy (pass on to family) Automate...

In this episode Neel chats with Amar Ghose, Founder and CEO of ZenMaid. Neel and Amar have managed not to meet, despite being the only two in their digital entrepreneur group in the cleaning space over the past few years. One time Amar left Chiang Mai for a few weeks and Neel happened to show up during the same time (everyone said it was just a swap out! :-) ). Neel and Amar discuss: the importance of "owning" the career ladder instead of climbing it choosing between lifestyle design and high g...

Neel recently came back from a ten-day desert island survival experience. As he switched back into work mode, he saw so many connections between what he had just experienced and how a daily business grind works. He has five lessons he learned, including: Getting your key work done when you have the most energy: stack your tasks to take advantage of when you're at your most energetic Play to your strengths to survive: lean into what you're good at You can't do it by yourself: the power of one ot...

In this episode Neel and David discuss the classic question of how to deal with angry customers. As with so many great business (and life) tactics, this starts with having the right mindset. In this case, learning how to deal with irate customers can help you develop a superpower, something that can help you walk into any confrontational situation with confidence, helping you get what you want, and defusing the problem in the process. Neel and David also discuss: Not taking the criticism person...

In another of the Remote Local Podcast's ongoing series of entrepreneurial interviews, Neel chatted with Mike Loftus of Connor Landscape . Mike got a finance degree but found out he hated working inside. He took $10k of his own savings and started knocking on doors, building a landscaping company from scratch. After building it to $750k in revenues, he started acquiring others, three so far and more in the pipeline! Neel and Mike also discuss: All the things you have to learn when starting a b...

In the last of a three-part series, Neel gives you an ultimate guide to hiring, from his own successful playbook! This episode focuses on tweaking your flywheel to make sure it's working at its best. Neel also shares: What he does on screening calls The purpose of a test job How many cleaners he actually ends up with from 20 applicants (shockingly low!) Collect all three! If you haven't listened to the first two episodes in this mini-series, do so now!

In the second of a three-part series, Neel gives you an ultimate guide to hiring, from his own successful playbook! This episode shares the six places that MaidThis posts jobs ads to find talent for their local services business. Those places include: Indeed.com ZipRecruiter Craigslist (yes, really!) Facebook (not just ads, but in groups) Oh, did you want the other two? You'll have to listen to the episode :-)

In the first of a three-part series, Neel gives you an ultimate guide to hiring, from his own successful playbook! This episode focuses on the mindset (and a few tactics) for hiring in general and putting up your job ad. Great tips which are included: How much an employee leaving can cost you How much an A-team player can make you each year Why you should ABC (always be 'cruiting...hey, close enough!) How to make your job ad STAND OUT There's plenty more here. This is the sit down and take note...