Welcome to The Janitor's Journal
A new name, a better platform, a consistent cadence, and actionable advice for 2025
In 2024 I launched The Sweep. A newsletter for the commercial cleaning industry, with a mission to share cleaning content that is captivating, convenient, and concise. I launched The Sweep for a few reasons:
To have a creative outlet so I can share what I am seeing in the industry.
Provide value and insights to people interested in commercial cleaning.
Share some of my knowledge and experience from a lifetime in janitorial.
One of my favourite newsletters is Axios’ The Closer. I read it almost every day. I thought if I took the Axios ‘Smart Brevity’ style of writing and applied it to the commercial cleaning industry it would achieve the goals outlined above.
By all accounts it was well received and drew interest from my clients, peers, partners, and friends. It had about 2,100 subscribers. For a newsletter about the commercial cleaning industry, that was started 12 months ago, and was sent out monthly, it felt like I was onto something.
However, I quickly realized this wasn’t the creative outlet I desired. I was simply repurposing industry news, in a style that wasn’t mine. Over time my excitement faded and it wasn’t as enjoyable as I thought it would be. Which made it harder to get motivated to work on. Which led to an irregular publishing cadence, and by the end of 2024 I was skipping months altogether.
I ended up in this position because I failed to ask myself some important questions that I believe are crucial to ask ones self before pursuing a new creative endeavour.
Before I take on a new endeavour, I like to ask myself the following:
Will this bring me joy?
Would I find this interesting if I wasn’t the owner of it?
Can I do this tirelessly, for a long time, before seeing any returns?
If the answer is not “HECK YES!” to all three, then I likely won’t stick with it, so I shouldn’t pursue it. Also, if there is one thing I believe strongly when it comes to creating stuff, it’s that your target audience needs to be you. Create stuff that checks the three boxes above, and the rest will follow.
The Sweep really only checked the second box. Sifting through industry news to find the cool/captivating stories got pretty tiring. Mainly, because lot of the content in this industry is either self promotion, irrelevant, or boring. And that’s coming from a guy who loves cleaning.
That all being said, I very much enjoy writing and I don’t want to give up on this endeavour just because I chose the wrong stuff to write about. So rather than give it up I’ve decided to restructure the style to ensure it checks all three boxes.
Which leads us to The Janitor’s Journal.
The new mission: share everything I know about starting, selling, servicing, and scaling janitorial services, in pursuit of building a great company with a reputable brand.
At this point you might be asking: “George, what makes you qualified to share this knowledge? and how do we even know what you share is going to be valuable?”
Great questions! See answers below:
I was born into an entrepreneurial family
Dad has built numerous successful businesses, and almost lost them twice…
My favourite toy as a child was the vacuum, which led to my passion for cleaning
Became an entrepreneur at 6 years old, and haven’t stopped since
Some of my notable startups:
Door-to-Door Notebook Sales (age 6) - this one is funny
Lemonade Stand (age 7)
Lawn Mowing/Snow Shovelling (age 8)
“Garage Sales” aka selling my siblings stuff (age 10) - also funny
DJ/Promoter (age 18-23)
Podcast Host (age 29-33)
Social Voting Platform (age 29 - 32)
Office Coffee Company (age 30 - present)
Started my janitorial career as a weekend mall porter
I’ve worked every job in the janitorial industry
Scaled our company (Impact Cleaning Services) from 400 to 1,000+ cleaners
Our company achieved CIMS and CIMS-GB with honours back in 2012
Certified by ISSA as a CIMS-Certified Expert (C.C.E)
I’m a member of BSCAI, ISSA, IFMA, BOMA, and IICRC
Certified in water, fire, mould and smoke remediation by the IICRC
Certified in carpet cleaning by the IICRC
Spoke at the ISSA North America Show, and other conferences, a handful of times
Completed two acquisitions in the past two years
Recently joined a janitorial SaaS startup (BrightGo) based out of Silicon Valley
Always learning and looking for ways to be a better business builder and leader
As I was writing that list I quickly realized how self-important that all sounds. But I figure it’s important to establish credibility so you, the reader, don’t waste your time.
I’m incredibly blessed to be in the position I am in. I wake up every day thankful for the life I get to lead, the stuff I get to work on, and the people I get to work with. Fortunately I am also surrounded by a lot of successful entrepreneurs who openly share their experience with me. I am a big believer in paying it forward so that’s what I am going to do.
So, welcome to The Janitor’s Journal. It means the world to me that you’re reading this. I’ll work hard to ensure every edition is bringing you value and something actionable you can apply to your cleaning business to drive a measurable improvement.
My goal is to release a new edition, at minimum, once per month. My hope is to release more often, but we gotta walk before we can run.
P.S. If there are any topics you would like to learn more about drop me a comment, DM, or email, and I’ll do my best to speak to that topic.
Lastly, some quick housekeeping.
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You can always find every post in full on the website.
Thanks again for your support!
George