Starting a Women Owned Cleaning Company | Erica Haataja and Alexandra Ohland, Nordic Shine #051

Hey everyone, it's Karissa from Shining Light on Minnesota. Super excited here today. I have some really cool Nordic Shine people, Erica and Ally. Welcome guys. Thanks for having us. You bet. So, let's start and tell everybody how did you guys get going with Nordic Shine? So, Nordic Shine was invented after I left healthcare. I found a phenomenal nanny family. I wanted to just clean on the side and my now husband is actually in construction and he's like, "Find a niche." Yeah. Here it is. Post construction cleaning is something the industry needs. There's not a lot of options and I like being in the construction industry. I grew up, you know, being around my parents always building something. So, I understood most of it. Yes. So, I was comfortable with it right away and we just took a leap of faith and we had a really great friend that was already in the industry that hired us. Very cool. And gave us the ins and outs of what they looked for. And from there, Nordic Shine was very much a growing little baby of ours. Yeah. So, it was fun. Nervous at first. Yeah. I mean, it is one of those things that me coming from the construction area a long time ago, it's such a necessity. And you guys are out there killing it. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah, we are. Yes, you are. I mean, I see you everywhere. And everybody always is like, "Oh my gosh, Nordic Shine." Like, yeah. How long have you been in business? for 3 years um this past February. Yeah. So that was a milestone for us. Absolutely. What areas do you guys cover? We cover all over the Twin Cities. So there are a few companies that we'll go to like Hayward for. We've been down to Mano. We do out the west side of the cities to Hudson, Oaklair. We've gone down to Lacrosse. So we service all of the Twin Cities area. Nice. So what makes you stand out from the other construction cleaning companies? We build a relationship. So, Alexandra and I really want to know who our GC's are. We want to know our PMs and most importantly our job soups. They're important to us because they're the ones we communicate with. They're the ones we know are our schedule. Yeah. Our communication. Um that's super important to us knowing that their schedules change all the time, right? So, when we build a relationship with them, they know they can call us and we're like, "What do we got to do to make this work for you?" Yeah, we're usually the problem solvers. We're the people at the end that help you tie it all together. Even though it's been like a chaos chaos for the majority of it, we usually come in during the chaos. We're like, "Oh, we got it. No worries." What does a day in construction cleanup look like for you guys? Or you want to take that? The ups and downs of it, the ups and flows, right? What's your schedule look like? Um, what's my schedule look like? It's showing up. It varies. Yeah, I was going to say showing up, getting everyone where they need to be. We check the basics. Water, electricity. Uh, if it's there. Yeah. No, seriously. We go basic. Yeah. Make sure we got the extra toilet paper in the bag just in case. We do a lot of walkthroughs beforehand. So, that's super important to us to go on, show the job soup. We're not here to just show up and behind the scenes. It's like we want to know what we're doing because they might not know that it's not on. Electricity's not on, power's not on, right? No, it's always it's usually a surprise to them and they're always glad they find out, but yeah, lock box might not be there or anything else, right? Plumbing's not on. So, we're like, okay, I feel like we ask the good questions right away and then they usually feel comfortable with what we do the rest of the day. Yep. We work a lot alongside a lot of a trade. So, our first thing that we tell them is, "We'd rather work with you than against you. Where are you? Where can we start?" Yep. Yeah. What have been some of the bigger obstacles that you guys have come across? One for me has been a more of a personal obstacle. It's getting out of my own head. You know, I knew I didn't want a 9 to5, right? I didn't realize I'd ever own a business. And it's not putting on my binoculars and seeing only a small glimpse of what I can do. It's really opening up. And that personally has been a big change for me to get out of my own head. Yeah. In the industry, it's definitely um learning, you know, the the wording they use, the reading the contracts, right? Understanding, you know, verbiage in the contracts. Those have been a big one. Um paid one paid, all the the fun kind of stuff like that, right? Punch list, everything else. Yeah. Yeah. What's been one for you, Ally? Uh, I don't know. Any obstacles? Obstacles? Uh, I think I have the hardest time being underestimated. Yeah. Uh, especially in the maledriven world. I just we've been constantly underestimated and I uh just turning it into a power source and like going above and be beyond and showing them. You do know what you're talking about. Yeah. just really just showing them I guess yeah they have to if it's our first time working with them they do underestimate Alexandra a lot and then at the end they're like oh you you know showing up and we do know yeah we show up when we say we're going to we have um very much stood our ground on this is what we need and Alexander's very good at explaining too yes very much punctual Yeah. So, what do you think? I mean, as a business owner, as being female, both of you, I think it's important for people to understand going from a 9 to5, you're working every single day. And people don't understand that. I mean, just and and being there, you can't just shut the phone off. Yeah. I mean, it's it's every day. It's non-stop. Even when you're home, you're working. You're there. It's I don't care if it's a Sunday afternoon. I don't care if it's Friday night. Guess what? You're answering the phone cuz you have to. Contractors are calling or you might need something or Yeah. Something's not going right. Yeah. You've got to be there, right? Yeah. I know. I said I didn't want like a 9 to5 necessarily, but it's more the flexibility it's given me. Oh, right. Yeah. Absolutely. Using your time smart is really what it is. Even though it's not a 9 to5 and you are working all over, but it's smart. Like, you know, you're going on vacation with a little bit of work time. Yeah, you know what I mean? We've definitely communicated. I respect boundaries of our crew members. Yep. I let them know if I send something on Slack to you or a message you and it's outside your hours of working. It's okay not to respond to me until the next day. Yes. It's me getting it out there. I just need I need to let you know that this is this is what's going to be called for the next day. Yeah. Alexandra and I do laugh a lot cuz we have known each other for quite some time now. So sometimes I was going to bring this up. Is this personal or work? Okay. All personal. Got it. I can reply back quickly. So we preface that. I always try to apologize like I'm know it's Sunday. I have to drop off the work van to you. Yeah. Um it's funny because I'm always thinking of you though. Yeah. Like I'm expecting some sort of like check-in or like week ahead or like just a hey, how's it going? How was your weekend? Wait, I haven't heard from Erica. What's wrong? Yeah. Yeah. No. No. Or like the job's almost done. like what do you need? What can I do? And she's like, I've got this. Chill out. So, a big thing that was a move for us this year was to grow a project manager position. And Ally joined the team last summer. Awesome. And that opened up a lot of my schedule to grow more. Absolutely. So, she takes a lot of stuff off my plate, which thank you. Always appreciate that. Yes. And watching her grow has helped me realize that I'm not a micromanager. Yeah. So, it's more of like what do you need from me? How can I respond to you? Do you just need to like do you just need to talk to me about something and problem solve? And I actually realized being an entrepreneur and your own business owner. You don't always have someone like you do in a W2 position, right? Yeah. So, I have my husband who I bounce a lot of ideas off of and gaining Ally. I've actually enjoyed calling her and be like, "What do you think of this? What about this idea? Here's where we're going." And she's a big push to also broadening my ideas of different stuff. Like, this is what we need on site. This is working. This is not working. Um, when we bought our first transit van two weeks ago, I drove it up. She's like, "It's so cute." I was like, "I needed someone else to call it cute." cuz my husband's like, "This is sweet." And then I'm like, "But it's cute and adorable. I've got my cuteness now. I can power up. We're ready." Yep. Yeah. So, it's definitely learning to, you know, be able to put things on other people's plate delegating and she was up for the task and she's been a great addition. Nice. And then we we also just gained Katie who's been with me for 2 years. Nice. who I've been trying to get to. You know, she knows the industry so well. She's been in the clean forever and she just stepped up to the plate to be another project manager and she's going to I don't know. Can we kick ass on here? Absolutely. Absolutely. No question. She's going to do phenomenal. And she just needed the nudge and it's been a great trio. It was just like naturally Yeah. built in. Yeah. And so she's taking over stuff as well. So now you kind of have your lane so you can do what you need to do as an owner and they can kind of do their own things and grow. And yeah, I always tell people even if Erica's not on site, she's doing something for Nord to Shine. So don't worry, which which she needs to. I mean, as an owner, you go and you do your growth and they go and do their own things. Like you have your hats that everybody has to wear. And I was happy to take off a hat. Yeah. Absolutely. you start to learn where where your growth is and what lanes you can go in and what you're good at and what you're not good at and you start to kind of like, okay, you do what you need to do or I'm going to I'm going to work on the growth. I'm going to work on the things I need to do and Yeah. Yeah. What do you think's next? What what areas or what what do you see? Um, do you have anything? I guess I don't know. I'm just thinking like reoccurring jobs. like I want apartments and I'm trying to I guess on a personal note I'm trying to get connected with uh property managers about property managers or like the multif family. Yeah. I just want to understand how they work more and like how they are connected within like having their in-house cleaners and like what does it mean to be an in-house cleaner and things like that just because I Yeah, I'm trying to get in there. Yeah. So since Ali's joined the team, our post construction side has grown significantly. Okay. Uh for that side, we're really looking for another really good connection with GC's. Having that actual we know everyone behind the email y is super important. And then what's next on our commercial side is really growing our commercial side. Like she said, getting to know, you know, facility managers or apartment. We're assisted living 55 plus is really growing our commercial side to be more reoccurring. So what associations are you guys a part of and which ones? Because I mean we are we have a lot of associations we're a part of. I mean we've probably I think we've got 52 associations somewhere around there that we're a part of. So I mean as far as connections go I mean we've got a large a large group that we're a part of. So when we after we do the podcast it'll go out in our newsletter which will reach a lot of people. But I'd love to sit down and go over associations and help connect you guys with different different groups we're a part of and people too. So that's why I asked that. So we just joined um IRM. Yep. And that was super great. That was really fun. They seem like a very good knit of group and they show up to what they're going to be at and that was one that was our first actual sponsoring whole. Nice. So that was fun. Yep. So, that was different for us because usually we're attending the events and not really getting to actually socialize with everyone around. Um, the other associations are anything that helps small business owners. You know, a lot of groups that we've noticed are massive corporations. Yes. So, it's hard to get in because they already have their people. They already have that. They aren't ready to take in new people. So, people that are willing to see that we may be a small business, but we're womanowned and we're a powerhouse. Mh. We small but mighty, right? Small but mighty. And knowing what industry to really tackle that is going to give us the connections of correct the facility managers or people that have a say. We do um expose. We love going to the expose. Um AWC, we're in that to um ABC and then a few others that we just try to do their member mingles if they allow people non-members. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'd love to connect you guys once we're done here. Um, so let's go a little bit more personal. What where are some places you guys have traveled and what's kind of got you to where you are today? Yes. Sure. Yeah. Any travels? You just had a big move. Yeah. I Yeah. Not far, just down the street, but it was a big one. Yeah. She sold her house and then moved into the most cute apartment. I know we downsized a little bit, but it's been exciting and fun. We love the amenities. I've got my son with me and then we moved in with a boy or a man, I should say. Yeah, that's a big step. So, that was a Yeah, it's the first big step with all that. So, it's been interesting. It's been fun, though. Yeah, that's that's exciting. That's that's a that's a lot. That's huge. Yes. Yeah. It's been a adventure. It's been a good one. And it's been nice because Erica, I feel like, has been part of it. along the step of the steps of the way. Um, just like being a supportive friend and co-orker and you need those tribes behind you just to know the UPS and I can't imagine another job where this wouldn't have been more of a stressor on work. Yeah. That we figured it out. We had a little hiccups and I'm like take the day off, go figure it out, do what you got to do, figure it out and then work's done. Yeah. Which is the sports support has been appreciated. That's your felt. Yeah. Um, between Andy and I, we love traveling. So, we will hop in the car and camp out of the back of our vehicle. Road trips are the best. I mean, they are. Yes. They're always if if I can't get a hold of her on the weekend, it's usually cuz she's out of town. I'm off the grid. I'm good for Yeah. My friends will look at find my friend and they're like, "You're in the middle of a lake. What? In the middle of nowhere, Wisconsin. What are you doing?" That's exactly what I'm doing. You don't need to know. We're good. Um, so we do a lot of traveling to small towns. He knows I love farmers markets and coffee shops. So he's like, "I found this cute little space we should go stay at." Perfect. Let's go. Yeah. We actually bought a 2004 Honda jet ski. Awesome. Which they don't even make them anymore. So, a lot of people laugh. So, we will go take that out for a day and find a random lake or river. Yeah. And most recent trips, um, we just went to a conference out in Colorado Springs. So, we have a coach for the company and they host something for a bunch of cleaning companies to come to. That was really good to be a part of. But we I think we're going on 18 months of traveling somewhere. Very cool. That was my goal in 2024 was to go somewhere and with or without my husband. Sorry. No, that's good. That you need you need to have that too. You need to like have have both. Yeah. and we kept it going and good. It's the next trip is right now scheduled is for October going to Florida. Nice. With his family. And then what part of Florida? Um right outside Orlando. Nice. We have a shop right down there in Barrow Beach. So yeah, drive by it. Yeah. Go stop in, say hello. Yes. Oh yeah. And then from there I have my 31st golden birthday on Halloween. So I have been whispering in his ear to go to Ireland. I was just there a year and a half ago. I love it. Southern Ireland is amazing. Yes, we went to Oldhead. Um we went to the Ring of Kerry. We went down to Bali Cotton. It is absolutely like my favorite place in the whole wide world. Yes. Okay. Amazing. Been twisted. Now I'm about to twist. Southern Ireland is by far like you have Northern Ireland. It's typical Northern Ireland, but southern Ireland along the Atlantic coast, like down there, it's just a little bit more laidback. It's just a little more wild and free. It's just amazing. Yes. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Cuz Dublin is where Halloween was invented. Yep. And so I'm like, 31st Halloween. I'm like, while we're there, we can just fly over to He's very Finnish, so I was like, we can go to Finland. I was like, I am a world traveler. And he's like, I United States. I'm like, "Let's go to Europe." Yeah. Yep. Yep. We flew into Yeah. We flew into Cork um on the way back. We landed in Paris and then went back. But yes, absolutely. It's amazing. Yep. I like this. Yeah. So, that's kind of on my my fall schedule. Perfect. We're ready to go. What do you think your We'll start with you. What was your why? What's your why in life? And what's your driving? My why in life? um to do better than I did today. Tomorrow you're always given another chance to do it over. Mhm. So pick a different foot. Yeah. Different path. Yeah. What about you, Erica? You know, I think about that a lot is what is my why? And I think it's in our season. And my why right now is to create something that gives not just women but women the ability to be part-time if they need to raise their children to get a foot in the door just to stabilize. And for the business it was to understand that people need flexibility. Yep. Yeah. And then my personal why was I don't ever want to be grounded to something that I don't feel fulfilled in. Right. And every day I'm learning something new. And my why was to continue to grow and expand myself in a position I never thought I'd be be in. And I realized some days I need a reminder that my why is I'm an owner and I'm creating jobs for people. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm also giving other business owners their space. You know, they remodeled their You're leaving something better than how you came into it, too. Then there's an owner behind that that made that happen. Yep. Whether it's small, medium, or big, but my why is to make a difference in my crews life. Yep. And in the industry, construction is always going to be happening. Things are always changing. And then the people that you Yeah. are underneath you, too. I mean, I think Yeah. Ally is a huge why to always grow and see her change and adapt. And we're always laughing. So, have a good time doing it, right? At the end of the day, we can just laugh. Yeah. It's not always a clearcut answer of my why, but I think it's so emotional changes, right? And the season I realize is seasons are good. Seasons change. Yep. Yeah. Who have been some of your mentors? My mentors I think I mimic my grandmother as much as I can possibly. Yeah. What is your grandmother like? The most graceful, elegant lady you've ever met. She was anxious, but she hit it well. But she did a lot of things because she was anxious. Um, but she I don't know. She just welcomed everyone. Amazing. Yeah. Tried to Yeah. Everyone, I guess. We do love grandmas. We do love grandmas. Yeah, we love a white-haired lady. Yes. Um, I have two mentors. One is the women that were before me. So, I was super lucky when I started my cleaning company. I randomly met multiple women that owned residential cleaning companies. They took me under their wing and still to this day, we check in on each other. It doesn't ever feel like a competition. It feels like the biggest support and they pushed me to a boundary that they never got to break and they like keep doing it. Mhm. What did you learn from those residential cleaning companies or what what pushed you that really made you want to get out there and do it on your own? Her name is Alicia and when I first met her, she was open arms. She didn't have any secrets. She's like, "Here's what I do. Here's how I do it." Um, she taught me a lot a lot about her background, you know, being a single mom. She has four beautiful children. And she she's like, "I didn't finish school. I I did X, Y, and Z." I was like, "Wow." Mhm. You can do this, right? You don't need what society says you need to build a business. And she keeps pushing through every single day. She is doing it for her kids and she's doing it for herself. And she will call and she says that she's proud of me. And I'm like, you taught me all of this. You you showed me what you do, how you do it. You know, you have systems in place, but she's like, and you went and you stretched it further. Yep. And so every day I remind myself that if if she can do it, I can do it. Yeah. If she can do it, I can do it. And she's still proud of me. Yeah. And then my other mentor is very much my dad. So he doesn't know it. I don't really Now he does. He's owned a business for as long as I can remember. And um he's definitely shown me that [ __ ] owning your own business, you get the hit of everything you do. And he's pushed through it. and he's done multiple different things. He owns he's a broker basically um for hiring semi-truck drivers and to move trucks and stuff and that's you start to see the grind you start to see all the hard stuff right and he pushes through it every single day it's very much he works at home and he does it so he's a lot by himself but I'm like man if he can do it with no co-workers no boss right gets up every single day and does it I can do it he gives the ins and outs of you know what it's like. He He has always re when I'm like, I need a new car, he's researching it. He's like, I got it. I can do this. Figure it out. He He knew we need a transit van, so he was sending us information for it. You know, I talk about payroll and how he gets paid and listening to the little things he's done. Y even though sometimes he's like, I don't wish this upon anyone some days. But he has just done it himself the entire time. And that is the thing that I have to remind myself that there are people that are willing to support me and I lean on and I call and I'm just like, man, even if they don't want to do it, they're still gonna be a rock and be there. Yeah. He He doesn't He doesn't know it. And I should tell him y that every day I'm reminded that you own a business. I own a business. And your little advices here and there stick with me. You're the reason I'm running my business today. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. So, what do you think your favorite quote is? Oh, my favorite quote. Yeah. Oh, man. That's a tough one, right? I think a lot lately I've been saying it's a lesson to be learned. There's We've been hiring a ton and we they get the ability to do the hiring. So, I just taught someone, they basically offered a time slot, but they told the interviewee like, "Here's a time slot, but you know, we're not going to be calling you. Well, I'll let my boss decide x, y, and z. And I called her and I said, "Hey, you know, you can't offer a position if you're not going to be offering them a second interview." And she felt really bad. She's like, "I didn't know." I said, "No, this is just a lesson to be learned. How are you supposed to know until you know until you know? Until I'm telling you." And and she looked at me and she's like, "I really appreciate that because I felt like I was doing something wrong." I was like, "You can't be doing something wrong. You didn't know, right?" Yeah. You can't if you don't know, you don't know, right? Yeah. And I took that to myself because I don't know what I don't know. Right. And so every lesson is something to be learned. Y that's cute. That is I don't know if I have a quote. No, that's all right. What do you tell your son the most? I literally was thinking of Nemo. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. That's that's a good one. So where if a contractor or someone needs to find you guys, where can they find you? How can they get a hold of you? We're very big on LinkedIn, so they can do Nordic Shine LLC. I mean, we are on that. We love to show what we're doing, what our crew is doing. Um, we we're mostly on there. And then they can just email us at adminordicshinylc.com. They can find you on LinkedIn. They can see you at events. I mean, you guys are everywhere at all the different associations, right? Google search us, Nordic Shine. See some of They can ask me. I'll get them in touch with you, too. I see you everywhere. So, yes, we do. We do. I love that. Perfect. Well, we appreciate having you guys on today. Thank you for having us. You bet. It was a lot of fun. Yes. And if anybody wants to find you again on LinkedIn. Yep. Perfect. Yeah. Thank you guys. 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