We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Janice Kalien. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Janice below.
Hi Janice, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
From the get go, I knew my mom an I didn’t have a lot of what the other kids had. She was raising me on her own and struggling but didn’t let it show. I began working when I was eleven. I had paper route and never stopped working after that. If I wanted something, I had to save up half of the cost and contribute in the purchase. I learned the value of things and the work that goes into buying them at a young age.
Fast forward to 2021 and my husband and I joyously find out that I am pregnant at age 43. About 4 weeks in was the first time I got sick. I couldn’t keep my Christmas dinner down. I chalked it up to early morning sickness and went on with working as a bartender and server at a sushi restaurant as well as having a few residential cleaning clients on the side.
While I was cleaning a home, I became very ill and had to lay down on the floor of their bedroom until I could stand up and barely made it home. After weeks of vomiting multiple times daily, I finally went to the doctor and was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum. Around the same time, covid hit and the restaurant I was working at closed. I was too sick to get out of bed most days so I decided to hire my friend, who had been laid off because of covid to clean for my clients.
I was so ill, that I needed multiple IV transfusions, iron transfusions, anti-nausea meds and vomited up to 50 times a day. Through all of this, I still was thinking about the future and what I could do to provide for my family. I decided to start my cleaning company, Janice Marie’s Cleaning Services. Slowly but surely, I accumulated clients and hired competent individual contractors. I navigated researching software programs to use, insurance, bonding, scheduling, hiring, you name it, while being incredibly ill.
I had my daughter Willow on August 18th 2021. After being wheeled into our room, my husband looked up at me while I was on my phone, that focused, I’m working look on my face and asked, “Oh my God, are you seriously working right now?” Yes, yes I was lol. Clients are precious and not easily secured, so when I was getting texted by them while in the hospital, I was absolutely going to respond to them and any of the staff inquiries. All of this seemed manageable and fine to me. Then when my daughter was just 3 months old, I found out I had a brain tumor.
It started with headaches that wouldn’t go away. I never got headaches, so I found this odd but chalked it up to being a new mom or breastfeeding. However, a few weeks later, I started losing vision in my left eye. I knew something was wrong. I made an appointment to get a CT scan that same day and found out via a sterile mychart message that night, that I had a very rare brain tumor called a craniopharyngioma and needed surgery right away as they are benign but quite aggressive. It was blinding me and risk of stroke was high. Through all of this, I was taking care of my newborn and now had about seven staff about sixty clients.
I knew I was going to need help. I knew this was one time I wasn’t going to be able to do this all on my own, so I hired a friend of mine to assist with clients and staff and taught my husband how to send invoices. I gave him access to all my business accounts and wrote out detailed instructions for both of them.
The first surgery, scheduled on January 10th was rescheduled to January 31st because I got covid. Within these few weeks, the tumor grew 6mm which is unprecedented and very worrisome. The two surgeons on my team said that even if I still tested positive for covid on the 31st, I was having surgery.
I had to shower the night before with a special antibacterial soap. Things were getting real very quickly at this point. We woke up around 5am the next day. I had to take another shower and we headed to the hospital for surgery. I sent a few last texts to staff, family and clients and was wheeled into the surgical room.
An anticipated six hour surgery took twelve hours. I awoke in the most incredible pain I have ever felt in my life. Vomiting and getting a CT scan, they found that the equipment they had inserted up my left nostril to perform the surgery had left a bubble in my brain and only time would tell. The four days I spent in the ICU are a blur of fentanyl injections, vomiting from pain and cerebral spinal fluid being drained from my spine through a shunt every hour to release pressure on my brain.
On day four, I prayed for God to take me. I just couldn’t take the suffering anymore. Immediately, the pain vanished and the next day I was in a standard hospital room. As soon as I was capable, I was working and reaching out to staff, clients and was struggling but grateful. I battled a 104 degree fever from mastitis since I wasn’t breast feeding. I then found out I had clotridoides difficile colitis (C. Diff. for short) and had to be quarantined for several days.
I was finally released after eleven days but was in and out of the hospital and ER for the next two years. The surgery had decimated my pituitary gland, it’s function and my hypothalamus. After much trial and error, we found out I am forever adrenal insufficient and I no longer produce any hormones like cortisol, human growth hormone, estrogen and several others. I am now on a cavalcade of medications for life but have more or less stabilized.
Though all of this, I worked. I ran my business and it continued to grow. I never once said, ” I just can’t do this anymore” or , “This is too hard”. Instead, it sometimes helped keep me coherent and kept me going. I also knew I was probably never going to be able to hold down a full time job because of ongoing issues with nausea, vomiting and fainting episodes. I ran my business in the ER, in the hospital, with a newborn, in between vomiting episodes and through brain surgery recovery. Quitting or giving up was never and has never been in my vocabulary.
I am now able to continue running my business from home while on a myriad of synthetic hormones that keep me alive and functioning. Had I given up, I would likely have next to nothing now to provide for my children and they were and will always be my priority. To this day, regardless of what struggles I may endure in an ongoing recovery, I am thankful, grateful and will always value what I have versus what I don’t.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
My story is in my previous answer but what I feel sets us apart from other cleaning companies is the personalization. I cleaned homes in college for a small business. They were unorganized and we were sent to homes with random supplies, never really knowing what we were supposed to do. I loved the owner and she made me a team lead but several important factors were lacking. So when I started my business, I decided to supply the staff with all of the same supplies that I knew worked well because I had years of experience trying different products. I train them on the supplies myself, I provide a checklist for when they are in clients homes and I am available 24/7 to answer any questions they have. I also pay well above minimum wage, am very selective in who I hire, offer incentives and bonuses but most importantly, if a client is at home and available, the staff are trained to check out with them before they leave the home. This way the client can look things over to be sure that cleaning expectations have been met. My focus is on primarily all natural cleaning solutions but we do have the tough stuff if needed and the clients are okay with us using these.
I also contribute to over a dozen charities annually and I let the staff know that their hard work is paid forward in more than one way. Cleaning homes isn’t glamorous but it can still be meaningful.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Number one would be sheer determination. You really have to commit to this being what you want and knowing that it will happen. Essentially manifesting your success with a lot of hard work and positive thinking.
Second would be doing a lot of research and not being shy to reach out to other business owners, friends, co-workers, even a random stranger, to find out the best way to market, grow and support your company and staff.
Third would be never giving up. If one angle or idea isn’t working, try another. If you have an entrepreneurial spirit, which you likely do if you are contemplating starting your own business, then blind ambition and learning from mistakes is key. If you lost hope, you risk losing everything. This kind of mentality helped me grow my business and secure a future for my babies.
All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?
My number one obstacle is securing new clients. The market is competitive and it is difficult to get traffic to my website. I just did a Google Ad for the first time but do not have a large budget so have not seen much of an influx in leads. I also market on social media and pay staff to hang door hangers.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.janicemariecleaningservices.com
- Instagram: @janicemariecleaning
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/janicemarieservices
- Other: I am also a certified Reiki practitioner. After all I have been through and nearly dying, this was something that called me so that I can help and heal others on their journeys. It can be done in person or via distant reiki healing anywhere in the world. www.reikipracticemn.com
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
