"Culture matters. It's the silent force that shapes success."
Rocky Vuong is a dedicated professional cleaner, organizer, and the visionary founder of Calibre Cleaning, a leading cleaning service that has transformed the way homes and businesses achieve pristine environments.
With years of experience in the cleaning industry, Rocky has established himself as an authority on creating organized, efficient, and spotless spaces. His passion for cleanliness and organization drives the success of Calibre Cleaning, making it synonymous with reliability, excellence, and meticulous attention to detail.
Rocky’s commitment to customer satisfaction and his innovative approach to cleaning solutions have earned him widespread recognition and respect in the cleaning community.
Check out more interviews with entrepreneurs here.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET FEATURED?
All interviews are 100% FREE OF CHARGE
Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Rocky Vuong: I am Rocky Vuong, and I am the founder of Calibre Cleaning. We started things back in 2015 when we just cleaned homes, but now we have grown a lot and offer all kinds of excellent cleaning services and the best customer service. I was 22 years old working in a call center job.
I would browse the internet in between calls and I found a Reddit post on how to start and build a cleaning company in 27 days. I followed every step that was laid out, and 9 years later, here we are. It’s been a roller coaster ride from where we started until now.
We started small, but now we are a team of 26 passionate people and 350 cleaning teams across the country. We plan on expanding and growing and being the best in the industry.
In the past year, what is the greatest business achievement you’d like to celebrate with your team? Please share the details of that success.
Rocky Vuong: Our journey has been very great, with all kinds of successes and failures coming our way, but the past year has seen massive growth in terms of revenue.
Pulling from $20k a month back in September 2021 to extending to $300k by February 2024—that’s some serious progress we have seen over the years.
It’s all because of the hard work, dedication, and passion of our people that made this achievement possible. We are all in this together, and we want to keep hustling, expand our services, and keep our customers happy.
Quiet quitting, The Great Resignation, are an ongoing trend causing many businesses to struggle to keep talent engaged and motivated. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued, and misunderstood in the workplace. In your experience, what keeps employees happy? And how are you adapting to the current shift we see?
Rocky Vuong: You see, employees are the most crucial aspect of any business. We need experts in various fields to complete the work in the best way possible. Happy employees are the basis of happy customers.
So business owners should make sure that they create a work culture that their employees are comfortable working in.
Unless you know what’s bothering your people or what can be done to make things better, nothing can be changed.
And for that, you need to communicate. That’s the only way! We, at Calibre Cleaning, arrange meetings for our employees so that they can share their thoughts and feelings and help us make necessary changes in our office.
Another important thing to do is to appreciate your people’s hard work and dedication.
See, people want to get success in their work and be better at it. For that, they work hard, and a little appreciation now and then plays a significant role in boosting their morale.
By offering a little bonus, a shoutout in our group chats, or a simple “thank you,” we try to make our people feel appreciated and deserving.
And talking about shifting trends, it is necessary to stay flexible and innovative to keep up with them.
As they say, “Change is the only constant,” so we do not step back from making any necessary changes that are important for our business, company, or employees. We just want Calibre Cleaning to be the perfect place for our customers as well as our employees.
Here is a two-fold question: What is the book that influenced you the most and how? Please share some life lessons you learned. Now what book have you gifted the most and why?
Rocky Vuong: Books have had a significant impact on my life. One of my favorite reads is “The Lean Startup” by Eric Ries. It actually helped me gain a new perspective on life and business.
When I first started my business, I had very great plans for it and wanted to achieve a lot in a short time. But that book taught me the value of being flexible about the business but constant about what really matters.
And for us, it is customer satisfaction. The book made me realize what it is to embrace the idea of constant learning and adaptation.
As for life lessons that I learned from “The Lean Startup,” it is necessary to fail without getting stuck at it.
We should not be afraid of trying new things, and if they fail, they should be used as a stepping stone to learn new things and grow more.
Now for the book that I have gifted the most, “Start With Why” by Simon Sinek. It teaches us about business and leadership.
I have gifted that book to many of my family members and even employees because that book makes you realize the importance of “why” in your personal as well as professional life.
It’s all about creating a balance between the two and knowing exactly what and why you want something in your life.
Christopher Hitchens, an American journalist, is quoted as saying that “everyone has a book in them” Have you written a book? If so, please share with us details about it. If you haven’t, what book would you like to write and how would you like it to benefit the readers?
Rocky Vuong: No, I haven’t written a book yet. But whenever I do, I want it to be about the story of Calibre Cleaning, the journey of how it all started, the ups and downs we faced, and the tips and tricks that I learned along the way. It would be inspiring for anyone who wants to start their own business.
I want people to know that with consistency, hard work, and perseverance, anyone can achieve their dream.
Even if a single person reads that book and finds the motivation to start their own business, I would say my work of inspiring and impacting others with positivity is done.
In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?
Rocky Vuong: I think maintaining a positive company culture is something many people do not pay attention to.
Even in our initial days, we were so caught up in our daily work and achieving our goals that we ignored things like team dynamics, positive vibes, and a healthy environment.
Soon, we realized the importance of it and started implementing it in our office. The results were immediate. Our employees were happy, satisfied, and morally boosted.
Our mission of making Calibre Cleaning the best in the industry soon aligned with their personal values, which helped foster a collaborative and healthy work culture.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Rocky Vuong: That’s a good one! I think I would like the superpower of predicting the future. Can you imagine how easy things would get for me?
What types of investments to make, what technological changes are about to happen, and what types of norms is the government going to apply!?
I would know all this beforehand and can pivot my plans accordingly. But I have to be more careful with this superpower, right? I would make sure that I do not abuse it or become too dependent on it.
After all, not knowing what life holds for you in the next phase has its own pleasure and excitement.
So yeah, maybe superpowers are cool and all, but we have reached such heights without their help, and I think we can go farther without them too.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Rocky Vuong for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Rocky Vuong or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
Disclaimer: The ValiantCEO Community welcomes voices from many spheres on our open platform. We publish pieces as written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Community stories are not commissioned by our editorial team and must meet our guidelines prior to being published.
