Alejandro Florez on Building The Cleaning Pros America One Relationship at a Time
When people think about commercial cleaning, they usually think about the result. Clean floors. Polished surfaces. A building that feels ready for business. What they do not always see is the structure behind that result. The systems. The staffing. The discipline. The leadership. In this Stir interview, Chris Williams of Aginto sits down with Alejandro Florez of The Cleaning Pros America to talk about what it really takes to grow a cleaning company from family hustle to scalable operation.
Alejandro’s story starts long before Sarasota. His family came to the United States from Cali, Colombia, after losing a long-running family business to forces outside their control. Once they arrived, they started over through cleaning work. That meant carpet cleaning, floor care, and long hours. Alejandro was right there in it, learning the trade early and seeing what business ownership looked like when it was tied directly to survival. Years later, after working in banking and in another local entrepreneur’s company, he realized the entrepreneurial pull had never left. He walked into his boss’s office, nervous but certain, and told him he wanted to build something of his own.
That company became The Cleaning Pros America. What began in October 2017 as a way to create something better for his family has grown into a much larger operation with more than 40 W-2 employees, subcontractor relationships, and a clearer vision than ever before. Alejandro is honest that the first years were not especially strategic. They were about taking the work that came in, saying yes, and keeping the machine moving. But growth has a way of forcing clarity. Over time, he realized that not every customer was the right customer, and not every dollar was worth the operational stress attached to it.
That shift in thinking changed everything. Today, The Cleaning Pros America is focused less on scattered, low-frequency cleaning accounts and more on larger, higher-value partnerships. Alejandro’s ideal client is not someone who needs service once a week or twice a month. It is a property, facility, country club, condo association, or commercial site that needs cleaning five to seven days a week and sees that service as operationally essential. That difference matters. It means more stability for the client, more predictability for the company, and more reliable hours for the team.
It also means lower attrition. That was one of the most practical and revealing parts of the conversation. Alejandro explains that employees stay longer when the work is stable, the hours are stronger, and the environment is more consistent. One location with a defined structure creates a better work experience than a patchwork of small jobs spread across a wide area. For a company trying to scale without chaos, that model creates what he calls operational peace. It is a simple phrase, but it says a lot.
That same mindset carries into leadership. Alejandro does not describe a good boss as someone who is loud, controlling, or constantly critical. He describes one who listens, teaches, and understands when to lead with firmness and when to lead with grace. He has seen both sides. He has worked for bosses who inspired him and others who showed him exactly what not to become. That shaped his philosophy. In his view, leadership is not about nitpicking every move. It is about giving people what they need so they can do their job well. It is about helping them improve without tearing them down.
That perspective becomes especially important in a labor-heavy service industry. Cleaning is easy to misunderstand from the outside. People see the visible result, but they do not always understand the systems, pricing logic, staffing realities, and production expectations required to produce it at a high level. Alejandro has spent years moving his company from instinct-based hustle to process-based execution. Technology has helped with that evolution. Tools like Route and digital operations systems have allowed the business to professionalize everything from proposals to time tracking to communication at the site level. That matters not just for the back office, but for scalability.
At the heart of the whole interview is a bigger lesson about identity. Alejandro is not just trying to run a cleaning company. He is trying to build an organization that reflects the resilience, values, and work ethic that shaped his family from the start. The long-term vision is not vague. He wants to dominate the Sarasota market, expand deeper into Tampa, Orlando, Naples, and beyond, and build a portfolio of higher-level clients that support the kind of stable, durable business he once only imagined.
What makes this interview worth watching is that Alejandro does not romanticize the process. He talks about discipline, about bank fraud, about cash flow, about the stress of saying no to work that no longer fits. But he also talks about possibility. About evolving into a different kind of company. About building block by block instead of chasing shortcuts. And about becoming the kind of leader he once needed himself.
For business owners trying to grow without losing control, there is a lot to take from this one.
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Alejandro Florez on Building The Cleaning Pros America One Relationship at a Time
When people think about commercial cleaning, they usually think about the result. Clean floors. Polished surfaces. A building that feels ready for business. What they do not always see is the structure behind that result. The systems. The staffing. The discipline. The leadership. In this Stir interview, Chris Williams of Aginto sits down with Alejandro Florez of The Cleaning Pros America to talk about what it really takes to grow a cleaning company from family hustle to scalable operation.
Alejandro’s story starts long before Sarasota. His family came to the United States from Cali, Colombia, after losing a long-running family business to forces outside their control. Once they arrived, they started over through cleaning work. That meant carpet cleaning, floor care, and long hours. Alejandro was right there in it, learning the trade early and seeing what business ownership looked like when it was tied directly to survival. Years later, after working in banking and in another local entrepreneur’s company, he realized the entrepreneurial pull had never left. He walked into his boss’s office, nervous but certain, and told him he wanted to build something of his own.
That company became The Cleaning Pros America. What began in October 2017 as a way to create something better for his family has grown into a much larger operation with more than 40 W-2 employees, subcontractor relationships, and a clearer vision than ever before. Alejandro is honest that the first years were not especially strategic. They were about taking the work that came in, saying yes, and keeping the machine moving. But growth has a way of forcing clarity. Over time, he realized that not every customer was the right customer, and not every dollar was worth the operational stress attached to it.
That shift in thinking changed everything. Today, The Cleaning Pros America is focused less on scattered, low-frequency cleaning accounts and more on larger, higher-value partnerships. Alejandro’s ideal client is not someone who needs service once a week or twice a month. It is a property, facility, country club, condo association, or commercial site that needs cleaning five to seven days a week and sees that service as operationally essential. That difference matters. It means more stability for the client, more predictability for the company, and more reliable hours for the team.
It also means lower attrition. That was one of the most practical and revealing parts of the conversation. Alejandro explains that employees stay longer when the work is stable, the hours are stronger, and the environment is more consistent. One location with a defined structure creates a better work experience than a patchwork of small jobs spread across a wide area. For a company trying to scale without chaos, that model creates what he calls operational peace. It is a simple phrase, but it says a lot.
That same mindset carries into leadership. Alejandro does not describe a good boss as someone who is loud, controlling, or constantly critical. He describes one who listens, teaches, and understands when to lead with firmness and when to lead with grace. He has seen both sides. He has worked for bosses who inspired him and others who showed him exactly what not to become. That shaped his philosophy. In his view, leadership is not about nitpicking every move. It is about giving people what they need so they can do their job well. It is about helping them improve without tearing them down.
That perspective becomes especially important in a labor-heavy service industry. Cleaning is easy to misunderstand from the outside. People see the visible result, but they do not always understand the systems, pricing logic, staffing realities, and production expectations required to produce it at a high level. Alejandro has spent years moving his company from instinct-based hustle to process-based execution. Technology has helped with that evolution. Tools like Route and digital operations systems have allowed the business to professionalize everything from proposals to time tracking to communication at the site level. That matters not just for the back office, but for scalability.
At the heart of the whole interview is a bigger lesson about identity. Alejandro is not just trying to run a cleaning company. He is trying to build an organization that reflects the resilience, values, and work ethic that shaped his family from the start. The long-term vision is not vague. He wants to dominate the Sarasota market, expand deeper into Tampa, Orlando, Naples, and beyond, and build a portfolio of higher-level clients that support the kind of stable, durable business he once only imagined.
What makes this interview worth watching is that Alejandro does not romanticize the process. He talks about discipline, about bank fraud, about cash flow, about the stress of saying no to work that no longer fits. But he also talks about possibility. About evolving into a different kind of company. About building block by block instead of chasing shortcuts. And about becoming the kind of leader he once needed himself.
For business owners trying to grow without losing control, there is a lot to take from this one.
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