How my clients with my help took over and crashed the local business in the city of 3 million people in less than 10 months.

6 Min Read
October 22, 2025

Table of Contents

What to expect of the text (why is worth to read to the end)

In January ( 2024) my best friend wanted to open a Carpet Cleaning Service in Belgrade.

He is a very smart, intelligent guy, doesn’t read any books in business, never watches gurus or anything that he thinks is important to do to be successful.

He just naturally knows stuff and leads himself by intuition.

The same thing happened to me when I was starting my first business when I wasn’t even aware of it.

(I will share full story one day)

For the contest – He was paid full investment of the project – my part will be valuable for people in business.

This story will be valuable for every coach, experts, marketing/sales/entrepreneurs.

This text will give you real push in back:

Marketing & sales knowledge from experience not book
Real mistakes
If you are in marketing or sales – feel free to take my ideas and concept
If you have or want to open or scale you local business or clean service – feel free to contact me privately in DM ( https://t.me/lukaInsaight )
Business tips
Motivation and opportunity to get in contact with other entrepreneurs in the world

January – Start

We were in our favorite hotel in one of ski center in our country ( place we were living )

As everyone probably always talks about how to make more money or what cars are best for driving, we got to the conclusion that Carpet Services and Cleaning Services in Belgrade have potential to make 10k euro per day with relatively small investment for the beginning.

There is no magical story behind how he picked up that niche – which is not suggesting if you are an amateur in something I don’t have a strong background in, if you fall down and lose everything.

Belgrade was sleepwalking on carpet services — we saw demand in some aspects of this business.

Demand Generation – very important definition. If demand does not already exist you have to create that.

note:

I have full guidance on how to start a business in 2026 in my closed group for entrepreneurs, businessmen, and coaches. Feel free to reach me out on Telegram DM, I am happy to help – Group is FREE.

February – Economy & Mindset ( COLD START)

Given how he is, I didn’t really pay much attention to what else was going on. I believed him, but to be honest, he never really commits deeply to anything serious.

He worked out the business economics – how much machines cost, rent for his apartment and the service space, service vehicle, branding, marketing, website, bills, and all the other stuff.

All the required stuff ended up costing over 30k euros.

He sold his car to get 18k, and that was the entire budget hahaha.

The point was to have a decent service, not some slapped-together mess they call a “service.”

So he planned to cut everything down and live like a hobo for a while, depending on how long it would take to get the first results.

(Business edition)

His part of the job was to find:

Machines (brand, condition, transport, etc.) – note: all pre-owned
Set up an LLC and everything linked to it (business phone, bills, taxes, POS system, etc.)
Find a place for the service in Belgrade and a place to live

It took him three weeks to set everything up, and the service officially started work on 25.2.2024.

He moved into the service space – just 4 square meters – with a bathroom that had only a water hose to wash himself. ahhahahhahhahhah, no windows – Hobo was living better then.

One mattress and a table with a laptop, which I convinced him to get for work.

So he renovated the place alone, set up electricity, and got the machines running (thanks to YouTube tutorials, helpful friends, and sheer determination).

March – OFFER – First time facing reality

Thanks to him, I had free rein to do whatever I wanted.

My tasks were:

Copywriting
Funnels
Pain points
Creating lead magnet and offer
Sales funnel
Other marketing/sales/business stuff I knew

I had enough experience in marketing, but all that “online fancy stuff” – ecom, dropshipping, SMMA, etc. – was like a paper boat in a storm.

At that point, the business was officially running.

I was facing reality for the first time: no budget, no cash, and fixed monthly expenses of €1,500.

Under that kind of pressure, I had a million ideas I wanted to try because, well… I thought I could do my best.

First thing I did – competition analysis.

I analyzed every cleaning service that had ever operated in Belgrade.

With docs like this, you can actually see what they’re offering, selling, doing.

#1 Hack for deeper research: We called them all to check who had some fancy phone/secretary system for answering customer calls.

Of course, he didn’t have the budget for that – but we made a script to “fake it until we stand on both legs.”

From that list, only two competitors were serious threats.

They had 3–5 vans for carpet pickups
A proper system for taking orders
Running ads
They were nice, professional, knew how to sell
And had been around for almost 30 years 🤯😵

Almost two kids had to beat them???????????????????????????????????

Honestly, they could buy us for breakfast in underwear.

#2 Hack for deeper research: I read 3,000 reviews. Wrote down every mistake they made and what people actually liked.

Guerrilla Marketing Tactics

As you know, we didn’t have money to experiment.

I asked myself: what can we sell that positions our service fast and gets recommended like crazy? Classic guerrilla move.

I made a landing page for “FREE BABY EQUIPMENT CLEANING.”

We’d come, pick up all their baby gear, clean it with antibacterial supplies, and return it within 24 hours.

You don’t touch a thing. Just call us!

Sounds perfect, right?

April – Barely saved our friendship and almost wrecked everything else because of my biggest mistake (probably one you’re making too).

People living in this area started leaving carpets, asking for prices, and businesses began making some money!! BIG WINS!

He cleaned each carpet three times and perfumed them to smell like fresh clothes.

The rest of the offer was:

Carpet cleaning
Carpet storage (weekly)
Zebra blinds
Hard floor cleaning
Sofa set (three-seater + two-seater)
Armchair
Mattress – standard
Mattress – double / French mattress
Room and space cleaning (monthly / yearly / weekly)

I set the prices based on the industry leaders-basically copy-pasted. I figured they created them from experience, knowing exactly profit margins, gross profits, hidden costs, and all the unpredictable stuff we had no idea about.

I was losing my mind and confidence, to be totally honest. I thought I knew exactly how marketing, sales, and business worked – but now, in this totally old-school way, random passersby were buying stuff.

What is wrong with the offer? I thought I had set everything up perfectly.

Who normally doesn’t want FREE stuff?

The sales letter brought in some organic customers, but that was miserable.

Lead Magnet That Almost Broke the Team — Marketing Lessons They Don’t Teach in Books

I made 5 ads and 30 pieces of content for organic social media.

Three static posts and two reels went to Facebook ads.

For this type of business, Google Ads works way better – but I didn’t know how to use it. I was optimistic about FB ads because no one was doing them properly.

CPC was 2 euros per click in the first 10 days.

Average Order Value (AOV) was 30 euros, and I was very, very happy.

But the problems we faced were real sh*t.

People, in general, never appreciate something they get for free – I proved that 100,000 times.

So they were very picky, we said, okay, it’s all free, but if you’re a little man, you’ll order a carpet cleaning, blinds cleaning, mattress cleaning, or at least give a tip (1 euro, 5 euro… doesn’t matter, just give us some motivation).

Then, some people had Louis Vuitton baby gear. I wanted an official document to leave their equipment.

WTF? You have money for Louis Vuitton and you called a 20-year-old asking for some papers? No comments.

There were benefits to running ads, though. People shared, commented positively, and paid, but not directly from the ads.

Some were willing to pay, and they did.

So we earned 100 euros from ads. Not great, not terrible. But the consequences were:

To clean everything properly takes 30 minutes per item. He had 100 a day. The only thing in your head is math, how much money will we make if we charge for it?

And yes, for a little while, he stopped waking up early like before. He’d been working his back off.

I was sitting at home, sipping coffee, suggesting, forcing, advising – all from my comfy chair.

Because all of us were working for free – me included.

We lost motivation. He and his friends started hating each other. He hated us. I hated him.

That was a huge lesson for me.

Every marketer on earth imagines that having a business means driving a Porsche, drinking cocktails in Bali, dressing up like Iman Gadzi, posting pics of MacBooks and coffee. They make a dramatic story and expect money. That is not real business.

He told me: “Just come here to work one day, and you’ll get it all.”

Don’t push your clients beyond what they can handle – learn their limits and never cross them.

May – Can I book a 5 star hotel for 30 euro?

I make a very strong guarantee – “ If anything will be as you are not expecting, we will give you money back or buy new things!

It happened once that we bought new chairs because we broke them accidentally.

And results was this :

We collected over 100 reviews on Google, we asked them if they can do that, how they think, what we can do better, etc.

Marketing tip:

People will next day, I guarantee that I already have an open message to them: “Hi Charlie, is everything good, our worker was kind to you, let us know if we have to refund you money”

Typical answer we always got: “Hi Luka, everything was you, thanks for discount”

He was giving discounts on the spot – like didn’t charge them delivery or random discount of 10/20/30%.

That’s position the website in the top #5 in the all city.

You have to remind them many times for you – a gold mine for businesses.

Follow-up vs. reminder: A reminder is used to keep them aware that you still exist, a follow-up is for actually selling.

Fun fact: Owner was secretary, “the man on the ground”, driver, cleaner, customer support and actor for social media. ahhahah

June – Seasons in job & first empoyee

He almost died, he gave me feedback every single week about hows job was going. Burnout still takes away him and every thought, throws away the job topic. That was an impossible tempo for me, let alone him.

Because machines were preowned, that makes him nervous, you can’t work with shit technique, that makes you slower and low quality.

Besides that he got a headache from cleaning chemicals. He ended up with 2 antibiotics. So that became a decision to hire someone to help him.

So the salary for the first worker was 900 dollars and finally we breathed, he found time to record a script I had made.

Days went by and not a single call came in. What fucking is happing now??

The biggest protest in a row in Belgrade, people don’t have money , usually in May no one is cleaning stuff, they already did it in April because of the sunny days.

There is no way to know that information. That was a big overdraft. Minus 3500 euro immediately.

Knowledge is 10X more valuable than money

Both of us kept a low profile. Things weren’t going as smoothly as we had expected at the start.

We had hired a worker – literally a kid – completely unqualified. He didn’t know anything and instead of helping, he ended up costing more than he contributed. First thing we did? Fired him immediately. That left my friend back to working alone again.

All the management advice in books is completely useless in real life. I had written down rules, scripts, how people should smile, what to say to customers – but without experience, none of it mattered.

He tried to follow the rules and teach the team, but it was a disaster. Relationships in the real world are completely different. You need to respect people, support them, talk through problems and keep them fully in the loop. Forget being a “BIG BOSS” – that just doesn’t work.

For this kind of work, 99% of applicants are either kids looking for summer jobs, students or people without any experience in life.

You have to be adaptable, patient and constantly ready to teach. And now how to manage that without yelling at them.

We learned the hard way: hire fast, fire faster. In the beginning, there’s zero room for mistakes. Three wrong moves? You fire them immediately. Boundaries must be set before anyone even starts.

It cost us a lot, but now we’ve mastered it. And trust me, no book will teach you this.

July – Business starts to grow – small changes make catapult – Test FAST !

I didn’t know what else to do, totally out of ideas, so I asked for help in one marketing group on Facebook.

They all gave me info about how things function in the USA, but that’s a totally different business there and here.

Then one comment hit me: people aren’t even aware they need to clean stuff in their house. BINGO! That was my opening.

I realized where the real money is.

If someone wants furniture cleaned – that averages over 100 euros, plus carpets (30euros ).

Cleaning carpets keeps the business alive, sure. But the real cash flow? Cleaning mattresses, three-seaters, and whole rooms.

How to boost that? Easy – when someone called us.

Sales script:

“If we’re coming, do you need anything else? Maybe a mattress, three-seater or blinds? We have a big discount, and everything can be done the same day.”

70% of answers were: YES, I HAVE.

I wrote a new landing page and realized the lead magnet was too good – almost unreal – so people hesitated to use it.

I had written a new landing page, and then I realized the lead magnet was almost too good – people were either too skeptical to believe it or felt a little embarrassed to actually take it.

“Use any of our services, and you’ll get free baby equipment cleaned for free!”

Boom. Three pages of new customers in just 30 days.

August – Dreams vs reality – what to pick?

He went on vacation while I was developing new ideas I came up with. He didn’t think that would be a wild ticket for us.

How can I remove all the resistance they have when calling any service? I get nervous and anxious even when I have to call a mechanic about my car. I don’t know why—I think they’ll be pretentious and arrogant because that’s all they know. I used the same analogy here.

I made a form – you can fill in your name, the date when you want cleaning done, check other services, and get 10% off for ordering online + 10% if you’re a loyal RTS customer (just leave an email, everyone actually does).

Results were insane – every day, 3–5 organic signups and 20+ calls – all while he was on vacation.

He apparently flew to Belgrade, and the business exploded.

I also worked more on a lead magnet – customers had to pick up any of our services and they’d get baby gear cleaned at a 75% discount.

And the website looked like this.

This offer also increased results dramatically.

It works great for new customers because people clean carpets, baby gear, sofas, etc., only once per year. New customers have no idea it used to be all free, and they’re still happy.

September – Competition had been scared – new marketing funnel.

We had a very tough period and survived a lot together. We now had the luxury to test all the new concepts and ideas we had.

We set up a new campaign, this time on Google, with a budget of 30 euros per day.

The offers remained the same, but customer perception changed.

Optimizing tactics:

Better for Facebook Ads – all pages are testimonials; call-to-action is just “Call us now!”
Better for Google Ads – only the form.

Both convert very well.

(AOV – 150$ or 130 euro.)

As a result of the forms I created, firms and wealthy individuals with large properties in Belgrade started calling us to clean their rooms, furniture, offices, etc.

Last weekend, the service made €10,000 in a single day (that’s from cleaning large properties and apartments using a combination of our regular offers).

We now have a full system of recruiting, paying employees, partnerships, discounts, etc.

October – What is next? How to scale this type of business?

Started with a space of 100 square meters – now over 350, 5 co-workers, and man, how to answer a call every single day of the week. Service is available 24/7.

Now we are working on a new plan, not month-to-month. Next year is reserved for the Email Marketing plan we already have and new upsell offers that make this business over 25k per month.

I’m developing a new concept of cleaning with a monthly subscription, unlimited use of all services – this requires new investment, serious work, logistics, and a lot of knowledge.

It’s not just about marketing; you need to know how to synergistically connect people and dreams.

There’s no book or course for this kind of knowledge – you need to be a hard worker with a sick desire to get it all.

There are a million problems I can’t even forget. Every job with people is hard. People are out to sabotage it. One woman was ready to go to the trial because of 10 euros. You have to learn tactics to protect yourself from these types of personas.

Group – About me

If you want to:

Launch or scale your local business
Build marketing and sales systems that actually work
Learn real tactics that save time, money, and frustration
Connect with other ambitious entrepreneurs around the world

Then you’re in the right place.

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Join the group here

No fluff, no gurus, no useless theory – just real insights that you can apply today.

Let’s build something real together.

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