Bob Byrnes (Byrnes Office Cleaning)

Bob Byrnes is the owner of Byrnes Office Cleaning, a Maple Grove-based cleaning company that exclusively serves the Twin Cities’ northwest suburbs. 

Originally from Duluth, Bob was raised in a part of Minnesota that was nefariously frosty. 

“If you like the two seasons, cold and colder, then Duluth is awesome,” Bob jokes, then turning more serious to address why he departed from a city rife with majestic views, but arguably limited in economic opportunity.  

“The key to any success that I’ve had is association, but growing up there were a lot of people who did the bare minimum, so they weren’t going to prosper, and I didn’t want any part of that.”

When Bob later got down to the Twin Cities, he sold cars after having previously been a GM for a limo company.

“That [driving limos] was quite the adventure,” Bob recalls, but he soon realized that chauffeuring around partygoers wasn’t a sustainable career, so he started a cleaning company.

At the outset, Bob didn’t know how to run a business. 

Instead, he was operating purely on instinct. 

“I was handing out some cheesy flyers, and that wasn’t working,” he admits.

Struggling to gain traction in the cleaning business, Bob was becoming despondent, the reality that he may soon have to take a job to pay his bills quickly creeping into his consciousness as cash flow became an issue. 

Amid the uncertainty, one day Bob ventured to a local park to contemplate his next steps. 

“I was on the verge of having to take a job, but I did not want to go work for someone else, to the point that I was miserable,” Bob says. 

That’s when he met Jarrod Peterson, an amiable realtor who approached Bob and mentioned how he could join BNI-Maple Grove, a networking organization that had the potential to connect Bob to clients for his cleaning business. 

“Jarrod is a force, and I mean that both literally and figuratively. You’re not going to miss him coming your way, and to this day I’m convinced God meant to put Jarrod and I at that same park,” Bob says.  

“By Jarrod introducing me to BNI, that completely altered the course of my life.”

This chance encounter was back in 2008, and since then Bob has steadily, but not easily, established a profitable cleaning business. 

Some of his success can be attributed to his witty humor and disarming smile, but perhaps the biggest factor for Bob’s ascension can be traced to his commitment to never needing to rely on anyone else for a paycheck. 

It’s at this point in our conversation that Bob shares how when the Vikings of centuries ago raided other lands, they always burned their own ships upon arrival, not so subtly indicating to themselves and their targets that there was no going back. 

“And that’s how I have approached my business,” Bob bluntly states. 

Impressively, Byrnes Office Cleaning does not run ads or roll out extensive marketing campaigns. 

Rather, all deals are handshake agreements where clients are not forced to sign long-term contracts to retain Byrnes Office Cleaning’s services, an at-will dynamic that, for lack of a better term, works. 

“I found a way to find the people who were looking for me and the way I do business,” Bob says. 

“I don’t enslave people to contracts. Most companies try to lock businesses into two-year contracts, but I just shake hands.”

Of course, everyone from seasoned business coaches to supportive colleagues urged Bob to adopt a more conventional approach in order to guarantee future revenue, but if you know Bob Byrnes, then you know that this is not a man who gives a damn about what other people think.

“I felt that what I was doing was the right way to conduct business, and it’s paid off,” he unapologetically mentions. 

At the same time, Bob is not a renegade who advertently defies convention.

He’s also not like those same Vikings of yesteryear who ruthlessly eliminated their competition. 

For his part, Bob actually enjoys networking and collaborating with other cleaning companies [particularly fellow BNI member Jackie LeVvintre of LeVvintre Living], even if he doesn’t share the business ideologies of his contemporaries.   

“There is so much opportunity in the cleaning industry. For example, if you looked up the city of Osseo, geographically, it’s very small, but within that city, there are so many businesses who could use a cleaning service,” Bob details. 

“I’ll put it like this: a new cleaning company could come in and do $1 million in revenue, and it wouldn’t even make a dent in the market. That’s how much opportunity there is.”

Still, within that vast ocean of opportunity, not all cleaning companies are created equal, and certainly not all companies imitate the business model of Byrnes Office Cleaning. 

“In many ways, I have succeeded by giving customers what they don’t want, which is drama, price hikes, contracts, and sending out cleaners who are missing teeth and behave in a way that makes people feel uncomfortable,” he explains.

That last part of Bob’s quote is key because there are a throng of cleaning companies who will send out well-dressed and articulate salespeople, but then the people who show up to do the cleaning don’t match that initial aesthetic or energy. 

This is another area where Byrnes Office Cleaning is different. 

“I am very strict on who I hire, and where I hire from,” Bob emphasizes, then noting how in the cleaning industry, identity theft and robbery are rampant. 

“Somewhere in America today, there is someone who is starting a cleaning business with the sole purpose of committing identity theft. They don’t want to actually do any cleaning. They just want to steal information.”

Adds Bob: 

“Ironically, the cleaning business is not very clean. No pun intended.”

Beyond taking steps to ensure his clients receive a quality service devoid of unnecessary angst, Bob writes up all his estimates in-person so that clear expectations can be established. 

“We are a custom-fit enterprise. I don’t want my customers to pay for anything more than they want cleaned,” he says. 

“I will go room-to-room and find out what’s important, and then base our price around that scope of work.” 

As mentioned at the top of this article, Byrnes Office Cleaning works solely in the northwest suburbs.

As a result, few outside his network and customer base actually know who Bob Byrnes is and what he does. 

“And that’s exactly how I want things to be. I only want to be found through referral,” the Duluth native says.  

“That’s because every time I have deviated from that model, it’s been dramatic and caused me brain damage.”

In the coming years, Bob, like all business owners, would like to expand his cleaning company, but he still only wants his presence to be wider within the boundaries of the northwest suburbs.

“I love the mentality of the northwest suburbs,” Bob says. 

“These are hard-working people who are not looking for a showroom type of cleaning, but someone who will show up and do good work. It’s hard to find companies who will do that consistently”

Adds Bob:

“People want that mom-and-pop type of feel when it comes to a cleaning company. They don’t want to feel like a random employee from a large company is cleaning their office. They want someone who has been to their office before and has familiarity with their office.” QS

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