Trust Over Titles: Culture Lessons
Welcome back to the Five Door Media blog, where we unpack insights from our podcast conversations to help home service leaders thrive.
This season, we’ve been tackling the often-misunderstood world of company culture. It’s not a pizza party or a poster of “core values” in the office - it’s the living, breathing environment that shapes how your team shows up every day.
In this episode, we sat down with Lacie Nash, co-founder and CEO of Clean Squad, a near seven-figure residential and commercial cleaning company in Metro Detroit. Lacie’s story is as real as it gets: she and her business partner rebuilt Clean Squad from scratch during COVID after losing their entire team. With only $2,000, grit, and relentless consistency, they grew back stronger by prioritizing culture, trust, and leadership over shortcuts.
Here are the biggest takeaways from our conversation with Lacie:
1. Culture Is Felt on Sunday Nights
For Lacie, culture isn’t defined by a handbook. It’s defined by how your employees feel before the workweek begins. “Your company’s culture is defined by the emotions your staff is having on a Sunday night.”
If your team dreads Monday morning, you have a culture problem. If they feel supported, respected, and prepared, you’re on the right track.
Takeaway: Measure your culture by how your team feels, not by what you write on a wall.
2. Rebuilding After COVID: Culture by Design
When COVID hit, Clean Squad lost its entire team almost overnight. Instead of patching things together, Lacie and her partner used the crisis as a reset button.
They asked: “What kind of culture do we want when we’re running a million-dollar company? What kind of leaders do we need to be to support it?”
By designing culture for the company they wanted to build, not just the one they had, they created habits that could scale.
Takeaway: Start with the end in mind. Build a culture today that can hold up at 5x or 10x your size.
3. Accountability Starts with Leadership
One of Lacie’s strongest principles: accountability flows from the top down. “You can’t hold your team accountable if you’re not willing to hold yourself accountable first.”
She practices transparency by sharing failures before wins and showing her team that leadership isn’t about perfection, it’s about honesty and growth.
Takeaway: Model the behavior you want to see. Accountability without vulnerability is just control.
4. Hiring: Integrity Meets Barbecue Test
Lacie and her co-founder take a unique two-step approach to hiring. She focuses on integrity and mindset; her partner focuses on whether the candidate is someone they’d “want to barbecue with.”
It’s a mix of cultural fit and character check that ensures new hires are not only capable but also people the team wants to spend time with.
Takeaway: Skills can be trained. Integrity and chemistry can’t.
5. Micro Habits Build Macro Culture
Forget gimmicks. Culture at Clean Squad is reinforced through consistent, small habits:
Bi-weekly one-on-ones that are reciprocal (employees must give management feedback, too).
Monday morning meetings that keep everyone aligned.
Structured training tweaks (like assigning one trainer for two weeks) that improve retention.
These micro shifts add up to a culture where employees feel heard, supported, and invested.
Takeaway: Grand gestures don’t build culture, but daily habits do.
6. Trust Is the Currency of Culture
We asked Lacie to finish the sentence: “Culture dies when…”
Her answer was clear: “Culture dies when your team doesn’t trust you.”
Trust is earned by consistency, transparency, and responsiveness. It’s also sustained by listening to feedback and acting on it. When employees see leaders adjust based on their input, even something as simple as moving a meeting from Friday to Monday, they know their voice matters.
Takeaway: Without trust, culture collapses. With trust, it thrives.
7. Team, Not Family
One of Lacie’s most powerful distinctions: “We’re not a family, we’re a team.”
Why? Families often tolerate toxic behavior because of obligation. Teams, on the other hand, require everyone to play their role, respect each other, and work toward a shared goal.
Takeaway: Build a team that values accountability, not a “family” that excuses bad behavior.
Why This Matters for Home Service Leaders
Lacie’s story proves that culture isn’t fluff, it’s the foundation of scale. Her practical, down-to-earth approach shows that culture doesn’t have to be complicated:
Keep it simple.
Hold yourself accountable first.
Hire for integrity and chemistry.
Reinforce culture with small, consistent habits.
Build trust above all.
Whether you’re cleaning homes, fixing roofs, or installing HVAC systems, these lessons apply. Because in the end, your culture will either fuel your growth or quietly kill it.
