BROTHERS GO FROM TO BASKETBALL DREAM CLEAN

Jordan Harris knew he needed to do something. He and his wife, Marissa, were expecting their first child and he was unemployed, having lost his job overseeing a contracted cleaning crew.

While he didn’t have much in his bank account, Harris had some key assets going his way: the drive and discipline to do better than good enough and a deep faith in God.

“If you fail at something and you know you didn’t put your best effort into it, that burns,” Jordan said.

Using one of his unemployment checks, Harris bought a $45 Dirt Devil vacuum from Walmart, had some business cards printed up for his new venture, Harris Dream Clean, and started knocking on doors of businesses and industrial complexes asking to clean their offices. That was in 2015.

In the eight years since, Harris, with the help of his older brother, Lance, has grown the company significantly.

Harris Dream Clean currently has about 55 employees and generates annual revenue of more than $1.5 million with federal, county and commercial cleaning contracts. McConnell Air Force Base and the U.S. federal courthouse along with several Sedgwick County buildings are among the properties they clean.

Harris’ entrepreneurial success story earned him recognition as the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2023 Kansas Small Business Owner of the Year.

Early Days

For Harris, a self-professed introvert, knocking on those doors in the early days wasn’t easy but he was willing to put in the work, often praying and meditating before approaching his cold calls, he said.

He would spend daytime hours drumming up business and checking in with current clients. Then in the evenings, he and his wife would head out to clean the businesses, often accompanied by their young daughter, Mariah, who would sleep while her parents worked. Marissa was just helping out, Jordan said, since she was a business owner running an in-home daycare.

By 2018, as Harris Dream Clean’s revenue was surpassing a quarter-million dollars and Harris found himself stretched thin managing all aspects of the business, he went to a person he holds in high esteem, trusts implicitly and knows would have his back. He asked his brother, Lance, who was the program manager of a cleaning crew at Cessna, to join the company as a partner.

The brothers were born less than two years apart and were inseparable growing up. They played basketball together as kids and at Wichita Southeast High School for legendary coach Carl Taylor.

They both went on to earn degrees at Wichita State University. Jordan got a business degree with minors in entrepreneurship and management in 2010. Lance was a walk-on for the Shocker basketball team between 2006 and 2008. He earned a coveted starting spot and got a sociology degree.

As the sons of a well-liked basketball coach, Leon Harris, who instilled a healthy dose of competitiveness, and a mother who worked with wayward youth, Jordan and Lance, along with their younger sister, Lindsay, shared the same values of looking out for one another and others. The siblings grew even closer when their father died in January 2005 at age 50 during a practice of the Peabody-Burns High School boys basketball team. It was their mother, June, who provided the inspiration for the cleaning company’s name when she suggested that Jordan dream about pursuing ownership of his own business.

Growing The Dream

Based on their strengths, Jordan and Lance divided their responsibilities within Harris Dream Clean.

Jordan calls himself the chief visionary officer, charting the business’ growth plan and helping secure contracts. Lance is the chief operations officer, overseeing the company’s workforce and contracted duties.

Bringing Lance in as a partner triggered the company’s growth, Jordan said.

“Before, I was having to be a jack-of-all-trades. I was trying to do everything 100 percent. It wasn’t realistic. I was able to split the responsibilities down the middle and say, ‘OK, you focus on this and then I can focus on that.’ That’s when our sales started increasing,” Jordan said.

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Lance also embodies the company’s philosophy of creating opportunities for others.

“The reason he is so good at what he does is the same reason my wife is really good at what she does… they have the highest level of compassion and empathy toward people,” Jordan said. “They’re not thinking about how much money they’re going to take home to their kids, but they’re really focused on the people that they’re working with and how much money they’re taking home to their families, and how well they’re living.”

Satisfied employees mean most new hires are word-of-mouth referrals, having been referred by family or friends, Lance said. It’s how during the pandemic the company was able to quickly onboard nearly 30 employees to fulfill a contract to clean 88 Sedgwick County general election voting sites twice daily.

The business has also grown because of satisfied customers.

“Our work performance gave our existing clients reason to give us more jobs and refer us to other commercial property owners,” said Jordan in an interview for a profile on the SBA website.

Another impetus for the company’s growth was participating in the SBA’s 8(a) certification program. The program, according to the SBA, helps small businesses owned and controlled primarily by “socially and economically disadvantaged individuals” become competitive for federal contracts.

More Family Businesses

Harris Dream Clean’s success has helped broaden other entrepreneurial ventures for the Harris family.

In 2017, Marissa, who holds a master’s degree in educational psychology and a bachelor’s degree in psychology with an emphasis in early childhood development, was able to expand the daycare business she had been running in the couple’s home since 2014.

Jordan and Marissa found the perfect location when they showed up at the wrong polling place during a local election in fall 2017. The nondenominational Woodland Lakes Church, located near Kellogg and Lincoln, had been looking to contract with a daycare provider so it was great timing — or perhaps divine intervention.

“The pastor said they had been praying about finding a provider,” said Jordan, recalling how he and his wife took an impromptu tour that day and secured the location.

In 2021, Jordan and Marissa purchased a 4-acre campus on East Harry, between Woodlawn and Edgemoor. The existing church on the campus became the second location for Angel Wings Learning Center, which serves children ages 2 weeks to 12 years. Another building on the campus became the main offices for Harris Dream Clean.

The three Harris siblings also own a residential real estate business.

Personal Development

As both an entrepreneur and an individual, Jordan is always pursuing self-improvement.

“I heard a phrase a long time ago that if you are the same person you were five years ago, you wasted five years. I live by that,” Jordan said.

Each day he assesses what was a challenge for him the day before and then spends 30 minutes watching videos or presentations on how to overcome that challenge.