Cleaning Business Life

CBL Episode #86 - Black Friday Bonanza-Turbocharging your 4th Quarter Sales: With Jamie Runco

• Shannon Miller and Jamie Runco • Season 2024 • Episode 86

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Ready to turbocharge your cleaning business's fourth-quarter sales? Join Shannon Miller as she chats with Jamie Runco of Above All Cleaning in Northern California about the game-changing Black Friday Bonanza. You'll uncover the secrets to early planning, gift card sales, and the innovative strategy of offering a full year of house cleaning services. Jamie shares her personal experiences, emphasizing the importance of targeting the right clients and sidestepping financial pitfalls, especially when it comes to legacy clients.

Discover how the Black Friday Bonanza course has become a powerful tool for cleaning business owners like Mary Lou, who have seen significant revenue boosts through strategic planning and special offers. Shannon and Jamie share invaluable tips on managing discounts and gift certificates, maintaining positive client relationships, and targeting bi-weekly clients for maximum profitability. Learn why offering discounts for one-time cleanings may not be the best strategy for your bottom line.

Lastly, navigate the complexities of establishing clear payment terms for house cleaning services. From compliance with new email marketing rules to the advantages of cash or check payments, Shannon and Jamie break it all down. They also highlight the need for transparency in contracts to avoid disputes with large sums of pre-paid money. Don't miss the excitement surrounding the Structure Scale Profit Cleaning Academy at Clean Freaks University, where you can transform your business with expert coaching and mentoring. Join us for heartfelt testimonials and discover the financial gains waiting for you!

Here is a coupon link for the course:  https://klean-freaks-university.newzenler.com/courses/black-friday-bonanza?coupon=bonanza

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Speaker 1:

Welcome everybody. My name is Shannon Miller and I am your host of Cleaning Business Life, and today I'm joined with Miss Jamie Runco of Above All Cleaning in Northern California. Jamie, oh, welcome, welcome, hi. Hi, long time no talk to you, yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's been a little while.

Speaker 1:

Well, today we're going to talk about the Black Friday Bonanza. It is a product I created last year. For those of you who don't know, I created, I think, my last year. I created like 30 products, I want to say or 29 or 27 products, and then the year before I created another 25 or 26 products. This year I actually created one product, but Black Friday Bonanza was a great way of adding a lot of extra income to your fourth quarter, and we're going to talk a little bit about the benefit of taking this course.

Speaker 1:

What's inside there, why you want to take it. For those of you who are listening to this, I will, by the time you listen to this recording, I will have changed the sales page because it looks like I didn't touch it from last year, so, forgive me, it's like hasn't been on the radar until now and I'm like, oh, the sales page needs to be updated. So it talks about three strategies that you can add to your bottom line. So one of them is, um, black friday promotions, which you should be thinking about what you're going to do and what you're going to offer well, we need to start thinking about that right now.

Speaker 1:

So that you can add in extra sales and close fourth quarter strong.

Speaker 2:

yeah, now is the time to start implementing this, start thinking about it. You know it has to be a thought before you can put it out there, right, right? So you definitely need to start thinking about this and this course. Yeah, go ahead and tell them a little bit more about the course.

Speaker 1:

It's Black Friday Bonanza is not something that you can do with the drop of a hat. You need to plan ahead a whole month, so 30 days. So we're going to probably be releasing this video and podcast right around Halloween a little bit before or after and you need 30 days roughly to implement all of the strategies inside this course. So there's Black Friday promotions. So you need to think about what you're going to sell, if you're going to offer a buy one, get one half off, or if you're going to offer a free oven cleaning or a free refrigerator cleaning.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people like to have their appliances cleaned right after the holiday for Thanksgiving, which is typically an American holiday for those Aussies and those in the UK. We appreciate you so much listening, but I know that the the Thanksgiving holiday doesn't really it's not applicable to you. So, um, there's that. And then there's gift card sales, and gift card sales can go hand in hand with gift basket sales. So, um, or you can just sell them individually Sometimes, um, there is a service online that you can sell digital gift cards, or you can have the hard copy gift cards. Or, if you want a totally low budget and you're not sure you want to commit, you can go right to Canva, type in gift cards and boom, just make sure you number them. And then the finale of the course is how to sell a whole year of house cleaning to your established clientele and you've done this before you actually have a testimonial on in regards to that Black Friday bonanza, right, don't you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and this is not do not do this to every single one of your clients. You don't want to. You do not want to take a hit like that. No, be be choosy, because if you do, if you got the money for the whole year from all your client list, you're going to really be struggling that. That'll be a hard pull up.

Speaker 1:

So this typically wouldn't be applicable to your legacy clients. You're not going to sell a whole a discounted whole year of cleaning to a legacy client. You're going to push them in the other direction where they're going to maybe buy one, get one half off, or get a free oven cleaning, or they're going to buy a gift card. You're not going to open up the lines of communication for a legacy client to take the whole year of house cleaning at a discount because they're going to buy a gift card. You're not going to open up the lines of communication for a legacy client to take the whole year of house cleaning at a discount because they're already below market value and then you're going to take a cut on top of it. It really is. It's going to be a break even or it's going to be a loss leader, and no one likes a house. That's a loss leader, and we've all done it. Jamie, I'm sure you've done it, I've done it. What's a loss leader to you?

Speaker 2:

I well, I have, I don't, I don't.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So a loss leader to me is a legacy client who I've taken on. I've had them since the beginning. I don't have any legacy clients anymore. Everybody's at current market value. But I took them on in the beginning because I was trying to get myself established. I was probably charging by the hour 30 bucks an hour, 25. And I've now realized there's more money to be made.

Speaker 1:

Put in the door, get your name out there, there's more money to be made and I've now decided that I want to make that money. So I have this legacy client who I feel loyalty to, even though they feel absolutely no loyalty to you. It's a psychological thing. You go through and instead of earning 225 bucks off that client, you're still at the $30 an hour rate and you're charging them. It takes you three hours, $90. Yeah, hour rate, and you're charging them. It takes you three hours, $90. There's a whole 120 bucks that you're missing or more off of that cleaning. So you're not going to give your legacy clients a leg up by giving them a discount on top of it, unless it's something that you come from the heart. I always say that if it's something that you want to do coming from the heart because Mary, who's 97, who needs it, needs it then do it, but don't do it when you have resentment in your heart.

Speaker 2:

It will never end well right, you're just going to be angry and there's nothing worse, especially if you're a solo cleaner and still trying to figure it out. I have seen somebody in the groups that is actually in my area and they're charging by the hour, they're getting burnt out and they're wanting to switch over to flat rates and there's a whole process to that and we can talk about that another time. But I have, I had legacy clients and I basically every time I want to do a raise, I let them phase themselves out.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

Or you're still going to give them a bump, but they're never going to be at current market value.

Speaker 2:

They'll never, you know, I I try three. Now this isn't etched in concrete here, but I try to do three to 5% two times a year. I, you know, on a 225,. What if I? I don't even have a calculator right now, but yeah, so it's only a couple bucks here and there and and um, you know, whenever you get more established of you know you're you're getting your insurances, you got your EIN number. You're going to want to start charging for that. You're allowed to start charging for having that.

Speaker 2:

You are allowed to do that right Expensive to have a legitimate business and um, there's a lot that we start paying and, as you go, there's steps to get there, but we are talking about black friday bonanza. I wanted, I wanted to read, I want everybody to hear about the testimonial on the Black Friday Bonanza that she purchased.

Speaker 1:

Right, it's right here. Let me see if I can find it.

Speaker 2:

Course details It'll blow you away because it just almost brought me to tears. Whenever I just makes you squeeze your hat just a little tighter because you just want so badly for you. Love seeing people win like this.

Speaker 1:

Right and it was phenomenal. And this, this course, is actually not for sale all year long. It only is available to help you implement for fourth quarter. So if you buy it now, you get it. If not, you have to wait till next year. Um, but it it isn't for sale all the time. So this, um, I'm going to really put that on my list.

Speaker 1:

Here is a testimonial. Let's see. It says highly recommend taking Shannon's Black Friday Bonanza. We were able to sell a year's worth of house cleaning for the next year to many of my notice keywords established clientele and we were able to almost generate $47,000 in revenue for fourth quarter. That's on top of her regular revenue that she gave herself some cashflow. And it talks all about how to keep it in a trust and what to do with it, what you can spend it on, what you cannot spend it on that type of thing for emergency purposes, what the refund policy is If you have someone who goes this just I've changed my mind, this just isn't for me and how you need to have a contract and how you want to make sure that when you're signing a contract, that it's with someone that you like, know and trust and that you love, because I can tell you from experience, when you have a contract with someone that you hate, it's awful. They just make you miserable.

Speaker 2:

You are stuck and you're stuck being miserable. So, yes, make sure that you're. And again, many of her clients, not all of your clients.

Speaker 1:

you don't want to take that hit, Not all of your clients, you don't want to take that hit and let's be realistic when someone gives you for anybody who's worked in retail, there's only when they give the percentage off because of how everything is multiplied. So in typical retail it's usually double the price or two times the price. So they buy it at wholesale. If they have an item for $25, they will usually end up selling the item for $75. Well, when you factor in storage because that's what it is when it sits in the store, you're paying for storage and then you have to shrink it incrementally.

Speaker 1:

You can't really afford to take too much of a hit. If you have too many at once, then you're taking a bigger hit and there's a strategy that you can do to implement so that you're not taking. If you sell a hundred of them hypothetically speaking I hope that you don't sell a hundred all at once how you can scatter them on your schedule so that you're not taking 100 discounted cleanings all in one month. It's like don't call me in a panic going. I don't understand why this isn't working why this isn't working right.

Speaker 2:

There's a technique to it. And, um, you also want to prepare yourself with gift certificates. This is a great time to start getting. Um, I mean the pump. Yeah, everybody pumped up for black friday. I, it's the house cleaning is no different, right? Um, people, this is a great gift to give to.

Speaker 1:

You know, ask for christmas, this is a great gift, so, um I've had clients reach out and that was the only thing they wanted was that their husband to gift them a whole year of house cleaning. Mary Lou, who passed away, I loved her. She was a spitfire. She maybe was like 80 pounds wet and her husband every year would buy her a house cleaning gift on a gift card. They never asked for the discount and she ended up getting dementia and then ultimately died. When they put her in captivity is what she used to tell me I'm not going in captivity, I'm not going. She was, she's someone I will always remember. But yeah, that's what, that's what she wanted and it was a great gift and I. They were easy to work for. They, you know, they would prep the house, they didn't have any pets, they were pretty tidy, they were ideal clients. So it just seemed like a win-win for that. So that's something to consider if you want to add more money to your bottom line.

Speaker 2:

I also feel like this is more geared towards a biweekly client versus a monthly client. That's a good point. Yeah, I feel like this is more geared for bi-weeklies. And you can add it don't have to be a year, it can be three months, it could be six months, but we're just trying to get those last four that boost on, that little push through the fourth quarter to boost your gross sales.

Speaker 1:

Right and it really won't be worth it to do it. On a monthly, it just won't. Or one-time cleanings. Don't give anyone a discount on one-time cleanings. You guys work really hard for every penny earned on a one-time cleaning. Do not give a discount, I don't. I don't care what sob story they tell you.

Speaker 2:

Do not do it, I just hear it for the year, those biweekly clients that have a little bit of loyalty to you, a little more, you know there's a little bit more of a relationship there than a monthly. I just yeah. A monthly, I just yeah, and one times, nope. Not even the free oven cleans, free inside the fridge. Don't do it. But do offer your bi-weeklies the gift certificates. They can get a free oven clean, they can get a. You know, whatever you decided that you, this is your business.

Speaker 1:

You can run it how you want, right, right, definitely. We're just giving you tips from things that we've learned along the way, so that would be in your best interest. With the Black Friday Bonanza, it also comes with a basic format for email sequencing. Should you have already started to grow your list and how you're doing that? If you're still doing in-person bids, you're requiring them, especially anybody with a digital calendar system.

Speaker 1:

In the past, to get an email was like getting a right arm. I'm not giving you my email and then this is wait, I mean back in the day. If try calling 50 people in the afternoon after you. You know you're out in the field or you've worked on your business all day, and then you have to call 50 times and say hi, this is Shannon from Castle Keeper Cleaning, just wanted to let you know. We'll be there tomorrow at nine o'clock. Blah, blah, blah. Right, so there's this whole. So now everybody gives out their email and I know there's the good, so I always ask for the best email that that they can, so and you can tell if it's a good email or not. If it's a gmail, more than likely they're using that every day. If it's hotmail or yahoo, or what was iMail? What are some of the old?

Speaker 2:

uh well, new ones and I keep getting them bounced back to me. I've and it's mostly our elderly based and they're literally afraid of technology nowadays. They just really just are ignorant about how things work and so Hitmel never heard of them before and I always get it bounced back and that ducky Is it? Duck, duck go, duck, duck go.

Speaker 1:

That's what it is, and when you have too many bounces in your email thing, it actually counts as a ding against you, and then when they push out the next email format, it won't get pushed forward. They consider it spam if you have too many people that bounce. So something to consider. There's this whole dynamic, too, when you're sending emails. I took this course at the beginning of the year and it talked a lot about trademarking, but it also talked about the new rules for emails and how you had to be compliant, and I remember everyone panicking and I tried to figure it out myself and I eventually had to pay because I was like I don't understand where it goes, because I have a WordPress site, right. Like, where do you stick this information? I just want to fix this and move on. I'm done Right. So it just make sure that you're compliant with your email. If you haven't been compliant, or make sure that you are because you can get, you can get fined now.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, let's and let's talk a little bit more about whenever they pay for their house cleaning. If they're paying for a year, six months, three months in advance, cash or check in advance cash or check only right.

Speaker 1:

Right Cash or check, only not on a credit card.

Speaker 2:

This is the one time, I think, that we. You know, normally I always have to have a credit card on file, but I think this is the one time that. And why is that, shannon?

Speaker 1:

Well, you want. This is another reason why you want it to be established because you're you're accepting cash or a check, a large check, sometimes it's a thousand dollar check, sometimes it's a $5,000 check, it just depends on what you're working on. But because you don't want to have to pay, you're already giving them a discount and then if you're paying, the merchant fee on top of it. So if you're processing let's do the math here If you're processing $5,000, let's just say your merchant fee is 3.5. So 5,000 times 3.5%, so that's a buck 75. So you're taking another hit on top of the discount. Unless you get, the math becomes complicated and you add that into the discount and then they take it as one less cleaning. But nine times out of 10, it never works out and it always ends up being a problem. So it's best to always just ask for cash or check, and then that makes it easier on everybody because you're not paying for the extra fee.

Speaker 2:

And expiration dates. What about an expiration date?

Speaker 1:

So on the house cleaning they have. We had a clause in there because I'm mostly senior based, so they got it was specifically stated in the contract. They got 26 cleanings If, for some reason, they won. I think the exception was if they won the lottery or if they were in the hospital and had a hospital stay where they had to skip the first one, they would eat, but the other ones we would put them on hold and we would push them out only to certain extents.

Speaker 1:

Um, and don't do that too often. That's a special circumstance, because what happens is if, let's say, hypothetically, you sell mom and dad five thousand dollars worth of cleaning it's 26 cleanings and mom ends up dying, you put dad in a home. Then the sons and daughters come in and then they want either a refund or they want, um, you to do extra things to compensate them for the so you're giving. Then they want a deep cleaning, right? So there's no compensation of deep cleaning. That's a separate fee.

Speaker 1:

So it gets really complicated. But they, they want to make sure they get every penny because mom and dad gave you $5,000. And basically, if they don't use it and it can't, it can be gifted too. But that's a great area because you could get gifted to a Karen again. If your name is Karen, I still love you, um. But so there's all of these dynamics you have to consider when you're doing this type of sell. Right, you want to make sure that you're gonna. It's gonna be good for you. If it's not good for you and your business, don't do it. Don't do it because someone showed up and yeah yeah, don't get dollar signs in your eyes.

Speaker 2:

It's very easy to do, especially around that time, and there can be a lot of money being thrown at you. But remember you don't want barbara, and if your name is barbara I apologize. But you don't, you don't want Barbara, just oh. Why did I take on this? Clean Right. You know, but we have it to where we do have an expiration date and they have to use it. We didn't used to do this, but we're doing it now. They have one year to use it.

Speaker 1:

And we have instituted this as well since then. But yeah, it becomes complicated and there's too many fingers in the pie I did it without an expiration date.

Speaker 2:

Oh like, oh no, there's no expiration date. And um, yeah, I just learned real quick that you got to have an expiration date on there because you just you. You know they'll call you six years down the road and say, hey, I got this gift certificate and by this time the money has gone and you have to eat it. So make sure you put some sort of expiration date, whether it's a year or two years, whatever however you, for us it's a year.

Speaker 1:

Right, 12 months and it needs to state that in the contract that you're going to give them, because this is formal agreement when you're exchanging larger amounts of money or this could be a very large amount of money. If this is the first time you're doing it, make sure you are clear and your line item exactly what they're getting. They're getting regular maintenance cleanings at 26 cleans for a total of this. This is the discount that you're getting. You're prepaying this amount to get the discount and you have 12 months from, let's say, may 1st of 2024. So you have 12 months all the way to use that and then this cannot be shared or regifted.

Speaker 1:

What are the other weird things I've had? It cannot be used for a one-time cleaning. It's just for regular maintenance. It's not for window washing or emptying out the hubbles in mom or dad's you know gift cabinet that has all these other funky things in it. It's just for regular maintenance cleaning. It's not to add on sheet changes for the nine beds and the jacuzzi cleaning they want you to do now or the 15 loads of dishes they have left you it's just a standard, uh, regular maintenance, cleaning, and these are geared towards your bi-weekly clients only.

Speaker 2:

So yeah, yeah, no, no add-ons.

Speaker 1:

And if they do add-ons, say I'd love to add that onto your bill and this is where you would take your credit card onto whatever crm or or digital calendar, whatever you're using, um and even with cancellations sometimes people get sick and they have to cancel We'll allow one, but we won't allow if you have to, if you're a bad, if you've picked a bad client who is high maintenance already, which you shouldn't have done you'll just remember me, the voice in your head and they become too problematic. It's just like the person that says that. How many times have we seen it, especially this year? I want weekly service, so then the next week comes up, oh, I'm going to skip this time, and then the following weeks I'm going to skip it again. Then they end up getting into a three week cycle but still want the weekly price, even though they don't want to pay the weekly price, because they're getting it every three weeks, which falls into the monthly category. And it's this whole weird dynamic of uncomfortableness. So be upfront, be very specific. You sign, they sign, they get a copy of what they signed and it's a done deal.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think I've only had to fire. I've probably done over a hundred of these types of deals in my tenure, cause I don't take on all of them. I don't take on $47,000. Um, cause I'm a little more cautious. She clearly had a lot of established clientele and she was comfortable doing that. But it it just makes sure that you're covering yourself and you understand what you're getting into and that they understand what they're getting into, cause it can fall into a gray area and you don't want anyone. We're we're in a society where we retaliate if we don't get what we want, and I'm just sick of it, so I don't want it to happen to you nor do I, nor do I and uh, yeah, I think we did we right.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, I think we got it yeah, I think that pretty much covers the basis.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this is just to boost these last couple of months. We want to go out with a bang for 2024 and they're on. This is a great way to implement something to get those numbers up right at the the you're. We're at the finish line, ladies and gentlemen, right?

Speaker 1:

and it could be that you don't implement all three strategies. Maybe you just do gift cards this year and you didn't think house cleaning could be sold as a gift. But it is a gift. You could do a nice card. You can make a gift basket, do wine, glasses, chocolate, whatever uh, email blasts, yeah, it's a.

Speaker 2:

You know it's a thing, it's a psychological thing. Um, I'm getting the email blast, it's just a thought. Hey, you know, we're getting ready for the big day. I'm already. Amazon is already. As soon as I open up to order, they're showing me the big day of October 9th and 8th or something like that, and that is preparing us for Black Friday, which is preparing us for Christmas. And by the time you guys hear this, it will be right around Halloween, maybe thereafter. Yeah, somewhere around in there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Black Friday bon Bonanza people. And then, if you have not had the opportunity to apply for my 100% free scholarship for the Structure, scale and Profit Clinic Business Academy I believe I'm still the only person doing this because I like to give back. I believe in reciprocity. Apply. It's literally 110 people have applied so far. I don't know if I'm going to cap it at a certain number or not, but it's an absolute. It's a $2,300 prize Well, a little bit more than that, and even by then, the membership will probably have come out by then, but it's something to consider if you want to add the strategies and apply them in your business. I give one away every single year and would love to see it's really.

Speaker 2:

I know you put a price on it. This is priceless. Knowledge is power, and you could, if you implement these things in your business that Shannon is telling you about, like I have, we've grown. What 181%. It was 161 a couple a month ago. It's about 181 now.

Speaker 1:

Man, that's over last year, folks. 181%. Pass yourself on back Jimmy. You did all the last year Pass yourself on back Jimmy.

Speaker 2:

You did all the hard work. I'm shocked, I just, I just and the feeling you get from it Just it's so. It's a great program. So get those applications in. This is I just. Yeah, I don't see anybody else doing it other than you I.

Speaker 1:

you know I'm friends with a lot of other coaches, mentors, consultants, whatever you want to call them. Just me, it's just me, just.

Speaker 2:

Shannon? No, it's Shannon is doing it and it's the Structure Scale Profit Cleaning Academy. It's on your website, right Clean Freaks University, and that's Clean Freaks University with a K.

Speaker 1:

Yep K-L-E-A-N-F-R-E-A-K-S universitycom. Thank you for joining us. I hope that this summary of the Black Friday Bonanza inspires you to purchase. It is a great way to add thousands of dollars to your bottom line, as you can see from the testimonial. I'd love to hear your questions, if you have them. You guys take care. Bye, Bye. Thank you, Jamie. Yes.

People on this episode

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Jamie Runco

Host
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Shannon Miller

Host