Cleaning Business Life

CBL Episode #91 How to get your clients to sign a service agreement!

• Shannon Miller and Kimberly Gonzales

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Discover the secrets to forging strong client relationships while safeguarding your cleaning business with expert insights from Shannon Miller and Jamie Runco of Above All Cleaning in Northern California. We'll show you how to transform your service agreements into powerful tools that set boundaries and prevent misunderstandings. With practical strategies for using both traditional and digital methods, you'll learn to streamline your processes and protect your team from unreasonable expectations. Plus, we share ways to ease the transition to new terms with existing clients, ensuring a smooth experience for everyone involved.

Join us as we explore the delicate balance between professionalism and empathy in client relationships, using the analogy of dating to illustrate the importance of boundaries. Hear personal anecdotes that demonstrate the protective power of contracts, including successful legal outcomes that have bolstered our confidence in these agreements. We also celebrate the achievements of community members like Macy, advocate for the adoption of flat rates, and discuss the necessity of price increases for new clients to maintain a sustainable business model.

Navigate the complexities of pricing strategies, client payments, and the shift towards automation with our guide to the best systems for your business. From Jobber to ZenMaid, we highlight the features that can help you manage a growing client base with ease. Learn how to handle legacy clients while understanding local competition and client expectations. Whether you're adapting to the needs of senior citizens or embracing new technology, this episode offers valuable insights for ensuring your cleaning business thrives in today's fast-paced world.

Here is the link for Cleaning Business Contracts: https://klean-freaks-university.newzenler.com/courses/special-offer-cleaning-business-contract-s-value-saving-bundle-master-class-copy

Up your cleaning game, join over 6000 Cleaning Business Owners most of whom are located here in the United States.  

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https://kleanfreaksuniversity.com/


Questions? Feel free to reach out!

Shannon Miller: cleaningbusinesslife@gmail.com

Join my FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1583362158497744
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIjMz_-9YyiFvNVIgb61iYg

To order All-Natural Cleaning Products: www.purevergreen.com
See Shannon's latest courses: www.KleanFreaksUnversity.com

Speaker 1:

Hello everyone. My name is Shannon Miller and I am your host, and I'm joined by my co-host, miss Jamie Runco of Above All Cleaning in Northern California and today we're going to talk about how to get your clients to sign a service agreement.

Speaker 1:

This was a big question and a big topic inside the group and I wanted to come out here and publicly walk you through, while you're listening to us talk, what the procedure is. There's a couple of methods to do, and then there's a couple of do's and some more don'ts, and then we can kind of talk about what all that's going to entail for the service agreement to get signed. First and foremost, trying to standardize a lot of things in the business, there is the cleaning contract bundle, which is available for sale on my website. It comes with six key contracts and two bonus items, and those contracts have been used personally by me and my business for almost. I can't believe it's going to be 15 years next year.

Speaker 1:

It goes by, click don't it Right, it goes by super fast. The move out cleaning contract has legitimately been used almost 8,900 times. The top to bottom deluxe cleaning contract has been used over 12,000 times. The regular maintenance cleaning contract has been used probably about 2,000 to 3,000 regular maintenance coming and going and coming and going. And the reason why you want contracts is to give yourself some boundaries so that not everything is verbal and you don't have issues with your customers leaving dishes in the sink You're not picking up their laundry or leaving kids toys all over the place, or what if your little fluffy leaves a nice gift for you on the carpet or they leave out inappropriate items? There's all kinds of things that if you don't have firm boundaries in place on what those parameters can be, it causes all kinds of problems for you, for your cleaning techs, and it causes problems with the clients, because then they expect more than what actually is being considered a gift right. So I know Miss Jamie's getting her thing together here.

Speaker 2:

No, it's my peppers. Her little dog is demanding attention.

Speaker 1:

So there is this whole dynamic of trying to figure out what's going to work, what's not going to work, why it's going to work and forgive me, folks, I forgot that.

Speaker 2:

I didn't have the, I guess I took it out the other day when I was filming. So yeah, we're. Yeah, I was just looking because now we can um download uh Zendler, right your phone on so we can have this app. The.

Speaker 1:

Zendler app is awesome, if you guys have not had a chance to check it out it is.

Speaker 2:

For me it was a game changer. I can literally see all of my courses right here on my phone and I'm a lot, I'm always on the go, so I can just connect it and click complete. And I have the contract bundle and I was using it To upload in my CRM and to Jobber the move out cleans. So you can set up For what I use, I can set up for for what I use, I can set up jobber for my cleaning text to, uh, and that comes with the cleaning bundle, contract bundle, the what for for what your cleaning techs need to do. So you, you can just upload it to your CRM and there it is. They know exactly what is expected of them, how to do, say, a move-in, move-out clean. I mean it's all right there for you, verbatim, step one, step two, step three. And that's a great, that was a great bundle. And then you just take it and make it your own.

Speaker 1:

Right, yeah, I think the only contingency with the bundle is it's only for personal use, for your business. You can't like download it and sell it as your own. But the steps for there's a couple of procedural steps. In getting someone to sign, there's a couple of procedural steps. I'll reiterate that for now, the old school method is very archaic for those who are very low tech and believe it or not, and it's very cumbersome on the customer. Before we had digital calendar systems and Google calendars and all that other stuff, the only way to get people the information was to old school it. They would. I would go and I would send them. I would compress my email file and I would send them over the email. They had to print out all of my contracts and this is crazy to think about now.

Speaker 2:

Well, let me tell you, I've done it all. I've done it all the ways Right.

Speaker 1:

I have printed out and then they have to. After they print it out and read it, they have to sign it. Then they have to photograph it and send it back via text message or an email. That is the very basic. Low tech is you can get method of getting someone to sign your service contract. If you are still doing in person bids, no crime in that, I think. Actually, the way the economy is, you probably should consider going back in that direction and pivoting, because people are looking for people that they can like, know and trust A connection.

Speaker 2:

Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1:

Especially since people are being really persnickety about everything and I know that there are some hardcore techie people who are going to be like no, but I think right now, considering what the economy is, it might be time to swing back in that direction a little bit and be very formal and not chatted up with Mary, who's 97 for an hour and a half and then you go. I've been gone from the office for three hours, right, so right.

Speaker 2:

we get a lot of people that for their parents, you know, and they want to, they'll be calling from out of state and they just want somebody to know that they're going to basically be taking care of their parents. So I go in and we meet up with them and you know, I still do in person. I do both ways. I don't have it completely down to do over the phone bidding. It's hard for harder for me, but I do like that connection. I do want to make sure that we're good fit you know, right, these are for regular maintenance.

Speaker 1:

I don't actually recommend that you walk one-time cleanings unless you're still learning how the breading process. Um, just because they're going to get, I found recently, um, because the economy, everyone's getting like 15 bids. I'm like why would you torture 15 people to come to your house to tell you the exact same thing? But, in any case, if you're still doing in-person bids, you bring your service agreement with you that you have printed out and made your own, and you bring two copies. And the reason why is because you're going to make an assumption that this person doesn't have access to internet and or a computer and a printer, and then that way they can have a copy of what they just signed.

Speaker 1:

Nobody likes to sign anything without reading it. 99 of them will do that and nobody wants to sign something not have a copy of what they signed. So, um, usually two copies, one for them, one for you. Once you get the credit card, you're going to take the deposit and then you're going to send over a confirmation email, if you don't have a CRM, and you're going to say I'm just confirming your scheduled cleaning appointment on such and such a day. We'll be performing a move out cleaning on this day. Please make sure that water, electricity are on and in use for the cleaning techs upon arrival. This is our cancellation policy, blah blah, blah, blah blah.

Speaker 2:

So that is the second low tech method. And then what's the third one, jamie? Well, I do, I throw mine. My terms and conditions are on my CRM. You hear me talking about it all the time. I use Jobber. I've used them all. I've tried them out. I tried ZenMaid, I tried. We just weren't a good fit Jobber. I always kept coming back to them because really they have the best incentive to keep me with them, right?

Speaker 1:

And I grew with them. I get one free. Every time someone buys one, it's a great affiliate. Ding ding, ding. Yes, Every time someone buys one, it's a great affiliate. Ding ding, ding. Yes, I was happy when they finally did that.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, and they have really taken off. So they're introducing this new product called Co-Pilot and now we're getting really techie. We're getting really techie now, but whenever I send the quote over, ok, and then whenever, in order for that, for us to schedule you, you have to read my terms and conditions, and on there it talks about my cancellation policy, which is for anything 48 hours we have, we, we reserve the right to charge the full price, right, if they don't cancel in time, if they don't cancel in time, if they don't cancel in time and this is all by case by case scenario right, I take it, if they're a constant canceler, then I'm charging, that's that's how that works, and those people might not be a good client either if they're constantly canceling exactly, and that's whenever you tell them that your, your your schedule is full right or you're you've gone a different direction, whatever.

Speaker 2:

However you want to spin it, that's up to you. But uh, it also talks about um poaching of my employees, my cleaning. I've spent a lot of money into investing in them. It's not cheap to hire somebody One person is. It probably cost me about $3,000 at the end of it to train, bring up to a board, make sure that they are comfortable, anyways. So it talks about that and they have to sign at the bottom and it can either be digitally or it can be through an email. Some of these people are older and so we're always getting the emails, always get an email. We're always getting the emails, always get an email and they'll sign it and I put at the very bottom of it. In order for you to hold and secure a spot on our schedule, there must be a deposit and whatever your deposit is, I do normally 50%. If they're out of the county I do 75% and sometimes, based on how I feel, I want the whole thing on there and there's a lot of reasons for that.

Speaker 1:

When you're getting a 50% deposit to secure their spot on your schedule air tags I'm air quoting here You're at least covering your labor that it would have cost you because your cleaning tax are still going to be paid, right, so they've taken the time to want to work for you.

Speaker 1:

You've taken the time to show them how to do their job. And when you have shenanigans from clients who canceled the last minute or there's an emergency and there's always a state of perpetual crisis you're not sticking it to them because you take pleasure in it. You're sticking it to them so you can cover your labor costs for that day and you know if your price point starts at 500 bucks and 250 should cover, hypothetically speaking, the effort that it took to get it in the crm just to have the email sent over to charge the credit card and that at least the cleaning techs get paid a minimum of four hours for the day. There's a lot of stipulations over what happens if you arrive and there's no water and electricity on site. There is a clause in my contract and the reason for that is because you need to have water and electricity on.

Speaker 1:

I mean it doesn't have to be hot water, but we do need liquid, because cleaning is a form of friction and the water is the lubricant to make the friction work.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, but I've been in situations where I've also been off grid and we've had a whole line of cleaning techs trying to figure out how to turn on this $75,000. Pump house, yeah, or what is that? Solar Right, the big, huge battery packs Right.

Speaker 1:

I'm like I have no idea.

Speaker 2:

there's no one, two, three on here, oh geez, and trying to do it over the phone. So, yes, you have to have power and electricity. I, after that whole scenario and or me having to drive, uh, 15 miles in a long, twindy road to go and get jugs of water, right, I'm, I'm charging for that.

Speaker 2:

My minimum was 500 bucks for me to drive down there and after I hit the four wheel drive to to get to your property with a whole entourage of people, because we do a lot of big jobs off grid Right. It's a lot of off gridgrid stuff here. It's, it's I don't know, wild, wild west I guess. But I, I take deposits and it goes towards your cleaning. It does and, and um, I've. In the beginning I used to think, oh man, this is that's kind of awkward, I wouldn't want to pay, you know, to hold a spot on my I. I was that thinker. Um, I think I've had one person the whole time that I've ever done this question the reason why I take a deposit, they asked me me, is that even legal?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it is. Yes, you go and you order stuff online. They're the owner of a construction company here.

Speaker 2:

I won't name names, just in case they decide to listen to me chat about Anyways.

Speaker 1:

When you go to Airbnb or short-term rentals or vrbo's, you're not paying half, you're paying for it up front all of it, the whole thing.

Speaker 1:

It's a business. There are costs involved so you need to protect yourself and if someone goes, is that legal? They might not be your client and they're going to fight you on everything. You business with them or not. Some of those guys can be really difficult. Um, I found that builders who complain a lot don't budget for cleaning anyway, and it's an interesting dynamic to be put in Right. It's just like what are you going to do to hook me up Because I gave you this business?

Speaker 2:

I'm like yeah, keep going on. I know you're not stopping me because you know what. Just as you're a legal business and I see your little company all around, guess what? So am I Right, we all are you I have put I pay my taxes, I pay my insurance, I have actual employees, I we won't even get into how much that is and you know I it's a legitimate business and you're going to treat me as such, right? Yeah, don't get me on my soapbox on that one.

Speaker 1:

Definitely, and it's it's important that you have people in this progression. You're, you're establishing a relationship, whether it's one time or long-term, and you have to put up feelers. It's like dating, right? You get to know that person, you're on your best behavior until they're not on their best behavior and you're like, oh my God, this is a bad day. Yes, that way. So there's also the dynamic of you know, you've, you've listened to me and now you want to make these people sign paperwork. This has been my experience, and I'm speaking from truth. When you start to implement all of these crazy notions I put in your brain and you're like, oh my God, I got to do this. Go to your current clients and say, hey, I'm starting to, and you can say whatever you want, but I'm going to I'm updating yeah, I'm updating my terms and conditions. And here is your new terms and conditions.

Speaker 1:

Now, if this is the first time you've done this, some of your clients are going to be resistant, because they feel that they've shown you loyalty, they've been with you for X amount of years. They don't understand what all this huff and puff is about. Blah, blah, blah. So those people there, you're just going to hand them the paperwork. They have a physical copy. And you're just going to hand them the paperwork they have a physical copy and you're not going to push the issue until something comes up. And then at that point you're going to say remember that paperwork I gave you in August. And it said you know my terms and conditions. And you're going to say do you still have it? And they're going to like say, no way, I chucked it in the trash. Say, well, I'm giving it to you this time I'm going to give you a freebie, but if this happens again, I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to bill you for a full cleaning.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

This is how you teach. It's like teaching children Right.

Speaker 2:

This is how you teach people the lessons You're training your clients, just as you would train your cleaning tech Right? Some not everybody has. You know, a lot of people think can look down their noses at us and whenever you're, there's some couple of people here that I have my eye on. And, macy, if you're listening, you're, you're be one of them and take it from Shannon that this is how you're going to start implementing these things, because I see you, you have skin in the game. I see you all over on Facebook and I see you in our groups and you're getting that reputation. Yeah, you're getting that momentum out, and I just wanted to shout you out too. I'm really proud of you and you're just going to moving forward from you know we call them legacy clients, but moving forward, taking on any new clients.

Speaker 2:

If you wanted to do your price increase, if you want it to do your price increase, this is where you do your price increase. If you want it to charge, your start charging, uh, flat rates. Moving forward, you're charging flat rates. You're going to start putting your um terms and conditions. Uh, shannon has an awesome contract bundle. I've used it. And how many? 8,500 just for? Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 1:

It blows me away. I've had to, unfortunately, sue people more, more so now than ever before and I've won every single time because I had the contract. So if having the contract is really important, it is and it you know what.

Speaker 2:

I don't call it a contract, I call it an agreement, right, yeah, I call it welcome aboard, but it is, at the end of the day, it's it's, uh, setting up your boundaries, and just this is how I spin it. Whenever I am, okay, the client's in front of me and I've made this. You know, yep, sign me up. Okay, this is how much it's going to cost. It's be, you know, $200 biweekly. We'll start you off at a deep clean. It's going to be 500. It's going to be 500, um, first time deep clean and we got you a board. Okay, cool, in order for you to have a spot on my schedule, I need for you to sign my terms and conditions and if you, if you're right there in front of them, you're going to want to point out like they have to sign, I have it on my phone and I'm still doing in-person bidding and they have to sign it on my phone. And then they hit agree. And then, in order to hold the spot on my schedule, I do ask for a 50% deposit, which goes to your cleaning and, um, and it says, right there, if you don't cancel within 48 hours. Again, case by case scenario.

Speaker 2:

There are some times that and over unless they're elderly and they're going through some sort of treatment, then I have to charge you for the full price. Sometimes I don't charge for the full price but I'll be like, well, I'm going to hold this deposit, right? Yeah so, and then, moving forward, uh, there is no deposit because we've come to this agreement. You just, you know that they're under the understanding that they are going to get dinged, and I have done it to my legacy clients. I've also let some of them slide.

Speaker 2:

I've also felt like they're having a really chaotic, hard time and I sometimes don't charge for the full, clean, right, because they've been with me so long and they do more for our business by shouting us out to whoever will listen. They're my biggest cheerleaders and there's times whenever it's like you know what today was hard here, I'm going to only charge you X amount of dollars instead of this, and don't do it often, very often, because again, I have a lot, so many bills to pay whenever you're a legitimate business, you know, and it gets easier and easier as you go on. Now I don't even think twice about it, it's just that's how it is, and so with your legacy clients.

Speaker 1:

You're going to hand them the paperwork. They're not going to do anything with it. They're going to either be passive, aggressive and throw it in the trash and then, if they have an incident, you can remind them hey, I gave you some paperwork. You're going to put it in their file on your CIM that way, because you're not going to remember when you get to the 400 mark and you're dealing with 400 clients all the time. You're not going to remember every little detail. That's why you have to write yourself, either do voice notes or hand notes in your phone, and then all of your new clients aren't going to know any different. They're just going to think this is normal protocol.

Speaker 1:

This is your opportunity to test out the threshold of your pricing, because if you have a legacy client that is paying 120 bucks and you have your new price point being $167, you're going to say biweekly is is 167 to 189.25. And then that's your opportunity to go and they'll either say yay or nay. It's been really challenging this year because we've had some of the crazy phone calls. I've literally gotten phone calls from people who want me to help them create fraud with their insurance companies, or they're getting 15 bids from 15 different companies and it's just crazy to me to think that someone would go to that much effort to get 15 bids to waste 15 people's times.

Speaker 2:

Just say $10, $15. We all in our market in your area should be charging about the same price. Our minimum here is for us we're again in California. We do not. I do not send any cleaning check out for under $180 on a standard clean. That is my minimum. That's a minimum and our average ticket is about $2.25.

Speaker 1:

Actually where everything should be right about now, but it's really hard to get that in some spots. But try to practice elevator speech, because you would be surprised who will pay and who will not pay. And the people who do not pay, that's OK. We have the right to choose here in america, which is one of the great things about our country. And if they don't pay, it's okay. That just means that it's just not made to be a match now, um you're not going to get every single client.

Speaker 2:

It's just not.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you're not, and don't try no, you don't want every single client.

Speaker 2:

You don't it, just don't even try, just next, and if that's too high for you, one fifties. But something you know one fifties about, I see, about the national average for a bi-weekly client one 65, somewhere's around in there, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Or a little higher I was to the one 72 mark right now and people like oh, I didn't pay that down in Scottsdale, my Scottsdale baby, thanks for moving up here to your second home and sitting here like, yeah, your second million dollar home, right, the one that you know.

Speaker 2:

Only, I only stay at, geez, okay, yeah yeah, there's a.

Speaker 1:

We have an area where we have a lot of second and third homes and they like the lifestyle up here. But I hear it all the time oh my gosh, everything's so expensive up here. I'm like you have no idea what it's like to have a workforce. It's really in this area, because we're rural, the workforce is different. We don't have the competition of you know, we have 60 cleaning companies in our area down at Scottsdale. There's probably 500 or maybe even 1,000 cleaning companies in just that area alone. So there's a different market. But yeah, and if you guys are still struggling with pricing and you're still charging $80, the Pricing Blueprint Masterclass is literally the price of a Starbucks. It's $10.

Speaker 2:

And it's so good, it's so worth it. I can't believe, honestly, I don't believe that it's $10.

Speaker 1:

It's been on sale for a while. I'm probably going to keep it down at that price just because of the economy. It normally is a $100 course and it just teaches you how to price. Yeah, and it's just teaches you how to price. Yeah, we've all been to a gas station or a restaurant where the computer system goes down and no one knows how to count cash still to this day. Sorry, I didn't put airplane mode on it's my mom Airplane mode on my phone. People need to know how to count cash. You need to know how to break down the price structure so you understand what you're doing. Yes, you could probably buy an app, but you don't understand what you're, what you're putting. You're putting in these numbers, but you don't understand the math behind it, so it's not going to make any sense. So when it comes time for you to learn your margins right, I don't have any clue of why your margins are this way.

Speaker 1:

I see a lot of people who are trying to sell the remote model. I live down in Mexico and I do this, I do that and I'm like, well, and when you look at their margins, they're not paying their cleaning techs any money, so they're probably turning and burning.

Speaker 2:

Let's burn them out.

Speaker 1:

Obviously, they're not valued, valued right um but you know it's all about me and I'm gonna make all this money and you guys know who you're I'm talking about and I'm probably going to call you out at some point because you guys are just mean. It's like give me a break. So so the the dynamic is the the low, low, low, low, low. That's the. So don't come to me and tell me I can't do this because I don't know the tech. You can do the old school method of sending over an email, compressing it, having them, send them back, which is more labor intensive, which is what we did before we had all these technological advances. Print them out. You can print them out and go with two copies and do an in-person bid and hand them their copy.

Speaker 1:

You can do the now more higher tech method, which is, you know, sending it over If you're, even if you're doing an in-person bid. Jamie says you can sign right on her phone, which I have not yet to try, but I don't go out in person. I know I'm curious. Yeah, then it goes over all of your terms and conditions inside the quote, which is nice, and it took me a long time. I did DocuSign for years and then DocuSign ended up being like a hundred dollars a month. I'm like why am I paying this when Jobber offers it included in the price?

Speaker 2:

Exactly I. Somebody asked me about the DocuSign the other day in Jobber and it got me interested. So I went to go see, because you get it free for 30 days. And I'm like, well, you can't even edit in DocuSign Whatever's there is there. And it's like like oh, those are my old, old prices, right. So, um, jobber does it all, uh for for us.

Speaker 1:

So, um, and we haven't even included in because my business name is my full name. When you go to the corporation commission and it says by um, by you accepting this bid, you authorize to charge the card given over the phone, whatever that ends up being, and the charge will be under my name, because what happens is they go. Who the heck is this lady? And why did they charge? You know, 780 bucks, right? And I'm like did you, did you see what you? Half the time they don't realize that they signed it. And I'm like unfortunately, you get to pay me for the dispute, right, cause it's 50 bucks with your, depending on who you sign up with.

Speaker 1:

And then there's work involved and everything else. So there's that dynamic too. So there's the three methods of getting people to sign. Do not force your legacy clients to sign them. If they sign it, great, that means those are your number one clients. Treat them like gold. The people who like give you the whole. I'm going to like what did Nancy Pelosi do? She ripped up the State of the Union address. She went. I think those are legal documents, historical documents. I don't think you can do that. And and I've had customers do that Like I'm never going to sign any of this for you. So go away. I'm like well, see you later. And then they're like they will phase that.

Speaker 2:

Eventually they will phase themselves out. I just moving forward, you're going to have a signed document and we won't do anything without any more. Credit card has to be on file, right? I don't, I don't even see. Credit card has to be on file, right, I don't, I don't even see, right, I don't even see it anymore. Um, I, I'm slowly phasing out.

Speaker 2:

Um, I use square as well. Uh, sometimes it's a hit and miss, so I I'm almost phased out of square. But, yeah, you, you can it. Once you get a little more techie, you can send it the quote over, they sign it, they read it, they sign it, they put the deposit down and then they automatically there's a place where they can save their credit card on file, a place where they can save their credit card on file, and I will not allow you to be a client unless you have a credit card on file. I think I have one and she's a legacy client that still does, and you can put on there too, paid by Venmo or whatever. I have one left that still on, still does Venmo, and that's whatever. That's fine, it's price of doing business. I, in my opinion also.

Speaker 1:

Jamie also accepts payment through Jobber and Stripe and Square, I believe. Right, yes, and you don't have to take all of those. It's just as an added on convenience. You can also. What I do is when I'm on the phone with you, you can I get all their information. I, on the phone with you, you can I get all their information. I get the credit card over the phone and I manually have it inputted and we keep it on file.

Speaker 1:

Um, you can do the, the crm method with jobber, or you can still do it, the old school method. Um, and it's because we have more people who, um, I don't want to say transient in a bad way, but there there's people dying and properties are changing hands. They often live in another state, so it's just easier to have the hard copy of that information. And so I'm getting the credit card information, I'm doing the hand bid and then I'm sending over the job or thing and they're authorizing everything and then I'm charging it by hand. I'm having the assistant do that, but you can make it totally automated. I'm having the assistant do that, but you can make it totally automated.

Speaker 1:

Jamie's way is way easier. You just end up paying a little bit more for the cost of doing business. So you decide what works best with you. I just want to throw that option out there. So it's not entirely not doable. It's just we have two different methods and this works best for me in my area because I have mostly senior citizens who are in their 80s. Yeah, and that way works best with jamie because she she legitimately has like five or seven thousand dollar jobs way out in the boondock. I've seen pictures of her formal driving and my heart's going like am I on the phone with me.

Speaker 1:

She's like, yeah, I'm like, oh my god, get off the phone. Look at this road, right it's, it's scary stuff. I don't know if I'd be a passenger in Jamie's car, because it's just like look, you can see it goes straight down like almost like a third world country trying to scale across the right method. There's just no. No. Work easiest for you, pick one that works easiest for you and stick with it. And yeah, and if you ever need.

Speaker 2:

If you guys go with the jobber route, I am, I'm here, I can. I can help assist in that. Go ahead and shoot away with some questions. I'm pretty, pretty, pretty good at it, so yeah, it's up there.

Speaker 1:

If she's getting free promos and I'm not, it's clearly surpassed me and the job or usage, so Jamie's considered an expert. Now, I mean, if she's getting, there's like there's the whole receptionist thing which I wanted to check, check out, but it wasn't offered to me. So, um, and there's a couple of other things that are coming up, and jobber. I've been with jobber since 2015 almost 10 years next year and they've grown. A lot there is, and you don't have to use jobber. You know we don't get a benefit from it either way. We occasionally get three months, for whatever reason. Yeah, there's ZenMaid, there's Launch27. I mean, there's like 15 or 20 different products. Now I believe ZenMaid offers a free version and then you have to pay for the extras. It just depends on what works for you.

Speaker 2:

I've had the same plan for almost a decade. There's a change in it for nothing.

Speaker 1:

a decade, and I mean they didn't even charge me sales tax until just recently because they're in Canada and we're not. But um, I've tried the premium stuff for a while. I didn't really dig it. It just work what's with what you're comfortable with. And then some people go oh my God, I can't believe that's what you pay. I'm like you know what I used to have to call. Believe it or not, I was one of those 50 homes a day At the end of a long day. This is Shannon with Castle Keeper Cleaning. I'm just calling to remind you that your scheduled appointment at 9 am that blah, blah, blah, blah will be there.

Speaker 2:

And I would have to call the calls or I'd have someone else do it for me, because I eventually farmed it off and then when jobber came, I was like game changer. I don't have to make those phone calls and you can set it to whatever uh, whatever reminder you have it for. I think I have uh for email it's three days and for a text it's three days, and for a text it's 24 hours. They send them out at 3.30 or 4.30 pm my time Right, and you can change that anytime, whatever works for you. Yeah, you can mess around with it, and I was too. I used to have to call everybody or do those cute little pictures of a reminder of your cleaning tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

And I see a lot of people doing that still, and there's nothing wrong with that. But once you're growing, or even if you're a solo cleaner, I feel like maybe that's easier for you. That's fine. This is more geared towards people that are growing their business and that are starting to need help.

Speaker 1:

Right Helpers you have to start delegating out the tasks that take up a lot of time and it's almost going to be an automated process. I would imagine the next 18 months AI will really kick in and then whatever you put in, the AI will pick up and just shoot it out. You won't have, it'll adjust it automatically. Is what I see it happening. Those are the methods of getting someone who is either a legacy client, which is the current client or new clients aren't going to know any different. You're now setting the path and you're getting the higher prices is what I hope.

Speaker 1:

I hope that answered your questions, because there was some confusion over how to do it, how to make it and what to do, and some people don't push the issue. If they don't want to sign, eventually they'll phase themselves out when there's an episode, and then you'll be able to have room for someone who's a higher paying client who will start paperwork no questions asked and the more, the longer that a lot of us start to do this, the more standardized the industry becomes, and then the expectation for higher pay comes right after. I am praying for you guys.

Speaker 2:

Yes, no, it just becomes a thing right. It just becomes nothing but a thing anymore. It's like oh, and it's like oh, I made this, Not that you're making it hard, You're just sitting there fumbling around.

Speaker 1:

Overthink things. Yeah, just easily delegate it out and that's me, right.

Speaker 2:

I was the overthinker and I made life so much easier on myself and I'm, like I I said, a legitimate company now. So, yeah, that's how we get people to sign and in your legacy, clients will phase themselves out. Moving forward.

Speaker 1:

this is how you should do this going forward with all your clients and a note about legacy clients, and I've heard this a lot from a lot of cleaners, especially solo cleaners. It's like they've become family. They're my friends. I wouldn't do that for them.

Speaker 2:

There is no friends or loyalty in business there isn't in terms and conditions period it is, and it's such a hard, uh, it's such a hard lesson to learn whenever you realize that somebody you thought was your friend or you know, I, I just it's. But it's the lesson that that would be learned. And don't learn the hard way like, uh, shannon and I have, um, just put those boundaries up and try to think, nope, this is how this is going to be. No friends, right? No, no, no, keep that.

Speaker 1:

And it's hard, it's hard not to get attached to them. I mean, I have story upon story upon story upon story.

Speaker 1:

And you really want to be part of that life cycle, of what's going on. But remember there are no friends in business. Anybody who has been really successful has not had any real friends in business and if you had reach out, I'm curious to know the dynamics of your relationship. But it's. You are the service provider and they are the customers. You are here to make money. If you are not making money off of them, you're leaving money on the table and you're going to bankrupt yourself.

Speaker 1:

I hate having those conversations of like what did you gross last year? What were your margins? How many clean texts do you have? I've legitimately spoken to three business owners who are paying. They're charging $20 an hour, which is ridiculous in this time. They're paying their girls $18. I go so you're paying for the privilege of cleaning these homes, she's like, but they keep me busy. I go. You're going to realize sooner probably rather than later, that you're going to bankrupt yourself and you're just doing it because it's a hobby. It's not a job or a career or a business, which is what you want. You want a business, not a.

Speaker 1:

J-O-B. What did they say? J-o-b is just over broke, just over.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's exactly it, Anytime you're working for someone else.

Speaker 1:

It's just someone. I don't know where I heard that from, maybe one of the other mentor groups I'm in, but yeah, job is just over broke. So you want to make sure that you don't have a job, that you actually have a career, that you are creating a legacy that you can gift to family or that you can sell at another date. It is my true passion to see everyone succeed. I know I say it over and over and over again, and by now, when you guys finally have gotten around to listening to this podcast, which will be in December, we will have already announced who the winner was.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I can't wait. Are you still getting them to come in? Are they still?

Speaker 1:

I'm at the 260 mark, so 260 people have applied. I'm hoping to make it to 300 this year.

Speaker 2:

We'll see, yeah so that's a good way to, in this uh podcast, go ahead and mention about the uh getting those, those applications in for the scholarship.

Speaker 1:

So by the time this podcast comes out, which will be in december, the oh okay, so the scholarship will have been filled. However, once a year um I give away um my signature course, the structure, scale and profit cleaning business academy. I believe I am the only cleaning business coach that does that, and it's my way of giving back to my community. I feel it's important to raise everyone up, not just to select few, so that I can see them expand and grow and evolve and become the cleaning business owners they deserve to be.

Speaker 2:

Call us selfish, but it is. It's very heartwarming to sit there and watch somebody that you you have taken and helped show them that you are valued and you can be valued and you can make a lot of money here, and this is how you do it the road to success. And to watch people expand like that is it pulls on my heart, yeah no, I, I love, I love. I just, it's just, I know, I know the feeling.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for tuning in, you guys. We'll see you guys next week. Take care, bye.

People on this episode

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Jamie Runco

Host
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Shannon Miller

Host