CBL Episode # 136 When A Cleaner Walks Out

A cleaner walks out at noon. The kitchen’s half-done, the client’s checking the clock, and your day just veered off course. We’ve been there, and we’ve learned how to turn that gut-punch into a client win, a team rally, and a better system for tomorrow. This conversation dives deep into the moments no one posts on Instagram: anxiety-fueled walk-offs, tense homeowner confrontations, gear left in the rain, and the hard calls leaders have to make in the field.

We share the exact steps we take to protect the client relationship first—calm apology, clear plan, fast coverage—and how we stabilize operations without burning bridges. You’ll hear the policies born from real pain: a code of conduct that guards your team, an on-site escalation protocol, job completion rules, and why having a personal vehicle matters more than you think. We get practical about building resilience: cross-training so anyone can finish the job, floaters paid to rescue the schedule, and a always-on hiring funnel that keeps you from scrambling when someone quits midday.

This episode also gets honest about leadership in the cleaning industry. Emotions spill over. People snap. Clients cross lines. We talk about staying professional under fire, documenting incidents to protect your brand, handling bad reviews with facts, and using exit interviews to fix root causes. 

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Erica Paynter is the brains behind My Virtual Bookkeeper, a bookkeeping firm for cleaning companies, and the creator of Clean Co. Cash Flow Academy and the Clean Co. Collective. She’s on a mission to help cleaning business owners make sense of their numbers without boring them to tears! Erica’s all about turning messy books into profit-packed powerhouses.

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It can be crowed when trying to figure out who you are going to learn from

Chapters

• 0:00 Tempo: 120.0

Transcript

Speaker 01: 1:54

Big news from the Structure Scale and Profit Cleaning Business Academy. Starting October 2nd, we're giving away a full scholarship to the SSBP CBA program. Your chance to finally build, grow, and scale the cleaning business you've been dreaming of. No streams, no gimmicks, just real opportunity to change your future. I do this as a way of giving back to my community. Entries open on October 2nd. The winner will be announced on Black Friday of 2025. Don't miss this. Your next level starts now. Apply and acclaim your shot at success. Welcome back, Miss Jamie. It feels like I haven't seen you in forever, even though I believe it was like last week, but time is time seems to be going pretty fast right now on our planet.

Speaker 00: 2:53

Right now, as of the recording of this. We're in October. So fourth quarter. Yes, fourth quarter. Woohoo! Let's hear what you guys. I would love to hear what everyone's goals are for your fourth quarter. Especially whenever you're liking, subscribing, and re-giving us a five-star review on the cleaning business podcast. Definitely. And what are we talking about today? Because we are gonna talk about happen.

Speaker 01: 3:24

You've not had it. I've had it happen. I've had it happen two ways, and I'll explain both scenarios. Okay, perfect. And today's topic, and you guys get this is a juicy bit here. I don't know if it's a drum roll or not, but it says when your cleaner quits midday, there's a couple of scenarios that can go down. And it's always a crisis moment, and how you handle it speaks volumes to the rest of your team. So this can happen when you are out of the field and your your cleaning tech just walks off the job. This can happen when you're in the job and you're working with a bunch of cleaning techs, and the person has a meltdown for whatever reason, and you have to pull off the job because they didn't have a vehicle, and then you have to drive them all the way back into town.

Speaker 00: 4:11

Right next to you. Right.

Speaker 01: 4:12

And it threw all of the rest of the day off because this person had a meltdown. There's just uh they get overwhelmed. I've had them walk off the job in the middle of a top-to-bottom deluxe cleaning where they had an anxiety attack because they said they could do it, and in reality, they just said this is above my pay grade. I need help. Let's see. I just yeah, or or they get in a confrontation with the homeowner. I've had them walk off the job for that because the homeowner told them to F off and all these other things, hence the reason for the code of conduct policy that we have in place. What else? I think it has like happened five or six times.

Speaker 00: 4:49

Well, that's great because I had you as my mentor tell me about these things that could possibly happen. So I put that in my employee handbook basically, and then I shot it over to Sarah and asked her, Can you help me make an employee handbook? This is what I want it to include. So these things happen to you, and I was fortunate enough. I, you know, I hired you as as my to help help build my business here because you've been there. I have not, and I feel like maybe some of these policies have saved me in a lot of instances, and then there's instances that I have learned that you're just I had to go through the threshold of doing myself, like you know, unemployment and yeah, yeah, but quitting mid midday in the middle of a clean knock on wood, I have not had that yet. And maybe it is because I have some policies in place from others that have been there and done that.

Speaker 01: 6:02

There can be a lot in any workplace. What back in the day when I worked for Nordies, that's Nordstrom's for those of you who don't know that it is. It's Nordstrom's is commission-based. So I worked in the lingerie department. So I I got to see everything. I mean, we were intimate with each other because I was helping to fit you for bras mostly. Nine times what did they say? Eight out of ten have the wrong size bra. But what I witnessed when I was just a lonely salesperson there is I watched two salespeople get in an argument over a customer, and there was a pushing and shoving, and then a couple punches thrown. Oh what caused the alarm because I came from corporate, corporate, corporate, corporate, corporate, corporate, structured most of it management, and they just dismissed it and shrugged their shoulders. So I had to go to the store manager, which of course got me blackballed for a lot of things. I said, look, these two people just got in a physical altercation on the sales floor and they threw punches. You need to pull them off the floor. I had to tell them how to do their job, and they need to go home for the day andor get suspended for X amount of days because nobody wanted to do it because it's all commission, and these were the top two salespeople in that department. So they so I'm like, if you don't do this, then I'm gonna go above your head. And I was the one who made them get suspended, and they they each got like a five-day non-paid vacation, but it just was like, and I had to, I was the the the manager. This was me in my 30s, the manager was like 20. I had no experience whatsoever. And I had I was the one who broke it up. The poor customers like get away from me, and they were like throwing punches over this person was buying La Perla bras. If we've ever purchased a LaPurla bra, they're like 800 bucks to twelve hundred dollars each. Oh my god, yeah, it's it's like it's we won't even go into retail theory right there, but the so there was a lot of things going on that shouldn't have happened, and the manager, I shouldn't have had to do the manager's job. So conflict does happen. We had conflict a lot at TGA Fridays when I was in management. I watched people get in fist fights over parking spots, and then they would like brush themselves off and start to walk in the restaurant. I'm like, you can't come in today. And they're like, why? I'm like, because I just witnessed you get in a fist fight over a parking spot. There are 5,000 parking spots in this shopping center. You can take one of those. It just you people get set off really easy, so there's conflict. Right cleaning tech walk off a job. I've had that happen too, and you're just like before the day started. I had one quit.

Speaker 00: 8:50

So, you know, I but that was before they were at the house, like actual house. And I could just imagine if you're at a a standard just maintenance bi-weekly clean, weekly clean or something, and you just they just are in their own head and just walk off the job or or whatever, you know.

Speaker 01: 9:10

I couldn't or they decide to have their own little party on the job. There's so there, I think back to all of the thousands of people that I've either hired and or they've gone through my business, either I've known them in management or they'd gone through my own company, and that's literally tens of thousands of people. We had a lot of people who with regular maintenance, if the homeowner didn't greet them the right way, they would have a full-on meltdown, and these people didn't drive. So you're having to facilitate getting this person off site because the homeowner's upset. The cleaning tech's out front having a meltdown, they're crying. And I'm like, okay, well, maybe, maybe this isn't you're not cut out for this. Maybe, maybe there's another option for you. Those types of situations happen. There was, and I probably have mentioned this before. I hired a cleaning tech, and we were doing a move out cleaning of my property out in Chino Valley, and I had a lot of things scheduled that day, so I dropped off. This individual did not have a car, so I went into town because I lived in Chino. So that's a 23-mile trek on the highway, thank goodness. And to do the move out cleaning of the property that we're living at. And my husband had said something off-handed to him, and he got upset. And this person did not want to be on property. My husband didn't want him to be on the property, so I had to go physically, and I was already in town, so I had to drive all the way back out to Chino Valley, pick this person up, and then I had to sit in the car of silence. Yeah, the awkward 22 miles, which is like a 15 to 20 minute ride, depending on how fast you're going.

Speaker 00: 10:41

I had a great time, like, I'm just gonna turn this this up. Right.

Speaker 01: 10:44

So you turn on the radio, and there's still silence in the car, and you're just like, you know, so then you're trying to broach the situation, like what happened, and then you know, then it's always one-sided, and then then my husband is bombing my phone, all all this in the in the 20s or whatever, right? So I'm like, this is out of control. So I would it it happens, the things like this happen, or I a cleaning tech who I met them at the property, we walked it. I looked her straight in the face. I said, Are you this is a little more beyond than what we discussed over the phone? Do you need me to get you a second person? Oh well, the person that says yes, does it? Yeah, don't worry. I'm like, Are you sure? Because this is like out of one out of a 10, this is like on the specter of like 12, almost 13. I'm happily, we can reschedule this, we'll just charge them a show-up fee. You'll still get paid. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, don't be silly, don't be silly, Shannon. We're just overthinking it. I need them hours. I need the money. Right. I need the money, I need the hours, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, okay. So I want to say an hour and a half in, because I usually check in at the midway point, usually at lunchtime. Hey, don't forget to take lunch. And I like she's having a full-on meltdown. She just is not capable of finishing the job. So she called me, she she left the job. So I, of course, she called you. Right. She called me, right? So at least I didn't find out from the homeowner, which just also happened. Oh my gosh. That's where you know, then I'm like, oh, hey, I I have to call you and let you know that, you know, and I lied. The cleaning tech is not feeling well and is gonna be leaving, but and I don't have any extra body, so you're gonna see my smiling face in about 22 minutes.

Speaker 00: 12:29

I'm on my way. Yeah, that's whenever you gotta pull up your. I definitely but I'm also thinking about if it was a bi-weekly or a weekly clean, and they just like midway through, stop cleaning, nobody knows that they left or anything. How do you you know, like that's when the homeowner calls? That's whenever the problem, yeah. And boy, you would backpack, you'd have to backpedal like what? Right. Well, it's stupid and just totally caught with your pants down, which you already are, but it's like in that moment, you have to be, you have to like buck up. That's the time that it's just goes into the head.

Speaker 01: 13:13

The larger houses, you know, and it's not that dirty, but it's a lot of house, and then they get overwhelmed, or they got in a fight with their boyfriend, they didn't say anything. Hey, I you know, I got in a fight with my boyfriend, and then you see them in the bathroom if you're working together and they're in the bathroom, like you know, and they're texting back and forth and they're fighting with each other, and it's going faster and faster and faster. Like, are you okay? What? Right. And so then the you know, then the phone starts ringing, and it just becomes this whole dynamic. I've had cleaning text get in a fist fight, like a boyfriend, girlfriend. I've had them get in a fist fight in someone's driveway. That's fun. Oh you just like the homer's like, I don't think I want you coming back. I'm like, yeah.

Speaker 00: 13:54

For those that you can't see, you're just totally, you know, that emoji where you're like one eye, one hand over your eye, the other one's like you're looking, but you don't want to look away. And and then that would be like trying to put your hand into a bad dog fight. Right.

Speaker 01: 14:13

Well, so when you have a cleaning tech that just walks off the job for whatever reason, first of all, it's not professional. Second of all, we all know that we're human and we cannot walk on water because if we'd be walking on water, we'd be doing other things. And I've only heard about someone walking on water about three or four times ever in the history of humanity. Is it three or four times? I'm trying to remember there was Peter, and then Jesus Jesus did it twice. Maybe it's three times. I there's gotta be a fourth one in there. If you guys know, let me know because I'm a little rusty in my Bible knowledge. Oh, yeah. So you have to kind of ponder and you have to have the 10-second pause. I know people have called it other things. So when you have someone that just dumps, they just vomit whatever it is on you. Give yourself a chance to like think before you say anything and say, Are you sure they're not in the house just hanging out with you know headphones in? I've had that happen where they thought they left and they were just over there dancing in the mirror, realizing that they're being watched.

Speaker 00: 15:33

Yeah. I now that I've had happen, but scary.

Speaker 01: 15:38

But as far as walking off the job, sometimes people just get overwhelmed. Sometimes their personal lives leak into their professional lives. Long gone are the days where you just suck it up. Like I came from old school management, and there were times when I was at TGI Fridays. I'm I'm sure I've shared this story before with my general manager because I was the assistant general manager. They wanted to force me to quit so they wouldn't have to pay for unemployment. And during those times of trials is what they called them, I would go in the bathroom and I would cry. And then as soon as I was done crying, because it was just it was mean and awful and all, I can tell you in detail how hurtful it was, all of the mean things they said. But I was like, I'm not gonna quit. And I bucked it up. I pulled up my bootstrapped it, walked back out with a big old smile on my face, redid my mic. Put my lipsticks back on, my wiped my eyes. I wasn't gonna give them the satisfaction of knowing that they got to me because that's the kind of management which is not ideal, nor is chilling, but I'm in the caddy more bitches.

Speaker 00: 16:43

Yeah, not into cattiness.

Speaker 01: 16:46

No, not at all. So there's those types of instances, but people people's lives spill into their professional lives, and I know that we're just now getting the leg to stand on as I can label us professional. I tell you guys all the time, we are the 23rd trade. And still to this day, I signed up for something and it says list your industry and cleaning is still not there.

Speaker 00: 17:09

I'm like, well, I I just well, I go based off, I'm like, well, fine. Janitorial a lot of the times is right. I guess that's it. Yeah. Even my who's watched my growth, my car salesman, because I do their lot too, but uh as a commercial account. But he says, you know, they look me, they think banks look at you guys like until they uh he goes, it's all fun and games until they actually see your profit loss.

Speaker 01: 17:50

Right.

Speaker 00: 17:53

He had to pull it, he had to pull it for my loan. Right. That's all fun and games until you see they see that you're you're making some pretty good profit, you know. But yeah, I could just imagine how would I handle it? So if I got a phone call with a client and said such and such just left. I watched them walk out of the door and I I know they're not done. I know there's still stuff over. They were in the middle of the kitchen. It looks like they even left some of their stuff. Right. Excuse me, Mr. and Mrs. Client. I'll be right over there to grab it. Maybe they're having a bad day. Something I I'll sh I'm sure I'll find out about this later. I would apologize immensely, and then obviously, you know, get any keys or whatever you can't, you know, of course, handle the situation as the business owner, or have one of your cleaning techs that might be in the area, send them over to finish the job. Or this is a great time to probably have a floater, right? You know, hey, are you available right now? I'll pay you $35 an hour to jump in over here and finish this clean. I don't know why Mrs. Staff member left. Right.

Speaker 01: 19:27

So what if you what would happen if you had someone walk off the job, which in in the old school days that was immediate termination, you walked off the job or failure, you know, failed to show up, whatever. Right. What would you do if you had someone walk off the job, left the gear there, and you weren't able to to go over there because you were busy doing something else? And would you would you ask the homeowner to leave the stuff outside and give them a free cleaning? What would what would you do to fix that? Definitely, I would definitely offer free cleaning.

Speaker 00: 19:59

You are not being charged for this. Today's free. Today is definitely free. I somebody will be over there, if not me. Right. To pick up the gear. No, I because you know, homeowners want you in and out. Right. They don't want you lingering. I I love great, it's great for content, but you know, homeowners usually like, okay, they're looking at their watch, like, okay, you know, time to go. I'm ready to have my house back and clean and voila. I know there's some people that absolutely love to do those fine details, but let's, you know, let's be real. We would they real the homeowner really wants you in and out. So I would reschedule another appointment. I I'd leave it total the ball totally probably in the client's hands and say, I can't make it over there right now. This cleaning is definitely for free. If you either A would like to leave the the stuff there where it's at, I can have somebody come over in a couple of hours to pick it up, or if you'd like to put it on the on the front porch, I'm gonna find out a little bit more about what's going on with Mrs. or Mr. Staff member, and I'll be in contact with you.

Speaker 01: 21:32

Right. What what would happen, and then I'm going over the scenario because I've had this happen. What would happen if they you couldn't make it over there, you couldn't get a cleaning tech over there to pick up the gear, and they wanted it out of their house and they tossed it from the front door onto the front lawn and it was raining. What would you do then? Oh, I no.

Speaker 00: 21:53

You're you uh obviously the the obviously the the relationship had soured. Right. You're not being charge of it. No forgiving it, right? Thank you. Thank you. You know, that's where you're just you're you're pride aside, you gotta go over there and pick it all up. Or if the team member had to go over and and pick it up, uh they would call me right away. Oh my gosh, Jamie, you wouldn't believe it. Mr. and Mrs. Client just tossed everything everywhere. I would take pictures so that we can document it and boy, this could go all back because then they could leave a one-star reveal, you know. Right, you gotta you are allowed to respond to that, and just like you said, take a minute because honestly, you almost want to take that vacuum in there and go, Oh yeah, blasphemy it around into the air for those who want to empty out your vacuum, whatever dog hairs you got up, and just empty it back in, but we don't do that.

Speaker 01: 23:03

No, that's it. I've seen some extreme videos of stuff like that from people who didn't get paid, but we're we're not that way. We strive to be professionals. So I have had that happen where we someone had to pull off the job for whatever reason, did not grab their gear, and they threw it out in the rain. And we have monsoons, we've had a lot of monsoons this year. Wow, you guys and it just threw it through it through the vacuums, and there's two vacuums there's an auric and a Hoover Portervac, tossed them out, threw all of the rags all over the front yard, all like like intentionally dumped out all of the gear, threw all of the spray bottles, disassembled them until the chemical was all empty, literally threw out, right? Because they were being incommunists, and I get that, but that's that's extreme behavior, right? Right, so that subsequently was the end of our relationship. I have seen that individual a couple of times since then. She kind of remembers me, but not really. I've also had it where this is where the code of conduct started to kind of come into revolution, so to speak. The we had, you guys have all heard me talk about Rebecca. Rebecca was a very sweet human being. I've mentioned her before, her mom was dying of breast cancer, and I didn't even know until like her mom was like on death's door. And I'm like, she never said anything to anyone. And we took on this is why we don't do nighttime cleanings anymore. I went and did a bid and it was sunset, so I didn't see all. Have I told you the story? I don't, I felt maybe, but maybe, maybe. So we I go and I do the bid, and I'm not seeing what I should be seeing because it's dark in the house and it's it's the sun is when that happens, yeah. Right. So we get there, I think the following day or the day after, I send a crew of three in and I go to check on them because I have a weird feeling, and it's right around the corner from my office at the time. So I just jetted up the hill. It was like a two-minute drive. I said, Hey, just came to check. And the person had tried to work in an extra room that wasn't discussed and wanted the downstairs done for the same price. And the cleaning text are like, you know, they just want to please, right? Okay, right. Yeah. I start to see because I mean it's I'm in it's daylight now. I can kind of see. She had gone up to poor Rebecca and she had started yelling at her about how slow she was moving and how incompetent she was, and a couple of other inappropriate things, and the mommy bear button got pushed. And I lost my temper. I like legitimate, and it takes you have to push me really hard before I snap. Because I'll give people a really long, I'll just keep throwing the rope out there, keep going. But when I go, that's it. There's no coming. Shannon has to have time by herself. I have to decompress. There's a whole so she started yelling at Rebecca. I found Rebecca in the corner, and I said, What happened? And she's like, she said some derogatory things about her size because she was a big woman. She was like 5'10 and curvy, and then a couple of other derogatory things about her being stupid and a couple of other things. And I swear to God, the other two employees were like, They're watched, they all watched this go. And I, this is when we weren't, they weren't driving to the job themselves. I was dropping them off and picking them up and because they were like legitimately right around the corner. Right, right, right. So we're in the car, and they were like, there was a moment of like silence, and we get in the car, and they're like, Shannon, you kicked ass. Damn, you are the best boss I have ever fucking had. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed for my behavior. I'm embarrassed. You're a leader, right? I'm not your boss. That was bad behavior. I don't condone this. I don't condone this. I don't condone this. And they're like slapping high five because we're in the mother, we're in the Volvo station wagon, right? They're like, that was awesome. I have never seen that happen. Because the woman and I got in a full-on verbal altercation about her cheating and blah, blah, blah. So, needless to say, we left gear behind and I refused to go back. I had to because I was so like hot over my husband had to go back and get it because I was afraid that it was gonna say something more to her. And this was like, I want to say this was probably like 10 years ago. But yeah, I I lost my temper. I'm embarrassed about the things I said and how I behaved. It wasn't my my most special highlighted moment of being a manager of a crew. And needless, I just that I just I just snapped.

Speaker 00: 28:23

I was just like, No, I understand, but that's also whenever this whole some policies that's when policies were put in place. It shaped you into what you are today, right? A little bit better. You know, I made you a better, better person, how to handle yourself better, how to tell people not to do that. And at the end of the day, you were probably your cleaning text heroes, you're their hero.

Speaker 01: 28:58

Embarrassingly enough, but yeah, I just you know, Rebecca was the nicest person ever. Like, how could yeah? How could you even talk to her like that? I know, and I just like I just lost it, and and it was embarrassing, and I ended up running into this person, a couple other towns, because I live in a small town, and we can imagine the interesting conversation that we had when we reunited, so to speak. I did not apologize for my behavior, and she didn't apologize for her, but we we we kind of understood kind of the truth, and then I because of her, because she was a referral, I ended up losing two other clients because she went around bad mouthing me in town, and I was like, just stick it where the sun doesn't shine because I never want to do that. We really know how you are right. So, the the moral of the story is we we came up with a code of conduct that that policy was like that was the start of that. We came up to if you have an emergency on site that there's a protocol for that that should be in your SOPs. Oh, that yeah. If you have an emergency with the protocol, you need to call the office first. You need to try to remember to grab your gear. You because we all have we all have kids, right? We all have emergencies. Husbands have heart attacks, there's things happen. So that that was a policy that came into fruition after these little episodes that I'm mentioning. The the policy of having your own vehicle was set in stone after the last episode with the with the gentleman who I had to drive back from Chino Valley back into Prescott. That was that I was like, I can't what what can I do to change this? And that was that was the end all be all. And let's be honest, and then workforce different than and they didn't have a driver's license. There was things going on in the record. I get it. Yeah, I just decided that was the catalyst, that was the moment that I changed the policy that they had to have their own vehicle. And if they didn't have their own vehicle, they couldn't work for Shannon because I wasn't driving people around.

Speaker 00: 30:49

Right. No, I that's one of the very first things that it asked in my employment. And I use JOPFORM. I should say Sarah does JOP form for me and has constructed. I of course I've signed off on it, you know, but and that you do you have a vehicle? Do you have this amount of insurances? Yeah, we have to there should be some red flags for the the build up to this point of them walking out, I would say. And I think intuition plays a lot in with that to not ignore your gut on that. And if there's a cleaning tech, I feel that you see. Going off to the side, you know, there's some there's some sort of buildup there. Definitely either have a cleaning tech or yourself, go in and check on in on the homes that they have been doing. We don't have to say anything like, hey, we're checking on your house. You know, we don't have to say anything, just you know, after they're done, I feel like there should be some red flags that we could be looking for before that actually gets there to that point of them just there was a policy after the lady threw all the stuff out in the gear.

Speaker 01: 32:22

Like if if a cleaning tech leaves something behind, please call the office immediately so that we can take it off your hands. We appreciate that. And if if you do not put the if you decide to put it on your front porch and it's raining and it gets ruined, I will bill you for it, kind of in a very legal, like polite manner. Thankfully, you know, the only thing that really gets left behind are like spray bottles nowadays, but no vacuums, no one for the most part. I don't I haven't had knock on wood. I haven't had people, I've had mop, we've lost mops and high dusters, and the customers usually just keep them because they're like, Look at I got this fan. I don't know, right? This is like the perfect view. So you just kind of so there's there's policies in place that happened because of these incidences. So don't go, oh my god, that's just wild, Channel. I can't believe, you know, blah, blah, blah. No, no, yeah. That's that's what's going on. There's just people have a threshold for tolerance, and then they they don't have after they hit that certain point, they just snap and that's it. So yeah, those are the three policies I can think of off the top of my head. It it says it in it when I had employees, it said, you know, if you need to pull off the job for any reason, the the office needs to be notified. If you have an emergency, you need to state what the emergency is, blah, blah, blah. Do you understand that you are not to leave the job until the job is finished? If you cannot complete said job, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you can go to Chat GPT and write up something, I'm sure.

Speaker 00: 33:47

Oh, I I you guys, I know it's been around forever, but I'm just now like baby's getting on the bandwagon. Oh, oh, it can I just was like, oh, you're the business owner. This is exactly how some of the you're the business owner of above all cleaning services. What would you do? Well, how did I put it? When your cleaner quits midday, and how as above all cleaning services, as the owner, would you handle the the situation? What does Chat GPT say? And let me tell you, immediate response, stay calm.

Speaker 01: 34:28

Do not panic, do not run with your hands in the air.

Speaker 00: 34:31

Do not react emotionally. Thank the employee for the work they did up to that point. Well, what if they don't talk to you? What if they just talk to them? That should be something that's addressed too. You make sure that you get keys, supplies, uniforms, all the codes that you've given out. Access the coverage, quickly decide if the unfinished job can be covered by you personally, covered by another team member, rescheduled the client, communicate with the client, the short-term fix. The next 24 to 48 hours. That's what it says right here. Reassign workload, step in as the business owner, document the exit. So remember to call.

Speaker 01: 35:46

Right. She she has a lot to deal with there.

Speaker 00: 35:53

I'm like, did I so this is where properly documenting everything, even if it's on a pen a piece of paper, I do have to.

Speaker 01: 36:03

So if you have an iPhone, you can go right into notes and document it. And what what I recommend if you have to document it, is that you do it right then and there in your car. Because what will happen is you'll get home, you'll start dinner, and then you're like, Well, did that really happen? Did that not really happen?

Speaker 00: 36:19

So if you do it right there, second guess yourself, or you're you're like, okay. You guys end up talking and you're like, all right, you know, because you're a nice person, and you know, they're they could be just not the best employee ever, and you're still like you you give in because I'm not heartless, and it's like you know, you hear the sob story. I got 13 people that I gotta take care of, and you know, but the long-term system to this one I like because some of these I have policies in place, but the third one I probably need to work on long-term systems to prevent disruptions, cross-training, training all your cleaners. Now, this I do have train all your cleaners so anyone can step in if needed. Right. I have again, I you guys hear me say a lot. I I have a commercial and residential cleaning business and uh more male geared towards the commercial side because they like to work night. I don't know. Women like to make things shiny and pretty in the house and commercial, it's two totally different entities. However, I will tell you that Chris does know both sides, and if need be, if absolute need be, he'd be like Igor, okie dokie, and be right over. He'd be right over, and I just he but on have an on-call pool, so build build a roster of part-time or backup cleaners available for last-minute jobs. This is why you're constantly hiring. I made sure to add this onto my website, and I just did it this year. I am building reconstructing how I do things because I'm in a different cross spurt than I was from you know zero to a hundred and fifty thousand era, you know. Now I'm in a different era, so I'm building. I I told my VA, Sarah, that I want to build a constant funnel so I can pull out of that. Now, this is why this person made me learn this is that I want because I was left scrambling. All right, now hiring now, now now, freaking out. And so now I have this nice stream of application applicants, and there's like keywords in there that uh it'll bounce it out if if they're not a fit for our company. So I I'm doing I'm rebuilding, I got a nice little pool. I I'm caught, I'm been constantly doing interviews, filling out people, making sure that they're in, you know, are they a good, are they in line in a line with my company culture?

Speaker 01: 39:32

Right, that's really important.

Speaker 00: 39:33

Yeah, it really, really, you know, these are not things that I was looking at. Gosh, probably not even, I don't know, seven, eight months ago, you know. But now I'm in a position to where these are what matters to me, and I'm not trying to just build some fly by night cleaning company. I really truly am trying to build a legacy here. So I do have to, you gotta step in as oh, retention practices, conduct exit interviews when possible. Exit interviews.

Speaker 01: 40:12

We could do a whole podcast on exit. I've had interesting things said to me over the years.

Speaker 00: 40:17

I'm glad you to leave so suddenly. This gives insight to improve training, workload, or communication, policy and handbook, have a clear resignation procedure requiring at least a X amount and days of notice reinforced during onboarding. So there's some things that I gotta work on. I do have follow it though, they'll be like, stick it. Right. Sometimes I'm like, oh, I have that in there. So this is uh number four is the leadership mindset, unexpected resignation, test your leadership. The key is protect the client relationship first and foremost.

Speaker 01: 40:56

That's your bread and butter.

Speaker 00: 40:58

Yeah, stabilize operations second, rever review internal systems last to prevent it from happening again. Exactly. I love it. So you guys, whenever you chat chat GPT, I I feel so brand new.

Speaker 01: 41:22

So she's like, Yeah, look at this. I think it's awesome.

Speaker 00: 41:26

So yeah, it really does. It's a great tool, especially for helping run your business, and then we can get to broadcast it to you guys. And Shannon has real life scenarios way before even Facebook and all that stuff. That's that's what I just love is you know the true grit of the industry for real. The yellow pages, the yellow pages, and I mean, this is all kind of still new, right? All fairly, fairly new. The Facebook and then this and then that. And I I so yeah, you have the true grit behind all of that and and making these policies as you went along, way before how getting the the the convenience of asking chat GPT, you know.

Speaker 01: 42:19

Can you imagine where we'd be if we had chat GPT 15 years ago? Oh my god, we'd be like way up there. Yeah, like with flying cars. Right. So so those are some things to cover, to consider. Should you have a cleaning tech walk off the job in the middle of their house? It just know that it's it people have emergencies, things happen. You would like to believe that they would conduct themselves in a professional manner, but sometimes we're just not capable because of whatever's going on in our personal lives. The whole point is not to take it personally. This is we're it's just business, right? When you're dealing with you, and we're still, and I know I say this all the time, and I'm on my soapbox, we are a human-based industry. We have humans who are customers, we have cleaning techs who are humans. They're when you all want it to either.

Speaker 00: 43:13

They want, I mean, yes, we have that system in place, yes, but they like love that human connection with this that goes along with running this type of business.

Speaker 01: 43:26

And um I don't think the robots will be able to take over quite so easily as everyone anticipates. I believe they're starting to launch those out next year. I want to get someone on the show who actually has them for sale and talk to them about where they see this going, because I think it would be interesting for us as a collective to see where the industry's going. You know, there's a lot of there's a lot of stuff, definitely.

Speaker 00: 43:50

Yeah, no, good. I think that kind of covers it all. What do you think? Yeah, I absolutely love it. I love it. And if you have gotten any knowledge or any, if you continue to like this, go ahead and leave us a five-star review. We would much appreciate it. Shannon, yeah, we also do the Maids Network over on Facebook. Just a bunch of people that come together and and help all of each other. That's great.

Speaker 01: 44:21

Over 6,000 cleaning business owners.

Speaker 00: 44:23

It's great. Yeah, it's great. It's great to see where our industry's going and the collaboration of it all with all of us is just I I love this industry. And this is gonna be our life. So, anyways, appreciate everything.

Speaker 01: 44:43

Appreciate me, to you, to Bob Ross.

Speaker 00: 44:46

Bob Ross, I love Bob Ross.

Speaker 01: 44:49

It's good to see you. Bye bye.