CBL #146 Train the Trainer-PT 2 Working Interviews, Done Right

🎙️ Train the Trainer, Part 2: The Working Interview

🧹 Episode Summary

In this second installment of our Train the Trainer series, Shannon Miller of KleanFreaksUniversity.com
and co-host Jamie Runco dive deep into the working interview—a crucial step for any cleaning business owner who wants to hire smarter, train better, and protect their company.

Learn how to legally structure a working interview, what documents you must have signed, and how to observe not just cleaning skill but mindset, initiative, and professionalism. You’ll also hear how to set clear boundaries, evaluate new hires with confidence, and make the right call—fast.

🧾 Key Talking Points

• Why the working interview is your secret weapon for safer, smarter hiring
• Four essential forms you need: ID, emergency contact, job-description acknowledgment, and working-interview agreement
• How to pre-screen and meet candidates safely before they step inside a client’s home
• What to look for beyond technique—attitude, teamwork, and respect matter more than perfection
• Using score sheets to evaluate effort, teachability, and communication
• Professional ways to close out a working interview—no shaming, no drama
• Paying same day and reinforcing your company’s standards
• How the Train the Trainer process helps you build leaders, not just c

Here is the link to apply for the scholarship

https://forms.gle/c122YU6oNRG7Tic19

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.

 support@myvbk.com 

Chapters

• 0:00 Tempo: 120.0

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:55

Welcome back to the podcast Cleaning Business Life. Today we're diving into part two of our five-part series, Train the Trainer. In this episode, we're talking all about the working interview, how to legally and professionally test new hires before they ever join your team. We'll cover the forms you need, what expectations to set, how to evaluate more than just cleaning skills because attitude, initiative, and teamwork matter most. And don't forget, applications are open for the Structured Scale and Profit Cleaning Business Academy Scholarship. Of course, it's sponsored by Clean Freaks University. One very driven cleaning business owner will win a free enrollment and one-on-one coaching to help scale their cleaning business faster and smarter all in 2026. You can apply right now at Clean Freaks University or check the link below in the show notes. All right, let's get into Train the Trainer, the working interview. Recording in progress. Welcome back, Miss Jamie. Well, hi there. Hi, everybody.

SPEAKER_01: 2:02

I'm putting my phone on, do not disturb. Yes. And you know what? My emergency contacts will still, my husband comes through and I'm like, oh gosh. So, anyway.

SPEAKER_00: 2:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:18

I really love what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00: 2:21

We are going to talk about. I know that we started a series. It's called Train the Trainer, and we're on, we're starting episode two today. And today we're going to talk about all about the working interview, how to find and test the right strain trainers. I was going to say strainers. Trainers for your cleaning business. I'm going to laugh at my own jokes. After the poo conversation, anything is funny now. Because I I blushed personally like five times when we were talking about poo. Right. It's just like, oh, I didn't realize I was so uncomfortable talking about this. But we're going to talk about the working interview and why it's beneficial for you. And I being as seasoned as I am, you're number 15. I have seen, I've done it with and without. I, if I had W-2s again, I would definitely do a working interview. It gives you you yourself or your trainer, because that's the whole point of the series, is training your trainer, more insight into the person's personality, what their worth ethic is. And then you're not having to spend your time, you know, when they say weird things like, can I sit down while I listen to you talk? No. So, Jamie, why don't you take it away with some of the first things there on the agenda?

SPEAKER_01: 3:40

Okay, so what's important for your train the trainer? First of all, let's talk about this. This isn't on my show notes, okay? I do want to say that if you are doing working interviews, this doesn't have to be legally, you can pay up to$600 as casual labor in cash to a or by a check, whatever, however, or whatever, to for casual labor to somebody.

SPEAKER_00: 4:16

That's for this year. We don't know what next year is gonna bring.

SPEAKER_01: 4:19

That's very true. That very that that could change dropped as of right now as the recording of the show. You can do that. It's also a great way to see if they are in a line with your core values for your company. But some of the things that we're gonna talk about today, I just wanted to let's talk about the first three things you need before you give them a working interview. Before you uh first of all, you want to make sure that they have an ID. You want you want to be able to make sure that they can legally work in this. Yeah, you don't want to go through into that. I gotta shut up. Emergency contact information. If something were to happen on the job, you have to be able to get their first. You you need these things, you guys. You need to also you have to have a job description acknowledgement that they sign. We'll talk more about that in our next segment, train the trainer, and then the working interview agreement, and that's like confirming that you're just doing this as a trial to see if you're a good fit for the company, if you know, like I said, they align with your values, and that you're putting that that what am I looking for?

SPEAKER_00: 5:51

What's the word I'm looking for? I think what Jamie is trying to tell us is that when you have the working interview agreement, it saves you from having someone go, they didn't use me and they hired me, and now I can collect unemployment. You want to cover your butt by saying this is not an official job offering, this is a working interview to see if we are mutually fit for one another. No harm, no foul, nothing. Because you especially in states like your state, California, states in Massachusetts, what is the other one? I want to say Virginia. I can't think of it off the top of my head, but there are certain states that are more regulated than others. If you live in one of those states, make sure that you have someone sign a release saying that it is a working interview, nothing more, nothing less. And and like Jamie said, we the job description will be just we'll go all in detail about the job description on the next one that we continue on with this five-part series. And then the emergency contact form, this has saved me on more than one occasion. You might have heard me talk about the girl that came down here from Alaska. We have a lot of them that winter here in Prescott, Arizona, in Sedona, and she had not acclimated, even though Alaska is higher up on the globe, where she lived was not high in altitude, like we are here. We're a mile up from sea level. And this person was five foot ten, didn't drink any water, and she just altitude, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 7:23

Altitude sickness is a real thing. I've lived in Colorado, so yeah, so I lived in Arizona too, right?

SPEAKER_00: 7:29

So I I I know, yes, nothing worse than panicking because you have no one to call, no spouse, no boyfriend, no girlfriend, nothing. And you're trying to figure out, and then the you know, the paramedics are asking you questions, the hospital's asking you questions, and I'm like, I can't answer any of these.

SPEAKER_01: 7:46

But we don't really know this person, yeah, and it's very important to have that.

SPEAKER_00: 7:50

Yeah, I and you want their picture of their ID. So technically, you need four things, and the reason why you want their ID is because not everybody, how do I say this nicely? Not everybody in today's society is mentally cognitive, let's just put it that way. I'm not criticizing either way, I don't care where you fall on the spectrum at all. No, as a business owner, you don't know what kind of shenanigans this person's gonna pull. And if you have no ID to give to the police, you're gonna try to describe, okay, hypothetically speaking, when I worked in Vegas, I worked in a cafe that six 691 people. You might have heard me tell this story, Jamie. And we would and we would mess as a server, we would mess with people, they're like, and we they would call down, hi, I'm looking for my husband, he's blonde, six foot blue eyes, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, honey, this is like half of the population down here, right? And that's what it would be like if you didn't have that person's ID. Something could happen and go wrong, and you the while he was six foot blonde and blue-eyed, right? So make sure you keep those four things in mind when you're doing and working interview. That is the minimum that you need to get things going. You don't have to have them sign this or that, or any other, you don't have to do a safety equipment check, which we can talk about in you know another episode of Train the Trainer. But but those are the four things that you would need. And then what are some of the other items that you would need right after that?

SPEAKER_01: 9:17

Yeah, I I would say that you need to definitely define what role they are taking on for the day. For the day, clearly. Now, these can be in your playbook, have a special folder for working interviews only. I've gone through several. And some obviously, if I went through several, you there you gotta shift, sift, you gotta sift through through these people in order to get your your diamond, your unicorn, and they are out there, you guys. They are out there. You just gotta do you just gotta do the sifting through it. So it says here, before you invite someone to shadow, make sure that they understand what position they are interviewing for and what success looks like.

SPEAKER_00: 10:10

Yes, you have to tell them they don't know, they're not brain surgeons, they're not against they're just okay.

SPEAKER_01: 10:15

I showed up to work. It's almost kind of like a day labor thing, but it is, you know, okay, I showed up to work, and you just say, here, here's the stuff clean, right? No, that don't work. They hopefully you never have to do that. I'm laughing because it's like well, I I I've seen people need help for the other day. I screenshot something and sent it over to Shannon, and I was like, boy, they will just hide to babysit their children. Babysit their children. This person went into a group and said, Hey, looking for a babysitter for four hours or something like that, need immediately. You didn't what? Yeah, we don't want to do that. That's my child you're talking about. Like, you're just gonna pick some random person. So, yes, that's how uh I get a lot of these clients or a lot of these working interviews, but this right here, what we're telling you saves you. I also have a little my playbook, part of my like so ps. Of course, I'm the only one that knows where it's at. Um I'm trying to. We're getting there. It's really hard to take what's inside of my head and put it into a structure for my employees to understand like this. They can hear me talk all day, but I want it structured so that I'm not constantly doing this eventually and repeating and repeating. Right. Eventually I'm passing off the torch by a team leader or manager, whatever you want to call them. Um I'm passing that torch off to them, which is a very, but it has to be it has to happen in order for you to scale. You have to be willing and able to take the oh, I learned this on this interview, uh, and write it down somewhere. But these are this is step by step. So you're gonna defy the the role clearly, you're gonna pre-screen them, just you're gonna do a little phone call. I I like to personally meet up at Starbucks, yeah. Especially if you're running out of your home. Yeah, yeah. I I meet up at Starbucks, and I'm not taking them to the office, which is as you guys all know, is a huge storage locker that we've outgrown there too. But I I'm not taking them there to show them. Of course, it's behind a gate and it's secured and cameras and you gotta have a code to get in. But you you just want to feel that vibe of did they show up on time? Did they they come prepared? Are they eager for this? Are they eager and do they feel like they're you do you feel like they're gonna be a good fit, a good vibe for your company? I and I I see people in no shade at all. You might be one that can do it through Zoom like this, which is awesome. I I would prefer to see go through two interviews where they they pass through uh one funnel of questions and then they can go to the next round. You you do the interview, okay. We got an interview, and and I've seen people do group interviews through Zoom, those are some great ideas, but you're gonna pre-screen them before they start step one foot into your your baby that you've created, right?

SPEAKER_00: 14:19

So, this is the opportunity to be very clear on expectations for the day. So when you're getting them there, they've met you at the property, you're not sharing, you know, alarm codes or where the keys are hidden underneath the flower pot. You're not showing anything, they're just showing up, they're driving their own vehicle. Don't put someone that you barely know in your car with you, please. I'm laughing because I'm being serious. It's it's go down. And so you're meeting them at Starbucks, you're or and you're telling them the address then. Don't give them the address unless you kind of know them through job or hey, meet me at Starbucks, you can follow me over to this house. You don't really want to give them a lot of information because you don't want to give them an opportunity to do something bad if they chose to do so. And I'm not saying working interviews always go that way, but you got to look out for the benefit of your clients and your crew, right? They're they're not trusted yet, they're they're just being introduced into your tribe. So part of the onboarding for this quick little jaunt is expected pay and your schedule for the day. I have spoken to several people who want to pay minimum wage for the day. No one's gonna show up to your working interview for minimum wage. And I should spank you on your hand for even wanting to do it. Second, your schedule should be clear. You're gonna be working today from nine to five. Make sure, and I that I said because I'm in Arizona, make sure you bring something to drink and pack your lunch. We are time for you to go to Casa Sanchez and get your two beans. Be right back, your two tacos and your bean salad or whatever.

SPEAKER_01: 15:57

It's no, uh, yeah, you you're packing your lunch normally here here. I'm sure it's pretty much everywhere. You they are required two 10-minute breaks and a half an hour lunch. Um, I give an hour, but and I pay for it. I make sure to pay for it.

SPEAKER_00: 16:16

I just and and you that can be your decision uh in the scale of your business. I try to be as generous as I can because I want, I'm, I'm trying to wiggle, I'm fishing, right? I'm fishing for good people. And the only way to fish to, you know, reciprocity. I give before I receive. That's what reciprocity is. So make sure that you're clear on what those expectations are for schedule and pay. And you want to make sure that they have a vehicle that's working. You're not wanting to have to babysit somebody, then drive them around, then they're on the phone talking to their boyfriend, and then there's this whole weird dynamic going on putting your boundaries right then and there about hey, this is before that you even step foot into a home, phones are turned off.

SPEAKER_01: 17:02

I don't mind if you wear one of your uh for me. This is in my company, I don't mind that they wear one earbud. Some people like to listen to their music or podcasts, yeah, right. Listen to the podcast. I love it. So they have one in and then one out so that if they're the home the you know, the homeowner is there because we are post-COVID. People are still working from home nowadays, you know, but you you're you're just they're not doing anything, they're just kind of like working and shadowing you and working alongside of you and watching you, and you're taking mental notes in the back of your head of uh basically a pass or fail, right? Um, you're great.

SPEAKER_00: 17:55

It doesn't involve some sort of checklist that you're gonna give them. You're no, I'm gonna give you these two bathrooms. You're gonna be very specific as well. Your trainer's gonna say, I'm gonna give you these two bathrooms while I work on the kitchen and this side of the house. I'll be back to chuck on you in 20 or 30 minutes. We all heard me talk about the girl who hung out in the princess tub. And and then you're gonna check their work. It's you know, we're gonna show you, we're gonna mimic you, and then you're gonna check. And it's not to check to belittle anybody, it's just like, hey, it's a fresh set of eyes. You know, I'm trying to figure out do I want paper towels? Do I want a hot cloth? Do I want a microfiber? Do I want product on the mirror? There, I mean, there's when you think about it, there are like 52 questions you could ask on how to clean a bathroom. Just like making a bed, right? You don't really think about it until you're making someone's bed and you're like, well, what about this, right? Or do you want your pillows squished like this or karate chopped? Or do you want the sheet pulled all the way to the top, or do you want to fold it down? Do you want to do that?

SPEAKER_01: 18:51

And those should be placed all in your booking platform. Right. In your notes for your cleaning tag. You want as much information as you possibly can about the client in there. And that that is all handled through their on the the client's onboarding.

SPEAKER_00: 19:13

Right. And the reason why I'm suggesting that you do not onboard them through your and you give them very limited responsibility, is you're getting them into the digital calendar system, but you're giving them a hard copy of what that is. You're not putting the address on there, you're just putting three bedroom, two bath. This is what is expected in this house. And the reason for that is so you're not giving out an address that could cause issues later, but you're going, it's a visual check mark. You have to remember this person's new with you, might not be familiar with how to check out an app, might may have that maybe they can read, maybe they can't read, maybe they're from this country, maybe they're not from this country. There's a lot going on for them to kind of fit into the group of your tribe. So when you give them a hard copy, they have something tangible. It doesn't matter if it gets wet, if you already have pre-laminated ones, bonus. Yeah, but you're you're setting them up for success. That says right here, don't touch this rose vase on the left side in this bathroom. I better not touch it, right? Just and it it is a little bit of extra work, and there is the expectation that you could do this all through the app, but not everyone is tech savvy, and we all know what it's like. The internet went down the other day, and I was like, Oh my god, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 20:29

I'm like, oh I didn't we couldn't take payments, right?

SPEAKER_00: 20:32

Couldn't take payments, couldn't look at the schedule.

SPEAKER_01: 20:34

I was just everybody's calling me and like, I can't clock out. I was like, Yeah, just give me your give me your hours, it'll you know, right? Well, it'll be back on, it'll be okay.

SPEAKER_00: 20:45

Yeah, but it's like when it goes down though, it's like in flames. Everyone's like, Oh my god, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 20:50

Yeah, behind closed doors. I'm literally freaking out. But the these are a couple of things that you can do. You don't have to hide if it doesn't work, don't force right the like maybe if I keep giving them an extra little uh another day, another there's no harm, no foul, and you can cut the strings then and move on to the next.

SPEAKER_00: 21:19

I've done working interviews with only one house because I knew I'm like, thanks. Now make sure, and I'm big on this, and I know I repeat it all the time. There is no, and I we actually were just Jamie and I were discussing this the other day. There is no point in shaming another human being. It is a big pet peeve of mine. If I see you do it online, I will call you out each and every goddamn time. Excuse my French, because I'm sick of people bullying other people, so don't be that person. And if your name is Karen, I still love you. Don't be a Karen. Um but just thank them for their time, and then that's it's no harm to follow. Hey, I'm gonna Venmo you this money, boom, they're they're paid or however you want to pay.

SPEAKER_01: 21:59

You I can even put them on just it's it's off to the side just in case. But and I've run I've been transparent about this with the my payroll QuickBooks, and I can I can get them paid, but they're like in this holding area before they're completely onboarded because I still have all those things, all the the documents that we were just talking about. All the officials, I have those just in case it works out. A lot of times it just it doesn't, you guys. You guys not everyone can clean. Not everybody can, it's not even just some people are, you know, it just they don't align with how you run your company.

SPEAKER_00: 22:51

Um that's okay, and there's no crime in that they're not like you, you know, right, and that's okay too. I'd rather find out right away.

SPEAKER_01: 23:00

Yeah, and you you you there's things we're we're gonna go deeper into this as we go on, but these are just some of the things as far as documents are concerned. Make sure that you have a driver's license, emergency contact, the job description, acknowledgement. Make sure that they are sign it. You're writing down the address, you're not throwing them whatever booking platform we use. Jobber, you're not inputting them into Jobber yet. Jobber is a whole nother that's a whole training all in itself for my cleaning text, but my team leads do all that part, and we'll get into that down the road. But you're also make sure that you have a some sort of an agreement. Like this is only this is only for today or however, two days, whatever, to see if we fit together.

SPEAKER_00: 24:54

Right. And you don't have to do it the old school way. That was just the easiest. You could print up, make a Word document, make it a PDF, print it out, have them sign it. If you're a little more technologically savvy, go to Google Forms. You could actually make a longer form where they actually fill out what the job. Yeah, they just go I sign and acknowledge. You could do a job description. The working in a prologue, emergency contact forms. These are then when they sign, you've got everything you need, and then you can print it out. So you have it on your lead can have it on hand. God forbid something happened, and you're in a meeting, they at least have the emergency contact information. Or if you don't even want to go that far, you could actually send over a message in your Slack, say, Hey, this person, this is their emergency contact information and their driver's license in case you need it. Because sometimes you don't even know what you're getting until they arrive because you've hired them and not them, and then they're meeting you at Starbucks, and then it's like, okay, well, this is what the person looks like. Are you Maria or Susan Mary or whatever? And that's just a safety protocol so that your person isn't meeting up with some random individual who says they're there for a working interview and is just messing with everybody, right?

SPEAKER_01: 26:10

Right, no, uh, yeah. But and the reason why we do this, it still keeps you safe. Safety, safety, safety, especially nowadays. It is crazy world out there. Professionalism, professionalism, it shows that you got a little more skin in the game, and you want these people to come and work for you, you know, especially when you do find those diamonds because they are out there. I promise you, I have found some, and I love, love, love them. And you just want to make sure that you're super clear on what's about to transpire.

SPEAKER_00: 26:55

Right. You know, and you also want to, when you when you're at the house and you've already set expectations for pay and you've already done the 10-minute interview, you you want to make sure that your train the trainer person is observing behavior, not just technique. Yeah, technique can be learned, like we go from left to right, top to bottom. You know, everybody knows the secrets of speed cleaning, right? But you want to observe behavior. Are they strumming the keys of the P grand piano in the main great room because they felt like it, even though the case, the keyboard case was closed? Are they cranking up their music so loud that they're just dancing around doing Michael Jackson moves because it's Halloween and it's thriller? Are they peeking in cabinets?

SPEAKER_01: 27:42

Are they looking in refrigerators that there's nowhere that's nobody said anything and they're are they taking food?

SPEAKER_00: 27:52

Just are they helping themselves to the nuts on the counter, even though or the we had this conversation before about when it over the holidays where people leave out nuts and stuff for guests to come over? You are not a guest, it is not allowed unless they give you permission to eat the nuts or the candy or whatever it is, or the candy, yep.

SPEAKER_01: 28:13

There's a lot of candy, and especially around Halloween time, would just all from here on out the rest of the year. There's a lot of treats left out, and we are no, no, don't touch unless your client has given permission.

SPEAKER_00: 28:35

But yeah, we wouldn't even go for the cootie factor. I would not, I would only eat wrapped items, not unwrapped. Definitely. I'm not gonna talk about that right now, but my mind's going, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 28:45

Yeah, uh, yeah, so did mine. Thank you. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00: 28:49

Right. So you want to make sure that you're observing behavior is do they have the right attitude? I just got in another fight with my boyfriend, and he wasn't, I wasn't sure if he was gonna allow me to come. And I I'm sorry, my uniform is wrinkled, but I didn't get a chance to wash it because I didn't know how to wash it in the sink or do whatever because there was no there that they have a story about everything, not a good candidate for they didn't have a babysitter and showed up with their kids, right?

SPEAKER_01: 29:18

Um three of them. Yeah, well, they can wait in the car, they they do it all the time. No, not today. I've had that happen.

SPEAKER_00: 29:29

Working interviews, and this is why I do working interviews or not, sorry, I got a respectful towards you or your cleaning tech lead. Are they respectful to the client? Do they talk with their mouthful? Are they chewing gum? Do they give eye contact to the customer? If the customer says hello, did they sell hello back? There's a lot of stuff that is subliminal that is still expected, especially with the older clientele. If they say good morning to you, they are expecting you to say it back with a smile on your face. So, yeah, being respectful, positive, engaged. Are they taking initiative? When you have someone who's a little bit younger to the workforce, they might not have learned to take initiative. They'll probably stand around and wait for you to give them something to do. Are they walking up and saying, Okay, I finished that bath and what do you want me to work on next? Not on your phone texting. Oh, I got this really cool. Yeah, yeah, I yeah, I had that. Do they have team interaction? Or are they, you know, are they trying to just help themselves or they only you know just focused on themselves, or are they actually trying to help others? The the rule when you worked in teams, if the house is large enough, is one person usually finished earlier and the second person finished and finished on the way out. This is how teams worked. So the first person has already loaded their car. This is the two-car method. So that and so that that person is not standing around, they're actually grabbing pieces of equipment from person number two and they're helping them load their car or they're placing those items by the car. So they're not just standing around on their phone waiting for person number two to finish, and then then that person has to load up all by themselves, right? And it's expected as a mutual exchange that if you're working as a team to two, you're gonna help each other load the car so that we can both go. Not I'll see you later. And there are some times where you're like, you know, they've been with you. Well, okay, I got an appointment. This, this, and this need to be done, and that's an excused like okay, this is allowed, but don't don't leave the other person high and dry, help them out.

SPEAKER_01: 32:13

Yes, yeah, and and uh clear expectation. That's that's it. You gotta be very and be up front about the physical demands of this job, right? The way sometimes I spin it is like get ready to get your running legs, right? Um, I promise you, you will get them and you'll lose a little bit of weight and get some strengthening. But a lot of people come from the hotel industry, and I'm just like that's a different type of clean. Oh, I've cleaned, I've cleaned, and I'm like, this is this is that cleaning on steroids. Just get ready. Uh yeah, you know, not to scare them or anything, but be upfront that this is gonna be physical. Yeah, don't show them. Don't call them in there and be like, totally, you know, be up front, be up front, definitely, and then step five.

SPEAKER_00: 33:14

And I don't know if we've actually mentioned that these are steps, and if I haven't, I apologize. But step five, the last step is to debrief, evaluate, and decide. You can actually, if your cleaning tech trainer is not comfortable or yet authorized to make the decision, you can have them just say, Well, you know, Jamie's gonna reach out to you later today with a decision, or that cleaning tech trainer is gonna call Jamie and say this person didn't work out and I've already let them go, blah, blah, blah. That that's fine, but that make sure that they're voiced on what that entails because again, I go back to shaming. We don't want to shame anyone. We want to be as professional as we possibly can. We certainly don't want to say derogatory things like what did someone say one time that was like inappropriate? There were they lived a different lifestyle, and that person did not approve of said lifestyle and made several comments. They were a$75,000 client. So you can imagine that Shannon was not happy about this person's opinions. They don't need to have opinions like, oh, that's dirty, or I don't like your lifestyle, or yeah, they're walking in gross. Right. Oh, it was gross before we got here, right? So, and then make sure that it after the working interview, close it as professionally as you possibly can. Of course, thank them for their time, ask them how they felt that the day went. Sometimes they'll tell you, oh my god, I you said it was hard, but this was really hard.

SPEAKER_01: 34:47

This is really hard. I got it. I did a lot of, I got it.

SPEAKER_00: 34:50

Yeah, or you know, oh my back, you know, or my fibromyalgia or whatever. And share honest, specific feedback. What stood out on what they could do to improve and be again, don't shame. Try to be try to put yourself in their shoes on what you would want to have said to you. Well, I think that you might be great. I'm gonna relay this message over to Jamie, but I still see that you need to work on toilets in that puma stone and knowing what kind of toilets you can put a puma stone in versus not, or that we don't put chemicals flat on travertine, we put a towel down because sometimes chemicals leak and it'll leave a ring. And we don't want to have to pay to have you know to refinish someone's$2,500 travertine bathroom floor, those types of things. Use a short score sheet to rank key qualities like effort, communication, teamwork, teachability, and quality. This stuff is all mentioned inside the structure, scale, and profit cleaning business academy, by the way. Oh, that's full trade schedule. Yeah, if you if you want to go and take the course, you're more than welcome to. But that that's how to hire having the whole thing go on, training schedule, everything is you have hiring like a superstar on there, and I had that on this was before Shannon put it into a digital format.

SPEAKER_01: 36:12

Everything's everything that crazy, everything was in files, and then I take it and I would make it my own, and then I would print it. So I do have day one, day two, day three, day four, day five. There's five days, and you should be able to tell by the end of that five days, it's about 20 hours worth of work, give or take, whether or not that person is really a good fit. And my my lead trainer, Kayla and Miriam, they'll let me know at the end of the day there's A, B, C, D, and F, just like a grading system on their attitude, on their whether they passed or failed. And at the end, I'll look, I'll look and through the notes. If you guys haven't got that, I would highly suggest it that's great because it's I still use it to this day, right?

SPEAKER_00: 37:18

I still use that to this day. And what Jamie is describing is inside the course. Yep. But the working interview is just one shift. The training schedule, which is another validation point, is five days and X amount of hours, and there's a lot more that goes on behind what we're not talking about because it's inside the course. We're talking about trainer trainer and James. So, yeah, and then you use a score sheet, and then effort, communication, teamwork, teachability, and quality. Quality is last and the least important, believe it or not. Yeah, because it can be taught. Quality can be taught over time, and then um make sure that you pay them the same day always. It reinforces professionalism and respect. And you don't really need to give them a structured debrief because it's just a working interview, it's it's a one-day in and out thing, and it's not about perfection, it's always about potential. So define the role clearly, test for attitude and accountability, and you'll find the kind of people who grow into leadership roles naturally. And I know the bigger operators aren't gonna be here because you guys aren't listening. The smaller and medium operators pick personalities. Not everybody is. I've had some wonderful cleaners who I never would have imagined, who I clicked with, who I liked. Yes. Well, those guys ended up being superstars. Don't just pick someone because they say they can clean, because we all know not everybody well, not everybody can clean, but that's and that's true.

SPEAKER_01: 38:52

Cleaning is a learned, it is a learned process. I I'm gonna tell you, Chris, he's my for the my commercial side. He told me I never knew that you had a start from the top of the toilet and go down and wipe around the the bottom of that until I started working here. And I was like, We all over that. I just and oh, and and on the vacuum cleaner, you assume, don't assume anything, right? Don't assume everybody knows what's inside your head, like yeah, you do this a million times a day, that there's adjustments on the vacuum cleaner, you know, uh maximum suction, lower suction, high low, pile there, you know cleaning can be trainable. Um we're looking right now. This is we are looking for attitude and charisma and all the rest can be trained. All the rest can be trained. So but these are these are the the four well, it's actually five. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 40:19

Five things. I mentioned number five at the end because I was like, oh, we didn't say step three. Minor detail, step one, step two, step three, step four, and we got number five.

SPEAKER_01: 40:30

Yeah, so yeah, you're evaluating all that, you're rating them, their effort, reliability. Did they show up on time? Right. Some people are, I'm telling you, there I have a cleaning tech. She is always a half an hour early, and I'm like, hey, where you at? And she'll take us picture of waiting for my shift to start. I'm like, wow, just I really like this person too. It's gonna it's going good. But we did a working interview, right? We did a working interview before I even started anything. I have like a funnel that I can put into my QuickBooks for this specifically, and just so that my books are all aligned. And Erica, if you're listening, can you know? Oh, that's casual labor. So Erica's a lot of casual labor.

SPEAKER_00: 41:32

Erica is has one of been one of the bigger sponsors this year of the podcast. So I want to give a shout out to Erica for sticking through it with for the whole year. She's very knowledgeable in all things numbers. If you are looking for an accountant's band or a bookkeeper, she has them working under her, and she has a whole group of ladies. And she's she's a super super duper star. And we appreciate her here at Cleaning Business Life. And we'll see if she renews her contract for next year for sponsorship. If that is something that you're interested in, we are looking to fill those spots for next year. Um, reach out at cleaningbusinesslife at gmail.com if and with the word sponsorship, and we're happy to get you the media notes for that. And as always, we appreciate uh all five-star reviews. And if you think that someone else will benefit from this podcast, please send it over to them so that they can listen to it. And we love you guys. Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 42:33

Can I can I take something, say something real quick? Can we talk about or tell you everybody about once a year? Shannon does a structure sell profit cleaning academy scholarship, you guys. All it takes is to fill out a form. I'm gonna I I want if you guys follow me, I feel like you've seen my testimonial of how this course set the whole trajectory, the the whole, it moved the whole way for my whole life. Not not just in the here and now, but for my son down the road. You know, I bought a house. I didn't buy one car, I bought two cars this month. The structure scale profit cleaning academy scholarship, she picks one person a year as her way to give back one-on-one coaching. There's so much benefit from this one class that she's does have some one-on-one coaching this year, and a yeah, a little bit, you know, because really, you know, she don't really gatekeep, but this fill out those forms, fill out those forms. If you are really ready to try and scale, if you are it's not easy, you gotta listen to what she says to do. You gotta do the work. It's not okay. I got into this course. Why ain't I why isn't anything happening for me yet? Yeah, it's not done for you services. No, it's like, well, hey, she was a million-dollar company at one time, whenever she sold that that's who I want to be. I want to be the million-dollar company, which nowadays is not, honestly, you guys, it's not that hard to get to anymore.

SPEAKER_00: 44:38

It's closer.

SPEAKER_01: 44:40

Scholarships are going out. If you follow us on Facebook, go ahead and and fill out those forms. Pour your heart out. And she and her husband read every single one of those, and they pick one that they feel that are ready to really truly grow. And man, I would love to, I would love to see who the next one is. And she picks this person on what is it, Friday. Yep, Black Friday of every year, one time. So get in on that and like, subscribe, share, five-star review.

SPEAKER_00: 45:19

We're not asking for a whole bunch.

SPEAKER_01: 45:23

Say scholarship once this goes up, and Shannon will get something over to you, some forms over to you for you to fill out. But right now we are on what is this day or segment two of train the trainer of 205.

SPEAKER_00: 45:41

Yep, right. Well, it's been a pleasure, everyone. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you next time. We'll talk to you soon.

unknown: 45:49

Bye.