CBL EP 160 V2: The Awakening — Red Flags, Green Flags & Why Cleaners Need Teeth

5 Versions of Entrepreneurship

Episode 2: Red Flags, Green Flags & Why Cleaners Need Teeth — Not Hope

If you’ve ever left a cleaning job feeling frustrated, resentful, or underpaid, this episode is for you.

In Episode 2 of Cleaning Business Life, we’re talking about the difference between clients who grow your business and clients who quietly drain it — and why most burnout in the cleaning industry has nothing to do with cleaning at all.

This is a real conversation about boundaries, behaviors, and leadership — not blame, guilt, or hustle culture.

In this episode, we cover:

• What client red flags actually look like in real life
• Why “since you’re already here…” is never just a small ask
• The behaviors that signal a green flag client
• How ignoring early warning signs leads to burnout
• Why policies without enforcement don’t work
• The role language and scripts play in protecting your time and profit
• How to stop over-explaining and start leading with confidence

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_01: 0:53

Welcome back to Cleaning Business Life. I'm Shannon Miller with Plean Freaks University, and I am here with Jamie Runco. And yes, it's been a hot minute. Life happened, business happened, and apparently Jamie's out here casually creating her own cleaning product like it's no big deal. So congratulations, Jamie. Woohoo! Today we're gonna continue our five phases of you entrepreneurial series. Last episode was phase one, the doer, where you are the business and burnout feels normal. This episode is phase two, the awakening. The moment that you realize something's off mentally, financially, emotionally, you can start to see the patterns, even if you don't know how to fix them yet. If you've been thinking, why does this keep happening? You're in the right place. Let's get to it. Oh my gosh, Jamie, I have it feels like I haven't seen you in a hot minute.

SPEAKER_00: 1:48

It has been. It absolutely has been. It's so wonderful to be back. It's so glad. I'm so happy to welcome back, everyone.

SPEAKER_01: 1:59

Um happy belated new year. I think I believe I said it in the first episode, and Jamie was missing because we needed an extra episode, and it's just how it worked out. You can only skip to the the end of the year for so you know what I mean. There's only so many things you can do. I'm like, okay, we need one more.

unknown: 2:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:17

And that's fine. I I've been really busy as well.

SPEAKER_01: 2:22

Yeah, she's I talk about and Jamie hasn't officially announced it, so I'm gonna call her out on it. But she has invented her own cleaning product. I don't know how far this will go, but her girls are using it inside of home, so she's getting some real life feedback. So I'm super excited and congratulations, Jamie. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00: 2:40

We're working on SDS branding and it's a COA. So I'm really excited. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 2:51

Awesome. We're gonna start a series of five. I started on by myself with the initial one. It was phase one, the doer. So this is the five phases of you as an entrepreneur framework. And I thought that this would be a great stepping stone for us in 2026 because we've talked a lot about, you know, waffle stomping. We talked about so many crazy things last year. I thought that maybe this year we could give you guys more structure to kind of help build your businesses. So phase one is the doer. You are the business, everything depends on you, and burnout is normalized. Phase two is what we're talking about, and it's the awakening. You start to notice what is not working in your business mentally, financially, and emotionally, even if you don't know how to fix it yet. Phase three is the builder. You intentionally design systems so the business stops living in your head. So you're trying to get it from your head on paper. So you have SOPs, structures, systems, those types of things. It's just the beginning. Phase four is the leader. That's when you shift from doing the work to leading people, decisions, and outcomes. And then phase five of this series will be the visionary CEO. You'll build assets, leverage, and long-term impact beyond the day-to-day operations. And today we're going to talk about the awakening. We're in phase two, Jamie. So, yes.

SPEAKER_00: 4:17

And you know, whenever we talk about this, this isn't just talk. This is where the work begins, right? Right. This is where the work begins. You have to actually go out like, well, I hired, I I keep seeing, well, I hired a coach and nothing. Right. Well, you you you have to go out there. That's when the work begins. That you have to you have to be ready for criticism. You have to be ready for somebody to tell you to do this, this, and this. And that's exactly what Shannon has created this podcast for, is because we want to take what she's telling us and start applying it into your business.

SPEAKER_01: 5:06

Consistency is key. You're gonna hear that a lot this year. You're gonna not hear it from just me. There are other people who are coaches. I think 2026 really is gonna be the year of consistency. And even if you take small micro steps, it will eventually get you to the end result. But the caveat is that you have to take the step. If you don't take the step and you come out on Facebook and go, this isn't working, I've done this with this coach and I've done that with that coach, or I've taken this program, I've done that, and I'm still not getting the results, it's because you're not consistent. You you run, right? You run, it's like a marathon. You run for that distance, it's all mental. When you run, I I've have I don't run anymore, but I did for a long time. I've ran many, many marathons. Running a marathon, yes, it's physically exhausting, it's all a mental game, it's completely mental. Once I figured out that, it actually clicked. Like running a marathon, yes, it's 26 miles, but it's just this thing of you getting through inside your you're the the clog in your head, right? The the the logger head, the what the bottleneck, thank you. Um, so you can you can actually clog your own bottleneck and not even realize that you're doing it. So, as with marathons, you can do it physically, and there's a lot of training and time and everything else, but it's all a mental game. And once you get that starts to click with your business, it's gonna be like fire. I just I'm excited to see where this goes with everyone. So, phase two is the awakening. You start to notice what is not working, as I mentioned before, mentally, financially, emotionally, even when you don't know how to fix it. For example, financially, you might get this really lucrative contract. They want you to bid on it, but it's gonna take all this money and labor. So you have to know your numbers, right? We won't even get into strategy here. This is just the philosophy of the awakening, but you can't take on a large job if you don't know what your numbers are.

SPEAKER_00: 7:04

And your numbers, right, correct. Your numbers could you got to know them forage back, and it's not just oh, this is how much I'm grossing. You need to know your production rate, how fast are your employees working, or your you know, your 1099s, whatever. You know, you need to know what your overhead is, what is going in and what is coming out, right? What your bills are per week, you upside down, backwards, sideways, forward. You need to know those numbers, and this is an awakening. It is, this is all part of it. Um that was one thing that Shannon had taught me is I mean, whenever I first started working with you, I didn't, I I didn't, I'm like my numbers here. Every week I or yeah, every week I had to do a profit and loss and show what my numbers were. That I had to turn them in. And from doing that, it became I didn't know what I was here my numbers, I didn't know what they were. I I didn't know what that meant at that time, and and it was it got me into the habit of constantly checking that profit loss, seeing where you're you're seeing where stuff is falling out at and where you're overspending.

SPEAKER_01: 8:33

A lot of times when I'm talking to people, they don't even know what they grossed the following year, they had no idea, and it's not a crime, but it's you can't position yourself if you don't know what you made. You can't buy a car, you can't get a house, you can't do any of the bigger things unless you know where your numbers are and what your income's gonna be.

SPEAKER_00: 8:50

And this is something I'm still working on. I am I'm still working on I I got production rate down, I got all that, but as in this episode, I'm becoming mentally aware of all the challenges of everything. It's not just becoming just in my head. I'm starting to, even if it's a piece of paper, you guys, and you know, chat GPT is my favorite thing now.

SPEAKER_01: 9:27

If you look at last year, like you and I were both like, chat GPT, no way!

SPEAKER_00: 9:31

Now we use it every day, uh every day because it is going to twice a day, all day. I can ask it a question, and like I'm like, you're you're my customer's relations manager, and they've chat even goes as your customer's relations manager with an emotion, a wink emoji. So and I'm doing that a lot, it's helping me a lot to build my brand because now that I know what I'm doing, I can venture off just a tad bit for my branding of my my cleaning product, and it's helped a lot, but yeah, we're we're gonna be awake, fully aware, right?

SPEAKER_01: 10:20

I think that you're when you become awake, it's probably one of the most uncomfortable phases out of the five because you're doing it, you're stretching, you're starting to grow a little bit. You're not, and and you've heard me talk about it multiple times. When you become an entrepreneur, that version of you, that person that you have wronged, you've you've hurt all of these clean techs or these customers, you've done all these awful things, it's not the same version of you that ends up at the end when you get in the CEO spot. You have grown and evolved in every stage, and and it's not uncomfortable because it's broken, it's uncomfortable because I'm cheating from my notes. You can finally see what is happening and what is not what is working and what is not working, but you're at that phase where you just don't know how to fix it. You know that there's something wrong, but you don't know how to get from point A to point B. There's something there, a little bit of a flag in the sand, or you know, wherever you're at, Antarctica. You're thinking there's something amiss. Right. And you start to see the patterns a little bit. And you're like, well, why does this keep happening? Why does this customer keep calling me at the last minute and rescheduling when I've already had this schedule planned out in January? It's now March. We already discussed the schedule, and it becomes like a big thing. I had a customer, um, we've had her for four years now, which by the way, she fell through the cracks and didn't get a price increase. So I get to do that unpleasant thing. I'm like, how could she not have had a price increase? It happens. Um you're trying to go through and see what is working and what's not working because things are starting to take up a lot of space in your head. This is the phase where the business owners wake up. It's not just about survival from hand to mouth. You're now able to see and step a little bit back. Maybe you're in the field a little, out of the field a little. You're trying to figure out what's going on here. So you you more than likely are still working, and clients are still coming in and revenue is still moving, but something just feels off.

SPEAKER_00: 13:14

Right. I couldn't agree more. I you know, year over year, uh year over year, every year we're growing, we're growing, we're growing, and then there's a point where you're like, you just you fit there's I know I could be so much more. You just know there's something just amiss. It that's the best way I can describe it. There's the way I feel is that I'm on a tight rope in between two high sky, sky-high buildings, and I have a balance beam, and I'm trying to make it to the over, and and you you feel that wind going a little bit, and you're like, okay, you're balancing yourself, and it feels it feels like you're almost like I have no idea what I'm doing sometimes. Like I hope I'm never on a balance beam in the wind. I know. Well, that's the way that is the best way I can describe it for the listeners to maybe if they felt like that, unease that unease, but you're you're aware, you're totally aware that there's something amiss, and you're trying to you like it says right here, you're no longer operating on autopilot, and you're not willing to do so, right?

SPEAKER_01: 14:39

You're tired in the way that rest doesn't fix, you're emotionally exhausted. Sometimes you guys some I feel always feel bad, and I'm guilty of doing this myself in the beginning, but 29, 30, 45 days in a row. I'm like, why are you doing this to yourself? And they're like, Well, no one can clean like I can, right? There's all that whole aspect of control, and that you're just mentally overloaded, and it that, like I said, it just starts to pop out of your head because you're like, you you you have kid homework, you have dinner, you have company things, and you have employee things, and you have client things, all of these little boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So you're emotionally stretched and it becomes taxing after a while, and you have to often learn how to adjust on the fly. I mean, that then you get used to the chaos, right? Because then you thrive on it because you're just like overdrive, overdrive, and if the case, and then if you have a down day, you're like, what do I do with myself?

SPEAKER_00: 15:36

Yeah, it don't work very often. I at least for me, I'm still constantly uh working on this business.

SPEAKER_01: 15:46

Constantly, and then it becomes so much emotional labor it takes in your head to keep things smooth. And the goal, and many people and I've mentioned this before, when people came and worked for me when I had W-2s, they were like, Oh my god, this is the smoothest running cleaning business I've ever had. I'm like, and I would be like, Thank you, because they had no idea what went on the back end to make it run smooth because I wanted to keep them around. I had invested money in them.

SPEAKER_00: 16:14

Hard work, yes, and it's it is it's hard work, but it gets better, you guys.

SPEAKER_01: 16:20

It does, the reward is there, definitely, and what used to feel normal now feels heavy. So these are all observations to to like make when you're starting to get going this year with your clients and you're trying to figure out what to do and how to get there. And it it doesn't mean that things are worse, it just means your awareness has increased, the light bulb has clicked on above your head. And like like I said the other day, phase one runs on adrenaline, phase two, which is what you're in what we're talking about today, runs on questions. You're gonna have a lot of questions. What kind of questions do you think they should be asking?

SPEAKER_00: 17:05

I honestly, the way that I have been doing it, for one, I keep going to Shannon. Shannon is my chat GPT for a little while longer. Oh yeah, no, I that was more in the beginning. She's also somebody that I can anyways. Questions you should be asking. Uh how to do a price increase. Okay. We already know how to do a price increase, right? If you're at that stage, you you you have to do them. It looks professional, it it's it holds boundaries, people need to re-sign their contracts, your terms and conditions, just to set that tone, like we're we're you're structuring a true business.

SPEAKER_01: 18:07

And you need to keep your profit margin intact. And if you don't give price increases in at least 12 to 18 months, it eats away at what profit you had, and pretty soon you you'll find yourself bankrupt.

SPEAKER_00: 18:19

Well, I I you exactly. I'm gonna tell you, I were comp. My my were comp skyrocketed. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 18:31

Nothing, not because she had a claim.

SPEAKER_00: 18:33

No, no, just because I grew. Right. And and this was to be expected. However, I wish I could have said, hey, we're ready to go ahead and up the price, they did it for me. That upset at me.

SPEAKER_01: 18:47

But so some of the questions I think that you should be asking is how did you a price increase? Another one is how does how why does my pricing feel inconsistent? Pricing is key. Whether I don't even think the pricing blueprint masterclass is for sale anymore. I think I officially retired it. There's the new pricing structure, which teaches it, it covers the flat rate basics. That's what got so many thousands of you going, but it breaks down piece by piece in that system if that's something that you're interested in taking. And then there's another one, red flags, right? Stopping scope screep. Why do some clients drain me more than others? There are emotional vampires out there, and it's not their fault. Sometimes they know and sometimes they don't, but you'll start to become aware of what people you click with and can be worked with versus other people who are very difficult to work with, and you just don't want to deal with them, right? They're just like, oh my gosh, Mrs. Smith, I can't handle her. She does the white glove test, makes everybody cry.

SPEAKER_00: 19:48

I came to you the other day about that. Some uh scope creep. Somebody told me to just do they don't get used very often. Can you just wipe out the ovens? Not ovens, ovens, right as a plural, more than one and and a wolf oven. And if we know anything about wool, that's a specialty. That's even more than just a regular oven clean.

SPEAKER_01: 20:18

It's a specialty appliance that retails anywhere from 10 to 15 grand. So you have to be able to handle, you have to know what you're doing. You have to be able to handle it. Right. And then you have to be able to, it's they're blue, so you can't you have to handle them a special way. It's just this whole dynamic. So yeah, it's those are some of the questions you can ask yourself. Another one is why does everything feel urgent? Everything is always a crisis. Like when you have Mrs. Smith calling you, and she's called you at nine o'clock at night. You just put the kids to bed, you've already made dinner, you put all the dishes away, and Mrs. Smith has called you 27 times on your phone. You finally reach over to your phone in the kitchen, away from everything, because you don't want to answer the phone, and you pick up the phone and she's like, Oh my god, you guys didn't put my pillows on my bed back the right way. And you're like, What?

SPEAKER_02: 21:07

Yeah. Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 21:09

Are you lying in the middle of the street bleeding out? No, I'm not. Well, then, Mrs. Smith, I'll talk to you in the morning.

SPEAKER_00: 21:16

I'm also gonna ask about price increase pushbacks, right? We get a lot of pushback, and you don't want to overindulge on why you gotta go uh just make it direct to the point, short and sweet. Put it into chat and ask them what about sometimes uh chat GPT will ask you questions you didn't even think that you should be asking. And it's like, oh, that's a good one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 21:47

So recommend that you do not, if this is your first time doing price increases, do not put a percentage like your rate is going to increase 20% because what will happen psychologically, they'll do the math, right? And then so you're already on the radar. You've already done the math. Okay, 20%. This means that they're going to do 20% times 26 visits. They're going to figure out what that is and they're going to say, maybe not so much, right? Or can you renegotiate for a 3% increase versus the 20%? So if just put your new amount is going to be blah. That that way it's like they they don't it it makes it painless for them. So they're just like, okay, my new rate was 167.50. My new rate is going to be 192.25 or whatever it is you decide it's going to be.

SPEAKER_00: 22:34

Whatever. Yeah, exactly. As long as it's making a profit margin.

SPEAKER_01: 22:39

I will tell you that it has to make a profit.

SPEAKER_00: 22:44

Now we're in training right now, right? And I was looking at something and I was in the red 312% in the red for training. That's horrible, you guys. So you know, I was like, oh, how was how you know I'm grouping people on a route optimization, but I'm also training. But that one, that one or two trainings that I had with a bi-weekly client drop that profit. I basically ended up paying the person to have them clean it. But that's part of also training.

SPEAKER_01: 23:32

So you need to allocate those funds into an escrow account so that you can pull them later, definitely. Um, and then you can't you start to not be able to not unsee what the gaps are once you notice them. And there can be some really big gaps, like Jamie just pointed out, what was it, 312? 312 right over what she should have been. And sometimes you're gonna have periods where you're gonna be over, and then hopefully it bounce they stay around long enough that it balances itself out. But yes, allocating into an escrow account, like you know, whatever percentage you decide that's gonna be for training, I'm gonna allocate 2% of my total gross into an escrow account, and that's what I have to spend on training. Now, it also depends too on what phase of your business you're in. And there's multiple phases. We're just talking about some of the beginner things for Azure Entrepreneur Junior. And then the overconsumption trap. This is where many people get stuck. They respond to discomfort by consuming more podcasts, more quoted, more advice, more templates. Give me the freebie, give me the freebie, give me the freebie. I am guilty of the shiny object myself. I'm gonna do it. Yeah, this isn't what I wanted. This isn't what I thought, right? So try not to respond to the overwhelmed by giving yourself discomfort by consuming more information. Sometimes I think that they give us too much information all at once. That's why everything should be done in baby steps because you can get overwhelmed and you could have give yourself an anxiety attack, especially if you're trying to smooth out the fires and have smooth running shifts. But a lot of the information without structure just creates noise. But there are a couple of podcasts that I absolutely love. I think that are just totally hilarious. So I won't give those up. I just will scale back on my consumption of those products until I'm in a spot where I'm not so like right so that you can apply it.

SPEAKER_00: 25:31

Right, stop, regroup, and start trying to apply whatever it is that you learn because that is true. It feels like it's productive, but it is become it's more like it's avoidance because you can agree to all of it. All it's like I whenever I sit there and over-indulge in my podcast, it's like, oh yeah, but I don't ever stop and and just apply it, you know. Yeah, just live in it as we go, right?

SPEAKER_01: 26:06

Right, no, it's very true. So learning feels less productive, but often becomes an avoidance. So there are times when you take on a big project and it's a large, like a lot of bites to eat, right? You're so you're trying to consume and figure out how I get from point A to Z, and you you realize that whatever it is you're consuming is so boring, you're like, oh my god. I've had a couple of those. Like I took a I took a$2,000 course last year. I still have not finished the course. That's a goal for this year, and I had to renew the extension on that course, and I got like I got three quarters away full, and then I got slammed. I'm like, okay, well I didn't. So there's only so much you can do. There's only one of you. There was not triplets of Shannon or Jamie. There's only so much you can do in a day. So learning can feel less productive, and don't you don't need more ideas, you need clarity about what actually applies. So the greatest thing about being an entrepreneur is that you can actually invent the wheel as you go. Granted, there's way more structure than when I first got into this game, so you can kind of learn from others, but you can actually piece things together. It's like putting Legos together. Am I gonna build that log cabin? Now they have specialty Legos, flowers and Snoopies and Hello Kitties. They're better than the real thing, right? So you you you have a lot more resources, but you have to kind of experiment, and then sometimes you'll do a policy change, and then you're like three weeks later going, What was I thinking? And the employers are like, I don't know, you just said to do it, so we did it. You're like, This is just a clusterfuck. Why is this doing this?

SPEAKER_00: 27:55

Well, no, If no one wants to tell you, yeah, I think nobody, yeah, nobody wants to tell you, that's for sure. It's like you're just gonna do it. You're just gonna do it. Uh, and then yeah, there's a lot of that.

SPEAKER_01: 28:09

So clarity with uh uh is really about what actually applies, and then uh the emotional load comes into focus because you get to maximum capacity when you have, and I'll give you an example when you have too much going on in your mind, like my 10-year-old gets miffed if I don't remember all of the juicy bits about her school day, right? She's she's you know, girls are very articulate, and she is like a little mini me, which is totally great, but she gets like, Don't you remember, don't you remember? And I'm I've got a whole I got a whole ecosystem of stuff that I'm working on. So I sometimes will not remember all the details, and she gets frustrated with me because she has to repeat it again, and sometimes it'll take a third time where I'm like, which friend was this again? You know, because there's girl trauma in in fifth grade. So so that so it becomes less because you have too much in your brain. So once you get to the awareness phase, is where you start to see the emotional cost of your business, and that's when you start to make decisions on how do I get out of what I'm doing so that I can focus working on the business instead of in it. And you say yes a lot of times to avoid discomfort. How many times is it? Is it I've taken on customers that I've regretted right away? Yep, sure, no problem. We'll do that for you. And I'm like, what did I agree to? Right?

SPEAKER_00: 29:41

Yes, I'm dealing with that right now, and and it's like pulling hair out, trying to go back and set that boundary because it's like, well, wait a minute, and this is one of those people that question everything. They're elderly. My cleaning text will tell me it's not just you, she's literally on the phone all day, the whole time that we are there doing something like this with every critiquing right every person she's ever dealt with. Like, why is this? You know, oh no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01: 30:20

She thinks she can walk on water, but we've actually not seen it.

SPEAKER_00: 30:24

And it's like, oh what but this person also made me this client made me realize, okay, we're gonna put that in in the terms and conditions right now, right?

SPEAKER_01: 30:36

And sometimes that's what it takes. Um, and then a lot of times what what we'll do is, and this happens a lot in the beginning, is you underprice to avoid pushback. I spoke to someone the other day that gave a price and then immediately gave a discount. I'm like, why did something happen with the cleaning job? Why are you giving a discount? Well, I wanted the business, and then she's then there's the counter offer, right? So you give them the price, you give a discount, and then the homeowner goes, Well, my budget's this, or I want it for this, and then it becomes this lowball thing, and then your your profit margin, which should be 20%, shrinks down here, and then pretty soon your profit margin is three percent, and you're like, I'm paying for the privilege of cleaning because if that cleaning tech goes over in labor, that's a that's a wash, it's a lost year.

SPEAKER_00: 31:24

Remember, I I paid for somebody to have their house cleaned. Remember that, right? And that's an emotional decision, too. We need to start leaving the emotion out of it and stick to the script, right? That way it's not so hard for you to rationalize what you're doing. Stick to the script, you guys.

SPEAKER_01: 31:51

Right, and there are plenty of scripts if you want something physical that you can print out and have in your hand, especially when you're teaching others because they don't know what to say because everybody is so attached to their phones, right? And then you and I'm guilty of this myself way back in the day. You over-deliver to avoid complaints. You go in, Jamie comes in because her cleaning tech is sick. We don't want to lose the client, so we're in there, and then you go, how far should I go? Because then you're cleaning better than the cleaning tech, and then they're like, Well, I want you back, Jamie. Why can't you come and clean for me all the time, right?

SPEAKER_00: 32:28

We have that's why we stick to checklists, and we have a digital checklist that my cleaning techs stick to, and this happened yesterday. My cleaning tech said it's not on there to get a hold of Jamie. It was as they were there doing the job, and uh not on there, it's not on the list, right? That's also where one of those scope creeps come in. Because whenever I am in the field, I do that because this is my baby, it is our baby, and you this is also where the mentality comes into your head, but nobody could ever clean like I can. And that that that those days are long gone. Get rid of that idea because it's not true. You need to draw it back a little bit to like 95%, 95% that cleaning tech will deliver it. Maybe not to your 100%, but it will they will deliver to the 90, 95. You need to just draw back your draw back, stick to the script, you guys.

SPEAKER_01: 33:52

And then sometimes you'll find that you take responsibility that isn't yours. So, for example, it's the sometimes you'll have a client schedule you and the bug person at the same time. First of all, what they're spraying is a pesticide, as we all know, and so you can't have the pesticide actually work if the cleaning tech is there cleaning because they're wiping up everything. Or the cleaning tech will arrive first, then the pest control person, and they go, Oh, well, this is the cabinet here is got marks on it, you guys ruined it. When in actuality it was the pest control person, and then you're like, then you're like apologizing, but you're apologizing for not apologizing, right? So then it becomes this whole awkward thing of who's responsible for what. A lot of times you'll see it with people's floors, the floors finally get clean, and you can see all the scuffs.

SPEAKER_00: 34:45

Yeah, we've had that happen too, and it just those were the days of me sending back somebody and just here, fix it. But I lost money on that because I had to send back, and and I just I didn't want to deal with it, you know. I I wanted that person so happy, you know. Like, hey, never mind the the 20 people that you had in and out. You had a window person, you had a flooring person, you get out, but we went and fixed it, and those days are gone, gone.

SPEAKER_01: 35:58

We've since you know I'll do it for you this time, but next time it's not happening. Yeah, so a lot of this isn't like a character flaw, it's a sign that your business outgrew the identity you built it with, and that's super important to remember. So remember, I mentioned that the person that you start off with that starts at point A, the entrepreneur Shannon Miller isn't gonna be the same person when you get to the fifth phase as point Z because you've grown and evolved and you're you you've come to this evolution, right? Right, true, yeah. Your identity does change, so make sure that you're aware of that. Why people regress and rush ahead because phase two is unstoppable because it's it fits between effort and structure, effort and structure, then it segues back over here and then it segues back over there. And it's easy because it becomes habitual, so you can easily regress back into old habits because it's easier that way, and they feel familiar, even if they're bad habits. Bad habits feel familiar just like good habits. Very hard. You can jump away into advanced tactics, but then you don't have the foundation, you end up falling flat on your face.

SPEAKER_00: 37:10

It's very hard. I have to it's it's because you're you're changing a habit, and it takes a lot of your brain fun, at least my brain does. It's like, man, I fight tooth and nail sometimes. I don't want to change it. It feels so relaxed and comfortable here, but I also know now that I'm in this business and been doing this for a while, that growth is kind of uncomfortable. It's really uncomfortable at all. Whenever I first started working with you, Shannon. I'm not I'm not that same person. I I I'm still the go-getter. I am, you know, I'm in in in the body and the flesh, I'm the same person. But up here, it is a totally different mindset.

SPEAKER_01: 38:06

Definitely. So both paths delay real growth. So if you're retreating back to old habits or you're jumping ahead when you're not ready, those are gonna make you, they're gonna stunt your growth, and you're not gonna be able to move forward. You're gonna have to start to take baby steps, and um, you're not gonna be able to skip clarity or expect systems to stick unless you make them stick. So saying that we're gonna empty the trash in every kitchen on Mondays, and then by Friday, you're saying, no, we're not doing the kitchen trash gives confusion and it doesn't provide consistency. And I will give you an example for this for the longest time because I cater to the seniors, nothing wrong with that until COVID happened. But we didn't change the crit the trash because I had several of them go, you know, it took me 20 years to get him to take out the trash. Don't take out the trash. And then after COVID happened, I, you know, well, there we had a bunch of widowers. Well, how come you're not taking out trash? I'm like, well, you guys didn't want us to do it before. So it becomes a that's an example of, you know, providing consistency. So now we're back to taking out the trash in the kitchen where before we weren't, we didn't do it, right? And then the actual work of phase two isn't about fixing everything, it's making you aware of what is working and what is not working. If you constantly have people canceling at the last minute, institute a contract, we have the contract bundle. I can tell you that when I instituted the contract, I went from a 55% cancellation rate down to two. It's very rare that people cancel, and if it's usually a snow-related incident because we don't have enough snow here and it makes everybody crazy and they go to the grocery store and buy milk and bread, even though nobody needs it, and nobody knows how to drive in the snow. So I'm like, I'd rather just skip than have someone ruin their car because they're out working for me, and some you know, someone hit them on accident. So you're gonna have to decide what needs to be fixed.

SPEAKER_00: 40:09

What they know, they know that the it's coming. They canceled yesterday, right? Like, I forgot. Just go ahead. I know what it is. Go ahead and charge the card.

unknown: 40:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 40:22

I know you can't fill that spot, and I don't want to lose my spot, so go ahead, right?

SPEAKER_01: 40:27

And that it took a while for Jamie to get there. Initially, everyone's like, fuck you.

SPEAKER_00: 40:32

Well, and initially, a lot of people yeah, well, people are like, the full price, you charge the full price. I do, because it's not fair that my cleaning techs have made all their their schedule, right? I've made the schedule. I can't I can't fill this on the fly. No, um I I they can't they don't want to lose their spot, the client don't want to lose their spot, and so my cleaning checks get get something for this, right?

SPEAKER_01: 41:05

And the cleaning tech deserves to be paid, is how I phrase it. You know, you want the cleaning tech to be paid, right? Because you're indirectly telling them the cleaning tech is not gonna get paid unless I charge you this amount. It's not fair for them not to be paid because you messed up on your end, you didn't fulfill your obligation, you didn't do your thing. We've done it. We the cleaning tech went to their car, drove over to the storage unit or wherever they're doing, or maybe they didn't go to the storage unit, arrived at the home on time in uniform, in clean impressed, you know, all of these things. So you when you have that happening, it puts a different perspective, and you can say, you know, my cleaning techs still deserve to be paid. That's a blanket statement. It's a psychology, like, oh because they think you're gonna take all the money and run.

SPEAKER_00: 41:53

It's not tricking them. No, uh, this is literally, I cannot fill that spot right now. How unfair is it to me and the cleaning techs? Uh you know, left scrambling. So, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 42:08

So phase two is gonna ask you to observe patterns instead of reacting, because you're gonna fix that in the next phase. You're gonna name what drains you instead of normalizing it. So that could be your clients. You could have 50 Mrs. Smiths who are all high maintenance, all OCD, looking for things. They're on the phone, looking for flaws. Yeah. You could do a pro and con list. It could be that your cleaning techs are that way. You haven't settled that all down. It could be just pick one section at a time to address it, doesn't all have to be done right away and acknowledge where things are unclear. If you have your cleaning tech asking you how to do a blue oven every single time, is there a rash of blue ovens being sold? Or is there like someone just didn't know that they weren't supposed to put chemical in a blue oven? I mean, there's this whole dynamic of what has changed in the industry in the last what 18 months?

SPEAKER_00: 43:01

Yeah. No, exactly. Exactly. We have it in our job or how to properly clean a blue oven. So I do have checklists. And in order for them to fill out and be able to clock out, they have to say, you know, did I do this? Did I do this? Did I do this? Did I do this? And blue oven is on there. And big bold letters. Blue oven. Yeah. Blue oven.

SPEAKER_01: 43:34

So then you begin separating what's urgent and what's important. So that's your pro and con list, or however you're going to break that down. And then what's yours to carry versus what should have never been? And remember, initially you did everything. You were the jack of all trades, right? Or the jill of all trades. You did everything, you were the bookkeeper, the salesperson, the cleaner, the accountant, the you know, the damage control, the customer. So you were all of those people. So now that you've grown a little, you're starting to spread out your branches, but then you've realized that maybe you shouldn't have been the customer service person because you hate dealing with the customers. Maybe Jamie should be my customer service person because she's just way better at calming things down and making things run smoothly. Those are observations to make. And delegating it.

SPEAKER_00: 44:23

And delegating learning whenever just learning to let go of that control. It's so hard and scary because it's like you're not going to do it like I am. You're not going to do it as good as I am. It's the emotional investment for sure. Yeah. So you think. And but whenever you have a problem over after problem after problem, and you're aware of that, it's like, okay, it's time to let this one go. Right. You know who's really good at this is whoever you you know you assign that to. I assign some things over to my cleaning tech Miriam, or which she's a lead manager, whatever you want to call her. She is out in the field checking on all of my dogs. Yes. He wants out. I'm gonna let him out. Don't let him out.

SPEAKER_02: 45:28

I also have Sarah.

SPEAKER_00: 45:31

I have Sarah. Sorry guys. I have Sarah that I have delegated a lot to, like all of my tech techie stuff. I've a lot like I am horrible at that. I got all this other stuff that I need to focus on. And then I'll I'll type something up and I'll be like, can you help me implement this? And where would I implement this? And then she'll help me and find that spot. But those those are the two kind of people that I have right now. Erica, she's really making her way up to the the top of the ladder, too. You know, I you see things in people after you've been in it for a while, and you become totally aware that okay, this is I've seen this before, and this is working really good. This is what I don't want to happen again. And you make sure you put all those, you're starting to structure stuff, you know. If somebody, if the universe is going ding on top of your head, and and you're just sitting there, you know, with your somebody's hand palm with your head up against it trying to run. I think that's whenever it's time to take it and structure. That's whenever that's your cue. That's your cue to okay, let's figure this out and let's fix this. What is it? What is it that I need to fix? And and we're giving you a bunch of examples of what I've seen and what I've also seen in the groups and in my own business.

SPEAKER_01: 47:12

You'll start to see the same questions being asked over and over and over again where you initially gave out every answer where you could put it in an SOP or some sort of document where you're not having to answer those questions. And then you'll start to see the patterns, the same mistakes will happen. Like, for example, Mrs. Smith. I always use Mrs. Smith because it's generic and it's not hurting anyone's feelings. And if you are Mrs. Smith, it's not me attacking you. Occasionally you'll come across a house that has brick, like not decorative brick, but actual brick floors. And oh yeah, even note that you have to have a rag mop to mop those floors and a fan. You can't just go over there and flat mop brick, it just doesn't work. It's porous, it requires a lot of water to kind of you know gently scrub with the rag mop. So those are observations. So if that house always causes you a problem, then you need to make sure that you have a notation. Must bring rag mop and fan. Go buy office, pick up, blah, blah, blah. So that would be just be something an observation to have. So when you start to see the repetitiveness of the same questions and the same flaws, then you can do stuff to tweak it. That's where I would start first. And then this phase is not failure. It's where owners decide whether they're willing to grow. So you're awake, you're paying attention, and you're no longer willing to operate on autopilot. You're not trying to be reactive, but you're trying to make structure in your business to make it run smoother for your cleaning tax. And the discomfort is not a sign to quit, it's a signal that you're ready for intentional decisions. Again, pros and cons. Journal it however you're doing your creative things. Mine's always the shower gods. I get fantastic ideas in the shower. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_00: 49:06

Uh something I get a lot of great ideas whenever I'm cleaning or we're doing this right here.

SPEAKER_01: 49:11

Just like you'll see us take notes because I'm like, oh.

SPEAKER_00: 49:15

I learned so much from doing these podcasts along with you guys. It helps me learn and implement my own and take a look at my own self. So I'm learning right along with all you guys still.

SPEAKER_01: 49:31

Awesome. Well, this concludes phase two, the awakening, and I look forward to seeing you in phase three. Absolutely. We'll talk to you guys soon. All right, that's phase two, the awakening. And if this episode made you feel a little called out, good. It's not failure. That's awareness. And awareness is the doorway to change. If here's your move, don't just nod along. Pick one pattern you're noticing right now. One, write it down, track it for a week because phase two doesn't run on adrenaline, it runs on questions and honesty. And if you're ready to stop guessing and start running a real business with real boundaries, go and grab the contract bundle at Clean Freaks University. It's the fastest way to cut cancellations, reduce chaos, and get your clients back into professional behavior mode. We'll see you next time for phase three the builder.