 Hey, good afternoon everybody Tom Stewart here our guest today is Sharon Cowan and this is smart business moves Hey Sharon, how are you? I'm great. Thanks Tom. Thanks for having me. This is great We're excited for you to be able to join us. It's been a while since we've Actually talked on all running to you at convention every once in a while and yeah live events Yeah, it has been a while Yeah It's great to be here and you guys are doing such a great Service with this this vehicle that you're using this method. You're getting information out to people. It's wonderful Well, thank you. We have a lot of fun with it What's an opportunity to get together and chat with leaders in the cleaning industry and You know share some thoughts that hopefully will be useful to people. Yeah, and speaking of that I know that you've got, you know a lot of expertise and experience, you know in the general cleaning world and You know residential commercial a lot of different things and I we were talking earlier that this is your first time My smart business moves. I can't believe that. I mean, we've been doing this for years Then we've never never had you as a guest. I know I know that Liz did ask me A couple of times and things that timing just didn't didn't work out. So I'm glad we finally got this to work We try so we finally we finally got it right You want to take a moment and just kind of tell us about yourself How you got involved in cleaning and what you've been doing? Well, okay. I came from the corporate world back in the early 90s. I got tired of all the travel that I was doing and Having people tell me what to do all the time. So I had an opportunity to Purchase a very small cleaning company. It was all residential and in fact, there were only six employees and so I Knew that the service industry was where I wanted to be because There was a huge demand for that in my market People paid for service and so I went ahead and purchased it and Within three months. I started getting and of course I had to learn the business that there was ARCSI was not around There were no mentors no Canned programs that you could buy there. You were literally on your own. There were no Facebook groups. No There was no Facebook At the time so you really had a lot of learning to do and you couldn't go to AI and get the answers and you couldn't you know Really, I did a lot of research The hard way, you know the old the old-fashioned with a book, you know, I did a lot of reading But I eventually If that wasn't easy either because there wasn't a whole lot even written about the house in the industry back No, so a lot of it was trial and error, you know, what what mistake did I make a mistake big enough to put me out of business or Could I recoup and learn from my mistakes? I Did find the building service contractors International and I joined that because I had I had already begun to get a lot of Requests for commercial planning and of course I had not a clue what I was doing with that In fact, I remember three months into owning the business. I had an opportunity with two large properties To bid the commercial one was a school and I don't remember what the other one was but they were both significantly large and I did them and I got them and The first night we called in my husband his people He got surrounded up some people from work and because they wanted me to start right away both from the same night like January 2nd I'll never forget that and Years later when I or not years months later when I looked at the pricing I thought it's no wonder. I cut these I gave away my work. I had I had no idea what I was doing So the industry has come a long way. I'm preventing that kind of thing from happening. So You know, I'm happy to say now There are a lot of resources and a lot of places where you can get information. I remember BSCA I was a I was a member as well because there wasn't anything else to be a member of it This thing to what we were doing, right? And I remember my first convention that I went to of theirs And I looked and I was one of the handful of women. It was predominantly male or which it I don't think it's quite so bad anymore, but Not that being predominantly male is bad but it was hard to find a place there and I looked around and I saw all these men in Plaid flannel shirts and jeans and I thought what have I gotten myself into? What is this? This wasn't what I refused to but it was the only source It was like my lifeline at the time that there wasn't anything else But it but if you know if you were doing commercial it was it was really an excellent resource You know, yeah, we're doing if you're doing residential There was some community there But I remember getting the magazine every month and opening it up And it was like string mops and mop buckets and for cleaning machines and yeah, none of that stuff We were using in our house cleaning business No And they would do surveys they would do like surveys or their members of you know With our revenue and size and employees and it was all awesome, but it was all commercial cleaning It was like wouldn't it be cool if somebody was doing that for house cleaning? Yes, yes and So I kept my business till the turn of the century imagine saying that in our Well, you you started in the 90s, so you weren't that far away from from And so it was early 2003 or so Right in there that I sold the business I had been getting a lot of requests for Consult helping other business owners and at that time I was operating in five counties more regionally in florida And I had 140 employees And I said, you know, it's time. I really want to do something else And my accountant kept telling me if you're considering selling selling when you're Peeking and you're on top don't wait you get burned out and tired and then You let it go So that's what I did and I found Someone from new york who was moving to florida and he had He grew up in the business and had years of years and years of experience And so the transition was very easy, you know, I sold it he took over knew right what to do and It worked out really well. So it was a Like an american dream story It was Well, you know, that's a relief because it's a big decision to sell your business and when you are selling it It's still your business. You want it to continue to to flourish in the hands of the new owner. So Having somebody who knows what they're doing and it takes care of your business. Certainly Yeah, it was great. You know, the hardest part was really well telling the employees and then Visiting with my key clients and letting them know a transition was happening But I did he asked me to stay on for a while and I did stay on For about a year. I I worked as a contractor for him in sales. Like I I did all the selling for him and all the marketing Um, because I knew everybody in town not everybody, but I knew a lot of people so They put my my face company So we didn't want to cut that right off. So I stayed and did some marketing and sales for him Yeah, that's uh, that's that's a you know, a fortunate arrangement that was lucky for him Yeah Yeah, because he was new of course to the area. He didn't know anybody So, uh, I I'm a big big believer in Networking and getting your name out there and branding your company, but we'll talk a little more about that so then you After that, how did you transition into consulting? well, as I said, I I had been already I was being asked quite frequently for advice And I thought, you know, I'm I'm just going to do this early on in my Adult life right after college. I was a teacher. So I've always had that instinct of us to work with people and Teach them something and show them something and so that kind of came naturally to me And this was almost a throwback and coaching is teaching really that that's what you're doing So it was kind of a natural transition So let's you started doing that back in the early 2000s Yeah, yeah I did a few workshops, um with other consultants and I and I um Just broke in AR CSI was just starting To become familiar back to the Early days of that organization and I got involved with that and It it's interesting The balance that I had in the business when I blotted, of course, it was all residential And pressure washing they were doing pressure pressure washing and I got rid of that right away. That was not my not my deal So we stopped that Uh, and then the commercial was growing and growing and when I sold We were about 80 percent commercial and still 20 percent residential. So I kept that division Although we just sort of flipped the focus during the time So So in your consulting business, you know, you you went into that with like a unique set of experiences and expertise being both on the Residential and commercial side. So Exactly, how did you fold that into your your consulting business? Well, I I have the ability to see The differences to understand them And it gives me an opportunity to work with clients that have both specialties I I do residential consulting as well as commercial consulting because I've been to both places and I do I have had and I do have some clients who do both segments But I would say the majority do one or the other So I can I can help them with either one and I can see The differences Based on your experience just kind of a rough guess. What percentage of of your clients do both residential and commercial? Maybe 25 25 Now out of that 25 percent Is it half residential half commercial or do they tend to like have a lot of one in a little bit of the other? It's more residential um The residential folks um Will venture into commercial a lot more than the commercial folks venturing into residential the commercial the commercial people tend to stay in their own lane They don't understand residential and they don't like it usually And so More the customers are residential that move into commercial In a restaurant Yeah, so The commercial people stay in their lane, but the residential people Business owners are more comfortable Venturing over in commercial For the ones that do both and and I guess just your experience is one easier to run than the other Absolutely hands down commercial is easier I think the folks that That survive and live and thrive in residential only they are My heroes because that is definitely the harder the more difficult to manage in my opinion Much more interesting. I mean, I'm not surprised you hear you say that but Yeah, what are what are the whys for that? Why do you think that is? well For one thing you're working business to business Okay, so the expectations are different You're not working in someone's home. You're not touching their personal things in an office. You're The cleaning is straightforward. You come in you do you do the work usually the customer is not on the premises So you're there's nobody to follow you around and nobody to look after you you jump in You do the work and you leave Um There there isn't a lot of Drama let's put it that way there. There's not a lot of drama typically The cleaning is much less detailed in the commercial so what happens is if you get A residential cleaner Who's cleaning an office space? They tend to over clean it And they just clean too much The customer really isn't paying for A house cleaning level of cleaning in a commercial property and i'm not suggesting being sloppy or not doing the work I'm just saying the requirements are different. So it's it's less detailed um The work is primarily at night. So that's a A question mark. That's difficult. That could be a good that could be bad. I guess that's just yeah in your situation I found it easier to find employees Because we used all part-time employees If you really can't give someone Well, you could but i don't advise it. You're giving someone A five six seven hour work shift Starting at five o'clock in the afternoon or six o'clock. That means they're going to be working until midnight And I never recommend that crews are out Past 10 o'clock. You know, you really want the people in off the road So on the commercial side part-time work. They're working at night Or is is that a second job for for some of them? Uh, and that's why it's easier to find the people Because they don't depend on this job for their livelihood They want it for a specific purpose either, you know a kid in college or a car payment or You know in today's market just buying food You know they're they're looking for extra work. So they tend to show up more Um, they just want to come in do their job get paid go home and So the show up or you you think they're more reliable the the part-time commercial help Well, you can track their work history a lot better because they have a day job typically Those are the ones I really like and And yes, because they're driven to Make that money for that purpose whatever purpose that is they have for working If it's their only job Um Unless it might be a retired person that's looking for something extra to do But if it's their only job and they have to support themselves chances are You'll have the same problems that you do with the daytime With the in the residential where they don't show You know, they're late. They have one excuse after another. They don't have transportation Those kinds of things typically don't happen when you use that person who has another job Hmm. Okay So Different workforces Basically for the folks that are doing both, you know Maybe let me wind up back a little bit the whole the topic the thing we really want to get into is If you're a house cleaning company, how you diversify and get into commercial cleaning and You know, I know people that do that I know people who've got really successful house cleaning companies that make a meaningful amount on the commercial side as as well um So, I mean it is a thing and you work with a lot of your your your clients do that What advice would you have for somebody who's cleaning homes? I've got a decent house cleaning business, but they're looking to uh They're thinking about diversifying. What do they need to consider to even decide to do that or not? Well, they really have to think about the fact that everything is different Everything is going to be different. They I would recommend that they create a business plan for this division Also, I think the first thing they need to do is decide if they are going to create a brand new division and go full force into this um Or are they going to do it as a side light? To their residential where I have had clients who do this who just take on The occasional office. They'll clean the office. They'll do a little bit of commercial When when that happens A lot of times their pricing is not different They'll price those jobs the same way that they price their residential jobs Because they don't really care if they get the job or not. They're not trying to build the department If they want to build a division Then you need to look at your website And how that looks because you don't want to send a commercial customer to a residential website So you really need to to look at Look at that. Do you recommend like having two different brands? Maybe even two different companies? Not necessarily. You can you can do that but It's it's not necessary. You can create your website so that it looks So that it's it's appealing to both residential and commercial There can be one of the tabs can be for our residential division click here for our Commercial division click here But what you don't want is to send that that commercial customer to a residential site because that's really a turn off and Using the same employees to clean Residentially and commercially usually Is not a great idea because as I as I said the As I mentioned the residential cleaners are typically trained to be more detail oriented And just to give you an example productivity rates production rates and in the amount of Cleanable the amount that they clean per hour in residential that typically runs 700 square feet an hour. I'm going to say on average In commercial the average is 2,500 to 3,500 square feet an hour so a 2,500 square foot office Should take a commercial cleaner an hour maybe an hour and a half But for the residential person If that were a home that would take them three hours So they're trained to do more detail. So that's why using the same cleaners for commercial and residential is difficult It's to say the least it's very difficult And I guess commercial space is just laid out. I mean, I guess there's a lot of different variations of commercial space, but as the You know, some of the things you have to look at in commercial space Is or one of the big things is the density Which means how many people are working in the area? So let's say you have a 5,000 square foot office space and you have 20 desks in it and you have two restrooms Okay Now you take that same that's going to take you a certain amount of time to clean Now you take that same 5,000 square foot space and you have five desks and one restroom So the density is different. There are a lot more people using that same space So you're it's going to slow the cleaners down. There's more dirt To to remove more soil load is heavier. So Taking that kind of thing such as and then public traffic Is is this like a bank office where the public is in and out all day that's going to affect How long your cleaners are there? Because again, the soil load is different So all these things have to be taken into consideration that you don't necessarily need to in a residential setting Okay And I guess when you get into commercial, there's so many different types of commercial You know multi-tenant office space medical offices small You know shops and thousands of boxes and strip malls to large box stores From a house cleaning business. Where's a good place for me to start? The best place to start is a small general office On where it's easy to clean if they have public traffic. That's fine Banks are very easy to clean Anything that is simple lawyers offices physician, I would stay away from medical in the beginning I would definitely stay away from restaurants and bars They're late at night and they're Oftentimes they can be disgusting So, you know, and it's time and you have to be consider of your cleaners as well Sending them out. You really don't want them on the road driving around at midnight trying to find You know a parking place and get in and it's just in in today's world is You can avoid that at all. There are other companies who will do that. Let them do it But I'm guessing The the time that you want to be in operation maybe fits into that somewhat I I suspect like some bars and stuff The window of opportunity to clean it is anywhere from three o'clock in the morning Maybe till 10 o'clock the next morning and you get a crew in there early, maybe You could if you wanted to if if you wanted to a lot of owners Will want you to clean get it clean after right after the use. They won't want to wait but you can You can They're just difficult They're difficult because they and you really don't want to do the kitchens for sure in a restaurant Because there are companies who specialize in that That's what they do and they get behind the hood vents and they clean the drains and the filters and that's just That's very specialized and so you want to stay we just want to do the front of the house if you do a restaurant Daycare centers are another Thing that I that I don't recommend you jump right into right away They have Historically they they're poor payers and They will always tell you that the teachers are going to take care Of the cleaning in between the times when you're supposed to be there And that rarely happens You'll find dry Cheerios on the table The little restrooms the little children miss Hitting the toilet often And so you're stuck with urine that's seeping into tile grout. I mean it it can be It can be daunting now I know companies that specialize in daycares and they love them and that's how that's all they do or that's their main base But starting out I would not keep it simple keep it to the good the nice offices insurance companies attorneys offices And stay away from some of those unique ones warehouses can be tough to so Give some thought to that before you jump into the warehouse okay Frequency of service I guess some of these Customers are looking for one time a week a couple times a week others want Seven days a week starting out is is one any easy or a harder to another Five five to seven days seven days are tough. They're tough for anybody to schedule because you need really two crews and You can't really have somebody working six nights a week and if they If they are ill or have to be out of town or something now you've got a whole week's worth of work to cover So I recommend two people for that, but I recommend thinking very carefully before you take seven days a week Five days is ideal a lot of companies have have gone from five to three I would say between two and three days a week is Typical I would stay away from once every two weeks or once a month accounts those are Those are not Anything I would pursue I would set some parameters as to what you're Going to be looking at some targets in other words Am I going to take? Am I even going to consider a 50,000 square foot office building in the beginning? No But let's say 10,000 square feet and under Is a good starting place Two to three nights a week is great once a week is fine But any frequency less than once a week. I would say is not something you want You want to take on Time a day, you know, and you want to keep it so that it can be early evening I would say having cleaners on the road from five Until maybe nine or ten Especially if they have other jobs you want them off the road early So we've kind of talked about what type of commercial space to start with so understanding that How do you go about finding leads? I mean it's is it I'm assuming it's a little bit different than Then residential from a marketing and sales standpoint. What does that look like? Right? Right? Well, there are several several ways you can get outbound leads number one is Your website is is the one thing again If you're seriously considering this take a look at what your website looks like and And rework at least the home page And some of the other pages the images need to have some buildings in them not homes at all Um, so getting with someone to help you with the website The other way is the networking that is My experience has been that's the number one way that you're going to find new business and that is through business associations business groups Chamber of commerce is huge the chamber works Well, particularly when you're active it's not going to work so well If you just join and wait for the phone to ring or someone to get a hold of you inbound it's going to work if you get out and you meet people and At any chamber event that you go to you should make contact with every single person in that room Everyone should have your card and you should have the card of everyone and then you'd want to get on Committees with the chamber when you get on a committee Want to make sure that it's the an ambassador committee where you greet new businesses that come into town Or a membership committee where you get to call the new members or call and introduce yourself as representing the chamber in the membership committee so If you're or the economic development Committee that's a great one because then you find out everything that's going on What new business is coming? What are the plans? Who the contact people are? it's it really is worth your time and energy to get involved in the chamber and Make the connections. So those those are those are some of the ways one of the biggest accounts that I got early on Was a quarter of a million dollar account with a bank and I met the gentleman at a Chamber after hours event and he said oh clean. Oh, this is great I think our company is putting our janitorial service out to bid Would you be interested? And of course, you know my jaw dropped is that would I be interested? I think so so met with them and I I got got the job And it was 11 branches And it was $250,000 And to this day and that was in 1996 And to this day they have 65 branches and my former company still has that account so That chamber meeting really played paid off and you just never know when When something like that's going to just be Falling in your lap, but you have to be there to catch it that's probably Well over 10 million dollars and business offer that account over that number of years. Yeah well So modify your website so it makes it obvious that you do residential and commercial Do you have to be careful doing that? I mean you you If I'm if I'm looking for a commercial cleaning company I wouldn't want to see pictures of like a young couple holding a baby Like flip side if I want somebody to clean my home You know, I don't want to see Right the guys in the the final shirts and the jeans the way you described when you first started doing bsc right You have to separate you have to have more generic Images on the home page But then you lead them to a landing page somewhere In your your site where you can have those particular pictures. You just wouldn't want them on the front page Okay, you want them later later on in in the From like an seo standpoint you'd want people to like go directly to those Pages specializing in commercial or resident Almost like two landing pages on the same website Yes, okay, that makes sense And yeah, and it's just remember that home page is the first impression So that has to have both you can have pictures of homes or some have like the box That says our residential service here and our commercial service here And our contact information here So it's a almost a generic picture and then they can just click on the box and go to that that landing page So I've got a house cleaning business. I understand how to clean homes got a successful house cleaning business And I want to do commercial. I I know the types of businesses I want to be starting out with whether I can hand one kind of get in this thing easy You've given us some hints in terms of how we go ahead and we get leads. So I've got Somebody who is interested wants to give us an opportunity to quote on cleaning their commercial space But that's a that's completely different animal than than doing a quote for a home, isn't it? Absolutely, and and one of the things you cannot do is quote over over the phone and quote online They really can't do that. This is This is more of this is a very relationship business not necessarily more than residential, but it is very much relationship driven So the first thing that you want to do is make that appointment set an appointment as quickly as you can to get to see that office space and Then you'll go You know, it's within 24 hours if you can schedule it because they're already calling other people and getting three estimates You want to be in there? so Once you get there, okay, you're going to meet meet that prospect and what you're searching for Is getting to the bottom of of their pain. What is the pain point for this prospect? What is it that that is bothering them? Why are they seeking a new quote? They probably already have someone who's not performing but you want to find out why What it is that this customer wants the expectations So this is really the relationship building time. It's the beginning of the relationship During this walkthrough you're going to take notes. You'll exchange cards, of course Give a little information about your company But then you're going to walk through and you're going to take notes And there's a whole long checklist of what you're looking for During this walkthrough primarily what you're looking for is the expectation of the customer So if you're walking through an area that is pristine and it's beautiful and gorgeous And you could eat off of the floors and this prospect says Look at this. How dirty this is this this just isn't they didn't do a good job Now, you know, you've got a higher expectation from this customer and you're not going to clean it At 3,000 square feet an hour How you just can't and give that customer what they're looking for So you're going to have to back it down a little bit and go a little bit slower To give this customer the detail If they're why if you're walking through and you see that it's it's really in bad shape Really neglect and a lot of dirt soil build up And they say Your customer says well, they did a pretty good job Now, you know the expectation the bar is set pretty low Doesn't mean you have to meet that but just about anything you do is going to make you look like a hero to them So you get those clues from the customer as they're talking And you ask a lot of questions And they will usually tell you right away The other people brought their children here or they never showed up or they always miss baskets Not filling toilet paper dispensers and missing baskets are the two top Reasons that people get complaints So, uh, they'll usually tell you that right away Um so When you're when you're when you're having that initial meeting that initial walk through Does it matter who you're like You're you're with somebody from from from that business You're not just you know, I guess You could be walking through by yourself But more likely you're you're walking through with somebody talking to them. Yes Does it matter who that person is within the organization? Some you're most likely not with the decision maker Okay, the decision maker is not the one to do the walk through But you want to become You want to make a good impression on who whomever it is taking you through Because they're going to have influence Typically on the decision maker So you want you want to be memorable and make sure they say well ABC company was really great They understood they asked a lot of questions and I was very comfortable with that. I think they'll do a great job If that person doesn't walk away with a feeling like that They can say a lot of negative things and say well their price might be low But the guy was a jerk, you know, so You want to make sure that that relationship Gets off a lot of times I used to take something I'll leave behind a little packet with the pens and a notepad with my company information And and leave it there with the the gatekeeper. I'm going to call him or her So that they we would be front of mind top of mind that that's what you're That's really what all the marketing Is that they're your top of mind so you get to the point of the walk through Okay And once you're done with the walkthrough and and again, you don't do the estimate right there at the end of the walkthrough You take the you take the information back to your office and you work up the proposal and that's the point where You're putting everything into your proposal Because you're going to make an appointment to take the proposal back If they say just just fax it to me or just email it to me You really want to avoid that if you can if they insist there's not a lot you can do about that But if you say i'm going to be in the area anyway I'd like to drop this off if you don't mind you might have some questions You want more face time as much face time as you can get with that prospect and build keep building that relationship They're going to get a ton of other not a ton probably two or three other quotes And they're all going to come by email and you're going to be lost in there If they're going if they're going through the trouble of getting several quotes Would you expect as a rule do they have some type of bid package with yes a scope of work and So it's kind of an outline of this is what we're looking for so everybody's bidding on the same thing Yes, they typically do have a scope of work for you to follow Which is the only fair way to do that if you're getting multiple quotes Because now everybody's bidding on the same, but when you when they don't have that and many won't have it Then it's up to you to take really good notes and really dig a little deeper to make sure You understand what they're looking for so if if you want to Have an advantage in the bid process If they don't have a scope of work and if you can give them one in your proposal that might Might stand out Yes You are your proposal always should have a scope of work either theirs or yours Because you want it very clear should you win this account? exactly what Your cleaners are supposed to do no guesswork and what they're paying for what they what they're not going to be doing Exactly exactly and that is a document that you train from Okay, that becomes your training document. This is what we're doing on this account because every account is different so The bid packet You can have them print it. I had some Beautiful ones that were hardcover and I had a binding system and bound them but those were only for the higher and bigger accounts For regular accounts. I just used the the folder and I had a With the die cut square And then I would take always took a picture of the building And would would copy that so that they would have a picture on the front of their building That was very impressive. They thought oh, wow And that was before you were using your iphone and doing it all you were So so then in that proposal there should be a cover letter And the cover letters should be all about What you saw on the building in the building and in the space and not necessarily that We're licensed. We're trained. We're bonded. We offer quality service Everybody does that so you don't need to put that in a cover letter You want to make it all about them and the proposal as well the entire proposal should be all about that customer If you want some company history You can put that on a on one page and that should be at the back of the proposal You know that's you don't want to be the dominant. It's all about me. You want it to be it's all about you And your proposal and you leave that behind. Is it a good idea to include some references? Absolutely Okay Letter of recommendation if you have one that would be great if you could get that References for similar type buildings if you have them That's that's always a plus So if you do other insurance companies, and this is an insurance company Use use those references. Okay. So that's how I put together a proposal, but probably the most Scary part of putting together a proposal is what am I going to charge? Yes, you mentioned 25 to 3500 square feet an hour. So You know, I I'm sure that it's it's there's a whole lot to this This is probably part of of the services you provide from a consulting service standpoint But what could you share with us about? How do you how do you price a commercial job? That's a good question There are two primary ways one is sense for square foot And one is by the hour charging an hourly rate So let me just Start this part with the fact that Please don't go to facebook groups to ask for pricing I Know I know it's like the magic bullet. It's like I have a 5000 square foot office space once a week. What should I charge? Really It's really difficult. So get some scary. Isn't that yeah, it is And people listen to that and get some of these are contracts. It's a little different You tell mrs. Jones. It's going to cost You know 150 dollars to clean your home every other week and you get in there and you find out that She had five cats that you didn't know about then you can go back and say i'm sorry i'm wrong But a lot of these agreements are legally binding, aren't they? Yeah, yeah, they are they are so So since per square foot is reserved for post construction cleanup And it is reserved for accounts that are five nights a week and large And i'm saying over 50 000 square feet That's the only time you use if i'm starting out. That's not where I want to start. No No, no That's the maximum size like if i'm somebody if I have an opportunity to quote a building and i've never done commercial before Is there like a square footage that I need to stay below? Yes, 10 to 12 000 square feet. I would not go over that in the beginning Yes, we're doing 2,500 square feet an hour. That's still four or five hours where they're working night And in that case you would bring two people in Okay, you would have a team for that Because again, you don't want this person starting at six o'clock at night and working for five hours So you have a partner and so and and a lot of this is route work So they'll go from building to building to building. So you need a team oftentimes in order for them to get all the work done And and typically these build these buildings are closed and I guess you've got security safety concerns having a couple people together Is probably good at a lot of levels. Yeah, it is I do recommend So how do I have a dollar amount on that? So the average in the industry now Is anywhere from 30 dollars to 39 40 you can Depending on your market depending on the customer You can go higher if you want you you can try it if you start losing accounts. It's it's really a Trial and error in your market to see what your market can bear What does it got to hold if you're getting a lot of nose and a lot of turn downs? At 40 dollars an hour, then you're too high And you need to back it down a little bit You know, maybe 35 dollars an hour. It is not the same hourly rate as residential And again, there are those those companies that say I don't care if I get that office or not My price is 65 dollars an hour and that's what I'm going with and that's fine If that's what they want, but if they really want to build the commercial they have to get a little tighter on the pricing so If I'm charging 30 to 40 an hour You know today's labor rates are Fairly high, you know, and I guess depending upon what market you're I mean I'm sure that market conditions have a lot to do with what you're charging for an hour But by the time you fully load your labor and phone some other expenses and some overhead you're working on some pretty thin margins Aren't you? Yes, but the the difference is The revenue It's the dollar amount Because it's a really big number still a lot of money Yes, I mean if you have one customer that's $5,000 a month on one customer How many residential customers would you need to get that revenue every month? So It is it is very different and One thing I really want to make sure that we That we hit on Is supervision and quality Supervision is huge We're going to have to take this to the lightning round share them because we've got like Eight minutes left. So let's go ahead and hit on supervision We'll just hit hit supervision really fast important to have someone out there with these people every night Checking on them. It's important to do quality proactive quality visits to your customers Every night like every night a supervisor we stop in the shop somewhere. They won't go to every job every time with you But you have a supervisor out checking on the routes and yes, okay And then quality visits proactive quality visits Once a month during the day When your contact person can see you walking the building Checking on things you they may walk with you or they may not But you want to be visible and be seen and and do those proactive visits So you know what's happening on the accounts. Okay, that's that's a good advice um How do you recommend companies pay their cleaning Professionals are cleaning technicians. Is this straight hourly or do they pay On job ticket hour? What uh, typically it's it typically is hourly, right? okay, so If the margins are really tight in any particular area, they can flat give them a commission But if you work loaded it at five or you know four hours a night Then if they're in there for five you could be losing money Yes, they can't be they have to stay within the budget. So they know they know how many hours they've had and they can take more Yeah, absolutely. If they get if they get done at three and a half. That's fine, too If they're meeting the scope work. Yeah okay so If i'm in the residential cleaning business and I use you know everything that we've talked about here I know who I can sell to what the size space i'm looking for how to go through and do a walkthrough how to put together a quote um, how to price it Okay, and and really how to staff it I need to get paid And if i'm in the house cleaning business, you know, normally I have a credit card on file But I just run, you know after every job It doesn't work that way in commercial does it? No, no it does not you have to wait usually 15 to 30 days to get paid But you don't wait until the end of the month to invoice you invoice in advance of the month Because the beauty of commercial cleaning is schedules don't change so You know somebody You don't get canceled from jobs So you know what your billing rate is for the month. So on the first of the month You send out the invoice with due upon receipt. You should expect to get paid within the first 15 days typically some will pay right away And if they go 30 Then you're you're You're carrying that payroll for the 30 days So it behooves you to get those invoices out the first of the month and wait So is it is it normally like a monthly a monthly invoice you Okay, and you say at the beginning of the month So if I have a new contract and I'm a new building and I'm starting february 1st That's my first day of work, but I'm also giving them an invoice on february 1st the work that I'm going to be doing With the expectation they're going to pay me and I guess all of this is part of the the bidding Quoting all this is negotiated as part of the agreement up front, isn't it? Absolutely So you don't want to start cleaning and then go oh by the way, how are you going to pay? No, they would know that during the walkthrough. You would say our typical invoicing process works like this when moving and and 90 percent of commercial companies do it that way So They would be used to it So with commercial are there any special insurance considerations anything we would need to know regarding insurance It would be definitely no More commercial spaces what like certificates of insurance showing it you you have it more so And you can include those in your proposal that should be in your proposal okay, so Just in General if i'm running a house cleaning company and i'm thinking about you know expanding into commercial are there any Any questions i should be asking myself to help me figure out if that would be a good option for me or not Well, you have to i think you have to decide How heavily you want to go into it? That's the first thing you have to decide Do i want to create a separate division and am i going in this full Full steam or am i just going to take on a few offices? And once you make that decision then the business plan And what do i really want from this division in my company? What so if if i'm all Residential and i've got somebody who wants me to quote Some type of route work three nights a week for two hours And if i don't if that's not part of my strategy, and if i don't really have a desire to go all in on that Maybe i should say no right Yes My one of my favorite sayings is just because it has a toilet doesn't mean you need to clean it so If it doesn't fit in your plan then don't do it Very good very good. Well if I'm considering going into commercial and i'm in in residential if i am in commercial i'm been in commercial and just want to You know improve my business You'd be willing to i mean there's a lot of different ways you could help People in their cleaning businesses What's the best way for for people to get a hold of you Sharon? Well my website cleaning business consulting group dot com I have a youtube channel email Sharon at cleaning business consulting dot com We have a podcast polishing profits. I'm on that with two other industry consultants Who do you work with on polishing profits? Ed selcoe and mark anderson Okay, I know ed. I've known ed for a long time. Yeah He's down there with you too, isn't he? Yes. Yes. He's on the other coast. He's on saint p tampa side very good Well, this was a lot of good stuff and i know that You know, we're regardless if you're commercial residential or both I think that you shared a lot of good stuff here that could be useful to People as they're contemplating, you know, do I do I have an opportunity to to either diversify or expand my business? right A couple of other quick plugs here just while we're we're at the end We're doing a foundations event liz is and she were here. She'd be talking about this, but she isn't so i'm going to Mention this it's uh in march. If you want more information. I just dropped the link there mark 16th through 23rd um Made central we're doing a live event in uh, dc in april Along with an arcsy regional event if you're interested in that it's uh made central dot academy We just did one of those a couple of weeks ago in phoenix and About 40 people there. It was really really good event. It was cold the temperatures like 40 or 50 degrees in phoenix I just can't uh, i'm looking for warm weather. Sharon. I'm having a hard time Come on down It'll be warming up soon enough i'll be Yeah, we'll all be ready for cool weather in about five months well Sharon, I can't thank you enough for uh, you're helping us out today. This was good. This really was good Good excellent. I'm happy to be here. It's great So it took us four years almost to get you in sport business moves. Let's uh, try to Not uh, let's try to let's let's try to make it happen a little sooner next time That works that works Well, we are we are at the top of the hour. So we're going to go ahead and call this wrap. Um Next week. We'll be back five o'clock eastern Um, Liz should be with us, uh, then and uh, we'll have another awesome guest and we'll go from there Sharon, thank you again You're welcome my pleasure until next week everybody take care