 Hey, good afternoon everybody Tom Stewart here. I am with Liz Trotter our guest today is Matt Riggs. This is smart business mode Hey, Matt. Hey, is this the first show we've done in June? I guess it would be it's the second, right? Yeah, it's in June Hmm It's not officially summer yet, is it? Mmm, I don't think so right longest day or something. Yeah, that's Sometime towards the end of the month, I think It's hot here though It's hot here, too. Well, yeah, it's not hot here. I don't I forgot what I was talking to. Yeah 86 I'm having I'm upstairs. I'm at home and I'm upstairs in the office and I'm having the air conditioner up here replaced today At the moment, it's hot Sorry Tom it gets hot there. It really gets hot there. Yeah We'll Have that word here. Maybe before the show is over. Well, we'll have the air conditioner working I'll keep you guys posted I believe my house today. This is an ongoing saga It's kind of a joke between me and Tom, but there's this telephone pole in the middle of my driveway. I bought this new house and Today they're working on the telephone pole So there's there's three different Utilities that have to make this telephone pole go away. I paid a lot of money like months and months ago to make this happen So today the cable company came to move their stuff off the old pole the new poles there We've buried our power off the pole But my internet's out because the cable company's out doing their thing But it's like an ongoing joke somebody's out there every day looking at this thing And like nobody wants to be the one to pull it out of the ground because it's like in the concrete In the middle of my driveway But I'm like I paid for it like I'm just gonna have to keep calling and calling It's like it's getting a little like it's like almost it's like my job to like deal with the engineering of moving this telephone pole, but Yeah, it's an ongoing thing like every week. They're like doing something to this telephone pole Like just take a chainsaw to this thing and just knock it down Let's get it gone But you don't want like us the telephone pole stump in your driveway I don't want that either. I do want them to I do want them to to jack hammered out and pluck it out of the ground Absolutely, so I'll have a hole in my driveway for a little bit. I'll fill it with gravel till I can get somebody Do they have to repair that? No, that's me. That's on me So they just got to get it out of the ground. I don't care, but I at that point I don't care Why do you have to have it all the way down? I mean just get it down, you know six inches and lay new concrete Well, yeah, I guess you have a big hump over your driveway But it's a funny story that I just brought it up because Tom was talking about construction I'm my ongoing telephone pole saga. I had visitors cleaning business owners and it's a joke It's a private group. I'm in with some other cleaning business owners and it's like an ongoing joke I'll share pictures in that group of like the progress of the polls like hey today. They're doing like they're moving a wire from one pole to the other I don't know whose wire that is but every day there's so Friday is the day Friday's the day. They're supposed to actually pluck it out of the ground So I'll post a picture of that that'll be that'll be monumental But it's you need to do like a daily a daily Facebook post, you know day, you know 157 and take a picture and explain six months six months since I paid the utility company to do this. Wow Yeah, okay, so Anything happening in the news that we want to talk about There's a little bit There's a little bit going on. I don't know if we really want to get into this two job too much today They're talking about reworking the watsy credits to this is very early. Have you heard about this time work opportunity tax credits? Yeah, so they're there you remember how they talked about doing the heroes act early on So anybody that's been unemployed. They're talking about giving you the business some tax credits to bring on unemployed people and Really if that becomes reality that'll give us some real incentives to like do some really big hiring bonuses and things like that So I would I would do a little research on on Wotc on and I might have a I might be able to dig through my email and find a link Before the show's over I can probably look for that now But that that's new and that was proposed Recently, I don't know if there's a lot of Demand for that or not, but I would love for that to happen. Yeah Tax credits are cool. Especially. I mean, I don't know What changes might be happening with the alternative minimum tax? I mean That's You still can't use them because there's only certain ways they can be applied but Nevertheless, they carry forward for like 15 years. So if you get a bunch of them, you use them eventually Yeah, so I'm gonna I have the I'll put in the comments the wording of the law I don't have that. I don't have a website. I'll put it in the private chat And I have Suze Suze Tom Suze Democrat of New York introduced the hiring incentive to return Employment Act of 2021 this was Introduced last week and if this were to go through it I think there's some bipartisan bipartisan support for this because it makes sense We're talking about labor is the biggest bottleneck right now. And if you can incentivize people to go back to work But that helps the Edison devises employers to hire but aren't employers like trying to hire now And they can't find anybody do Do you need a tax? Hmm, but we could pay more. Yeah, we could pay more we could we could offer hiring bonuses that are that are more sustainable More based on work opportunity tax credits. It's kind of a dicey thing Because sometimes you can't use as many of them as you think you can because of some of the other tax We don't want to get too deep in the weeds on on the alternative minimum tax But it's kind of a backdoor way of making you pay taxes regardless of how many tax credits you have Yeah, yeah Well, that's a whole nother whole nother show while we're we're getting ready guys just so you know, we're gonna be talking about marketing Start getting your questions together hit us up if you're out there, you know drop drop your name in the post You know, let us know you're there it makes a little more fun for all of us And if you have any particular marketing questions, let us know But Tom, I think some people are gonna be wondering why we're talking about marketing When we're also talking about can't find employees. You can't you got more with we all have more work than we can handle now Right, we don't have enough employees. So why don't we want to mark? That's a good question. What? What now why is your idea? Why are we talking about marketing today? I? Firmly think it's an opportunity. I'm looking at what I'm spending on Facebook. My cost per click is going down I'm putting them into my channel of So let's say someone interacts with one of your ads now That's 180 days that you can you can market to them on Facebook And then if they re-engage with you again on Facebook click on one of your ads That puts you into a longer period where you can keep advertising in I'm looking at now Marketing is cheap because a lot of people are pulling back on their Facebook advertising things like that so you're you can actually get more bang for your buck right now and I think this is gonna work out. I mean, I'm like an optimist that like, you know Even though my board is pretty light on the people. I don't know if you like it's Where where are they all there's a whole another people working for you. There's like a whole There's a whole other board with like 16. There's like 26 people 26 texts. It's bad There were people in the Brady bunch and what you've got on them. I'm trying to find the way to tilt it towards the board I see there's there's more Yeah Yeah, it's like teams versus solos right so that's the team side. That's the solo side But you know what that solo side is gonna be full in in six months I'm gonna have 50 technicians again. I'm gonna be doing three million dollars a year. Whatever the number is. I'm optimistic I'm like I'm looking at people that are gonna be they're gonna that are that are turning their marketing it off and You know, Google doesn't reward that with AdWords like you're gonna spend more and more when you turn it back on They're they don't reward that they reward, you know consistent spending and behavior So Yeah, if you can't use it, you know, definitely turn it down But for me, I look at things like Facebook really cheap 50 cents a click You know for even still with everything going on I Would be I would be investing a lot your marketing channels right now I'm trying to pull up my last sprint to give you guys some ideas on some ads and things like that so I Can find my I can find their invoices. I'm just looking for the the final Yeah, I'll show you my bills Here, I'm gonna share this screen. I have a I have a tab that I can share here I'll put it in the I'm not sure what Steve is asking. He says isn't that because they can't find cleaners Because we have more work than we can handle maybe yeah, maybe I Mean as far as is why as why people are pulling back on advertising. Yeah, I think a lot of people are Or was he talking about the watsy? Yeah tax credit doesn't you know, I It doesn't seem to me that employees need more incentive to go out there and hire people I definitely don't need any more incentive, but if you want to give me some I will absolutely So Yeah, I mean just for some examples of what I what I'm doing is you know, just informative videos talking about You know, I still think some COVID You know in my market COVID marketing is still a little bit important like we're still wearing masks till the end of June At the very least What about you guys you guys still gonna continue to wear masks are you done? We still are at the moment and we've been having some discussions, but haven't reached any conclusions as to what to do with that Is it required in your company now So it is until June and then after June and July if you're vaccinated and want to show proof of it You can work without a mask is what we're gonna be Allowing them to do to go into customers home So we can you know, we're not gonna share that with customers or that but if they share with the company that they've been vaccinated Then they are gonna be able and free to work without masks after So in the end of July unless customers specifically ask for it And then we're gonna create a tag and made central with a little mask on it For that customer just you know create a tag and create a Work order note to remind us that we need to wear masks special equipment put in the special equipment notes things like that We don't require masks if the customer isn't home But if they're home you still have to wear masks and we're probably going to keep masks in play for a while unless the customer Says that they don't want us to our Um team members that are vaccinated. It's on their name tag So those people I think will be invited to not wear masks more often So they actually have something on their name tag saying they've been vaccinated. Yeah Mm-hmm Icon says I'm vaccinated like I like a hyper dermat needle. I'm a little scared I'm a little scared to find out to be to be perfectly honest So I But I'm gonna have to find out here in the next month if they want to go mask free in July so Yeah, I've been a little bit nervous to get involved in that at all So, you know, Steve was asking about when he was talking about because we can't find cleaners about pulling back on the marketing and On the surface that that you could argue that's the logical thing to do but there are some long-term benefits to continue your marketing efforts and I guess math That's what you're you're gonna gonna share some of those points with us here Yeah, I think you need to still have a marketing calendar and stick to it I mean me and you had a conversation about Marketing today and you know got me thinking like I do things really organized for my cleaning company as far as like a marketing calendar sitting down quarterly and organizing those things and Yeah, those are those are activities that that I think you should you should do I think basically once a quarter for the upcoming quarter You should organize all your efforts what you're gonna what you're gonna leverage You know as far as tools and and tactic and then what is your what are your goals for that period of time? Like what's your you know, what is your what is your outcome? So I mean for me we're still growing right now even though we're limited by labor like I still if I were to pull up some reports I still grew eight recurring customers net last week We still we we canceled a customer that that equaled 22 weekly cleanings last month and Still were and still were up for May I mean that was a strategy and so I had to market like crazy a little bit to kind of fill That big gap of that commercial client that we didn't want to serve us anymore So, you know, you're leveraging spring cleaning even though we're not doing a lot of one times if you if you want to again That's a good topical thing. I want to share with you guys a couple things that really do work Well with with your if you choose to do Facebook advertising you know Pictures of your staff real pictures do really well Do you see the little little check marks? These are just different emojis You really well as far as as far as that goes In if you look at any of our ads We do a lot of emojis in in them like a little check marks things like that Video does really well, but if you don't you don't have to create video just something simple like, you know something simple on the lines of You know Why they should let you do this work for them, right? And and give them a reason to do it get a free quote and this specific ads You know if you're if you're gonna do if you're not gonna do anything else you need to retarget your web visitors so I took my own medicine and turn this on and made control and It basically doubled our traffic just to turn back on our remarketing of people that had already visited our site You know, so, you know, I took my own medicine for for using Facebook ads and really Has been really influential in in driving more sales from a central so same thing in your in your house clean business, but If somebody's already visited your site found you you really should be remarketing to them and retargeting them on You mentioned marketing goals and traditionally we think about marketing goals in terms of, you know How many leads and customers or revenue and stuff like that, but during this time when labor is short Overvise or supply constraint No, there are other goals that that that you know, you've talked about as well in terms of page rank and Your Google my business, you know ranking so is that part of the thinking as well that Even though you maybe you don't need a lot of new customers You're just doing this to kind of keep your place in line for when things get busier. Are you Yeah, so Hey, Tom, can you put Matt in the middle so that when you pop up comments? He's not covered so Exactly time. So let me just pull up Right now we're really pushing hard for for Google reviews as well So, you know marketing, you know, you're you're review and so we so just for example You see on the right hand side of this page Our review site you see that Yeah So we've made some some recent edits to our page things like that to make it a little bit more Google friendly You know and and so Google still reviewing those changes. We're always adding We're always updating the page with our hours making sure that those are relevant Honestly, my Google my business page gets more traffic than my website, right? So This page should really be a very informative place for your customers and and you should be getting reviews So I've gotten nine reviews in the last week. So You know, I know we talked about that like a month ago with Dan and Go show was on and they talked about that You know last week I was kind of joking with Dan. I said I had two 250 reviews. It wasn't quite true I didn't have 250 yet, but we're up to 256 now because we've got nine reviews in the last week. So You know, that's that's a big push and that's that's an opportunity if you're if your competitors are running scared and not spending money And doing some other things Maybe you don't want to spend money directly on Facebook ads, which I recommend remarketing You could spend five ten dollars a day and get actually some really amazing results three hundred dollars a month You could drive, you know an extra thousand visitors to your site You know that that could be substantial To you, you know long-term Because you still can remarket and remarket and remarket keep hitting those people over again But yeah, I think your Google my business page is a quick and easy place to get some good results How how do you do the remarketing Matt? Is that somebody you have to hire to do that for you? Or do you do it yourself? How do you do that? I do it myself? I'm like I hate this kind of question because I'm like, what's everyone's level of confidence with tech? You know, so so it's really not that hard in Facebook. They there's a little it's called a pixel you have to put that on your website and You know, that's gonna make it it's gonna be harder and harder to track people directly because of some updates and IOS and things like that But I'm confident Facebook's can find a way to keep making it so that their ads are relevant or delivered to people So you put that on your website and then you create an ad Based on what you want it to look like and feel like and then you create an audience and the audience that you would pick would be The people that have visited your website based on that little piece of code that you put on your site Most of us have websites and most of us have a web developer You could just have your web developer copy and paste that code But you can make your own you can make your own ads in Facebook They have something called a creative hub where you can play around first and mock up your ads and make them look and feel a certain way Before you play around with audiences and stuff like that. I feel like the creative hub is a great place to start To get started with Facebook to kind of to do the layouts and you know pick some pictures and the copy you want That's that's a place. I like to start first. All right. Well, there's your answer to your question there Robin I think Robert could do it You know, there's there's a lot of YouTube videos and things like that if if you feel like it's not worth your time Then it may be maybe something I'll drop a time if you put this in the the link to the in the links Something copy I'll think of it in a second. We should probably maybe do some workshops. So I You know Do it yourself Facebook marketing because I mean Once you learn the basics, it's it's like anything else. It's it's certainly doable Yeah, I I mean, I don't have a ton of ads going on. It looks like there's a lot going on here, but you know first off I have a couple of I have a couple of strategies that I really think you know This is maybe beyond the scope of today's call Maybe we do a workshop on this to talk about it But the first thing I do is as I take my current existing customer base or my list of customers that we've served And have spent a certain amount of money with us and I upload those up into Facebook and I create a look-alike audience of people that that that Facebook says Are very similar to them based on demographic data in Facebook That's a that's a really good way a really quick hack to create good marketing lists And then you and then you make it geographically relevant to where you are like within 10 miles of your office I mean, there's no other product as powerful as Facebook and as cheap as Facebook to reach to reach your audience You know, I guess for the purview of today's call though What I'm what I'm really suggesting is invest now because you guys are gonna solve this labor problem We're working hard. We're all working hard on it And then you don't want to be behind the power car. It's it's always like this guys It's always like We're always feast or famine on one thing or the other right like we have too many We have too many customers right now and not enough employees, but it it tends to Balance out and go back the other direction Yeah, you're gonna you're gonna pay a price at some point in the future When the labor market loosens up and you've got technicians and you're out there looking for more jobs And your SEO is dropped and you know I'm showing up in the three pack and you know, Google my business and You know at that point at that point you're gonna wish you'd have done the things now to maintain those positions And most of us have more money than we've had before it's a good time I mean, I don't again. I have nothing to sell you here as far as marketing goes. That's not what I You know have anything to sell you on I really but I really believe that you make this investment now and You you most likely have more money than you've had before you've got you know extra funds from PPP, you know And you can invest that in some long-term things that'll benefit your company and a good marketing foundation would be one of them SEO You know learning Facebook ads whether you hire that out or you know take a course on What's is it you Demi is that how you say it? That's a good place to learn. Is that right Tom? I'm not sure Is it Liz you to me you to me? To me is a good place like if I want to learn something I'll go to of course like that like a place like that or Linda LYNDA like that's how I learned a lot of the video skills that I have and the photography skills that I have was Linda comm LYNDA comm And I'm gonna learn something I'll just go to those places and I'll look at it that as an investment in myself As far as learning something new and I mean treat it like a hobby I mean I treat I treat my business as a hobby and the marketing as a hobby So that it's enjoyable to me. It's not a chore. It's something I like and I really dive into the learning and the fun of it You know, maybe that's not for everybody. Maybe am I am I wrong to think that's not everyone like stuff like that? I guess but You're wrong to think that everyone likes stuff like that Yeah But I do agree with you Matt This is something that we say in the MMA groups Always we are hammering on this every single month and nothing has changed that you have to keep your marketing going even if it's only for the Push that it gives you to do the other thing So if you're marketing for clients, you will work harder to hire Because you will feel more pressure. You will feel forced You will put in more effort and on the flip side if you have a ton of employees You will feel forced To to get your marketing under control So you want to keep them going because they create that flywheel effect One pushes the other and once you get going Everything works better soon as you drop the ball on one. Oh You stop the whole the whole flywheel effect and you have to start the whole thing over again, and that's hard That's a heavy push so I Like what Robin is saying that he didn't stop marketing, but he lowered his spend, but he's still Marketing so keep at it and if it's not forcing you to hire do new things for hiring push Harder to hire then maybe you need to pay just a little bit more So I everyone always you know marketers always tell you to spend 10 to 12 percent on your your revenue on on you know marketing I I find that six six to eight percent is a healthy number that most of us don't even spend If you were spending six percent of your of your gross on Marketing you would probably probably start to see some really good results if you did some really focused activities Like this is a perfect example of one. Everyone should be doing And making an investment in so that you know again we talked about the reviews But Google guaranteed would be would be a slam dunk for for getting set up and using right now Do you find that to be as big of value as it was say a year or two ago? I'll have to look at the numbers. I just don't want to give up market share to anybody else You know I don't know if anybody's given that a whole lot of consideration And you may I'll give a shout out to somebody that's using tic-tac pretty effectively is one of our made central users Tricia Lake okay is doing some pretty cool stuff with tic-tac So maybe hit up tic-tac in a Facebook group if you're in a Facebook group with her and ask her for example videos But I think she's doing some pretty cool stuff with tic-tac. I don't I'm not hip enough I guess I haven't figured it tic-tac out. I tried it. I just didn't I didn't see how to monetize it yet Who's this Facebook user? Who are you type type your name in there? Matt I'm so surprised that you haven't figured out a way to use tic-tac because you're so good at video I love tic-tac videos though. They're so funny. I Have made I have made some videos for tic-tac for my business. I just haven't really I Just don't I don't know. I just think I think my brain is pretty full with made central stuff and maybe I'm missing a vote on it How much your fault? Hey, Derek But yeah, so if you're doing this right you're gonna show up in a couple places on the page But I don't think you should give up this page rank here Even if you don't feel like the the the results are as great as you'd like sometimes Tom to be seen first Is valuable And then you know you're gonna want to make sure you're you're Google my business review Reviews and is strong you're getting and there's a few factors that really play into this But really the frequency of reviews that you're getting And the quality of reviews that you have or the top two the third The third is really just how close they are to you when they search. Those are the top three there's a few other things but You can you can control this a little bit The fourth is how often you update your page and make it relevant and make sure that like Your hours are relevant. You're updating it for holidays. You're putting new posts on things like that Hey Matt cleaning concepts. They got a lot of reviews. They're pretty they must be pretty good They're pretty good. They're actually a fair 25 years too Yeah, they're good. They're you know what they're a good competitor I I really respect this the family that owns that business. They're they're a fierce competitor Um and honestly, they had less reviews than me a couple years ago That's why I'm so that's why I like I got nine this last week. I'm super happy because These people are getting four a week on average and I wasn't so they're they've been They we were about the same maybe a year ago and then they just decided that they were going to take that real seriously I think they're using bird eye for anybody that's that's interested in a product They're using the like bird eye software to generate reviews, but they're they're a strong company But yeah, so there and then you know, you're gonna obviously, you know SEO is gonna matter too. We're getting pushed down a little bit So I just made a reinvestment in SEO because I'm getting pushed off the first page For organic search. I just wanted to show that I want to show that is that We are you know, we were we were like 11th and got pushed off the page So I needed to make an investment back in SEO at this point So that we show up three or four times on the page Uh, yeah, robin's got a question So robin's uh thinking the value of google guarantee is being at the top of the page He invests a minimum amount there and focus on deep clean and standard cleans What do you think that? I don't even advertise for the deep cleans. I only look for recurring or whatever they call that So I mean, I guess I guess we might you know, it's hard to it's hard to know what they're What they're really looking for based on the search term. So he's right Those are those are the things that I would that I would keep focusing on So, yeah, I mean we we're getting we're getting beaten up a little bit by scrubby dutch and some other Some other locals I need to I need to you know, I need to I'm glad I invested in SEO again I hadn't been doing it for years and we just we just reinvested in that So chasing candy robles, I guess it's just opening a cleaning company and Love to get to know More advice that's uh, well, we're here every monday and wednesday at five o'clock eastern um Welcome to the community There's so much to this that we're not like I would say we're not the experts at this at like There's so much good information out there that you could get and just search I mean we could probably do some stuff that's very specific to the industry Um But I you know, I'm happy to dive into this stuff a little deeper in a webinar or something else Um, I'm but I'm smart enough to know that there's people that know this stuff that that's what their job is full time That that could probably get you You know, they're faster than I could yeah but So, you know, that's kind of an interesting Uh Way of thinking about it, you know It's cleaning business owners. Do we want to be spending our time Doing SEO and developing Facebook ads or other other things that we should be doing What what do you guys thoughts on that? Well, I'm gonna say that if you're somebody like matt And that's fun for you and you can turn it into a hobby Absolutely. I think that makes good sense. But for people like me Yeah, I should be hiring someone to do it because the learning curve for someone like me is way too steep It's I'm gonna be wasting way too much of my time. I think facebook ads It's supposed to be self-serve, but it is a little tricky um I'm gonna go with It can be done. It probably should be done by yourselves for the facebook ads I don't anymore either though because Um It's just it's just the time it became a time thing. It's like, you know, when I'm leading my company Do I you know, do I get the most leverage? By being buried on a computer and doing these little tic-tac-y detail things Or do I get the most leverage, you know, being in front of my employees and having the tough conversations and leading people And I and the truth is it's being in front of the humans that has the most leverage So I agree with you even even for me. I've leveraged that to to outsource it so, you know There's value in Knowing how to do some of these things at least, you know, at a general level Because it needs to be done and it needs to be done. Well, so you need to know enough to know If it's being done correctly If you're gonna if you're gonna delegate somebody or outsource it to somebody Having some knowledge of what it's supposed to look like and how it works will certainly be helpful and making good Smart business moves and in choosing who to who to help you with that But yeah at some point, you know, you're you're you're the ceo and you know, it's about strategy and building a team and You know kind of kind of driving sales and getting too deep and and I mean, it's it's it can be tricky too. I mean, it's fun. I enjoy doing some of that and sometimes Like an indulgence. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's a hobby. Okay. If I want to spend a Saturday, you know Playing on a computer doing something like that That's okay Yeah, and you might be the one that's you might do it so well like tisha lake does I understand why she would put time Energy and treasure into doing her ads. No one can create the content that she does. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point That's a good point But you can do so much with a smartphone everything she's doing is she's doing with a smartphone and then she's editing I mean, I think she's editing on a smartphone. I mean, it's It's just very like create it like she's like thinking through like what would be funny and then like And then editing it. I mean, so there's there's some talent to that But the tools the tools are very accessible. I mean They've made it so like the average person can play with a smartphone and you know, do a lot of this stuff I would say though going back to you showed the smartphone that in case people didn't know what they look like Mine's huge by the way. It's like you got the you got the newest one, right? I got some giant iphone plus because my daughter broke hers So I uh, so I kicked her down my old phone and they talked to me into the big one because my eyes are getting Getting bad as them as I'm getting older Like I need the big phone now Yeah, that's what they said. They're like, well, you know, once you get over certain now, I'm kidding They didn't try that but uh, you know the the I usually look at the sympathy here, Matt. You're not gonna find that All right, we're still thinking you look pretty young No, but uh the the the tools the tools and the things that you're going to spend your time on Yeah, you know, I I kind of I'm torn because I like knowing how to do stuff like that and I see the value in knowing how to do it But then There's so many things we have to do well. Is that really the is that really the thing? Um Facebook advertising can be done well on a shoestring and You know, if your budget's tight You know, I just know we're all coming from different spectrums I know that they could do it if they wanted to And they don't need an agency. They don't need anybody else um, they just need a smartphone and an idea and they can create some good ads and uh On the flip side of that is your time becomes valuable at a certain at a certain point And you should outsource that stuff to a company that that is You know meeting your goals and you need to have some good ideas of what you're trying to achieve So you need to really know what a customer is worth to you to know whether you can advertise so um Kind of goes back to some of those kpi conversations where you guys were talking about lifetime value of a customer And things like that. I mean liz like you're you're are you still at 2% or under for your your uh, your churn? No, okay Me neither. I looked at my my I looked at mine last year and it was like 4% I was like, uh, like I was like that wasn't a good year, but you know It could have been COVID killed us. Yeah, I'd have to look but but again You keep your churn to like 2% like like liz has done historically The customer's worth 15 grand Is it so bad to spend 300 on ads to to get a customer if they if you're gonna make 15 grand? Absolutely But if you don't know that stuff then it's hard to it's hard to make those decisions because you're You're flying why I think I think good data and good information about your business and and being a good operator Helps you be more confident to spend these these marketing dollars now in these kind of tough times like where you're You know In in in you know time horizon Matters and in in some of this thinking as well kind of like you want to make keep your marketing Going now because you know by the end of the year You would think that your labor situation is going to be better and you don't want to be behind the curve on Your your your pipeline of new clients You mentioned that we've got cash now because of you know federal assistance sba, you know PPP stuff like that. So, you know, we're not like you know for for for most businesses, you know, they're we're not Worried about making payroll on friday So we've got the luxury of looking at a longer planning horizon So that's really important to understand your lifetime value a customer and not only what's happening today But what you plan on happening six months from now a year from now right And so a lot of times also especially i'm speaking to newer newer users When you're new in the business You you don't want you don't tend to think about what's going to happen in the future because you don't have confidence Like well, how do I know I don't know I haven't been in business long enough Doesn't matter the The trick there is get in the habit of thinking about the future because nobody knows Even the people that have been even tom who's been doing this forever and he has dad and he has all this stuff He didn't see covet happening He didn't see it coming He didn't he didn't have a clue and so you're not going to know everything that's going to happen But get yourself in the habit of thinking in this way So that you are more practiced more experienced and you're less caught off guard and Change change things as they pop up to be honest though I think covet is a once in a lifetime opportunity now like I was really scared at first But man it is reshaping the economy in ways that are going to be really powerful and really positive for businesses like ours So I think it's a great opportunity to be in front of the marketplace people are Ready to spend their money. They're ready to get out there and rip even if you can't serve them Dude, they're already calling other companies and they can't serve them either. So get them on your wait list come on You know get them in your funnel That's get them. That's that's a that's a really excellent point because they're not going anywhere And even if you can't serve them now, you might be able to three months from now six months from now You want that that lead And and I would say this is what we are pushing people to do in groups you guys is Get the first cleaning in if you have to Move a job bump one of your recurring clients to Get that first cleaning in do it get the first cleaning in and explain to them that we'll get that first cleaning in But we're gonna have to put you on our wait list If you've already done the first cleaning, they're not going anywhere forever And your current clients that you have right now that you have to move They can't find anybody else to clean them for what? That they they also are going to get put on a wait list for somebody else So they're very flexible right now as well So clean up get some money from most people Make sure that they know That you're their company. So that that's really key They just need to have the belief that this is my company and they'll they're gonna work with you I think that's a strong strategy I think another thing that I kind of learned from tom years ago Was be willing to not do a deep clean for the first thing to get them on your schedule Because sometimes $500 cleaning is holding me back from getting them on your schedule the first time So I allow customers to wave the deep clean and just start off with a recurring visit at their recurring price Now we don't we don't try and eat any money on that like we just don't do as much stuff for them Right, but now I've got them on my schedule and the thing that often holds us back is We're trying to fit in this $500 cleaning. There's just not a spot for that But there's a spot for that $180 cleaning You know So that might be something you really have to consider in in these crazy times is Maybe you don't get their house perfect the first time you just You know, that's kind of a common strategy and like the contractor construction trade You know, if you have an opportunity to start a job you want to get in there and start it You might have a dozen other jobs going on at the same time and once you've started it's your job Then you might disappear that contractor might disappear for a week now and go, you know, do work somewhere else But uh, that's still your contractor. It's still your company It doesn't hurt you to go find somebody else Rob is mentioning, you know waiting lists two to four weeks and a lot of times that's good enough because you know That that prospect is probably, you know, at least possible Talk to, uh, you know other companies and it's already come to the conclusion that You know, there's not a lot of awesome options out there. At least, you know, there's the prospect of getting their home clean Yeah, four weeks sounds great. I think they're like um, I just I have a contractor doing my basement this summer and he was supposed to start june 1st and Uh, he's like, I'll be three or four weeks out. I'm like, yeah, I'll see you in like three or four months The way this is going like but I'm so laid back about it Like I probably get pushed back a little bit And I I'm kind of like I'm kind of okay with it right now because I'm like kind of hoping the lumber prices come down a little bit but We'll see if that ever comes back down to earth. I maybe I may be spending more and more because he keeps pushing me back But uh, yeah, I I'm I'm so relaxed about it. My wife is a little stressed about it. But uh Um, like I'm probably the perfect customer that like would be like, yeah four weeks out six weeks out Sure, that sounds great. And like, you know, just send me a reminder the week before You know, I I think that's that's not unreasonable now and it's man It's such a breath of fresh air where people would like hang up on you when you couldn't tell them you could do it tomorrow You know, I remember like a few years ago like really like The society had gotten so fast or like if you couldn't just like deliver service the next day They didn't want to do They didn't want to do business for you and I'm like It's kind of crazy thinking because it's like the company that's booked is probably the better company versus the company that has labor just sitting around like You know, like who's going to give you a better service if you could just wait for it It's kind of actually playing in our favor a little bit right now for a moment Yeah, and and there's another dimension of this that that we we would be remiss if we didn't at least touch up on it Before we wrap up up today and that is the pricing side of what we're doing here You know, we're having to pay more in wages You know marketing more getting more prospects in the pipeline gives you more cushion to raise your rates and Now you you probably you know, we all have recurring clients on our schedule that some of them aren't paying as much as Is what we would like for them or need them to to to match up with the wages that we're paying Now is the time to deal with it because you've got people on waiting lists Or you could have people on waiting lists to replace them If they think they can find a deal better somewhere else and the fact of the matter is they can't or if they can It's going to be a short-lived thing and they're not going anywhere either in six months from now They'll be looking to Come back or at least, you know, you have the opportunity to get them back on the run at a higher rate I'd tell this to people all the time and they're kind of it's kind of stunned but like My hourly rate that we that we tend to hit for cleaning is close to 70 dollars an hour For for for my company and that didn't happen overnight like that actually started during covid We were probably closer to 50 or 55 And mostly being drawn down by some commercial accounts that were like lower dollar per hour accounts And we've pushed that up to closer to 70 dollars an hour because my employees are very efficient and productive And and that's important too But we're we did really weed out a lot. We took this time to weed out a lot of jobs that were not profitable So this is an opportunity when you have 10 people on your waiting list Look at your 10 worst clients that are that are like the least profit not maybe not your worst clients, but they're They're not profitable jobs. They're they're you're barely making a profit on them And you've got 10 people waiting in the wings that saying that they're willing to come on your schedule Send out a notice of price increase notice to those 10 customers And and do the same thing when your waitlist gets to 10 customers again You know, maybe there's no need to even run to run a wait list of 20 deep, right? Like you can You can solve this a couple other ways Yeah Kim's saying where she's turning down now move in moves outs, uh, you know, give her a preference to recurring that makes sense um Liz day is getting 75 to 100 Is that her technician or is that for for a team? A hundred hundred is getting up there. Yeah, it is um, so we for everybody else that you know, um on on smart businesses We talk about a labor hour So if we are talking about matt is talking about 70 dollars an hour He means one person 70 dollars two people 140 dollars So so low for list. So that's that's up there. Liz. That's awesome. Yeah, that's good. And I think I'll be pushing so where where do you do business? Liz? Kissing me flora dot com. Liz Can you not hear me? No, I did My head No, no, she's not Yes per employee per hour Jason candy. Oh grace grass valley Yeah, okay, california california Yeah, I just had a I just had a coaching call with the made central user today and they're they're going into a market at Florida and they're they're very worried about price and you know being competitive and you know, my my advice to them was Focus on your your you're creating, you know, really great labor first and the price will work itself out in this market It may not be that way forever But it's a lot easier to fix price down than it is to fix price up, you know, if you find out that it's not getting jobs Okay, you know, I I tested it at this price. I just can't sell at this price. All right You know what? I'm going to come down a little bit. But if you if you are so lucky that you're closing 100 of your jobs You you're not charging enough. You're not charging You're not if everybody's saying yes, you might be may you might be making some mistakes um You know, that's that's always something I tell people like when people are like, oh, I close like 100 of my my sales. I'm like I worry about you. I worry about you like let's like like let's make sure that like the percent you're closing is the right percent Because there's some percentage of people that deal with you You don't want to serve again. This is a marketing opportunity if you're bringing enough people To to replace and we all have customers that are that are challenging I actually just got a vox that I have to talk to some customer which I never have to do um, but I'm uh, I'm probably on the hook for this one. So, uh, you know, the uh, the The point is though they we we had to fire these customers now. They want to talk to me and it's going to be an uncomfortable conversation Um, but we have the people to replace and it wasn't even this was not even a situation about price it was just somebody we had to replace right, but We don't have to deal with customers like that in this environment. We don't need no need to No, it's interesting. They want to talk to you. I mean, what what's gonna I'm a suspect. I know why you took them off the schedule I think they do. Yeah. So they're going to try to convince you that they're not the person that they appear to be I know this is what my behavior. This is how I've been behaving but that's Not Yeah, I mean actually it's pretty serious like kind of a pretty serious situation like a customer that May have inappropriately inappropriately touched a customer or a client. So are not an employee. So So, yeah, I mean, it may be to the point where we're getting law enforcement involved if that if that customer that employee wants us to So, I mean work environment. That's uh EOC. I mean, that's all kinds of litigation. I mean, I I can't send in it I can't send in an employee back there ever again. And maybe it was a misunderstanding and you know, it's just an age difference thing and It doesn't matter the you know, the you know, it's happened. It actually has happened before so again You know, I'm happy to replace them and and find customers that don't cross those lines. That's a pretty rare situation I haven't had a situation like that In a decade, I don't think okay Yeah, um, it's been a while And sometimes you get in those situations where it's like a couple and you're talking to the other and Definitely interesting Both have called the husband and the wife have both called So, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna enjoy my well as soon as I get off with you guys I'm gonna enjoy that you guys you can call cross your fingers for me Can we just kind of hang on we can keep the And we can it might be it might be more entertaining than than I'm having they watch me squirm for for 30 minutes Yeah, there are a lot of options. They're either going to say hey, it was a mistake And that she misunderstood and please take us back That's one or they're going to say Listen, we know we screwed up. We'll never do it again. Please take us back or they're going to say hey, don't turn us into the cops Options right well the other option is they they they yell at me for 30 minutes to try and you know You know justify their behavior. That's that's option four, but um, no option is going to be a comfortable conversation They'll yell at you And and chasing and candy. Yeah, absolutely not. I mean, you know, my my my employees are way too valuable to ever have them experience stuff like this and I think Um, I think we all feel that way about our staff. I mean, I'm very protective. I mean, we all have um Really staffs that are lifeblood of our business and so yeah, this is not it's non It's a non starter. There's even You know the the hints of impropriety of that kind of stuff. It's it's just not tolerated Well, it's it's a matter of just no right and wrong and being the employer that you know, everybody trusts that you're being in plus There's just so much legal liability there. I mean the the list of reasons goes on forever that Yeah, not marketing really related, but yeah, I got that box right as right as we're wrapping up here. So Um, it'll be it'll be an interesting end of my day Okay It is kind of marketing related though matt because right now you're in This one is is i'll let you call him back. You're so good at this Well, you know, this is not this is one of the reasons why you want to be marketing because you can easily replace them Yeah, and and with this one, especially you don't really have a lot of options You can't you can't keep them on So it's good that you have been marketing and you do have a pipeline of of customers Because there's just not a lot of options here There are not but you know back to happy your topics everyone here We're we're in unprecedented times like tom has said we are We are getting to choose who we do business with versus the other way around feeling like we are You know blessed to have you know the scraps left over from anything We actually No, I mean I feel like some people feel like that sometimes they feel like Like I'm so lucky to deal with this awful person and it's like no you actually are in such a strong position now to pick and choose the customers that fit you and the way you do business and you know There's such an you're such an unprecedented time because I remember starting out and not feeling like that I'd be like oh man like that customer is terrible to us, but we can't afford to To deal with you know to not have that weekly revenue or whatever And I don't want everyone anyone to have to feel like that, but man you don't have to feel like it right now They are the customers are plentiful. They all have money from I mean average household it. Do you remember the stat? Like we're wrapping up on the call here, but average household income has grown an exponential amount People's wealth not income. They're actual well the savings rate is through the roof Yeah It's it's an incredible amount of money that people have right now and they want to put it to work They want to go on vacations. They want to ask a five percent But it's like at 30 percent and the belief is that that 25 percent delta is going to get spent real quick And it's going to be on services a lot of it's going to be travel vacations cruises stuff like that but Might as well for more money at getting my home cleaned and everything else because Anything makes it easier. They're looking for they're looking for more leisure time and more leisure time is buying their time back So things that they don't like doing like playing their house. We are we are going to be gangbusters for You know for a long time. We got to solve we got to solve the hiring issues But don't stop marketing keep bringing in good new customers Answer your question Chasing candy So there is a really good answer to this and the really good answer to this is no, I'm sorry. I can't do that but if you are interested in Being an independent contractor or blah blah blah So if that's your business model There there is a way out there that they can manage their own taxes and all that kind of stuff But for most of us No, and don't let yourself get sucked in just because it's hard to find people right now No, don't let the employees think they have it over Don't don't get into the same boat with employees that you've gotten yourself into with clients in the past where this employee is Terrible. I know somebody that said They were keeping somebody that stole a picked up a dollar and put it into their apron and It was an accident Yeah People were stealing even if they accidentally steal it's not okay So Yeah, so don't don't get sucked in don't Don't allow yourself to be desperate. I guess that's the other side of it. Yeah Don't be desperate on the staff side just because you you have options on the client side, but it's a It's a two-sided market. We always have to be filling these pipelines right now It feels like it's overflowing on the staff. I'm sorry on the on the supply or on the demand side I'm sorry on the customer side, but it'll it'll balance out and again get ahead of it um and and do your best to To have the standards that you want for your business the people that my my rule of thumb is I don't have to like Have these people over to my house every night for dinner, but if I had them at a dinner party I wouldn't be embarrassed to have them in my house. I would feel comfortable to have them over I would feel confident if I was in a restaurant hosting a party for my company I would not be embarrassed by anybody that works for me. That's my standard And I I feel like that's a good standard. I know It's just it's not a written policy, but I can't be embarrassed being public by then And I have one final thought here too that I want to make sure for everybody to hear If you're waiting for everything to level out and that that's kind of your strategy Stop it because guess what in this industry? It's never level It's always one or the other so you got to get right with that you got to get good with that idea that It's this way right now and pretty soon. It's going to be this way So just get right with that idea and you need to be thinking further down the road than what's happening At this particular point in time, you know Six months it's going to be here before you know it and things are going to be different Start planning for it and preparing for it and doing the things you need to do now to take advantage Of what's coming down the road. We are at the top of the hour awesome This is like Only like time we did this this week. We're going to get soft one time But we'll be back monday Matt, thanks man as always. Thank you Bye bye