 Hey, good afternoon everybody, Tom Stewart here. I'm with Liz Trotter. Our guest today is our Marlowe Knight, Jenny Henderson and Erin Lash. And this is smart business, but it's Jenny Henderson. I'm so sorry. Hey, you know, we're getting down to crunch time here. 2022 is almost over, isn't it? Crazy. At the beginning of this year, I know there were people that were thinking, I'm never going to make it through. Look who you are. Let's get real though. After 2020, it's a walk in the park from there forward, isn't it? I was just thinking the same thing. If we made it through 2020 any year after that, it's got to get better. That is the truth. Right. It went by really fast for me. I don't know about everybody else, but it just seems like I just started writing 2022 and today I wrote 23 on a date, so. No, it's funny because I wrote 2020 and got corrected today. I'm like, what in the world is going on in my brain? I'm getting a flashback, Marlo. I'm like, oh no, we want to redo for 2020. We want to redo. Yeah, no, I do not. Well, if it can be all different, yes. Yeah. Do not be calling back into existence 2020. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We can do without it. Although it was really nice to see Liz and Tom every day in 2020. Yes, yes, that was fun. We didn't have anything else to do. I don't know which side of the camera you were on. They are genie, maybe. Well, we sure appreciate the way that you served our community during that time. That's for sure. You were very, very helpful to all of us. Definitely. It was a time, even though in its un-business, right? It was so crazy. Yeah, yeah. We were nervous, and I guess it made us all feel a little bit better. So, and here we are, 2023. Can you believe that? I mean, it doesn't, you know, when you start getting, when it's like 2020, 2021, it's like, we got a whole decade ahead of us. Now we're kind of getting to the point where we're going to start thinking about, you know, 2025 and 2030 will be here before we know it. And, you know, who knows? I'm pretty sure I remember back in the day that in 2023, 2025, we were supposed to be like flying cars, right? Something like that, yeah. The distance. If you watch an old science fiction movie, it'll come up and it'll say 2025, and like everybody's flying and reading each other's minds. So far in the future. We're not quite there yet, but a lot has happened, and there's a lot of good things coming in 2023. You know, there's some people who are like, oh, woe is me, scary times, whatever, but I think this is going to be a great year in the cleaning industry. I agree, I think so too. Better since 2020. We had so much new opportunity, right? The explosion of our industry and the need, what people see as the need for our industry now is just so much better. Absolutely is. We went from being a luxury to a necessity for so many people, and yeah. Yeah, it worked, and it's getting better every day. Truly, you know, this is going to be an interesting year, and I agree, it's going to be a ton of opportunity, you know, a lot of, you know, the consensus is that the economy is going to be slowing down, maybe we're going to go into some recession, and they're doing that to cool off the job market, because there's too many jobs and not enough people to fill them, and that's going to be good news for us from a job standpoint, because I don't think anybody, I mean, it's easier to hire now than it was in the past, but you know, it's not as easy as I think that we would like for it to be, and I don't think that we have as much selection as we need, so that's going to be interesting, and in years past, to your point, Erin, we were, when times got tough, people were kind of thinking about, well, where can I cut back? What's my discretionary spending? And, you know, while the house cleaning service, you know, I don't need that, I can clean my house myself. You know, there's still some people that feel that way, but not as many people that felt that way, say like 2008 was the last really bad downturn that we had, I think this one's going to be different. I think people are going to be making other, you know, cuts in their budget or they have to, but our house cleaning service is not nearly as negotiable as it was like 12 years ago, 14 years ago. Well, I agree. I think consumers are finding it a sense of, I don't know if the word is peace, of bringing into a professional to ensure that their home is clean. So, you know, that and just the busyness part of it too, people can't figure out how to manage their time if they take cleaning, you know, having their house cleaned out of the equation. And I don't know, but I'm finding that a lot of our clients don't even own a vacuum, you know, right? They depend on us for this, you know, critical service to their home. And you know, so it's like back in the day when, you know, nobody had somebody else mow their lawn and now so many people have other people mow their lawn and they don't own a lawnmower and that's, I think, where we're headed. Yeah, I agree. You know, another thing that is different now is, now it is seen as an option. Back in the day, if you didn't really have an option, your house would be where you had to clean it. That's, that was how it worked. Now people are like, I don't want to clean my house. I'm not going to. Because there are other people that will do it. Other people who will do it. I don't want to do it. And now more than ever, people are very much about, I do what I want. I don't, I don't have to just do what I, I don't have to do anything that I don't want to do. I agree. I see a lot. Well, you can just tell that by just, of course, we didn't have Google back in the day when we first started our computers for that matter. But, you know, the selection that you have now of cleaning services. I know when we first started, there was one other cleaning service in our, in our town that you could find in the yellow pages. And, I mean, we were, when we started, I mean, that was our only competition. And we loved it because we would call it, call there to check prices and things like that. And you hear kids screaming in the background and all that. And so we, we were like, we're going to be the professional version, which artsy help, help with that. But the selection now, you know, you, you look in your area for cleaning services and see the multitudes of options available. So that, you know, in and of itself shows the necessity. Oh, 100% agree. I love what Stacy just said. She's one of our regional ambassadors. And she said when she grew up house cleaning, it was for wealthy people. Now college students have house cleaners. That's why I feel like I should have, when my son was in his dorm, we should have hired a cleaner to go in because it was so bad. He would say, you will get used to the smell and I'm like, no, no, no, you don't. So if you're boys, no, you don't. Yeah, we're in a college town and we have quite a few parents who pay for their kids to have our services. Yeah. So think about that. When they get out of school and they're on their own, are they going to be cleaning their own home? They won't even know. I mean, they went to college, they learned some things, but how to clean a house isn't one of them. Nope, right. Bodes well for us. That's right. It does go well for our teams. And our teams, right? Our teams. Yeah. Yeah, I think another thing that I'm starting to feel is a growing respect for people in this industry. Because people are so grateful for the help and they have tremendous gratitude, but they also have respect for, it's hard work. And I've just noticed a tremendous amount, especially during the holidays, just a lot of outpouring of love for our team. And I just feel that there's a growing respect for people who do this work. Do you feel that consumers look at house cleaning as a profession that maybe just because you have a vacuum cleaner doesn't necessarily make you a professional house cleaner, that they're treating your businesses, our businesses and the people that work them in them, you mentioned respect. I mean, like they understand it's a profession more so than they used to. Yeah, I think you're right. Kind of like what Marlowe was saying, those of us who are plugged into the cleaning business community and we're doing everything we can to make our businesses run smoothly and present that professional image, I think people see it. And they see cleaning business owners in the community doing good things. And I see cleaning business owners doing everything they can to create great jobs and train their teams well. And I think it is changing the way people look at the cleaning industry and home services in general, I think. I'm in agreement with Stacey. I think we're headed in that direction, but we're not there yet. Yeah. I think that there is still a range still. People still know that there are people out there that are just cleaning houses, right? And... Trying to get the thing for their buck, you know. Which most of the time they're gonna find out that they need a professional. You get what you pay for. Absolutely. A venture, yes. Yeah, for sure. You know. We've got a few questions here, which we probably... Right now I saw that. We'll get behind. We'll hold that thought about the professionalism and how the perception is changing. We'll get back to that. But let's get to Sean here. He's been waiting. Who wants to take a shot at the price increases we've been implementing? Will they hold? Will they stabilize? Will they ever decrease? What do you guys think? Marlo, you've been doing this for a while. We, I guess we all have to various degrees, but you've seen a lot. What do you think about these price increases? Well, yeah, we did have a very significant price increase this past year. And we lost a fair share of clients, but we had people just signing up. As soon as we lose somebody, we'd get somebody else on the roster, but then have a waiting list still. But to be honest with you, over the years, and I remember when the Gulf War, I'll tell you how old I am, when the Gulf War hit, and we were like, oh my God, there's a war. We had never had a war to live through in my lifetime and much less being self-employed basically, owning a business and having others count on us to provide their jobs. We were not significantly impacted back then. How long ago that's been? It's been a long time ago. But I think going into 2023 and knowing what we've been through, there will be people who are gonna be more conscientious of their spending. I'm kind of thinking that what we have now will hold, whether we can go above and beyond that increase, I'm not so sure. It's just gonna depend on what happens with this recession here in the next few months. Hopefully it won't be so bad and we won't lose clients. And if we can hold on to those, then things get better and then we start our increasing again. It's just money. Yeah, I agree. I feel just kind of watching sales trends, leads and conversions and things like that, that there's definitely, we've seen a slowdown of leads coming in, but that's normal as we start to go into January, that would normally slow down. But I don't feel like we can be as aggressive with pricing going forward. But I don't think we'll need to go backwards. And I've talked to a lot of people who think that they're gonna need to do that. And I really encourage people to just make sure that people understand the value of the service and the added value that you bring to their families and their homes and things like that. Make sure you're selling right. It might not, you have to get better at selling, possibly, but I think you can hold your pricing. What you think, Liz? Well, I'm thinking that minimum wage keeps going up, y'all. And as long as minimum wage keeps going up, then we have opportunity and we have a good argument for why we have to raise our prices. As long as minimum wage, looking at the numbers for 2023, I know Colorado's going up to 1780 in four days, five days. I was just saying, they're talking, we're up to like 25 states, they're at the hit belt places. Yeah. And as long as the companies, even at that are gonna be paying more. I mean, this still works in the country that minimum wage is 725, but you can't, nobody's not doing anything. So it's almost irrelevant in a number of states, you know? And I think that because it keeps going up and the people are wanting that higher minimum wage, they're not expecting us to pay a minimum wage, they want work-like balance. That's what they're trying to do. So they keep raising that rate. It's like, we have a great opportunity to charge more money. We wanna do exactly what you want. We wanna pay our people more than minimum wage. You know, there's a lot of talk about inflation, but there's different types of inflation and different things and the prices are changing in different ways. You know, energy like gasoline prices, that price goes up and down, it's a commodity. For surface sector jobs, like the ones that we offer and businesses that we run, our biggest cost by far is wages is what we pay people. And that only goes in one direction. That isn't a commodity, wages never go back down. They go up, they might plateau, they might stop going up, but they're never going back down. So the prices we have are gonna stick. You know, I agree with Marlowe, who knows how much we're gonna be able to raise them going forward, but as it stands now, the wage inflation is still a real thing though. I mean, for house cleaning companies, in order to, you know, if things slow down a little bit and some more people come into the job market, maybe it got a little more leveraged, but as it stands right now, I think it's reasonable to think that you're gonna have to be paying more for labor six months from now than you are at the moment for some of the minimum wage issues in some of the status Liz was pointing out. So we might not be done with these higher than normal rate increases that we've seen over the last year. So we still might be doing that in 2023. Well, because it goes beyond minimum wage, you also, today's employees want more than a minimum wage, they want benefits. Like what are you bringing to the table? It's not, you know, they expect that the, you know, the minimum wage and even higher, but they, you know, they want benefits. I think that's gonna push us forward too, because they want more from us. Our customers are like, well, if you want me to pay more money, I need higher value. So we're being pressured on both sides to increase what we're doing for both sides. I think that can only work to our benefit. We're gonna be providing better service, higher value. We're going to be giving our employees even more value for their work. I think it's a win for us. It is, and we have to keep professionalizing the industry, letting, you know, the customers know that we're professionals, that it is not just, you know, something to clean your toilets. It's somebody that comes in and they know what they're doing. You're professionals. They understand the science behind the cleaning. You need, you know, you need the consumer to understand that. People are paying big bucks. Your artsy comes in. That's right. That's true though. Yeah. It is. It's a big part in a lot of this. Just to put a bow on it, people are paying a lot of money for a lot of things. You know, cleaning the home is just, you know, one more value in its expected. So the prices, you know, we're right along with the other services that the prices are going up, including weddings. My oldest daughter just got engaged last week. So I got to, I'm going to be paying more for it now. Don. Do you ever look at the ring? Hmm. Yeah. She's has a ring in the whole bed. I mean, I don't have it. She has it. You had it. Oh, I had it. Yeah. You look like you're like, look. I told the story to Liz. My son-in-law asked me over Thanksgiving, or my future son-in-law asked me over Thanksgiving if he could ask my daughter to marry him. I didn't even know that was a thing. Aww. What am I supposed to say? Sorry. He's a good guy and I'm excited for him. It's awesome. This is the first time I've been down this path. So. Oh, exciting. No, that's it. Anywho, I digress. I digress. Erin, you were touching on something that kind of ties into all of this. You know, about wages and differentiating yourself in the marketplace, competing in a down market where maybe we'll be dealing with some downturn people losing their jobs and recessionary type forces, making consumers to pick where they want to be spending their money. It's a good time to be running a professional cleaning business, right? And part of that is belonging to the professional trade organization in the cleaning industry. Do you know where we can find one of those, Erin? I do. I really do. I think that's why we're here today. And I mean, it was the whole point of this college. Why should you be a member of ARCSI? We are the Association for Residential Cleaning Companies. And I'm thrilled today to be joined by Jeannie Henderson, who is our chair of our Residential Cleaning Council. She also obviously owns a cleaning company in Michigan. And we have Marlowe Canipe, who is a longtime member, but she's also one of our new regional ambassadors and owns a cleaning company in Columbia, South Carolina, which I gotta tell you right now, I wish I was there, although you did say it was 18 degrees the other day, so maybe not. Now it's more like 50s today. Tomorrow is 50s, yeah. But we're here representing ARCSI. And we wanted to talk a little bit about why you should be a member of ARCSI, what we can do for you. Okay. I have some slides I can pull up and then we'll go through those pretty quickly and then we can continue our discussion because I love that people are kind of chiming in and asking questions. I think that's good and we're getting some good representation. Let's do it. All right. We're gonna share your, if you get on the bottom, there's a little tray and one of the options is present if you click on your screen, I can then throw it up for us. I am trying to exit the, there we go. I always hate on Zoom or it pulls, takes over both all my screens when I go to share my screen. I'm curious for those of y'all that are with us today, who is a member? If you're a member, just tell us in the comments. I'm a member or me or let us know. I feel like, you know, we're so used to it ourselves because we're all members and we've been members for years and years. It seems like everybody's a member. But then every once in a while, I'll hear somebody say, Archie, what's that? I'm like, what? Archie is so confusing. He says, remember? Great. There's a lot of acronyms out there though. So we are ARCSI Division of ISSA, but why not, Jeannie, why don't you talk a little bit about who we are? Yeah. And I hear that all the time, Erin, and I were talking earlier today and I said, it's always, you know, I get people to say, well, should I join ARCSI or ISSA? And I'm like, good news. When you join one, you become a member of the other. So ARCSI is the Association of Residential Cleaning Companies and we are gonna be celebrating our 20th anniversary this year in 2023. We're gonna talk about time flying by. And it's just, so it's an exciting time to be in the residential cleaning industry and it's an exciting time to be part of ARCSI. And we were created in 2003 by many like-minded residential cleaning companies. And at that time, it was called the Association of Residential Cleaning Professionals. And, you know, I think even back then, we realized that professionalism is such a big part of why we come together to become stronger as a community and to have a more professional presence in our marketplace. And we also created an alliance with ISSA and became ARCSI in 2006 and merged with ISSA in 2017. So now we are the residential arm of ISSA, the Worldwide Association for the Cleaning Industry. So it's a great organization to be part of. There's so many resources because of the power of this large organization. I can jump to the next slide. So what is ARCSI all about? You know, why be a part of a trade organization? I know many of you are probably members of your local chamber. I'm a member of my chamber. I'm a member of a group of local business owners. And everything that we join as a business like this gives us credentials. People look at you differently when you are a member of an organization because they know you have access to information that people who are not members do not. And this is what you get when you become an ARCSI member. You get access to education and certifications that aren't available anywhere else. And you get them at ARCSI sometimes free as a member and sometimes at much reduced rates by being a member. Many, many tools and resources that are available right on the ARCSI website. And Erin is a wonderful member and her team to our community providing all of the resources that we're looking for to successfully run our businesses. But my favorite part is the community and connection part. We get to come together as residential cleaning business owners and share in this community. And I know many of you are out there running your cleaning business and you're just doing the grind day to day. And it can be very lonely. You can get tunnel vision and not understand that there are many people out there going through the same things that you are. But when you come into ARCSI, when you attend our events, whether virtual events or in-person events, you'll be amazed to meet many other people who understand what you're going through and are willing to share ideas and best practices with you. The community is so very powerful. I know Marlowe and Tom have been part of, and Liz have been part of ARCSI for a long time. Do any of you have something to share about any of these parts of ARCSI that have been particularly impactful for you and your business? Go ahead Marlowe, share. Yeah, so for me, I started my business in 86 and I did not find out about ARCSI until 2014. And it was a very lonely world and just trying to recreate the will basically. We did things, just grew up cleaning in my own home. My mom was a slave driver. So I knew how to clean and we created things. When I found out about ARCSI, I was floored. I could not believe that there was all of the organization. What I find now and even then, even though it's much more improved now, is all of the tools and resources. They have, there's a library on the website where you could search forms and procedures, organizational charts, everything like that, that you normally would not, you'd have to think everything through, but they have that, you can adapt it to your own business. The education, the house cleaning technician certification course, which is a wealth of knowledge, as well as the professional house cleaning certification. Our staff, when we hire them we tell them that, hey, if this works out for you, you'd like this, then we're gonna invest in you through the education. We would allow them to take these courses to really figure out that this is not just about cleaning toilets, it's about the sanitation of clients' homes, the care of their homes, doing things the right way, not damaging surfaces. And these courses and certifications teach you that. But most importantly for me has been the community. I have made so many friends and connections throughout the years in ARCSE. And still to this day, if I have an issue, I know I can pick up the phone and call a multitude of people or send them an email or whatever. And then the great get together toward the end of the year at the convention and get the excitement of, oh my gosh, I've been in touch with all these people, but now I get to go spend time with them. And they are at the convention, it's not only about the community and seeing each other, but again, more education from real professionals, people who have been doing this and they know all the ins and outs. And someone else's solution might not be a solution for you, but the fact is they're, I don't know how many people are in ARCSE, but there's just tons of resources that you can ask people and find the solution that works best for your company. So for me, it has just been invaluable that I would not even recommend running a cleaning service without being a member of ARCSE. It's just like- That is awesome. And Marlo, you have been kind of a leader in our organization, but you also really take an advantage of all there is to offer. And this membership is so valuable to residential cleaning companies. Let's jump to the next slide, Erin. I really want to point out too, I think it's really, it's a funny thing. Marlo, I know that this happened to you, same as it happened to me, same as it happened to Tom, same as it happened to every business owner that's ever joined ARCSE. You thought you were so smart. I thought it was so smart, right? I created all of these amazing systems and I'm so smart when you're in ARCSE and you're like, dang, other people already did this. Yes. The same exact stuff that I thought I was creating from scratch and it took us how long? Absolutely. In fact, on that point, when I first heard about ARCSE, I'm like, what do I need that for? I've been running this for 24 years now on my own and I don't need that. And then when I really checked into it, I'm like, oh, I got one in my head. Well, and we all benefit from that in such a big way. It's, we all have our way of getting there, but this helps us, not shortcut, but it puts you on the fast track to growth in ways that you couldn't have imagined, but it brings all these brains together and all these amazing ideas. I was just talking about you today, Liz. I was like, and Liz Trotter said this at the ISSA show and I think we should do this. So I think that we all have, there's so much opportunity to gain from coming together in this organization. So we talked a little bit about the education and training and we have live and virtual training going on all the time. I mean, not live training all the time, but virtual training all the time. The ISSA show North America happens every fall. That's gonna be November, what is that, 13th? November 13th to the 16th and we're back in Vegas this year. Back in Vegas, baby, and Mandalay Bay, correct? Yes, we're at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center and I will tell everybody, anybody that's listening to this or happens to hear, as soon as the hotel block opens up, I would book your hotel room. We are gonna be looking, we are coming up against like a, some kind of NASCAR race or something this year. Formula one, F1 is like the week, I think it's immediately the week after. Yes. Yeah, so we gotta get our rooms booked and it's gonna be a great, great show. ISSA 2022 was an outstanding experience in Chicago and we moved the location back and forth each year, but don't miss the show this year. And if you remember, you get a special deal. Something new that we just started, and it's coming up again on January 5th is our coffee and conversation get-togethers for residential cleaning that is just owners. And we brought together several people on a live Zoom call last month. It was outstanding, what great conversation we had. How many people did we have on that call? It was, there were a lot. I think it was 45? Yeah, yeah. It was a big crowd. I kept having to scroll through all the windows to see everybody. And it was just a lot of fun and we will talk about a different topic every month and we have a special guest in January. Yes, we do. Liz Trotter will be there with Dealey Bobs or not, I'm not sure, but she always brings so much good. And don't miss that, it's gonna be great and we'll be keeping people informed about that. Watch our ArcSea Facebook page to get more information. We have webinars all the time. I wanna say something really about the coffee and conversation. Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that I think is amazing about this industry is that all of the people are pulling together all of the time for the industry. So Gosha and RJ, they are the brain children. Right, that's the word that I want, that's not right, but whatever I'm trying to say. This is their brain child. Is that so? The event is their brain child, yes. There's no idea how about that. Is there? Is there? Because they felt so passionate about wanting to bring the organization together and giving everybody a chance to have even more of a say and find out more about what's going on and how we can improve our industry. They're doing this every single month. They're leading this coffee and conversation, bringing on guests every single month so that they can add to the industry. I mean, how many industries do you find that people are just like, hey, what can we do? Let's see, we're gonna do this. Well, this is different than the webinars because the webinars are very much one-sided whereas this is, they want everybody, it's on Zoom and everybody's camera is up and everybody's talking and sharing and asking questions. And we have Liz is gonna talk about goal-setting at our January call. And then we have Dr. Gavin McGregor-Skinner who's gonna join us for our February call to talk about why do we love the cleaning industry. So really exciting. That's great. Well, and the great thing about that is, Gosha and RJ are volunteers. They're giving of their time for our community and when we give of our time, and you don't have to be a volunteer to be part of the organization, but it helps you learn more, make more connections and I have found that to be so true. I'm so glad to be able to be a volunteer inside this amazing organization because I've met people I would never have met if I hadn't raised my hand to get involved. So yeah, it's great. But as we mentioned, we have regular webinars on all different topics that help our industry, whether it's hiring or marketing or pricing, we have webinars going on a monthly basis. We've started holding regional events and like meet up. Actual in-person live. Yeah. Isn't that refreshing? And we host regular house cleaning, technician training and certification events that not only help your team, but help your business grow. We also have on-demand education that you can sign your team members up for and that you might want to take yourself. I know during the pandemic, the COVID training and being connected with GBAC, the Global Bio Risk Advisory Council was so valuable to our business and really helped us confidently go forward in during that time. So, and then we have a huge library as Marla was mentioning of just recorded webinars that you can search topics and go back and listen to. So, tons of education that is, you just can't find it anywhere else. The recorded webinars are for members are free, but non-members there is a fee. So, that's another benefit of membership that all the recorded webinars for the last two years and a couple others are in our online learning system. So, you can go back at any time and log into your account and watch them. Right. And so, those is you don't have to sit on there for the whole hour. You fast forward, watch it as much as you want, get pieces of information that you're looking for and get out again. Right? Yep, yes. Yeah, it's great information to have available at your fingertips. And coming in January, we're adding a new program, the house trainers training kit that Sharon Timberg had put together, correct? Yes. This is a step-by-step process. It's kind of an update to the videos that she has done her core videos she has had used for years. This is an online and you can add all of your employees to this. It's a subscription for a year and we're really excited. It's available in English or Spanish or you can get the combo, the English and Spanish. Yeah, it's exciting and it's a great benefit for our members. So, looking forward to that coming out. Okay. I thought I didn't think this was the next slide but we talk a little bit about the benefits and I put the QR code up here so that you could just kind of snap that and go to our member benefits page and see we have discounts and savings programs with, you know, there are different things like one of our benefits is if you are a member and you purchase anything from Perfect Clean you get a QR promo code that you get 50% off of your order. We have an employee benefit package that you can look at which includes virtual healthcare, 401K programs. You know, we have different business resources some calculators. One thing that we do love especially now that we've merged with ISSA is our advocacy program. We have a wonderful advocacy program and I'm sure everybody has seen by now John Notar who's the director of government affairs. He's everywhere and especially during the pandemic I think he became a rock star because he was helping people to get their states deem, you know, the residential cleaners as essential and he still continues to, you know, fight the good fight for us in Washington although he lives in Idaho now but he's the good fight is representing us and I know we have National Cleaning Week coming up this year and we're gonna have him probably on one of our coffee and conversations to talk about that. Yeah, so click that QR code. If you haven't checked out the tools and resources that ARC-C has available that will take you right there. Ta-da, ta-da. So, you know, we know that membership has to be valuable to people. And, you know, we shared a lot about, you know why be a member of ARC-C but we also have a special offer and we wanna make sure in case you can't stay for the whole webinar that we share some of it now we'll share this again at the end but an ARC-C membership does pay for itself but now we have a special offer that you can completely pay for it in 90 days by just taking advantage of our unlimited professional house cleaning training program. So you can train your whole team within the first 90 days of becoming a member of ARC-C for free. It will be included for free with your membership. That is a huge deal. And the ARC-C membership is just $350. And I know a lot of other memberships can far exceed that. Plus you get more discounts on top of discounts because you're a member and you can intend the ISSA show at a discounted rate as well. So make sure to click on this QR code who are not a member yet, check it out or if you wanna talk with one of us or talk with Erin, reach out if you have more questions but don't miss this opportunity for 2023 to become a member of ARC-C. Tom, you've been a member since the very beginning. What are some big changes that you've seen over all these years? My goodness, there's been a lot. Actually, Erin, I shared a picture with you. I'm gonna remember, I'm gonna share my screen here because I pulled it up and it's just a blast from the past. You had it, you flashed on it real quick. Oh, there we go. Look at that. Oh, you have not changed. Oh, I want to, please. Oh, God. Oh, my gosh, look at Alonzo in short pants. Come on, y'all. I love this. I love it. There's Debbie Sardona up front. Look at there's Debbie. And Brenda and Perry and David. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I want to, you know, everybody knows Alonzo. He's the past president of ARC-S.I. Standing in the back here, this is Rick Crowe. I don't think Rick's in the cleaning business anymore. He lives in Kansas City. He's doing, he had a business background. I think he's back out doing something in the finance world maybe. Right here is David Kaiser. I know a number of you know David Kaiser. He was a past president for a lot of early years to help. Very active. He helped to build the HCT course. He was part of the team for that. He absolutely was. Standing right here in the middle is Richard Wilson. And Richard was an original board member owned a cleaning company in Atlanta called Brittany Mades. Very successful business. He, I guess, retired, got out of business a couple of years ago during COVID. Everybody knows Debbie standing up here up front. Brenda Swerie is standing right here behind Debbie. She was original board member, lives in Nebraska, I believe. What's the town that University of Nebraska is in? Lincoln? Yeah, started out as a Mary Mades franchise. And I think eventually broke off and she sold that. A few years later started around cleaning business. Still may be doing that. I don't know. I haven't heard from Brenda in a good while. And there I am. This gentleman standing right here next to Alonzo. His name is Perry Phillips. And we started as ARCP and evolved into ARCSI. This whole thing was Perry's idea. And Perry was the one that got this group together or started it and we kind of worked together and evolved into what the association is today. This was probably 2004, I'm guessing. So it goes way back. So changes, changes in the industry. Back when this picture was taken, we would get together as business owners and ask how many homes do we clean? Everybody was trying to figure out, where do you get a good deal on vacuum cleaners? What vacuum cleaners do you use? If you were making a million dollars a year, top line revenue, that was a big deal back then. Most companies weren't able to get a sniff of that. Over the years that's changed. For those of you who are members of ARCSI now, it's not like talking about vacuum cleaners off limits, but we talk about a lot more advanced business concepts than team building concepts and just professional management techniques to build large professional organizations. The idea of what a large house cleaning business has changed a lot over that period of time. There are a lot of companies out there that are doing multiple millions of dollars in revenue and seeing that change in the industry. A lot of reasons for that, the technology has changed a ton over the years. Well, you've been part of that. Well, a number of people have, yeah, we have. But in the training and education that people have available to them, that when this picture was taken, Facebook wasn't a thing. Smartphones weren't a thing. I mean, there's a lot of things that just weren't a thing back then. It was incredible to be able to get together and actually talk to other people that are running house cleaning businesses. Today, you can go online and get a lot of that. But that being said, a lot of the change that we've seen in the industry for the good in terms of the professionalism, the training, how consumers are starting to think about the cleaning profession and how the cleaning professionals that are actually getting out of bed every morning and doing the hard work every day are looking at their jobs. It's a career now rather than just a chore or task that somebody doesn't want to do. And a lot of the hard work that Jeannie, you're doing, Erin, you're doing and all of the people that have preceded you going back to this picture have all made a meaningful contribution to that. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for being there in the beginning and to all the people in that picture. Debbie Sardone, obviously, she's still on our council and there's just so much that's happened and it's helped a lot of people grow big companies but it's also so valuable for those who are just starting out. I wish that when I had first started out I would have signed up for ArcC then. I missed out. I ran my business for three years without being a member of ArcC and I regret that. So I always say, you don't have to be a big business to be part of this. And Ashley, you'll benefit greatly if you can start out from the very beginning learning these great strategies and best practices right from the beginning. So you don't have to be a big company to benefit from all of the things that ArcC has available. Well, we're using a key word there, Jeannie. So I noticed that one of the things that ArcC does all the time is they want to tie with their features, right? And we're taught this in marketing. Don't go in there with the features, right? Help the benefits on. But as an organization, we still do this. We'd be like, well, we have this training and we have this and we do this. Here are all the features. But I'm here to tell you the features. Y'all, that's this much. It's the benefit that you get exactly the word that Jeannie just used. The benefit is so much larger. You're gonna get confidence by being a member of ArcC. That's one of the things that you're gonna get. You're going to get credibility. You're gonna gain credibility. You're gonna feel credible. You are going to be more credible when you're a member of ArcC. You're going to have connection. You're gonna connect with all of the different people, which means you're gonna grow so much faster. You're gonna learn the things and you're gonna have the knowledge that's gonna propel you forward so much faster and stronger. You're not going to be scared and nervous all of the time because you have this huge, this huge, what do I want? What's the word I want, y'all? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This vibe, all of the people that are part of who you are, we're all doing it together. None of us is as good. I don't care what the features are. I don't care what they are. None of us just doing all of those features all by ourselves is nowhere near as strong as all of us together are because of the benefits that we all get together. That's a really good point. If I could expand upon that, going back to when that picture was taken almost 20 years ago, this is, I mean, it's always been a great industry but it's a heck of a lot better now than it was 20 years ago. Consumers look at what we do differently. The people that are working in our industry look at it differently. There's a lot more rational benefits and reasons to own a cleaning business today than what it was 20 years ago. That didn't happen by accident. Being part of RxC makes our whole industry better. We're stronger together and you're going to benefit your business personally. You as an owner are going to benefit and grow but you're also creating a better environment for your business to function and moving forward. Yeah. Yeah, no. And I love that whole, when people are deciding where they're going to work or who they're going to do business with they're checking you out way before you ever know it, right? And when people see that you're part of an organization like RxC they're making a decision to do business with you or to come work for you because of that credibility. And people will check it out. They'll click on the link on your website and say, what is that? Oh, well they're part of this nationwide cleaning association. They must know what they're doing, right? So yeah, there's so much more to it than checking the boxes and saving dollars. Although those are really important. Of course they're important. But the value of it comes from, that I love that you talked about strength Liz because we do a lot of people, they're afraid to make decisions because they don't know what the result will be. But when you're in a group like this, you can ask and 20 people will share with you their experience, you know? You're like, yeah. I love it. It's almost like having a time machine. You can see what the results are gonna be of trying something before you ever try it. I've heard members associations and this group is so different. They want to help others succeed. I love that about this group. They are always willing to help, to share, to reach out. It's just, it's tremendous group. I mean, it really is. Yeah, and I'm happy to have people from my own community, people you would call my competitors to be part of this. I mean, I think together we're all stronger. Yeah, absolutely. My competitors are the key people that we need to get in there. So that we're all, we're creating a level playing field. I don't know if, what a mess, this fracturing industry has just been like chaotic, but we're beginning, right? We're beginning to bring everything together, get some standards, get everybody talking the same language, working in the same areas. We are building credibility. We are actually professionalizing the industry. Yeah, professionalizing the industry. That's what it is. Yeah, with every passing year. Yeah. There were a couple other things that we wanted to share. Do you still have that up or? Well, and really the only other slide I was gonna bring up because we talked about the community was what the slides were for, just to join us on our social media accounts. And then we wanted to just recognize, I know Marlowe is here today as one of our new regional ambassadors. And we have five of them. We have, and Marlowe is the one in the East. We have Robin Murphy from the May Brigade and White Plains, Amber Starling from Good Witch in Kansas, Stacey Kanku, who I know I've seen her on here today. She's with the Beautiful Day Cleaning in Arkansas and T.J. Frushanti who is in Nampa, Idaho with meticulous man services. So we have a great group. And I hope you wanna talk a little bit about what our, you know, Marlowe, Jeannie, what our group, what our ambassadors are gonna do. Yeah, well, we, you know, connection is such a big part of what we do. And the council came up with the idea of asking some of our members to volunteer to be leaders in their region. And Marlowe raised her hand and said, yes, I will. And we were so excited because Marlowe is just a great leader in our community and inspires a lot of other people. Marlowe, can you share with us a little bit about why being a regional ambassador is important to you and kind of what you're hoping to see us do with that in the next year? Well, I think that, well, first of all, I'm very honored to have been chosen to be a part of this. And we have four other really awesome people that are also ambassadors. And I look forward to working with them and with you, Jeannie. The thing with me has always been as far as the most important thing, community. And to draw each other in, being a regional ambassador for me means that I get to maybe visit or have others come visit my office in Columbia, South Carolina, the east side, southeast and that we can- I am coming if you have an event. Yes, I'm coming, please do. And we would be able to even invite people who other cleaning services who are not members to share the word of what ArcC is and what we do. And just to have a little, it's such a big organization now. Tom started back all those years ago with just those few people, but now it is all these people who need more of a closer knit community. And again, it's so nice whenever you are able to go to the convention and see everybody, but this gives an opportunity for things to be a little more localized and to see each other more during the year to draw people in for me to be a resource for others that are closer to me that I may be able to offer some help. I've gotten a lot of help from members and I'm ready to pay that forward. And so it's just important to me. We're so grateful. Thank you so much, Marlon. Thank you to all of our ambassadors and there are regional differences, depending on where you're located. They're just different challenges in different parts of the country. So our regional groups will be able to address them and work on things together and of course, build relationships with each other. So if you haven't been a member of ARC yet, we really wanna encourage you to join us in 2023 because this is going to be a very, very exciting year. So many opportunities like Liz and Tom were talking about and this is an opportunity for us to all grow together. I also have to do my last little thing and then I won't talk anymore, but I state this to everybody that when I'm talking about ARC-C, I really think that you have a responsibility. If you're part of our industry, then you have a responsibility to help us grow this industry, not just for you, but also for us. Again, back to we're stronger together as a whole, but why wouldn't you? Why aren't you helping us? Why aren't you supporting us? This is your industry. We're not just... Supporting yourself, supporting your industry. Yeah, your industry. You have to help support yourself. You've heard that I'm not gonna do it for you. You gotta do something for yourself too. This is part of that. You gotta step up and do your part, whatever that is for you, but you gotta be part. Come on, y'all. We have a company- I was just gonna say, it's a small business and especially for some who I've noticed in the chat, we have people who are not members and some have been in business a long time and maybe they are smaller companies and feel like, wow, that's a big chunk, but the benefits that you get from it and it's also a tax deduction, and you're always looking for deduction. That's something, but it will far the benefits of the membership far outweighs. And once, if you just go one year, I guarantee you, if you use your membership correctly, you will never let that expire. You will renew it every year. It's just... You need to think about it. Erin, can you share your screen one last time as to the special you're running? I am, I tried to share that to you like the text for it, but let me see if I can pull my screen out. I wasn't paying attention. So this is a hyperlink. Okay, I'm gonna paste this in chat for everybody. So if you're not a member of RxC, you can join RxC for how much? 350 right now, because the dues are 4.95 for one year basic membership. So you can join for 350 using the promo code RxCnew23. So just piggyback on what you were saying more or low. I guarantee you, I guarantee you that if you join RxC, invest that $350 and plug in and use the resources and the contacts and the relationships you build from that, you'll have a lot more than $350 more in the bank than what you would have a year from now if you didn't join RxC. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no contest. Yeah. Yeah. Screaming deal. I'm very excited about this. And we've already had several people join just in the last few days who've taken advantage of this offer and don't be left out. You are missing out. If you are not part of this, you're missing out on some really great, not only relationships, but great education and great ways to build the business and the life that you've always dreamed of. I like what Liz said earlier. She said, you get on the fast track to success. I was trying to take down some things you guys said because I'm not sure. Yeah, it is. Yeah. It completely is. Well, that's not just money either. Success is measured in a lot of different ways, right? But a lot of that has to be with the life that you're building for yourself, for your family, for your community. RxC is like a huge road to get there so much faster. You're going to feel more successful. You're going to love your business again. Some of you are like, oh my gosh, business is so hard. I don't know, how can I hang on? You know what? We'll help you. RxC. Yeah, it's like a big support group too. As far as growing in the towel, call one of your friends you made and they'll just help you get up. Yep, we've had some members that were thinking of closing their doors and they kind of reached back in and talked to the community and found what they needed and they're, you know. Yeah, good. And so many people, their best friends are part of RxC. That's what they're best friends. I could name 20 people off the top of my head that their best friend they met through RxC and those are still their best friends today. People that they meet maybe once a year, every other year, et cetera. Some of us might not even have friends if it wasn't for RxC. No, it's not. No, it's not. Don't shout at us. Come on now. I have to say, I know we wouldn't be here. I love looking at the picture of our company board. We wouldn't be here without Tom and that crew that had got together and really laid the foundation. So I am tremendously grateful and we're always grateful to be on your show because when Carrie emailed and said, can you guys be on to our business it was like, I'll never say no. So yes. Well, thank you for joining us. This was an awesome way to end the year. Yeah. This is our last show for 2022. We will be back next Wednesday, five o'clock Eastern for our first show of 2023. The four, yeah. And then the one for the fifth also. We are on Coffee and Conversation. If you go to RxC.org and you click on our live education you can register for, when you register for one of our Coffee and Conversations you can register for all of them at the same time. I love that. So easy. Yeah. So nice. Won't miss it. Well, thank you so much for having us. Yeah, it's been great. And anybody who has questions, feel free to reach out, connect with me on Facebook or LinkedIn. I'd love to talk with you. Jasmine and I are always here at ARCSI. So please reach out to us and we'll see you in the new year. Everybody have a safe and happy new year. We'll see you next Wednesday, five o'clock Eastern. Bye bye.