 Hey, good afternoon everybody Tom Stewart here. I'm with Liz Trotter our super special guest today is Angela Brown This is smart business moves. Hey Angela. How are you? Where do I put my hand? There I go No, we're so excited you can't believe this first time Angela going live I know I've never gone live on YouTube before I'm super excited So for those of you that are just joining me from my audience I can't tell you how excited I am today because I'm joined by two of the biggest superstars in the cleaning industry and They have done more to help other people up level the the profession of cleaning And I am so pleased and so honored to be here today to share with you guys some interesting ideas on marketing So, thank you guys so much for having me here. That's awesome. Where are they? Where are those people? They're all over the country. We got friends all over the two people that have done things for the industry. That's pretty cool. You're too kind Thank you very much Angela I'm behaving already and we haven't even really gotten started. Yeah so this have you ever seen the view on TV Angela have you heard of it? I have seen it I don't actually watch it because my schedule doesn't allow but I admire the women that are on there So, okay, well, I have actually never seen it But I've heard of it and I think this show is a little bit like the deal Okay, we kind of talk a lot and we kind of over talk each other and Everybody kind of has their own opinion and we're good with all of that. Okay fair enough We'll just have some fun then and Liz picks on me. I Don't pick on you more than you deserve though. Let's like be fair here. I would never I would never argue that point Yes. Oh my gosh. So this must be one of your people Angela. I am in St. Kits in the Caribbean. Yay Hey, Max. Hey Max from St. Kits. I run a short-term rental and love Angela Brown tips and ideas Well, you're gonna love Angela. Who doesn't love Angela? Seriously? We've got all kinds of friends here Lorraine and Paula and Max and Shepi Danielle Moreno. Yay This is exciting you guys. Thanks for joining us North New Jersey Moreno Boy, everybody is loving the Angela. Hi. How are you? I'm in Washington, DC. Max. He's got all the eyes. Hi. Oh My what a cute name cutie-tay. Well, Angela you are bringing the audience here today. Hi, Leona Sarah from Michigan. Yay. I have relatives in Michigan You'll be doing this live stream thing every day now. I just might come on your show every day. This is so much fun Well, it is fun seeing who all the people are here, right? Oh, hey, Rhonda Leona the best. I hope we agree. She is absolutely the best. You are the best, Angela Because He's really excited. He's all caps, too Hey, this is great. Oh All right. Oh, so we have most of the people here are coming from looks like YouTube, but we also do have some Facebook People popping in here. All right We missed you last week. What were you up to? I was in I think I was in Vegas last week I'm pretty sure I was well remember Tom it has been a whirlwind Month, I'll tell you it. No, I was I was flying last week. Yep flying to Vegas I had the employee development and leadership program that I did in Vegas last week And I'm still recuperating me on that stuff. It's crazy Stories you got stories to tell us. I have stories. I can't say on here You know those stories that happen in Vegas. They got to stay in Vegas Tom I Cutie looks Thank you so much cutie Tay. That's a really very sweet of you. I appreciate that. Thank you Angela it's been a while since you know, we've spoken or anything. It's what what's been going on in your world What have you been up to? Most recently we are completely rebranding and rebuilding our business and I'm really excited about it because in every business Along the way you go as far as you can and then you hit a road bump And in that road bump you stop and you say whoa what we were doing worked How come it stopped working? How come we've hit this plateau and then what we find ourselves doing is saying Okay, what what got me out of Egypt is not what's going to take me to the promised land I've got to stop and regroup and go a little bit further doing different things and using different techniques than what I did before and so I I'm uncomfortable with the growth it's like growing pains and you have to stop and take a look at every avenue of your business and One of the things that we did since the pandemic is we restructured everything it was it was kind of a cosmic wipe of our business where we had 23 employees and Suddenly they were like oh see you and we're homeschooling now and I was like what whoa whoa where are you guys going? They're like we're working from home. I'm like, but you don't work from home so we had to restructure everybody's job Opportunities and figure out who does what best and then try to outsource the tasks and shuffle things around so that we were still covering the bases but making sure that it honored the parents that were homeschooling and Restructuring the talents of the people we had that maybe they weren't utilizing them in our business that way And so the last year and a half has been a real growth period for us Where we've had to look at everything and then decide what are we going to do? That will help us move forward that honors our clients and our employees as well so reviews the term unprecedented time a Lot of times here over the last couple of years and I guess what you're referring to a lot of that is just all the change in Covid it's kind of a new world now isn't it? Well, you know, it's interesting because I think all three of us have been in the industry about as long as each other And I don't think any of us I mean none of us have ever seen a global pandemic, but I don't think any of us have ever dealt with a business. I Want to say refracturing where everything is refractured and you got to pick up all the pieces and put everything back together I don't think we've ever seen anything of this magnitude in the years that we've been in business I think this is new for all of us. So go team. Here we are. You know, we figured out how to survive But you know, you know the story still being written, you know, it's you know There's a lot of reasons to say that we're not to place where everything's just going to calm down be normal now You know, none of us have ever run a business during times where inflation is a material issue and that's going to be impacting the economy and interest rates and You know your client's ability to you know, buy all the things that they want to buy They're gonna have to start making choices gonna affect the labor market So we're kind of rolling out of you know, one crisis into another I'm afraid which is an opportunity as well But you know our jobs not done here far from it Go ahead Angela, I was gonna say we're just getting started and I think Understanding that and understanding that there is a long road up ahead It's like when you're running a marathon, for example We know there are twenty six point two miles and you know that the end will eventually come But when you're at mile 11 and you're all burned out of fuel Seems sometimes like when is the end coming? You know, and you just get a little overwhelmed sometime But I find even in marathon running instead of looking at the little tiny itty-bitty skyscraper way down there that we're running towards if we look down and look at directly what's in front of us It's one step in front of the next and I think that helps us move from here to there Think about anything other than the fact that you still have You know 16 more miles to go Well, yeah, don't think of that Right So I but it does feel like Once you have overcome at least a couple of big milestones. It's like wow we have through that All right, awesome. If I can get through that, what else can I handle what five dollar gas? I'm ready for six bring it But it doesn't feel as daunting having come out of the pandemic, I don't think it's like wow that was huge That and I know that we're not out of it yet. We are still very much in it But coming out of the chaos From so much unknown just hitting us all at one time I think that a lot of people have at least a little bit more confidence going going forward Maybe unwarranted Well, no, I think confidence is really an important thing And I think I'm glad that you brought that up because having been through the pandemic If there was another lockdown right now It wouldn't have the same effect that it had the first time because we've all been through it And so now that we've been through it would go. Oh, yes. Here we go again We know what to do now And then there probably wouldn't be the big rush on toilet paper and the food shortage and the the baby food shortage And all the things that have happened because people have learned how to pace themselves And they've learned how to stock up and food did come back and toilet paper did come back and you know, it's it's a different Um, I think the first time it ever happens. It's like, whoa, what's happening now But now that we've been through it, I don't think that shock value will ever be like it was once I do think that I think you're being a little optimistic about the toilet paper situation I'm going to send you some toilet paper, Liz. I want to make sure you're covered There's an issue that no one told me about. What do you know that we don't Liz? You know, this is not the first time that we've had the toilet paper crunch, right? This there was there was one Yeah, there was one earlier. Yeah, there sure was people get a little crazy about the toilet paper I'm not really sure I understand what that's all about, but They do get a little bit crazy about it. So We have a question here from Robin. It's a good question. Robin. Hey, good to see you, Robin Up Tom, take it away. There you go. And you put it back in your ass, Tom How are you planning for a prolonged inflation or recession? Is that a question for me or who answers that for everybody? Angela, do you have something for us? We'll give you for a shot Yeah, so for prolonged inflation for the recession I have seen a lot of stuff in my life and I'm no spring chicken So the thing that I've discovered is this too shall pass And so instead of focusing on a prolonged recession and woe is me and you know worrying and all these things The best we can do is move forward with what we know and do the best that we can and the the thing that I would like to highlight especially on today's topic, which is on marketing Is how to put yourself in the best situation so that you can continue your business And so that you can continue to pay your bills during a period of time where there are uncertain times We are right now in a global hiring crisis And so this is again unprecedented from anything that I've ever seen And so what do you do? You have to make adjustments and you say, oh, whoa, I wasn't expecting this This is the new norm and that becomes the new norm until things subtle But you can't just hope one I'm just going to put my business on pause and hope that when all this goes away Then I'll pick up the pieces and I'll go back to the way it was because we don't know If things will ever go back to the way they were I can't imagine if they raise the prices on things that the prices are going to fall back down And we're going to be back in comfort zone. I think once those prices get up everybody's going to go Oh, this is kind of how things are now and it's going to kind of find a new plateau And so we have to just make adjustments knowing that while we're we're kind of shifting That's the new norm and just I don't want to say be polyanna about it But just really brace yourselves and be be as prepared as you possibly can So your planning Angela is more about um Just the idea that yeah changes always happening and so i'm always planning for the next best future Where can I go? I'm just moving forward and understanding that You know just because you plan it doesn't mean it's going to happen but moving moving forward and Continuing with your planning and then adjusting as we find out what the truth is yeah Well, what we do know is we know that as of the 2020 census there are 128.5 million homes in america And all of those homes need to be cleaned and so whether homeowners are cleaning them themselves or whether they're paying somebody There's a pretty good chance that house cleaners will still stay in business And it's easy to say oh, it's a luxury service and no one's going to pay But the truth is the people that are working from home. They don't have time to clean their homes either I'm paying for the first time ever for things that i've always done myself because I don't have the time to do them As I once did and so even though maybe it would be Less convenient for for you know me to pay somebody and it's going to cost more money or whatever I would rather pay someone else to do those small tasks than to have to stop and and try to fit them into my schedule right now Because they're just not happening And so I think that house cleaning will always be on people's priority list at some level Maybe not everyone but on lots of people's priority lists Well, you know one thing that people don't talk about very much Is yeah, we are all in the industry. We've been in here Really a very short amount of time like 30 years That is just a tiny amount of time that people have been cleaning homes Many of the poorest nations in the world They pay down their houses clean Many of the very very poorest nations still today have people coming in cleaning their homes two three times a week so that getting a house clean is not going to lose in and Priority for people people want their homes clean. They're just going to be deciding who's doing it And you know, and it's important to realize too that if it's the economy, it's not like it's just happening to you It's happening to everyone is happening to all your competitors and things shift around in the market and You'll have customers who will tell you at a higher percentage of what you're used to that, you know what? You know, I'm getting my hours cut back at work. I lost my job whatever I'm I'm going to have to stop my my cleaning service at least for a while But at the same time you're going to have competitors out there that are going to have a hard time I'm going to say, you know what? I really don't think that I want to be doing this anymore and You know, maybe they can't hire people or maybe they can't keep up with the inflation and the Wages that they're going to have to pay in the future. There's a lot of different things are going to be happening and Change can be a real opportunity. It's not always a A bad thing and you know preparing and Anticipating what's coming and a lot of us knowing your numbers as well It's going to be more important as the numbers change because of inflation the economy What used to work? isn't necessarily going to work With with inflation doing what it's doing and probably we'll be doing for the next couple of years Well, that's going to exactly what angela said when she first started talking right with Things just changed what used to work doesn't work anymore. We have to restructure We have to redetermine what we're going to do moving forward a to neat. Good to see you um, and so that that I don't I don't feel like that ever changes as you're growing. You have to Constantly be evaluating I like what you said tom the the data and the numbers are going to become more important And I really agree with that too. I mean we've all said that we have to watch our numbers We all know how important that is but moving forward making those decisions We're going to have to rely on that and such a bigger better way that that really makes a lot of sense to me too Yeah, be prepared to make some hard decisions, you know, you're gonna have to have the courage to raise rates You're gonna have to have the courage to offer more in wages than what you have in the past and Your competitors are doing it too. I mean the the overall economy is doing it So don't be afraid that if I raise my rates, I'm gonna lose customers, you know, some might push back But they're not gonna find, you know, it's happening across the board So they're not going to be able to find a better deal. They do find a better deal It's not going to last very long because that company's not going to be able to offer The low prices that maybe they were were offering, you know in years past Well, I mean this definitely ties into we can kind of go directly into marketing, right? That's what we're talking about today. Do you have any ideas for us? What we should be doing? I think over the last three months we've been focusing a lot on marketing for employees because we all recognize that there's just a dearth of employees out there But we're gonna have to start marketing again for our clients and that's something that has been Getting dropped just a little bit. We've we've we've said for a long time that in the cleaning business you always have too many customers and not enough cleaning professionals or too many cleaning professionals and not enough homes to clean and I really I you know, I don't have a crystal ball But I really think that we're going to start seeing a shift. I think the unemployment rate is going to go up I think you're going to see more talent coming into the marketplace And it's going to get a little bit tighter in terms of the demand for service So, you know, the good news is it's probably going to be easy to hire people The bad news is we're going to have to work harder to find new business and You know, Amy is asking a question here about how we can continue to grow with inflation and losing more people And I think that angel is going to help us with that here as we we get deeper into this because it's about marketing In sales, there's still going to be a lot of business out there. You're just going to have to work to get it Well, Tom, you are in luck because I did bring my crystal ball. No, I'm just kidding You bring up a really good point We talked about that Come on show us the crystal ball. You bring up a really good point about how do we stay relevant and how do we keep You know, how do we balance out the hiring and the too many customers too many clients not enough jobs All that stuff one of the keys to marketing a cleaning business is you have to always be marketing And it's really easy as a solopreneur to say, well, I I don't need to market because my schedule is full I I fell into this trap myself But the reality is if you will always be marketing Then you will always have a wait list and so you will always have a wait list of customers And you will always have a wait list of employees that want to come work for your company And so tom said a minute ago And it was really exciting People are going to say I've got to cut back my service because my hours at work have been cut back And I'm not able to afford your service when I hear stuff like that My ears go up and I get really excited and I say would you like a job? And the reason big is they know our service, right? They know our service They know how we dress when we show up. They know the types of cleaning supplies that we bring with us They know the kind of work that we do they kind of they know the kind of guarantee that we provide And they already understand our company culture Here's what happens when angel is sick and someone from her company has to come replace her They already know those things. So it's a no-brainer and they say wait a second I do have a couple extra days a week where I could come be a freelance or and do some Some house cleaning either as an independent contractor or as an a part-time employee And we have really shifted over to big-time part-time employees because right now even though there are parents that are able to work Many of them cannot work full-time, right? So even if you can hire part-time employees that will fill the gap and it will fill the void while you're building your business And so I say always be marketing What does your marketing look like and for those of you that are just starting out in the cleaning business I want to be very keenly aware that there are two types of marketing There's marketing which is the stuff that you do to lay the foundation of your business to create those wait lists And then there's advertising which is money that you pay Now it doesn't make sense to pay money for advertising until your foundation is laid, right? So there are things that we can do by ourselves While we have time, especially if you're a solo cleaner and then as your business grows You're going to want to pay for the advertising so that you can get more people in your business And you can pay for the recruiting ads and the hiring and the training and all of those things So one of the things that we want to do right now is we want to look at when it comes to marketing and advertising We want to look at three different forms. Where's my hand? There it is three different forms of marketing Which is the first form of marketing that all of us do right now is called owned media And owned media is media that I myself own And so if I write a blog that is media that I own if I make a facebook post that is media that I own If I go to a customer's house and I take before and after pictures that is media that I own Those are all avenues that we use in our marketing to build out our promotion of our business And we want to always be advertising. We want to always be promoting our business So that when that person who lives next door to your customer is in a position to hire you they say, oh wait Look, I've seen Liz come in every single week. She drives up. She's on time every single week Her car is always clean when she gets out of her car. She's always polished in her appearance She's not scrambling through the back of her car looking for you know through old cloths and you know mixing bottles of stuff in the trunk of her car She's she's completely prepared when she shows up. That's who I want for my house cleaner So when that person is ready, you want to be ready for them So you want to get all of your owned media in place. All right The second kind of media is called earned media. Now, I want to share this with you Tom and Liz invited me on their show today. Yay When they invited me that was owned media. They owned that media They sent me a link come to our platform and help us with this show. Okay I shared it with my friends. That is earned media. Okay. There's something about Liz and tom that I like enough I respect them enough that I say, yes, I want to be part of whatever it is you're doing Please include me. I'm going to go tell my friends. Okay. They didn't pay me to tell my friends. They that was earned media So earned media is everything that happens that you don't have control over So if someone writes an article about you if someone recommends you to their neighbor that is earned media And so we want owned media which is stuff that we do ourselves Then we want earned media which is how do we get all the referrals and other people talking about us People leaving us ratings and reviews people giving us It repins and reposts and blast outs and shout outs and all this kind of stuff, right? That is earned media Then the third form of media is called paid media and the paid media is where we pay for facebook ads Or we pay for billboards or tv commercials or radio ads or direct mail flyers or Stickers for the sides of our vehicles or things like that It's money that we spend to get eyeballs coming to our business So in a time of crisis like the the time that we're in right now and I use that word lightly Because it's it's a global crisis. Everyone is feeling the the pain of it But with all these different uh medias that are coming together What we want to do is we want to direct the narrative And by by that, I mean What do we want to say about our company? Do we want to be the company that offers the solutions? I know when the pandemic very first struck That there's a cleaner in our network and she said I am a mobile sanitation unit And what that meant is her van has sanitation supplies in it and she goes and she she does the house cleaning She always did but she marketed herself as a mobile sanitation unit and everybody's like whoa, what is that? And she didn't do anything really any different than she always did But now she's wiping the light switches and the handles of the refrigerator and making sure that you know It's all sanitized even the global pandemic. We all need one of those, right? Yeah But the way that she marketed her business was just slightly different enough that she was right in the line of People still calling her and she never missed a day of work ever. She never missed a single day So it's it's really important to get all of those medias coming together and I said that we direct the The conversation So how do you direct the conversation when it's other people talking about you, right? How do you do that? And how you do that is you create a brand and the brand will save you Now right now we're in a really weird spot where we're you know, we have employees leaving They're going to go home school They're going to take some time off and we have to get to a point where we're going to hire new people Where on earth are we going to find the time to teach them about our company culture? And about the way that we present ourselves to customers How we behave on social media and all of those things that takes an overwhelming amount of time, right? So how you create a brand is you have to even if you're only one person you have to sit down and decide What your company believes in And you say what does that have to do with marketing? It has everything because once you know what it is you stand for and what your brand is Then you can duplicate it and you can replicate it and the people that talk about you can duplicate it and replicate it Now, I don't know if those of you are at a screen And if you are I encourage you to open a second tab and go to savvy cleaner dot com And in the in the menu bar it will say affiliates underneath affiliates Pull it up here to angela There's a brand style guide. I'm not smart enough to know how to do the share of the screen He'll do it if you guys want to share it. That's awesome. I I I would make us all disappear This face was like instantly looking for it. So I'll have it here for us in a second here. It's a brand style guide. I'll tell you how it works The first part of it and if you don't have one, please borrow mine Okay, just open up a page copy everything that's on it change it and make it your own If you go to affiliates there in the menu bar right underneath affiliates, it will say brand style guide There you go. Yeah, that's it All right, so what we're looking at here is there's a little instruction here This is how you use this and over to the left side is a little menu of items that you can click on And uh, what we have here is like there's a our values our company values So if someone is not sure about the the business that we are they can go to our website and they can pull this up And they can look at it. What are our values? And so if we click on that section that says our values what you're going to find is that savvy cleaner We believe in treating people a certain way and on here. We have our code of ethics This is how we treat our business Our our this is how we behave in our business and then this is how we treat all of our clients This is how we treat our employees and this is how we we treat each other This is how we behave on social media And so all of the things that we have that we have outlined for our customers are the rules that we live by Now the reason it's important is this If I go on social media and if someone goes against my rules and I'm not sure how to behave This is where it gets really important important for new people that you hire You go back to the rule book and you say, how do we behave on social media? And that becomes your guide What's really cool about this is if customers come to your business And they see your guide they're going to go. Oh, that's how they behave on social media. That's how they treat their customers That's how they treat their employees. That's how they treat each other That's this is their commitment to us. Okay, so the reason this is so important is because this is going to be the baseline For all of your marketing for the way that you run your company and for the way that you represent yourself So that when other people come into your sphere of influence they can say Oh, that's how they operate. I I now understand right and when they turn and recommend you They're saying one of two things don't ever do business with that company or that's a company that's safe This is a company you can trust. I feel good about recommending this company to you because this is this is their promise to me right now, it's interesting because We run a facebook group and maybe many of you are in our facebook group. I don't know but uh When we have our facebook group because we have trigger words that are not allowed because then people start calling each other names And it gets ugly. We don't allow cussing in the group But what happens is this because that is our company culture when other people in the group start cussing Everybody jumps in they're like, oh, that's a bad word. You can't say that in this group Right. The reason is because once people understand your brand They start promoting it for you So now you're not the only one doing the marketing you have a whole bunch of people marketing for you And it's the same when you go out into the workplace and you have your brand If you go through this we have everything from I can't see that because it's very small We have our permission our slogan what we do For our there we go time. Good job Below that in the next section is our voice In the section of our voice and this is important. Here's what we call the members of our team Here's what we call our team. Here's what we call our partners. Here's what we call our affiliates Here's what we call the coaches of our business. This is a Down under the section that says our voice keep going down. There you go And so this is this is another section of our business But one of the things that savvy cleaner that we do is part of our mission and part of what we do is we show Not tell so if i'm making a video instead of telling you about a before and after of a toilet I want to show you a before and after of a toilet so that you can see the before and you can see the after And the reason being is not everybody learns the same way So if you have a customer and you're like, oh, they totally didn't understand It's maybe not that they didn't understand But maybe you didn't explain something or you didn't show something in a way that they did understand Maybe their learning style was slightly different Right and so at our business our goal is to show not just to tell And so that's a part of our business. So what what happens? We hire a bunch of new people We're super busy the pandemic. Whoa, we got a bunch of customers and clients. What now? Well, what happens is everybody looks to the guide and they say, oh, we show not tell So i'm going to i'm going to take my before and after pictures and i'm going to show the customer Here's a house before here's a house after here's what you can expect Here's what happened when I came to the house today Here's what it looked like when we left and the customer is like, oh, that's fantastic And they use that to base off their ratings and reviews, right if you can show not tell that becomes a part of Our brand and if you go through this, there's a whole bunch of stuff on here That's really phenomenal that if you just copy it tweak it make it your own rework it so that now you have a brand If you go down to the end section where it says our dress code, do you have access to that? Awesome The dress code is really interesting for this reason You wouldn't think about this, but this is one of the best forms of marketing that you'll do Here's the reason why if all of the people on your team are consistent in the way that they look What happens is the customers that you clean for are going to say, hey I know that when Liz shows up to it to the job Every time she shows up everyone on her team is going to look professional And so we have personal hygiene here and we have like this is how we wear our hair We have little pictures so that you can see this is what the hair looks like if you have long hair short hair If you have a man bun whatever and if you'll just scroll down this You'll be able to see The different looks that we approve of in our business And so we're not saying you can't have a ponytail. We're not saying you can't have a beard We're saying we need it to be clean clean and professional looking The reason being is we sell cleaning services if we show up to a customer's house and we ourselves are not clean Our car is not clean. That sends a different message, right? So we want to make sure that everything that we do is consistent and cohesive now good news This brand kit is public. It's on my website And so when we hire and we bring on independent contractors, I cannot buy law I cannot tell them how to dress. I cannot tell them how to wear their hair I cannot tell them to brush their teeth. Although it would be awesome if I could I cannot I do not get to do that, right? But the beauty of it is they can go and look at the brand style guide and say, oh This is how Angela and her company are I need to be in alignment with this, right? And if we scroll all the way down, we're going to show you pictures of how we dress And we're not saying you have to dress that way if you're an independent contractor We've hired you to fill in the gaps of missing employees What we're saying is this is what we have approved of And many times people will say, well, wait a second. I got a pair of dark navy khakis I can wear those on a job and they start blending in with our company brand Now what we have discovered is this and this is over 30 years Of trial and error and inspecting all the different rules and regulations from a variety of different cleaning companies One of the things we have discovered is this If you are consistent every single time you show up the customer expects consistency in the performance of your work But if you look different every time the customer is like, huh, something's different I don't know what it is and instead of saying, oh, you're wearing a sweatshirt today instead of a Business shirt What they're saying is maybe it's the work and they start nitpicking and they start trying to find things wrong with your work, right? If you are consistent every single time and you do your checklist every single time What that tells the customer is I got the same job And then if Angela is out sick and they bring in tom and tom shows up and he's dressed the part And he brings in the cleaning supplies and his car is clean and his hair is done And he's brushed his teeth and he shows up and he does the job and he marks it off with a checklist The customer is going to say You mean angela wasn't here. Well, I thought she was like look everything is the same They're not looking for things that are different They're looking for things that are the same and if if other people come into your circle of influence And this is where it gets good if you hire an existing customer, they know already how you operate It's not a tough learning curve. They just walk in and they're like, hey, where's my shirt? Here's your caddy. Here's your shirt. Here you go, right? So it's it's a really easy process Once you start following these simple very simple very basic rules to brand your business And once you brand your business, here's where it gets really good We are in a gig economy right now and many of you even if you're solo operators over the next four or five years You're going to end up outsourcing a lot of stuff that you yourself cannot manage Okay, so during the pandemic. I know I found myself in a really weird spot Or many of my employees were not able to come in every day and I'm like, whoa, who's going to do your job? Okay, by having a brand style guide and having it on my website. I could turn that over to a social media specialist Say, hey, here's here's the language that we use here is the image that we use on here We have our logos. We have our colors. We have the typography that we use for our business So that they can just move in very quickly and they can create something for our business That is in perfect alignment with every other message that we are creating So there all of a sudden it becomes a really blurred line between was that owned media or earned media or paid media Or how did that work because it is all speaking the same language And if you are marketing on a very consistent cohesive basis, what that tells people is this We are in a pandemic. I'm not sure right now who to hire. I'm scared Companies are all upside down. There's an employment crisis going on I'm going to have to pay more money for the same service that I once paid I just don't know if I can do this Where are they going to go? And the answer is they're going to go to the people that are very consistent They do it the same way all the time. They provide the same value. They have a really consistent message across the board And so my question to you is is your business brand up to par? And if it's not during these weird chaotic times, this is the time to pull it all together This is the time to get your act put together and to create a brand that will then serve you for the long haul Well, I love that you have this right here on your website angela for anybody to just Take tweak and you're good to go. Just get started today. I mean, I love that You know, obviously marketing is in a very very important part of growing your business and finding customers and finding, you know, strong team members as well You can spend a lot of time and a lot of money both on on marketing and still not get awesome results and What I see you laying out here is let's just start with the basics and Before you invent a lot of time or money and in the pursuit of marketing and you know, the various You know, the three channels of media you're talking about Let's just make sure it's all consistent And I think the message I'm hearing is it's going to create a lot more value for you You're going to get a lot more value and benefit out of the time in treasure you put in building your media Well, the the interesting thing is many of us are on social media anyway And so it's it's a no-brainer, right? We're on social media. Anyway, we're going to post something And we don't need to share the screen anymore. I was I'm done with my show and tell But the the interesting facet of where we are right now is if you're on social media And you're going to be posting anyway, if you know what your rules are it will It will Help you direct the same message that you want to send to the marketplace because there are times because I'm tired And it might be 11 o'clock at night and somebody emailed me and said get in there There's something going on in your facebook group. You need to get in there and shut down a thread or something If I get in there and I just want to you know smack someone upside the head or whatever Wait a second. That's not what my brand does. Let me go back to the brand Let me go back to the guide, right? And so even if we are unsure or even if something triggers us or even if we find ourselves in one of these odd moments of We're not at our best We're going to go back to what the brand says we do Because the brand lives forever and I can't tell you how many years later after you made a nasty post to somebody They screenshotted that and they saved that and that can come out at any time to haunt your business And so you just want to make sure that That you are following your brand and the key is how do you follow something that doesn't exist? You can't and you're gonna screw up unless you know exactly how your business operates So we talk about marketing and a lot of this stuff is free I'm not asking you to spend a lot of money. What I am asking you to do though Is ask yourself the tough questions. How do we dress? How is our car? How do we treat people? How do we respond? How do we refer to ourself? How do we talk about our customers? How do we talk about our co-workers? How do we talk about ourselves? How do we you know? How does this all work? What do we care about? What's important to us? What matters to us? What is same thing? What are our values? What is our mission? What is our vision? Yeah, so everybody's on the same page and we talk a lot about expectations Around here and that's basically what this is to right setting setting expectations So that it's just very very clear That this is who we are. This is what we do. This is what we care about. This is what we say. Thank you And now you know who we are and people can have again back to that word confidence again And now confidence is lacking. You know people People want to feel confident and right now it's just And the more we see all these big changes the more people are feeling like they're not confident they're Feeling like they're you know just barely hanging on so the more confidence we can Infuse out there for people the better it's going to be for us huge one So what i'm hearing is If you're lacking confidence if you're you know concerned if you know or believe that things are going to be changing and you're going to have to Work harder to find business in the future You know Calories and fry invest that energy and in developing your your your brand message. That's uh Well, you know, you know, tom it's interesting because we create employee handbooks for our employees And we say when you come on board to our company, we expect you to behave a certain way But until you sit down and you actually create an employee handbook, it's hard to know what what it is You even believe what is it that you want the employees to do? And so You know we can willy nilly it and kind of make stuff up as we go But that is not scalable And so when you turn around two weeks later because that employee didn't last and they left Now you have to recreate the whole process with someone new and every time we create that process We water it down and we say well i've already gone over that in our minds. We went over it But this is a new employee. We didn't go over it with them So we forget to tell them some things and then when we send them out say hey listen I'm so busy. You have to train the next guy. Well, they didn't get all the information themselves So then they water down what they were taught and now they teach something else And if three or four or five people down the line, you got a whole different company and you're like Wait a second. What just happened? But if you'll organize it up front, you'll be very crystal clear Then everybody gets the very same lessons therefore you can create the consistency across the board even in difficult times You know you remember you guys Like in grade school ever play that game I think they called it telephone where somebody whispers something in somebody's ear and They whisper it in somebody else's ear and by the time it gets to the other side of the class It's not even remotely What was originally said It happens in our businesses too I like what you say and and grade school Tom because yeah, that's happening every day all day Yeah, that happens in every Facebook group Comes all the time So one another thing I really like is that you're talking about Angela is going back to the basics You have to set the basics. There's always a foundation for everything that's being built and you have to Set that first and then just like in sports They do and I don't know anything about sports So imagine how good this must be that even I know that they have spring training camp And what do they do in spring training camp? They don't do crazy plays. They do all the basics They go back to the foundations, right? They do all of the stuff to make sure everybody's on the same page about how to I don't know the words block Tackle Yeah, blocking and tackling is what a lot of it's about and you try to get too fancy and you know Really crazy plays and before you know it you're you're just kind of flailing So when you get a little bit scared when things aren't going the way that you want them to be going in your business Just take a step back and and think about the blocking and tackling going back to the the the basics and certainly the The the the branding the brand message is is at the core of a lot of that. I love that Well, you know, it's interesting It's nice to to get fancy and to learn some new tricks And I love the fact that progressive business owners often do they get better software and they get I don't know better uniforms Better training gear better cleaning caddies better whatever it is But it's the basics that we'll sell if you look at mcdonald's for example It's a business that's been around for billions of burgers, right? And I don't think their burgers keep getting any better. I might be wrong But I think they're kind of like the same right and their menu is kind of the same It keeps getting more expensive, but it's pretty much the same and I every time I eat there. I leave uninspired I'm like, huh, wow, they're still in business And I thought today was going to be different like they've been in business this long. Surely they've improved, right? Well, but what they have is a baseline They have a baseline with a consistent product and they keep marketing it over and over and over and over and over And when you go you know what you're going to get you don't go in and say, uh, let's see I wonder what kind of burger they're going to give me today I wonder if that that I don't even know what the burgers are, but The chicken sandwich I wonder if it will have like all kind of extra things on it. Well, no, it's not It's going to be the same whatever it is that they always had It's going to be the same meal every time, right? You're not going to find it, you know, I'm going to get tacos today They're not going to have tacos So when I was about eight they had an ad and Tom you might be old enough for this but they had an ad and they used to sing Big Mac to all of you patty special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun You know, that was like how many years ago 55 years ago They still are made the exact same way All of you patty special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions out of sesame seed bun. That's a big Mac Nothing nothing's changed with that. I mean, I think they might have gotten a little smaller Shrink they call that shrink flation Yeah Yeah, but imagine if in our businesses instead of trying to reinvent every job a customer's like, oh, can you add this? Can you do that? Well? No, that's not part of what we're doing We're selling big Macs here and this is what's on the menu and if you want something different It's going to be a different price and it's going to it's going to be a different service Right, you don't go and order a big Mac and then they give you a whole bunch of extra things on the side It doesn't happen that way and it shouldn't be with our businesses either And I was cleaning a big Mac at jack in the box If you order a big Mac at jack in the box, they're going to say, yeah, sorry, I'm going to have that over to mcdonald's right But the key is we have to know what it is we sell and we have so many house cleaners that they get to a customer's house And they're reinventing every single job and the customer's like, well, I can't have you come at that time All right. When when do you want me to come? Whoa I need you to do this this and this today. Whoa That's that's not what's on the menu. That's not what we're serving Right And so when you've made an agreement with a customer and you gave them a price and you bid a particular job That's what's on the menu. That's what you are in the kitchen fixing You don't just be adding stuff to the menu at the last minute, right? So it's important as business owners that we know what our baseline is What is it that we're selling and what is what is the narrative that we want to go with that And can we market that in a way because right now? I can tell all of you exactly. Actually, I can't I lied I can tell you exactly what you'll find at a mcdonald's, but I don't really eat at mcdonald's. I don't really know what's there But um, you're going to find the same menu, right? It's it's it's duplicatable They they make mcdonald's all over in every city. You're going to get the same meal It's scalable And until we can get our businesses to that point where it's the same thing Everybody knows what to expect. It's really hard for people to recommend you and right now in an economy where there is inflation And the ad dollars have shriveled up and we don't have the same kind of money that we once had to market our businesses And to pay for paid advertising It becomes paramount that we learn what our business stands for how we want to direct that narrative And then we need to stick to the script So that our neighbors and our customers can recommend their neighbors and their friends and they can stick to the script And our employees can go out and tell their friends when you hire on with this company Here's what you're going to get. This is how they treat their employees. This is how they dress This is what you can expect and it becomes a consistent narrative that everyone can play from right It's one of the best forms of marketing you will ever do is really really understand your business Because until you do you cannot possibly hope to turn around and have someone else sell it for you Yeah, you know and as far as the service delivery and I think what you're what I'm hearing is you want to you need to understand what the guidelines are where the where the boundaries are and You know, there are a lot of people who build successful cleaning companies allowing some deviation And I know our friend Derek Christian. He ran a business and he had a rule where He'll allow a customer to change up to three things on their standard operating procedure Still with you know, some some caveats, but if it got beyond three, it was like no, we really can't do that because that's You know, we won't be able to do that, you know consistently and you know using the food analogy Subway, you know what you're going to get but you've got the ability to kind of You know engineer your own solution to a little bit You don't have to have the tomatoes on the turkey sub if you don't want to so So yes, that's that's true That's true But you're not going to go into a subway and ask for sushi on that on that sub, right? There are certain things that they sell and within those parameters That's all they sell and if you say well, I really wanted the fried chicken on this on this burger They're going to say we don't serve fried chicken. That's not part of what's on our menu And like what you said about derrick christian When you go to a mcdonald's there are different ways you can get that same meal Do you want a small medium or large? Do you want fries to go with that? Do you want an apple pie to go with that? There are ways that they can package it together But it's still the same on the same menu It's still in the same parameters of what it is that they're going to provide you And knowing what those parameters are knowing how far you can deviate with derrick It was three things you can change three things. That's a parameter I can't do five things. Oh, that's going to cost me more money with derrick's company I can do three right that's a parameter and if that's what your company does You need to be crystal clear about that because if I'm a new employee and I hired onto derrick's company today And I get to a customer's house and they try to trick me and they have four changes I'm going to have to make a decision. I'm going to have to say wait a second I'm going to lose my job or I got to cut one of those things off your wish list Which is it going to be so what you're describing there is if Nobody ever asked the question. Hey, can we do this or not? Then you know you're doing it right because every you've defined it in a way where people in your organization just know If that's in the guidelines if that's within the brand model if if you will But if you find yourself like having these discussions while mrs. Jones wants to do blah blah blah Can we do this or not then we need to take a step back and do a better job of defining Who we are and what we want to be and and how we do our business But that's so clear Nobody should be confused. We shouldn't have to have a question where you're getting a call Three times a week saying so there's dirty dishes in the sink. Am I supposed to clean them? Should I wash them in the dishwasher? Should I just put it? Well, what do you want me to do with these dishes? There should never have to be that conversation because that's all defined as part of our brand design In part in part of that too. I I I would think would be I mean, I know you would want to make sure that everybody understands how you say no, you know It's not a matter. Oh, you got to be kidding me. We would never do that. I mean In a positive way that your your your customer will understand and respect Right And I I love the fact that tom brought up respectful communication I think that should at least be on that that list that you have with your brand style guide. I think that's Key to survival. Yeah, I absolutely agree. You know, I'm also while you were talking angela. I was thinking about Steve jobs and when he was creating apple I remember that I I saw a Can't remember what it was. It was something on youtube and The thing that he said he thought that he did better than anyone else Was he was really good at saying? No, no, we don't do that. No, we don't do that. No, we don't do this. This is what we do Do we do that? No, we don't remember. We only do this. We don't do all of these other amazing things that are out there We only do this and just being so crystal clear about what we do and what we don't do Makes a huge difference for everyone. I I feel like most people are really clear about what apple does and what apple doesn't do I don't I don't see that. There's a lot of confusion. They they're not good at maps. We got that but But for the most part I I feel like that's A lot of times our industry also is very insular And we look to other cleaning businesses to find out how should we run our cleaning business But it seems like the smarter move to me is stop looking at just another Little business and look for like the bigger businesses. What are the big businesses do? What are the best practices that you have to do to grow and scale? There are not The large businesses aren't saying, you know every time we turn around We're just changing our minds about what we're going to do and what we don't do and just just kind of wing it It's okay. Just wing it. Nobody says When you're saying businesses Liz you're you're talking broader than just house cleaning businesses. Yes Because I do think that we get kind of stuck. We're so insular that we just Only take our advice from other cleaning businesses a lot of times But there is much broader advice and Direction that we can take from I'll use the example Tom of of KPIs You know back in the day when when you and I first started talking about KPIs and key performance indicators and metrics People were like, what is what is that? That is not an idea that was was normal to the house keeping industry That had to come from outside. Listen. This is what big companies do We need to start doing this as well data matters We have to start paying attention to this stuff and then we all realized. Oh my gosh This is like a really smart way to run a business big or small And so I I think that small businesses also need to not just look at other small businesses But much broader. I see Tom's doing the what time is it face? Well, it is that time And We at the top of the hour folks are a minute or so from it Um before we before we wrap up I want to make sure everybody knows how to get a hold of you. I don't know Is it best thing to do go to savvy cleaner dot com or that's perfect. Sure. Okay. I'll drop that link in chat Got it up Show the thank you. She's on it. I'm Victoria But yeah, you guys I want you to keep me posted about your uh, your brand style guides because that's something that you can do for very little Or no money Just pull it together so that at least you know where your business stands And then I would love for you to shoot me a link so that I can take a look at it And I will I will clap and cheer you on Yeah, I mean you you work with tons of of companies and cleaning professionals and if people need help with the coming up with a style guide and the branding and You you you have resources to help with that. Don't you angela? We do they're actually uh, we've got a panel of experts And so we can we can certainly put you in touch with somebody that can help you with that Yeah, and we've got some free resources resources for you as well Well, for for example, look under affiliates and find a style brand guide Here's a free resource right here that you can that you can use That is awesome. Yeah Angela, thank you so much. I I don't know how we've been doing this this long and somehow have Not been able to get you on the show, but we appreciate and I'm glad it finally happened and and hopefully we can Make this happen again Again soon. Okay. This was really great. Thank you so much and thank you to all of you that showed up today This was really fun and I appreciate your support. This was just exciting and I'm glad that we could spend this time together today. Thank you So we're done for today. Um, they're so excited to see you and We're uh, still doing marketing sales month of june. Is that right Liz? Yeah, so Next week five o'clock Eastern we'll be back and add it again. Who's our guest next week? Liz. I don't know victoria. Who's our guest next week? Is it? Uh, oh, I think it is Riley. Yeah, Riley. Yeah, so we'll be right next week five o'clock eastern. Thanks again, angelo. See you soon Thanks you guys