 Hey, good afternoon everybody Tom Stewart here. I'm with Liz Trotter and our very special guest today Debbie Sardone. This is Smart Business Moves Hey Debbie, thanks so much for coming on seriously. Thank you. It was a smart move for me to say yes And for us to ask We're all so smart in this room. Yeah You know what they say about that If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. So I know I'm right No, I was gonna say I know I'm in the right room because I'm in the room with the smart ones Some days you still feel smarter than others and for me, this hasn't been one of those days. So Maybe we can turn it around days. I I just spend Most days I just try really hard not to keep doing dumb stuff Yeah So I think I've told Tom this before but One time I was talking to my grandma who at the time was 86 And I had had a really bad day and she was like honey. I thought that by the time I hit my 80s I would be done with dumb stuff too. And I don't I don't think it happens. You're just gonna have to get good with it I'm like, oh thanks grandma No encouragement there All right So, um, I made you stop talking about something So we could go live. Well, we were talking about all the crises I don't know must not have been important. Yeah, there's nice the famine We were we were talking about you know all the unprecedented events and Some of the challenges that we've been facing over the last year and How hard it is to uh hire people I guess it's kind of the the the paradigm for a lot of us and For some of us have been cleaning homes for a while This isn't the first time it's been a tight labor market. So, you know, you just have to Roll your sleeves up and and and work harder and do the smart things to deal with it But we're also You know, it's different though There is one thing that's different in the past We didn't really have a good scapegoat And now we do now. We're like, oh, let's blame unemployment. Let's blame the government So we're like so we can let ourselves off the hook. We can be like it's not us. Not my fault It's not my fault. Yeah It's them I have a short video to share though that I think fits in with this you guys good with that. Yeah Set this up This was a part of a speech that uh, president biden gave last thursday This week for child care and i'm going to be critical y'all. I really mean this legitimate questions are asked Asked me more, you know, guess what reporters can't find workers I said, yeah This isn't employees Employees are What's happening They're going to have to compete and start playing hard worker people a decent language Great point Pay them more Great point. It's what we've been screaming for the last 20 years if it's called supply and demand You raise your customer prices and you pay your workers more and you keep doing that till your business works But the president wasn't screaming. He was whispering. Yeah, he should have screamed it I've been screaming it. I know you two have been screaming it But you know what I was listening harder because he was whispering So maybe maybe it's gonna work All right, you know, he's actually admitting something that we've been talking about for a while. It's brilliant Give businesses a ton of money with ppp and idle loans and all of that and then pay people not to work So then we've got money to pay them more to entice them to work and when you're done everybody's wages are higher Yep Exactly. I've always said The government doesn't set minimum wage and if you think they do you're in trouble The market tells you what minimum wage is and in our industry It's hard work. If you think you're just going to pay a little bit above minimum wage Good luck with finding anybody to come work for you The government doesn't set minimum wage the market does and I haven't I know none of us here Have been able to succeed in business without paying people double and sometimes triple depending on the market. They're in minimum wage Pay them more I have had a time in my business where I did not pay a lot of money I was one of the lowest paying cleaning companies in the area but I did a lot more And a lot of I put a lot of time and energy and other things in there are a lot of resources still being spent they just wasn't um as much money and Bottom line is it's easier to spend money y'all it is It's just easier You weren't the highest paying but you are highest on the fund scale We were and maybe not even so much fun as we just had the most benefits Of anybody else in the area. So maybe maybe the actual cash layout wasn't that as high But the the benefits were much higher But cash is easier Cash is king cash is what motivates people People do like cash. Yeah. Yeah. I like me some cold hard cash I got got myself a cup full of fake one hundred dollar bills right here What if And it's a funny thing about cash There is rarely a time or a person that says You know what I've got enough cash now That that's not something that the people that come to work for us are I've never heard it from anybody like, yeah, you know what I don't really need to make any more money. I'm good. No, that doesn't happen Our new c o o c. I'm sorry c. Yeah, c o o um Asked the other day our team hit one of the largest milestones We've been trying to hit for many many years and our team hit it and he said to me said I'm thinking about doing a really nice activity with them to thank them Or i'm going to offer them cash And I said, well if you want to have an activity for team building then you need to that's the reward the party Because if you offer them cash, I don't care what it is. They're going to say i'll go with the cash So if you want to do a team building exercise, that's fine. That's your call Don't mention the cash was an option because the minute you give them both options They will go with cash and he said, well, I don't really care which one they pick So I was in the meeting when he offered them and every one of them said we'll take the cash Everybody always picks cash But you do have to remember that you know if you are listened to any of the experts Even though we think we want the cash Later remember they remember the experience So and i'm a believer don't do either or I I Told him we need to plan An office team building event like one of those axe throwing things around our goals and hitting the goal and it's like We need to do that anyway, not instead of but they're going for the cash Because five years from now they'll be talking about the axe throwing. Yes Three weeks from now. They'll forget about the cash cash will already be spent on their light bill Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but kevin you've always been really good at doing both And so i'm not going to say always we've gotten better and we've you know We've had our highs and lows where we're really nail it and then we'll flak off But we have a decent system in place to try to continually Give them that team culture the team building experiences But also make sure they got good cold hard cash in their hand at our meetings, right? Perfect attendance is cash And we have talked a lot about mazlo's hierarchy of needs And until you meet that lower level and make sure that people have enough money Yeah, really if they can't pay their rent they don't care about your stupid pizza party But if they love their paycheck and you give them pizza on a thursday, they feel like this company is amazing Yeah, it's the best But the the the the perception of what enough cash is I think the expectation has gone up over the last year Yep, and it's supply and demand as the job market titans They know there are more and more jobs out there paying better than they were We had better be Highly competitive not just a little bit better Highly competitive or they're going to pass this work is hard. Put your hand in somebody else's toilet for what? It better be compelling or they're not going to stay And so many people right now are looking for employers employees and pushing so much harder that everybody is willing to pay more So much more competition for for the employees right now. So you got to be on it. Raise your prices See, that's what people forget these two things go hand in hand So the owner panics are like, oh no, I got to pay more. I'm barely making a profit as it is I don't pay myself anything. It's like no it takes both when you raise the the pay You have to raise your prices. I have cbf members. They're reporting. They're collecting 60 and 70 dollars per billable hour and not in california We've seen that for years in california So, you know, my company is charging more by the labor hour than we've ever been able to get away with before So that supply and demand remember you got to do both you have to raise your prices And raise your pay and they do go hand in hand And you know, we're going to be talking about marketing today Which I'm really glad about because another thing along the same lines that I think people kind of a little bit forget kind of drop the ball on or they're afraid Is that marketing and hiring go hand in hand? You don't do one or the other you do Both at the same time and each one pushes the other. So that's how you grow excellent At the very least the recruiting you always want to be recruiting and you always want to be marketing Even when you think that you don't have to because as soon as you stop You lose the momentum and then you're chasing it somebody quits exactly Exactly, that's a great point. They go hand in hand They go together and just like marketing does not work when you stop and start stop and start doesn't work well It's same thing with always recruiting. I need to always be recruiting always marketing if I do them hand in hand I will create less of my own feast or famine and right now. I know we're talking about marketing today People have felt that cleaning business boom Hit us this spring. Yeah, but like we were talking about earlier. It is slowing down. It always slows down in the summer and You know, it's time to get back at marketing if you let it slide because you were trying to service the demand And in some regards, you know, we've gone through a year plus of unprecedented events so Some of the rules have changed and in the spirit of you know following With you know how to react to the unprecedented events and this is the last day of marketing month And this is awesome that debbie has a presentation. She's going to share with us kind of walking through uh, you know some thoughts on How to how to market in the new post-covid world Okay I am so grateful you you both asked me to um participate today because you know, I love marketing I love Helping businesses grow and there are new rules of marketing And if we don't acknowledge that and we go back to our same old ways We're going to miss out on the opportunity to scoop up the addition Business that might go to your competitors or will go to no one And so, you know, yes Our company and most companies around the country have reported this Cleaning business economic boom But you know, we are coming off of a of a pandemic right all the restaurants are booming because all that pent up uh Business is now kind of coming out a lot of the air b&b's are booming the vacations Are are booming because people are Are uh, you know finally able to do something they've been holding off on so some of this Cleaning business economic boom is probably that pent up Uh demand that people waited months or a whole year to have their house cleaned and now we're seeing a flood of it um And you know, like I've I've we were talking earlier about how we've all been in business so long We've seen the crises. We've seen the extreme highs and lows the economic downturns You know the stock market crashes. I mean we've seen it all right the 9 11 Uh the unbelievable um economy that we've all been through and Here's what I've learned and I know you guys have learned the same thing our biggest breakthroughs come From the greatest challenges My biggest breakthroughs came during my greatest challenge They almost never came through my easy times when I was coasting and floating our greatest obstacles are Also our greatest opportunity And I see coming off the pandemic where many business owners were closed They were shut down. I know my own business didn't close, but we we lost 38 percent of our revenue over a two-month period We went backwards after hitting goals in 2019 at the end of 2019 we had never hit before And I know so many people suffered But coming off of that we've also experienced our greatest levels of growth. I have ever seen In this industry, this is not the time to give up. This is the time to scoop up Right, this is time to make consumers Consumers have a ton of money in terms of just the amount of money that's in people's bank accounts right now because of You know all the checks and benefits and you know, you heard the president whispering about more monies floating out there and Yeah, that entices some people to stay out of the workforce But there's a lot of people in the workforce and they're taking that extra money and just Like putting in their pocket put it in their bank. They can't find things to spend it on because they can't get containers over here There's shortages of a lot of stuff that cars are gonna buy. Yeah People stopped buying cars people stop Uh spending ten thousand dollars on a family vacation to disney world or a cruise Right all that money is still in their bank account. Most people worked Through the pandemic so, you know This is our greatest opportunity. It was our greatest challenge Definitely the biggest challenge of my career out of all the things I've been through. This was the greatest challenge. Yes There were times I think many of us wondered. Oh my goodness. Am I going to lose my business? Is it going to keep going down? How long is this going to last? Luckily in texas it kind of opened up relatively quickly and we were pivot But you know, what goes up? Must come down, right? So as we've been experiencing this big gigantic surge Some are already seeing things slow down. So The new rules of marketing really do apply in a post pandemic world And I think it'll be a long time if ever that we just go back to the way things were In in exact way. So I wrote down four things that I wanted to share with you that I've observed and that we've been teaching I'm sure there are other things but four things that really stood out to me Around the new rules of marketing You want to jump into your first? Oh, yes. Yes. If you if you have it you can pull it up And uh rule rule number one. Yep. Are you sharing it? Okay messaging Messaging the message has shifted. I mean look at commercials and you'll see the shift in messaging The message has shifted period. Do not be late to the shift I know years ago. I was late to the shift on many changes that took place after 9 11 It took me years to shift because I kept thinking the old way would return or I just didn't know to shift So I think the messaging has shifted and I hope everybody takes notes today Because you can look at your marketing and if you hire professionals to do your marketing Do not be surprised that they don't think the same way we do so you may have to help them shift But the message has shifted from You deserve it rich most of us have been promoting that concept in our marketing for years You work hard all week. You deserve your weekends off, right? The message has shifted from you deserve it to you need it Now more than ever, right a clean home is now a necessity Not a luxury the message has shifted from luxury of living better and you know a better life Which we've all been promoting including walmart, right walmart's signature campaign that shifted about 20 years ago and I remember I watched the shift they shifted from Remember the happy faces that would bounce on the tv the rollback, right? They would roll back on prices and back then their campaign was all about prices cheaper prices cheaper prices Somebody got ahold of them and said that's not what your customers are looking for your customers want to live better, right? and walmart pivoted their messaging and came You know if you shop at walmart You can live better right because you can afford to live better You can afford to drive a nicer car or wear nicer clothes or go on vacations So the same thing is I believe it has shifted away from just the luxury message of living better and having it all to living safer And being safe that is the core message throughout all marketing that you see and it doesn't matter if it's selling Lollipops or tennis shoes, right? They're talking about being safe Right My old messaging of weekends weren't made for housework. I'm not saying it's a bad message I'm saying it's been replaced with We'll keep your home clean and healthy so And we're looking for obviously Co obviously covet was an awful thing and a lot of people died and been gotten sick and It's still out there and there's a lot of thought that you know the new You know very variance the delta virus is going to get worse in the fall and you know, nobody knows when this is going to end But what you're suggesting, you know, I've often thought I almost feel full bad suggesting this from a cleaning business standpoint Could covet be one of the better things that's ever happened to us from a business standpoint It sucked last year. We were trying to figure stuff out But where we are right now we've got to look back on this. It's going to be a good thing, right? Yes, absolutely. I mean That's what being in business is all about is riding the different waves. We don't know what the waves are They're always coming. Yeah, but when you are cutting edge and when you are Far and above your competition you ride every wave and sadly Covid launched the perception of home clean into Necessity and away from luxury And whether you agree with it or not is not relevant All that matters is the perception and the reality is this is essential It is a part of public safety and public health Cleaning is a part of the solution and if we don't ride that message We're going to be marketing to an audience. That's deaf. That's like You know, they're not going to respond and so We have to pivot to that message, you know for years all the cleaning companies that started they wanted to be green Oh, I'm going to be green. This is my new marketing stick, right? I'm going to be green. Well oddly enough People are more concerned about their own health than the planet right now I'm not saying it won't shift in the future and I'm not saying people don't still value Green and non-toxic products, but the shift is keep my house healthy I don't care how it affects the planet, you know to a minimal degree and obviously that's a little bit of extreme But it's it's less about free time and carefree living. It's more about Healthy living in a safe sanitary space Steve Hansen, you know dropped a message in chat Just kind of reiterating that point that you know, it's gone from Appearance to cleaning is about health. We've been talking about that for years as well But thanks to kovid everybody understands that now Exactly and here's why I think this is creating our our cleaning business boom Thanks to kovid Just like what steve said you before it's a discretionary income to make your house look pretty and smell pretty right But now it's oh, no, I need this. I might have somebody in my family that's system is Compromised or I work and play in school my children here all day. I got to have a clean house You know it is shifted in the mind of the consumer that this is not just a luxury anymore. Hey, honey We need this we're calling Castlekeepers or you know buckets and bows. We need this. It's not so much. I deserve this Even though there's always going to be a little bit of both Yeah, and you know what we told our employees all during this this pandemic because our employees were amazing They were courageous. They showed up and of course we pivoted like Buffaloes like many of you did with getting all the PPE and the gloves and the sanitizing Products and you know, we were lucky. We already had the solo model So we had the built-in social distancing which we leveraged against our competitors I mean it was like it was like the perfect thing perfect storm for my model And we constantly elevated our employees and bragged on them that doesn't it feel good to be an essential worker Right because you know, you saw a lot during the pandemic of people You know applauding essential workers and we really wanted our employees to feel important and special Remind them that you are making a difference those of you who want to be here. Those of you who cannot be here We understand you do have a job when when this blows over But you know, we bought them even we bought all of them shirts that said yep I'm essential and they loved them and they wore them to work and you know, it just the whole The whole thing shifted around cleaning and I think more people will use a cleaning service and more people will use a Professional cleaning service and will maybe think twice about the underground cleaners for half the price Simply because they value the healthy aspect and the safety aspect of cleaning more than just make my pillows pretty Vacuum my floors with lines and make my health smell clean. It's gone beyond that now And you know, there's one more point that we keep kind of skirting around is That you know, we're talking about our individual businesses and how this is great for us, et cetera But this goes way beyond that. This is an industry wide Phenomenon for us now. Yeah, it's an unprecedented event But it's going to turn into a lot more than just an event This is changing our entire Industry and what what we'll be doing is going to be different in five years from from right now We don't even really know exactly where it's going as much as we might think we will well Crises makes you better or It makes you worse and you give up and you quit But for those that stick out stick it out during the tough times. It makes you better So now people are valuing Certifications they are valuing joining Issa and getting certified with hct and learning the proper way to use disinfectants instead of not caring You know So it's really up leveled all of us as a professional industry and it also creates a bigger divide Between the underground cleaner that's just winging it for half price and the highly professional Highly trained service that charges double, but it's worth it It is creating a bigger divide in terms of the perception of why there is such a difference in price Yeah, this is all good for us and we don't have to fight it hard We don't have to justify our prices nearly as much that it's already people already know why the prices are more It's like, oh, well, this is a professional company. Oh, I get it. You know, I could trust these people They know how to clean. They know what exactly is not just making things pretty Yeah, that brings me to point number two Is the images that we create around the new rules of marketing The images that we create so how do we look these days, right? I do think there is a bigger divide between somebody who looks very unprofessional and unkempt and a dirty t-shirt versus a A very well-groomed professional looking uniformed Trained employee with a badge Or some pins like we do pins on our our employees badges our employees all carry a badge or they wear a badge And they have all these pins that signify years of service and all these things, you know What's the image we're projecting that makes people feel safe that makes them feel like oh I wouldn't dream of working with an underground cleaner from From our uniforms from the way we present ourselves even to the size of our teams To the cleanliness of our equipment all of these things Scream safety professional worth it Versus same old same old just winging it and cheap, right? Um, so what what are those images? Have you put those images on your website the certifications that you took during the pandemic hct or gabc Um, that you are a member of the worldwide cleaning association Obviously those who are members of cleaning for a reason all those images and certifications They're more important use them in your social media Put them out there. Make sure it's in your emails. It's on your website It's on your facebook page and make sure customers are seeing it Not just hearing it not just feeling it. They're seeing the images of of that this the new rules of marketing You know another point of that is in the past We always wanted to put all of this stuff on our websites because it made us feel good Now you have to put it there because it's making the customer feel good, which is different Just another shift there and it needs to happen because the customers need it I like that you keep going back to the word need debbie in the past. It was always, you know, they wanted cleaning It was a luxury. It was something they hoped for wanted, but now you deserve it Yes, all of the sweet soft things, but now people feel like yeah, I need this and if I can't pay someone else to do it I have to find a way to do it myself. So I really need it I have to put this in my budget and And I have to hire a professional service I need them to be pros not somebody who doesn't know what they're doing Who isn't careful and might bring germs into my home instead of take germs out So all these perceptions Are absolutely vital and if we don't pivot with them one of the things I said last year when um, the whole pandemic Broke out the very last day of my conference here in dallas We were the last live event at this particular hotel that cancelled for a year And the the thing I said on the last day of the conference is you you can go back and you could speak from a position of fear Or a position of confidence and study and learn as we all figured this whole thing out And I said what your customers and your prospects need to hear is with confidence and a true belief is Now More than ever you need us and if you can send that message You will calm your customers down and you you'll find a way to to pivot In this pandemic and many many cleaning companies did they they didn't you know go out of business and some went out forever So from an image standpoint You know you you got an example here in your deck of Something at service master did but there's certifications out there. There's the hct that's done through ii c orc rx he's got their phc professional house cleaning certification program Does that kind of fit into to this this thinking definitely Yeah, I just grabbed an image off the internet But absolutely all of those images now are important Whereas before like lis said we kind of did it for us. Look at me. My business is professional But now customers actually pay attention And we need to be proactive with those images instead of them just living on our website And we're not talking about them Point number three is sales process in the sales process Where we used to talk about check out our online reviews. We are the highest made service We're the highest rated made service on google, right? We used to talk about our quality Now during our sales process. We need to bring things up like that like we are a member of the worldwide cleaning association issa We received the hct certification during the pandemic so that we could pivot and You know Use proper disinfection Tools and procedures, right? So this needs to become a part of our sales language not just living Inactively on our website Insert it in the sales process that we're certified We're trained We use disinfectants in your home. We use gloves for your protection We sanitize our equipment between jobs anything you are doing Don't keep it your best kept secret because you've pivoted during the pandemic It's like you're not telling people, you know, tell them what your practices are I'm not saying make up things if you don't have any new practices Then don't say it but if you've implemented new practices and I think all of us have and I know my company has Tell them make that a part of your new sales process If you're not careful you won't even think to do it and your sales process will look like it did two years ago How many square feet? How many pets? How many people? How many bathrooms? Let me tell you about our deluxe cleaning instead of shifting to saying In my case, you know for your protection as well as our employees We send one person clean your home blah, blah, blah. They have disinfectants, you know, just pivot your sales process I really like what you said to debbie that for everybody. Sorry, tom. I think I might have cut you off One thing that I really liked is If you're doing the same thing that you were doing two years ago, you're off target You're you're missing sales. You are losing out because this is a new A new environment and so you have to be doing things in the new way which again to this marketing Because your competition isn't they haven't shifted their language. Go ahead tom. I know it's There's a couple of things that we're doing here What is you want to get the sale right because we all measure how many leads we get and quotes and in conversions But starting off it's like we're going to have to pay more So we're going to have to charge more and what debbie is describing here Gives us an opportunity to offer a premium service. So when you give them that quote that's higher than the competitors It's going to be easier to understand. It's like, yeah, but these are professional house cleaners. They're trained. They're certified They've got all the proper safety equipment You know, it's like, yeah, I'll pay more for that. My god, you know I don't want anybody coming to my house that doesn't have those things Exactly and most cleaning companies have made these changes, but we haven't incorporated it into our sales messaging We're talking the same way we've done in the past. You know, you deserve it. Why don't you give us a try? Feel felt found, right? But we also need to insert We've taken every caution possible to keep you your family and our employees safe Let me tell you what we're doing. Now, they're not going to hear that from the competition. Who's less Expensive and they're going to remember safe cheaper before it was you know Better reviews cheaper You know, so it definitely makes a difference And in the past we also always talked about We we would say if somebody complained about price We would say something having to do with our quality Well, if the price is more important to you than quality then absolutely you're probably going to be happier going with such-and-such company and that argument was Okay, but it's a much better Arguments that if you're more concerned about price and about safety then absolutely I I would go ahead and go with the other company It changes the dynamic What type of mother are you? Exactly choosy mothers choose jiff, right? Are you a choosy mother? Right and and families who really care about their kids used to buy a Volvo back in the 90s Right because it was the safest car on the road And so When it's just between luxury and cheaper people can go with cheaper But when it's between safety and cheaper people are going to pick safe and right now They are more concerned about safety than they were two years ago. It just it is what it is And there's a guilt In there now where there wasn't guilt if you don't do it now you're like Uh-oh, if you go for price it doesn't feel as good. We're in the past if you want for price It's like i'm getting a deal yay me like score Right score now. It's not a win Yeah And another dimension of the sales process that that that we've we've drilled on with some success is just talking about What we're doing for for our team members for you know, our cleaning professionals that You know, we're in a world where you know, things have changed and we need to be more flexible with our scheduling We have to pay better. We have to offer more benefits and the consumers have been hearing that And they're nodding their heads saying yeah, that all makes sense and somehow they're feeling better by paying us more knowing that that money is helping to do the um responsible thing what they call it es and g environment Social and governance that's the kind of the big thing in the corporate world and everybody wants to make sure that People they're doing business with are sensitive to es and g issues and you can settle on that point as well Exactly, you know people want a piece of mind and especially with this past year and a half Right people haven't had a piece of mind. They've been fearful. They've been uncomfortable. They've been cooped up People are looking for a piece of mind More than a discount and if we can give them a piece of mind, you know, that brings me to the fourth point Which is our delivery system, right? So it's all talk. It's all marketing. It's all messaging. It's images It's the sales process But when you go out there and those employees roll up their steves sleeves and start cleaning That's still all a part of the marketing process We better deliver on the images that we've created and the promises that we've made To keep that customer feeling safe and I realize it is individual for each company I know for myself for us It was a very easy thing for us to say We have built-in social distancing in our company and a lot of cleaning companies across the country Are selling off cars and dropping from teams of three to teams of one On maintenance cleans just to be able to compete in this We are a social distancing world now. I think that's Going to begin to go away very soon. It's almost gone here completely in texas But whatever it is you do when you deliver the service you better be authentic Because once you raise their expectation You can't let your staff show up untrained unprepared with dirty equipment that nobody is sanitizing And then that marketing message Actually works against you because you made them feel safe and now they're noticing What you brought to their attention. So we have to deliver what we say we need to make sure our staff Are continuing to be trained and you know, whether or not you arm them continually with with masks until Everybody claims to be vaccine and vaccinated. That's your individual call But whatever you do when you deliver we can't talk a big talk And then not do it that'll get us in more trouble than if we had said nothing That's uh, that's true. I mean, that's like one of the dimensions of quality, you know setting expectations And the last thing you want to do is set an expectation and Not need it raggedy dirty Dirty shirts Employees who do not look clean and pristine will not send the message that we care about Sanitizing and cleanliness and so we do have to live What we sell and so that delivery piece is just as important as the messaging the imaging the sales process All the way to the delivery And I speak a lot to language how important language is And it is more important now than ever for everyone that is using rags Just stop stop using that word. Yeah, you have Unless it's part of maybe your your uh name or something using it in a kitschy way Then I think you can get away with it. Tom remember there was there was a maid service years ago I don't even know if they're around anymore, but they were called rags with hay or hags with rags. I hated that name They lost on both counts, didn't they? Oh my goodness. That was just such a horrible name But you know, it was Jeff Campbell Jeff Campbell that taught me that years ago From his book when I read his book for the very first time To be cleaning back when I was doing the cleaning myself and he said don't call them rags We're professionals. These are towels and I've never forgotten that and if I and when I hear people say Yeah, we wash our rags. I'm like, oh, oh, that's almost like a cuss word for me. They're towels They're towels because we're professionals And all all of those so the the rag towel Controversy, right if some people will say it doesn't matter, etc That and then also using using some language that makes sense to the customers, you know cleaning and disinfecting We need to say that now in the past we could just say, you know wiping scrubbing washing whatever But people want to hear Disinfecting now it means something different than it did in the past people are educated in the past We could say sanitizing and people were like, oh wow, that's really good. Now people know, you know, there's now they hear it Now they hear it. Now they hear it. Yeah So that language really matters too and for not just for the owner or for the salesperson But for the people in the field those Which is speaking to the delivery system your people that are going out into the homes They need to be looking and sounding and acting like true professionals Are you not gonna be up? You know, it's almost like a virtuous circle though because that ties back into the imaging and the training and the certification that goes along with it You know, they're not going to act professional and speak professional unless they've been trained to be professional And once they are you can leverage that branding and that certification. So I mean, there's so many different synergies in this whole concept you're presenting here debbie Well, and to that point, you know, it it is important to us and especially Last year it's not as bad now But it is important to us that our employees feel a part of being kept safe It's not just about keeping my customer safe. So they don't cancel my service. It's also about keeping my employees safe So as we certified them as we trained them as we taught them that we're going to be using These tools and these gloves and these disinfectants and how to use them We wanted our employees to feel safe I I didn't want anybody to feel like They're risking their life by going to work and of course they did we would tell them you shouldn't be here Right, you this is not no job is worth it But we we needed them to feel safe and be you know, feel comfortable. So all of these things Make our professional cleaners better It gives them that sense of pride that now they've been through certification This company believes enough in me to invest in me and now I'm very proud because I'm Certified in this and that it it just elevates everything and so Back to your original point tom It it will end up being The best thing that ever happened to the cleaning industry Maybe the worst thing that's ever happened You know in in my lifetime, but in terms of cleaning business. This has been very good for the business It's elevated the need From luxury to a need and it's also elevated the standards by which we all have to compete within anyway You know, we're already competing with these standards and it's just hard, right when when a Service is half price who's just winging it. So it's raised the standards It's changed the game And I'm I'm very grateful for it And Debbie you you mentioned earlier that you know when things get really tough If you take advantage and work really hard you can make really good things happen or you quit And we've seen that happen on both sides of the ledger All three of us have have worked for many years to professionalize the industry and help You know grow the industry and This is really working to the favor of the companies who buy into that to strive for that because the whole competitive forces things have changed as well There aren't as many companies out there now as there was a year ago. Exactly Exactly one of my local competitors came to us about six months ago and said would you like to buy our customers? And of course we said let's talk. It was very sad. He'd been in business. I don't know probably 10 years had struggled the whole time I had never met him. I didn't actually had never heard of him But he was a really nice guy and the pandemic put him out of business forever. He was really sad He was in his 60s and I felt bad for them um But there are a lot of fewer cleaning companies out there And there are fewer independent Underground cleaners out there Many of them are just staying home drawing those checks, right? So this is the time to scoop up The business because the business is flooding in and what goes up Always comes down. So be ready with your marketing to to really push on the gas Because the employees are going to have to go back to work The market will slow down a little bit and you need to be ready with your marketing Yeah And really this is going to be better for everybody not just for our businesses I mean it is it's going to be better for our industry It's going to be better for our businesses But it's going to be better for the consumer because we are going to be more trained our employees Are really going to know how to be safer. We are going to be providing a better service This gets us a whole nether step closer to being exactly what we want to be is professional industry And it's and it's better for the people who work in the industry the cleaning professionals because they're getting the training They're getting the better pay. I mean, it's it's You know, everybody's winning here You know tom you you're a numbers guy So i'm i wouldn't be surprised if you've already put a number to this but I would love to know How much money consumers are saving by not driving an hour to downtown wherever you live For their corporate jobs to and you know come and go right so many people now are working from home and may never go back Many many corporate offices When the employees go back they're only going back two or three days a week I have a very dear friend who has worked in dallas for years fought that traffic both ways for years Spent all that money on the car repairs and the car gas and now she works from home a certain Percentage of the time and then others are going to stay home Permanently because they've negotiated it. It's like hey look we proved to you We could get the job done from home How much money has consumers saved that they used to just waste driving to work And the extra time with the babysitter or the daycare that they don't spend now because they're not two hours on the road That money is going somewhere and if you're going to spend all your time working from home Living there playing there and sometimes schooling there Those people don't want to clean as well So they're going to take some of that money because now that's just new money in their bank And put that towards cleaning. We need to scoop that up and we need to even message that out Yeah, there's a there's a lot of money tied up and just going to work You know buying the right clothing and she got daycare I was reading something that the doggy daycares have really taken ahead over the last year because people are working for home and They can keep their dog at home They're walking their loose thing. There's there's some people who the wardrobes Yeah, the jewelry. I can't tell you how much money I've saved Not buying clothes from Nordstrom's and jewelry from Kendra Scott because I sit around in a t-shirt all day And they do too That's extra income discretionary income to spend on something you don't want to do anyway, which is clean your bathtub So now debbie. I think that most of us are still spending the same amount of money from our waist up Oh, yeah, I got the makeup going. I got the earrings on but down below it's sweatpants. I'm in my I'm in my My husband comes sometimes walks in the door and he sees me I look like a freak because I have my professional jacket on my professional blouse And my jean cut off shorts. Yeah And I mean, I just wonder how much money manola blonics are making right now, right? They are not they are not rolling in it like they were before there's no Manola blonic the shoes Oh, I don't know about shoes. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm not a super. I mean, I love shoes But I don't know about those shoes but sounds like I need to know My daughter is a shoe person and she spends So or spent So much money on shoes. She's not been spending exactly see there a lot of people Exactly. So before we go off track, I'm going to summarize really quick some things that I just kind of threw on my last slide to summarize Uh, how we have to pivot in these four ways around the new rules of marketing. Just remember Cleaning is for health. It's really not about a luxury or about a beautiful home anymore I mean, it's still a nice thing, but it's not really what it's about anymore Cleaning is a necessity not a luxury. So people feel like they need it. Not that they want it People are working and schooling and playing from home. So cleaning is needed for their sanity They don't want to also clean there, too It is less about Check out our five star reviews because our quality is so good and more about Look at our certifications our safety policies our professional training. So just remember that It's more about the tools and the disinfectants It's not as much about how you fluff the pillows or how you vacuum the lines on the carpet It's more about keeping their family safe And it's less about keeping the planet safe at least right now I don't know when that's going to change these subtle changes in marketing And in all of your marketing messaging from emails to social media to sales over the phone And however you connect with customers at at networking events and so forth These subtle changes in messaging and in marketing will make you stand out because your competitors don't know To do it. They don't know to pivot or change And these are the new rules of marketing and I don't think it's going to change for a while And if you step back and start thinking about all the different places that that you can apply that, you know I'm thinking about You know your your your facebook page and your google my business listing and You know, you certainly your website and training your sales team. You could go on and on and on It'd probably be a really worthwhile thing just to kind of step back and make a long list of all of the Marketing channels that you have but you don't even think about that you could go back and update and Coach and update your experts. Do not assume that they know this instinctively Back early on in during the pandemic. I saw some marketing messaging from one of our paid professionals. I was like, whoa No, you need to pivot that message, you know Was about luxury and you deserve it. I'm like, that's not what people are feeling right now So don't even assume the people you've hired to do this for you professionally Will know to pivot you need to coach them and maybe share this video with them And give them these tools and suggestions. They may not do it on their own And I I want people to Not underestimate the value of those five star reviews because they are important too But oh, yeah, it would be really good to push on the five star reviews talking about your safety and sort of training and You know remind people when they're giving you reviews that That's what you're looking for because if people are looking at your they are going to look at your reviews That hasn't changed y'all people are. I love that look at your reviews. But what do they say now? We need them to be talking about safety and yeah That's an excellent point and for those who are a part of cleaning for a reason Don't be shy about asking your cancer patients that you have just served with a free cleaning To go out on google and post a review about how it made them feel to have a safe and clean home And you can coach them just by using those words and they will put into words How it made them feel after coming home from chemo to know their health was sanitized And so don't be shy about asking people to mention How the safety and the cleanliness of their home is affecting them right now Yeah, and for those of us who just do leave behinds for their their their clients explaining how the review process works giving them a couple of hints in terms of you know The talking points of health and safety and in certifications Would be something worth considering as well And let's not forget. I know a lot of people won't like this idea But in this new environment also our customers want us Especially where I live in the pacific northwest They want to know that my employees are being treated well I'm sure that you guys are the same as I am when Everything shut down and our employees did not have as much work How many of your customers were funneling money in sending money anyway? Charge me for six months. I don't care. I'm not being clean because they wanted the employees taken care of So exactly some reviews some five star reviews out there That are about how the employees are being taken care of that's going to work in everybody's favor as well Exactly It's a great point It's a great point Well, we are Approaching the top of the hour here Debbie is there anything in particular that you would like to share with our audience? You mentioned cleaning for a reason. You got any other things going on that our audience would like to know about So We always have things going on for those who have been thinking about especially in this post-demand post-pandemic Environment we're in for those who have been thinking why didn't I get serious about being strategic with my business? I've been winging it. I'm suffering the pains of not really having a system I'm still doing the cleaning or I'm just helping all these people I'm trying to manage clean and for those who Are really ready to take their business to a whole new level cleaning business fundamentals is the program I've been referencing so they can go to cleaning business fundamentals calm and apply For a strategy session to learn more about the program the cost the year-long mentorship and how it all works but We have a business model that's very unique to the industry And we use the solo cleaning model for maintenance cleans which is about 85 of the revenue coming in on a residential business And in a post-pandemic world It was like the best gift I ever could have given my business was that I was able to talk about that model being the safest model to keep a home, you know Covid free So anybody that's interested go to cleaning business fundamentals calm reach out to us We can book a strategy session and see if we're a good fit for each other always love that and then one more Plug for cleaning for a reason. We are in the midst of a fundraiser for cleaning for a reason and I love anybody's help that would like to donate. Oh, thank you for pulling that up tom anybody that would love to donate to Cleaning for a reason we are already 20 percent of our goal for the year as an industry And um, we're looking for donations to help cleaning for reasons. So you can go to Trying to remember what it was. I think it's debbie sardone.com forward slash charity That's where you can go debbie sardone.com forward slash charity if you'd like to make a one-time donation Go for group number 11. That's my group and since I'm competitive If either of you ever want to donate go find group 11 It's debbie sardone.com forward slash charity click on group 11 and that's my group You can make a donation small big. It doesn't matter. We need your help It's 100 tax deductible non-profit for cleaning homes for families battling cancer I'm efforting to find that Yeah, it's debbie sardone.com forward slash charity and that's where if you just scroll down to group 11 We don't have pictures pictures there on purpose Uh, it's just you scroll down You gotta pick group 11 because I have to win this contest group 11 group 11. I'm in that group 11 to the winner Hey, I'd like to recruit some helpers into my group. So Liz, I'm sure you never have a dull moment in your life If you ever get even remotely bored want to help me you could I recruit you into my group Okay, I I'm so you're too dumb nothing going on right now. Yeah, I know you I know you're not busy, right? Who are in the other 10 groups? Um, most of our coaches the cbf certified coaches. So when you click on the groups, you'll see their name So we've got seven certified coaches. You guys know derrick christian. He's now a certified cbf coach He's one of our group leaders And then we have a couple of other captains from our advanced pro group And so we have 10 groups plus mine All of them have committed to raising $10,000 each of the 10 groups And so our goal is to raise a hundred thousand dollars for cleaning for a reason Many of you heard cleaning for a reason was really struggling and we have to get our nonprofit viable and so At my live event in april We had 140 business owners raise their hand And say I as a single individual were raised $1,000 for cleaning for reasons So we formed 10 groups to try to get 10 people to follow through and that's how we got to our hundred thousand commitment So we're doing pretty good. Yeah, it's pretty exciting. That is good. Yeah All right, we got liz on here saying she's going to be back at cleaning for a reason two Yay Thank you, liz. Thank you. And you guys can just share my link on your social media page or in your groups With your cleaning groups. You can just share it and say Help debbie meet her goal Tom did post the link right here. So yeah, I just hit six Facebook pages and a couple of youtube channels as we speak Thank you for doing that. So we are at the top of the hour. We are done for the week We are done for june. We are done for the first half of the year You realize this is the end of q2 Yes Third quarter starts this week over guy thursday tomorrow Starts at midnight Yep Well, we have a long holiday weekend to contemplate our next move. So Um, I hope you guys have a wonderful holiday weekend. I'm so glad I got to be uh the guest for the last show of Second part too. Yeah Debbie as always you're awesome. This was good. Much appreciate your help today. Thank you. I love doing it Good We'll be back monday monday five o'clock eastern. Bye. Bye