 Good afternoon everybody Tom Stewart here. I'm with Liz Trotter our guest today is Greg Shepherd, and this is smart business winners We have not been here all together in a while. I'm excited. Hey Great. How are you? I'm doing great, you know, I'm excited for today's show profit and building value It's so important and you know, frankly, that's where a lot of owners mess up It's not watching the profit margins I think that's Okay, I'm gonna sum up the entire show What I'm gonna say in one sentence. All right guys ready? Yeah. Yeah, okay You must compete on quality don't compete on price that was two sentences, but anyway you got it and It's so important to make sure your price right I think that's the biggest Mistake I see most owners make is they think they have to have more pricing To get business and that's not true. That is absolutely not true you know, I've talked to you guys before about buying other businesses and that was always that was the most Common reason for a business to selling they didn't price their product rights their service rights and they weren't Making any profits and I guess it's sort of you know, people can be very Nervous raising your pricing, you know, you're thinking that you raise your pricing your customers won't be happy but That is so not true and in fact if you raise your pricing Above the competition, you'll find that You'll be able to have Not only bigger profits, but you'll have the money in order to provide that quality service You'll have the money to be able to find and keep quality people you'll have the money to market properly and It's amazing But a little bit of increase in your prices. How much profit that can bring into your business That was me look at the focus they is compete on quality not a price And do that you get a price or services perfectly You know, I'm thinking that's probably more important now than ever with what's happening with prices in general and inflation if you aren't Like that now is not the time to be competing on price because whatever it is that you're charging You know, if you're charging what you used to charge you aren't charging enough Yeah, you're you're absolutely right time and you know I'm assuming that if you're listening to this podcast you have a house thing service That means that you've survived the pandemic I'm sure you guys probably experience the the lose the flood of business that came in once the pandemic had Subsided and my only guess I mean there's pent up the man But there's more demand than what would account for that my guess is that maybe not every main service made it through So yeah right now Just because the man's high you need to adjust your pricing. It's basic supply and demand Because I think right now the markets There's not enough supply to meet the man, which is you have may servers right now This is a golden opportunity. It's amazing When you refer to supply are you talking about companies are you talking about companies who can't find enough cleaning professionals? I'm just talking about made services. I mean, that's that's the only thing I can think of that why we've grown So much, you know, I'm sure you have the same problem was it last year in March March April where We were caught off guard. We didn't have enough people to match the man and that was frustrating, but it was an opportunity for us to Actually streamline our interview process and to get Find the talent quickly and get them higher quickly. So it made the business stronger Well, did I go to great? Yeah, I have a question for you. Did I just hear you say that you are no longer having the problem that you Have too much demand and not enough employees. Did I just hear you say that? Yes, actually One thing that is okay. There's few things we had we had a very selective hiring process I found out quickly that we need to get people in here quickly. Well quickly So I pretty much streamlined our interview process Didn't work a lot of the flood that we didn't really need basically to get people Go through the quantity go through hundreds of applicants to find that quality and get them hired as quickly as possible And making sure that the ones that we hire will stay around and that they lose quality work So I wanted him and hired for accident hire, but I actually moved who might be aids to hiring to be a recruiter and so his job was to post that job everywhere and get it many outings that he could calling hundreds and hundreds of athletes and so he devoted his full time to this and He took on hundreds of calls and was able to find the very few quality applicants that we could actually have for in-office interview and a quick audition audition is basically sending them out with One of our top teams so they can actually see them. You see how they work before we hire them we came for the day as I see but Seeing how they work Then we knew what we're going to get and we knew whether we should hire them or not and so that was great We'll find a lot of the people during that time Okay, I heard three things one You streamlined your process you simplified it shortened the time frame between application and hire and then I also heard that you Brought on or that you went you hired somebody to just run through Massive quantities one person to do the whole process and they just run through applicants and then third thing is that you Are putting them out in the field day one with an experienced team To get a feel for and I think I heard you say that you hire them on for that day as an IC independent contractor Yes, and just for that one day. Was that right? Just that one day and my team They were first back and we know whether they're gonna be it, you know a star five-star cleaner or not and that's one of the you know, if you have make service to that because one The ones that you hire will be with you for a long time and you know that they're good You've seen them in action to your training period Ard went from you know two weeks down to a few days and three lower lower turnover rates, you know that this person's most likely gonna work out and You know having a high turnover rate. That's Expensive People keep them Especially we're talking about profit. It's not good for the profit No, no, no so we get that five-star cleaner and They're you know, they're they're given our customers five-star cleanings and that keeps our quality up And that keeps our customers coming back and that's how you keep competing quality Rather than the price. Yes, our pricing It's a little bit higher than average Frankly We should raise it we've raised it a couple of times since the pandemic and we should raise it again because Well The man's not slowing you and by the way, anybody if you're afraid about raising your pricing Just do it for a week. You would happen You'll be able to measure how many customers you get then and compared to what you had last week and you'll see most likely Well likely you'll see that you haven't this hasn't dropped off And if your prices are super low, you might actually see your pricing rise Not pricing rise, but your number of customers rise Yeah, that reminds me about a study back at college at university and it was a marketing course and There was a company We're getting big help basically there was a company that had superior products Or cheaper than competition, right? Superior than the competition, but yet cheaper than competition. You think that'd be a winner? It's a fail They found by raising their pricing to match the competition actually a little bit higher than the competition The product took off. Yeah, people associate price with quality Perception absolutely. Yeah, like it or not and even if you think you you don't you do They do and you know Like I said, if your price is higher than average, then you have the money to afford and keep good people. I Wrote that down when you said it and I wrote a check mark and then I wrote a check mark because you've now said it three times And I love that you said if you raise your prices, you'll have the money to do the things you need to do You you said you'll have the money you'll have the money And I love that idea. You will have the money because so much of the time we hear people say I can't afford to do that. I can't afford to do that. I can't afford to do that raise your prices I want to say real quick. I want to say hi. We've got Whitney over here. We've got Sophia from Jamaica West Indies and we've got Judith So y'all good to see you here back on smart business moves. We were away for well, actually We were never away. Did you do it last night? Yeah, we were here with Diana and her daughter we Yeah, and I was on the week before so you guys didn't experience it but we did we I feel like I missed you guys I was gone for one week. I'm like, oh, look everybody's here. So good to see you all. I'm curious With the three of you Whitney, Sophia and Judith. Have you guys raised your prices recently? You hear Greg saying that how important it is to raise your prices And I'm sure you also heard him say he's raised his prices a couple of times Since the pandemic and he's looking at potentially raising them again So how about you guys? Have you raised your prices and yes? Good job, Judith And one was last time you raised them. Have you raised them recently? Are you going to raise them again raise mine a couple of times? Hey Pam? Yes, I'm good. I'm glad everybody's raising their prices. How about you Whitney, Sophia? 10% across the board nice. You said you've done it a couple times November nice All right, so looks like everybody is on board with getting your prices up where they belong and Starting to make some more money that will have money In you know the timing for that not because we were talking about the inflation part of it But there's another part of it as well that goes along with that that people are kind of programmed at the moment thinking that everything should be costing more and Just kind of a nerdy Economic term called elasticity of demand and in a normal world with the price goes up the demand goes down But demand is relatively inelastic at the moment people are charging more in some cases a lot more and They're still people still buying it at the same rate So the odds of like losing business or not getting new business because you're raising your rates it's a lot lower now than what it is under normal times and You know there's some thought that maybe we'll see the economy slowing down You know sometime next year maybe because of some of these same economic factors And it won't be nearly as easy to raise your rate. So for all of those reasons we want to do it now Well, I love that all the smart business moves Watchers all have raised their prices in the last few months and it looks like Linda is the The last to raise her prices in September and she's doing it again this month. So that's Only six months out. I remember when we would talk to people about raising their prices once a year And we would get so much pushback Yeah, right There's no rule saying that you you can only do it once a year And this is for like existing customers. You can just go back and say hang I know that we did a rate increase six months ago. I really hate to do this But gases, you know, there's how much a gallon and this and that and you know I have to do this so I can responsibly provide you with the quality of service that you're used to back to Greg's point I can't give you quality service. I'm not charging enough to do it Yep Love the message. I love to get rid of the test that you may not want You have some So you have some trouble from the customers you're gonna raise your price a little bit more than the rest and hope that they might That's the best opportunity right when demand is high That's our number one opportunity to be able to call From the bottom get rid of the people let them go get cleaned by somebody who's charging less money. Yay And your quality will improve if another main service owner told me a few years ago. She called in two percenters You heard of 8020 rule. Well, this is the two percent ninety eight percent rule two percent of your customers We'll call it ninety eight percent of your problems Get rid of them and your staff. Well, not only will their morale rise, but they'll actually have More time to think dedicate and allocate to customers that deserve your service because the two percent tend to be the ones that take up most of your time with complaints Demands and such so overall it improves your service. So if you can fire those bad customers And doing a price increase is a nice way to fire them with Yeah, minimal, uh, I guess push that yeah You can find a nice way to let people go and now that's even easier than it ever was before too I love what judas has to say here So even if you get pushed back great exercise If if you lose 20 which is a big number It's rare to lose that that much even if you lost 20 though You're going to make it up in the 80 with the increases absolutely and you get rid of the customers who aren't Aren't promoters absolutely. I love that too. Those are not the people who love you The people who are going to drop you over your price increase. They don't love you They don't spread your name around saying how amazing you are good. Let them go work with someone else. I love that Thank you But yeah, you would I don't want to say you would never lose 20 but that is You know normally normally two three percent, you know, maybe and Every once in a while you got a customer that's grossly underpriced and something happened along the way that You know, that almost doesn't count. You know, if you double their rate, then you you know kind of like Greg's point, you know, it's the The where they call it the pita tax that you charge somebody, you know a lot more than than what you would normally And then they'll quit in half the time. They'll find out that the other service is is like Doesn't not nearly as good as you were and they'll want to crawl back. Yeah, that's a whole nother discussion Actually, it's to this discussion as well Because that is another way that you can add value Another thing you can do is when they leave you can always send them out the grasses Is the grass still greener? Email right Yeah, you can send that out three months in six months in and give them an easy way to come back Because for some people they can't come back after they've left that's a pride thing or they're embarrassed So giving them a nice easy way. That's another way to be able to Provide some value there If some of them will it's like, well, I really didn't feel comfortable calling but since you like reached out to me. Yeah These these new guys really suck Yeah, absolutely that. Okay. So I think this is what everybody is having Happen right now. She raised 61 customers lost none. That's what we're saying. That's what everyone is seeing Back in the day. I know people were really nervous about raising prices So they've raised them like 10 at a time. I'll raise 10 this week. I'll raise 10 next week I'll raise 10 the week after that because in case I lose them all Nobody ever lost all their customers. Anyway, that was never a thing but people are afraid And so they thought that this was a safer method. But right now The percentages that people are losing are so tiny That well, and I don't know why I'm preaching to you guys. Looks like I'm preaching to the choir over here Y'all have been raising your prices really regularly. So I'm gonna stop now. Looks like y'all got that Our job here is done. Yeah. Yeah All right, but talk to us more Greg about how we can add more value so we're going to raise our prices great looks like everybody's on board with this plan and then What do we do to increase the value? This is one of the things that a lot of people struggle with is this idea of How can everybody does the same thing? How can I find like my unique selling proposition or my thing that I do better than the other people in my area? How do we do that? Um, look raise pricing one you can afford the best people and keep them Uh, as we talked about give her to your bad customers Your staff will have more time to allocate to the customers that deserve your service um Here's something um that I've found to be really useful at at Dallas maids and Emily's maids is For example, right now we're looking to hire office manager in the office and We part of our interviewing process for The office staff is we have them take a This assessment and we use the steering group. They've been fantastic and What this does next I have one right here um You go through your applicants you find three to your top applicants. They seem perfect. You have to take the this assessment and Joe over there. Yeah, that's oh you got it. You got it You got it. And so You talk to joe joe's the guy who's with the steering group and he'll walk you through um why this applicants perfect for this job And it's great after a while, you know, you learn what to look for in people And you find the best uh candidates the right people rather you find the right people for the right job Who's going to give your customers the best service that will they'll take care of your staff because frankly Management makes all the difference in the business You've got to have the right management taking care of your people and taking care of the customers And that right there is probably one of the biggest things that you do To add value to your service So not only are these great for finding the right people But if there's a you need to have a delicate conversation with one of your people um I always reference reference this So I know how to best communicate with them In a very effective manner. So these are yep invaluable. So i'm glad you have that list. That's awesome So I actually also Sell those disc assessments through cleaning profit builders And I I do those assessments with people So I am a huge advocate of of doing the disc assessment um, I It's a little pricey for cleaning professionals, but like you said it's for your office. So I I love that you're saying that I think it's Spot on there Greg spot on I also love the motivator section, right? There's a the whole second half of the behavioral assessment is the motivator section and So many times we try to motivate our people to do good work by By doing things that are not actually motivating to the people that work for us We are not like the people that work for us people that that run their businesses go out of their way not to have jobs Are not motivated by the same thing that people who want jobs and have jobs are motivated by So I love that section as well. I think super useful Oh, I thought I wasn't reading quickly enough Judith So I thought you were going to say that you had fallen in love with Greg when I read that you had the same tree I was going to say that you wouldn't be the first person a lot of people fall in love with him So ours is customer service get back to everyone within 24 hours. So there is an idea Uh, have y'all read? Oh, what's the name of the book? Uh What's the name of the book with the qbr? Anybody Tom q q b r Or I just read it. I just had it in book talk last month. You'd think I'd be able to remember It's uh, Mike mcallywood's book clockwork All right, so if you haven't read the clockwork, you might consider reading clockwork They talk about the qbr, which is the queen b role It is the role in your company That you want to protect. Yes, linda. Thank you that you want to protect at all costs This is the role that In your company makes or breaks you And I love this idea of the qbr I think it sounds like that's what judith is talking about too that customer service your customer service Is that qbr for you? If if you can't make that happen if you can make that happen Consistently and persistently you will be successful. I love that I love that. Yeah, find the right people for for customer service So importantly, um You want to find somebody that is Warm friendly able to connect with people you want someone that's likeable Because if you have somebody on the phone for the customers that is ultra likeable Your customers are not only more apt to buy your service But they're actually more apt to forgive you when you mess up Good. Yeah, it's actually it's one thing that's hardwired into our brains each and every one of us So if you want to make people Buy your service and you want to make them to be more understanding forgiving of you Um, then you want a really friendly person on those phone customers So we're talking about your little high eye over there, right greg. Yes. We want some high eyes. Yes. Yes. Yes, and This is And here here's a here's a study. I can't remember where I read it, but it's fascinating And I bet you can probably google it. So There was a study on malpractice for doctors What doctors got the most malpractice lawsuits? And what they found was that there was not a correlation between how skilled the doctor was The correlation about whether he's gonna get a lawsuit or not Was how friendly he was how likeable he was He was likeable less lawsuits I'm believe it's like crazy. I've totally believed that I I don't even think that sounds crazy I think that sounds complete I'm not gonna file a malpractice suit against a doctor that I think is so friendly and so nice and so helpful Unless it's really really really serious It's gonna have to be a lot But if the guy's a jerk or the or the woman is a jerk Yeah, I'm hair trigger. I'm ready Just drop of a hat right not that I would do that, but On other things that's that's the case. Who am I gonna yell at right? I'm not gonna yell at the super family super nice person. I'm going to yell at the person that is Already so I completely believe that So there you go find the right people to man the phones find the right people to mention people And that and critical value And make sure I'm sorry. Please go ahead. Oh, just make sure your prices are high enough with the board and keep the best quality talent One more check mark next to that You know, we we've Are like halfway into this discussion and we really haven't touched upon something that I think is is is unique to greg and the way he approaches creating value that I think would be worth bringing up as well is You have two separate cleaning companies two separate brands with two separate approaches to service delivery in the same market in Dallas And as a side note, they both like rank incredibly high from an seo standpoint, but you know, you roll all that together, you know How does that fit into creating value? Hold on before before greg answers Greg you were like a dog at the races. You just jumped right in. We didn't even have a chance to introduce you So Right, I mean he was like we're on let's go I know I'm like, wow All right, tom you want to tell us what you Um, give us a a rundown about greg just because you already started with that well greg, you know owns and and You know operates two different cleaning businesses and a very competitive market, dallas, texas um The actual brands one of them is dallas maids and the other one is called What's the name of your endless maids? And I'm going to do a screen share here And Well, maybe Oh, I love it. Are you going to show them one and two? I'm there. Yeah, well, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna see what happens here and Here you go So greg how long have you been in the cleaning business? Well, tom's pulling this up Sure. Well, dallas maids are founded in 2004. So that's been 18 18 years. Yep. Um, oh here we go. So we have dallas maids. Emily's maids Modern maids. Um, yep, uh, they they've actually, uh Put a little fire under my butt and I've been working my sco to present them, but um, it's a matter of time till I uh, you know, operate them But you're ranking both on the front page and two the three slots on the map Yeah, modern maids kind of came out of nowhere. Hold on, you know, we're Everybody give them a bad root. I'm kidding. No No, no, no, um, but You guys Yeah, there's out of nowhere, right for greg. He can't hear us very well Yeah, I can hear you now. So I'm glad you brought that up tom. Um, my two made services, you know, uh so emily's maids I started that um with the idea of Sending customers that thought dallas maids was too high in price Uh to the second lower cost maids service. So I did everything I could to um Make it just a lean Green cleaning machine. Um, so I try to cut costs everywhere, but you know, um, the prices Frankly the prices that have have been, you know, rising for emily's maids It's not as cheap as it used to be because you know, frankly, I thought I could make a you know A cheaper maids service, but you know what, you know, um, you got to raise pricing. So now dallas maids is, you know, uh You know, it's a you know Higher than average, but I think emily's is probably more around average now But if someone calls dallas maids and think our pricing is still too high, my office staff still says, hey, you gotta check out emily's maids um, but yeah, they it's uh They've both been good and not only is you know, that was the the original purpose was to funnel those customers that cost conscious customers to a second maids service But actually having two maids services. The other benefit was just the synergy between them, you know, if uh If we didn't have enough, um, you know Cleaners one day we could just hire the other maids service and cover for each other. Um, so it's the synergy between them actually improve both services, which is quite nice Yeah, I've always thought that it was amazing Um, I started to try and do something like this at one point in time a couple years back And it was so much harder than I thought it was going to be started going out started going okay in the beginning But we quick quickly decided. Yeah, this is not for us. It is difficult it is and You know, we did this a long time ago with an acquisition and we branded it a a a different, uh Company and we ran them separately and the the other company was a lower price point to castle keepers and After a couple of years basically we just kind of took quick customers We had in the lower price service and rolled them back into castle keepers and kept going so You've uh, you've really been successful at doing something here, Greg. That uh You know, I've seen people try it before but you know, not many people have been successful with that. You certainly have Yeah, it's just um, you know companies actually do this all the time. Um, for example, you go to the cereal aisle and you have Raisin brand and then you have the generic version, right? um The generic version of course is cheaper, but you know They're usually the same product uh, because Those who produce raisin brand they they want the ones that will pay just for the brand name That's it. And then they want the other ones that want, you know, are more cost-conscious same product just differently But I do have to say Greg for a lot of people that one with the brand name it does taste better ask them. They'll tell you Right There's a higher level of trust they Grew up with that and they Trust Tony the tiger who knows what's in the generic stuff Yeah, um, this is Even if I haven't tasted it. I know it's not as good as the name So I've got a one bed one bath every other week service for 101 21 I go to Dallas maids Similar motif for 102 85. So It's a dollar 50 cheaper over here So you're not giving away a whole lot with your economy service Yeah, the uh try try one of the uh try a bigger house um, okay And definitely try the detail queen um The detail point you'll see definitely difference, but go to your houses Three bedroom two bath is usually the most common here, but yeah go five four See what happened So 266 262 so Oh, well, hey, not much different Well, that's what you said Greg. You said that you started raising their prices And there was no Dallas maids pricing again Emily's is catching you you got to go Yeah That's awesome. Um, do it do a deep clean. He said that on the detail clean Look at did you see him go over there and write a note? I saw that I saw you lean over and write a note raise prices at Dallas maids. I saw that exactly what I wrote You're welcome Greg. We're We're glad to help How do I change the scope of work to uh detail clean How do I change it to detail clean? Would that be a one time? Oh, okay. Sorry. I didn't hear you for a second. Um, just click on a schedule an appointment And then under extras pick the deep clean Oh, okay You don't want me to you don't want me to do all of this No, just pick the deep clean and you'll see You don't want me to put a credit card in here. I know I think he probably does Tom No No, all right I love that I love that you have the best house cleaning service in Dallas by cbs. That's awesome too Social proof you got to use it. If you have any recognition like that Make sure your uh people see it. It's the social proof is one of those other things which um People think they have a choice, but they don't they're actually programmed to buy from you if They see that other people have already chosen you whether you drive past a restaurant Let's say you drive by two restaurants one's empty the other one had the long line Which one are you gonna go to you know the one's the long line has good food so people and this is um again one of the things that are programmed on our mind is um We will uh go with the company that has already been approved by a third party So, uh, yeah, if you have some uh party legitimate, uh, not parties, but uh wards Make sure that They're somewhere where you're uh where people can see them Yeah, that that's a different type of value than we normally talk about right when when people are talking about Increasing the value in your company so that you can have more profit Usually what they say is You know, what kind of free services can you add on what kind of extra things can you do? But really social proof that's more valuable That's she'll that's the trust factor so This is cbs tv. This is interesting. So this isn't necessarily an award. This was Something that cbs tv said so i'm assuming this was like a local affiliate with cbs tv and Yes, um Were they interviewing you greg and you were quoted as saying best house cleaning service in dallas on cbs tv No, no, no, I had no idea I found it and I was a really pleasant surprise when I found it They um had a place on the website tv station website with uh what they said, you know, they thought these are the best, you know Uh, I think there's three or four mazes in the vfw area and who there's Emily's maize I don't know how they found us, but I'll take it and uh, you'll be able to find a link to the article on my website there Um, but you know, I'm gonna put that right on the very top where we can see that Yes, absolutely. I love that Yeah, that social proof really makes a huge difference. Well, it really is the exact same thing is why? Uh, a lot of people buy raisin bran instead of the fake version, right the generic version Actually, even right there. I call it fake the fake version I know that it's real. It's just yeah, it's real Okay, check out what I just did here best house cleaning service in dallas I just googled best house cleaning service in dallas I'm going to scroll down here on the first page and cbslocal.com Oh, there you go. There it is right there Saying that's nice Somewhere in here Say there's somewhere or at least it was uh, Certainly you know what if you were reading that you wouldn't even need to go find the the article Seeing it clicking on it not being able to find it. That's good enough I was like, oh, that's that's awesome that it's cbs Oh, hey, um Hold on Wow, I'm so glad you looked that up um I I have the link on my website. Uh, you go to the very bottom. You see, uh award winning service and then you'll see uh You know the cbs tv photos that's house cleaning. Anyway, I clicked there. I clicked the link to the article um But they must take the article down. Um, because it's no longer there. So that's something I need to correct Um, wait a minute. Is this it? Yeah, but you scroll down a little bit and you will see you know the source. Oh, and you click there Yeah And they removed it, but it takes it takes one. Thank you for bringing that up because I need to fix that But what I'm going to do after I get off this, uh call is I'm going to um, uh line There's the way back machine the internet archive And so you're able to go on there. It's the old pages And you bet I'm going to take a little screenshot of that and put it right there so nobody can see it awesome Boy, we have really helped you out today. Haven't we great? We're so glad we're going as a guest You're lucky that we we asked you to help us out You know, this normally charges people for this Um, you're you're getting a deal Ah, that's good. I'm glad everybody's getting a little bit out of this day So I really like that When you're when you're thinking about value, Greg, you're thinking about it in a completely different way than what we normally hear from people instead of Trying to add on things you're just Making what you already have the best So making sure that you have the best people they'll provide the best service making sure that you have the best Social proof that then people will see you as the best automatically. I like this Freight I feel like it's a fresher approach than what we normally hear Yeah They can see they can see you as the best and that's great to give them a door but you've got to be the best to keep them and My focus is I want to make sure the customer's happy. Um, you know Study after study. I'm sure you probably already know this Hiring a maid service is one of those things that can actually make you happier when you come home to a clean house It takes away the stress and it makes you happy. So we're not in the cleaning business Liz We're in the happiness visit. So we make you happy. I'm making my customers happy. Uh, I want them Um, yeah making happy and don't make you happy I like that angle better Than um, trying to give you your time back. I feel like trying to give you your time back Has been around for so long that it's um too much of a catchphrase now that it doesn't have meaning anymore Everybody has been saying it for so long But I like the happiness factor. I like that that little piece there Rochelle is saying that you're so generous with your time and knowledge Hey, Rochelle. Good to see you. I haven't seen you in a while. Thanks Rochelle So are you Rochelle? That's why you appreciate that. She's also very very generous with her time of knowledge um Yeah, so um One of the things that you mentioned earlier, Greg was that if you hire the best Then they will automatically start doing better service and and Providing higher quality work for your employees I mean for your customers so But you also had Emily's maids that was charging less so Like tell us about that that difference there What like did you hire a lower quality a lower caliber person at Emily's maids? Was that part of the strategy? No, well, you can't You couldn't do that When I started Emily's uh, it was actually Emily's personnel service. It was um, not technically a maid service. It was uh We batched we actually matched housekeepers with homeowners was was our um Motto anyway, it was uh Uh What do you um, I forgot it's the um more of a like a replacement service. Yes exactly and that um, that allowed us to have independent contractors And that was one way to keep the price low to um, I hired the office staff was virtual We leveraged Overseas talent um The living standards in countries differ throughout so you got uh Our office staff was uh virtual and other things too, uh Being an independent contractor your or um having them you were able to avoid a lot of costs like uh insurance and benefits and stuff like that but but um even though Legally, we were on the right side of uh, I see Texas came in and said hey No, you got to have employees um, so We had a switch over to employees And that raised the price a little more and then you want other things such as uh insurance and benefits So that raised the price a little bit more. Yeah, um, but It was interesting live and tom you're raising the pricing and there was no drop often demand So what's as you can see? What to stop you from raising a little bit more um So that those are ways that in beginning our price was much lower but Frankly, like I said from from the very beginning you wanted to hit on quality not a price and for me that was uh a real-life case study just that Yeah, well, I think that The you have the proof right there on the website We can see right there on google Google is your proof look here Especially I know that you want to raise Dallas maids prices right now But what we're seeing is your prices are pretty much the same And so you have been able to raise after the show But but to your point you've been able to raise your rates even on your low company Up up up to the point of one of the higher Higher price companies in the area. So I love that Well, does anybody have any questions for greg? I know that Tom we said we wanted to try and ask if anybody had questions more often because Well, I was going to say we But we want to ask our questions first So we just never get around to that So We'll work we'll work harder on that All right, so it's anybody have any questions for greg Um, go ahead and if you do put them in the comments. Otherwise, we're just going to keep talking because We I always have more questions part of my I think it's part of my genetic makeup that I never really ran out of questions How about you tom? Do you have anything? I just think it's really cool the way that you structure your businesses and they complement each other and um Do you see that? Having that structure is that like morbid advantage now that you know prices are going up and you've got pricing power and the demand is higher that synergy, I mean you're You've always you've been successful without model pre-covid, but now that we are in this the special time Do you see like is it like powerball? Is it just like an extra boost? You're getting out of that business model Extra boost as in Extra, I mean you're able to generate more revenue Through the synergy than what two separate companies could buy themselves and the pricing power And everything, you know the excess of the economy Gotcha, you know a two company a two company model. Does that have any particular advantages when the economy is really hot like it is now? Gotcha No, yeah, like I said, and by the way, I'm sorry you were breaking up there. That's why I couldn't hear you But absolutely that both companies like I said earlier are better because they work with each other Um, and you know, you don't even have to have another company. Um, you know, even before Emily's maids I had worked closely with other The maidservices and we really helped each other out um so, yeah, just Working with whether it's your other maidservice or whether With another owner of another maidservice It only lifts you up and you know, that's actually one things that That was my view from the very beginning when I started Dallas maids I didn't really see the competition as competition There was plenty of business out there. I saw the moors as partners and that really helps out a lot You know when I started out, I had a lot of Owners that really helped me improve my business starting out and You know now it's great and you know, rachel that's why I love helping other people because it's now my chance to give back just a little bit of what Other owners have given me. Um, I guess I got a little bit of a tangent there, but yeah, having two maidservices synergy between them um Even passing employees from one to the other For example, I had a big key that worked with dallas maids for years and um She had a personality problem with someone else But big he's one of the best maids uh house finishers I've ever had So she left dallas maids, but I was able to bring her into Emily's Exactly. Um, so a little things like that which has really lifted up both both things Well, rachel has a question here that goes to this as well If if this is one of the ways that you can Use use the two companies she wants to know if you have one office That fields all the phone calls for both services and dispatches both Or do you have each office running itself separately? Nope Well, I have one office and you go to dallas maids and under about us and take a view and I love my office. Um We have one office and You know before I had at Emily's maids. I had a virtual office manager But actually now I have an office manager. That's in the office. So it's the same office um Still separate companies separate separate staff separate cleaners um But haven't I found having someone here locally grandly's maids that virtually I found it really even adds more to synergy because you know Someone's here in the office things yell over the next room and say, hey, you know, you got room I'm you know I'm packed this day And also it's it's great because you got more people. They're able to cover each other so Both cleaning companies are in the same office. The only I guess Emily's maids official office is not this address, but rather another address Our rental property I have and so that way I have two addresses Which you need separate addresses for a group of my business That's really behind that Okay, that makes that makes good sense to me All right I like kind of like what you said about having Having them in the same office building but in separate offices So they kind of yell back and forth and get a little synergy that way as well Well, the thing I wanted to ask about was um I the profit margin so um You have a you have your your profit with Dallas maids. Obviously. What are you looking at here p&l? Well, I had a feeling that you uh, yep um Okay, let me tell you something this I'm I'm excited. I I I didn't really know I should I should I should really keep up with my profit margin I don't um, but so anyway, this is from 2021 Okay and 3.97 34 What I know Here you want to get a screenshot? Oh my gosh, that's amazing. It's too small to see but that's that's amazing That is that for um, both companies are Dallas maids. I don't know emily's. I didn't get uh, Didn't feel for that but Emily's maids is probably 33.92 not The dollar 50 difference on a job would make a difference I guess wow That's amazing. I like seeing that You know what that is a really great way to um end this show listen if you don't think that now is the time to be raising prices So that you can have the money that you need to hire the best people So that you can continue to raise prices have better people provide better service and to um to compete on quality Then I don't think there's better proof than that 33.97 profit and one and three I think in the in the map pack That's pretty compelling argument for for your point there craig That is about as good as it gets Yes, yeah, yeah I'm usually that those kind of numbers we're seeing closer to um independent contractors, right? Crazy oh so um If if that actually actually if that Yeah, but definitely closer not with employees. You don't see that very often at all so I work with a lot of Cooking businesses and we talk about net profit all the time with in our strategic success circles And yeah, I think that's probably the best profit margin that I had seen and and quite a while so It's pretty impressive. I like it. I'm jealous, but I like it Well, this is uh, this is a good good uh place to end, you know, I mean We've kind of set the bar high We're uh, we're going to be covering this topic. I guess for the balance of April We're uh, going to be back, you know next wednesday five o'clock eastern Greg as always thank you for for sharing and and and being part of smart business moves today I mean you're an awesome operator and you're an awesome person too. We appreciate that Thank you for having me on it's always a pleasure. Um Had fun. Appreciate it Thank you, Greg All right, y'all see you next week Bye. Bye y'all