 Hey, good afternoon everybody time Stuart here my co-host today filling in for Liz is Ajah holiday And our guest today is Troy Knight and this is smart business moves Well, hello everyone How's everybody doing We're doing awesome. We are doing awesome. Good. What are we talking about today? Troy what you got for us? Yeah, we're gonna talk a little bit about some insights, you know, we I Talked to a lot of people and for y'all for those who don't know me My name is Troy Knight and I I'm a partner in a house cleaning company known as castle keepers Also tell a lot of people about made central talk a lot about the industry You have just general conversations each day with a lot of business owners So thought it'd be good to share some insights on just some of the things that that I'm seeing I'm hearing You know where where business owners are looking to go Little a little bit about that's what we'll be talking about today Before we jump into all of that, I mean, you're right. Let's take a minute and just tell us your story Troy How how how did how did you get involved in the house cleaning business? What did you do before then? What is to this I don't even know if I know this so I'm trying to tell me about you Troy Yeah, you know a lot of people might know Troy Yeah, but but may not know a lot of the background. So I did I did have a real job at one time. I Worked in manufacturing worked for various manufacturing companies aerospace Chemical companies worked in the materials management, but they would now call supply chain. I guess is the the word Purchasing shipping receiving so a lot of operations background um, and I did that for about 20 years and Got to the point where I really didn't like it hated going to work on Mondays I also realized that When you get to be a certain age You get downsized You get Restructured, you know that that seems to happen a lot as well, and I'm like, you know if you stay around this long enough you're going to get Downsized one day And and and didn't want to do that. So I said, you know, I want control so really the reason I stopped my real job At that time and developed a new real job is I wanted more control You know, a lot of people start businesses for different reasons somewhat, you know money somewhat control somewhat What they feel like security so I Said what do you want to do Troy and and I decided I would clean houses for for several reasons. So I told my wife. I said, you know, I don't want to quit my job and clean houses You can imagine you can imagine how that went, you know, so How do you explain that to your friends, I mean, you know, you You know, you had a you won't work in a profession and work for for a publicly traded companies And yeah, I had a big title and everything else and you know Leaving all that to clean clean homes. Do people think you were crazy? Well, I think people that are in that world They realize kind of the rat race that it becomes and you know, what have you done for me lately each month? so they didn't necessarily think I was crazy other people probably thought I did but You know, my wife got over the initial shock and she said hey, let's do it So I went and I quit my job. I Had a 10 by 10 office. I had a website No customers. So, you know, I had zero customers and Yeah, but before I got to that point there was a lot of work There was a lot of things I tried to do to educate myself to understand you know what I was in for and And What year was this? This was about 13 years ago. So that would you know So things were a lot different back then and so I stumbled across this company in Charleston Didn't know this guy from didn't have any idea who he was But I was going to I was going to focus on Green cleaning echo friendly cleaning it came up with the name the GR for green the ECO put it together called the company Greco You know all of that kind of stuff and so my wife and I have we lived about Three hours from Charleston. So we drive down to Charleston and we meet with this guy Who was selling? Ladybugs dry steam vapor. We were going to to use some of that, right and And so we go in and we meet with this guy named Tom Stewart and his wife Janis Stewart And we talk about house cleaning and you know what I was doing and how I was going to quit my job and start this this company and I don't know. Maybe maybe maybe he and his wife thought I was crazy, too. I don't know but They sold me a ladybug, I'll tell you that You know and but then the sales didn't stop there. Okay, so what happens next is He's like, so you don't know anything about what you're about to get into and I'm like no not really but you know We're gonna give it a shot. I Said, you know figure I had four years. My daughter was a freshman in high school I said I got four years if time for her to go to college if I don't make it. I'll go get a job I don't like I've already got that right True and he told me about this this program that they were just kicking off And I think right then it was called foundations of business or It was it was It was it's foundations one. So now we're talking about foundations 13, you know, and I guess what is it? It's almost March. So a few weeks. There's there's gonna be an event down in Charleston, right? Foundations two weeks, two days, five hours, 51 minutes. Whoa Yeah, so so we They're having this new foundation 13th man and people come to it You know and they hang out at the beach house for a week and a lot of interaction and a lot of learning and and all of That's going oh look at there. How about that? So But when I went through it was much different. There was no beach house There was no getting everyone together. It was basically What was it Tom like weekly was it weekly? We did it We did a webinar and zoom wasn't even a thing back then. I think I forget what product we were using web acts or something, but we did a weekly weekly webinar and There was someone online coaching Calls that that we did throughout that process and the whole thing took six months to complete it was One lesson a week for for for 26 weeks. Yeah, so so that was that was my foundation's experience So that was good because remember I knew nothing. I had no idea We were talking about cleaning procedures and I didn't have a cleaning procedure and we were talking about, you know Policy manuals and I didn't have a policy manual So for me going at that pace was was fine. So I Survived that started cleaning homes did that here in Greenville for several years and Then again, you know still stay in touch with this guy Tom and his wife Janice and he calls and says Hey, there's an opportunity for us to do some some work together. We did some corporate housing some cleaning of corporate housing For an account he had in Charleston. We did some work up here in Greenville and then the next thing, you know is Tom's been developing this software he's been working on the software to help manage castlekeepers in Charleston and So we meet and we talk and he says, hey, you know, there's an opportunity for us to maybe become partners here and We can use our software that we're developing to run the sales recruiting payroll we can do that remote from Charleston and You'll focus in Greenville and just execution hiring training, you know Cleaning homes those kind of things those activities and the goal was to really develop Multiple locations across the US So we went down that path and we did that and you know, we I don't know six seven locations across the US at one time And then COVID came Kind of shifted gears Tom. I've been getting a lot of pressure from folks, you know, I want to use the software I want to use the software and You know Tom gave them finally the speech of here's a log in Use it. Don't call me. We can't support it during Yeah, I mean if I'm not telling something right Tom, you feel free to interrupt So so then what happens is we shift focus a little bit so COVID came not cleaning homes put more effort more attention into building out a team building out a support staff to Allow other cleaning companies to use made central And so then we we did that and you know, then we started Getting out of these other locations selling them off and now we we have Charleston castle keepers we have Greenville castle keepers where where I am and Really now we've all been to really just sharing more about made central with business owners I don't know if a lot of companies when when I talk to them maybe they're a little disappointed because they don't get the real sales pitch because We just talk about business. We talk about cleaning houses, you know There companies that are startups Well, I kind of get it because I was a startup at one time We talk about companies going through the different stages of growth and how you need to change and adapt and So we talk about that and then we see if made central is a fit and if it's a fit That's awesome. And if it's no then it's really not. No, it's just not right now. That's how I look at it So so there is no win-lose in this game. It either works for for for us as well as you know, the our industry partners we Referred to the companies that use made central as partners, but it has to work on both sides Or it doesn't work for you the one of us. So it really isn't a you know, this is why you're so good at what you Do Troy? I mean we're not trying to hard sell anybody anything We just want people to know what we do and if it's a good fit great and if it isn't that's a Better outcome than trying to make something happen. That's not meant to be yeah, you know It's really about trying to help people. I think you know, that's that's that's one of the things that I Always try to do is really just help people and when I had the real job one of the one of the I guess the Knocks on me was around business toughness, you know, because I always wanted to help people I always wanted to pitch in or you know, try to make things better and Sometimes that that that isn't what they always wanted. So, you know, we'll talk to folks. We'll talk about house cleaning Sometimes you we realize really upfront that you know, we're probably not a good fit But we'll still talk about how they pay employees and you know different pay structures and the benefits of having those and Like I say, it's it's might be a I know for now and when the timing's right We're going to be there and we're going to help you out and It's never it's never know forever because the story still being written. It's just you know getting to the right place in the right time The story still being written and and the story with what made central still being written You know, we're continuing to develop we're continuing to add new features The story with the clinging companies that that I'm talking with it's still being written, you know, they're still growing they're still evolving they're still facing challenges and You know, we're just we're just kind of here to help and that's one thing, you know in the whole industry, you know I'm at Tom. I'm at Janice. I've met others. Everyone in this industry really does try to to help one another It's pretty cool. It's one of my favorite things about this industry is just how how nice How much people like to help each other, you know, I love it's it's really great to see on our group calls and stuff as well, so And when we do our live events or go to convention or something, I mean people everybody's hugging everybody You don't see that in other industries Yeah, when you were doing your supply chain stuff Troy, I don't imagine there wasn't a whole lot of hugging going on Yeah, there was not a lot of hugging going on, you know, and you know, that's one of the reasons too Why did I select this industry because I realized how important cash was, you know, because in my old world It was like hey, you know what? Terms are 30 days. We're gonna push into 90 and if they don't want to take 90 day terms And we'll go find another supplier, you know, so I knew that you would get squeezed so, you know cash is important Profits important. Those are some of the things we hear nowadays that when I'm talking with different different Business owners, you know, some of the things that that we're looking for they're looking for is just they need more, you know They've they've grown their business. They've been a startup. They've You know, when you're a startup and you're you're a new company, especially like I was many years ago You can kind of grow that thing quick to begin with because you're starting from nothing, you know So you you can get some momentum. You can develop that good foundation. You can can can get some growth, but then Start hitting some challenges, you know, you start needing a little more. You just need to start doing some things a little little differently and You know, that's that's one of the things too when I'm talking to folks. It's you know How can we focus on Or what are they looking to focus on like A lot of people want to talk about revenue. A lot of people want to talk about customer counts and things like that But really profit super important and we're seeing more and more people Start to realize just how important the profit piece is and what they're doing because you know, nothing worse than cleaning a lot of homes And going home broke at the end of the day. Everybody gets paid that you Right. Yeah So you you're in a unique position Troy because you're talking to cleaning business owners You know Every week you're talking to to a bunch of people that are running house cleaning businesses and you see a lot of different things, don't you? Yeah, we see, you know, we're talking to to many different companies. We're talking to Different parts of the the nation. We're talking to companies in canada We're we're seeing people at companies at different stages of development different stages of growth But you know, everyone wants more everyone wants to to get better It's really trying to define what getting better is for everyone Yeah, and like what that looks like at, you know, what stage they're at, you know how uh, how How long have they been going at this and what are what are their constant troubles and what are they really good at? What are they not really good at like there's uh, you can all you can get to a very high level of business with vastly different skill sets. So I think it's pretty cool to see um How that how that turns out for people like, you know, you might not have the same skills as the Your best friend in the industry, but you're both about the same size getting, you know Getting to a point, but there's always that like kind of walls those those scalable walls, I guess so so Troy when you're meeting with uh Primarily cleaning business owners. I presume people are operating house cleaning businesses and they're Evaluating software. They want to know something about made central. What are any common themes? Are there certain things that you see popping up time and again that uh companies are looking looking for help with? Yeah, you you hear a couple of things. Um, you hear things like well, I've outgrown my Current software if they're using software you you hear things like that So, you know, you have to understand what what does outgrowing mean and I was going to ask what does that mean? Yeah, what does it mean to outgrow something? Well? Many companies Are labor intensive in the office, you know, they've they've got The owner's doing a lot the owner is doing payroll the owner's involved in scheduling the owners involved in a lot of activities Um, so We talk about how they can get a life back You know, you can you can go one you can hire people but it's expensive to hire a lot of people Um, so we're seeing where a lot of companies are running really lean right now And are can and are wanting to run lean um So, you know, we're talking about how we can provide a solution with Um helping them with create more efficiency in their office How we can make their office staff more productive um How we can help their office staff focus on more Important things to the business to help them drive profitability customer success, you know how they can And and the the interesting thing too is You know, you would think that when you're talking to these Companies a lot of times they'll bring in their office manager their general manager the owner will And we're talking about how we're going to make things more productive We're going to reduce the need for you to Create this spreadsheet. We're going to reduce the need for you to track these numbers But that might be my you just went down my job description Do you hear that from Some of the people on the call Surprisingly, I don't hear that from a lot of the people on the call. Okay I hear the opposite. I hear from the I hear from the Manager the assistant the right hand to the owner if you will I hear excitement more than anything I I get the look like You know what that that that they they can do that or this is possible Um because I think a lot of times they want to function at a higher level They want to be more productive They really want to add more value to the organization. They just don't know how they're just doing what the task is that It's you know that idea that what's like required action that has to happen to you know Keep the wheels turn and keep the lights on those things have to happen and somebody has to do them And there's a number of those types of activities that have that Are very important. They have to be happening on a regular cadence But with the right technology, you're able to reduce how much time those those required Activities take and then you're able to have that extra time I had as as a manager When we had this conversation and those types of things were coming up. I remember just being like Wow, that's possible like it's possible to still have the trains run and I get an extra hour two hours a day to work on Something new and exciting that it's a it's a very interesting. It's a fun conversation having been on the other side of it I I remember that very distinctly But if you think about The way and when you say the way it used to be I guess you can go back, you know, there's several literations of that but You know paper worksheets where you're printing out paper and poking holes in it. You're putting it in notebooks and Making phone calls to customers all day reminding them that they have a job tomorrow and we're doing things with email all day and You know You come into the morning and two customers, you know cancel and you know cleaning to this and you know can't come to work And you're taking all these pieces of paper out of notebooks and moving around to other notebooks Um Just scheduling I mean you can you can make a career out of scheduling remember when Companies would have a person with your job. I schedule. That's my job all day. I schedule Yeah, yeah, they're they're fighting it. So, you know They like I said, they want to perform at a higher level. They want to contribute in a greater way They want to do things that are adding more value. They don't want to sit here and read Is that true? Is that true in all cases or do some people struggle with that? I mean, that's change and some I mean change doesn't always come easy, right? Is it scary for some people? I'm sure it's scary for some people But you know I was I'm shocked at how many people are excited about it and are looking forward to Their jobs being better um And you know the the other the other side of it is Um, they're able to focus on those things that can add value You know, you think about what are some things that can add value? um one one thing that Companies want to do and they say oh, yeah, but we haven't done this in a long time Our rate increases Our rate adjustments, you know, um because it's hard it's Takes time it's time that a lot of a lot of these folks don't have so we're able to free them up so they can do that um, you know, one of the we we try to Some some KPIs and you know, we've identified the core KPIs within within made central and That rate increase, you know Six percent rate increase if you can do that each year if you can do a five percent rate increase every year You're you're probably staying up with inflation Exceeding it in many years That's real money to your bottom line. You know um, so those are the kind of activities that Those managers really want to do but they just don't have time to do So um, so yeah, so yeah, that's that that's interesting to to see to see the excitement because you would think that um There would be a little more fear um I would say those that are probably more fearful um Or more cautious. Maybe it's probably the business owner now You know because because what happens is You start with nothing You know you build you get a few clients. You've got some revenue You finally hit that day where you're profitable, right? You're not paying for everyone out of out of your own pocket. You're profitable You feel like you've you've got a business um And you don't want to do things that might Take you backwards So so it's almost like you start out with nothing And you're really excited and you know, you'll just go for it because you have nothing to lose And then as you you get a little larger one now It's not really complacency maybe but it's that fear or caution that sets in It's almost paralyzing in a way You don't want to you don't want to break it you use the term you're profitable Some cases. I don't think we even know for profitable or not All we all we know is that we're making payroll every friday And I don't want to break it Yeah, and You know, some people are able to make that work and it's almost an accident And you don't want to make any changes because you don't know you're not sure why it's working right That that that's also one of the the challenges and and why sometimes I think companies are like well, maybe now is not the right time because They don't want to break anything or I need something new. I need something different And just getting a new tool or a new piece of software or a new toy That alone may not make it better This is a really funny like connection here. It's the a very similar like fear of like online booking versus phone booking or in person booking or quoting and stuff like that is That fear of that control release of especially on the scheduling side We just talked about how scheduling could be a full job, but that becomes like a passion project and That fear of losing that type of control and not feeling like you're going to get the same results because it's a new It's a new process. I that happens at all different levels. I think it's very interesting to me It it is and and you meant you mentioned online booking, you know um There was a time when everyone did in-home estimates you know We're going to start booking over the telephone You probably you probably went through that tom, you know, oh, yeah, I mean it was a free no obligation In-home consultation Wasn't an ester and it was a free no obligation in-home consultation was what it was and the idea of booking jobs over the phone How can we do that? We haven't seen the house. We really don't know White, you know, how long it's going to take to clean the house The fact was we didn't know how long it was going to take to clean the house when we did a Free no obligation in-home consultation either just made us feel better We trick ourselves into thinking we Know more than when than we really know and the idea of making a change as well I'm not going to know as much or I'm not going to be as accurate and you're not that uh, you know If you really look at the numbers a lot of times we're not really that accurate doing what we what we were doing in the past Yeah, yeah, you know, we'll we'll have that conversation. You're talking about online booking and um, You know the the question will come up. Well, what do you do if you get to the home? And it's not in the condition that they told you it was going to be in or they led you to believe You know, you don't want to sound like a smart alec, but what do you do now? What do you do whenever they lie to you over the phone? You know, they're they're not honest, you know um You know and there there are things you can do there They're processes you can put in place to to make that follow-up call before you go in and to still look for those red flags and All of those things that you can still do to to build that relationship and gain that alignment with that client Um, so all of those things still need to happen It doesn't mean that stuff doesn't happen and you just show up blind and you you're setting your teams up for success That's that's not what we're talking about um But but the the crazy thing is uh And you go through this exercise. So here's here's like a conversation, you know We don't book online for all of those reasons tom talked about we're scared We don't know the condition of the home, you know, we haven't had a chance to talk with them Well, it's not uncommon, you know for Probably 10 to 30 percent of your sales to be booked online In today's world and that number is probably going to get get higher um because We're as as we deal with Younger generations of consumers, you know, they don't want to talk to people Yeah, I'm under the age where I want to I want to talk to you Yeah, the majority of those are done on somebody's phone. I mean it's they're out Doing something having fun. It's like I need to get my home claimed and talking to somebody is just Haji you raised your hand It's never I'm not doing something fun. I just want to be sleeping and um The only time that I can book something at the time that I'm remembering it at four o'clock in the morning is online Uh, when I actually when I moved, uh, this last time I booked my carpet cleaner At three o'clock in the morning I woke up in the middle of the night and could not fall back asleep because I was thinking about all the things I needed to get done to move and I was like I need to just go I need to go find a carpet cleaner I can book online and I sat in bed at three o'clock in the morning and searched I looked at five companies three of them did online booking or online quoting One of them only did want online booking and they're the ones who got my business Because I could book online And I know that that that impact of booking online can be huge and we're not talking about Booking everything online when you think about it If you if and and here's a here's a scenario I like to run through with folks I think sigh opening is if you're booking say 12 jobs a month Okay, 12 jobs a month And you're not booking any online If you can book three you're now booking 15 jobs a month So three of your 15 jobs you're now booking is like 20 right right in the middle of that range. I just gave you right If all three of those jobs are every four week jobs At 200 bucks $600 a month right You do that every month just those three At the end of the year at the end of 12 months you've you've got an annual increase in revenue of about 86 thousand dollars Now if you could book online three jobs a month And you know, it feels good to to come in on a monday morning and see oh, I booked a job this weekend and you're still following up But if that feels good imagine what it feels like at the end of the year to have sold an additional 86 thousand dollars in revenue Yeah, and then I think it's also go ahead. So you you I was gonna say it's also really cool because you you do get a higher lead count in that process as well You know the people that are just looking at something at three o'clock in the morning You've got their information now and they have that information of what that price might be and now Now three months down the line after they've churned that thought process over again That's somebody who saw a price that probably wouldn't have any other way that might be ready to book what be one of those three people Um three months down the line like it it it helps increase that cycle a little bit for you too that pipeline Yeah, and and you know, you hear some people talk about, you know, how did they know I was looking for carpet cleaning You know because now when your feed carpet cleaning comes up, right? So just you know some of the other added benefit if you're doing retargeting and you know, you're doing a lot of a lot of Marketing online, you know that brand recognition that brand awareness. They're going to continue to be Be uh, be showing up You know, so so when you when you're talking to cleaning businesses, do you How often do you hear reluctance to do things like online booking? Sometimes I guess people are just telling you that they They don't want to do that We hear we hear reluctance a good bit, but They want to do it. They're just fearful about doing it, you know, because it's that unknown. It's new. It's different um, but when you can talk to them about You know the additional 86,000 in revenue If you're payroll to revenue we talk about that as well, you know If your payroll to revenue is really high and you're at 50 percent That's an extra $43,000 in gross profit. How often do people know what their payroll to revenue is? Not often enough That that is one of the things that is surprising Is whenever we're we're talking about, you know Your company and what do you want to achieve and you know, because I want to find out about the company You know, how are you paying? Are you teams? Are you solos? What's your payroll to revenue I don't know Or i'll have to ask my account or my account that's still doing the books or haven't closed this out. So um, it's really surprising the probably number one metric that you need to know in running a cleaning company Is that payroll or revenue? No, it's a big one And and and there you know, there there are a lot of things you can do to to improve that as well and and uh I guess that's the other thing you you think about Changing that that paradigm or that paradigm shifting a lot of business owners know they need more I've outgrown what i'm currently doing. I need something different um, you know But they can they as you know, I just asked earlier though you can How do they define you know about grown what i'm doing? What is it that i'm currently doing that's no longer meeting my needs It's it's really different for everyone, you know outgrowing may mean um for a lot of companies it means that They have fragmented processes, you know, I've got One person still making manual phone calls to do reminders or I don't have any type of Feedback from my clients Um, you know, so they're either not doing something, you know, so then we talk about the score cards and and those benefits um, so It's really different, but a lot of it focuses with that business owner Wanting to get more time back That's what well, that's really what a lot of them are talking about because like I said earlier running leaner The business owner is doing a lot They've got it. Maybe a support staff that's small, but they're doing payroll They're doing invoicing. They're processing credit cards. They're working with quick books Um, they're they're probably fielding all the complaints You know, so so they're doing that so really when they say they've outgrown their system What they really mean is I need relief I need help. I can't keep doing what I'm doing now You know, I want to grow but I can't grow. I can't take one more They they had a wall. It's that whole difference between growth and scale and they had a wall and they need to change Something structurally in their business to get over that wall and to keep to keep growing That's what it is they they've hit the wall and you know We're talking about what they may need to do to to get over that wall or what they may need to do to change and A lot of times it is a tool. It is a piece of software a lot of times. It's just a different outlook um But you have to be willing to change processes along with using a different tool You know, yeah I feel like um A lot of times uh around that around those processes, um Whatever tools they're using they built the process around those tools and it's it helps instill some of that fear Are you seeing some of that as like, you know, this is something that i'm really attached to and um, I guess what are some of the conversations around Around changing those processes around those tools Well, I think a lot of times it's it's either because it's easy or we don't know. There's another way of doing something Um, you know, there are options. You know, there's several there's several ways that you might can attack the problem it's just Remember, I started with nothing. I started very small. I've done it this way. It's got me to this point What else is there? you know and and that's the that's the other thing is letting them understand or helping encourage them To take those chances to get that education because really You can't just there's not one answer. You know, that's that's that might be the frustrating part Just tell me what I need to do well I'm not I can't really tell you what you need to do because your situation and You know, the northeast is different than the southwest is different than canada and your market's different and your culture and your company's different um, so really it's it's Helping people understand that Giving the people the tools to help them figure out what to do if if if Somebody's just telling you what to do. I mean, there's exceptions. There's some obvious things Yeah, you need to do this but a but a lot of what we need to do is Situational no two companies have the exact same. This is your your best path forward But if you have the data You can use those numbers to Help figure out and you know, we can help with that part but You got to have some some some numbers first before you can really answer those questions And that's really, you know, what it comes down to Some some business owners want something different. They know they need something different But really what they need is knowledge You know, really what they need is the data. They need easy access to the data They need calculators to help them. They need tools to help them. They need You know, they need to understand what is a good payroll to revenue number. We talked about that earlier They're companies that might be, you know, greater than 50 percent payroll to revenue Well, you know for a fact there is they they They're companies that are greater than 50 percent, but you know what they don't know what they should be at Or they don't know what is a good payroll to revenue number or how to get there They don't know what's possible or how to get there, you know, what are the things you can do to to improve that payroll to revenue We see I see all the time companies that pay a high percent payroll to revenue, you know, that might be paying 47 48 percent And that's because their bill rates low They're bill rates low because they don't know what their bill rate is They don't know what their average bill rate is where if you had that data, she had that information You can make adjustments. You can drive that bill rate up You can look at your pay structures You can you can lower that payroll to revenue and now all of a sudden your employees are making the money They want to make because you're charging what you should charge and guess what? There's enough left over for you at the end of the day So if you ask them, you know, what is your average or what is your target and they might say, I don't know $75 an hour. That's great Are you actually at 75? A lot of people don't know and some of them do but then you ask, okay. Well What percentage of your jobs are less than 40 dollars an hour? and Nobody knows that Well, not Some people do You have to have the right tools to do that, right? A lot don't know that you're you're right and You know kind of getting back to the online booking And and just taking calls, you know, sometimes we want perfection And that really gets in our way Because part of the the conversations we'll also hear are Well What if what if they're underpriced, you know, what if they aren't honest with me? So then here's the other story we we get to talk through You have an every two-week customer that wants to book now They want to go next Tuesday You have availability. You just aren't certain what team to put it on so you're like, oh, what do I do? What do I do? You take the job. That's what you do First thing you do you take the job and you put them on the schedule and you stop the shopping, right? And you know what if you look at that job that's scheduled like I don't have enough people to clean this home You take that monthly because I bet most companies have a monthly an every four-week job every day of the week That every four-week job doesn't really Care that much because they're every four weeks, right? And you go move that every four-week job and you just took an every two-week customer now you're making more money So, you know, it doesn't have to be the perfect answer Because when you're talking to them on the phone, you're not giving them the perfect answer Working within the unpredictability is is this kind of key, you know, this is an unpredictable industry It's you know, cleaning is unpredictable people are unpredictable that's a lot of unpredictability mixing together and The more that you try to control that honestly the harder it becomes um and I would say the The worst the outlook ends up being too because if you say no to that client and You know that two-week client and then that day rolls around and somebody else had canceled It's too late to fill that spot now That revenue is never coming back And and if you've been in the business for any length of time, you know, that's what happens You know, you know that We'll have a conversation and you know, I schedule changes. I'm in here in the morning I've got to move these jobs because customers want to move they want to reschedule But then when you're talking about online booking or where the job should go, it's like It's got to be on the right team at the right time on the right day and it's like That answer is not going to be the same answer in two weeks. We all know that You know, so so part of it. I think it's embracing embracing the change And so when you're Meeting with with cleaning business owners, it sounds like a lot of the discussion has a lot more to do with opportunities to make change in the business rather than The technology is part of it for sure because it enables that change But if you're reluctant to embrace the full package and use this as an opportunity to Make change in your business Then you really aren't getting the value out of the whole exercise like you should You're absolutely right and you know, that's what that's what I tell people, you know We'll have we'll have conversations and you know trying to determine Is it a good fit? Is it a win-win? Is it right right now? Or is it no for now? You know, if you just want when I'm talking about made central if you just want to schedule jobs and you just want, you know to put teams on a job and you ought to Process invoices at the end of the day There's a lot of options for you there But if you really want to make meaningful change and if you really want to understand the data and understand the numbers and drive those metrics And drive continuous improvement because that's really what it's about You know, it's it's it's it's a race and we have to continually be improving and continually changing And if you embrace that you're you're gonna more than likely win at the end of the day A lot of those changes Are reversible decisions You know, you can try something You know online booking and If you get some we use the term non conforming outcome a non conforming, you know issue Something happens that you don't want it to happen First figure out, you know, why and what can I change to make things better? But if you can't figure it out, you can always stop doing You know, whatever that is that that you stop those are very easy decisions to to reverse Successful CEOs, I'll just add I've seen this so many times are prone to action. You know, let's let's Jump in let's try it. We're going to make some mistakes. We're going to figure it out And then we're going to to to be to a better better place None of these decisions are putting, you know, the long-term success and solvency of the business in question. This is Especially in 2024, you know, we're not changing where where in some regards just falling behind You're falling behind. Yeah And you know, I don't think it's even even so much You're right. It's it's a it's a decision that can be reversed. You could you could stop if you wanted to but it's also the first step you have to take to get better because We're going to quote online like we talked earlier We're not going to do in-home estimates. We're going to quote over the phone What should my pricing be, you know, all of these things you can change you can modify you can learn from You know, one thing I think I guess it's not really funny. It's probably Something we don't think about Is we'll talk about increasing prices, right? We need to do a price increase. I want to be at $60 an hour I want to be but then we quote at 50 for five years and we never go in and increase our our average, you know rate from 50 to 55 or 54 Those are easy changes you can make even if you're not using software if you're just using the spreadsheet, you know Change your average bill rate from 50 to 55 and quote on that for a week or a month and you know what if you're You're selling as many jobs. What a great you're making more money And you're driving that bill rate up and you're driving that payroll to revenue number down and you know life's just getting better So much of What you're seeing in terms of the actual processes and how people are going about doing what they're doing in their businesses was The way that we did it 10 years ago and the way that we learned to do it 10 years ago and The world has changed the technology has changed a lot But you know a lot of the thing we haven't caught up yet in terms of that being The common consensus and thinking in a lot of cases You know a couple of years from now a few years from now Everybody's going to know their payroll to revenue and everybody's going to be doing rate increases or rate adjustments and everybody's going to know productivity and efficiency and uh, you know, it's going to be part of the common lexicon but you know We haven't caught up with the technology yet But in order to be competitive in order to stay up in order to compete moving forward You know a lot of things that that we take, you know for granted now were out there 10 years ago and 10 years ago it was like The you know quoting over the phone some people were doing it but a lot of people were reluctant and hadn't been Adopted and and and and and fully, you know embraced at that point We're talking about a lot of things now that's going to become commonplace just People haven't got there yet emotionally I guess I mean business is an iterative process, you know everything every step of it has a You know, you have your goal and that goal kind of doesn't change, you know We're doing quotes and we're doing sales. That's the goal How will we get there is going to drastically change over time? And the faster that you're willing to make those changes. I I mean, I don't know if you guys agree Do you agree that it helps you get there? You know find if those results like get to those results faster Or or realize that that's not the way that your business needs to go like you get an answer faster so You know making those changes is really important Yeah, and I think the other the other thing That that's happening is The really successful companies they realize I don't own a cleaning company They realize i'm the ceo of an organization And they start Implementing some of these practices, you know one benefit I believe I have is because of my background and focusing in operations and continuous improvement and visual management and those things You know, you realize the need and the importance of making those improvements and trying to continually get better Um, you know, you understand that every business there's a life cycle to it And you know what we want to we want to extend that we want to extend that growth stage We want to you know, if we if we see where we're flat and we're mature We want to continue to innovate we want to continue to move forward Otherwise we're going to start to decline And uh, that's where even if we have mature companies we're talking with we have that opportunity to you know To extend that curve upward instead of just continuing to Ride the wave down Got a comment here from denit. You know, she's she's pointing out that You know, she's she's done foundations a couple of times with us and how she made a shift from You know being afraid of the numbers to actually embracing them and using them to to run her business and As time goes on That's that's going to be the norm if you don't have those numbers and know what to do with them Then you're going to have a hard time keeping up. You're going to have a hard time competing You can't manage anything. You're not tracking Yeah, and it's about improving your number You know, it's not it's not about me making my number Bigger than others number. Yeah, it's about me. What am I doing today to improve? my number Yeah, that uh that question of what is what is everybody else at? Well, don't look at their paper. That's not the answer It's better It's useful to know What the you know industry norms are and we share that information but Wherever you are is wherever you are and you need to embrace the idea of continuous improvement and That's that's that's the name of the game You know, we are we are kind of running up against the top of the hour here and you know The name was was was mentioning foundations and i'm going to throw this up here again and just mention that There are a couple of slots still open if anyone is interested in doing foundations 13. It's uh A different experience than when when troy did it we we spend a week in a beachfront They call it the mansion. It's a really big house with a swimming pool and you walk out the back door and you're standing in front of the Atlantic Ocean We take that work that we used to do in over a course of six months and we do it in the course of seven days and It's a lot of work But it's a lot of fun and we all stay in the same house and by the end of the week You make a lot of friends and relationships that you'll maintain for the rest of your life um a lot of the business principles the the professional management techniques that we've built into made central Were developed and honed through through doing foundations over the years so How many times asia have you seen you know helping a new partner implement made central like if they've been through foundations how much easier it is for them and the insight that They have in terms of what made central is doing for them Oh, absolutely. I see it. I I would say I mean of all the people that i've seen that i've done foundations that i've seen through implementation All of them have gotten through it I mean at least in the time that we expect it to if not faster um and In that process we're seeing them making the connections of why made central is built the way it is where They they'll kind of reach the the kind of what do I What do I want to call that the the conclusion the the big reveal You know if we're trying to teach somebody we want to give them the big reveal of like Oh, this is how it gets how you know how we get there and Why why it's there and they'll beat us to the punch line half the time where they're like Oh, it's there because of this and it's because they've been Two foundations and they really understand those professional management practices and core principles that We use made central for you can all you can have all types of businesses Operate I mean that's the kind of the goal is that you can have your business the way that you want it to be the culture that you want And the growth that you want and the profitability that you want to see All on the same core principles. So um, there's still a lot of flexibility and understanding that comes with that and I see it All I've seen it every time that we go through implementation. It's really obvious who's gone through foundations and who hasn't And Asha, you're gonna be joining us as well I am I'm so excited. I uh, I've I've Envied I've had FOMO about foundations for the last 10 years that I've been in the industry I'm just like, oh my gosh. I really wish I could go. I've heard so much about it like every industry event that I've gone to Um foundations always comes up. I you know the relationships that people have they all met at foundations And are still working together as far as like being business having a business community around them And to be able to go and be part of part of the education process of it And being able to do one on ones with people and kind of share some of my experiences and help people Solve some of their problems. Um, I'm so excited I am pumped and the fact that you guys are gonna get me to sleep Right next to the ocean When I have a big fear of the ocean is a big deal. So I I'm quite excited about it Huh Well, it's a it's a low risk activity. I mean this uh, so it's living in a landlocked state You think the fear would have dissipated by now Right, right. No, you're gonna you're gonna love it. It's gonna be it's gonna be awesome Yeah, I'm very excited Well, this was uh, this was good. Troy. Thank you for uh, helping us out and sharing your story and telling us some of the things that you see as you're Meeting with cleaning businesses trying to help them solve some problems and uh, you know Yeah, that's that's that's what it's about, you know, just uh having some conversations and trying to help everyone Get better and improve and you know, that's that's the other thing, you know, I think Whenever I'm talking to a lot of business owners, they don't realize just how big a resource We can be it made central even if you're not using the software Even if you're not a partner yet, you know, there's still a lot of education There's still a lot of tools and I always encourage everyone to to use us as a resource So we do all kinds of training programs that are available to just anybody who's interested Aja does a monthly Livestream on is a live stream or is it a a webinar? Webinar, but it's it's free to anybody on core kpi's we have a kpi of the month That goes along with our kpi calendar. What's our kpi for march aja? You're I knew you're gonna put me on the spot and I should have been more prepared Okay, well, you'll have to tune in and march to find out but If anybody wants to know about any of those training opportunities, where where do they go? Um, they go to madecentral.com slash events Okay, is We've got our core kpi webinar up there Our live events are up there as well That is the best place to find us so madecentral.com slash events And uh, yeah I think I met all of those so I'm excited for every one of them Okay, so this is the page we go to madecentral.com events. I guess that's uh up here in the uh Oh, it is closed rate per week. I knew that I knew that I'm gonna paste that just don't work well under pressure and you can actually sign up and download A calendar which will update your google calendar or your outlet calendar. So I don't remind you of uh upcoming training opportunities with madecentral So we are at the top of the hour. So we're gonna have to go ahead and call it a wrap Troy, thank you. Thanks a bunch. Aja. Thanks for Thank you guys for again for liz And uh, we'll be back uh next wednesday five o'clock eastern until then everybody take care All right