 Hey, good afternoon everybody, Tom Stewart here on with Liz Trotter, our guest today is Erin Lashen. This is smart business moves. Hi Erin! Hi! Thank you for having me. We love having you here Erin. Oh, that's so... Yeah, we do. I never say no. And that's awesome about you, you do never say no, yeah, and you always have something going on. So... We do. Yeah, with Arccy. We find both our big advocates of Arccy. So yeah, we actually really, not just spouting, we really do love having you on here, get more people opportunity to find out about Arccy and what's going on. Oh, good. I'm glad to be here. And today we're going to talk about, we have a regional event, which I know we had one last year and we've had the show in person for two years, but it's just so much fun to get back to doing more things in person and getting back to normal. So we're excited. And we're going to be in St. Louis on April 28th. Wow. In St. Louis. We're going to be in St. Louis. What are you going to be doing? Yeah. We are. Well, we're doing a regional event and I will tell you, we'll start at the beginning with this. And this came about, I was talking to Matt Ricketts, owner of Better Life Mates, and one of his, I would say competitors, but he's also one of his peers, it's literally across the street. Stacey Wyland owns Green Angel Cleaning and they wanted to do a regional event to open their doors and, you know, let people come in and tour the facility and ask questions. And they came to me and said that, you know, we think, you know, we want to host this. So that's what we're doing. Awesome. So are you doing it at Stacey's place? Are you doing that match? You're doing both? What's the... It's going to be both. The way this is going to work is we are going to start with tours in the morning from 9 to noon. So I guess this would be 9 to noon central and I have to be cognizant of all the time changes. So be in St. Louis. It's a central time. We're going to start with tours at Matt and Stacey's office. The first 50 registrants are eligible to take the tours with them and they're from 9 to noon. And so you'll get to view Stacey's office, which Stacey has is known for her company culture. So she's going to walk you through and do a tour and talk about company culture. And Matt is good. Then you also have the ability to tour Better Life Mates. And I think Matt's focus is, I want to look at something real quick. He's going to talk, I think, about like his management processes and what he's done over the years, you know, with his office. So we're really excited to do both the tours. Stacey's excited to be doing the tours also. She really is. And actually, I want to, Tom, can you do you want to pull the video up? Stacey Weiland did a little sneak peek of her office so that you can kind of take a look and see what you're going to see on the tour. Nice. And I had this all pulled up here and that's okay while you're pulling it up. I know, so I know we're going, you're going to be talking about Matt's going to be talking about his management and practices and stuff. But anybody that knows Matt, if you don't know already, check out Better Life Mades because their marketing is also amazing and so is their branding. So if you really want to be able to see some great examples of branding, man. All right. Talk to us about Stacey. Okay, this is Stacey's sneak peek. She has a really strong company culture and she's going to share a little bit about, you know, what she's done, like show you a little bit of her office. And then, you know, with both of these tours, you have the opportunity to, you know, to ask questions and to see what they're doing. You know, I know that's something that when we've done regional events before that is something our members love to do is to get to kind of see what somebody else is doing. It just gives you so many ideas, inspiration. Just, you know, it's just, you know, we feed off of this. So let's see what Stacey had to say. Yes, let's see what Stacey has. Right off the bat, you can tell that she cares about culture. Nobody that has poor culture is wearing a shirt with red hearts. I will say it was Valentine's Day when she filmed this. All right, I'll take you a little bit of slack there, maybe. I need a shirt like that. Yeah, Tom, you say that. Is Denny down here? You better watch what you say. You're going to see what's coming up in the middle. Denny, do not send him a Valentine's Day. You need one for the holidays. Why not? You actually send him a four-leaf clover one. We're coming up to it. Well, we did. We did say, Patrick's Day, I had like a green teletubby suit. You know, it was like a one-day for adults. So it was pretty. Well, and Denny does always send us stuff. I know I have a cute little thing that she sent me for St. Patrick's Day too. Now, well, we happened to hit Valentine's Day when I was talking to her this year and she said, I'll do the video today. And her office was decorated for Valentine's Day. So she just goes to her company culture. I'm not sure. No, I don't know how to fix this. I can. You want me to try? Sure. And depending on where it's at, maybe we could put the link for everyone in the comments to like themselves. I click present. I can I can do that. No. Well, yeah, I can do that. You would do share screen. Do you have it? Oh, there's no share screen option anymore, Tom. So I guess it would be present. Here's the link. I'll drop in comments. The thing that I love about the link, if y'all are like me, I like to speed it up so that I can watch it really quickly and then go back and watch it like 10 times. Can you see my screen? Not yet. Yep. Oh, you can? I can't. OK. There we go. OK, I will click. Hi, Midwest Cleaning Company owners. My name is Stacy Weiland. I'm the owner of Green Angel Cleaning Services in St. Louis, Missouri. And during the ArcSea regional event, I believe it's late April, you guys will have the opportunity to tour Green Angel Cleaning, my office, and see how we hang on to our employees and our company culture. We're rolling out the red carpet for our employees. So kind of give you just a little quick tour. We have our core values. We have all kinds of fun stuff here, trying to get everything in. Got our little coffee station. Just lots of things when people walk into our office, we want them to be like, wow, I have to work here. And then when they're hired on, we want them to say, wow, I need to hang on to this job. And that's how it is. But we'll be able to show you all of the contests that we do, all of our boards that we have set up. Here's it's Valentine's Day. That's why I have my heart sweater on. And we have our field supervisor who's always putting together fun things for the housekeepers. I'm going to actually walk in here. This is Ashley. She's just thinking of ways to spoil the housekeepers. She just closed her cabinet. How much is the cabinet? Open up that cabinet. I saw it for the first time today. I was like, look at that. It's just a whole cabinet of goodies. But anyway, I'm going to give you a tour of our office, talk to you a little bit about our culture and how we hang on to our housekeepers and have a very, very, very low turnover rate. So we hope to see you there. OK, so I'm going to remember that one. What would I go over? I'm clean, Judy. Snacked. Yeah, I'm going to stay since I'm going right to the back to that cabinet. I know right where it is too. I was like, OK, take notes. Lots of good stuff in there. I want those chips. That's what I saw. I know, that's what I saw too. I don't know why that stood out, but I was like, who's next? That's funny. That's super exciting. So basically, anybody that's going to the regional event is going to be able to see a very well-rounded view of a lot of different things. Where when you go to one business, usually you see the thing that they're good at. Like if we were only going to Stacey's, we would see lots of stuff. But the main thing would be the company culture. But going over to Stacey's and going to Matt's, we're going to see a really well-rounded view of a lot of different things to do if you want to grow into a big company and not just stick. Where is the link? Have we already posted the link? I don't think so. Have we got it? It's in comments. All right, it's in comments. I don't see it. The link to register? No, I thought you were talking about the video. Yeah, the link to register. And what's the price, Erin? OK, the price for registering is, well, I got to say the early bird ended yesterday. It's $99 for members and $199 for non-members. And that ended yesterday. However, we have a promo code that you can get the early bird rate. If you use the promo code SAVE50, you can get the early bird rate. Because the rate had gone up today to $149. And it would be $299 for non-members. But you can save $50 on your registration if you use the promo code SAVE50. All right. Oh, one more. SAVE50? Yes, SAVE50. And you can take $50 off your registration. So remember that. Well, for members, that would be the early bird price. So you can still get that. And that is good through the event. So I wanted to make sure everybody, if you missed the live broadcast of this and you catch it later, we want to see you there. We're really excited. And I think one of the things I touched on when we first started talking about Matt and Stacey had talked about doing this, is I said they're competitors. Because they kind of are across the street, they're in the same area. But that is just really representative of ArcCy's membership, that they're willing to work, that they want to work together, that they share, and ideas, and that they're opening their doors to you. So that's something that our ArcCy community is really known for, is really being welcoming to everybody else in the industry and hoping for your success. Yeah. Well, I'm looking. I have an event on that day that I'm thinking I should probably try and move. Because I definitely want to go there. I have been there before, and it's amazing. I don't want to miss another opportunity. And what do we have there? It's on the 28th, right? Well, I tell you what, the event keeps getting bigger and bigger. And we can dig into some of the specifics later. But I will tell you, we keep adding to the event. We're going to add on on Saturday, April 29th. Matt Ricketts is opening his office again. And we're going to have a training day with Sharon Tinberg. She is launching her house cleaning process and procedure training through ArcCy's. It's our LMS with ISSA. We've put it in the online learning system. And you get a year subscription. And you have unlimited use for the year for this training. And then you have a very, but then you have a lower subscription rate for each year that you renew. That is going live next week. And that was designed specifically by Sharon Tinberg. And she's coming to St. Louis to do a live version of that for any of the anybody coming to the regional event. If you want to stay, the registration for that will go out later this week. And if you register for the regional event or plan to, you'll save $25 off of the registration for the training day. So we'll send you information about that. OK. And do you know what the registration is for that? Yes, it's $49 for no. Yeah, it's $49 for members. And you can save $25. So basically it's free. It's going to be $25. And if you attend and then buy the house cleaning process and procedure training, and our LMS will take $99 off if you attend the event. OK. So basically the event is free. You're going to get an emergency program. You get to do all of the additional tour time over at Matt's and more time to pick people's brains. So kind of like that. We haven't even started talking about the education yet. We have an event on Thursday as well. Yes, we do. No, we do. Well, we do. Yeah. We're calling this a discovery day for Made Central. We're going to have an educational component. We're going to be talking about core KPIs and how you use those to drive outcomes in your business. But it's more of a deep dive into Matt's business and the tech stack that he uses to scale his business. And you get to see really cool stuff. He's got like large TV screens, I guess, on his wall, where he's got all kinds of reports and metrics. And he'll show how kind of the nuts and bolts and brains between behind how he uses technology to get the results. And gee whiz, he's increased his revenue from $1.9 million to $3.2 over a relatively short amount of time and gets his bill rate up. All this really cool metrics here. I'll drop this in chat. Yeah, we can see that. You can't. No. My eyes are not good anymore. I have a huge screen and I can't even see it. It's so tiny. Better. Get bigger. Bigger. There you go. There we go. Now we can read it. All right, so it looks like a lot. We got a lot of stuff going on with Matt here. Lots and numbers. Because Made Central is really all about the numbers and working those numbers and growing. OK, awesome. I love this. The short story is he's making a whole lot more money with fewer people. And it's an impressive show. So there's a whole lot of reasons to go to St. Louis that way. We're doing this on Wednesday. We're doing the RxE event on Thursday. We've got Sharon doing her thing on Saturday. And not to mention Matt has thrown this in. It's a great time of year to go if you want to do a little sightseeing in St. Louis. If you've never been to the Arch, if you've never seen, they have some great restaurants, some good food there. There's a lot to do there. So it's a great time to go to St. Louis. Sounds like a great experience. And it sounds like it's so affordable. But one thing that is another bonus is it's kind of more centralized for those of you that are like, oh, we're always having to go over to the East Coast, everything from the East Coast. Well, here we go. Look at this. It doesn't matter where you are. You can get to St. Louis. You can get there from any mirror. And hotels are not crazy like they are in Chicago. So you can afford to go there, too. But you mentioned Chicago. We should probably talk a little bit about the event that we did in Chicago, the regional meeting that we had over at Gosha's. Oh, my gosh, that's so amazing. If you guys, for the folks who were there, I guess we really don't need to say anything more about why it would be worth going to this event in St. Louis. If you weren't there, you missed a really very educational, it was inspirational, and it was fun. I would say, yeah, I had a couple of quotes that I had used just in our blog and sharing out. And I have some videos that I'll send out. But they talked about that here's a quote from Caleb Pierce of Pink Power Cleaning. He said that with some of the power players in the industry at the regional event, it helped to identify some areas where we can improve and get some creative concepts to develop. Marlo chimed in and just said, even for someone who's been in a business for a while, I learned new things. So the nice thing what we do with our RxE regional events is we combine the education with the community. And that's really what we like to do with these events. It gives a chance for the community to get together and engage. And I will say, every time I enter the event in Chicago we had, and even with the show every year, when this group gets together, it's like a family reunion. That's totally true. In some cases, a lot better than a family reunion. That's true. Good point, Tom. Good point. I will say, as you pulled up, here's our education schedule for what we have going in. Really, the focus of this event is creating a culture for success, for helping you with things that you need to do at your office to get to that next level. Everybody always talks about getting to that million-dollar level. I think we have a lot of, and I know at RxE and around the country, there's a lot of new people to the industry. So this is really good for you. To really see what some companies have done over the last few years. And specifically, they navigated through COVID to get to reach the success that they did. But also, there are a lot more companies nowadays that are either at a million, closing in on a million. And that's all fine and dandy. But that's also almost like the new Valley of Despair, that you have to be ready to do some new things, some different things if you want to get to that $3 million mark now. So it sounds like we're going to be able to see a lot of those things here at the St. Louis event. So it sounds like it's going to be great for both companies. It was like, Gosia, it's inspirational. You see what's possible. And I don't want to say it's not that hard. I mean, it's hard work. But once you're able to see it and talk to the people that's making it happen, it's a lot clearer in terms of, yeah, I can do this. It's attainable. It really is. And I hear that from a lot of people that there's more and more people that have reached that million dollar level. So I agree. I think this would be great for the companies that have been in it for a while and have hit that level, but also for the new companies really to get into and learn about the community and what you need to do. Can you take us down? Show us that education. I think Aaron was talking about that. Sure. Absolutely. Our education, we start off on the Friday of the 28th. And like we said, we're going to be doing the tours with Matt and Stacey's office. And then we go back to, we are going to be, it's called the Shrewsbury City Center. I want to say, I think Matt said it was an old mall, or was it a school? But it's been revamped into kind of like a city center. And they have a lot of space. So we're able to rent some rooms there so we can do our education for the afternoon. And we're going to focus on, like I said, we're talking about creating a culture of success. We have our introduction to welcome. If you've been to the Coffee and Conversation RJ and Gosha will be right there welcoming everybody and getting the event started and talking about RSC a little bit and what we're going to do for the day. And then I think first up, I know that name, Tom Stewart. I think I know that name. I don't know. Who is that guy? Like where's Waldo pops up all over the place. Tom is going to join us and you're going to talk about the future business success. So I think that looks like we're going to talk about some numbers. We are, we're going to talk about numbers. We're just going to talk about how technology is helping the more successful, the most successful residential cleaning services go beyond just driving sales to actually managing the process where they're making more profit off of the sales that they're getting. And there's a lot of moving parts to that. It's getting your cost of goods sold down. It's extending the lifetime value of a customer. It's getting the appropriate bill rate and identifying where you are and how to fix it. And there's a whole lot of money to be made there and companies used to be that everybody got excited about talking about their sales and how many homes they cleaned. And a lot of us just focused on that. And if we made money, that's great. Sometimes we didn't even know how or why, but, you know, for clean enough homes we'll certainly make money. Well, it's 2023 and there's a lot of professional management techniques that take sales and turns it into profits. And that's really, you know, we're bringing that to the residential cleaning industry. And we're going to take, well, you know, we'll take a little break. We'll probably, and then we're going to- You'll need a break. You'll need a break after that. Probably. Definitely. Your brain will. And then we have Matt. And his original title, I think talked about like creating a two-year business plan. And so then we kind of switched it to getting your management process in place. So I think it's going to be another one talking about numbers. And, you know, like I think he's going to focus on a little bit what you talked about, Liz, about, you know, what he's done over the last couple of years and how he's changed his processes to get to where he has been. And hopefully we can pick his brain a little bit because he really is good at marketing. You know, we've had him speak, you know, about SEO and just, you know, Google ads and just, I mean, he's just tremendous at, you know, so I would highly, you know, take advantage of the knowledge that he brings to the table. All right. And then that last one we have is with RJ and Gosha. Yes. And if you were, Gosha has a phenomenal office and the way she interacts with her employees is it's moving, like, you know, how invested her employees are in her business. And so that's gonna what they're gonna talk a little bit about is, you know, how you create that better culture by working with your employees. You know, one of the things that, you know, we've talked about is your employees are the face of your company. And so, you know, we hear a lot that you want repeat clients, but if you want repeat clients, you know, you need to have consistency. It's your employees and what they do. And so that's, you know, they're gonna talk about how you can engage your employees to want to keep them. You know, I think we're finally hitting a point. I'm hoping that hiring is getting better and retention. But, you know, in fact, you know, having a better employee engagement plan is gonna help you retain those employees. Yeah. And I work with Gosha's, so I've done trainings for Gosha around this idea. And then also her main manager, her operations manager, Carmina. She's in our strategic success circles. And I can tell you they are very strategic about how they work. And a lot of times when people are thinking about culture, they're like, oh, it's just fun and trying to not so, not so at all. That is not what it's about. And they always are about the bigger picture. How is it more than just, you know, it's not, like it's really fun to look at Stacey's office. Yeah. I promise you, I haven't talked to Stacey at all, but I promise you, she's not gonna be talking about how to decorate. She's talking about how to have parties and how to have fun. Because it's not about that. And a lot of times people get it confused. They think it is. So this type of information is deep and wide. You can't just hear about it one time and think, oh, okay, now I got it. It doesn't work that way. But we can still like check out her snack cabinet, right? Absolutely. Are you kidding me? Gotta have snacks. She has promised that she will have snacks available for the tour. Which I think they, all they have to do is open the covers. So Erin, did you see Stacey's question here? Yes. A registration for the training day has not opened yet. We should have that opened by tomorrow, Friday at the latest. So, and I think Stacey's one of the people that has already registered. So I'll be sending information out. We're gonna send a postcard out soon so they'll be on the postcard. It'll be all over the place how you can register for training day, as well as for May Central's discovery day. Here we go, snacks. That's why Stacey is going. Not entirely, but I mean, it is, you know, a consideration. It's a perk. It's a perk. Well, I mean, I will tell you, one of the things that we're doing in that, snacks is always on the table, but we had a great program at the regional event in Chicago. But I think what most people that attended may remember was the networking event we had at the end because the food was amazing. We had, there might have been a few drinks and it was just, it was a lot of fun. And especially after day of heavy lifting. And I mean, some of these topics are heavy. It's just, it's a given. You're gonna come away with a lot of good information that you can take back to your office but you're gonna have Friday night to decompress and relax at our networking event. I have been working with Stacey and Matt. We're putting together a St. Louis Fair for you. So we're gonna have Emos pizza and toasted ravioli. And then we have sandwiches from mom's deli. Now I'm not a St. Louis person, so I don't know either of these but I trust their opinion. I'm sure it'll be good. Always is. Yeah, never, never really have a feeling of they're not feeding us well at these events. No. Not good food. You totally will. So we're really excited. And that's one of the things I like to do. That's why I told them, you know, when we talked about, what do we wanna serve? I said, well, I want St. Louis Fair. Like when you're in Chicago, you get this. When you're, you know, what do we get when you're in St. Louis? It's like, cause I knew when we're in Chicago, I'm like, well, we're getting Portillo's. So you have to, in deep dish pizza. So what do you get when you're in St. Louis? Awesome. I'm looking forward to it. Yes. All right, so I have a question about convention. We were talking about that before we got in here. Is there anything that we really need to hit on here more before we start talking about convention? The big thing is, and I have an email that's going out to members soon. A couple of things that I'm working on right now for convention. Well, there's three things actually. One is save the day. It's November, I almost said March. It's November 13th to the 16th, 2023. And we are in Vegas this year. But unlike other years, we are not at the Las Vegas Convention Center. We're moving to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center this year. And it's a different hotels, different location. The hotel and room block will be going out soon. So I would definitely watch your email. We'll be sending information to members, to past attendees. Make sure and watch out for that because we are up against it. I'm not gonna send an ask car, but the week after we're there, it's Formula One racing. And we're gonna be competing for hotel space with that. So once the room block goes out, I highly encourage you to make your reservation. The room block should be going out very shortly. So again, watch your mail for that and make sure that if you plan to go to the show and even if you don't and you think you might, I would make your reservation because you have usually, you know, check with the hotel, but usually there's a space where you can cancel without any charges. So I highly encourage you to make your reservation. The other thing is we're, speaker proposals are open right now. So that's another thing. If you would like to speak at the show, now is the time to get your proposal in. And you would go to issashow.com and click under edge. I think it's under education, it might even be on the homepage for issashow.com page. But if you would like to speak at the show, it closes March 31st. So if you are looking to speak at that end, the other thing that I'm asking, we're sending out a link to email to members and some past attendees is, what do you wanna see on the education schedule this year? You know, our education, our residential show committee is meeting. And one of the things that they wanna know is, what do you wanna hear at the show? What are the issues that are hot this year? The last couple of years, we've talked a lot about hiring and retention. What are some of the hot buttons that we need to hit on this year? What would make you wanna come to the show other than just getting together with your community in Vegas is a lot of fun. I'm gonna take the website here, Erin. So this is the issashow. Would this be where the link is to- Do you click on education? Does it take, is it there? This is overview. Overview. Scroll down on the page. I know I found it the other day pretty easily. Now? This is not the issa page. This is, I clicked on the convention. So this is the issashow.com page. Let me send you the link, I have it. I have been sending this out to, I know I've sent it to both of you. I've sent it to all of our past speakers. I've sent it to members. Let me pull it up right now and I'll put it in the chat for you. And the deadline for that's the end of this month, right? Yes, yep. Which will come really fast. So fast. It's gonna come even faster for us, Tom, because we're gonna do the foundations for two weeks. The month is over already. And it's today's the first. I think I put it in the private chat, Tom. Do I need to hear it? I got it. I'll click on this too. If you get it in after March 31st, we'll definitely look at it, but there's always no guaranteed. Once the schedule is set, it's set. And so I wanna make sure, if you're interested in speaking this year, be sure to get your proposal in. Well, I have to have a login and password, I guess, too. Well, you would have to create an account to submit your proposal. Okay. And if you've done that before, if you spoke before, you should already have one. It would be the same. So if anybody, if you have been a speaker at the ISSA show before, you would just use the account that you have before. If not, you would need to create one. So, you know, all of this, you know, the convention, the event, the regional event in St. Louis, which is gonna be, you know, towards the end of April, not that far away at all. We kind of get tied up in our day-to-day stuff and we're busy and days turn into weeks and turn into months and, you know, I know for a lot of people, I know for myself, there was a time when, you know, I didn't have time for any of this because, you know, I got a business to run. Yeah. But if you can just break away and engage in network and see how other people are doing stuff, do you get that time back a dozen times over? More, probably more. And, you know, it's just that one idea that you bring back and implement that can change your business. I will say, I have never had anybody regret going to the show or even to any of our regional events. Like we... Never heard that. No. We work really hard to make sure that you have takeaways. That it's, there is, there's the fun. We're gonna have the networking. We're gonna do, you know, you know, food and drink. But at the heart of it is gonna be a lot of education and some tangible things that you can take away and go back to your office and implement. Ways that you can help you make your business better. And beyond making your business fair, you also take that network back with you that you've built. So many great things about ARC-C that sometimes I think we, it sounds like we're being repetitive, but it feels like it needs to be repeated. Like, I heard just last week, somebody say, oh, ARC-C, yeah, yeah, I didn't think I'd be a member. I'm like, what? I can't even envision a reason why you wouldn't. She was like, eh, I don't know. I just don't know what would be the point. Oh no, that's too many points. How is there anybody out there that is thinking there's not a point? So many opportunities, so much value. And it's something that lasts all year long too. One of the things that I love about ARC-C now that wasn't true five years ago is your membership is paying off every single month all year long now. There's always something going on. It wasn't always that way. We tried, right? ARC-C was trying for a while there, but it just wasn't to the level that it is now. There is something every- Your home's grown. Yes, I would say. And part of that is being part of ISSA has helped because we've been able to grow what we do, make our programs bigger and more of a reach. We also have a lot of benefits that we, at ARC-C, the little things, I was talking about that with the group today, that in addition to the community, the education, the ISSA show, the advocacy program that we have, there's ways day-to-day like one of the things somebody was talking about today is that they, perfectly, and I think everybody knows who perfectly is, with your ARC-C membership, you save 50% on everything you purchase it perfectly. I'm 50%, when do you get those kind of deals? Anywhere? 50%, yep. Yeah. Right off the bat, we have, I know somebody just, we have background checks with IntelliCorps and somebody just signed up for that and said it was phenomenal. We have, you save up to 40% off your credit card processing. So there's just so many benefits that these little things that just pay for your membership. We also have- And all that's good, all that's good, but it's not, I mean, it's not at the top of the list for why you wanna do it. It's the networking, it's the professional connections you're able to make and an organization where you're together with like-minded people who are all aspiring to do the same thing. Professionalize the industry, professionalize the business, grow their businesses, create more value and do it in a way where they aren't, they aren't killing themselves doing it. Make it, make it, make it fun and make it, so you can love your business. I mean, there's just so many reasons that, yeah, I can get a better deal on supplies, I can get insurance and opportunities in all kinds of vendors and things and that's good, the training, the education, the certification programs, all that's good, but it's the networking and being able to figure out how to get your business to a point where it's the business that you want it to be. I will say, and you have to plug into that community. I get too many times, well, I haven't attended this webinar, no, I haven't joined the Facebook group yet, no, I didn't do it. You have to plug into your community. As with anything, the more you put into it, the more you're gonna get out. So you just come to our coffee and conversation. The first thing, the first way to learn about us is, you know. And that's tomorrow, right? It is tomorrow. Let me give you the link for that. We have our monthly coffee and conversation. I'll put that link in the chat here, Tom, I don't know. You know, we see and we hear about a lot of people too that are just like, you know, I hate my business. I need to get out. I just, I can't do it anymore. It's so hard. Monday mornings are a nightmare. I can't do Monday, right? We hear that, but you don't hear it as much for sure from the people that are plugging in. And as you plug in more and more, all of those problems go away because you learn how to manage all of this stuff. You learn how to manage yourself as well. So that even if some of the problems are still there in your business, because I'm not at all trying to say that if you join ArcC, you are going to have no problems in your business. That's not what I'm saying. At all. What I am saying is you will feel confident to manage the problems and you will learn how to be able to manage them in a more professional way. You won't be pulled by the tides and feel like you're being yanked around by your employees or that they're running the show. You'll be in charge. You'll know how to step up and be in charge. It was, and I will say the pandemic, it was really telling. We had so many people coming to us saying thank you for, because the resources that we had put and the community that we've helped people to build, they said, that's how my business survived. I was able to plug into my community and get the support I needed. No. And I would truth be told, I believe all of us at some point along the way had that discussion. It was like, what am I doing and why am I doing this? And like the event in St. Louis, if you ever find yourself asking that question, go check out these businesses in St. Louis and they'll give you a much clearer firsthand idea as to why you're doing it. There's a payoff for this and most of us are a whole lot closer than we recognize and being able to see it and being able to talk to the people that are making it happen. A lot of times it's just that pinch of baking powder that makes the difference between having something that's really good or having a door stop. I will say that our coffee and conversation tomorrow is we're gonna talk about how to promote spring cleaning and our guest is going to be Debbie Sardone and Debbie is great at marketing. She's gonna come and she's gonna join us and talk about what you can do differently to kind of, you know, how to promote spring cleaning and how that, what you can do a little differently because we're coming up on a time where this, you know, everybody's thinking and I'm thinking and I'm happy to open my windows and doors and just, you know, and you wanna, you know, encourage people that what should you do differently with spring cleaning? Why is it important to do it? And, you know, part of it is why did it even come about? Why is spring cleaning even a thing? So we're gonna talk about that. And then we also have Libby Delusion is gonna be with us and she is with, she owns a residential cleaning company in Florida, but she is also one of the founders of Woot Recruit and she's gonna talk to us a little bit about, you know, give us some suggestions on lead generation, so. Nice, it's gonna be a good show. We do. Did you put in there what time? It is 11 30 Eastern, I don't know. Can you read that or is it too small? Too small, that's what I was asking. Oh my goodness, okay, well. It's 11 30 a.m. Eastern and we do that. So that, you know, it's lunchtime here on the East Coast and it's still morning on the West Coast and then everybody else kind of falls somewhere in the middle. And I drink coffee all day, so I'm fine with that. Same, same, same. I bring my diet coke, but I put it in a coffee cup because RJ wants everybody to have a coffee cup, so I might have my coffee cup, but it's not coffee. So, how do I actually participate in this? This is a meeting inside of this. This is a new meeting, it's not a webinar, so everybody is there and able to talk. RJ and Gosha are, again, they're tremendous hosts. They're very passionate about RxC membership. So they are our hosts, they welcome everybody, we chat a little bit, they'll introduce our speakers and then you have time, you know, Debbie will talk for a few minutes, there's no PowerPoint, it's very informal, but then you get a chance to, you know, question, you know, raise your hand or just, you know, talk. You know, you put it in the chat. I gave that to Tom, I don't know if you got it. The link is in chat. Okay. I thought it was, I don't know, I'm here. So many links, here's the link. And another link. All of these links that we've shared, you can get to from RxC's website. Okay. If you go to rxc.org, any of these links that we've talked about today will be there. So when I go to this link, is there registration? Do I need to sign in? You go down at the, scroll down to the bottom, it should be, where's that register now? Okay. The nice thing with this is you can, when you register, you can, if you want to, you don't have to, you can register for all of them. So that way you get a reminder for our monthly coffee and conversation. It's the first Thursday of every month at 1130 a.m. Eastern. And I love that it is, that you can do it once and it pops up on your calendar so that you don't cook over it. It's always there. I love that. It is. We've had a lot of fun with these. You know, it's a great way. You know, our council members have been there. We have our new regional ambassadors, they've been there. We bring on speakers to talk about some, you know, some topics that, you know, the, you know, what are some of the hot buttons that we need to talk about? So they're just, they're fun. And then so we have, like I said, we have Debbie Sardin tomorrow and Libby Deletion. So we're excited to have both of them. And then in April, we're going to feature some of our speakers from the, from this event. We're going to talk about creating a culture for success and then tease a little bit and probably give some sneak previews for the regional event. Stacey Weiland is going to be there. So I think she'll give us even a little bit more insight on what, you know, what she does for company culture. You think maybe we could get some closeups over SNAT cabinet? I bet you if you asked, you might give us a sneak peek for what you'll be serving in April at the event. Yeah. Want to hear a little bit more about this pizza and those sandwiches. I know it's getting close to dinner here on the East Coast, I'm ready. I like, they start talking about the toasted ravioli and I was like, I'm in. It sounds delicious. Yeah. Toasted ravioli is the bomb. It's excellent. Yeah. I know. I feel bad that we keep talking about the food like the food is the only thing. It is not up to it. You have to have it, especially after day and night. I feel like these events, like they're a lot of fun, but they're some heavy lifting. You come away with a lot of ideas. So, you know, the food at the end of the day is going to be good, especially to help people to kind of decompress and relax a little bit. And the connections that you make. I know that there are, I think three businesses right now today out visiting Matt Ricketts because of connections that they made through Arksy. Yeah. So, they're going and they got a personal invite from Matt to go visit with him and talk about business. You don't get that. You don't create those relationships. If you don't go to the events, if you don't plug in like you were saying, Erin. Yes. You have to be part of the entire ecosystem. We're all, in our minds, the people that are part of Arksy, we're all part of this industry. The residential cleaning industry. And I love that we're doing it to more. I love what we're doing with this industry because, you know, some things that, you know, we're professionalizing the industry. We've talked about that. Making people, you know, letting consumers and other business owners see that it's more than just, you know, you're more than just cleaning a toilet. It's not a mop and a bucket. This is, there's a science behind the cleaning and we're professionals. And, you know, there's so much potential with this industry. It's, you know, we've gone from being, you know, I know what it used to be, you know, getting your house cleaned was kind of a luxury. Now it's a necessity. Couldn't imagine, you can't imagine not. Yeah. I would love to talk a little bit more about what it means to professionalize the industry. I think that's almost become like a catchphrase. People are here, oh, we're trying to professionalize the industry, but they're, what does that mean? What are you doing to professionalize the industry? Because behind the scenes, Arksy's also doing other things. Our ISSA is doing other things to help professionalize the industry. But what is that? Like what does professionalize the industry mean, Erin? We started with, you know, I know that was one of the things when Arksy first, and we are on the side note, Arksy celebrates his 20th anniversary this year. And so one of the things that, you know, we're really, you know, we've been doing something, you know, trying to do something fun every month to kind of recognize, you know, the people that were, you know, there at the very beginning. And so, you know, really, you know, how instrumental was it? It was just, you know, a conversation in Dallas and it's, you know, turned into, you know, this huge industry now. But one of the things, you know, I know that the group that some of the founding board members wanted to do was to create a certification. And that's where the house cleaning technician training came about was, you know, really having a certification to, you know, help elevate and illustrate to, you know, consumers that there is a science behind the cleaning and that you don't just want somebody coming in and just using it, not just any chemical on any surface. It's really understanding, you know, realizing that this industry recognizes what, you know, they're professionals, that they know what they're doing and so I think that was, you know, I know that was the, you know, start with the house cleaning technician training. We've also have, I know I always say, I wanna say, Tom Syrup, but I know Janice did a lot of that and then we had a group that came together and we have now the professional house cleaning certification that is an online version. A little, it's a seven module system that talks about being a professional and understanding it, it's about safety, it's about surfaces, it's about your environment and understanding that you're a professional. I mean, the whole vision was 20 years ago. I think the most people looked at cleaning as just a chore that nobody wanted to do. So I don't wanna clean my house, I'm gonna hire somebody else and anybody with a vacuum cleaner in the trunk of their car could clean a home and we recognized early on that it was, it's a lot more than that, it should be a lot more than that and if it wasn't a lot, if that was all it was, then the jobs weren't gonna be that good, the service wasn't gonna be that good, consumers really weren't going to be getting the value that they deserve and the whole idea of owning a business wouldn't make a whole lot of sense either. So through professionalism, you're able to train, you're able to build a workforce that understands the science of cleaning, the safety, all of the things that are necessary to make sure that they can clean a home in a safe way and make the home safe and do it without damaging surfaces and do it in a way where consumers are getting maximum value out of the service and you're right. I think that we're getting to the point that it's not really considered a luxury anymore. I think more and more people are looking at the idea of cleaning your home doesn't make any more sense than changing the oil in your car. Consumers don't do that anymore or a growing, the segment of the entire population keeps growing that kind of looks at it that way. Well, and that being said, your home is one of your most precious assets. I mean, it's just, you know, and so you wanna bring in a professional that you could trust them. You want trusted experienced professionals to come into your home and that's what we do at Arksy is elevating our members so that they understand that they're professionals in this industry. And it's kind of like the perfect storm right now. It's 2023, we just, you know, made it through COVID and wages are a whole lot higher now than they were just a few years ago and there's a lot of good in that. And we're to the point through professionalizing the industry that we're putting cleaning professionals in a position where they can create more value through the training and the work that we're doing. And it's a lot easier to pay people more money if they're able to provide additional value. And that's really where we see it coming all together because through all this work, now we're getting to the point where we're paying really competitive wages. You know, I know a lot of companies have 20 plus, you know, dollar an hour for technicians now. It's hard to imagine when you look back, you know, not that many years ago, that seems like a scary number. Liz, you remember, we would have all these discussions about G-Wiz, the minimum wage was gonna be going up to such and such, how in the world are we ever gonna make that happen? 15, remember when they were talking, that was the big number was $15 an hour. It was like, how is anybody going to survive? Because no, it was huge. $7 and you guys will remember, same as I do, back in the day, we paid just barely above minimum wage. You know, people actually worked in this profession for $7 an hour, five, six, seven, that was normal. You can't even see that in the rear view mirror now. Yeah, yeah. Now to even think about that is like, wow, that was crazy. Like how did people even survive? Right, but that's where... If the owners are becoming more informed, more educated and we're not afraid to charge what we need to charge in order to provide, you know, that level of service, which is really doing a big favor to the consumer because the consumers are getting much better service, much better business. So it's like a virtual circle. We're creating better jobs, we're providing better service and we're building better businesses all through this evolution. And, you know, it's not easy, but wow, I like where we are now compared to where we were 20 years ago. It was a heck of a lot harder 20 years ago. I actually like where we are compared to where we were before COVID. I mean, I know that it's not a popular thing to say, but boy, COVID helped this industry out, right? I would agree. I would agree. I'm not wishing for another pandemic. No. But... Not at all. I think the residential cleaning industry, the folks who are like building professional business after COVID are in a better position now than they were pre-COVID. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so are the customers. The customers are also in a much better position. And they also understand the customers are beginning to understand what it means to professionalize this industry. Because we were saying we're going to professionalize the industry, professionalize the industry for years. But the customers were like, yeah, now it's a mop and a bucket, y'all. No, you can say what you want, but it's a mop and a bucket. I don't care. I'm just going to hire Maria down the street that says she'll come in. And I didn't mean that in any derogatory way. My friend's name is Maria. That's what I was pointing out. But sometimes, you know, she's not a professionally trained professional, then you get what you pay for and you want it. That's what I was saying. You're just one of your most valuable assets. Yeah. And coming out of the pandemic, I want somebody that I know what they're doing. Tom, before we end, I did have a membership promo that I threw in the comment private chat. Can you throw that in the comments? Absolutely. I was going to go do it, but I'm always afraid. Every time I try and pull up Facebook or something, I get the echo and then I do the double broadcast on you. And I'm like, my bad. You mean you pull a list? That's it. So I want to make sure we throw that back in. So everybody, we've talked a lot about ARCSI. We talked a lot about the regional event. We've talked about the show. You know, it is with anything, the more you put in, the more you get out of it. I hope you can join us in St. Louis. We have a phenomenal program. We're starting now on Thursday morning. We go through Saturday afternoon. All of the information about the event will be, if you go to ARCSI.org, we'll put all of the links and information there so you can get out to everything else. But think about joining ARCSI as well while you're taking a look there. I put a link up. I gave it to Tom to why you should join ARCSI. Because you know, Liz said she had said to somebody that why would I join? I'm like, there's so many reasons. I have some testimonials there. It'll link it to some of the benefits, plug into it. And then I gave a promo code. You can join using that code RCNEW23 for just 350 right now. So if you use that code, you can join for 350 for a year. It's a huge value. And then I do hope you can join us in St. Louis. And also for those of you that heard that only 350, you're like, that's a lot of money. 350 dollars, that's a lot of money. I wanna point out that it's one of those things you've all heard it. What if you don't pay it? How much are you gonna lose out on? It sounds like a lot, but is it really a lot for what you get? It's such a minuscule amount of money. I will tell you, one thing you get with this with that 350 is you get a, we're offering, if you join as a new member or renew your membership, you get 90 day unlimited PhD package. And that is our professional house cleaning certification package, which we've talked a little bit about today. Huge, huge value that we have been tying that into membership because we want our members to be able to take advantage of that certification. It helps you to give your employees a career, not just a job, and it's a great program. Yeah, I popped this up on the screen because I want to put a little bit of this. I know we only have a couple of minutes here, but I wanna point out that you're right. This is one of the problems that we're dealing with right now, but guess what? This is just the next problem. There isn't such a thing as an industry with no problems. This is where we are now. Yeah, there are some people out there hiring people for pennies and they're in a different place than we are. Now we actually have things in place, for example, through ARCSE with the PhD program, the HCT program that can separate us. Before we didn't have that. Before the customers couldn't see. I don't understand, what's the difference? Why would I hire you? Oh, is that me? That's me with that horrible echo. See, pull in a list. I was hoping it wasn't me. I keep looking at my screen going. Is that me? Just me. But the customers before couldn't see that there was a difference. They couldn't see the difference between hiring that company over there or that individual versus hiring our professional cleaning companies. But we have stuff now. We have things that we can point to. Look, this is how we're professional. Look, this is what makes us the better option. Look, this is why you wanna hire us and not hire them. Right. I did wanna point that out. And there are consumers out there who want their home cleaned on a recurring basis every week, every other week that they don't want the cheapest option. They want a higher level of service. They want a higher level of professionalism. And service goes beyond just cleaning the home, you know, to a certain specification. It's how you schedule. It's how you bill. It's how responsive you are. It's, you know, how your communication channels that you have with your customers, how you educate them and keep them informed of the value that they're getting. All of these are things that you can learn by plugging into ARCSI. And, you know, that's how you compete in the marketplace. And these people charging, you know, hiring people for pennies are actually doing you a favor in some regard because they're creating a starker, you know, point of differentiation between, you know, I don't want that. I want a company that's gonna be providing a professional level of service. And right now it's perfect for us because most of the people out there in the world that we're hearing right now, they are against this idea of people getting paid pennies. What? You're not paying people what they're worth? I mean, I don't like you. I don't want to do business with companies that aren't paying people what they're worth. Do you? I don't. I don't want to do business with those companies. People deserve to make a living and they deserve to be able to have some work-life balance. I know it's a catchphrase again, but they deserve to have lives that they love. And we have to create those. Somebody's paying pennies? Nope, no, thanks. A lot of things have happened over the last few years that make this a really good time to be in the residential cleaning industry and all of those are part of the equation. Yes, love it. Thank you so much. I know your name's Sweet Home, but thanks for bringing that. Bringing that is awesome for us. Well, you know what time it is. I do, top of the hour. It is. It is. Erin, thank you so much for being with us today and sharing. It's always fun. Yeah. We could talk about RxE all night long, but it is dinner time. Sometimes we have. I could, too. There's always a lot of different times. Hey, Ron, thank you. Nice to meet you, Ron. Yeah, nice to meet you, Ron. Thanks for participating with us today. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. And hopefully see you in St. Louis. I hope so. You guys, we're going to be there. We're going to look forward to meeting everybody. We're going to be back next Wednesday, 5 o'clock Eastern. Right, Liz? That's right. Two more Monday's. Okey-dokey. Yeah, we got F12 coming up. Yeah, F12 coming up from the 19th through the 25th, and then we have 2.0 coming up from the 26th through your birthday on April 1st. Absolutely. Yeah. It's going to be a crazy month. OK, guys, have a good rest of your week. We'll see you next week, 5 o'clock Eastern. Thank you again, Erin. Thank you. Bye. Thanks, Erin. Talk soon.