 Hey, good afternoon everybody Tom Stewart here. I'm with Liz Trotter. Our guest today is Matt Ricketts. This is smart business moves Hey We've done this in October. I think it is Okay There did I just get rid of my echo? Maybe I don't hear an echo Liz. You're good. I'm good It was bad on my end. I had to make a little adjustment Matt was asked last week off. Did we take last week off Liz? Totally kicking back by the beach. I hang it out. Oh It was a busy week, but it was a good week for sure So no Matt. We didn't take the week off, but we did take the week off of smart business moves But we were working hard last week, I would say That was we're busy. We can make central we We're having a lot of growth man. It's exciting bringing all these new companies on and It was busy without time. I had that make some make some team decisions. Yeah, I'm gonna take next week off Yeah, I Solved some issues and we had a meeting this morning. Tom just was like, okay, cool. We got that solved like Yeah, you can you can do that all the time, but That may be a couple of times a year like where that's a lot of balls in the air last week, but it was nice to see there's just a ton of new people coming on right now and This I actually love the people that are coming on. We always have had smart partners, but a lot of really great people coming on I'm excited about the community. We're building there. So that's been fun Yeah, we did see a bunch of new people coming in to make central last week did look really fun Yeah, it was busy week Yeah, so you guys you guys did foundations and Did the mansion thing and it was a I heard it was a pretty fun group like a lot of A lot of butterflies in that group a lot of late night hanging out and and yeah, I'm sure everybody's tired Yeah, I think if you saw the pictures, yeah, and Sarah it was epic. Yeah, I think you saw the pictures It does kind of look like we just took the week off But we did it some more so than others Sure for a lot to share But it was a very very fun event sounds like I I was in the the group that you guys were sharing pictures and I wasn't actually there I missed out. I was gonna come I actually had a plane ticket scheduled. We actually have a back-back event that we just weren't able to host an insurance concerns and some other things but I Was supposed to be there for a couple days of it So I felt kind of like I got ripped off a little bit you know, I got to miss out on all my industry industry friends and You know a couple of nice dinners in Charleston out of in 10 pounds heavier after all the butter and Charleston seafood dinner Okay, Tom actually lost weight Tom right you lost weight. I lost a couple pounds I have no idea you're on your feet for the whole time though Like you probably took 10,000 steps a day minimum My feet more than Tom was I gained weight Quite a bit away. Yeah, I have to join a diet bet today Oh these guys in their toga There was a toga party, huh? Okay. Yeah, they're crazy We have people that were toga in more foundations is that is definitely there But just the amount of just like critical thinking you're doing for the week and just like exploring ways to grow your business I'm sure everybody's tired because all that kind of um All that kind of deep thinking can be pretty exhausting. I'm sure you guys are Yeah, you know, it's but it's also exciting. I had a meeting with tom this morning I was like, you're not tired at all. You're really refreshed because that stuff takes a lot out of me Like some people come back from that stuff and they're all energized and I need like a day or two Just a nap like I need like I need to hide from you. Me too That's absolutely me Matt. We did have today in The groups on most of the people I would say 85 maybe 90 of the people are in those strategic success groups and the groups were light today There are a lot of people that are like I'm out still I saw some people's travel adventures from yesterday, too. It was not the day to be traveling. Um, yeah So a lot of my airline friends, um So part of what You know, people are saying that some things and something but really what what really kind of happened was Is that the jacksonville center, uh, they haven't been allowed to to train their replacements during cova the f a Has kept extra like extra staffing Out of the uh out of the center. So they're starting to get really thin And they have mandatory retirements 55 years old to be an air traffic controller. So it's not a job You can do your whole life. It's very stressful. It's very Um, I mean very critical right like to infrastructure And so it has made a certain retirement age of 55 and so they are just really thin And that just basically that stretches all jacksonville center stretches up all and down almost all the way to boston basically from from uh, the From from florida all the way into florida and then all the way to georgia to atlanta center. So It's a narrow corridor, but a lot of flights go through there And they were basically down 50 staff that day And that started the day before and it just was Rolling trouble right like, you know pilot's limited time they can work And then they're timed out and by the time that this all kind of came together. I think there was over 2,000 cancels Uh southwest most of that southwest though like 1800 southwest Yeah, it was it was mostly operationally operational issues that end up affecting southwest airlines And their on-time performance this year is lacking I thought it had to do with the covid mandate. No, is that I was I'm misinformed That's the rumor Yeah, nobody's admitting to that there's speculation But they think uh, there was a was a sick out and a lot of people called out over the weekend pilots and what not kind of in a protest with the mandatory vaccination That's not what happened though. They're they're running so short at those airlines that if you Basically, you only have a 12 hour day and you're and they're already running their pilot If there's delays and these pilots have to take mandatory rest and they're pulling they're pulling people out for the day It's just rolling problems and southwest is running incredibly lean at the moment Is has a disproportionate amount of the problems Yeah, so again, I talked to a lot of my friends at the at the airlines today and they were uh, Yeah, I mean What you drinking oh Can you guys hear that like right by your mind? That's weird. It's not even close to my mic. Yeah Your mic Maybe two feet away. Okay. I'll pork quieter. Sorry guys. I gotta get the rest for it You have a shotgun mic. It's got like a gain right pointed at that thing basically Is it still bad? No, it's all right. All right good But yeah, I think the I think that that is basically uh, uh, just a sign of what's to come as far as logistical staffing challenges everything that we're facing our industry It's it's on the same It's on the same wavelength Um, but obviously bigger repercussions than just cleaning houses Liz Rochelle has some advice for you Thanks Rochelle. I appreciate that Your shell was gonna have an adventure in flying yesterday. I think her day went It went pretty far south is what it looked like from some of her facebook stories I saw a lot of my friends that were traveling yesterday had rough rough days and pilots that got stuck all over the place so Not a great day to be traveling Well, I had I had trouble saturday. I didn't know that that was still extending to sunday I was like, uh, well, it makes sense though because they had to bump When I was there, uh, what time was it? Maybe two thirty They all the flights were being canceled. You could just watch the leaderboard Canceled canceled canceled. I was like, oh, no, what's happening right now And that made of course all the other airlines Overbook I got the last flight on an alaska flight Our last seat on an alaska flight. So but it's pricey too and you know Yeah, you'll get out tomorrow. Are you on southwest denny? I thought you said you were on delta This is you get your lobster. No, I didn't get my lobster roll But denny gave me ice cream. So she gave me this huge cup full of ice cream So I can't say that there's no reason for me to have gained all that weight People we will all have a chance to be back in charleston before we know We don't have anything to announce yet, but we'll keep your ears peeled We'll probably have some uh chances to all get together and eat lots of rich food and Charleston before we know it so We'll have someone else. What's later this way. Yeah, it'll be exciting to all get together. I'm excited Uh, I RCSI coming up Tom and I we're working on our plan for that today being in vegas and I know, uh, you know this is not the same as every year, but I mean Chance to get to vega go to vegas with your friends what could go wrong So we should all start thinking about that getting our, uh travel plans on that's about a month away guys, uh We all go starts on the 15th. We're uh less than five weeks Liz you're coming right you're gonna be there. I'll be there. Yep. I'm speaking a couple of different times. So I'm committed to being there. Yeah I'm actually going to be there when my daughter is flying here with my grandbaby to come see me There's a little bit of it's just a little bit of overlap there But I'll make it happen I'm super excited. I'm excited for both I'm looking forward to who all we're gonna see this year and I think it's going to be uh Because it's going to be a little bit lighter probably because of covet probably going to have a little bit more opportunity for A more intimate event So I'm looking forward to that too getting a chance to talk with more people and Uh, maybe do some things that we haven't been able to do in the past I think I think it'll actually be very like even even if there's not as many people I was telling Tom that today was like I think we'll get a chance to really get to know some people this year that we might not have otherwise You know got you know, it's always so busy for us because we always have speaking parts or things to do but um, I think I'm trying to think of the plus side of a smaller event. It's just we're gonna get to have you know more time face time with everyone and I think it'll be A good group of people to make it so buy your tickets. It's not too late I'm excited for it Yeah, me too I'm actually a little excited if it's not so So many people because we will get a chance to Talk with more people and do some different things. I think this year Yeah, you guys can Are you gonna zipline down the the street or whatever it is on freema? Yeah, we did that uh for our event just a couple of months ago. So Oh, yeah Well, so what are we what are we talking about today? I know we're uh, it's everything holidays Holiday Yeah, so today's marketing Yeah, so it's October. So it really isn't the holidays unless you throw Um halloween in there But I guess if you wait until the holidays to start playing for the holidays, you've kind of Right. Yeah. I mean most most corporate. We have it Most corporate marketing departments are usually two quarters ahead And so if you are trying to get all your videos and facebook ads ready, I mean you're behind schedule already You're already in the fourth quarter. They already have this done in q2 I mean you work with a marketing agency. So I know that you'll be sharing some of this But you guys were doing your christmas stuff a long time ago, right? Yeah, we were shooting christmas in the middle of august. It was 100 degrees out in st. Louis and we're shooting christmas videos and uh Um holiday, you know like around How others like ski parkas and No, I didn't need that. We just had a lot of it indoors and decorated and such but um, we did, you know We did we did some storytelling around the holidays that were on sitting around the table and coming to a christmas tree. Um I I definitely enjoy those video shoots But yeah, it takes a lot of preparation and it's generally something you do About three to six months ahead of when it needs to be done by right like you don't If you're already waiting for christmas, you probably still have time to do Lots of stuff, but you might not have time to shoot and edit a decent You know video engagement uh for the holiday. So you might have missed the photo Maybe not though Well, that is one benefit of being a smaller company too So for those smaller companies out there if you haven't done this and you weren't prepared Uh, I know that one of the huge advantages of being smaller is you're more nimble That is one of the best things about being small is you can move more quickly You can make things happen faster and you don't have to put on as big of a production. So You you have you still have opportunities, but man, what are some of the different things that people should be thinking about doing? Um on the holidays Yeah, I think you know in years past. I would have said Gift cards and doing some sort of gift card promotion. I don't think we're gonna sell gift cards this year We have plenty of cash in the bank and I don't really want it. I don't really feel like doing any discounting this year Normally that would put in like an extra 30 grand in my pocket Um, and you know, then you'd have this liability that you have to you have to nurture and and take care of um Now if that's you know, if that's something that's appealing to a gift card campaign around the holidays has always worked well for my company with a black friday event where we just sell them um for um Probably, you know We start on on Thanksgiving and sell them until the end of black friday basically two days and We'll sell 30 grand in a couple of days. Um That's always been Something that works really well for us But i'm not sure that we're gonna do it this year. I just don't see the need to Before was just to help with cash flow, right? Right and revenue forward Yeah push some revenue forward, but right now it's just we are so constrained by labor I just don't want to give any discounts on anything because I want to you know maximize On uh on every dollar that we can bring in if this you don't know what your cost is going to be This time next year. That's a good point too having having those liabilities hanging out there Sold, you know, even if they're sold in cash increments and not towards an actual cleaning it's still You know, it's still taking off from you know from your bottom line because there's a discount associated with it So um That would be one thing I would have done I think having some stories telling stories around the fact that your business Makes the holidays easier and it takes the load off of people Um, I can share a quick video that we did uh that uh rachel just mentioned here Um, let me share my screen here Where she'll say she got choked up. I'm not gonna cry. I'm like I don't need to feel cry tom. You're not one to That one to cry. No I've got a soft side. You're not in you're not an easy crier though. Tom. I haven't seen you cry Yeah, but when you get me started That is what janice said. Yeah, I do Yeah Let's see, let me know when you got it. All right, so let me hit play Kids grow up fast and holidays come and go in the blink of an eye And don't miss a line Focus on enjoying time with your loved ones this year Be present for your memories Let better life means clean for you Fancy Yeah, you don't have to go that way but the the but again building your messaging around That goes all the way back to like the jeff camber stuff. You guys remember what what it is was like life's too. What was it? Uh The weekends aren't made for cleaning. It's the same idea. Yeah You're selling that their time is valuable and that that's what they should be valuing And and that you can let them buy back their time by hiring you That's the biggest value that we can add to their lives I feeling is that that the moments like that are not stressing out over You know Is the bathroom clean when you know grandma comes over and grandma is a clean freak and Is gonna judge you for the way you're I mean, I don't know. I mean, that's the way I feel like our biggest value point Is is just to take that stress out of people's lives And let them enjoy those moments without One more thing on their plate So I think building messaging around that is what I would what I would say Uh Is our biggest value point for the holidays? So That's where I would head Are you making any changes to your marketing mat based on? Uh, you know the covet situation where We we are very labor constrained. We have more business that we can handle already I I have pulled back. I have pulled back a little bit on Some google guarantee stuff because a lot of that sense tends to be Very short term like I need a cleaning tomorrow Um, I have pulled back from like spending four thousand dollars a month on that to like Maybe a thousand like I've cut back almost 75 percent on google guarantee. Yeah, it's a lot Um, I've cut back on my ad words a little bit, but on my facebook I am I'm actually spending more. I'm actually Running spanish language ads to hire for employees and I'm looking at other Other employment ads for english speakers, obviously and probably going to make another video For uh, the purpose of hiring To try and get staffed up for the holidays. We're making headway on hiring but just for reference. I had 37 Full-time equivalent technicians prior to covet I have 30 technicians right now. But as far as full-time equivalents, it's probably closer to like 25 You know, so it's uh, I'm still vastly understaffed from where I was So pulling back on some of your your advertising like google guarantee. Is that Just you don't feel like you're getting as good a return off of that as you or your facebook It's just that the the kind of work that that they're looking for is not right They're not looking for long-term work. They're looking for a lot of one-time work And i'm only looking to sell Recurring cleaning right now. We're we're selling We're 95 percent as far as revenue if I were to look at my revenue split It's 95 percent recurring and five percent one time like like one time only work They do nothing more with us More than a one-time clean. We're just Do you believe facebook gets more recurring cleanings? I think it's better for branding. I think it's cheaper. I it's cheaper eyeballs So for me to get a click to my website off of facebook is 65 cents once I've got that click I can remark it to them. They're in my remarketing funnel for even cheaper So, yeah, I mean a click on a click on google can cost me 10 bucks So, I mean it's almost uh, it's almost a 20 to 1 It's not quite like 15 to 1 is probably closer to the number of the cost You know the number of leads I get per dollar Um So you are then um, so it sounds like now you almost can't Talk about marketing for clients without at the same time marketing Talking about marketing for employees Yeah, I would I would say that's where I've increased some marketing budget to get ready for the holidays to try and get up Get on top of staffing Um Yeah, I mean I don't have anything specific holiday related But I think now is the time you have basically a 30 day window to get your staff Better that you want to have for the holidays to have them ready to To be making money for you And I know that some areas of the country are slow. Oh, that's a nice green cup you got there I Cute when it does that I know Some some areas have are slow During the holiday season, but I know there are other areas that are busy busy busy during the holiday season So I was really wondering how You know how people are managing it and if they're even Trying to spend any money to market for new clients because I just know very few companies that that Manage what they're getting already So market for more holiday clients is Kind of kind of hard I give it, uh, you know Market pulled back from around 11 to 6 of total spend right right now I mean, I pulled back a little bit But I've been strategic about what I'm what I'm what I've pulled back on again So I try to avoid the one-time stuff more towards the branding and getting recurring business um So I will tell you just statistically Almost all of my company's growth every year has happened from september till the end of the year so Um q4 has always been historically um, I'll basically kind of Have a couple of good surges throughout the year and the spring and things like that, but Um, I I anticipate adding about 100 recurring recurring customers before The year is up for my company. So Um, yeah, we need to staff for that. That means I need to probably have I need to net five new employees basically between now In the end of the year to kind of prepare for that So you're really thinking about spending most of your marketing dollars on employees more than on clients then It's about it's no it's still I'm still spending I'm still spending probably 11 000 a month instead of spending 15 or 16 000 a month um Probably 18 000 a month prior to covet. Um, but You know, I'm just being more strategic with it and then a good amount towards higher I mean hiring has to be top of mind though as well. It's it's a balancing act Tom always kind of drew out this like this three This uh, these three funnels you have to fill in your business, right? And um, the easiest one in our business is obviously supplies and equipment We don't have a lot like although the logistics chain of that has changed a little bit with covid So maybe I should not say that that one is so easy to make sure that you have all the cleaning costs and cleaning solutions that you need You might want to be filling that one right now, but a lot of that stuff's on boats harbors right now but But the hiring funnel and the sales funnel are very related And I don't think you can neglect them either one of them Yeah You mentioned that you're not really looking for one times. What if somebody asks for one time cleaning? What do you do with that? um That's a good question. I mean, I think what we're we're doing is if we can fill it we we are you don't know do you? I'm not in my I'm not in my office every day. We basically We're we're focusing on basically just selling those recurring customers if they want Deep clean will do the deep clean first, but if somebody's just saying I just need my condo clean for a move out We're not their company right now. We just I'm wondering at what point does is it worth your while? You know, I mean sometimes it helps to think in extremes There's somebody that hey, I'll pay you $10,000 to clean my condo. You'll grab a vacuum cleaner or catty. You'll go do it yourself, right? Maybe Rather than saying no, maybe you just need to come up with kind of what you know surge pricing or something that You know, we're just really tight on labor. I'm just such demand for this This is kind of let the market decide who gets who gets those one-time jobs Well, I I know that I like one-time jobs because in my area They're they pay almost double What our recurring jobs pay so I want to take them whenever It's possible. I'm looking for ways to Doubling your cost is the same. I mean, that's like cleaning three homes Yeah, that's big money. So I I really like the one-times, but I I know that You know, you just don't get this opportunity coming along every day where where Recurring work is just sort of falling in your lap So it doesn't make sense to be pushing off recurring work for One-time cleans for sure Yeah Yeah, take it on Diane. Yeah, Robin's question was good five employees per 100 cleans I got to think about that a second because I don't really think about it in terms of Customers, I think about it is in terms of jobs per week And I'm usually one employee for every 11 jobs per week Um, is the way that we think of that so um Weekly though, that's 22 jobs per full-time equivalent. So using Robin's math You can get about 110 Out of five out of five employees So I might I might have that right because Robin what I use is there's a report and made central That's like a service set report and what I'm looking for is for every roughly um For every roughly 11 New service week service sets per week that we add I need to have a new employee roughly So that's kind of that's kind of how my my office does it I don't really think about it is in terms of customers because every customer's worth a little bit different Right like a weekly's worth, you know four service sets a month a biweekly's worth two and a monthly's worth one, right so Yeah I mean the real thing is to translate into how many jobs per week are you getting out of your recurring clients and Right, so it's like a quarter of a job for a for a monthly and so forth and so on. Yep So that stuff I know is really confusing for people that aren't using made central Because it's yeah, we talk about it really quick and easy and but it's hard to visualize so a lot of people robin do think of um One technician can clean two jobs a day So Assuming that it's approximately biweekly, which maybe isn't so much right now On average that that's where that number was coming from always in the past So with new data is new information, but in the past people usually would think of five employees for One employee for every 20 jobs. So that's where that came from originally So now it's one employee for every 22 jobs on average. So I don't know if that clears that up a little bit I guess my math wasn't too bad then there so Liz your your explanation makes sense to me, but I can I can visualize it with the software if we want to I was going to show some ads that we have coming up for the holidays and Not all of them are are necessarily um You know based on just uh the holiday message only obviously that video we have coming up Um, I can show some mock-ups and things of what we're doing If it'll uh go to the screens here, so I'm doing very video heavy Um for this next quarter So this is the first one is covet messaging still Um messaging about the fact that you know, you're going to be in your home more this this upcoming You know the months get colder You know, we'll we'll help with that and that we're still following code covid protocols I didn't think that when we made this video, I'd still be using this all this time later, but here we are and it's still It makes sense that I shot this video. Um We can't really see it. It's really tiny over here. Oh, yeah, I'm maybe maybe you just pull one up zoom I don't know. Sorry. It's like a it's a document. Let me zoom the uh Let me see if I can go There you go That's much better. So again, it's just a mock-up. It's a document. So I don't have the video links in here But so I still did, you know, covet messaging on there. Um, you know trying to also show safety Uh, that that's still a critical thing in our messaging as we go into winter Um A lot of messaging around there's just never enough time in the day This is another video with my wife like running around the kids Um, you know running from activity to activity those of you that have uh kids now They're growing up now realize that I feel like kids schedules are really different than they were 20 years ago when parents were parenting when I grew up I don't I mean I played hockey and we we did a lot with that, but I didn't have like I don't know. I feel like kids are throwing a hockey team now now They're on three hockey teams and if they're like And they're scheduled and then they have piano lessons and and then robot club. I mean, it's just like um, so, you know Talking to them about how you can help lighten the load of their very busy lives That'll never get old whether it's a video or just you know Just showing a very busy person And how you could could message around that. So, uh, that'll be part of our our messaging This will be that, uh, that video we saw just a moment ago This again, if you're getting reviews, I don't know. I don't know. It's not really holiday related, but Um, this was a review that came in from my company So those of you that are using made central, you know that made central does surveys, right? This came in as a survey originally then this then this customer copied that that survey and took it to google through made central's ability to kind of link out to to google reviews And what magical wizardry did you use to make my apartment smell like happiness and rainbows? I didn't think it was possible for my apartment to smell this clean. It's like I have new hope in life Thank you, Maggie And then this video is a playing off of tiktok's popularity Um, kind of a white the white shine challenge thing where they like go in front of a really messy room And then they you know, they run a cloth in front of the camera and then the all the mess disappears So I'd say looking at trends that are popular now on tiktok and and seeing how you can Leverage those is still critical and A lot of the stuff on tiktok is just It just gets repeated over and over for months So you think that the trend is going to die, but it just keeps keeps getting recycled as people put their own spin on it Again a lot of a lot of messaging around the reviews that we're getting and then um, you know, do you have time for this? So this is all via facebook and A lot of what we're doing is a lot of what we're doing is we're targeting people that have been to our website But did not book or did not get a lead So that's where the first thing I would do as far as like determining who you want to market to Is I have a friend, um He stopped collecting emails a few years ago because he's just like why should I I can retarget them on facebook I can retarget them on google for up to 180 days um Why do I need their email address was this kind of was this kind of logic? So, um, I haven't gone that far. I still do lead capture on my website but a lot of a lot of that can be tested with There's something called dynamic creative within within facebook where you create five different headlines Pick five different images and then pick five different call to actions And then facebook will randomize all of that And uh, it'll tell you which is the best one. So it's a quick and easy way to test Uh an idea and see if it's resonating with people No, it's awesome You know might you use an agency to do a lot of this work for you, right? I do I do this is drive social media out of out of single list. They're definitely a big agency I got them within they're small. I recommend people to use an agency. I would say find somebody local and that That is you know wanting to get to get you know Started they're technically savvy. You don't want to just hire your kid brother, but um You know I came in with them early And I was one of their first customers and they've really treated me well as they've grown into this big this big company that is uh You know selling the fortune 500 companies and things like that. So it's uh You know, I would say build a partnership with a local company. Maybe you'll get lucky and they'll You take off and help you grow as they get really good, too And it's not a permanent decision, right? You know, you can try out in other agencies and um You know price wise I would expect to spend anywhere from a thousand to 2500 a month on On a marketing agency to be building out all of your content doing your analytics Um, they create my videos for me all of that for about 2100 a month It sounds like a lot of money But if you stack a few extra recurring customers on your schedule that you wouldn't have without that you've already paid for it Yeah, I I don't even ever second guess that money. It's uh, it's a good investment for my business It always has been Now you've been using an agency for a while, but do you believe that I guess just the complexity of digital marketing and the the tools. I mean is it Does it make more sense for people to use an agency today as opposed to trying to do it themselves as opposed to say You know a half a dozen years ago I mean, there's tools that if you're technically Savvy that you could learn to do it yourself, but it just changes so fast that I would recommend Just make the investment and and you won't look back because they'll if they're doing their job They should be putting in more money. I say this to people all the time. You and I talk about this. It's not what you spend It's what you keep, right? It's you know, it is exactly the conversation I have with people all the time when they're This is too expensive on anything. I'm like, well, what is it? What is it you could earn back from doing this activity and if the activity would pay for itself Why are you worried what it costs? It's an investment and Again, I know that's hard to justify when we're all small and and you know Um, you know, we're bootstrapping our businesses. I get it, but the second you can afford to off to to off Take some of the stuff off your plate and have a company do it for you. I would it's very it's very time consuming and it takes a lot of Just eye for detail to do properly and You're not going to do it as well as a firm that lives in this space I don't think so. No, unless you're just Unless you're just good at so many things you've got to be good at you've got to be good Creating the content right like like making graphic designs You've got to be good at determining the audiences that you want to target to and then you've got to be good at So then you got to be good at using facebook's tools and placing ads and being super organized And then looking at the analytics and seeing what's working. What's not it's And if you're not like part of an agency that's responsible for Hundreds of thousands if not means the dollars or the vats been you don't even have access to a lot of the tools that the agencies do They do have more they do have more access to tools and one of the things I tell people all the time is facebook's got hundreds of versions of its Of its advertising tools Out in the like public space at any given time You don't even know which version you're on Then they're always constantly changing up what level of Like they're testing out like how do you even get a hold of them? If you have a question with facebook you can't even get a hold of them where the agencies have direct contacts Um, if there's a problem and your and your account gets blocked for some reason Um Yeah, you just won't have you won't have the kind of you can do it yourself. It can be done It's just it's you need to be good at a lot of things and you need to stay on top of it um I really think that the key thing that gets dropped a lot of times with What we consider large investments is people just don't run the numbers They're just like, oh, that's a lot of money. I can't afford it. Well How you decide whether or not especially right now while there's all this coveted money out there How you decide whether or not you can afford it is not on How much it's going to cost you today, but how much you're going to earn and the run rate How long is it going to take you to get that money back? You know, if you can get that money back quickly and more Then that's an excellent investment, you know, if it's going to take you Five years to get your money back and you can't you can't you know run that that cash for that long Well, then yeah, maybe maybe that isn't a good investment, but I thought we're talking about here It is a good point though. Like so there's a few things at play here So first off the ltv of a customer, right? Liz, you and I have talked about this a long time. You do a really good job of keeping your customers What is your churn rate? So people I mean, you don't have to brag but just like Oh, go ahead It's I don't really know Right now. I don't really know truth. Um, I think It's been around 2% though Historically, I think it's like 2.1 right now something along those Historically, Liz runs her business with a 2 2% churn rate Which is about half of what a lot of us are running our company is at And so that means that Liz's customers are worth almost double Guys, they stay twice as long basically. So just think of it like this If you have 100 customers Liz has to leave a month Industry average I've seen as high as five As kind of a number I've seen thrown around So if Liz is is, you know, if Liz is making $300 a month of a customer They're staying roughly 50 months and her customers are worth $15,000 I'm just I'm just giving hypothetical numbers, right? But when you say you cannot afford to gather to get a customer If you can if you can deliver an amazing service to them and keep them around For even 33 months, right? Like which is 3% churn Um, then that customer's worth $10,000. So but But Liz is again stretching that out. So so for me it cost me roughly about $300 to acquire a customer Now if I was doing one-time claims that would not be sustainable That is not the way I want to do business, but when I look at the lifetime value of a customer generally Generally, I'm getting about $70,000 per month in ROI off of my spend on Facebook. I mean As far as the lifetime value of the customers that I'm gaining So I just think you have to think about it like a little bit beyond um Beyond just the cost like you said You are in a different place If you've got like ppp money left over or idol money available to you. I mean to Pre-covid for a lot of us It's like, you know, I'm limited in terms of what investments I can make in my business because I need that money back next Friday Make payroll Right But now if you've got like money that you can invest saying if it takes me six months to get that back That's okay Because I'll be making money off of those new customers. I'm getting for the next five years Maybe if you've got a five, you know a five percent turnover rate Just don't be making money off of them for about, you know, two years or a little less than two years um You can you you can build a much larger business and you can be Making a lot more profit with that type of philosophy and it's a you know unprecedented, you know way of thinking for a lot of us One thing I think we have to really hit on as as something that people have to understand too is Is once your fixed costs are covered right and you get to your your break even point, right? Your profitability is not 10 or 15 percent your profitability is 50 40 percent depending on what your your variable costs are um, so Getting bigger is oftentimes much more profitable. So I guess I don't want to like, you know Belabor that too much But so so here's a number that's in my business that I have to hit everyone My break even point with my salary baked in is 150 thousand dollars a month. I have to hit that Or or I'm not or or my salary basically is not baked in. I'm basically You know drawn off, you know cash for my business if I don't hit that Um, I'm using this just for illustrative because I know these numbers But every dollar above that is like 45 percent profit It's not like here everyone always says oh my business is 12 profitable That's awesome great But like the the real trick is get past your fixed costs So make these investments to grow your business And the additional profits are immense. I've had months Where I'm embarrassed to admit how much profitability we had like it's so much money that I'm like embarrassed I don't want to like say it but it's but it's because we did like three Let's like we did like two 20 a month or something one month And my fixed costs were right around that that number where my my salary was baked in at 150 So every dollar above that 45 cents on that was mine And again, um, that's the kind of thinking that I think you need to be thinking about right now is not thinking about Cost but it's about about figuring out like like educating yourself as to what your break even is What it would mean if you if you you know made these strategic investments in your business And am I am I am I way over their heads there? Is that does this make sense? Am I am I talking we spent a month talking about this in january? Okay, I just want to make sure that there wasn't such a like ethereal concept that people were going to be lost on that but it's uh It's a it's a strange concept because you think the year you think your your profitability Is linear, but it's not your profitability is not linear The idea is to know what your break even number is and to get there As soon as you can in the month and then You know Basically typically we do our books on a month-to-month basis and As soon as you cover all your fixed costs in a month, then all your gross gross profits net profit And that gets to be fun when you cover your Those are my best months when we have like some month where it's like these next months coming up is You know, it's But it also gets lean when you're not hitting your break even point It means you can't take the salary that you desire and like You know that you have set up in your in your head as to what I would like to make so um, I think really some financial education as I know there's a marketing uh exercise, but Um, well hold on before we move on to that. Let's just talk about before we Move on to the employee advertising strategy robin. We will get you we still got 15 minutes so But I do want to point out one one thing that we haven't hit on and that is matt matt started talking about it a little bit, but then we got a little off is that now What what a lot of people are finding is that we're not getting the client churn that we've had in the past That everybody pretty much is doing a much better job of keeping their customers because the customers can't go anywhere The prices are just as high at at the company down the street and Yeah, what tina There is no alternative You know, we're gonna fire you because where are they gonna go? Yeah, they Every place is more expensive and every place else is an accepting jobs either. So gosh, you know what Tina our tina needs to use that acronym to tom we should tell her that so yeah, you know Matt you're right. We're talking marketing But this is really important because you can't really like advertise responsibly unless you understand the economics behind it And a lot of times especially now in 2021 that I think that We're leaving money on the table by not investing more in our businesses. It's like, well, gee, I can't afford that Well, maybe you couldn't afford it pre covid, but you know, this is this is a different different dynamic now And just how we're thinking is not Is not the same which is why I really wanted to Talk about, you know, what does marketing look like now for customers? Yeah, we're spending less on marketing for customers and more on marketing for employees, which gets us to this Um, the question that robin has here too, but things are just different if if we're doing things the same way We've done them before Things are things just aren't working well that way because times are different And and and now is like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to increase your rate and have them stick so There's a lot of different ways of looking at this But I would argue that, you know, you can afford to market more than maybe what you think and raise your rate Along with that knowing that maybe your close rate won't be as high But it gets to Matt's point about getting that break even point Sooner once you cover your cost on the job every additional dollar your building is dollars that go right to the bottom line All right, so for all of go ahead matt well, I was gonna say I'll get a video up to share one of our strategies for for hiring Once you go ahead speak your point those I'll get that ready for Okay, well while you're pulling that up I was just going to say I see we have a lot of people from strategic success in here and you guys That's why we make you track break even every single month, right? So I know a lot of you get stressed out. We haven't been at break even so as soon as you can get there in the year Awesome, but the reason why we track it every single month is because it changes, right? We have to get there We so that we can start seeing when our money is just going to start rolling in So for those of you that haven't been tracking that as well as you should have been Jump on that All right, go ahead now what you got Yeah, so this is an example of the Spanish language language that I'm targeting you know, uh Spanish language speakers in st Lewis it's not a huge market, but Skewing you can't do a lot like legally when you're doing ads to employment I'm not even sure you can you can do gender still so I can still Skew female, but you can't pick ages. You can't like there's a lot of things you can't do But I'm targeting Spanish language speakers in my area And that's really like all the filter that I really have on this Um, you know, so asking them if they're looking for a better career This should really be 17 an hour now We need to talk to my agency because we just October 1st went up to a base pay of 17 um, you know talking about Um things like uh, you know paid time off And then what we're doing is just driving it through a video Um where we've got You So you get the idea so they're have a voice over over some some b-roll kind of just talking about your job So you get the idea so they're have a voice over over sorry, I've got the facebook open here. I was talking about your job Sorry Got it finally figured out. I was like where what tab was that open in? Uh, the same tab I was just using when I closed that video down So the the idea is though, I want to show you on where that went to but it just goes to a lead capture form Here's the deal with with hiring Spanish language employees at least in my market Is that you're not going to get them to fill out a full application You're going to get the lead capture and then we're going to text we're going to text message back and forth with them and trying to get them to come in the office and meet our our bilingual operations manager and You know get them to feel comfortable with the job. So the we want to make the initial barrier to um connecting with them very low just you know their name And uh, they're they're mobile number and we're going to start the conversation from there Um, very simple basically Very low friction all right, so I had one more question about the um Advertising holiday advertising Uh, a lot of well actually I guess there's two parts here a lot of people are talking about how There are so many people at home now that a lot of our clients are at home. So how is the The marketing message changing because of that mean in the past we've always had pretty good success With the message of you know, let us save you time But now time is less a concern for people because they're In their homes. They are a lot fewer people are working as many hours So is there any change to the marketing message? Over the holidays because of that That's the first thing and then the second thing Is have you heard or done anything Matt with? Um, you know, everybody's talking about how christmas is going to also be very very different this year You're not going to be getting all of the stuff everything's you know off the off the coast there So is that changing anything? So first off, I think the idea that that they're using their house more than ever Is is an important thing to to kind of head on is that because they're using their house more They're there more it's more important than ever to keep that home You know well maintain, but also a healthy and safe space through these cold weather months like you know You know, especially I think you can still push messages of cleaning for health and safety In in times where they're they're all crooked up over these cold weather months so um, you know, I think that you have to be some sensitivity that that uh that some people are kind of um You know might object to like a lot of covid messaging But I think you you can still message around health and safety And and that doesn't become a hot potato. I don't believe Um, and then obviously just all the wear and tear that's going on in their home is just being there all the time It's incredible. It's more critical than ever to keep their homes beautiful and and you know Uh, and they're worth more than ever, right? They're 30 percent more than last year And I guess Your other point though is in terms of you know, you're hearing that merchandise is going to be a short supply and People's gifts aren't going to get here. You know before christmas Which means here's a gift certificate for house cleaning services Might be a more attractive gift because at least that's something that they could do and have in place before christmas Yeah, even without having to do any discounting. We might actually sell. Yeah We might actually sell some packages. I have seen some people do some beautiful things around gift baskets and packages and and experiences I don't remember who who did it really well now. That's a lot of work to do um, but somebody put together these packages with like cleaning and spa and a bottle of wine and like Um, and they would basically they worked with the local a place that put together back Back up Yeah, and so then and then you don't have to do the baskets Basically, you give all the information you give all the stuff To a company that that that does all the baskets and does all the deliveries And they do all the logistics for you and it costs you a little bit of something to to have them do that work Um, but uh, you you said dubby does that was that who we saw did it? Yeah, she used to Yeah, okay Yeah, I I have done it before but only on a small scale like 10 at 10 at a time Of like some sort of luxury basket You would have packages that were had commas in zeros and i'm buying a year's worth of you know house cleaning Yep, that's the way I would do mine if I would do like 10 packages and they would be very high ticket very high ticket packages like, um Like for the typically for the whole year starting around 2,500 Um, and you know no set like it would just be 2,500 If you wouldn't get a whole year's worth of cargo container or off the coast of los angeles gift certificate for house cleaning Might might be more valuable Yeah Yeah, I'm waiting on a receiver for the smear system for my basement. He probably it probably won't be here till january I ordered it. I ordered it months ago Sonos Sonos receiver to make My speakers, you know, I'm the outside of my house that I put on work and I won't see that forever and it's fine It's already past the out already past the the fall's kind of coming to a close all the outside time will be over But you're getting a house cleaned every week, right? I am I am it's true So we are right at the top of the hour Um, so any any last thoughts matt to wrap this up? I think you know, just get ahead of it now start thinking through your strategy What your strategy want what you want your strategy be how many customers you think you can You can gain and what resources you need to apply to that whether it's You know to the marketing side and then also the logistics side to deliver on on the cleaning you need to do It's all related. Um, and so just put together a plan now My my other piece of advice is think of marketing quarterly Sit down once a month and and do a quarterly plan on your marketing. And so You're a little bit ahead of all what's up once a month or once a quarter I think doing a doing a strategic plan once a quarter is plenty for marketing Right. I'm sorry. Yeah, if I said monthly you still want some I do it every yeah Anyway, we know what you're bad. All right So so just to go along with what matt is saying That right now while you're trying to figure out what you're going to do for Thanksgiving Christmas New Year's Also be planning as soon as you can next year because really a little bit behind the behind the gun here, right? So we want to be doing now next year's plan now to Sign up with dan at one click today. Yay Awesome Yeah, we love we do love dan Good job. Michelle. Good luck with that. I think you'll uh long term. It's a good investment to make sure people are finding you online Okay, guys, just gonna Go ahead come No, I'm good. Okay. Well, we're we're done for today Yeah, I believe so. Yeah Five o'clock eastern see you in a couple of days. Bye. Bye. Bye y'all