 Good afternoon everybody, Tom Stewart here. I'm with Lynn Trotter. I guess today is Heather Canning. This is smart business moves Yeah So, okay, I'm sorry to interrupt. What were we talking about? Hair? We're hairdresser or threatening to cancel you That's what looks like. I did. I canceled her twice and she had to sit down with me and she's like listen I can't keep you on as a recurring client Well, did you take some tips? Hey Denny Did you take some tips on how to talk to the customers that try to keep them? Sure? Yeah Sounds like a big fat no to me But I mean really seriously we all are in that kind of thing Right, I mean when our customers skip if a customer skips twice in a row I absolutely want to be having that conversation to listen. You need to change What you're doing or we need to change our rotation Like do you let them know like a week in advance Heather? Are you one of these people that just call up the morning of this idea by the way? I'm not going to be able to make Okay, so Tom, I actually am a business owner running my own business And um things pop up right and My office is short and I can't give them notice. So This is emergency stuff. This is last second. Sorry. I know this sucks and this is revenue. You're gonna miss Yeah Oh, and by the way we barter Oh Okay, so you you like clean for them anyway, even though, you know So you you're running So, why are they complaining about that because they're getting there? No, it's not like she's not She's not getting her stuff done. So they're not getting their stuff done. No, we still clean. We still clean for her Um, but listen, it's about respecting each other's time, right? Because then she has a gap in her schedule that she could be earning money. Yeah So bottom line is I just don't I'm short staffed and it doesn't matter and I just go get my hair done and I almost have Do I have priorities? Yeah I mean really bottom line is I'm I'm kind of with you there, Heather I mean, there's got to be some personal care that goes on and you have to you do have to Maintain your personal before the same thing as my airplane, right? You got to You know, it goes beyond that. I mean you're CEO of your company, right? So you have to look good You have to look the part. I mean you probably have applicants coming in today and they sat down and they say, well, you know, they're questioning. You aren't really I don't know. I'm not having a good hair day. So Well, Liz, I was picking up on your thought and that's where you were going. No, that was not my thought at all Not even close You know what though, but I like your thought though, Liz about you know, having to take this time out because I know when I was Smaller and I came out of the field and I would take time for myself. I always felt guilty I felt guilty for being in the salon when my cleaner's around the field cleaning You know, I don't feel guilty anymore, but I mean it took me a long time to get to that point I know I've talked to other Memorial Day We're gonna have our Memorial Day hats on on Monday Oh, wait. She's like, where are your hats? Right because Memorial Day Are we gonna be on Memorial Day? Are we not because if we're not we really should have our hats on then What kind of hats I don't know what I'm supposed to wear. I mean the red white and blue one. All right. I'll go get I'll go grab mine And we're supposed to be doing hats Next one day Yeah That is awesome. All right, let me go get my This is my hot My husband and I went to a dude ranch many years ago in montana And that was one of the mini gifts that we got for the cowboy hat So they don't wear clothes, but they wear hats No, they gave us clothes too I just happened to have the hat laying in my office A new branch Dude Oh, I thought you said new grad You know why I'm laughing about that, Heather I know I don't know if I want to know You don't come on a nude ranch I want you to think about that. I never mind. We don't know about that. Remember lis Oh, I that's what you're talking about. What are you laughing about this? I didn't say. Oh, no Look Is there a story that I'm missing? No. I don't know. I don't know what you're talking about Okay, I thought I know if no no story. All right. Thank you. Didn't if we're Also, so we have to wear these all week tom ready for next I know I feel left out that I don't look as silly as you guys. What's your hat silly? Did she What I look pretty darn good I actually really do like mine a lot Look at how long I can have my head still and it keeps going I have you have lots of props in here. That's really good too, Heather. All right Now you don't have to get your hair done tomorrow. There you go See so when the interviewees come in I just look like this Heather fyi. I thought your hair looks fine When it was up Yeah, okay, so we are in our memorial day regalia right here So tom, what do we got? What are we talking about today? Is there any kind of news any updates? Oh Drop below $32,000 this weekend. So if you missed that window, you know, you You missed a buying opportunity. So some people think Others think not It's uh popped up quite a bit today though. What's it? It's uh currently trading at So see if you bought on sunday Yeah It's currently over 39 right now, but it went down below 32 over the weekend So if you bought bitcoin over the weekend, you're feeling good right now because you are You got a little extra money in your bitcoin bank My friend's daughter actually has made some I don't know. Do you call it money? Off of bitcoin, but apparently she's not doing very well. I don't really know what that means, but I was a big bit coiner. I have no idea what the correct terminology for There are some people that bought in at 65 Go down with hurry they weren't feeling so good No, just hold tight. Don't do anything and let it get back up above 65 Just don't just don't panic Some people who supposedly know such things will be up over a hundred thousand by the end of the year Wow Awesome. Well, no no no guarantees. I have no idea I don't have other people that that who who know a lot of stuff about finance and investment who Say it's like gambling, so You know, I don't know I clean homes for a living What'd you say Tom I clean homes for a living Me too You might do a few others A dabble and a few others very good point Heather Yes, thank you for keeping Tom honest over there You don't know a little bit more. Yeah a little bit more And nothing else no other big news Nothing I'm aware of I don't don't miss anything. I mean that I know I know that tomorrow is national wine day, which I know is a big thing for a lot of people, but That's all I know Tom Not not recommending bitcoin Is it too early to start celebrating? I mean tomorrow I'll be here before you know it I'm sure there are plenty of people that are There we go My office, I just have so many props in here. I gotta tell you what I love it Heather Although that did sound like a plastic glass It is You couldn't tell over the uh live stream It kind of gave it away there didn't it Did it help you save it for Wednesday if we're meeting on Monday? We're we're wearing them all week. Yeah. These are our week hats I don't know if we should be doing it next Wednesday, but that's just too late It's like memorial day is over at that point. I don't know. I really like mine We're gonna head into uh 4th of july That's right And we'll wear those we'll wear them again because it'll be perfect for 4th of july team So today we are talking about we have heather on here you guys you might remember That's for some of you that have been on for a while watching smart business moves We had heather share Her recruiting and hiring techniques. I don't know maybe a year ago now talk Somewhere it's been a while. It's been a while. Yeah, like indeed No, the the the cool hats that that you can do and indeed Yep, and she well what heather shared was She managed through her whole process and the power point that she shares with people and What her funnel looks like And so I thought it would be a great idea to have her on here again post pandemic And find out what what's changed. What is she doing now? What did she had to change? And you know why well, what are some of the different things? So that's what we're gonna talk about. It's working. What's not working. Is anything working? Well, I don't know are we really post pandemic are we is it actually is that what they're calling it now? Post-ish here in the united states. They're calling it The pandemic but I don't think anybody really wants to go on record as saying That the pandemic is over and you know Yeah, it seems like that we're heading towards post pandemic anyway. It seems like at the worst is behind us people are getting vaccinated um, the April has dropped sharply I read something where there's still a decent number of people more people will have money to think that have been there for a long long time They're also I was listening to the news last week and a lot of younger people are now going to be or admitted into the hospital Yeah, we have parties the parties that people are going to We have an employee that her sister just got admitted to the hospital and she's Early thirties, maybe 31 32 something like that. So she's not a big party or got three kids, but Say it again. I said my younger kids just got vaccinated today And I'm sure that's gonna like flood my facebook with you know, how is you and don't you know their repercussions, but Yeah, the fan individual choice and that's what we chose to do I get my second backs on friday at 5 36 p.m Three-day weekend every coop Yep, that's why yeah, I don't really have to worry as much they say that the younger people have harder You know have a harder time with it. So I'm thinking i'll be okay Right You didn't really have any abuse Well, I didn't either my husband was sick for about a day and a half, but I was I had nothing Tim was really tired and that was about it You know my whole family did it, you know, even my my 16 year old son and nobody really felt that bad after the second job Oh, gosh, really? All right. Well, that's cool You know, you know, there's a whole lot of things that they're doing between You know school and band and he's got some some day trips plan like with the scouting this summer and They've kind of only got two sets of rules and like if you don't have your shots Then you have to wear masks and stuff, but if you do you don't then just seems like that you've got more Latitude more opportunities available to you if you you have My daughter is going away to college in New York And it's mandatory to be vaccinated Yeah, wow Case closed and they're making it back. Oh, wow Okay. Well, that's Really interesting are the people that are not uh, vaccinated. Are they able to Do an online course still or I don't know I'm sure some people that can't because of pre-existing conditions or you know, I've got for for for valid reasons How about now is it sound a little bit sounds a little bit better now. Yeah When I mute everything goes bad Yeah Let me try this Sometimes when I crack down it helps is that better? Test test one two three four I think it is. Yep No, it's usually it's when I have my speakers up really high And right next to my my yeti So my hearing is not that great to always have my speakers. I'm really high It's just too close to my my microphone I think it seems like when I do that y'all say it's better All right, so Heather go ahead Tom So what is happening in the in the whole hiring scene? What are the latest tricks and hacks and What's what used to work that doesn't work anymore? And what do I need to know because I could use a few extra technicians Who couldn't right Do you know what for me like we you know, we've all we've had this huge process Right like you had to do all these things in order to even get in front of me. I never took phone calls Um, you do the disk assessment before you even came in here. We were getting 600 plus applicants a month You know over, you know a year ago. I'm lucky to get three a day Three day that's crazy And we just hired five people So I mean it can be done. So what we've adjusted is Listen, I just want to get you in the door, right? If I can get you in the door You come in here. You see us. You see who we are. Hello. I mean who's not gonna work here Um, but it's getting them here and I was finding that they were getting jobs before I could even get them in here So if I'm and I so I had to start calling them. I've never called applicants. Well, at least not in the last many years um But I was calling every single applicant that applied and the few that I was able to get a hold of I would message them through indeed and a lot of times people don't look at their emails You know, we look at our emails all the time because this is what we do for a living But the majority of the people not everybody looks at their emails So when you message somebody through indeed it also goes to their email and they weren't seeing them So by the time I would call them. Oh, yeah, I already have a job or they set up an interview They wouldn't show that I'd call and follow up with them and they just say that they got in the job So I said, okay, I have to do something differently There's so many different softwares for everything out there, right? And it's like I feel like it bogs me down So I was talking to a friend Dan Smith. Um the other day and I decided to do Callen Lerly Callen Lerly Yeah, I can't say that right um, so I did one up and all I do now is let them set up their own Appointments they apply. I don't even look at them I just send them out a message and say apply here and come in for an interview And then once they set their interview time, which um links up to my google calendar so they can see what's free Um, then it sends them another kickback. Hey, let me save you some time And let's um feel go to our website and fill out our application. Then you won't have to do it once you get in the door And that's it's working. I have This week and I'm trying to fill an office position I'll give you guys a tip for those of you that want to use Callen Lerly A lot of times people are sending a A link because it says in the link how long the meeting is at least it does in mine 15 minutes 30 minutes an hour Send them a 15 minute link don't send them a 30 minute link if you send them a 30 minute link You'll get a lot more people that are like. Yeah, that's too much. That's too long No, I'm not doing that especially if you're doing like a zoom meeting or ring central meeting However, you are doing your Your virtual meetings that just sounds too long to people There go ahead Tom. No, I think you've got some control over that too in terms of exactly what it says and you could do More I think you can customize that if you want to do a five-minute meeting They'll let you do that Yeah, you can have whatever size meeting that you want but you want to Give them the option when you send them the link They're going to know what size of a meeting you're setting up So you don't want to send them a link for a 30 minute meeting because that seems too long for them It's too much like work. Yeah, it's true. It's true. And a five-minute meeting is too short So 15 minutes we found works really well we get a lot of people that are coming in at the 15 minute mark and You know, we can still keep them for 20 minutes. They're fine with that but When we were trying to set them up for 30 minutes, it wasn't working just we were just getting too few applicants Too much like work and nobody wants to work Yeah, we were doing our I would be careful what you said out there Tom. You can say that because you are now paying What would be considered? Do you have any looked up the the living wage for your area Tom? No, no, I haven't actually I just looked mine up and here in Olympia where I live the living wage is $15 and four cents So Or is that just in your city living wage for the city? Okay So you everybody can you just do a quick look right there. There it is. I think it's living wage.com Is it living wage? No, no, it's dot mit.edu. That's right And it'll give you the living wage for your area Well, this is for the entire state Yeah, I I did for my city And it might be because I live in the capital. I'm not sure but Um Tom like in if yours you can do your state you can say that your your living wage is 1450 58 whatever it says right there And you can then say that you pay above the living wage Which is awesome. Not very many people Are advertising that they're paying above the living wage. Most people are like just wanting to get the living wage right now Uh, susan, do you put the Calamity link into your job post and is the appointment for in-person or phone interview? Heather? Mine's her in person And you don't put the link on your job ad Um, you know what I just paused one and thank you for bringing this up And I just ran a new one and I don't think it's on there. I probably should add it Um, we actually started seeing people come in from facebook, which we've never gotten people off of facebook before so Listen, I'm all about adapting. I adapt very well. I change very well. I'm brushing my hair so, um For us to do that it it doesn't take any time It's not working. I'm not gonna let it sit out there for a month on end to change it later Like I'm not gonna change it out of desperation. I mean I am but I'll adapt to change a little bit faster than that How how often are you looking at different things? Heather? When I was talking to you, I got the impression you were looking at it daily What are my results? What do I need to change? What do I need to do? 100 percent? I'm spending right now in the month of may it's the 24th and I've spent 1200 so far on my indeed Um, three months ago. I'm spending 500 a month. So I mean it's gone up drastically. I'm paying four dollars per click Hmm That's a lot um So I look at it I look at it two maybe three times a day and really because I'm just going in And funneling them over and getting them pushing them to go set up an interview time. That's all I'm not reviewing everything I'm spending minutes on it. I'm not spending a lot of time Now tomorrow the people have got hit in that bucket. Um that I've contacted Then I will do a little bit more research reach out to them I'll give them about 24 hours if they haven't done anything. I kind of push them along or I get them out of the bucket All right Um, I will say that going back to the zoom presentation, you know, because we've done that for probably over a year now Um, we were hiring people off of zoom and then we realized that we couldn't hire people off of zoom You can do the first interview, but you couldn't tell You can't tell a lot of things about a person through a screen All right, so Your zoom interviews are not working as well. You were having more luck before so post pandemic you're going with In-person interviews now Yeah, I think it's different than a lot of people a lot of people are doing more Zoom type interviews right now, but you're having better luck Not well, listen the job market here, you know, I'm in florida and there's so many There's so many people and so many businesses that need people So the jobs are a diamond doesn't I mean if you're willing to work You can get any kind of job and somebody's gonna pay you more what you want to do So they're scooped up before so I don't want to wait So how are you overcoming that heather? How are you overcoming the Right now people are are thinking a lot more about money than they ever have in the past because People are like needing needing employees so It's definitely an employee market out there. How are you how are you overcoming that? So they just raised our minimum wage. I think it's like 885, which is ridiculous And they just passed something the first of the year that in like 2026 is going to be $15 We had started we've been at $12 an hour to start So I think about two or three months ago. I started raising rates Not only did I raise the current rates because we were always on a wait list for all new clients We went through one by one with the help of a central and we Upped everybody across the board. So now we're making more money And now we can justify spending more money. So now we've upped our ante a dollar per hour bringing on new help Um, I have not had to go to my old staff yet or my current staff and say I'm paying you more money I know it's only a matter of time, but you know, because we've been making all this extra money We know the money's in the bank However, we do raises every 30 90 and every 60 or six months from there after they've been hired And then we have seven I think we just now have eight positions out in the field that every time that they level up It's another raise. So they're all making more money So you don't have anybody that's making the 14 dollars Oops, sorry Tom. Did you unmute me? So you don't have anybody that's actually making the 14 dollars that you bring people in at after they get out of Training because they have better opportunities, right? So actually we started 13 an hour And we might have some people making like 13 or 12 70 or something right now But this is something that we just started doing in the last 30 days of bringing people on We were started bringing people on if they had like house clean professional experience at 13 an hour versus 12 And we also do Five a.m. Work. So you kind of got that shift extra dollar for doing Property work and then it just kind of stuck and we just kept bringing people on at 13 an hour Again where it's going to get out. I understand it's going to come back here and we'll just address it at that time All right So Tom you made a big change you went your minimum wage is like 775 in south carolina, right? 125 actually wage and uh, you know, we made a decision last week to Make our company the minimum wage 15 dollars an hour and We made it retroactive For like, I mean we started hiring new people trainees at 15 an hour and all of our incumbents got Someone got some some pretty significant raises where you know They were making more than 15 Out though you weren't paying them in my wage. Were you? No, we were always paying. Well, you know If you if you want to clock back Like pre-pandemic, you know, we were starting people off at like 10 dollars an hour And somewhere between here and there we pick it up to 12 and then last week we took it up to 15 Wow With you Go ahead heather. I'm sorry. I cut you off and then what about all of your Older staff they all got the all got raises How much I mean did you have to go if your is it three dollars? Yeah In some cases that yeah, you know, they everybody if somebody, you know They were all making 12 or more and now they're all the incumbents are all making more than 15, you know, it's The range between the lowest paid person and the highest paid person is a tighter range now than it used to be but, you know, we've got, you know, some people that are And we pay we pay a revenue share, you know, we pay, you know commission if you will so The idea is that, you know, we put a floor under it and your individual minimum wage might be 15 15 15 50 rather or 16 dollars an hour And then we try to You know raise rates and schedule in a way where the efficiency is high and do other things where their rev share exceeds whatever their minimum rate wages, but You know, we'll subsidize if we have to to get them up to that that that guaranteed number So if you've been there for you know, if you're not a if you're not a trainee if you've been there for a while You've got a minimum wage that higher than 15 dollars an hour You have to really know your numbers to be able to pull off something like that Yeah, you do you do but it works well and the idea is that we you know set the expectation It's like we'll give you a floor 15 50 But we expect that you'll be making more than that and this is how you do it We talked to them about productivity and efficiency and you know the whole training process and You know, this is how you wear your apron and this is how you get in out of a house quickly and um If they're if they aren't making more than that off of their row share, you know, we have discussions with them Now sometimes it's hard to do because you know, we haven't we've been raising rates But we still have some homes that probably she should be higher. So that has to you know be taken into consideration as well Tom, what are your um, how are your competitors paying? Not as much as us at the moment, but we expect that they're quickly going to get there I think that's so important knowing your competition, right? I mean, I think that everybody says that, right? um, but knowing how they're marketing to Your pool of people and how they're paying um, I I say this all the time like I have an alias on indeed that I get all my competitors ads in an email because that's how people are notified, right? So I was a house cleaner that just happened to work for myself And so every time somebody puts a new job in there it comes to my email So knowing I mean you can totally stay on top of what your competition is paying easy And the other thing that's really nice about that is you can see what their ads are You can see what's appealing to you if you're an employee. Oh Yeah, and you can see how often they're posting new ads. You can see what days they're posting on So you can you can win all of these different things And all of these different areas So I did want to hammer just a little bit. Um, what tom was talking about um, we're all needing to pay more money And you did hear tom talk about That he's having to raise rates For all of the the clients and they're not all there yet So when you are paying this this type of pay where you have a floor or a base pay or whatever you want to call it Then you you want to be paying really close attention that you're not having to supplement Their pay any time that you're supplementing their pay to get them up there you're losing money So that's a really really important piece. So if you're supplementing pay You have to be making sure that you're getting enough money from your customers and that your employees know how To make more money if they don't know how to do it It it doesn't really matter what you say your your wages if they don't think they can do it Not going to matter So see who wants to know what percent Revenue share we do do we do tiers? um The the percent you know is anywhere between 36 and 40 percent um Not sure what the tiers means So debbie sardone tom has a tier payroll system where If you work like 20 hours I'll work if I work five days a week. I get get a higher percentage Depending on how many hours we're going to do that. We we used to do some things like that and um, I guess one of the one of the pushbacks we got was it was like, uh You know, well, we aren't really being considerate to people who've got You know child care issues and just other life things going on and I can only work three days a week why am I being penalized by that and Honestly given today's workforce with flexibility a job schedule being such a big deal. Um I mean, I understand the logic behind it, but you know I'm not sure if if if if you're gonna How that works with the day's workforce And it might depend on where you live too You know in in more rural areas You might have a little bit better luck Using that because they might not be as much into the mainstream of I need to be making This living wage This is the new rhetoric that is out there, right that we have to be making a living wage They might not they might not be in that mindset right now Are you running into that Heather where you're having more and more people? That think 40 hours a week is Too much. That's not a normal work day No, not really. I mean we do push our seniors some weeks. It is over 40 hours I think that they're most happy when they're getting around 36 38 hours because you know, listen, they work hard Um, but um, you know to what you said about being flexible Like I never thought that I would be flexible the way that we are, you know If I can't have somebody you can't come in until eight and we're sorry at 7 30 Or somebody only wants to work four days a week or somebody only wants to work 10 to four like Why not? Okay, I've never done it before but let's do it. This is a good enough employee Like I want to make that exception and throw them into like a solo role Um and to be able to accommodate them and their needs So I can tell you that there were many many years where people told me that's not possible You can't do that. It's not You can't have people working such a um like Yeah, uh and now most people that I know of have found a way Yeah, because the people demand it. There's no gotta find a better way We run solos and doubles and then teams of three and I have to tell you I like it I like that we have this versatility for the clients for the staff and it's a win-win Yeah, do you find yourself having a preference for You know a team size of you know three or two or one or does it you know what what criteria do you use to determine team size My preference is a client's preference. That's two different things, right? I mean, obviously, I think it's Financially a better decision with solos. Um, I think when especially as a female You have no other personality to contend with you know what you've already done You know what needs to get done and you're in and out of the house. It's just more efficient 100% What does that have to do with being female? Um, just say we are all females here. So my apologies for any male cleaners I was just curious because I have Work with female personalities. I mean come on everybody knows that you know It's easier to work with a bunch of men than it is a bunch of women To my husband would argue that point so hard He struggles so hard managing their all male crew. They only have two women Just you would argue that so hard Just just for the record, you know, I'm not participating in this discussion. I don't blame you tom I I don't even know why I'm participating As a woman who is in an all woman company a women company. That's my opinion But anyways, it it's easier when you don't have other personalities to contend with or attitudes or whatever is going on for that day So ironically enough the whole 11 and a half years that I've been running this business The biggest complaint that we've gotten from clients is oh, does everybody speak english? We're in south florida Very heavy to spandex And a lot of people who don't speak english work in this industry And that's always their concerns. So we A One of our cleaners who is a high d a high d if anybody knows disc is not a disc for a cleaner We forced her into a team. It never worked out She worked solo and her efficiency rate is probably i don't even know like 200 it's into crazy The clean the clients are asking for her Even though she doesn't speak english These are the ones the only one of people to speak english because of how she cleans And how their houses look they are requesting her by name You know, one of the other things especially as the wages go up, you know, when you're doing a solo cleaner Especially if they start their day at their first house and then their day at their last house It's a lot easier to get that higher hourly wage because you don't really have but just a little bit of drive time The the efficiency factor is so much higher With with with the solo, you know what? I'm a lot of our girls don't want to work solo because you know the mindset is a team It's a lot easier in a team and what I would really love to take this company And hopefully with the help of maid central is to be able to pay two different ways You know if I have a team then you're more hourly And then once people are able to take on working as a solo, you know be able to do that percentage Because that's where people are going to make their money You can do both. I mean you can do that Or you can pay, you know different percentages by individual or by team composition There's there's several different ways you can configure that to create A financial incentive for somebody to to to be the solo if that's what you want them to be Because my solo is hurting herself because she's hourly Right And I see that yeah Yeah, it's too bad But you do need to keep in mind that there is also a mindset for some people They are afraid of this commission or percentage or rev share whatever you want to call it They're afraid of this type of pay They have sort of been brainwashed that it's not fair So you do have to do a little bit of work If you're going to people this way and make sure they understand how they can make more money and show them how and if you can explain it in the context of We guarantee that under any circumstance you're going to be making This hourly wage 15 15 15 16 Solid there's no way that you can make less than that But we're giving you an opportunity and we expect that you're going to make more than that and let us explain how that works And I'll give you guys a little bit of you know, I'm big in the lexicon, right? I'll give you a little bit of language here that works really well Guaranteed pay people love that Guaranteed so don't use the term minimum wage So if you tell people that your minimum wage is going to be $15 It doesn't really matter what you say after minimum wage. They hear minimum wage and that's a negative So if you say we have guaranteed pay of $15 an hour, but we have lots of opportunity for you to earn more than that That's a win right there So people love that people love guaranteed It's it's you're awesomely high wage All right, let's see what about a formula of 30 30 40 30 percent first cleaner 30 second cleaner 40 business Well, I think you're gonna struggle with that That um, zero percent to revenue is just too high shannon You know, it depends on your business model of them I know that a lot of companies built on independent contractors kind of kind of do that but 30 30 or 60 percent is absolutely fully loaded and out of that comes You know, it's on the contractor to provide supplies and transportation and pay all the taxes and I've seen that work But if you have employees And then on top of that you've got your taxes and other other insurance costs You're you're you're loaded direct payroll to revenue would would be a heavy lift Listen, you have an office. You have office staff vehicles. I mean so much is in there And you might not have vehicles. You might not have an office You might not have some of these things and so potentially You might be able to make it work for a while But tom has like sort of conditioned us all to remember that you can get lucky And you can you can get keep your business going and be really really lucky But at some point in time your luck is going to wear out And so you don't want to be in that situation Yeah, when you're just starting out, yeah, you do want to make sure when you're just starting out, especially shannon That you set your prices High enough so that when you grow You aren't in a situation where you lose every single one of your clients Because nobody can afford to pay the rates that you need them to pay to be able to Make payroll and pay for your insurance and your you know, your taxes and you have a lot of stuff your supplies Broken vacuum lost equipment. So there are there's a lot of stuff out there Well, what are the percentages for you all? Um So tom said he pays between would you say tom 36 and 40? so I think we pay between 36 and 42 And Heather you pay hourly, right? we do and our labor unleaded for let it unloaded For um field staff is sometimes 36 38 and I think one week in the last two days We had a 41 percent day and I think our office staff is somewhere around five. We're running pretty good right now We're numbers. We're looking awesome. Yeah, she's been all of her numbers in for Monday check-in. I'm like Those look nice girl. That was a brag moment for sure. Yeah Is that like 10% ethanol? 100% is something man, but it's not in my pocket, but it will be soon Yeah All right. So Heather what else is working well or isn't working that used to I mean for fully loaded payroll um overhead profit So susan asks this question in mma group And we'll give you some some good benchmarks there So if you had 36 would that be for one cleaner one So tom when he's talking about the 36 to 40 Yeah, that's for the entire cleaning team So if it's one part I know we get the whole thing if it was two people It would be split between them in some form or fashion Usually there's a team leader that's making more than their person working with them. It's making a little bit less So it depends on but that's the total amount that whoever's cleaning gets paid Yes, absolutely not per person that's per team. Yeah, and that's really important All right. So how about some other recruiting strategies, Heather that are working act now Don't delay That's good. You need to act now. You need to build something that's going to like just react as soon as an applicant comes in That's something that is working really well for a lot of people is texting So instead of so it used to be That people would apply they would get an email But like Heather said already a lot of a lot of especially these younger people Don't really check their email. My son told me I can hardly remember where to go to check email Why would people do that? Why would they want email? Yes, because they're looking for a job. That's why they'd want email. He's like, yeah, you know So It's just too much like work. He's like, I just understand why And and his point also is why do I want to work for a company that sends email? Nobody does email. That's not really a thing Why do I want to work for a company that uses email? Yeah, that was that was Gavin. He was like, no and so he works for he works for Porsche and Email as a company. I'm sure they do use email. Absolutely. And he gets email from his company, but They also Prompt him with a text We just sent you an email. He gets a text saying we just sent you with an email. Check your email Check your email We do that with clients when we are like sending leads and quotes and stuff and we're trying to follow up And they're not calling us back if we calm left your message. We send you a text. Hey, just left your message And then do they call him to let him know that they sent him a text to You know that people in their 20s don't answer the phone if you try to call them And then they put and then they put a letter in the mail with a stamp on it Yeah, no calling is even worse than email So Robin Robin is saying text call and then email for us. It's text email then call So because we have a lot of young people and they don't like to talk on the phone They don't know how If you have tried to talk to somebody young on the phone, you know what I'm talking about They don't know when to say hi. They don't know when to say goodbye They don't know how So that that's actually a thing. They just don't have the comfort level with calling So we uh texting is definitely the way to go But Heather you were saying that you're actually having a lot of luck calling people and just staying on them, right? Yeah, listen, and I keep everything in indeed. I use the notes. I use the templates. I really use it to work for us Um, I only move into contact if I actually like I'm bringing them into the office And then I just keep them in a review status until we're into that next stage of bringing them in Yeah, we we text um our we don't have them. I wish that there was texting through indeed Um, but hopefully it'll get there eventually Um, they said it's coming. Yeah So that's that's good news Um, all right. What else is working? How about titles Heather? You're still having good luck with your icons My heart emojis I do have an ad running right now. It's one organized mom jupiter florida You can take a copy if people reach out to me and ask if they could rip it off 100 take it in yours If it works for you Um going back to I'm knowing what your competitors Say on their ads. I want to read one too. I just got this this morning It says are you the most reliable person? You know does it make you crazy when a coworker is negative? If so, we need to talk to you if not stop reading this and we do not want to talk to you You are the most are you the most consistent and friendly person? You know if so then we need to talk to you this and sound like you stop reading this ad We are a cleaning company if you like to do an okay job or a half-ass job need not apply I was floored Yeah, it's very ballsy. Who's as who's that is that? Um a competitor made to perfection That's pretty um, that's it's pretty to the point. Yeah You know that was a big joke that was going around for a long time, right? Where people would have an ad like that say I'm gonna post something like this and I was like, ah We should do that. Well, guess what? I don't think they knew it was a joke. Maybe it's working too. You guys I mean, I I don't know. I can't imagine that it is but maybe Except also, you can see the history of when you contacted us like sometime in the last Awesome in the last three to six months. Yeah, that is good We're also um in the midst of um changing our form on our website for our application because our website is on our Our application is on our website and we're going to start um marketing to them Through a different channel. So we're going to file all that information What do you mean you're gonna start marketing to them through a different channel, Heather? The applicants it's going to go into like an automation funnel So six months from now three months from now like in made central or an applicant training Yeah, another platform tracking Yeah, and just Text and emails to stay on their radar Just basically you're going to treat them like like a lead for for sales. Yeah So right now We have no ads been running all my money is going into hiring Yeah Well, I mean now's the perfect time for that if you're like anybody else out there that i'm talking to the You know the sales calls are coming without doing a whole heck of a lot of work. It's just the The employees that everybody's struggling with All right. So Heather, have you had to change? any of your other One of the things that you did before that I really loved I'm not sure you still do it if it's working Is when you brought them in for the interview You showed them your powerpoint showed them how bad the job was how good the job was What are you doing there? Still show it Same thing and you haven't changed it at all Nope, um, even the nasty nasty Disgusting inside the toilets and the nasty nasty showers because we need to show people this, you know, people think that you know We don't clean. I'm like, how could you not know we clean? We're house cleaners. There's a lot of pee Um, so typically what we do is we'll bring them in and we'll do the presentation and we'll show them And then after we do the presentation then we want to know more about them Um, even if we like them we'll do a second interview with somebody else in the office I will never hire on the spot. I have found that if I hire on the spot, it almost never works out So at the end of the conversation if everybody likes them, we have hand gestures that we do like to move forward Um, we'll hand them a business card and we just say listen go home I want you to really like think about marrying and everything that you've heard And if you're still interested to send me a text and or an email and let me know and we'll move forward Show us your hand signals Like baseball Daisy so if you hold a pen like this, this is a no and if you hold a pen like this when you walk in it's yes All right, so yes That makes sense. All right. I like it. But I do like this, you know That's good for trisha, right with her baseball company All right, I like that. Oh You you said something that uh made me want to ask a question now. I I got distracted by the hand signals So but you you would never Over them the job there you send them away and you put the ball in their court if you think it you would like this job Get back to me you let me know so you would never call them back and say hey You know we if if they don't call you back It's it's over So if I've got a good read on them and I thought that this is going to be a good fit and they're going to say yes And I don't hear from them Yeah, exactly Um, of course, I'm going to reach back out to them and it's happened before like what I sent you an email I'm like, I didn't get it. They keyed it in wrong. I mean things happen. Of course, I'll reach out to them Um, but I have just found that if I hire people on the spot I think that people are a little kind of like a demon headlight and they may not be interested and they're going to say Yes, I'm going to go through the onboarding process. I'm going to build them into my system. I'm going to schedule them I'm going to get them trained with the trainer and guess what 725 comes around and they're nowhere in sight Yeah, so I think that people just tell us what we want to hear So this is helping me to alleviate that and I'd rather be told no now Then go through the work and get them on the schedule So one of the things that you used to do Heather, but I didn't hear you reference today So I'm wondering what you've done. What you've modified Is you used to tell them go home think about it and if you want this job Send me a letter about why you Want this job or why you think it would be good at this job. Are you still doing that? I'm not doing the letter Liz. Um, listen A year ago, we were having them jump through these amazing hoops and hoops like on fire three in a row, right? We're doing it People aren't going to do that now. So I have to pull that back. I still go over those five C's But I don't make them send in the letter I just send a letter and let me know that you're still interested and I just said listen the ball's in your court Love to hear back from you and if it's not for you, we understand that Um, but it's just a light friendly conversation that I just let them know that I'll talk to you if you're interested Yeah, and sometimes I've been said like listen, I really really want to hear back from you. I hope I hear back from you Um, but I mean, I don't want to get my feelings. They don't know earlier We were talking about that people don't even know how to address a letter So you would actually have them put a letter in the mail to you or email email Email, yeah, indeed. I mean I do hand on my business card that the email address is on the back of the business card I mean, listen, if you can't follow those easy steps You're not going to be able to come clean house Yeah, you there are some basic things that you're going to have to know especially if you're going to be solo or right So Tom you're moving a lot of people also over to solo. Are you doing different ads? For the solos. Do you have any tips on what's working? Well, I mean while the ads are Explaining that we're we're looking for solo cleaners people with experience with solo cleaners We're particularly going after People who've got experiences in a contractor is explaining that it you know, it's you know paid job You'd be hired as an employee and the benefits that that go along with that. We've actually hired a few people who appreciate Actually being an employee. Yeah And then we have them go out to network with their friends that they used to work with But kind of works, but since they were solos, it's not like if they really even knew everybody else that works in the company Right, right But at least they're anybody that they did know they're able to see the new benefits because one of the big problems that independent contractors have is Keeping a full schedule having that set that set money coming in being able to count on paying your bills Right. So I I'm sure that having this new guaranteed pay or floor pay or whatever you're calling it Is helping a lot with that also people are like Yes, finally, I I just need some stability in my pay And so switching over can make a huge difference in that way And just the stuff like not having to worry about filing their own taxes Yeah And people don't like to do hard stuff This question that robin is asking about do you find that when people contact you show interest after the interview to give a better retention? 100 we would have people write a letter how they're going to bring our five c's to a job here And actually I got it from a girlfriend the idea from trisha lake in north dakota tlc Um, I was like you're crazy people are going to write these letters We switched to that format people were writing these amazing letters It was it blew my mind and the retention a 100 saw a difference Any time you can get people to Engage with your company on because they want to it's something coming from them that intrinsic Motivation you're going to have better retention Just don't ask them to read an email Putting the letter in the email I had an interview today with somebody and you know what they asked me and I've never had anybody asking this ever Oh, what I'm dying to know. How is your culture in your business? Oh, I was kind of shocked about that. Yeah, was it a real applicant or was it like a competitor? I Secret shopper, you know Anybody that came in here and she's actually looking for an office job Oh, okay Awesome, that's interesting. Uh, let let me know if that pops up again I'm going to start paying attention. Uh, we've never gotten a question like that, but I'm Especially using the exact word culture, right? Yeah, exactly Yeah, listen, we have a whole list of questions that we have to ask Interviews and one of my favorite questions is like explain to me like your ideal job What are you looking for in a job that's going to make you happy and do you know what almost everybody says? Positive atmosphere. Oh, yeah Absolutely We have all the time positive attitude positive atmosphere. Yeah. All right. So susan's had some people asking for that too Okay, that's good info I definitely want to hear more about that Well, we are at the top of the hour Um Other this is uh informative and fun and thank you so much for Out today I hope you guys all got at least a couple of tips things that you can change things that you can do Some maybe changing your mental do a little bit of mental Um Change so that you're on with the people that are looking for jobs right now. What are we doing on wednesday tom? We're going to be uh our pre memorial day head gear Yeah We'll be picking up on the theme. It'll be it'll be good and uh Five o'clock eastern See y'all there