 Hey, good afternoon everybody Tom Stewart here. I'm with Liz Trotter. Our guest today is Gary Murphy Gary, how are you today? I'm doing great. How about you guys? I don't think we're doing as well as you are Gary I'm just excited and enthusiastic. Oh, yeah I'm excited to talk. I'm excited I'm just was like lamenting a moment ago that I'm still trying to get caught up from being at convention last week I'm still chasing it right. I wish I could say I wasn't but I absolutely am too I'm happy. This is the first time I actually sent an employee there Which was like something we've been dying to do instead of either myself or Robin going You know, we're sending somebody out and then when they come back, they're so pumped up in the office You know, they get everybody else going they got all the freebies They're giving away and stuff like that and it just hits harder, you know, when an employee do it So a lot of fun. Tell us more about that Gary. Who would you send? Okay. Yeah. Yeah, so In our company, we have our PX leader our people's experience leader. That's Viviana And she's our rock in the middle. She's She's somebody that's that's just vital Here is somebody that is, you know, managing the customers and all the employees so Responsibility they're the person, you know, right in the middle of the tip of the spear And she is also our dream manager, which we can talk about also if we want to get into company culture And why we went that route and having somebody who's just a real resource to Our employees so she was out there. She saw you both and she had a great time came back all fired up Thursday Thursday afternoon We're gonna have a lot of fun here this afternoon. I mean, I've known known you and Robin for I ran into you, Tom at a ISSA I think in Vegas and Gosh Maybe And then I remember somebody going out to go your brigade and because back then there was this sort of Franchise There was this whole kind of, you know, what tribe are you with and it's the community is totally different now we all learned from each other and You know And It took us a while to go through that not everybody felt that way, but there was But Tom, I don't remember you Feeling that way that wasn't that wasn't me. I was on the other end of that spectrum. We're all in the same industry We needed to have a really big tent I came out like I think I stole some stuff from your website Okay, you needed to have a really big tent and you know, we we're all in the same team, but There were some people back then who thought, you know, how can I sit at a round table with a franchise who Can't give us their playbook because it's not their playbook and Tom Tom you gotta stop right there because I thought I invented top to bottom left to right That wasn't that wasn't you Gary. That was you, wasn't it? I really I I gotta tell you If if word gets out of really how to clean, you know, this could definitely, you know, this is true secrets So why don't we Gary could you just maybe tell us a little bit about your your business and how you got into the industry and a little little history? Right, uh, so we are neighborhood. We are my wife Robin founded the company in 1996 So we've been in business for 26 years um, I joined a few years after that, um, and We were we We kind of think of ourselves as travel majors and, uh, really Uh Rightfully so rightfully so The business is kind of more of that fun to sort of, uh Play with and and and and try out new ideas And I think we can all agree the service industry in general is a little sleepy Sometimes change is hard. Adapting is difficult So when you bring this up, even to customers, you can catch them off guard But definitely among other Our colleagues sometimes, um, it might be something that's more than they treat more like a job And they're showing up to work and it's a paycheck and Then then I think you have other folks that that think of it as sort of a larger community um in starting the business what robin wanted in 1996 was A company that is providing healthy and safe cleaning products one for our staff customers their pets And also a place that was we we want to professionalize the industry, right and not have it cleaning ladies, you know, uh independence and when robin started the business is because Cleaning people show up and they seem to kind of not have a direction Sometimes they show up with products. Sometimes they wouldn't Sometimes they taste our products Sometimes they wouldn't they seem to even know where we are sometimes a kid was there Sometimes they weren't somewhere they didn't show up and it just seemed like an area that really needed You know players in the marketplace and I need you guys I and and again I have to give a shout out to neighbor gate robin went to, you know, neighbor gate as a franchise 1996 before People are going out online finding um The playbook, right? There was no online back there. There wasn't and to start something up robin's coming from, you know corporate, uh, america and you know, how do you start a cleaning company? So, you know, just a Hat tip a shout out to all my neighbor gate people Great franchise and and they've been always supportive of us. So I have to say that And but but and one thing we love about neighbor gate is they let us run with a lot of latitude You know, they always were concerned about quality But they all all input was taken in so that was always great, uh the leadership through the years And we ran the business and and ran it and and slowly we're trying to just make these changes to really professionalize the industry Uh, and gosh, I don't know about you guys, but we sort of fell into the trap of uh Chasing revenue and that's that's what we you know, we're doing weekly. We oh my god, this is a huge job Big big job. We're gonna, you know run out there and uh, you know, we may have to you know, you know This job would be fantastic. Maybe pull someone off that uh, Regular customers team to to really wow the new customer and we're doing this sort of right Gosh, we got as big as we could get With robin and I full time going 24 seven Just letting it all on the table putting it all out there working in the business all day long And gosh, God did this for so long and then um We were we were saying we're killing ourselves here. This is getting to be too much and we sort of think about selling the business and saying, you know, we're We're really just just going in every day Kind of just working our tails to the bone get an employee lose employee Get a customer lose a customer, you know Growing a little bit here and there and you know, you know what we just maybe we get out So we started looking at that and to anybody who knows when you go to sell your business your valuation Is not what you think So, you know, we're sitting there. We're thinking we're both unemployable When when when was that gary when like time frame About 19 or sorry 20 you get into like 2017 or so We're just doing it, right? You're doing it every day. You're showing up Gosh, it almost gets routine, right? Yeah. Yeah. We're trying to do it, you know, healthy and safe for customers And employees we want the culture Well, you know, I don't know if you're doing it wrong or whatever. We're trying our best. Um And we're just saying we're we're wearing ourselves out here So, you know at that time we start looking around and and like I said, we're both looking each other. We're like Who's gonna hire us? You know, I'm a control freak, right, you know, the ones to hire me. I'm gonna come in and try and run everything um And uh, you know, if you don't rob them, you know, rob them. So anyway, we'll leave it at that So we are, you know, we're there. We're going to let's let's treat this like our new business, right? Let's treat neighborhood right now like a starter You know, you know rob is out there listening to all of this. I'm waiting for something to come out Yeah, there's comments coming uh She's uh, i'm houston but listen to that later while she's there and why it's so awesome now I'm not in the office and she's not in the office. She no, she's she's here watching Yeah, uh, again, I'll watch myself. I'll keep it tempered You know, we're there. We say, you know, let's let's kind of reground the company and get back to those roots of what rob and why A company that's awesome to work for known for its culture known for its training with safe and healthy products We start with a whole retreat. We get back to basics. Um I'll say the tfc. That's just your telegraph But i'm on board where we say we wanted to find our mission value's perfect We get this all laid out on paper. We bring our stakeholders in we bring our employees in everybody has to say And you know, we go through this for about a year just really working out, um What we are who we are what we want to be as a company And gosh, it was really hard our conversations exciting conversations And again, this is going to be the company the way we really want it We get it going. We're fine, too And it's the point where you take all the ideas off the butcher paper on the wall, right? And then we're ready to you know Send them to the printer. That's what they said, you know, it's like when they go to the printer, you know final We send them to the printer after all that right before covid hits so it's like We were like a fault sir. We're right out of starting lines You won't believe it. I used to be a high hurt alert high school, but I'm right there on Ready waiting for the gun and then you know, we're hearing about this stuff in china. We're like, oh my god We're locked up ready to rock And you know cool. It is like up. There's going to be lockdowns. It's a mat people can't play And the coolest thing though It was terrible for people for our business though Going through this whole ritual beforehand of defining who we are And that we're going to be a company that What we were shocked when we spoke to employees that they wanted to be they wanted change They wanted to be adaptable. They wanted great pay. They wanted benefits They wanted to be part of something bigger than just cleaning We had everybody on board covid hit that person I spoke about before viviana at the time The company administrative at the time was myself robin and viviana After a few people, you know, couldn't work and weren't going to be around And the coolest thing was all through coveted. We weren't closed for one day You know having everybody, you know on the same team on board That to me was just amazing. That was like our I was like, you know what we get halfway through coveted and We're sitting there going this is pretty wild because our staff are adaptable They came up with that word and at the time we started using electrolyzed water. Okay We started using uh electrostatic spray guns to disinfect It is so easy and every other clean company is going we can't do that. We can't do that You know, my staff wouldn't use single-use cleaning cloths. I'm going We sit there and we go it's a company value. This is what we brought, you know, this came from you guys You told us you want quick changing. You want to be able to have the best equipment and that's what we are So it was so wild that we're not closed for a day Oh, we lost you gary your volume Uh, it's the first confirmed case of covid. Can you hear me? Yes Covid it's in New York on New York. That's one of our territories where we serve so it's just we have to get covid and We're looking for disinfected in New York. You can't find it. So sure enough The new shell fire department reaches out to us to find Where can we get disinfected? We can't get the state. We can't get it from the county So there's an added bonus during covid is we have new shell fire department and our other first responders coming to our office Because we're supplying disinfected to police fire ems housing facilities cafeteria nurses Everything across the board to give it out to the community and our staff are seeing this and we're going You know, what's this whole professionalization that we want is happening before our eyes Seeing it and I think more Practitioners instead of a cleaning lady or cleaning person so we saw this like World of the company that that I thought going into covid. I was like, okay. This is the end of us You know, we're not going to be open the staff responded so well because we were You know for all this adaptation change We're getting phone calls from customers who are going I have a doctor How do your staff know how to take off nitrile gloves like a doctor? And then they're telling them that they're donning and doffing gloves. That's the you know term for it and it's like Good to know who you guys met out at issa. She shot a quick video Blasted it out to all the employees This is how you put on your gloves and they come there. They go, are we going to be safe? And she looked numerous shelf fire department out here our local police department That's enough to spray their cars How awesome is that you just you know to see our staff like this pride of like holy shit We are like But we're a beacon, you know, yeah, you mentioned electrolyze water. Let's let's Yeah, just a little bit because Robin and I have talked over the years and I remember I don't know a few years ago She was telling me we were We were compared notes about all the different engineered cleaning water solutions that we've been around with and used over the years She was telling me about an isle air And it's a group of people in north carolina not too far from my office here She made the introduction and you know, we use that technology too, but You guys have the ability to Like take water and run it through a machine where it's basically electrolysis and there's salt involved But create a disinfectant and the sanitizing product and you were doing it like when first hit and You were the only person like First responders fire department everybody was reaching out to you To get disinfectant, right? Yeah All you needed was a was a bag of salt and water and electricity and you can make you can make it 24 seven Yeah, we we were doing the covid cleanings with it and uh, the annihilator and you know that machine is fantastic because you can dial it up so When you think the houses you bring the parts per million down to 200 so it's food safe So we're disinfecting during covid and you can spray it inside a microwave or You know wherever you touch surfaces Um in the kitchen, but then when we were doing actual covid cleanups with the white suit and goggles We you know dial that up again make it full strength. So the dwell time wasn't so long So, yeah, that was having having that that was you know, gotta give that up to robin Early on she said we are going to be accompanied with safe products We are not going to have people work for us who you know are going to have kidney problems loan problems And like you said, tom water salt electricity three ingredients For both either the hypochloric acid sodium hydroxide two products one's a great general-purpose cleaner And uh our staff love it, you know and what we talk about also with this with cleaners is um We live a great training where we explain that this is not pilex It's not chlorox cleanup. You don't need a fly to kill a sledgehammer and and something that's so important is Whoever developed pilex, you know never designed somebody to be using that to clean 13 bathrooms a day Yeah, yeah, and you can just imagine what the toll is again lungs kidneys liver blood anything your skin just You know there's people who smell like bleach, you know But you know what gary you're talking about that today. I feel like everybody's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody's on board But 1996 nobody was talking about that in 1990. Oh god. No no no no and at the time, right? We we're all found the trap. We're all simple green It's one of the more toxic products out there, right? But again, if you do what you can do and now that there's alternatives and and again What are we trying to do is really how do you sell it to staff and boy when I have the I'm trying to get myself said there Well, when you have the fire trucks from the first covid case is pulling into your facility going I before is asking is a very solid disinfected state effective You know my step are like a soul that's done. You don't have to tell me anymore and you know There's a great general purpose cleaner that comes out of this again We're talking about Taking an industry that's a little sleepy, right when we talk to some of our competitors and you go, you know Hey, you gave us think about going we were actually supplying this to our competitors, you know other franchises for saying keep your Step state keep your doors open. We're doing it legally. We're all on the same team here. You know, we do like tom was saying before We we there's enough to divide up of the population for all of us to be very successful Um, you know, to us the undergrad economy is is more of the competition not not so much people who play about the rules So, um, yeah I I really love that term that you've used used used it twice now that our industry is sleepy and that was really a great term because We are right. I liked when you said you're a girl blazer because We are we don't we don't want to make changes. We just want to like Get comfy and let's keep doing what we've always done. And so I love that you're you're talking about. It's a great term I'm stealing that all day Yeah You know and and just it's it's being able to When you talk to when you hire somebody and it's so funny now that our whole onboarding is different When we start by saying we care about your health if you're going to work here number one we can't you know We can say that there are facts that that if you're going to use over the counter cleaning products five days a week Equivalent smoking a pack of cigarettes We're not going to be part of that. We're not going to contribute to that And boy if you're going to work at a place, let's start with being healthy say And boy could we make it fun and maybe have Friday dinners and you know pay time off a dream manager and you know Halloween celebrations and kind of enjoy ourselves. We're going to be able to each other most more to do with our family So let's let's have some fun with it. So that's that's kind of where we're at now Yeah, and Liz and I spend a lot of time speaking on the matter of being profitable and using professional management techniques And I know that you guys are all about that. I know that robin you were sharing earlier is spending some time this week with some other workshops and professionals and other home service industries kind of you know swapping best practices, but I know that you guys adopt professional management practices and you're doing a lot of things to generate profit off of all the good work that you're doing and you're able to invest that back in your business to create these good jobs and provide good service and It's kind of a virtuous circle. Could you speak to that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think gosh um We always had the one, you know, we're part of a franchise. So through basically we always had colleagues So when we start talking about electrolyzed water, I think of Dennis Dwyer in Los Angeles the franchise out there that you know We all got to learn from each other and we're sort of within this click of Of made brigade-centric companies and we always talked among the community, right? We weren't turning our back on anybody But as we started looking like one of the things we absolutely needed was We needed to improve we needed something in the middle a piece of technology to kind of springboard us to The next level We were I told you guys before we're growing to a point where as long as Robin and I Were overseeing payroll customer service stuff like that. We were good But two people can only run an office so far We've been um coming out of curve it, you know, we were doing well. We purchased territory up in Hartford, Connecticut an existing territory so It's hard to be profitable Kind of learning a little bit the hard way We have two different pieces of software one in our white planes office where we serve as four counties One up in Hartford, Connecticut Both on different pieces of software We have these great company values, but we can't get everybody aligned and on the same page so The good thing is right then we start you know with main central Main central comes into play where we bring that into our white planes office And I remember like the night before I think I said tom and now the little pictures of of like our office and like we're ready to go and I'm like Back in my mind I want everybody to make central Because we try everything else and We need a piece of software That was made for our industry not made for snow cloud guys not made for janitors not made for painters Not made for handy employees not made for for i9 employees. We need something that How many times have we talked to people we're looking for software Everything's going very simply to say Two person team or three person team. How can I pay the team on that? Can I pay submission or by the hour and whatever it is? I don't care if it is it's a big player like service titan You lose them They're like, what is this industry? How do you guys pay and what's going on? And what's this kit and big but you charge you're not charged and you know It was it was you couldn't find anything. So when we see made central gosh So before we got on this call i'm told you Gary you can't go on and on about made central We know you love me Hold on hold on just a second But i'm going to give you a couple minutes to go ahead because I know you love me central So here's the deal. I'm going to give you two minutes Top thing Okay So can you find something and I just have to say the coolest thing about it I gotta get like All right Is that all the people who onboarded us use the software in their daily life? So if you imagine my payroll company starts with a P ends in X The person who's my account rep Doesn't run payroll. I don't use the product right if they train me not When i'm getting trained by people who use this day in and day out You can imagine the wealth of information. Well, hey quick. How do I do surcharge? Go bring that up to any other company. They will think you're crazy. Anyway, so we have really central love it We start noticing how much time we're saving uh, I You know, we do sometimes eat houses and we have under 35 minutes of drive time if you can believe that Okay with uh Google wilding That means Employees one are making a shit ton of money Which we love when people come back and they have Is that a technical term there? Yeah, yeah 200 bucks a day They're hanging around, you know And and when we have that good culture and everything else rolling and rocking and rolling And you can do that and so we started using software Enter two companies We can in alignment. We can run for software from the law office We can do customer support from one office. We can do everything from there. The automations are ridiculous That's what kept me from going into the office on sunday We used to print. I have a printer for sale Tom, I hope you buy it for me because somebody has to buy this for doing this over printer the paper I proved what the uh recycling the shredder to pick up the paper 12 phones Okay, and my hub stop and I gotta get rid of okay So just like that we get rid of all those expenses, you know how much fun it was calling Verizon to say bye-bye anyway Let's just say profitability comes in we start dumping it back into staff into the office into friday dinners And it's it's almost like we uncovered this in football. We call it hidden yardage Like during kickoffs and things like that. There's this hidden profit that you have and While I was beating my chest that our hourly rate was $70 an hour You know what our hourly rate recently there's dropped below that but we're making more money So I think I've heard Tom says before I don't care about your prices. I care how much time you're spending In the home and when we start looking at metrics like that about how much time you're spending how much travel time You know and are your teams revved up of and being efficient You know that's like that's what starts giving me really exciting when you start Looking at finding all these little areas where we were profitable before But we had all these little cuts right not not not huge glaring problems When you kind of tighten that up and then you start to do things like gamify the the whole process of Drive time You know when we all own our companies it's the owners that care about drive time try and get your office staff revved up Hey, you know it's orders are working. What the hell are you driving up to here there? Why'd they pick that up? When you look at a number you know We're below 90% So me picks up the phone You know what? I'm going to call that customer and move them to every other Tuesday when we have a customer there We're going to gamify this and and you know win the bonus this week or whatever When we start looking at that and you can visually see Results and again, I I'm saying we're able to do that with made central which allows my office to kind of have fun You know how who can make Drive time fun and scheduling efficiency fun For 25 years. It was the worst term. I ever heard of my life You can somebody said that. I was like god. I know I know we have this But it puts into life going. Why are we driving up here? Why does this person have this arrival time? You know if we care about our staff We will sort this out and make a Pitch to the customer and say hey, we know you love Clara, but I hate to tell you Clara who's the money because You insist on line 30. Can you work with us? And when you start hearing those conversations in your office and you didn't ask for them That's you know, it's a powerful stuff. So, um profitability comes from so many different ways scheduling efficiency the all You know automations you get automated to be scared, you know, and That's that's half of it. You know of not manually sending out text communications to customers when you automate and get customers on text The funny thing that happened is phone call stop When phone calls stop, you don't need office staff answering the phone We literally have somebody turned us and say am I out of the job after we get some new software So no, we're having forward-facing teams. You're going to be you know, webbing people up Motivating them connecting them aligning them to the aim mission and purpose of the company Um, and again start throwing on big paychecks from great, you know Routes for the day and really good houses. It gets really fun to be back working and you don't want to sell your company Okay, I love that piece too that you don't want to sell your company anymore. That's awesome Now you were telling us and an email about a couple of cool things that you guys are Are working on right now So now that you have a little bit of your made central stuff out of your system out of my system so now I can just just one of the I mean recession proof thing to business is something that's really important now. I interest rates It's going up Gosh, it's it's going to be tight. We know we're always going to be facing We're fighting over discretionary income. So something we're looking at and actually Securities starting in don't call me a gene and but start looking at government work start looking at We're going to start doing some cleanings for senior citizens where it's defined And it is steady steady work that comes out Um And it's partnering with the county and it's funny if they're having these conversations with the county They start getting interested with who are your employees and and what are you doing? And then they come to the office and they go, holy moly this looks like a startup not like You know a cleaning service and we just start again I'm a I'm a free market guy 100% through and through but Uh, I would just recommend to all folks look into what Work that your state county and contracts that might be out there In the meantime, that's something that's always good to fall back on. Um, again, you just uh, it's it's not that hard to to Set up your staff for this type of work cleaning to senior citizens being with such a proof is is great and looking at other um Other areas that you know, you know for a lot of us commercial cleaning isn't a bread and butter But uh, you can start poking around there as well Something else you guys do and I think that you do very well and you touched upon it earlier as You know, you're concerned about the environment and in cleaning for health You're very Differentiated from a lot of the other competition. Yeah in your market. So when the economy Those prices Charge accordingly for your services and you have awesome staff that we want to have a livable wage. So yeah, Tom For us right off top of mine electrolyze water electrostatic disinfection. Oh when you're a main brigade customer You get pretty clean products for our lives. We drop off and rebuild us every time for you The staff shows up with single-use cleaning cloth A lot a who how many times have you seen your team ride back at the end of the day with that Santa Claus bag of wet hot mafos and trafos and whatever Come in like ninjas, you know come in and work training and and get your folks excited about You know dazzling those customers that matter If you deliver on that you can set the price that you need Um, and that is so important. I'm saying one more time that you've got to give me a little latitude on this We went down to made central academy and I love being nowhere. We were the only one good Raise your prices price increase price increase charge accordingly if you're good and you're better than the competition Charge accordingly because people want it tested out with with your sales team and throw it out there. Um, so definitely Um, I say, you know charge accordingly. I do have to go back also and say if you have a kick ass sales team um find out other people Will be interested in in you keep uh taking your sales calls We started doing that as a recession proof idea as well Where are our we have all we're all our sales people on the boat They work in marlin kreisland and islanta You know and they can take calls for other companies And so start looking at that overflow falls. Maybe weekend calls like they're already here Uh, you know honors and and again You know i've done that so just being creative. We're trying to keep Us one step ahead Um, so so money is still coming in and it may not just be from cleaning um, and and you know even even training You know, we're looking at um developing sort of a tick tock style fun infotainment style approach to cleaning um, we've all seen The videos of how to clean an already clean house, right? Did you see those before where some poor person is working on a cloth on an already clean surface? And they're showing you my secret left to right top the bottom that I came up with myself um, you know when they go through that and it's you can't watch that This is not the way the world works anymore. So, you know training training is going to be key and and Well, I love training. I also don't like people not out cleaning and introduction So how are we going to accomplish this and again back to a little bit of gamification? If we can make it a little bit fun where we have a learning management system coupled with really exciting 30 to 60 second maybe 90 second burst videos with how to clean it up how to make a bed And let's even further this way think about this developing soft skills for people meaning Hey when you need a customer or another employee making my contact conflict resolution Just the basics of stuff that we all know on a daily basis. We need to know You know things that pop up that that we should reinforce And gosh, I don't know where's how many times they have you told people to read the notes So That's the essential I have time now. Okay, I'm not buying paper. I'm not feeding a printer I'm not making a couple of support phone calls. So now we're developing training which is like You know, how do we how can we really professionalize this industry? and teach people about the products we use and Stay healthy and uh, keep an award to gamify. So that's that's something that's been like so much fun to do as well That's a lot of good. Okay. Good. We got a little comment here. We got a say Uh, by a free side photo. Okay Okay Okay for two of them, are they all driving brandy cause well, yeah, this is great. So we right now we want 12 teams that have 10 teams out of our white claims office and um 14 out of our heart And so those that video was from our uh, white claims office and but With the trend now and when we talk about folks who want to have staff Mega money It's so little cleaners which we were against for a while But we're gonna start adding that into our mix after interfaith central therapy Talking to everybody who laughed at me when they said you want to choose And but there's the teams are great because we found out personal research from our customers The people home during covid they love us in and out quick, right? They didn't have room we're home husband's on a zoom call wife's on a zoom call Even earlier there and that's been something but having the option to solo cleaners great. So right now We are all company cars, but I'm loving the fact that I could turn to something How about if your percentage got up into the 30s or 40s? Let's make that happen and you take down a little more responsibility and have a little more Work life balance right instead of instead of showing up the office every day So right now we are straight. We own the cars and we send them out But I'm very excited that by the end of this quarter. We'll have a hybrid model with some solo cleaners in there now That whole solo thing I think got a lot of traction over covid made social distancing a lot easier and And there's a customer base out there. Tom know that that kind of wants to put away That wants the relationship that wants the person to come in not the You know one night fan we just come in and You know Uh-huh, you know Just they want a little talk. They want a little conversation. Um, you know that type of thing so You know, I think you know we got customers that go, you know, just we guys have a little more time We got the commissions there and we're incentivizing staff to do a great big great job So anyway, yeah, I agree So we're excited to get that going as a whole other product in our area in the northeast Like there's a lot of them the solo mates are independent. So nobody's injured Nobody has an office staff. Nobody has what we offer as company to give all that support to customers Well one of the big ideas that I heard coming out of convention this year Probably one of the top ideas. I'm always listening to like what are the top three ideas that are coming out and I think one of the big ideas that came out was this idea of consistency And the importance of consistency for your teams but also consistency for your clients On how much of an impact we make and it's just a new way of thinking But I don't think it's all that new for you Right for you guys over at maid brigade. It seems like just for consistency of staff. Yeah I love it, but I don't want to marry it, you know, I I want okay, so when I was talking about training before if you can flatten out everybody So let's just say someone that we all love a comfort level I'm starting to think that You know, it's just so hard to do that to promise the same face at the same time where I like Promising the team's service that we're still going to have a friendly nice person that will read their notes And be prepared and we will prepare them and they'll show up so I love it once we do that somebody goes great Claret is my team. I go Now Claret can't she's kind of locked in In this area at that time or Whatever, so one thing we are doing is we're starting to negotiate with that. So we'll say Okay, do you want that consistency? We're going to monetize it Make central one more time. You can do that. You know, you can you can sit there and say Let's think about this list It is important for the customer. No, he's really nobody can really deliver that one You can't you're setting your office up to fail if you promise it What we can do to make sure it happens is go, that's great You know, we offer that to weekly clients and it's another 20 dollars per visit Yeah, and oh, that's too much. Oh, we want to offset that leave a key in those guarantee times And we'll knock that down to 10 So we're starting to find creative ways to go Okay, let's make sure we pay for this and let's not lock ourselves into a certain area geography Um, and then let's kind of add for some give backs. I we agree. We love claret too We can't guarantee her there unless you give us some things like a no time guarantee And maybe a key so if we get locked out And that's a segue to subscription if you guys want to talk about that Sure. Yeah You know, we were talking about was talking talking with uh, matt ricketts or ricketts from, uh, federlite Is it made federlite names in st. Louis? Yes You know, he's reviewing our numbers with us and looking at her skip rate and I'm feeling like crap You know, because he's like, oh my god, what's going on? I'm like I can't charge me this is so unstable. I'm like, I couldn't do it. You know, she's called up or something What am I gonna do now the morning up? And so he's like, yeah, he's like bad He's like, don't feel so bad or he's gone through it this and that and again Well, I'm not buying paper and talking to Verizon fighting with people all day. Now we're going Liz, what would you think of if you don't have bi-weekly service and it was like Netflix or You paid in the beginning of the month and you got your two cleanings, right? You skipped Okay, okay You're a good company so people are going to be okay with this. They're going to say, oh, that makes sense This helps you this is so you're going to cash the person You skip Tell us when you want the fact I can't guarantee it's going to be t nine, but Let's think about about that sort of model a gym membership. You know, you guys take us to a baseball game You don't show up. They don't reschedule the baseball game For far too long. I mean I'm looking at skip rates over the summer, but you're at 18% Couple of days. We're going on. What the hell? You know, we how can we forecast how can we put jobs on When we can't we can't count on this revenue and then you can still do a covid No disrespect to my office staff. They're afraid to lose a customer by saying hey You did this last time you gave you the warning you did it again. We gave you another warning you know, we're training customers to skip so Something we're playing with is saying as an industry How cool would it be if we got people Thinking of needs service as you pay me to be in the month to get your two visits Get your you know One visit week there's incentives we could put in there for obviously vacation and things like that We could play it around, but we're talking about professionals that show up and do a great job of companies that care We're thinking that that is there's something there there we can start doing that and You know, you know, it's just it's that thing you look at the numbers early in the week and then sometimes it comes on Friday But what the hell happens, you know We got we got ransacked here and uh, you know, everybody has a reason but again Look at those forward-thinking companies or the tech companies and why can't we model ourselves after that? We're awesome. We show up for great people We're blocking time off for you. We're ready to go and There's no reason we shouldn't model like common thing if we're looking at our financials that way Why not provide service that way and charge accordingly with plans that work for regular service customers? All right, we got it. We got a good question here. Is it annihilator tongue? Yes So think of the word annihilate And then just instead of a te on the end it's a i r e I don't know if that'll halt tom will probably pick it up. He'll probably send you over the link I'm working on it. I'm trying to figure Tom aren't you efforting to do that? I'm efforting. I am We picked out our machine. So it looks uh very flashy. So it doesn't look like a mess lab I'm very happy to see I saw video Sending pictures of the isle air the new machine looks very nice before while they're going early on with this Technology right and that and it's so cool about this is remember this It's a pending cleaners. We've never had this. Yeah They won't buy it. It's got a shelf life on it at the most certain days Nobody's gonna drop, you know money for the machine that that's going to be there and uh, you know again If you a safe and healthy and totally effective You've been using it now for almost five years It's awesome. Yeah, I didn't realize I've been using it for that long either Actually, Bruce Vance early the og Yeah, he was talking about it. I just the professional house cleaner class In fact when and he was talking about it. I was like this guy's crazy. But anyway, Bruce was awesome and That was that was uh, yeah He threw it out there. I got a plan out of it. Well, Bruce is crazy But you can't knock his knowledge, right? Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah Kirk I see you saw the link that we dropped in chat Yeah, hit them up. Uh, you'll wind up talking to uh, bill or uh, marty just tell them you heard about us Gary was giving them a plug on smart business modes They're good. They're good folks over there. Yeah And another benefit of that as well is it's got a very small carbon footprint. There's no packaging involved There's no shipping of anything My mental standpoint not only is it safe and healthy but You know in a day where you know goodness knows what energy costs are going to be in the future it And tell me I'll talk about when you go to start your teams on it What we do is we get each team a two and a half gallon cardboard You know, I can very joke we'll stick it on it and that's what they fill up and they keep in their car This stuff is totally stable. You know, you got to be you got a car accident until he hits the car with water and salt You know, so you can keep and supply. So if you're a company that's having people Come in with a bag of tropos and fill up their bottles out of the expensive thing Fill up once a week every Thursday. We dump our tanks have the teams fill it up and then in their cars They fill up customer bottles. So give your staff the gift of gifting customers They love it. We can't hear enough about this from customers where my trigger is broken this I need a new bottle this or that Best investment and again differentiate yourself from your competition Have things like free cleaning products for life disinfected for life as a regular service customer I love it. Yeah, I know I You know, come over and clean my house and drop me off free stuff. Yeah Yeah Lovely stuff Favorite things Yeah, I love that. I think that sounds great. So, um, I had a question about that Uh, you you had mentioned that there's a shelf life of like 30 days On the product so when uh, do the teams? Uh, when they're going out to the client's house, do they fill ever like the first of the month all bottles get emptied and Yeah Conveniently It's 30 days and every four weeks customer, right? Whoa, and that's all that says the unit we selected with annihilation That we're back in the day. We had an ordeal unit from pennant, which was about two weeks We had the biking pure Miss system or something like that. Anyway, um That's 30 days. So yeah, I know every time you take them dump them Yes, this is a bit of a selling point to your team But when we talk to our teams and have a hard time conversations What do teams want they want regular customers and saying look we have right on this because We're giving them what they want. You're giving them free products that are effective and work and you know, what what Do you partner with us on this? I don't want boss employee relationship You know, you want regular customers and you know that even led to conversations where our company We used to grow by uh post construction cleanings back in the you know, 90s early 2000s. We loved it You know our territory is Greenwich, Connecticut, you know Armon Scars there these big towns is a king in triangle and Gosh, if we go out to you know 10 30 000 square foot homes It was like a giant middle finger to all of our regular customers, right? This is actually no joke as we pulled up at the time Rob and I had a range We had no cars left. I mean people like climbing in And this is before the whole culture thing. I remember a couple of I don't even have those friends on that car He said what the hell is going on? I'm throwing people out of the car. We're running in there doing damage river And and kill ourselves again. We were chasing dollars not realizing we weren't making money, but we weren't Profitable the day we are now we were saying oh my god a four thousand dollar job in one day. Holy shit How do I get out there? You know, I want this job Gary's gonna go out there robin's gonna go out there and it's a 400 emails. I'm gonna pull my best employee Off of that regular you were talking about ladies that wanted consistency Send them all there and guess what that one night stand they never called us back. It was a booty call so You're talking about high frequency recurring revenue is how you get I mean You don't like our prices whatever you don't like the initial cost. That's fine. We're out another company Well, I'll tell you right now. There's that hate hourly jobs. They hate doing movements They hate it. Oh, well, we're gonna find somebody the customer's always right good When you're ready for regular service specialists with awesome staff that show up and provide free cleaning products happy names Make you happy when we show up in your house with enthusiasm and having a good time and they're treated well And they have a 401k paid time off Friday dinners single arms karaoke and we do it all You you are regular cleaning specialists. You want somebody out of our realm? This is out of doing it the wrong way too many times I work on 24th ladder trying to do the day possible Realizing stay in our lane Our lane is regular service our office is due to a regular service. Not the person who goes I have a fan No, no, no dust vacuum off wipe down station effective products And we're going to show up when we do and something goes wrong. We are going to take care of it No problem for a regular customer. It is so hard to listen to you. I mean, you're just so, you know monotone Pam is kind of summing it up for us here Gary I think this is the first time that you've been a guest on our show Oh And again, this is what we talked about last time was when he has made central I'm doing training programs getting rid of one-time cleaning getting rid of post construction cleaning Robin last week was with kendo rich from from gel Uh, Tommy mellow, you know these huge monster scalable companies that know what they're doing And now she's in houston doing a whole sales room for us And that's what you can do when you're having fun with your business, right? Instead of instead of showing up. I mean, I was the worst in the morning. I show people. Oh my god You said gary ron, you know, and purely hiding you know back in the day, you know Where's your phone? Where's your where's your uniform? You know, like we were walking around like a looser Next time next time you bring robin and you guys can be on together. I'm making popcorn. I'm sorry Yeah Yeah Gary you've been a delight literally you have been a delight to have on the show today You know been in business since 1996 and still or now to have all this passion For our industry and for the job. I mean, I I don't know. I'm I'm inspired. I feel really motivated. I'm like Totally you guys you guys are are doing important work that goes well beyond servicing the The clients that you service and in your markets. You are making a meaningful contribution Let's elevate the industry. Let's elevate, you know, you know, most of all the staff and Again, yeah, and be unapologetic about it, right? You know, there's no reason we're doing good stuff And then and the next time you guys come back bring the karaoke machine Yeah Anytime someone's in new york, please stop by we love having visitors We're most collaborating here and what other people are up to as well You guys just moved into a new office that you remodel that is amazing. Yeah, beautiful office Yeah, we want we wanted something for the staff locker room for the staff, you know, like uh Like uh, like almost a sports team, right? You know, so they have a really great space They want to be there and then we go down and meet tom and we're gonna solo me Hybrid model it's so funny people like can I still come to the office to pull my solo And do friday dinner because we have about one of our employees loves to cook give him a couple hours He puts up amazing stuff laptop grill You know, everybody, you know chills out a few beers and stuff like that. We have a good time So coming to york, we want to definitely make sure that we're coming out of friday night. Absolutely Absolutely, but we cook up for people even other times. We do you do that breakfast on the odd monday holidays It makes it so nice with staff. They love it We we are unfortunately at the top of the hour So we're gonna have to call this a take for the day Gary, thank you so much Thanks for having me We'll uh, we'll talk soon. Okay. We're robin next time. We're robin, okay? Oh, I definitely want you both I can't imagine that I have to I'm about that beforehand as um It's it's it's gonna be it's gonna be uh quite the event That's gonna be fun. All right. We'll look that out. So, um, next wednesday five o'clock Bye y'all