 Hi, Tom screwed here with cleaning this is today, and I've got my partner was trotter with me and my partner Derek Christian with me The service business builders cleaning business builders now castle keepers Institute Like we said the other day we put the band back together. This is cool We're excited and we're going to talk to you today about smart business moves cleaning businesses during the coronavirus What is wrong with you Derek? Why are you looking so mad? What's going on your world just busy that's going on around here we're trying to keep stay open through this thing with a handyman connection, but it's tough because customers are canceling and rescheduling and moving around and so What short do you have on today housing services group really? You made those once upon a time 15 IDs that we change for what company we have today Did you just not made service over that throwback Thursday I like that but but Tom I can't believe you have nerve to ask Derek about what he's wearing Hey I'm practicing social distancing. I'm working from home today, so I figured hey might as well be comfortable, huh? But but but you're working still so basically what you're saying is you're at home, but you're still working Yeah, and this is my this is my nice goof-off clothes. I mean it gets worse, you know You should see what I wear when I'm fishing I have seen that as well. Yeah So Tom, are you gonna tell it like it is today? I Will tell it like it is the question came up yesterday. I was a bit surprised The question can you use? Windex as a disinfectant as a way to mitigate the risk of the coronavirus the answer to that question is Not if you're doing it professionally not as a professional health cleaning company You certainly wouldn't want to make the claim that Windex is a disinfectant. It's not registered by the EPA as a It does have some isopropyl alcohol in it, but it's diluted with water And this is a variation of it that has isopropyl alcohol and ammonia in it as well but it's also diluted with a lot of water and Some other cleaning agents Fact of the matter is you can use it as a cleaner Maybe a general-purpose cleaner to remove the soil from the surface before putting the Disinfectant on that would actually be killing the germs not to say that it might not have Some effect of killing, you know some of our disabling some of the The virus it's on the surface because it's rather fragile, but as cleaning professionals It would be a really bad idea It would not be professional To offer it as a way of killing germs as a good So I Have to interrupt you real quick while you're looking up your little link there Yeah, I saw that you did say As far as killing the virus, but then you corrected that to disable the virus, right? Yeah Don't like it around that as well virus people Talk about germs in general and I guess several varieties But but primarily you're talking about bacteria and you're talking about viruses Bacteria are like little self-contained living organisms and you put some bacteria on a Surface and if it's got a food source and if it's some moisture and enough You know the right amount of heat it'll grow I mean though you see studies where you can take like a petri dish with the agar in it put some bacteria in it and You know it propagates Viruses are not able to live by themselves They have to basically hook up with another living organism a cell so the virus in and of itself is there looking for a body to Be introduced to so I can start getting it to cells and I was once it's in your cells It'll propagate but in of itself it won't grow on the surface So it's not living Right so a living thing so that you can't kill it because it's not alive It's for the coronaviruses concern it's an RNA envelope which has like a protein shell around it which is really Fragile and it doesn't take a whole lot to break that that shell that's around it once that's what's that compromise then it's It's basically an effective. It's not a viable Pathogen at that point. Well, I really like that you said disable it. I'm gonna use that term I hadn't heard that yet. I'm like, okay. That's still that still sounds good. I mean kill sounds better Killed it but In the absence of being able to use that word and still having some accuracy. I'm gonna go with disable I'm talking Several links here in our chat and our comments that I think might be useful On If you really want to know what can win that so what makes it work. I've got a link for that. You got a link a Couple of links that that talk about disinfectants and a few We're talking to clients if you're promoting your service and you're talking about the the actual products you use to Viruses and bacteria and other pathogens You don't want to take a point and presented at the distance and if it's not recognized by the EPA So a lot of people talk about Tea tree oil and vinegar and I know this is not on your agenda today Tom, but nobody's on Commenting so I'm asking anyway. A lot of people talk about tea tree oil and vinegar as being natural disinfectants What do you what do you think about that? If we're putting ourself for professionals in the industry During this time now there's so much concern about you know the spread of the coronavirus and breaking the chain of infection I Personally Responsible and from a consumer standpoint, I would like to hope and think that consumers Are looking for something more than that Okay, awesome. Hey Sarah Thank you too for for being consistently helpful Hey, Sarah any news today anything going on in the world that that We should should be talking about what's going on in DC Derek Well, you may have heard the Senate passed the Stimulus plan they were talking about there's a lot of stuff in there and the details haven't come out yet The bill is supposedly 800 pages and then the bureaucrats then have to take that and turn it into rules But there's a couple things in there the one that's getting the most attention right now is they made a change to unemployment and Everyone who's on unemployment related to coronavirus the way it is currently written will get an extra six hundred dollars a week There was a little bit of a blow-up where Some of the Republicans said that that was a mistake that that bill was never supposed to say that It was supposed to say that they can get up to an extra six hundred dollars a week Up to their maximum level of pay. So, I don't know if you know this but unemployment is capped in most markets at about six hundred a week It varies depending what state you're in but for most of us at six hundred a week or two-thirds pay Whichever is less so if you're somebody who was making fifty thousand dollars a year you end up getting a very small fraction of your pay So one of the things they had done is made this rule that you would get six hundred dollars up to six hundred dollars a week But when the law was actually written the Republicans say it was a mistake that it was left in that everyone gets an extra six hundred the Democrats said it wasn't a mistake we meant it to be that way and It passed the Senate and they're saying they're going to try to fix it in the house But there's some debate whether or not that's going to happen and the reason why that matters if you're a home cleaner And you're making five hundred dollars a week when you go on unemployment you make three hundred dollars Sixty one two-thirds of that well when the government then gives you an extra six hundred a week You're now making nine hundred a week on unemployment. Well, you make five hundred a week when you're working So when we call them and want them all to return to work, they're gonna go lose about four hundred dollars a week That's not gonna make us very popular, you know, we're gonna be calling people being hey Hey, you can come back to work and they're gonna be like no, I don't want to come back to work I'm making almost twice as much sit and watch a Netflix and I am working for you Now We don't want to get too hung up on it because it hasn't passed the house yet It honestly it looks like it's probably gonna pass the house with the six hundred dollars in it though There's a fair amount of debate on it But a fair number of the leading Democrats have come out and said well if you have a problem getting your people to return to work maybe you should pay them more and Another thing that some people have said is the reason we did it this way is most of the state's unemployment systems are antiquated and Hard to reprogram and to write the algorithm to figure out How much they can be paid and change the maximum amounts and all that would be too difficult And it's just easier to go in and write a little code that says add six hundred dollars to everyone And they said because we want to get the money out as quickly as possible We're just gonna add six hundred dollars to everyone who's on unemployment At least for me it has had exactly the effect that you would hope it didn't have I had had nobody Because handyman connections and essential service and we're actually still relatively busy So I had not offered to lay anyone out Well, I had two guys last night text me and say they would like to go on unemployment Because my guys make 800 a week so under that formula they would make $1,100 on unemployment So I had a couple of guys sit around and figure out that they could make $1,100 a week if they didn't work or $800 a week if they did so two guys last night texted me and said hey, I'm really getting concerned about this virus I think I need to go on unemployment. I don't think it's a mistake that that happened the night that that was passed. So Well, that's the tricky thing now I can say no we're busy, but then it gets real uncomfortable when you're telling somebody You need to keep working when they're saying I don't want to work. I'm uncomfortable. So am I going to? Say okay, you can but I'm not improving your unemployment I don't know what to do because I don't want to approve it because then they go tell all the other guys Hey, if you stop working you make more money. I mean that could spread like a virus through my company and I could lose all my employees So yeah, a little bit of a tough choice for me. So I'm kind of hoping they fix it tomorrow But I'm not crossing my fingers either. I'm kind of I'm not counting on it Now that's the bad side. The plus side is they did announce $350 billion worth of Additional loans for small businesses under 500 employees And it's got some really interesting provisions in it that says if you keep your employee your your employees at Within 10% of what you had previously Then what will happen? Sorry. I'm not doing very well is you can get the loan forgiven. So basically it's no longer a loan It's a gift. You only pay the interest But only for what you paid for payroll Rent and utilities but that's a lot of money for me. So that's interesting But they haven't published the details, you know, a lot of people have asked well, wait a minute What if I already laid my people off and from my understanding is the intent is once you reopen If you bring those people back on at the same level or close to the same level you would qualify for it So that's another one of those who are waiting for the details But that gets me really excited because the SBA loan program is kind of neat and interesting and great I can get a low interest loan, but the idea that it's going to become a grant if I actually rehire all my people that's really interesting because now all of a sudden it's free money and Our employees can play the free money from the government game. So can I So but that's where it gets tricky though for me to get my to get my free money from the government I got to get those employees to come back to work. So yeah, they've made it a little tricky for me So I see there's some debate going on that if I don't lay people off or include approve them He's leaving can they get unemployment? No, they can't But once again, that puts me in a little bit of an uncomfortable position Do I go out and tell those guys you can't get unemployment? I have work for you and have them be pretty pissed off at me for coming to work It's sort of like a snow day. Okay, I look at it this way One of the guiding principles I had with my maid services is when it snows if my employees are uncomfortable driving I don't make them drive. I don't ever want somebody to be in front of a trial attorney In saying well, I told them that I didn't know how to drive in the snow and he made me drive So I'm already a little concerned of my liability on this virus thing And if I've got an employee who sent me in writing. Hey, I'm worried about the virus I would like to go on unemployment and I say no and then anything happens. Well, so it's a little bit of an uncomfortable situation So what I'm thinking possibly as a middle ground is I may offer to let those two guys go on sick leave We talked about that two days ago where they can go on sick leave and get two-thirds of their pay The extra six hundred dollars only employs applies to unemployment So I'm thinking I might write back to them go completely understand your concern that you want a self quarantine You're not going on unemployment though. It's what's called sick leave You'll be getting a check for me for the next couple of weeks I'm suspecting when they realize they won't make more money. They may decide they want to come back to work And if they do decide to take sick leave as long as it's not too many people I'll get though that money back versus my payroll taxes that we talked about two days ago So anyway, there's a lot going on We don't want to get too hung up on it because it hasn't all passed yet But that's what we're really nervous about is our employees could end up making I when I did the math It was like twenty four dollars an hour by not working But you know we've been doing this for a while and as it pertains to this particular piece of legislation It really hasn't passed. I mean, I don't know I suspect the house is still having some deliberation on it I think a vote is scheduled tomorrow morning at nine o'clock. So Yes, I bet we're gonna vote on it tomorrow morning and then it has to make its way to the White House and I guess the presumption is that the president will sign it, but who knows and Realistically from talking to to in doing some reading today as well, you know We really won't know what's going on and until the regulations are written So it's gonna be be days probably before we really have a good understanding I would presume that you know early next week will have some answers to some of these really basic questions, but I've talked to a lot of people today and I'm spending a little time talking about this actually and I'm you know, Liz and I were talking about it, you know, we need to we need to be Better I guess quite frankly For a couple of reasons this isn't within our circle of influence. We're just speculating. We really don't know So, you know, we can play some what-if scenarios through but probably what's in our mind is a lot worse than what's really gonna happen We've been through a lot of this stuff before Go back to when minimum wages were we're going up Some some states a material amount. It's like my gosh, how are we gonna gonna make this work? but we figured out how to adjust our bill rates and manage our businesses away where we're just as profitable as we ever was our Back when the Affordable Care Act was coming on board There was a lot of concern and fear what that's going to do small business, but we're able to navigate that and everything's okay I Think that we're gonna you know, I'm confident that we're gonna be fine with this because this isn't a piece of legislation that's focused on our particular industry This is going to affect millions of companies millions of employers. So there's this concept to be protected by the masses Congress isn't gonna put forth legislation to put us all out of business the idea is they want us to be in business They must be hiring and paying a bunch of people So however they sort this out I have to believe it's going to be done in a way that's going to give us Racial incentives to be hiring people and in finding something for them to do that that that's productive and doing it in a way Where we can be profitable We'll know more next week And it's not gonna be easy and it's not gonna be fun No, no Then again, we haven't It's been a while. I mean, I don't know if it's ever been easier fun It's probably been been harder and less fun recently and it has has been in a while Well, one thing I have noticed around this is that I have seen as really encouraging is a lot of business owners that in the past were maybe a little bit complacent and just sort of going along This might not be great and fun I've seen a lot of engagement with business owners really digging in and thinking about their businesses and You know thinking about next move and what they're going to do We do have a couple of questions over here. Tom. You see Vesos says what are your thoughts on business interruption insurance? rule business interruption insurance will protect your business in the event that Your your office is compromised by You know some natural disaster you lose assets That prevent you from from doing work It doesn't protect you when Your customers stop doing business with you It's like getting insurance if you lose a customer There really isn't anything for for that either and this is really more in that area. We've talked to professionals in the insurance industry and For our practical purposes, there is no insurance mechanism to Protect you against loss of business for something like this Theoretically there is I mean you can go to Lloyd's of London and ensure anything for anything but Practically none of us would have insurance that would indemnify us For loss of business because of coronavirus you know, you did say something though that Um Maybe think huh, I wonder if there's a twist around there. You said it usually it's around loss of assets Um, aren't our employees considered assets in some way shape or form? Nothing that the uh that our insurance company typically insures like a replacement value And I gotta write us a check if that would be bad actually I could see that going in all sorts of bad ways. Yeah Um Sarah says have been told you have to have a physical property loss may vary by state, which I I think is exactly What tom is saying too Um Anyway, I uh, I did like what you're saying tom about You know smart business move is Don't spend your time working outside of your circle of influence, but I do think that Part of what's happening for people is they don't know what to do And and because of that they need to feel busy and like they're doing something taking charge. I mean Most people that know me have heard me say at least a hundred times That the biggest source of happiness is control And so when we when we lose that control we lose our sense of self and happiness and and safety and security And because we can't we don't have control over this We don't know where to go what to do we're spending a lot of time trying to make ourselves feel like we're doing something Like we're actually taking action and we're taking charge and that we're in control where you know Talking ad nauseam about this isn't really anywhere I read an article. That's why people are out hoarding toilet paper because when you don't have control over the situation I mean that's one thing that you can do to make yourself feel like you're Doing something. Yeah make sense to me Yeah, absolutely There are things within our circle of influence that are specific to to our business We talk about being protected by the masses this whole everything's happening with the legislation and paid to fmla and paid sick time there's millions of other companies that are going to be dealing with the same thing and At the end of the day you have to trust the government. It's not trying to put us all out of business. We know rationally they aren't um So that's what I mean protected by the masses, but there's been specific to our business that there's Only really one entity that's going to be taking care of us and that's us as the business business owners And we've been talking to us several days about you really need to be working hard on the finance side of this And there's two sides of that equation Take as much expense as you can and push it out into the future We're talking about the rent and the leases and car loans and bank notes and anything out there that Where these are financial obligations that you're paying on every month just about every creditor out there Is expecting a call from you asking for some type of uh consideration to to push those payments out Do as much of that as you can On the flip side SBO has has loan programs Please if you want to talk to your bank yet, please talk to them tomorrow because um Most banks programs right now where they're making loans for for their small business clients Just to help them stay in business So tom I have a question there. Um, I've been approached multiple times now by small business owners That have said to me Yeah, but everybody keeps saying to call your bank, but the bank's not going to own loan me any money I I was barely making it and now with this Why are they I don't have anything to lend against I don't even have anything What do you say to those people tom? They're offering unsecured loans. You don't have to have any collateral. What they You know under normal circumstances That's a true statement Because you need them more than they need you because they've got you know Thousands of of clients and you're just one What's the situation right now where all of their clients are in the same boat? And if they don't take these measures Just a couple dimensions of it one if they don't take these measures to keep their clients in business They're not going to be in business because without small businesses And that's a huge chunk of their revenue So they need to keep up from business Secondly the government is pushing them to do this, you know the federal reserve Is putting like another 350 billion dollars out there for small business, but they're not just doing that They're taking it to the treasury basically and leveraging it up. It's going to be like four up to like four trillion dollars I mean these are just unfathomable amounts of money and that's above and beyond what the sba is doing So They call it helicopter money if you can just imagine a helicopter flying around out there just throwing throwing money out the window So so Ask will be surprised Okay, good. That's what I've been telling people Another thing that I've seen people doing Or not doing I mean, I love this about Derek today. We had a call And uh, we were all supposed to be on the call at I don't know what time it was And time you reached out and Derek's like nope, dude. I'm I'm triple booked And and he's not triple booked because she's on facebook talking to people He was what are you doing selling a house here today? Yeah, I was doing an inspection for a house I was selling Yeah, so I mean At some point again smart businesses keep moving forward, you know Don't don't focus on what you can't do and how bad it is But what can you do like tom said call a bank call your bank. That's one of the things I mean I I actually almost think we need a list here are 10 things you can do one one All your bank to call anybody that you have a loan through three Call your mortgage lender or your landlord, you know, there's there's a lot that you can do So start trying to focus on what you can do instead of what you can't do You're not going to get anywhere focusing on what you can't do And and not to say that there's anything wrong with sometimes focusing on what you can't do because You know sometimes you just find yourself there, but when you find yourself there stop Okay, what can I do? There are things I can do and things I should be doing And push yourself that way you will feel good and we all know this For for those of us that tend to procrastinate once we get ourselves doing the thing It's easy to keep doing it. It's like, okay. Yeah feels good. It's like Get in there and do the thing first, right? So Whatever your list is Of things that you should be doing Start to start doing it. Oh, I see we've got Linda's got with employees on unemployment due to COVID-19 Will there be a penalty on the rate the business only paid? This question has a lot of Pieces to it. Yeah, I mean The rules are written by every single state. So they're all a little different But most of the states have announced that if you go on COVID-19 related unemployment That it will not hit your individual history. The way they're doing that in Ohio is they've I don't know if you know this if a bigger employer lays off a bunch of people There's normally what's called a lap a mass layoff ID Especially a little code you put in and in Ohio. They're giving us a specific code that if you're laid off related to COVID-19 You use this code and and when you put that in it codes you that you got laid off because of COVID-19 That's how they're doing it in Ohio. I can't speak for every state But you use the COVID-19 mass layoff number It will not hit your individual history. So it's not going to hit my unemployment in particular that being said Um, we are going to have record unemployment like the country's never seen that has to be paid for somehow and unemployment is A insurance pool. So Everyone's rates are going to be going up. It's just it just is now The good news is you're going to be included with big companies like proctor and gamble and the geese and the people Who are working at home and paying their people still that aren't laying people off The medical care facilities people like my business that are still open. So as you're laying people off Um, there are people they're going to help offset it. So chances are you're going to get hit with about 20 percent of the actual cost But you're going to get hit with it. It is going to go up But there's no reason for you not to because if you don't lay people off What's going up probably is the overall pool So you don't need to worry about your individual rate But we also need to be realistic that whatever your forecast is for future unemployment costs You should probably up it in my opinion by probably 20 percent just to cover your butt a little bit because it is going to go up Now they just announced In the the national legislation that's about to go through is supposed to allow 10 99 employees and contractors to draw unemployment as well Which is really tricky because unemployment is technically insurance and they've never paid into the insurance pool Um, so I don't know how that's going to affect things. Are they going to start making 10 99 employees pay unemployment because they're drawn from it So I don't know that's the details that they have to figure out Um, but like I said, the punchline is there's no reason not to use it It's not like if you lay everyone off your rates going to triple next year But plan on your rate going up next year anyone who tells you it's not going to affect your unemployment wrong It's going to affect everyone's unemployment. It's just not going to affect you directly Your personal experience rating right it's not going to affect your personal experience rating But the average that we all use goes up So if the average cost is 100 and your experience rating is 1.2 Now the average is going to be 120. So your individual rating is not going to go up But the average cost is going to go up. So That's basically what's going to happen So there's no reason not to do it because whether you lay them off or not you're probably going to have that expense go up Just to put it in perspective Last week alone 3.3 million people filed for unemployment Going back to the beginning of time since they tracked it The highest week they ever had was a little less than 700,000 So somewhere between four and five times as many people applied for unemployment Last week then what the previous record was. I mean this is Just crazy and in ohio our unemployment server crashed again. It was up briefly for about 12 hours yesterday. So Since this whole thing has started our unemployment website has been alive for about 36 hours So there's a huge backlog of people in ohio that haven't even applied yet And I imagine the other states are also crashing Of course and it's the same it's like the sba website applying for their disaster loans The website's down more than it's up So as far as i'm talking about i'm going to go back to what can we do So if if we're in this situation and the unemployment Site is down and what what can we do? How can we be helpful? Can we just be encouraging? Can we you know, what are some of the things that we can do outside of the The things that we've already the basic things that we've talked about. Is there anything else we can do and good job Sarah I see you went to the bank and you're looking good. Good. Glad to hear that Is there what what else can we do you guys? well We need to be thinking about what our business is going to look like on on the other side of this um, we also need to be Depends on it depends on where we are within our business cycle if we're still conducting business every day and and Kind of like you know situation normal We need to make sure that we're you know Taking extra caution to to make sure that our employees are safe or clients are safe and The whole communication that that that that goes along with that if we've shut down operations or partially shut down We need to be thinking about taking care of The clients staying touchable clients and taking staying in touch with our with our employees as well if if they've been displaced to Keep everybody in the loop and the communication flow make sure they're you know, they know that that that you care and You know that there's no surprises down the road because you don't want to lose either one of them So if we're doing business, we need to make sure that everybody's safe and we aren't doing business We still need to make sure everybody's safe and and they're Still part of of of our life when we start doing business again. I think that's really important right now So do either of you guys have any Um opinion on like where where businesses should be going should they be Um, I'm trying to pivot into commercial should they be doubling down on residential? Should they just be trying to weigh it out? Do are there if you guys have any opinions on where to go there? What do you think Derek? Um, well, uh, my internet's been spotty because everyone's streaming it once around here. Um I think that residential is going to come back, but it'll probably be down by about 20 percent I also think that and it all depends how long this goes Um, I also think a lot of our competitors are going to close up I think a lot of people who thought run running the business was easy Um, just got an abject lesson on why sometimes it's better to work for somebody else Um, so that that's going to be interesting to see. Um, I do think there's going to be a lot of demand for Things like common area cleaning that maybe we're not as important to people as they used to be I think there's going to be some opportunities to talk about science and cleaning and how important cleaning is and what your procedures are Um, I gotta say, um, I think people are going to look at teams of cleaners a little differently than they used to Um, and the idea of having fewer people in their house is going to be attractive to them So that's something we're going to need to think about I honestly am just trying to take advantage of the time and the fact that we're slowing down um to take the opportunity to do search engine optimization to Um, find new sources of customers. So we've been trying to find Um, commercial accounts we can work for we've been trying to find whatever we can to kind of fill the pipeline And even though we're in castle keepers case, we're closed and handyman connections case. We're slow is We're trying to use this opportunity to get stronger a lot of people are Watching the news obsessively and not doing stuff. And like you said, we've kind of decided We can't do anything about all of that what we can do is that long list of things We've always wanted to do like create landing pages and we never had time to create the content Have a lot more time all of a sudden. So we're trying to get some of that stuff done Uh, so lisa good good tip there, uh, if you guys can see lisa's comment Her people had really good luck. Um going through unemployment in the middle of the night So no, they're not going to be working anymore. They can get up at two in the morning And uh Let's see, uh Elena wants to know when do when do you plan on doing business again tom for castle keepers? We um, I mean the decision late last week to uh discontinue Field service operations was the term that we used for two weeks up through i think April 3rd Um, we're talking to our employees. We're talking to our clients and we're in a process I mean, we're we're we're talking to them on a regular basis and we're sending out emails and The general message is You know, we want to make sure you're okay. We on the on our, you know employee side We're we're we're checking to see where they are with with with unemployment We're we're also checking to see, you know, you guys are ready to come back to work and we're ready to come back to work and I'll the largest part of them are like, yeah, I'll come clean homes tomorrow if you're ready to do that And and we aren't but You know that's part of the answer to your question the other part of the answer to your question is Where are clients with all of this and there's a spectrum and there's some that We're staying at home. They're doing the social distancing and they're trying to Basically break the chain of infection and they're sequestered in their home and they don't want anybody else coming in including their cleaning company Quite honestly, I think that that's probably the best thing for everybody to be doing from a social standpoint On the other end of the spectrum. There are people who Are conducting life As normal in some cases, you know, their jobs were, you know, they don't have the luxury of doing anything else by that and they see house cleaning service as something that's a necessity and You know, we do think that we're an essential service under the right circumstances and that could be one of those right circumstances And we're contemplating How we can do as much as we can do to help with the social distancing and and breaking the back of this thing but at the same time supporting the people who need A house cleaning service and if they don't use us, they're going to be using somebody else anyway And that's really the thing that we're thinking about We would rather for them to use us but we believe that we're more qualified. We're more knowledgeable We are going to keep, you know, everybody's safer than The next best alternative and they might not even find the next best alternative so I think you're tapping into what Elena asks too She says if it's before we have an actual cure or vaccine, which sounds like it will be What are the things you're going to do to have your staff and clients to keep your staff and clients safe? Hopefully before too long, there'll be an abundance of PPE on the market and You know Right now it's kind of a catch 22, you know The the the the responsible thing to do from a societal standpoint is to let all of that flow to to the health care providers Because they don't even have the the tools that they need um You know gloves are important. It it wouldn't Surprise me that if it doesn't become more commonplace for um for procedure masks people call them surgical masks that they don't they're not really um Like respirators like the N95 but but they uh Do offer protection from other people if if you as an individual are are are contagious and um I could see I could see those types of things becoming more commonplace and almost expected But not at the moment because it's just not enough of it out there Um Hey Heather, Trisha, Sarah. Hi guys I'm like, so what are these guys out there just tagging? Hi y'all. I had a question. Oh, okay. Um, so I know somebody called me today and um She has a conflict Because she's trying to stay open. She really wants to stay open for her employees She wants to stay open because she believes that she's actually helping to you know break the chain of infection Um, and she feels like the community needs her so she really wants to do what she can Um to help but she got a call today. One of their clients is now Positive tested positive And before she comes home from the hospital. She wants to have her home cleaned And so now the question is What do we do how do we say no to the portion of the population that needs us the most If I don't clean it who's going to clean it and how you know, how does that whole thing happen? Should she refer her to? Like Oh, who are the people like crime scene cleanup, but they usually are dealing with Live live organisms and and stuff. So Oh, how does how does that play out? What what do you guys think? In the hospital, I would Ask her what did the healthcare workers wear when she You mean it depends how bad she was. She likes to see was an icu. They'll be in in in in full respirator more gear and and you know the Whole ghost buster suit type deal and they're doing that for a reason. It's that contagious and it's that deadly and If she had that virus when she was living in her home, then You know, I guess maybe it's a question of how long She had been in the hospital as well. I mean the other side of that argument I was going down the path of you know, she needs people that have the same gear as what she saw in the hospital But on the other side of that argument, you know, the the the the viability of the virus like on a surface You know, I've seen one study that says under some conditions it can can be viable up to nine days But that's like an extreme case. I think most people believe On most surfaces it's two days and sometimes a matter of a couple of hours just depending upon The surface so she's been in the hospital for like a couple of weeks Likelihood of there being any viable, you know, uh virus in her home would be small Didn't we see plastic town for 72 hours? Yeah, there's a study this the uh article that we have on cleaning business today has a bunch of footnotes and references And in that article we say that there have it has been seen to be viable up to nine days If you find that reference and click on it, it'll take you to a study that it lists all kinds of different surfaces and The the the the viability the amount of the the amount of time it's viable and all those different surfaces under different conditions for several different viruses including I think the longest one that was plastic right for and I'm pretty sure it was like 72 74 hours something like that 73 I think a steel plate actually maybe was was was the highest I can't I don't I don't recall but the study is is is And it's the the actual it's a it's a variation of the SARS virus that actually causes covet 19 Coronavirus is the disease the actual viruses SARS Something another I forget all the details Is You're late to the call Trisha. I already gave him grief about that. See Trisha even says you're mean muggin it Derek He says he's just busy thinking a lot, you know And Pensive all right Sorry You can tell when he's talking to somebody he likes on the computer when we're talking because all of a sudden he'll start smiling We're talking about something really serious. We're like Derek. We're talking to you All right, so we got a couple of questions here Um, again, it says that is something to think about how can we offer our services? Then when someone tests positive not service them, right? It's something to think about or Can we or not and then she also says are we really essential or not? And are we prepared for that type of cleanup? so It would be really awesome if there was just one answer there But so much of that that question is the answer to that question is steeped in opinion Right now, right? So And I think I would argue if there was interior space that we had Good reason to believe that there were viable SARS viruses that cause Uh, COVID-19 that we are not qualified to do that and we should not take that on as as a responsibility you know Healthcare workers and there are no trained professionals who are trained to do that type of work. That's their job description People who sign up for our services to be a house cleaner Are trained nor are they I mean that's not part of their job description to Do biohazard, you know get into to those types of of of situations that is You know You know, I would honestly that is that is that would we would not be good good practice on our part to put them In harm's way. We are responsible for our employees safety and if we knowingly put them into a situation like that and they contracted Uh coronavirus there could be some some real liability associated with that um Typically if if an employee gets sick even if it's like in the workplace and you know, somebody has the flu and somebody else gets the flu There's no liability there. That's just part of the human condition But this is a different different situation and this is this is this is going to be handled a little bit differently We're going to see a ton of litigation on this down the road So, um, let's see david made a distinction that uh essential and prepared are different And and I I would agree with that that that does make sense to me You also said something tom you said that we're responsible for our people What do you think about this new idea that don finne is um Espousing right now that we're not responsible for our people. We're responsible to them But we're not responsible for them that they are responsible for themselves in their own choices Well, we're responsible to them in a lot of regards, but we're we are responsible for their safety while they're on the workplace legally we Yeah, yes Have an inosha audit you're legally responsible for the safety of your employees Let me give you more details if you want to know yeah There's a lot of people who extend that and think they're responsible for making sure everybody has a paycheck and Everybody is happy. And you know, you know, we're responsible to them But they're human beings and they're responsible for a whole lot of things But the safety component like berik said that's on us. We are responsible for that And there's great big federal laws and big fines to cover that And the thing that is really on the proof to me around that is How truthful of escape that is is uh every once in a while you'll get an employee that says Hey, I'll just sign something saying that I'll accept responsibility because I don't want to wear gloves And if anything happens to me because of that that I'll sign something saying that I'll take that responsibility They can't Legally, even if they signed something saying that we're still responsible. So that that to me really Explains how how much that responsive Responsibility lands on us Um, Dan it and I don't know if your name is pronounced Dan it or Danique term I'm sorry that if I keep pronouncing it wrong. I apologize One of your values is integrity. I agree that everybody has to make make the choice themselves And you said you had a doctor client get really upset that you're still sending cleaners out I had a doctor called us wants us out twice a week Right, so You're right everybody's making different decisions and I'm sure there's some Science in here that is that could tell us What we really should be doing or not doing or how to be Prepared like David David says even if we are considered essential But it's so wrapped up and so many other things, right? We've been talking every day now for an hour or a long time So don't we've been a week Not a cool week's maybe a couple of days actually I feel a little bit better And There still isn't done neat. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that Um, I had a feeling that it might be to meet instead of dan it so, um there's just so much that Even even with the stuff we do know. There's so many little twisty things that We don't know or that we're still afraid of even if we know This one piece what about this other maybe thing over here. Are we willing to take the risk? You know, it's just scary Father we have business interruption insurance, but it only covers damages to the property when we can run a business Yeah, we called our insurance program. That's the same thing that sarah was saying as well and so was tom Liz we have a stay-at-home order and cleaners aren't listed in that boulder county Um, I can tell you that one of the things that you can do is you can reach out To your local government and ask them I know two companies right now the first one that's coming to mind is tyler pendleton That um, he reached out and he got a signed letter Saying that he is listed as an essential service. He is they agree that he's um considering an essential service Even though he was not listed on the original Our document that was sent out so Now i'm not saying that that could be your case to me, but you don't you don't know what you don't know Again right back to you're in ohio the county health department And they've said that cleaning is essential in ohio so And their feedback was you need to use your logic if you're cleaning for you know, we clean for a fair amount of People with some type of disability who physically can't clean for themselves And they said you are definitely essential because if you don't clean bad things happen in those people's houses If there's other households where you're probably not essential and they said just use your judgment and keep your people safe Is basically what they said Well, make sense. Um, I it's different everywhere and it's confusing. I had somebody hit me up yesterday Listen, I just don't understand How am I not listed as an essential business, but the linker store is Like how why? And and in her state also they have dispensaries. So she's like and the dispensary. I don't understand So you know They listed landscapers and painters as essential and a lot of people have been like how is getting your house painted essential Um, same thing Yeah, although I can understand painting being a little bit more essential than liquor stores My maybe that's just because I don't drink. Maybe if I drank I would be totally understanding this more Management part of this that maybe that is the thing Come on, Liz. David I can totally can can you guys all just picture David? Come on, Liz I'm sorry, David Yeah, so Uh, I don't know It's it's a loose term. We have a a different a stronger lockdown right now in washington that just went into effect last night And construction companies are no longer Um considered essential and they they had been before Yeah Where where was that, Liz? That's in washington the whole state I believe it's a state, but i'm not gonna swear to that because I didn't see it myself We should change our careers and be there You you think we got problems now You want to be dealing with people like us? Uh, sarah, they're looking for ever clear for Sanitizer is they have a high enough content? I'm guessing it does right high enough alcohol contact There are There are some discoveries like there's one here in charleston that basically retooled and instead of making vodka They're now making hand sanitizer. You just need to show up with a bottle and they're handing out hand sanitizer Well ours is handing out the little small ones to our distillery But they're also selling the gallons for 20 and then they ask for a donation if you want to pay any more than that I got a few gallons. I'm not gonna lie Sounded like a good deal to me On david we're we provided therapy for a lot of our clients and a lot of our employees sometimes, right? Truth be told And sometimes we're on the receiving end of that Yes Elena what software do you use for this shared live? Are we using This is a platform called three yard three yard dot com We played around with the schedule and Elena this is I really like this one like this one We use be live for a while and this is Worked a lot better for us Yeah, I like this one too. Um, this one doesn't seem to have as good of options for Announcing in advance though, does it tom? You haven't been able to find that it does. I'm just lazy. Oh, okay Tooth to throw out I'm not lazy. I've been busy. Okay. All right. We'll give you that you you look really busy there tom with your your vodka and your Your your fishing shirts then Okay, so seriously though tom, uh, we've got three minutes left So we got two things that we have to do here. One is get your link up there and then talk about what is On the agenda for tomorrow Anybody you have anything of specific concern or interest that they would like to hear about tomorrow Um, otherwise we will we know there's gonna be stuff if If tomorrow morning At nine o'clock the house is supposed to be signing this bill. My guess is we're gonna be talking a little bit more about that tomorrow, but Maybe there is something else that somebody might want to hear about Whoa Yeah, just close your eyes It'll be okay Derek You're getting hit up again. Derek a smile, Derek. Yeah, sorry I see I was distracting everybody tom while you made that mess Can you uh, see my screen? Yeah Okay, so this is cleaning business today.com on the right hand side here Um, we're sending out how many how many newsletters a week are we doing now? Derek? Uh, I do at least three sometimes daily just kind of varies So if you're not getting them There's a reason for that you need to uh, go ahead and just give us your email first last name and then you'll be on that list um We were talking about essential services and what states are looking at it how What no no we were talking about coronavirus and what services it lives on. Um This article here the first one Up we kind of pinned it to um to the front of the website um, it's got a whole bunch of sources here and You can figure it out one of these gives you this report that gives you All the different surfaces that a SARS virus can live on in various times under certain conditions fairly comprehensive and I haven't done that here It's the first time I've done this here off of this computer. So I had to remember the url. There's a url called Clean business day.com forward slash coronavirus dash downloads that gives you All kinds of resources and downloads Yesterday, we uh talked about a template that you can send to your clients if you're thinking about Discontinue temporarily continuing service. That's the link there um Here's a link to a resource off of issa that kind of gives you what each state is doing in terms of executive orders and You know by their interpretation of that Oh town froze for a second there Yep Oh, he's back I'm back. Okay. Um So where did I lose you? I know for half a second. We're good. Keep going. Okay. Cool. So um It looks like it's been updated too Could be yeah It is it's updated since we looked at it yesterday Remember Go ahead No, the answer is yes in every state that has an executive order, you know, they their their interpretation is Residential cleaning is essential Oh, no. Oh, yeah, sorry. Yeah, but now who's mean there's no executive order So there's no Whirling to me right Tom yesterday we said that we would put up the letter Um to for your employees to carry around Um, if they are consider if your company is considered essential service. Did that get put up? Somebody asked about that You sent it to me, uh-huh yesterday I didn't see it Okay, I can pretend We'll we'll we'll we'll get that up uh tomorrow morning if if you can we can figure out why And we have a couple of ideas also trisha wants to know what do you think about paying staff more to work during this time? That's that's an idea. I love that. That's uh, what can we do? topic Um, and then elena says what do you do for yourselves to feel better? How do you nurture yourself? That's also a good topic And I just need guidance through the paid time off thing and all that so We just need more information on that sarah. It's kind of hard to do anything with that until we have more details But at least till tomorrow right and then don't doesn't have to go to the president after that Yeah, theoretically if the house uh passes it in the morning it would make it to his desk later Tomorrow and he would probably sign it by the end of the day. I guess unless I mean at this point who knows but that's the presumption Well, maybe we can close out this week with a little bit of an answer there and a little bit of relief there sarah on that But again, sarah, don't don't freak out over that. You know, you're protected by the masses. We've been We've had all the situations over the years with you know, minimum wage and affordable care act and going all the way back to fml I even before you know, it wasn't you know in the original form people were scared about that I mean there's always legislation out there. It's like, oh my gosh, what's that going to do to my business? And we've survived all of those and we'll survive this too So Uh, Heather, I'm sorry. I stepped away. Where are those resources? Um, I think tom is didn't you post it here also tom? Uh, if I do my job when I'm supposed to yeah And I say has been promising an employee letter speaking of the central services great. Um, we'll have one up here At least by tomorrow morning It's one that I I wrote up like I don't know maybe Weeks or so ago, but I'm thinking it should be good to go to Cleaning business today. There we go coronavirus hyphen downloads Okay, that's it. Thank you guys for coming on giving us uh, uh a chance to Calm down and relax and have a feeling of doing something instead of just spinning spinning spinning Great for us as well Yes Just just hang in there. Let's just focus and work on the things that that that we have control over try not to burn too many calories over things that Over questions that we don't even know what the issues are yet. Just just work on your business in You know, we'll we'll we'll we'll get answers to to to the bigger things here shortly And We're not gonna have all the answers tomorrow. We need to make that clear They've already said that a lot of the details aren't coming until April. So we won't We'll never have all the answers. There's always more questions. Good point. Tom good point All right before we all leave we're all gonna smile and say bye Bye y'all see you tomorrow. Bye. Thanks. Bye