 Are you ready to go live with me today with Ronnie Kendrick? Oh my goodness. You guys are in for a treat today I'm Angela Brown and I'm here at Ask a house cleaner today We're actually streaming to a couple of our audiences because today we're gonna do something fun We have never done before on a show And so we're streaming live to our turnover cleaning tips audience Which is our Airbnb audience and you can find that at youtube.com With the app sign forward slash at turnover cleaning tips, that's for cleaning for Airbnb's We're also streaming live to our clutter corner audience Which is youtube.com forward slash and then the app sign at hoarding world Okay, so we're gonna grab everybody that we know and we're gonna play some really fun games today with Ronnie Kendrick Now you guys may not know this but Ronnie has been quoted in Bob Vila and he is Really famous now in the cleaning industry and there are some real leaders and power hitters in the industry that are coming to Ronnie Go and tell us your secrets So today we're gonna throw a whole bunch of stuff at Ronnie and I want you to throw stuff at him as well We're gonna debunk a whole bunch of myths So I put together my thinking cap and I said, okay Here's a bunch of myths that come at me all the time And I want you guys to throw some myths at Ronnie as well and he's gonna tell us are these myths true Or are they false? So as we play along today, I'm gonna ask you guys to stay close to your computer stay close to your phones Once we ask a question because I'm gonna throw it up on the screen I'm gonna see if you guys can answer it more quickly and accurately Then Ronnie can okay. This is gonna be so much fun. I just can't wait I mean like this is gonna be the highlight of my day I got Ronnie here on our show like how cool is that? All right, so please help me welcome Ronnie Kendrick Ronnie. How are you today? I'm doing fabulous Thank you so much for having me on the show Angela And I can't wait to ask to get these questions thrown at me and see how much the audience can beat me. I Love that. Well, you know our folks are already turning in and we've got Muppet 929 here that's got all these smiles So along with Muppet 929. I'm overjoyed that you're here. All right So I want real quickly share with us real quick your background before we jump into the fun and games Tell us real quick about your cleaning company. Tell us where you're located. Tell us why you're so passionate about cleaning So I run a house cleaning business out here in Highlands Ranch, Colorado It's a suburb of Denver called company clean And I named it that because whenever we were younger and we were getting ready to host parties My wife would always be like the house looks clean, but we got to get a company clean I thought that was a wonderful name for it And the reason that I'm passionate about it is because I feel that everyone deserves to live in a clean home So we have affordable prices and just outstanding quality because like If if you're in a distressed home or a dirty home, it can add up It can get very stressful affects your mental health your job your relationships And we don't want that for people. So we want to come in and help take one more thing off your plate So Ronnie, I don't know if you know this or not, but you and me are twins I believe the exact same things and so you and me are twins. Hi, who knew right? This is awesome And Amanda says good name, okay, so I'm gonna shrink us down a little bit I'm gonna put us down here and I'm gonna add our questions here to the screen All right, are you guys ready for me to start throwing questions at Ronnie? Are you ready? All right, awesome All right now if you guys have true or false questions You can also throw them inside our chat and we'll throw them at Ronnie and we'll see if you can answer those as well All right, so our first question is How can do-it-yourself house cleaners distinguish between trendy cleaning tips and those that genuinely work? Well, not to toot your horn Angela But one of the ways that I did it was whenever I would see things on TikTok that seemed a little too good to be true I found your YouTube channel and I've stolen repurposed I really want to put it a lot of your good cleaning tips for my blog and for my customers But really what that comes down to is just looking for authority, right? Like go to people who have been in the game for a while Don't just find someone on TikTok who has like a million views and think okay this is the latest and greatest thing I'm gonna go pour bleach down my sink and Maybe release chemicals that shouldn't happen or destroy all the piping. So yeah, really just go back to again Bob Vila many of these other Blogging sites women world first for women apartment therapy. There's a lot of great resources out there So don't just rely on the latest YouTube or TikTok cleaning hack All right. Well, I don't have a printout for this one. So I'm just gonna throw this myth at you Are you saying to me? That if I am watching a YouTube video and somebody pours in cleanser and then dish washing soap and then toilet bowl cleaner And then they throw in some fabuloso and a whole bunch other things inside the toilet And they're like 30 clean chemicals inside the toilet that that makes the toilet cleaner, right true or false That is absolutely false and that can be a good way to kill yourself sometimes So don't just pour random chemicals in your toilet because TikTok says so I know exactly what video you're talking about It looks like a pretty rainbow around the toilet bowl and it's got the nice little scrub daddy in it and everyone loves it Don't do that It's really really bad for the environment too. So he's correct absolutely correct Let's give Ronnie a oh, you know, we can give Ronnie we can give Ronnie a happy bell for accuracy So this is our happy bell happy bell for Ronnie for getting that one correct. I love this This is so much fun. All right So the next one once I clean the rubber seal inside the front load washing machine I never have to clean it again true or false That is false. What in your cleaning life? Do you only clean once and you're like, I'm good to go I never have to do this again. That'd be great. Wouldn't it but no, that's absolutely false You need to be cleaning that on a regular schedule Kathy says Yay, I knew that one. Yay. Good for cat. Oh, no, that was not Kathy. That was Muppet 929 Kathy says that yes, Kathy says false and she says it kills the septic system That's for the toilet full of all the stuff. Yes, that's true. Go Kathy and go Rodney here's a happy bell for both of you All right, I love this. This is so much fun. Okay, cool. All right next one What is our next question? If I use a disinfecting cleaning solution when I clean I've disinfected it true or false So that is false to it to an extent, right? Like you have to think about dwelling time You can't just spray and then wipe away I see this so often with like our house cleaning customers or just whenever I go to a friend's house After a party and they're cleaning up and they just spray spray clean clean You got to let it sit you got to let it do its thing That's what disinfecting is all about look at the back of the cleaning bottle And it'll tell you exactly how long you need to wait before it actually does its magic So cleaning can be instant you can spray wipe clean dust is gone That's great But if there's salmonella, maybe even the flu virus if someone was over in their coffin on your coffin on your countertop Yeah, you got to actually let that stuff sit for a couple of minutes before it actually kills whatever Germs or bacteria you're looking to get rid of So without the explanation Kathy once again says false So if I use the disinfecting cleaning solution when I clean I've disinfected it well Kathy and Roddy You are a hundred percent correct. It just spraying in wiping it does not disinfect So here's another happy bell. You guys are on a roll here. You're doing amazing. Now Kathy says oh check it out Kathy says Cavicide takes two minutes to work used it in many dental practices Whoa, whoa. All right. We're learning all kinds of stuff here today. This is so much fun All right, and I'm glad that we brought this up because during the pandemic and I want to stop for just a second during the pandemic I started getting a whole bunch of phone calls from all around the world And there were people that were calling me saying hey, I'm a church And because of the pandemic we got to bleach everything right And so they were trying to disinfect things and they had cleaners coming in spraying bleach on the pews Of the church so we're talking about fabrics like these posh fabrics that people sit on They were spraying the wood on the top of the on the where you touch The the the pew in front of you the prayer benches where you kneel and the The churches are like our our pews are ruined our benches are ruined that we've got stains all over Our wood is warped like is it disinfected? I'm like, well, wait a second Just because There's a pandemic that doesn't change the chemical nature of the bleach Right. There's still bleach and so you still have to follow the rules of the chemicals even if there's a pandemic So that was eye-opening and that's when the whole world kind of came aware to Bleaching sanitizing and cleaning and all the things right there was a lot of misinformation So i'm glad that uh, kathy and rodney got that one right. Oh, I love this And I want to build on top of that really quick too because like um, that's another great point of whenever you get cleaners Why they need to be insured and bonded because if you're just getting some folks off of facebook And they're coming over and they're bleaching things Messing up the color messing up the wood you want to make sure that they are going to be responsible and pay for that And that this church, I mean like look if they're doing a hundred pews they might be out a hundred thousand dollars So definitely do your due diligence on any cleaning company that you hire and make sure that if there's an accident They're going to be able to pay for it Well, that takes me to my next true or false question. I don't have a little a little thing for this I guess i'm just going to be throwing some out there as I go But all cleaning companies that get paid money are bonded and insured through our faults Absolutely not. I would say the vast majority of them over 50 to 60 percent of them Do not a lot of them don't even know that they need to do that or that they have the opportunity for it um The best way to figure out if they're insured and bonded aside from you know asking them is their prices If they're cleaning a 5 000 square foot home for 50 dollars They're probably not insured and bonded because that stuff costs money And so my next question is and this is a true or false question And I want to I want to happy fell because absolutely What many companies are not insured and bonded you have to ask okay, so then my next question is Here we go All homeowners who hire professional house cleaners ask that question you're insured bonded, correct False I would say whenever we have customers come through only about 20 to 30 of them if that even ask Again, that's an education problem that I believe this industry has Is we don't tell customers or people who are using professional services that that is something they need to look out for so It's not that they don't care. It's they don't even know to ask that question Oh Well that ruined my day, but you are correct Absolutely correct not all homeowners who hire professional house cleaners ask that question. So once again running a happy bell I love this. Okay, so but I want to stop for a second If you were a homeowner and you were going to ask that question what you're asking for is a coi That's a certificate of insurance and they're easy to acquire once you've paid the money for insurance Now, why do we want to have insurance and I want to ask rodney a question Everybody knows the reason we want to have insurance true or false No, they don't and I want to say like this is a big reason. Um Like I I've personally experienced this actually with one of our house cleaners before So when they came over they spilled bleach on the carpet a brand new carpet I had just put in not but two weeks ago left a big stain on it But because I asked the correct questions, are you insured obtained that certificate of insurance like verified it? Like you were talking about uh, it was no problem for them. They made a claim on their insurance cut me a check I had contractors come out restore my carpet. No harm. No foul and we still use her to this day like again, it's uh, it's all about just having that trust in your cleaners and insurance gives you that trust Um rodney is absolutely correct once again not all house cleaners Um, not all homeowners ask the house cleaners if they have an insurance certificate Again rodney gets the happy belt. He's on a roll here. He does I told him he was wise and wonderful I told you that right he is it's true But one of the things that I want to say about insurance is every house cleaner at some point Wait a second Let me word this differently and make this a true or false question. Let me see can I do this? Yes, let me do it this way. Okay, so So does every house cleaner at some point Have an accident where they break something or damage something at a customer's home true or false I would say true. Um, just because of time periods, right? If you're in the game for 10 15 years Accidents are going to happen at some point. You can be the best house cleaner in the world And something is going to happen. You're going to spill something where you shouldn't knock something over Um, I mean like you can't really control like people's homes So it will happen at some point just again based off of time horizons So I want to jump in here because kathy is on her roll. She is just she's right along with you rodney You're you're up for a you're up for a competition here. It's you and kathy kathy says true You said true. You are absolutely correct. I'm going to give you a little happy bell once again And I want to stop for a second and follow your lie just like you said over time We have human error And so sometimes something's going to happen You completely do not expect and it's going to be something like your vacuuming a floor And your foot will get caught in the cord. You did not see it coming That cord is wrapped around a table leg that you may not see and along comes a lamp And it's just going to fall over and it's going to go smash into smithereens on the floor I can't tell you over the years how many things I've broken And so I'm really careful because breaking stuff costs money. You've got to replace it And so when you break something It's an accident and that is one of the reasons you have insurance But it will happen to everybody at some time sooner or later if you're a professional house cleaner So just go right up front get insured and then let the customers know upfront Now I'm going to ask this question. This is not a true or false question, but because rodney is so smart I just want to throw this at him rodney imagine that you're going to a customer's house and you're on a walkthrough And you're going to explain to them that occasionally you might break something. How would that conversation go? I would say from a professional standpoint I would have put that in their head that that's going to happen because I wouldn't want them to think that This is just going to be the standard that's the experience and that's what they need to expect However, when it does happen Definitely have that professional conversation. Again, let them know that you are insured and bonded things can happen And I like in that instance, I would personally call the homeowner and let them know What's going on what the situation is and how we're going to handle it professionally But I wouldn't want to leave the conversation with every customer of well things might happen because uh, I don't want again I wouldn't want to put that in their heads Okay, and that's fair. We don't want to paint doubt But one of the things we can say because I want to I want to tag on to this because it's going to happen We know it's going to happen So I like to tell the customer Hey, sometimes the stuff happens like I might break something on accident and because I'm insured and because I'm responsible Because your home is important to me and so is your business I will always tell you So if you find something in your house that is broken and I did not tell you I did not break it But if I send you a text in the middle of the day, I gotta have the number I can text you because I'm going to tell you immediately when it happens And so it doesn't happen very often two or three times a year But if I break something in your house, I will tell you is that fair and they're like, yeah, okay now Oh my god, stuff has Stuff has happened and people are like, I think my house queen are broken And they're like no she didn't she would have told you if she did that's how that's how they work All your neighbors and all your referrals know the same rule, right? Yeah, and oh my gosh, I get one of our house cleaners did break something and not tell the customer or me That is definitely you will not be working with company clean any longer because that's that's our reputation, right? and especially as house cleaners because like one of the biggest concerns that I see from customers is having issues like that in the past and they're like Well, I don't know if this house cleaner is going to do the same thing either Break something or even worse steal from me and that affects our entire industry, right? So we need to do right by um everyone else that just uh in house cleaning Well, you just brought up my next true or false question house cleaners never steal anything true or false false one of our Like we have a lot of customers come through and they say well our last house cleaner lifted something And I kind of get back sometimes on pricing with that. I'm like well Because they're like whenever they come through they're like your prices are more than that lady Well, you know what we don't steal things we background check our people to make sure that that's not going to happen Because this specific example they were saying They lifted our air pods our mac book pro and our nintendo switch And I was like, wouldn't you want to pay for the safety of that going forward in the future? Just knowing that that is not going to happen And if it is again the insured and bonded will make sure that you get those things back But it does come at a price most of the time But definitely um kind of like what we were building on with the insured and bonded conversation Is ask your house cleaning company? Do they background check their individuals and make sure they background check the whole team and not just one person on the team? Oh my goodness, that was awesome and absolutely There you go You know, I want to say one thing because the question was all house cleaners or house cleaners can steal things Right. Yes, they can or no no nobody ever steals anything. Whatever the answer is. Yes Sometimes it happens and the reason that I want to bring this up is this There are as many different types of house cleaners as there are customers who hire them And so we've got a whole world of personalities and we have a whole world of people with different varying ethics And so the goal is to find somebody that you know like and trust and is highly reputable And that comes with experience. It comes with referrals. It comes with background checks It comes with checking ratings and reviews and all of those things In the event that something happens like you go. Oh my my smartphone cord is missing It's possible that it's missing but not stolen And so if you call the house cleaner, I cannot tell you how many phone calls we've received over the years Where you are going to vacuum and there's a cord on the floor and you pick it up and you put it on the second shelf They didn't look on the second shelf And so you can say yes, it's on the second shelf next to the sofa And most house cleaners know exactly where it is because we pay attention to detail Right so instead of just assuming that it's stolen give your house cleaner call and say give them the benefit of the doubt and say Hey, I was looking for this and I think it may have been moved. Don't accuse them of stealing It may have been moved. Do you remember where it was put and they might say yes Here it is and they'll tell you exactly where it is Okay, and then there are times stuff gets stolen And so if you are a cleaning business owner and you find out something has been stolen Okay, now you got to have a different conversation Okay, but it does happen sometimes. I wish it didn't but sometimes it does. So please please hire a true professional All right. Now we have rachel rose who said I finally made it. I love this channel and rachel I want to hand it to you and say thank you so much for showing up. She's joining us from england I love this and we have synthia. This is good afternoon miss angela. Hello. Good afternoon to you synthia I'm so glad that you're here Discerning light says just tell a potential customer that you care about their home and that you have insurance up front I would avoid the part about things happen That's a great thing that you bring up and the reason that I do bring it up is because it will happen It will happen sooner or later at somebody's house And so if you tell them that up front, it's not like oh, I never I never break anything You might right and even if you don't bring it up They need to know how it's going to be handled once it does happen For example, here's what's going to happen if I show up at your house and the door is locked Here's how that works. Here's what happens if you call and cancel on me Here's how that works If I show up at your house and I do your cleaning and you don't pay me. Here's how that works, right? So we cover all the bases and it's kind of like the rules and regulations of how I operate a business Then at the end I ask this question. Is there anything I forgot to ask you or tell you And they usually go, yes, I have two questions and I go great Let's get them out in the open right now because I don't want anyone to hire our company without Knowing how our company operates. And so for me, that's my preference But here's the good news and I want to bring this up because discerning light made a really good point As a cleaning business owner, you can run your business however you want and that is the right way if it works for you And so if your company doesn't address those issues up front, that's fine That it's not right or wrong But for my company, I like to tell them upfront So I want to build off that again really quick. I like what you said about Informing customers of things like this is what's going to happen if say we're locked out. We can't get a hold of you payment maybe didn't go through Communicate that as much as you can throughout all of your touch points, right? Discuss that on the initial phone call Keep that in your emails have FAQs on your website because don't just assume that everyone reads everything that you put out, right? They're not probably going to hit up your FAQs. They're only going to read the subject of the email So as much information as you can give them on this the less questions and the less Uncertainty there will be with your customers much less headaches for you as a business That wasn't a true or false question, but it certainly should have been so here's your happy bell You're correct in that not everybody reads the fine print And I'll share this with you if you leave it with them on the back of a checklist And you have the highlights like this is the really important stuff It's going to like make us enemies if you don't follow it Make sure that they have a copy of it and make sure that you go through each of those individual points on the walkthrough Because they're going to know exactly how your business operates now. I got news for you And this is not a trick question. This is just snippet of ideas that work Okay When you go through your rules and regulations with somebody who's going to hire you It makes them feel more comfortable about asking other questions Nobody wants to feel like they're stupid And so they might have questions like I don't want to ask Rodney because he's super smart And then I'm gonna, you know, feel dumb because I don't know the answer and I probably should But if Rodney's like, hey, these are questions everyone asks me and he goes through those and I'm like, oh good I didn't know the answer that I didn't have to ask that one Because I'm probably not going to read the fine print either. So Great questions. Okay. So I want to say hi to Anita. Anita says hi everyone. Hi, Anita. I'm so glad that you're here And we have a question. Here's a true or false question How to find competent house cleaners or recommendations for cleaners? That is not quite a true or false question Let's change it to a question that says, uh, they're super easy to find true or false False absolutely. So The way that you can find reputable house cleaners is ask your friends like if your friend's house looks really clean Say, hey, do you get your home cleaned? Who are you using? Do you like them? Can you give me a referral? another way is For facebook go to like the word of mouth groups Basically every single day someone is asking for a house cleaner And you can go through pages and pages and pages of recommendations there And then lastly, of course use, uh, google or yelp just google house cleaning Near me take a look at who's around you take a look at their reviews And don't just look at the reviews like the stars thinking, oh And they have a 4.9 or a 5.0. These people are going to be for me actually dig into the review See, um, do they offer the services that you're looking for like deep cleaning regular cleaning? Some house cleaning companies won't go outside the home So if you're wanting your outside windows clean or maybe a patio swept or a garage swept They might not do that and they might not be for you So just kind of dig in the comments and that's going to be the best way to find who fits you and your lifestyle I love that. That's one of the most accurate ways. I've ever heard happy bell for rodney. All right, and I have a discerning light say Faults and I think that was the faults to the previous question We have Cynthia who says good to be on your life today. I have so many clarifications about the beginner's program Please yes, please ask your questions. We have cs that says oh a live video. Yay. Hi from Delaware Oh you guys we got people from all over Um, so I have a question now that goes back to finding good help because this is a question that comes up again And again and again and again and again true or false It's okay to ask for specifics. So you mentioned a minute ago having your windows washed. Is it okay? To jump into one of those word of mouth groups and say I am in search of a cleaning company who also does windows true or false True. Yeah, you want to get those questions out of the way to begin with uh, whenever you're starting your journey. So again You don't get caught off guard whenever they're at your home And then you ask in the middle of the cleaning which some people do that Uh, there are specifics and then it gets awkward and there's just the tension between the client and the home cleaning company That know they don't offer that service and it's something that should have been discussed with up front But again, that's also on the house cleaning company because like You need to be doing your due diligence when any customer comes through and asking them What are they actually looking for? You're here to solve a problem for your customer. Not just say Okay, we're gonna come and do a deep cleaning or a regular cleaning. No, like find out what it's about like Hey, are you having guests over like mom dad coming into town? Throwing a party or just man like we're so busy with work and kids and like all their Sporting events and everything. So we just need someone that's trustworthy that's coming over regularly and just keeping that off of our plate Right, so be asking questions as the business because the more that you ask The more that you're going to find out about the customer and the easier the sell is actually going to be That is a true statement. Okay, so happy bell for the answer to that which is true Yes, it is okay to ask for exactly what you need now I'm in the process of moving right now as I was moving I needed a whole bunch of really weird help I needed weird things done the the colking around the windows where the the window sales expand and contract and like They'll separate slightly and I needed them painted and little things like that around the house So I would specifically say in my in search of and I jump on next door facebook And it's I'm in search of a painter that can come today Like we've got a photographer coming tomorrow and I need it done today I just discovered this particular issue Somebody that can come today people would go hey, I can come today I recommend somebody that I know is free today. They just left my house from a job And one of the things that I add Was someone who has done this job for you Please recommend someone who has done this job for you like I needed some shutters I don't know why there's this big windstorm and it blew one of the shutters off the front of my house like Who knew that could even happen I need somebody to climb up on a two-story ladder and like make the shutter go back on the house Who has done this job for you? And oh my goodness. I got like 10 10 responses like call this guy this guy this guy I hired somebody literally within an hour and they came over they fixed my shutter. Yay So it is okay and be specific ask for specifically what you need up front And if you really want to build trust as your business When someone comes through with those special requests and you don't do them Have people lined up have companies that you've worked with before that you can immediately refer and be like Oh, hey, we don't do outside windows, but I know joe over at um Professional power washers. They're fantastic. We work with them all the time And I can instantly connect you and help you get a quote and whatever it is that you need Like do warm handoffs for people. Don't just say no, we can't help you Because like even if those people don't end up going with you, they're going to remember the experience that they had with your company. So whenever One of their friends is asking Hey, who's a great house cleaner? They'll be like, well, we didn't work with them But these these folks were awesome and they they helped us find the solutions to what we were looking for That is really awesome. Thank you so much. That is a correct answer and A great follow-up to the correct answer that you just had here. You get another happy Is anyone counting the happy bells we have here for rodney? I think we're already into like, I don't know the 20s or something So this has never happened before nobody ever got that many happy balls. We're just gonna have to mail this to him when it's over I'm in north caroline and he's in colorado Happy bell all the way across the country like all the way across the mines. You guys spending time zones This is awesome. Yeah So i'm going to turn this into a question This is from uh, s lb 1956 who says Should you find a new house cleaner if they're if they slack doing the job? I'm going to change that to you should Find a new house cleaner if they slack on a job that you've hired them to do true or false True you are paying for a service, right? Like so if you're not happy with the job, they're not doing what you need Absolutely find a new house cleaner But I do want to caveat that with have a conversation with them first, you know Say, hey, uh, we're missing detail here. Um, like maybe the the showers aren't as crystal clear as we want So can you all maybe focus on that area a little bit more next time? Because again, like we've already discussed on this video It can be really hard to find good cleaners And if you've got a relationship with them Just just have a talk with them first before you have to go through that cycle again of finding another house cleaner So i'm really glad that you said that because it is a true question If you're not happy with the service that you are providing absolutely true You can replace them. No harm. No foul, right? It's a service that you're paying for and if you're not happy you have complete freedom to go find a different service And I love the fact that he said give them another chance Explain to them what your expectations are and that takes us back to setting realistic expectations up front I have personally been called by homeowners who said a house cleaning company came to give me a quote And they promised the earth the sun the stars and the moon and they didn't even have any wind to blow and back it up Like what on earth and I say what on earth? Why did they over promise? So if the house cleaning company comes in and they set realistic expectations They can justify their price. They can explain how long it's going to take to do a job And then here's what happens if your needs are not met or you are not happy and they can explain their satisfaction Guarantee So that takes me to our next true or false question Every cleaning company has a satisfaction guarantee true or false rodney false A lot of the smaller independent companies are not going to back that up Whenever you call them and you aren't satisfied with the job a lot of time or sometimes I don't want a Blanket statement here, but they may not even call you back, right? So no, they're not going to have the satisfaction guaranteed and one thing that you would like that you need to be looking out for with your house cleaners Is to ensure that they're doing a walkthrough after the cleaning to make sure that you are satisfied with it because That way you can get any problems solved upfront before they're out of the house while they're still there Just make sure that they can clean those little detailed areas that we just went over And a lot of companies really should be doing follow-up calls too just because like You and the cleaner had a great conversation afterwards doesn't always mean that the customer was fully satisfied because What we've experienced here is that like some people don't want to make things either awkward or they're afraid of Confrontation so while they're there they may not bring anything up and they're actually not satisfied So the cleaner leaves, but we do follow-up calls with them to make sure that even afterwards Everything went smoothly and we'll hear about things that they wouldn't tell the home cleaners So just kind of check what the process is of of the house cleaning company to make sure that you actually will be satisfied by the end of it I'm so glad that you brought that up and that deserves two happy bells because Every cleaning company should Have a satisfaction guarantee. Here's the reason why When you go to a store they give you a receipt If you don't like what you purchased you bring it back and they give you a refund And that is the same concept that house cleaners should offer now rodney is also correct There are a lot of companies that don't do that. They're like, oh, she wasn't happy. She didn't like my work I'm never calling her back that happens a lot Do you remember how I said there are a whole bunch of different types of personalities as there are different types of homeowners There are some house cleaners that have never been through any training And so they don't understand how to run a business And if you play shenanigans and you you play games like that You're not going to have a business after a while and then you're going to go Oh, it's the business that went bad. No, no, no, no It's your business philosophy that went bad because you didn't have one in place And that takes me to a question that is not a trick question It's not a true or false question But I do want to approach it really fast because I told synthia she could ask her question And she said best for me to help me in my cleaning job, please Is the payment monthly or just once for the program? Please the certificate awarded after can it be used to operate my own company? And so I'm going to read between the lines here and what she's asking is about the training program that savvy cleaner has So I'm the CEO of a company called savvy cleaner We do trainer training for house cleaners and maids and we do have certificates for different types of courses So every time you complete a course and I think I'm going I think I think this will answer the question Every time you complete a course you get a certificate if it is a certificate based course So we have training courses and we have certificate courses The certificate courses are things like chemical safety and personal protective equipment and how to sanitize your cleaning supplies between each job things like that There are training courses like how to pick a territory of where you're going to go clean if you're starting your own cleaning business It's just informational There's no certificate at the end because there's no right or wrong answer Right So for those courses you can buy them just a course and there's no There is no repeat money. You just buy a course and take the course We have a membership that includes all of the courses and that's a monthly fee So I hope that answers the question and then the other question was and the final question Please is it an online course and the answer is yes It is So you can go at your own pace you can do it at nights on the weekends whenever you have some free time Or if you have a cancellation and somebody's like, hey, I don't need your service today You can go ahead and sit down and you can work on your social media You can learn chat gpt you can take a course You can do all the things that help you run the business in the back end of your business Like accounting and stuff like that. So we want to help you as much as possible Which is why we've created the membership and along with the membership comes group coaching So twice a month I jump in there and you can ask me anything you want And we will help you resolve the issues of your business And so I hope that answered the question which takes me to my next true or false question for rodney If you're in business you got to have some kind of professional training. Is that true? No, and that's what you have to watch out for with hiring professional cleaners as a customer Many states don't even require licensing. So you can just start up. You have a mop You got some fabuloso and you call yourself a house cleaner So be on the lookout for that most a lot of them do not have professional house cleaning They just hope to learn on the job and get referrals through that So if you do find a cleaner that has professional training, awesome That's probably like going back to that question of how do I find reliable Or great house cleaners if they have those certifications They've gone out of their way to do these things and they're they're serious about their house cleaning Oh, so that takes me to my next true or false question, which is you're absolutely correct There's no standard in the cleaning industry, which is really frightening if you joined us today and you were thinking I'm going to hear all the all the answers and then I'll know There's no standard. Okay. So literally anyone can say, oh, I have a vacuum. I'm a house cleaner So my next true or false question is Everybody automatically knows how to clean when they're born. Isn't that true Rod me? Absolutely false, right? We've We've touched on a lot of these things here, right like how to actually properly use bleach honestly I don't I I hate bleach in my company. We don't use it for most things or hardly anything because of Just all the fallout that can happen with it. But those kind of things and just like I mean like Anything in life you got to be trained on right So no, not everyone's going to know how to actually clean the house. I mean, I most certainly didn't I was terrible at it till I actually started this company and really looking into things like dwelling time When I was in college, I did the I sprayed my cleaning solution. I wiped it down. I'm good to go I've cleaned my house. No, uh, there's a lot more to it than that and It's actually really surprising like whenever you interview house cleaners and you ask them these kind of questions 90% of them do not know so it's a great filter too. So I'm Definitely if you're in the house cleaning business whenever you're interviewing people Have some really good go-to questions that you would ask to know that people actually are knowledgeable about what they're doing Before you let them in the anyone's home All right, so before we move on I want to give you a happy thought for that. That was not just uh, uh faults But absolutely faults not everybody knows how to clean from day one But let me ask you this since we're on the topic and since you brought it up Because I'm just itching to hear your answer here What are some of the questions you would ask if you are hiring a house cleaner and you're the cleaning business owner And you're interviewing somebody to come work for your cleaning company And you're trusting this person to go out inside other people's homes with expensive surfaces and expensive flooring And expensive appliances and you're going to pay them for the cleaning service. What are some of the questions you would ask One of my favorite questions to ask and this goes way beyond just house cleaning This is if you're in a management position or you're hiring anyone across any industry Ask what their favorite tool is if they've been in the game a lot They are passionate about a certain tool. They will tell you what they love and they will tell you what they hate And if they come to you with the emotion whenever they're talking about it They've they've done this quite a bit and uh, you can be fairly confident that they're going to get the job done correctly It's one it's my absolute go-to for anything All right, so what other question would you ask there's probably more than one question you'd ask a new hire Um, I would ask them well, of course like what their experience is Some like give us referral not necessarily referrals for everything But like what other companies have you worked for in the past? Because if they say that they've been independent, um It might go back to what we were talking about of they don't actually know what they're doing They were just cleaning some friends homes and they will try to pass themselves off as a house cleaner that's been Doing this for five six years You know But if they've worked for like a molly maids or a mary maids or someone else within your local community that you know You can be assured. Um, or at least much more confident that they do know what they're doing Another thing that I would um ask is asking about the the dwelling time I'd love to ask that because if they don't know what dwelling time is, um The conversation is probably over at that point with with the person doing the interview and then um I I do like to ask about mixing chemicals ammonia and bleach to make sure that we're not going to have any safety issues on site and then One of the favorite ones is because we are a customer service business Is how do you handle like what we were talking about earlier if you were to break something in the home? And you had a customer that was very angry. How would you handle that situation? And what I generally look for is they say we will call you because I don't want them to get in a confrontation with the customer Like possibly escalate it. I mean, they're right there with the customer Like if if stuff goes wrong it can get physical or something crazy, right? So have them call me we'll go through the situation and de-escalate from there So yeah a lot of different questions And i'm really glad that we had this conversation Because there are a lot of house cleaning business owners that hire people because They're desperate And they're like, oh somebody showed up to the job interview. I guess I'll give them the job Um, that is the wrong reason to hire somebody Okay, so the right reason to hire somebody is because they are a good fit for your business And that's the only really good reason, right? They're a good fit for your business and you trust that they are going to be a good fit Whether you have to train them or a series of things that you're going to find out about this person And I like to ask a lot of questions that are not directly related to the job because I can always train them What i'm looking for are ethics. I'm looking for reliability and i'm looking for check this out compassion I want to make sure when I hire somebody and they go into someone else's home That they're going to reflect my brand of my business And that when they get to a customer's home if the customer says heaven forbid They should see the customer and the customer says something sad like oh my gosh. I'm so sorry my house is a mess Please forgive me that they should say something like uh, I can't believe like this house stinks or this house is awful Like how can you live here? I don't want them to say something like that ever Because a house is a person's safe place However, they choose to live that is their safe place and when we are done as a house cleaner We leave and go to the next house And the person that we leave behind They're going to live there Okay, and so if I hire somebody I want to make sure that I can trust them enough That when they get to the customer's house that they're going to be respectful of the property that they're cleaning That they're going to know how to clean it if they don't know how to know that's fine. We can teach them But I cannot teach compassion Okay, so I'm going to ask questions about how do you treat other people? Because like rodney said this is a people business And so we can have all the fun we want to have and we can do all the training and all the things But when it comes right down to it, I am trusting a person I've never met in a job interview and trusting that person to be able to Take what I'm going to teach them and have them go inside someone's home And not only are they going to guarantee their work, but when they leave the person is going to feel better about the transition Because my employee was there Right and so I want to stop on that for just a second Because if we don't have that in our initial conversation You're not a good fit for my business and I'm going to say oh, it was so nice to meet you today I don't think we're a good fit and I'm going to tell you right now I'm not even going to say hey, I'll call you later today and see if you got the job I'm just going to say I don't think we're a good fit So I wish you the very best and you might want to consider a job and like graphic design somewhere See you and I will I will let them out the door Okay, so a couple things to think about there Please when you're hiring a house cleaner, whether you are the cleaning business owner or whether you are the homeowner Please look for someone that's going to respect your space and they're going to respect you as a person all right We have a comment here Rachel Rose says I wonder how many house cleaners are not insured I do not know a specific a specific ratio But anybody that comes through my company is and here's the reason why Rodney touched on this really quick But one of the things that I think is really important is that not only do accidents happen But knowing that the house cleaning company that you're hiring is insured It protects the homeowner and it protects the cleaning company Now most people don't think of it as it protects me as well There's some crazy homeowners out there and I say this with with Again as many different personalities as there are out there There are some people that will take you for a ride or they will try to trick you by saying Oh, you broke something in my house when no you did not you didn't You did not break it at all and they will try to get free stuff out of you And so it goes back to do you trust them do they trust you and is this a working collaboration? And so upfront being insured it protects the homeowner and it protects the cleaning company Because if somebody makes a claim against your company, you're probably going to pay it Okay, it's your reputation and you want to make sure that nobody's just playing games with you I want to jump back up here for just a second. This is on the topic and not a true or false question But it merits bringing up and I really appreciate this comment This came from Susan Susan says my cleaner broke something on their very first visit They showed me what happened and they said they would pay I declined No excitement on my part stuff breaks and it's only stuff Okay, and I want to say Susan. Thank you so much for bringing this up for this reason When you tell a customer upfront stuff's going to happen stuff breaks and on occasion I might be clumsy and I'm 100 responsible for it and I will always tell you what happens often is You're dealing with a person who also has compassion and they're like, oh my goodness Yeah, I didn't care about that anyway, or uh, it's okay. If you just buy me a replacement You don't have to buy me the most expensive one on the market or something or sometimes I'll say like Susan did Don't worry about it. It's okay. Right. But what happens is nobody tried to trick her and say, oh, we didn't do it It never happened, right? So if you come forward and it's it's that Conversation it's the communication. It's the honesty. It's the trust. I'm human I made a mistake and I feel horrible and I'll tell you what I don't know a house cleaner that I've ever worked with And all the years I've been in the business that hasn't felt just horrible when they break something I mean, they're like some of them are in tears. They're like, I can't believe I broke this. How was I so clumsy? It happens and they feel horrible And so that's that's the case but always always take the responsibility Always offer to pay for it. And if you don't offer to pay for it offer to reimburse them somehow Okay, maybe you did not actually buy the replacement. Maybe you paid for it Maybe you called your company and they paid for it, but always take responsibility Don't don't don't sneak away and be like, oh, I didn't do that. If you did it Man up to it own it. Okay. So there you go All right, I love Susan's response. Uh, are you looking for a house cleaner? We'd love to clean your house Uh, that's awesome. All right, so I have another one Wearing dark colored shirts or uniforms when cleaning can hide dirt and stains Keeping you looking professional true or false That is false. I mean, um like dust is going to collect on like these color shirts Like we actually wear black shirts over here at company clean And they look nice when you come in but sometimes that just starts to clean to your shirt And won't always look fantastic But I mean, it's the same thing with if you go with white uniforms That's going to pick up everything you might want to go with something like more of a blue color if you're looking to hide Dust and stains on a uniform That is a great answer. I love that answer. I'm going to give you a happy bell for that A dark colored uniform still can show dust and dirt And one of the things that I want to stop and say really quick when we're talking about uniforms and colors of clothing Is wear performance fabrics that are wrinkle free their color fast Meaning you can wash them a whole bunch of times and they still hold their colors They're still vibrant and make sure that at the end of every day That you treat your clothing with the same care that you treat all of your other cleaning equipment And that means if you got ring around the collar and you have under the arm stains And you got stuff all over the front of you because I cannot tell you how many times I've come in my house And I got no further than the mudroom and I'm like taking it off going I got to spray this thing It's so you know, it's it's full of whatever and I I just cleaning in the course of a day You're going to get all kind of stuff on you, right? And so you have to treat your uniforms with care, but they're going to get dirty They're going to get stained you're going to have body sweat and gunk and stuff and for me makeup and all the things Right, you're going to get all kind of stuff on if you're eating lunch You might even spill some food on the front of your uniform. It happens Sam Make sure they breathe too because like whenever I first started company clean We had like these sweet polos and I thought looked great. We looked so professional going into a home But wow, they were hot They were very very very hot by the end of a cleaning like just drenched in sweat and guess who didn't look professional by the end of the cleaning So that's your uniforms Yeah, okay, so that's that's uh, that's accurate you're absolutely correct any uniform can Have wear and tear at the end of it All right, uh, so you mentioned bleach earlier bleach and ammonia is more powerful than just bleach alone true or false That is false mixing those together can release Very very toxic fumes that will just straight up kill you. So do not do that. Please. Please do not do that Um, really just try not you're not a mixologist. You're not an alchemist Don't be playing with chemicals and trying to come up with something fancy, right? Um Like vinegar bleat or sorry vinegar lemon Baking soda dawn dish soap water a lot of these things will get exactly what you need done I want to caveat some of those things like the the vinegar and the lemon don't just use them everywhere marble Granite wood that can destroy them. So make sure that you Have the right the right tools in place whenever you're going to clean But again, don't just start mixing things haphazardly again because you saw it on youtube and tiktok and thought it looked cool That that absolutely is the correct answer Yes, we do not want to mix anything Okay, and going back to what rodney said a second ago There are chemists that go to school for chemistry And then when they're done with chemistry check this out. They go inside a lab and they'll spend years inside a lab where they have controlled environments and the controlled environment is the key because a controlled environment They have like a wash station for your eyes. So if for any reason something splashes up in your eyes There's this little it's like a water fountain But it's for your eyes and you put your eyes underneath there and it will like spray water into your eyes And it will rinse it out so that you can see again, right? We don't have that like in our kitchens and stuff And certainly not on a job So here's the thing mixing any chemical any chemical if you're not a chemist and you're not in a lab And you're not paid to mix chemicals Please don't because we have a lot I say we have there are a lot of house cleaners that I get to talk to on a Day-to-day basis that will say well because this works so well I thought I'd mix it with this one that works so well, and I'd have one that's twice as good It does not work that way. Okay. This is not like making recipes in the kitchen where you're mixing, you know Two spices. This is very very different. So please do not play games and please For me to you and I think rodney would agree with this Please do not experiment with chemicals on your customers surfaces. Yeah Yeah, for sure. I mean like I wouldn't even do that at my own home let alone trying to just whip something up at a client's house Um, and this goes back to the insurance question. If you experiment on a customer surface, here's where it gets tricky If you experiment on a customer surface, you can say well, I'm insured. It's okay in fact Let me ask rodney the question rodney if I have insurance Can I experiment on a customer surface with cleaning chemicals? No, uh, you don't want to do this You don't you don't want to be collecting claims on your insurance because if you're sitting there doing that at every home and Your insurance agent, uh, you starts to have you on speed dial because you're talking so much They will drop you and then other insurances will drop you and then guess what you're uninsurable And there goes one of your competitive advantages for your house cleaning company Yes, and I want to add one thing to that. Uh, rodney's absolutely Not want to experiment on a customer's surfaces with cleaning chemicals. Okay, here's here's one add on to that When you have an accident and it was an honest-to-goodness accident They will cover your claim and your insurance claims are going to go up You have another claim your insurance claims are going to go up until finally they're like eat your uninsurable but if you're supposed to know That that cleaning chemical is not appropriate for this surface and it is in your care custody and control and you did it Intentionally, this is not an accident. This is intentional like oh, I thought I'd just give it a try They won't cover it. You're supposed to know better because you are a professional You build yourself as a professional you took the money as a professional in exchange service for money Okay, you're a professional and that's how they clarify it They're not going to cover your claim and now you've got to buy that customer a new Granite countertop or a stainless steel appliance or whatever Okay, so do not do not do not do not under any circumstances experiment with cleaning chemicals on customer's stuff So glad we had that conversation. Oh Oh So susan says in my small city good service providers are worth their weight in gold. Yes I like you susan. I always try to be a good customer, but i'm not a doormat and I will replace poor providers Oh, I love that because you know, we all have choices And it's just like going from one store to another there are people that will hire someone because it's more convenient It's like we're in one end of town We go to a different store rather than the one we always go to and service providers are swapped out all the time I said I was moving and we have a handyman that I love And I went to use his service and he was in Honduras on a mission trip and I'm like what How who let you go to Honduras? I need help in my house and I had to hire someone else It's not that I didn't like that guy for whatever reason. It's that I needed a job done right away Right. So as a house cleaner, even if you're the best one out there, you might get replaced for some reason I know lots of house cleaning Women they've taken a break while they have a child and they are replaced with someone equally as good And after the baby that house cleaner doesn't get hired back and it has nothing to do with them not being good It has everything to do with There was someone else equally as good, right? But if your service is bad You can get replaced really quickly. So, uh, I susan. I'm so glad you brought that up I'm gonna give you a happy ball for that wasn't even a true or false question, but you just busted a myth for us. Yes. I love that All right, uh Someone says lol. I love how she explains Yes, and uh frustrated user says that does hypochlorous acid acid really work Um, that's a great question. Do you want to take that one? um, I want to give that one like the The attention it deserves so I can answer that one for you offline Love your username frustrated user. So yes frustrated user. I will answer that one for you after this call And I will add one thing to his answer. Yes, it does depending on the surface Okay, so again, we're going back to what type of surface are you cleaning? What is the soil you're trying to remove? And if the answer is yes, it works for that particular thing Then yes, it works and if it doesn't because it's the wrong surface or whatever then Don't use it. Okay. Yeah, and actually the touch on that like if it has the word acid or in a description acid acidic Definitely, that's where you don't want to be using it on wood marble granite again Like what we were talking about because those kind of materials it can get in there and it can damage them And those things are very expensive to replace I have a whole bunch of uh, thank you for that Happy though. I have a whole bunch of questions. I did not get to ask and I just looked at the clock and we are out of time How did our time fly? That's not a trick question. It's not a true or false question, but our time is up true or false Ah, all right, so that's it for today guys. I'm so glad you joined me. This was so much fun I just had so much fun with rodney here rodney tell our listeners and our viewers where they can go to find you So if you happen to be in the denver area the south side specifically look up company clean we um We're a professional house cleaning company in that area doing basic cleanings deep clean move in move out But again, what we talked about here is really trying to find what problem are we solving for you? So we want to give you that personal touch, but hey, I love talking about cleaning and business aspects too So find me on facebook where I talk about our cleaning tips facebook.com Slash company clean co and then you can also find me on linkedin where I talk about the business aspect of house cleaning At linkedin.com slash in slash rodney kendrick company clean And that's a lot of links. I will leave those in the links below I want to thank you guys so much for showing up today. I always have so much fun with you here I want to say thank you rodney for showing up and giving us all of your words of wisdom And for busting those myths that will keep us safe that will help us be a smart business owner That will help us be a smart homeowner when we hire a house cleaner and a house cleaner who now knows how to present themselves professionally So until we meet again leave the world a cleaner place and thanks again you guys for participating in today's comments Thanks so much angela and