 Hi, good afternoon everybody Tom Stewart here smart business moves Wednesday June something Yeah, home day Got Liz. Hey, Liz. How are you? Hi guys And we've got an awesome guest guest today. We've got Chris Willett with alpine maids out in Denver, Colorado Hey, Chris. Hey guys, you know I've known Chris for a while he's a foundations alumni he got into the industry after you know, he's a like a Petroleum engineer, you know and how to find oil and get it out of the ground and some some pretty complicated stuff here Then you picked it up a level and I guess you thought this whole house cleaning thing was going to be pretty easy but you know Having the ability to deal with abstract concepts and complicated things can can actually be very useful in the house cleaning industry as well Lot of logistics here. So we're going to jump into that and Chris is going to be sharing with us, you know, how he's I guess made changes to his business model to accommodate Different size teams and the pros and cons of that and and how he did it and how we can do it But just to make sure I don't mess this up and forget because once we get rolling here Sometimes we get jammed up on the end. I just want you guys to see what we're going to be doing For the balance of the week. We've got Chris here today Go back a little bit Karina Neff Monday if you missed that you it's it's really, you know Inspiring and if there's anybody thinking about getting into the commercial cleaning business and how to do it in a big way Go back and look at that. She was awesome We had Alonzo yesterday and we picked up on her discussion from last week on racism in America But we got past the the wise in the house and started talking about actionable steps and things that we can do as business owners So to make a difference and we actually have some of the material we looked at yesterday And you can download it off of our coronavirus page off a cleaning business today, and I'll show you that at the end Bill Golderman a friend of ours for for a long long time. He has a business he had assessments for From for a lot of different businesses was also does a lot of work in the cleaning industry the Ryan assessment is a big one that they do Helps you identify candidates for hire if they have any tendencies to steal or Or not follow directions or not be safe or maybe use drugs Oh, yeah, yeah And these just aren't questions that somebody just just made up I mean, it's easy to make up a test but everything that bill does it has been Analyzed from from a statistic standpoint and it has been normalized and No, that's important too because we're using assessments to hire people and if you just making up questions and making, you know You can you can get in trouble with it from an EEOC standpoint if your your questions haven't been vetted and Statistically proven not to be biased and and and to be efficacious All the stuff that bill does is is that arena and Liz this is bill Goldman is is Basically, who who who got you into the disc assessment business, isn't he? Absolutely. Yep. Bill of those my man right there. He's my mentor as far as disc and I you know His information just is he's a will of information a lot of times It hasn't been that long since I contacted him and said hey Bill Can you look at this assessment for me? It looks really wonky. What's up with this and Didn't look wonky to him. He understood exactly why it was the way that it was and Okay, I got it. That makes perfect sense. So he's amazing Liz has worked with bill for for a number of years basically refining her craft on on disc assessments, but Bill is amazing that the the information that that he can can can glean from a from a disc assessment Will make your head spin. So that's going to be fine Yeah, what are we doing Friday Liz? We have a surprise guest on Friday. Oh Let me see what did I have for a? For a clue let me go find it. We're gonna be doing That's our rapid fire question and answer where Liz myself and our special guest guests each get one minute apiece to answer your hardest questions pertaining to how to run a house cleaning business or anything else for that matter We can kind of go wherever we want to go with it, but it's a lot of fun. So My my clue today is is a little bit telling I think some people should be able to get it off of this So she started her business as a single mom and she grew her company to over two and a half million dollars She's somebody you might want to listen to you might want to ask a few questions of All right. Oh, hey Leslie. I see that some of you guys are watching. Hey Debbie. I can see you Make a comment, but I can't see you on my phone because I think you're logging in through Modern cleaning so When y'all see me waving Because I can't I can't say anything to you You don't show up. Oh Yeah What let's get to it. I'm excited for this conversation So Start us off here. Where do we want to go with us? All right, so I'm gonna tell you a little bit about why I wanted Chris to be on here I think I told you guys a little bit yesterday about how I've been doing some one-on-one coaching with him He's in the mastermind accountability group. He's in our success group and one of the things about Chris is When he decides he's gonna do something saying he just decides he's gonna do it and then he does it and He decided one day he was going to He didn't decide one day. This is how it comes out to us Which is what I'm gonna have him explained to us one day He says, you know, I think I'm gonna go solo. I'm like, oh, okay, so we're all thinking I'm gonna talk about this for a few weeks a month and then you know, there'll be a plan You know, you know like maybe in six months Chris's company will be solo then next Like two or three days later. He came to our mastermind group and said, yeah, I'm solo What do you mean you're solo? Nobody's coming off this that is how it happened Chris Yeah, yeah So tell us a little bit about your business Chris just introduce yourself How you got into the business and what you guys are doing out there. Yeah, so like Tom said I used to work in oil and gas I wasn't an engineer as I was levels below and with the geologists but When You know, it's a it's an unstable industry and it didn't seem like a good long-term solution I wanted to do something else. I know how to clean houses and Started started looking at house cleaning actually Rohan's post is what got me interested in the first place and Liz like you said when I see something I just do it and here I am I Think we were, you know pre-covid. We were at about 23 texts post-covid we're at 17 right now And a lot of that is just because of efficiencies that that we've worked out going so well We are we're a little you know, 18 or 19 would would feel better, but We're okay at 17 right now When you say efficiency I had the word efficiency use a lot of different ways how What does that mean in your business? Yeah, so for me that means, you know, how much can you clean in a day? and Maybe a team of two people could do 12 hours of cleaning in a day and two solo cleaners We found can do about 14 hours of cleaning in a day So more of their day spent cleaning rather looking out of a windshield exactly So that that means more money for you doesn't mean more money for them Yeah, we pay on commission. So it definitely does, you know, especially if they can get into a routine and They take ownership of the homes that they're cleaning there's something about being solo that not only cuts down and You know, they're not coming to the office every day. So that cuts out some drive time, but they can just clean a house faster Um, maybe not faster, but more efficiently, right? You know, if it takes two people an hour and a half it might take one person Two and a half hours or 245 they can just get out of homes a little bit quicker Oh, I think I think people might argue that point until they think about Like trying to put three people in a house and they're like, oh, did it take them so much longer or right or four people in house? Oh, it takes them so much longer Yeah No, I'm just just kind of thinking, you know, there's some things like making a bed and two people working as a team making a bed can do it in fewer steps and it takes from a A word design standpoint It's more faster than one person making a bed and walking back and forth from from side to side So there's certain work elements where two people arguably can can be more efficient more productive than than one person True. Why do you why do you think though that that overall you're finding the solo is more productive they can But the drive time I get but just the amount of time in a home that the labor hours to clean a home It's less with one person than two in your experience. Why do you think that is? Yeah, that was actually a really good clarification you just made because we're not totally solo Say we have a larger home that has five bedrooms We'll send two people to meet at that house and tackle it together because they do need to make beds together um Maybe they'll clean the kitchen to get or just not run out of energy is the big the big thing, right? If it's a five six seven hour clean um So we we You know when I say solo we're it's really more of a hybrid system. We might send one tech About four hours is the cutoff point that I've found Um where you can send one person so we send one person they clean a house for four hours It's typically going to be faster than if we had sent two people to that house You go over four hours. We want to send two people Or maybe three But we have that flexibility as well with every individual cleaner being their own team That we can plan for the home better than if we had a two person team If I need to send four people I just send four solos if I have two two person teams And I need three people we run into more inefficiencies um, so Maybe it's a planning perspective Or planning efficiency like we can better plan on what how we want to tackle a house I think that what we're looking at all the comments here I've used solos for 20 years leslie says and spot on a caterina says Her and her retired military husband work as a team and three houses on the max that they can clean And this is from the owner's perspective, right? Yeah, so If the owners can't do it because it's such a physical job Then it's giving you kind of an insight into how it's going to be for the people that we're hiring And marlowe is saying that she does um She quickly changed to solos in 87 Everybody kept telling me telling telling her she was doing it wrong Now she sees so many people changing. I love that to solos. That's awesome Yay, I love when you get props, right? Debbie says that she has both solos and teams of two so it's been less time The job factor yet could be right? Sarah's on here. I don't know. Can you see the comments? Chris? Did she Sarah says hi? I'm in live? Okay. Hey Sarah Thanks And robin robin wants to know why do you think a team works slower than a solo chris? What do you think? Well, I mean like tom brought up a really good point I think teams just work slower in small houses, right if you're in a apartment And you have three people in there. You're gonna have two people in the same room They're gonna have difficulty splitting up the job. You need somebody to check all over the work I think there's just a lot of room for People to bump into each other Well, I'll tell you just having run large teams for many many many years is It is a lot harder To run teams it takes a ton more training The jobs have to be really more precisely Um organized our our teams could Could make the same time regardless of size team one team of four didn't matter But you know how much work it takes to get teams to be able to do that. It's so hard I mean it seems like Almost can go faster than Than what is right? So if you're like, this is the average amount of time you can't go over this no matter what size team you are All the teams can make that if you use one single faster You What you're saying liz is you have to train people to work together as a team just taking three Cleaning professionals even though they all might know how to clean themselves and following them together until we go and clean the home They're going to be there's going to be a lot of inefficiency And I've seen our time Cut down as well. Um, you know, there are There are times where we had people in training for three maybe even four weeks and you know, the max is going to be 10 days now Do you just Yeah Well, you got some questions here chris. Um, do you lose the company team spirit by running solos? What have you found there? Yeah, so one thing, um, you do um You know who you hire is really important when we were going into this we started hiring four solos Um, a couple of months before we made the full switch So our job ad was geared toward it and everybody was brought into the company knowing that the plan was to come into the office at some point Um, the other thing that we do is our trainers come to the office every single day Um, I've found them to be a really We can put a lot of weight on them and a lot of responsibility and they help tremendously And so by keeping them close and having them out in the field Um, they they help to spread our culture and our initiatives Um outward from the office So that's that is one, um Kind of caveat to our solo model is that our trainers come every day All right, and so do do your trainers contribute to the Culture of the company of your team spirit. Do they go out to the teams even after they're trained or how does that work chris? Yeah, we use them. I mean they help a lot. Um Another thing that we might run into is end of the day help I might have one team scheduled for eight hours of cleaning We keep our trainers scheduled pretty light so that they're typically the ones going out and helping other crews at the end of the day and that allows them To interact with everybody check in make sure that everybody's doing well And we have a weekly meeting with them that's really just a pulse check on on the company and how everybody's doing So if i'm a cleaning technician if i'm a cleaning professional working as a solo How many times a week would I interact or personally see a trainer? um One usually one Okay And when i'm when i'm doing that the trainer I guess is going out meeting them in a home with your cleaning And the trainer is there for what? What's their what's their goal and going out and meeting with them? Um The clock my 5 5 30 so that they're not you know stuck in a client's house till 7 p.m So there's helping pulling them out of a job because they're running behind And for their kind of saviors too, which which helps I was wondering do they also help with the logistics getting supplies and cleaning products to the solos um not yet and that's that's we we're Really about 75 of the way through this transition and we have a little bit further to go So the next step is going to be to introduce a field manager Who takes some of this? Whatever the trainers do right now And drop off supplies Deal with any key issues and check in with the techs And in the future hopefully start delivering things like Annual reviews and just really taking care of a lot of the The hr element Can I back you up just a little bit chris? Yeah, do you mind like go back to the beginning like Like what was your process for your your strategy? What were you thinking? How did you determine that the solos are going to be best and like walk us through that? Yeah, you know so we're along the line. I started um I fell into Seeing what somebody else did really successfully and saying hey That's probably the model that I should go for and I started a company with an office Really expensive one and teams and Almost bought a bunch of company cars. I see somebody was asking about that. Oh, fortunately I didn't and um At some point I realized I was really going against my personality and that I I love all of our techs Um, I love them as people. They're great employees. They do a lot for me But I really just don't want to hang out with them every day. Um I'm I'm better off in a in a basement lives knows this Um, you know, you've been in basement with maybe like one one window and just leave me there That's that's where I'll thrive and so I just really gone against my personality and it was causing me a lot of stress and um It was affecting the whole business. I just you know, I'm It's not me. So, um, I wish I would have done it from the beginning but I made some mistakes along the way And and realized that this whole business is going to operate better if I just um, if I model it to my strengths Yeah, awesome. And so you're like, okay So I I got a changeover. I got to switch over to this new model. So From my perspective it looked like you're like, okay, I'm thinking about solos. Okay, we're so loose now So so like How does that actually happen? You're like, okay, you're and you're a very strategic guy I mean, I know people don't know you but you're very strategic You think a lot about how things are going to work and Next steps and how you're gonna roll it out. Like what was the first thing you did when you decided? Okay, I'm gonna take could you have how many how many technicians at that time? Yeah, 20 24 Yeah, so you didn't just call everybody and say hey guys, don't come to the office tomorrow. You're driving yourself to your job Well, what's the first thing? Yeah, like we've been planting seeds for a long time Um through the hiring process mostly Um trying to talk to anybody who had qualms with it because you know solo cleaners and cleaners and team cleaners are Totally different type of person Right, the people we're hiring now are more like me. They're more analytical Um, maybe less social they don't um, they don't need You to talk to all day every day um, so that was the upfront work and then um So you didn't find a people mode did you? No, and we had people quit Because it's a new job. They're working for a whole new company now and you know They signed on with old alpine maids and now they're working at new alpine maids and it and it wasn't really a good fit for them So we had some people go to uh, we had one leave for in-home care one left to be a server um but I don't believe Or I believe we only lost um Four people in that switch. We actually have a couple people Who haven't returned from covet uh through child care or whatever that are just kind of on hold Chris I just got a point out to you though that most people would think that four or five people losing them all at one time is like What? So it was the cost benefit on this right? I had just had a way. Look I can drag this change out for six months And we can make a timeline for it and that's going to take a lot of administrative effort and a lot of explaining and planning and meetings and Handholding really right or we can just Do it and and take the hit which is going to be turnover um, which you know, I'm all too used to you but um You know retention has has improved a lot um Recently since we've done this and I think a lot of it really has to do with who we were hiring before we made the switch So you're speaking to the hiring and you have to hire different people Do you find that um, you have to pay these people more because it seems like you're going to have to hire Maybe a slight higher caliber of person people that can think on their own don't need to be Lead pushed etc. Yeah, or maybe not maybe not Lead pushed in the same ways you have to pay them more as And that's one of the problems that's popped up is um, you know, there's a lot more support that are Especially our techs that were not originally solo Now have a lot more questions. So I I expect this to die down at some point But it has caused a pretty big admin burden to Deal with our techs on a day-to-day basis and answer their questions that that pour in Yeah Explain that a little bit. Yeah. Hey, um, usually like let's say I go to a house as a team Matta or the key is supposed to be and there's no key um Hey, did you check here? You have somebody to bounce your ideas off of right? I think that that's a lot That's where this comes from and so now what we're having what used to happen is they pull up the mat other tech would say Uh, maybe there's a lock box or a try under the statue and eventually somebody would go wait a minute Did we see if the door was unlocked? um, now we're getting a lot of um Hey, I pulled the mat up. There's no key so A solo somebody's wired to be a solo cleaner is a problem Self-sufficient problem solver where Some people wired to work in a team if they don't have that teammate there They're stumped definitely Chris, I'm curious. Do you think that those those people are like that more because That's who they are or because they've been preconditioned in a team Like if you hadn't hired them in a team in the beginning, do you think they'd be okay? um That's a tough one to answer Yeah, yeah I think it is largely who they are And that's part of the interview process um, you know, we give them a couple situational Uh questions and and want to see that they can answer that they would try to figure it out on their own Or that they would take a certain set of steps. So we look for a much more problem-solving analytical person who can walk through step-by-step to solve a situation um And then like your application your interview questions are How have you re reworked? I mean, is it a different process hiring for solos? Um, yeah, so You know, we have a really short application. Um, the questions aren't really It's nothing crazy. Um, but we're looking for Can you do something in a logical order? Can you start with a big problem and break it down into steps and get to the End result and I find that people who would be better in teams will just spit out the end result And people who are better at solo would go through the steps so You're hiring people for solos that You wouldn't have hired as team members and vice versa. Am I am I reaching on that? Yeah, no, that's that's right. Um, when we were hiring for teams we were looking for um people who just Fire a lot of interaction a lot of You know, if you're familiar with disc hi-i um And you know if you're familiar with disc now we're hiring hi-c um and Yeah Yeah, and the things that hold you back on that hi-c behavioral style are not really an issue if it's solo because They're they're gonna do a good job Most of the problems with solo with hi-c's are when you team them up with somebody, all right And we do have a problem right now when we have to tackle a house with two three four texts um It throws them off because oh my god. I'm not responsible for just myself. What if somebody else does something? What if this happens? What if there's a lot of that can come up? um, and We're trying to handle that through um rank so that We can make sure if there's multiple people in a home There will be somebody at a higher rank who is in charge of the final quality to walk through with the client And everything that happens in the house. So if somebody says what if my work? Isn't uh, or what if you know sue's work isn't up to par and I get a bad review from this house Trust that your team captain is is going to check that Chris robin's asking a question. I think maybe you Kind of answered it with the disc assessment. He's asking would you want to hire leaders for solo model? and You know, you certainly from a behavior standpoint, you know, you're you're looking for for somebody that's More analytical, I guess and and with with lower social needs Does that necessarily translate into leadership? I would say not not really the people that we want to promote up are Are definitely the people that show leadership and they'll be in charge of the home and In charge of what happens. Um, I wouldn't necessarily say that we hire leaders as solos okay We got a couple more questions on here too. Um, I I'm not sure that you all the way answered this one Chris Chris robin wants, you know, do you change your compensation plan? Um, because we're being commissioned. We didn't have to um They're more efficient now And they make more money solo than they did in teams, which is a great way to sell it The problem with selling it that way is that it takes a while And so when you say you're gonna make more money if on day two, you're not making more money they they get upset and You know, it takes probably two to three months for them to get in the flow and the routine and use to what they're doing Is a solo tag and that's when they're able to make more money on our commission pay So that that was a struggle um Over the hump to where they started seeing their paychecks and we more or less just had to say hey, just just wait for it I promise Robin's got another question here How did your clients adjust to the change to solos and did you have your clients sign a non solicitation? Did you need to change anything in that arena? Was that even a concern? No, not really. Um We deal with the issues as they arise. Um It really it's been almost a non issue It's that was a big fear and I got a lot of kickback from management staff saying What are we going to do all these clients are going to be upset? They're used to one thing Most of our clients haven't been home anyway They don't know how many people I think I have heard from some people who make this transition There's there's a a profile of a client that like works from their home for instance that Values the you know getting a team in and out quickly because they just want them out of their home So they can go about their day where a solo means you've got somebody in your home for a longer period of time And their preference would be for a team It's like this kind of situational in terms of who your clients are and what their needs are Yeah, it is and that's We definitely ran into that problem You know, maybe 10 percent of our clients works from home and they prefer to cleaners and we found out who they were pretty quickly And do you find a way where you've got two solo cleaners meeting at that home and doing it together? That's also part of that four hour block um I don't know why it's four, but Whatever the reason four is just the magic number that we can schedule easily and efficiently throughout the day and um Make sure the homes are being cleaned efficiently. So if I have I'm sorry chris schoolhouse rocks has threes the magic number but For me it's four um But if I started tech on a solo queen at 8 30 9 10 11 They'll be done at 12 30 which begins our third arrival window and then I can have two techs meet at that house or If I have two techs do a two hour house and then two techs do a two hour house I can send one of I can split them up at the end of the day Oh, I get you. Yeah, just basically like two four hour blocks type deal. Yeah Yeah Marlowe's saying that uh, yes if they want someone in and out, we're not the right choice Because she says that's rare and I believe that is true. I think for the most part most most clients really don't care Yeah, and you know, we we try to sell them on the benefits I feel like it's super easy to like to twist that one around well You know if you want somebody racing through your house Like you know, it's an easy way to spin that I mean, I feel like it's easy way to spin it the opposite way That too fast or too slow thing um, so robin What I heard from chris is he was always percentage right chris. He didn't have to switch And it has worked out they do make more um, you know the way that I measure efficiency is Time scheduled to clean versus the time that you spend in any given day um driving and whatever and And You know chris uh Bridget makes a comment here Which I think is is is very timely and something I think all of us have given some consideration to That she used covet 19 as the excuse to do solos Yeah, certainly that would be you know between time to sell the concept that you're putting half You know, you're you're reducing the risk of of sending somebody in your home that that that might be Asymptomatic you're cutting the risk by 50 percent. Yeah Yeah, and the risk of transmitting it back to to our cleaners, right? I mean, that's a big Yeah, they've always sold it to them. You're not you're not riding a car together. I mean It's probably the the ultimate solution in terms of Dealing with with coveted. Yeah And you know, I expect to be able to uh to sell that for for a long time coming You guys had it was a big deal in colorado in denver. I mean you You were you had to legally you were forced to shut down, right? Yes Yeah, I mean we we have the department of health Come in and say we have to close down multiple times too there is You know, we we put in We argued with them and we went back and forth and They weren't having it. Um, it was Yes, yes, they they arrived at our office every single day until we are not operating So the first time they did that, what did you do? The first time Yeah, did you flip them off? I mean what happened? Oh, yeah, I asked them to leave. Um, you know I wasn't I wasn't there. Um, I just got a phone call later Saying hey, you know, we came by your office today. We know that you're operating You can't be and who who who was that a health inspector. So and they have them roving through denver Wasn't anybody like handcuffs? You know, you know, they couldn't take you to jail That was that was the uh, you know, there's threat of escalation and that did happen to quite a few business owners in in this city, um, um There hasn't been a lot of there was a lot of talk about it. Maybe a month ago. Um, but At this point they've they've backed off but they they came in really fast and You know, they came in hard You're shutting down period. Um, we we negotiated a couple of different cleans that we were still allowed to do Um, but it it really wasn't much Wow, your situation was much more extreme than almost everybody I heard most people got a letter Or a call and then they could respond and you know, blah, blah, blah, but you're just like Here's the hook Business license are revoked over this. So there is just there's no messing with it. Um Our clients Rill I think we we handled it really well and you know, you get very, um, Very open about everything that was going on while we were doing it We did have a lot of clients that found other services while we were down Wow, yeah Matt, how long were you, uh, forced to be closed? Uh a month Maybe a little bit more I feel as close to the five weeks chris five weeks sounds right five weeks sounds right. Yeah It was it was a while. Oh, we do have a couple of questions here Hey chris, have you um run into this problem yet where the cleaners get bored? Doing the same homes all the time and those are the cleaners, um that You know, like I said, we did lose a few and I think Um, without somebody to talk to all day They did get bored because we hired we hired very social people and some of the issues that we have now Um, you know, I have one tech who just loves to talk and I'm getting complaints back from clients saying I love them, but I have stuff to do so Oh Intervening somebody and they happen to be particularly chatty. Would that like be a disqualifying attribute? No No, that that definitely wouldn't and we have we have a few who are particularly chatty, but I think they for the most part chatty or not as long as they want to listen to a podcast through the day or They they're they're pretty okay with Is that common for solos to like have their Or I don't know if there's a correlation, but our best our best ones seem seem to have headphones in And you know our quality has gone up. Um last week. I think we closed at 96 percent Um, which on a you know, if that was a four point scale, maybe that would be like a three point eight something um But yeah, they're they're doing a good job So Sorry tom go ahead No, you're I was going to go in a different direction. So if that Yeah, I was curious what your quality was beforehand chris before you switched over Maybe like a 92 and it doesn't sound like No, that does sound like a lot. Yeah, it's it's a big bump And it's up and down as always, but it's it's yeah, overall we've had less complaints Yeah Earlier robin was asking about clients signing non solicit non solicitation agreements That's a good practice regardless of how many people you you have in the team but I've Heard that I guess you could see where maybe that would be a bigger concern with solos where there's no real checks and balance and I'm cleaning the home by myself anyway. What do I need chris for? yeah, and I I've never had that issue In the past You just haven't been doing it long enough Absolutely, it'll come up. Um, yeah, we haven't signed a non solicit, but I think the real What really makes a difference is just they know that we have a pulse on what's going on and We have a good relationship with our clients. We engage them a lot We get a lot of email responses when we send stuff out to them and just just keeping the clients close and The texts know that You know, we're watching big brothers watching We know what's going on. We have their stats I I think that that's where the real Check comes in it's just keeping a pulse on the staff We do really hear that it's one of the big fears right people are really Afraid of that. That's one of the big holdouts Uh, robin has another question here. Well, it's like robin's definitely thinking about this solar model He heard profit a big day It has um, our payroll's gone down because of mileage because we're not paying them to drive from the office every day um, I was looking at our numbers earlier. I It's 50 to 75 less than mileage is is what we're doing right now 75 percent of what we were So how much for mileage or how are you compensating? It's just 35 cents per mile driven The actual work hours drop A material amount I imagine too because you're not paying for the drive back and forth from the office The revenue per clock hour goes on me from a metric standpoint This is this is gold, isn't it? Yeah Do I don't know did you ever pay overtime when you were doing teams? Yeah, we did Probably got so much now, right? Yeah, I haven't I had maybe one or two texts over the past A couple months they that we had to pay overtime too Nice. Yeah. I hate paying overtime. I don't want to be such a butt about it, but I hate it. Yeah I mean I know I mean I want to pay it if they've earned it, but I don't want them to earn it. Just Don't work overtime. All right Um, so robin's talking about he might use a blended model in the future So yeah, your would you consider your model to be a blended model? definitely, um You know at this point we're Probably about 60 percent true Zola homes. Um, we were Or that's transitionary I've been talking to people about what size home should we be going after and I used to really like big homes And I realize now that I liked big homes because we were using teams Not necessarily because I like big homes Uh, and you know if I send two people to a 10,000 square foot house They might be there for six hours and that's our whole day and that cuts out all the driving and All the stuff that comes with being solo anyway Did you have you were just trying to turn two people into solos? Yes I had to I had to give in at some point Did you find that the labor market got a little bit potential Candidates for hire got a little bit smaller because they needed to have their own car and be willing to drive it every day Yeah, it's been an issue. I should say that we have a company car And I'll probably purchase another one To deal with that because I don't want to lose a good tech over an unexpected car issue and I can get them insured on it and they can take it as a loaner I mean, I'll please say I'm going to have a problem with their road tripping in it But as long as there's a very set amount. Hey My car had this happen It's going to take me one week to get the money and then one week to fix it They can take that car for two weeks But did you have people when you were doing teams that Maybe didn't drive at all. Maybe they didn't even have a license No, we never did But it would happen How how what does everybody in Denver drive? That's just We we always are finding people without license. Don't drive. Yeah. I mean finding in them drivers is tough Or maybe they have a license, but their history driving history is such that we can't put them on our insurance sure I guess that's still an issue even if they're driving their own car if they've got a really bad driving record You probably shouldn't have them driving on your behalf, right? No, definitely not and I you know, we have an additional insured policy Um, and I think there are a couple of stipulations in there as far as You have somebody Just got their license back. We we probably still can't hire them Um, but you know hiring's always been tough in Denver. Um It's a good point, but I think that We really don't know what's wrong with Denver I'm just I'm kidding. It's tough everywhere. Correct. Yeah. Good point everybody has that issue But I've just never wanted to make that exception because it's I did I did a long time ago And it always led to huge issues, right? You know, Sally always she's like she can never drive. This isn't fair. I have to drive her everywhere all the time and I just never really wanted to deal with that. So There's a psychology with its teams it's like well, I really don't want to drive because I don't want to have You know other people in my car and I'm carrying twice as much stuff equipment and product and so forth where If I'm driving my car by myself, you know, it's probably feels better Yeah And you know, it's always the team members fault that the car is trashed Right where all the trash has come from why it's dirty. So if I'm driving my car by myself, I can keep my car clean I mean I get that too. Yeah using the company car in this capacity has been great too Our techs are really grateful when they're able to have it and take it home I always get it back vacuumed Clean they take it through the car wash My tech that has it now Oil change Well, Liz you you lost some bandwidth there you're you're breaking up a little bit. That's awesome. Chris. I love Yeah, isn't it? Oh, did you guys lose me? A little bit I'm coming back on my side. It looked like you guys broke up like I was fine. You sound like you just landed on the moon I know it. I know how that sounds so Robin has another good question here About um signage on the techs car. Have you thought about that chris? Are you going to do anything? I'm never going to do that. I don't I don't like signage on my car Um, and I wouldn't I wouldn't make them do that. Um, but Yeah, you know, it's great advertising and that's something that I can't I know a lot of people that haven't been put the toppers on Yeah, right a pizza drivers and I I know a few cleaning companies actually that do that too There but that's like the gig their uniform is a huge advertisement already It says everything it has our phone number on it, but you can't see them when they're going down the road No, but we we work in the Window Tom come on A lot of areas And so I think plenty of people see them getting out of the car and getting into the building We have a little bonus system for them to give out cards to people and it does pretty well It does. Yeah, that's awesome. It does pretty well with a couple of techs Okay, so you need to share that info in in group tomorrow. Yeah, I will Write myself a little note here I'll heal a little bit about that Okay, so Robin was asking about magnets But you know the magnets same thing as the top right, you know, there's only so much we can ask We don't pay for laundry and a lot of them just do it Um, what we say is we'll we'll exchange your microfiber and clean it for you But I find that most people don't want to come to the office So they they do it at home and as they did come to the office would they be on the clock? Um, yes, yeah, they would that would really not be great for you either No, um, and so it sounds like they're getting enough money that it wouldn't really impact pieces Out out lay it would just impact how much they were making per hour Exactly, and it usually it evens out pretty well. We're having them come by some people come by once a week Some people come by every two weeks and you know, just depending on the tech Some of them are trying to stretch it out as far as they possibly can To not have to come in and some people are trying to come in as much as possible and we're having to push them out So earlier in the discussion you I guess alluded to the possibility that your Supervisors might play a bigger role in the logistics process in terms of replenishing your your cleaners Yeah, that's the goal is to shift into um as we achieve operational efficiencies from not or maybe not operational efficiencies, but Management efficiencies from from not having them come to the office every day and having to talk to them and distract from our work That our management will Have more time to go out into the field and and talk to them there and drop off their supplies Check a house. Maybe give them a little bit of help clean out a half bathroom and connect with them Well, we're kind of pushing up against the top of the hour here One question real quick. Um, because Leslie brought this up twice. Yeah. Um, and so we miss Every day, so we have to answer her question Yeah, we do. Um, we do them weekly on zoom at 5 p.m Which I'm so happy about because we used to do them at 7 40 in the morning and I can't I hate getting up in the morning and God having to sit and talk to uh, you know speak to a bunch of people is is the worst. Um, so yeah, we bike at 7 40 Yeah Yeah, but i'm still waking up too. Yeah That can be dangerous To fall off at least mostly from not everyone else on the road when i'm when i'm groggy late to my meeting So What time is your zoom meeting 5 p.m? Huh, so does everybody like Some people get done before 5 I assume but they have to come back and be available at 5. Yeah, they do Oh, but they don't have to come back tom because they can do it anywhere. They do If my day is over at 3 I might want to do something is it is it mandatory or if I got stuff Every other meetings mandatory we record them and post them. Um, you know so far we've been getting 80 plus percent turnout Sometimes people will be walking their dog But yeah, if you miss one one week, you just have to be at it the next week. Got you. Yeah, it's only once a week And if it's the same time every week that makes it easier to you need to do it every day at 5 o'clock Once you get used to it just pretty easy, right? Hey tom, did you get email? I sent you did you want me to share the email you want me to share the links in it? What you want me to do? Just that first link So, um, um, it's ken carfagno We can't remember the name of the link So i'm gonna share a link here you guys if you're seriously looking at going um solo Um ken carfagno worked for a long time as a solo and he really perfected the solo cleaning model by doing it himself for years and earning a Can't remember the exact number so I don't want to miss quotes But you might want to check into this information or probably going to have ken on the facebook live um in the coming weeks But uh might be might be a good play a good resource for you if you're looking to um switch over seriously um That link that link is in the chat. So if you want it, it's right there Solo cleaning school.com. That's not too hard to remember. No, super easy. That's an easy one Yeah, I was curious. Did you guys know what robin meant by hat in the back window? I feel like i'm really missing something Like a hat with your logo on it you put the hat. I got you. I got you. All right there chris. That seems easy enough It's summer now and they're sweating so that's that might be it Yeah, that might be your thing right there. All right um And marlowe said just one thing real quick because I know we're running out of time tom. I'm sorry. I keep doing this But you know marlowe's on every call too. So we gotta work you up. What was she got? Well, she did also mention and this is a consideration that um A lot of the her clients the reason why they hire her is because they don't want a branded vehicle And and I know that this is like more in high-end neighborhoods etc They don't feel like they want to be advertising your business for you I I used to have some people that would say that as well. So That's interesting. You know, you got to be thinking about That might be a marketing point and the sales point that you can use Yeah, you know, so I just want to bring that up because I'm like, oh, that's that's a good one right there All right, tom cleaning business today if you haven't subscribed Couldn't be easier email first name last name you get our newsletters. We'll keep you updated on late breaking You know things happening in the industry that that that you want to know about um Right here if you go to coronavirus downloads and this is the link that I share every day almost Because this is an unprecedented event that we're dealing with Oh, wow tom. Good job Almost missed it And we try to take everything that we have to help us make us through this this crisis and this unprecedented time and Put that useful information All on this one page and yesterday for you guys who joined us we had A list of action items that cleaning companies can do or any company actually that works well for cleaning companies to Action steps to help address racism in a positive way within their businesses as well as Kind of a contract. It's it's a document that you would use in team meetings within your organization to Kind of an icebreaker and kind of kind of set the terms and the rules to make it easy to Have a meaningful discussion on the topic. So both of those are here on this link You can download it and put it to good use All right chris any last words of caution if they're if people are going to switch from teams to solos What are the things that they really need to like watch out for don't make these mistakes? Yeah, um No, who's who's not going to work with the model? Um Don't make it pretty clear. So just don't ignore those warning signs. They're going to need a lot more Coaxing and massaging into this if you don't want to lose them Um, they're going to need to know the benefits to them um Making timelines there like we were talking about with pay It's not you're not going to see it for two or three months And I didn't know that going into this So trying to get everybody back on my team and trust me when I told them they would make more and they're not Was really hard to see out All right Tell them that it's going to be probably two to three months But then it's going to be consistent after that. Okay. That's really good. Yeah, that was that was huge. Um and you know, just get ready for the The onslaught of of communicating All set that you're going to be getting in when when you do it. Um, I'm sure there's maybe using In-person meetings while you still have them to train people for what's coming as far as what do you do If you're locked out of a house, what do you do if um There's a room with a dog in it and and so on and so forth Just just really preparing them for for everything and then also having Everything documented um all of your processes documented and having uh somewhere to send everybody if they have questions has been really helpful Awesome Chris this is useful information. It's good and If if all you're doing is teams, I think Most businesses could benefit by at least considering some some hybrid models, you know, um, I know a lot of people are doing that um There you go, um, especially in a uh, COVID-19 world, right? So, uh tomorrow Oh Bill gulderman tomorrow, right? Yeah, bill Bill gulderman is one of the most interesting individuals. You're ever going to meet truly you want to see bill tomorrow. It's going to be a lot of fun Uh, Chris, thanks so much, ma'am. Appreciate your help. We'll do this again sometime here, uh real soon Um, see you guys tomorrow at five o'clock eastern. Okay? Bye. Bye