 Hey, good afternoon everybody, Tom Stewart here. I'm with Liz Trotter. Our guest today is Logan Taylor from Albania. Logan, how are you today? I'm doing great. How are you guys doing? Awesome. You know, you're you are the first guest we've ever had on smart business moves and we've done this a couple of times That has live stream from Albania. I'm pretty confident. That's true Great. I'm happy to be representing Albania China one time. Yeah, what we've had you've had people from China a couple of times other places in Europe. I think Japan maybe Albania yeah Hey, hey, Logan do us a favor and tell us just a little bit about who you are why you're in Albania What are you doing over there? Yeah, sure. So my name is Logan I started my cleaning company about seven years ago and we have a location in Seattle and a location in Scottsdale and In the last I decided I've been working I worked really hard the last year I kind of like to take big like work really hard and take big breaks. So I'm in Europe for three months and It's been nice. So I'm in Albania where where I'm with some friends Yeah, and really as I was telling Liz and Tom earlier doing just the bare minimum really not a lot of work is happening But it's 11 p.m. Where I am having a little tiny bit of champagne a little piece of chocolate. I'm gonna do this podcast and we go to bed Yeah, so what do you you said you're doing a little bit of work. What are you doing? You know right now I'm focused on creating an onboarding system like through Tremual which is About 40 hours of Content and then with graphics and tests and whatever for onboarding new admin To my company because I'm sort of Considering I mean we've already did we have two locations now I'd like to have a couple more in the next 10 years and what really hinders growth for me is admin training because it requires so much of myself and So much of my existing admin team So we solved that problem for cleaners a long time ago But with admin I feel like we're always starting from scratch So I'm just building out the modules for that so we have about 60 that I have sketched out and Started recording them and it's just a slide You know it's the kind of thing that any one of us could do but I don't think any of us wants to do it Maybe you guys already done something like that, but it's just painful but I thought I'll just like kind of bite the bullet on this and then You know how it's the kind of thing you do once and then you can use it over and over So I thought this is something I can easily do while traveling because it's pretty independent So yeah, you can do it from anywhere. So you've been doing this you said for seven years Yeah, did so did you start with one branch and then wait a while to start a second? Yeah I started I mean just it was just me and for a long time I had no idea what I was doing. So I didn't grow very quickly I mean, I guess right away we got to maybe like seven or eight thousand dollars a month in revenue And then we were just had really small growth for a long time but during that time I was You know, well, I was I did all the cleaning and everything else says, you know a lot of people do and I listened to everything I could find on small business management growth and Just kind of learned about how to run a business so then After a few years things got a lot easier and then During the pandemic. I decided to open the office in Scottsdale Part of which is just because there's like 20 non-stop flights every day from Seattle to Scottsdale And I cannot take the Seattle winters anymore. It's just me So I wanted to have a like another place where I could still work But it would be, you know, not the Seattle gray, which some people love and I'm not one of those people So yeah with running two offices in two cities that are, you know, airplane trip apart Yep, how do you manage? Do you have like office staff in both locations? Yes, but Our office staff is not Like our scheduler works from Scottsdale And he comes to Seattle like every three months to work in the Seattle office for a little bit and be at meetings and whatever But he works from Scottsdale and then we have I think three VA's That all work in different locations. So we're and then we have three people in our office in Seattle So we're like we're just really good at using Zoom and Slack and just SMS messages and having regular meetings to keep everything organized But we can we book appointments from either place. So it's not It's not tricky to manage Any of the admin stuff. What's hard is when we first started having Ramping up in a new city with cleaners because you know Once you're at a certain number of cleaners and revenue if someone calls in sick or whatever It's not a big deal. You expect that you plan for it But when you have like two cleaners and someone calls in sick half of your thing That's my work force is out today Yeah, and I kind of forgot about that part of the growth like I just so I was like No, there's this again So I like relearned a lot of the same things that I learned the first time when we opened it So it was really really hard and I don't recommend that anybody does it unless they're in it for the process Like you think it's really fun. It's a challenge. It's interesting You have a lot of time you have some extra money like you're like it's a project Like fixing up an old car or something like okay That's a great reason to do it doing it because you're like wanting to increase your revenue really quickly that would I would not advise that based off of my experience, but pop but you know people are probably not There's a lot of people much smarter than myself who maybe would do a better job faster But but I do have to laugh Logan that you're saying if you have a lot of extra money that you just want to throw down a drain If you have Another way to say this if you have a lot of patience and you're in up to the long haul then that might be good too, okay That you one of the things you said just a second ago was a couple seconds ago was that you solved the Employee problem a long time ago Onboarding and getting people on and today we're gonna talk about employee retention So people are gonna be excited to hear how how did you do that? How did you solve it and tell us a little bit about you know, that's the big thing that everybody's talking about right now Yeah, absolutely Okay, so I was thinking about this this morning and Just kind of remembering well actually I created a little list of 25 things that we do That I'll send and it can be uploaded people can just pull stuff right off of this list if they want to use any of these things but Let me get my paper together here alright When I first started I worked in a hotel at a restaurant right before I started Dazzle and there were all of these housekeepers that work there and at the time this is like in 2014 They were making I think like 14 or $15 an hour and I was paying my cleaners well above that nothing I mean a lot less than we pay now, but I figure I'm like $21 an hour something like that and so I was like Why is it that? These people are staying working at a hotel for 20 years 10 years 25 years retirement They're only job working at this hotel and I can't keep a cleaner who I'm paying You know 30 to 40 percent more. I can't keep them for more than six months and My brother who's he's in not he's not in small business at all But he's in corporate America and he explained that it's because I ran my business like a shit show and It was they had no faith Brother He doesn't pull any punches But it was like they these people don't even know if you're going to have their paycheck If their paychecks are gonna bounce like you run it out of your garage Which is also your bedroom and where you keep all the cleaning supplies And you don't have any kind of you don't have you have no systems So they feel like you know you're causing a lot of chaos in their lives So if you could you know ask like you're a professional They will also probably ask like they're professional. So that was the first thing I realized, okay I need to like get this to be I was really concerned about the way that we looked towards our clients that I wasn't Really concerned about the way we looked towards our employees Of course, I wanted to be a good employer, but I didn't think I needed to be like You know wooing the employees, which of course of course you do of course you need to do that That's that's what you should be focused on So um Yeah, didn't actively think I don't need to woo them or did it just not pop into your mind That you need it to Yeah, it just wasn't um It just wasn't on on my mind Yeah, it just wasn't I was I mean I knew they needed to I knew I needed to pay more than they would get paid at an equivalent job Like I knew that much But that's just the that's just barely scratching the surface of what you want to do when you're trying to really increase employee longevity um, so What we should I talk about like what we do to make that process work? Yeah Okay, so um good stuff Logan Okay, all right. So first of all we have a training process in place like a A actual documented process and It's Exactly it's exactly what they're taught on each day of their training. We do a 5j training process We use the speed cleaning method from debbie sardone Except that I'd like beefed it up a lot and customized it a lot, but it provided a good framework for us um, and then we do continued ongoing training with our trainers So that they're so everyone's on the same page. So we have a quarterly training meeting and then um When we're onboarding people we make sure that we have everything seamless so we do um We do we use hello sign which is like docu sign So they get all their stuff before they arrive sign all their new hire paperwork get all that stuff And then when they get in on the first day, we don't we're not looking for mops and you know, it's already So that it's like we're minimizing the chaos because what you don't want to do which is what I used to do So you're like, okay, they're starting on Tuesday. They're gonna clean with me. Hey, welcome Why don't you just sit there and drink a coffee while I like get all this stuff together and you know It's like it's not so unprofessional. So um, we just like it to be like really tight and neat and um Let me give them a little you know that we give them little snack packs and tell them they can use the client's bathrooms Because sometimes people don't know this and then they're like, you know, we learn on day three that they're having like They haven't paid at work for eight hours a day and they're all stressed out about it. You know, I was like, what? Um, and we give them bottles of water and just like a little pack for when they start. Yeah um, so we like that Well, just a little more on that after they're done with their training then um The day the following week Then they get a little tiny bit more training Which is a video that we've made And it's about little over 60 minutes and it goes through the things that I think are really like the most important things that you need to know as a cleaner and You know, maybe people miss some it's really hard to learn a lot of new things in five days So I like to review it a lot. So we send in the video so they can watch that so that these are things that are just kind of like Sort of deal breaker things for me like I really want the stuff to be done and then they get a little test on it and um That's you know, that's how we do our onboarding and then if they don't um If they're not successful or they're not appearing to be successful It might be because they need a little bit more training Which we're happy to put a day or two on to or it might be because they're not a fit at which point We get rid of that's better to do it the sooner the better. Yeah um So when you say what if they're not a fit then you will get rid of them sooner versus later When do you make that decision? Do you have like how do you decide how to fit? How do you tell us more about that? Yeah, it depends if they're just slow, there's the slow cleaner that I have a lot of tolerance for because You I've seen so many people increase the speed and if they're um If they have low quality again, you can teach somebody how to clean well If they are late and missing days on their first Like a few days of work first week first two weeks And it's not because of a major life issue Um, then they're not gonna work at dazzle It's just fire them right away because it's if someone is you know, if someone calls them sick twice in the first Three weeks. I promise you that's just gonna be their situation Yeah, um So Did you did you have another thing you were gonna say Liz? Oh, no, I I like that you pretty much for speed or quality You're willing to work with them. It sounds like maybe like a couple of days Yeah, yeah, but um not for Not for if they're unreliable essentially no and then of course if there's any kind of like trust Problem or they're saying things that are just inappropriate, you know Sometimes you'll get somebody that will say things that are really inappropriate and you don't catch it In training and then it comes up and it's it's just a poor reflection of the brand and at that point will Just fire them and I know people are really scared to do that a lot of the time because they don't want to pay for Um, unemployment or whatever, but it's worth it. I think just do it. That's my opinion I'm just be done. It's so much better I mean if like I have never had a time where I thought I need to fire this person And then I didn't and then I was like, oh god, I'm so glad I didn't fire them. It's always been like I knew I should have fired him a long time ago So, uh, it's also I just think it makes it more fair to the employees. I think it's really um It's not good for employees to see it's not good for your good employees to see that you have a really high tolerance level for bs Doesn't make them feel good about the workplace either. So it's just better to try to keep it as clean as possible Um, that's good. I love that though. I've never not fired someone and looked back on it. I said boy I'm glad I I didn't do that. I'm trying to think of an example. I've been doing this for a while I have Really have you? I did I had a gal that called out on her second day of work Normally, that's a deal breaker for me second day, please. You're out of here. Yeah that her car had been stolen. I was like I really had she brought me a police report. So I was like, all right I'm like, yeah And then she actually worked for us for six years and she was amazing Oh, wow. Well, that's great Somebody that I was glad I didn't fire And you know what? I'm thinking back maybe 20 years and there's an example one example I can think of and there maybe there were others but I think what you're saying Logan is you got to play the odds and yeah Even even occasionally you might let somebody go that could have worked but for every one of those You'd be keeping 20 people that that wouldn't and it's it's not worth It's not even worth Yeah, and the biggest thing is unreliability. I mean that's the That's what you're gonna see 9 10s out of 10 When it's a problem. Yeah Um and attitude we do hear a lot of people have trouble with employees that have attitude, you know Whatever they yeah, whatever that is. Yeah Yeah, I I don't know. I mean we I don't know if I'm like being Um shielded from that at this point or something. But I don't see that a lot right now I'm not on wood I remember that from a long time ago and I did not enjoy it then and I'm sure I wouldn't enjoy it now But uh, yeah, well, that's yeah, that's definitely a deal breaker. You're also not there I know I'm not there. That's a thing and rotating when you're not there My tolerance levels through the roof when I'm not there Yeah All right, so we got the training process good trainer program Um, I'm boarding very professional Um, the the fun little bring them in in a nice way give them a snack pack some water all that good stuff Then they have a little extra training that following week in the form of that video And then yeah somewhere Okay, so then the next thing and this is kind of you know I have a bullet list that we'll send orders to concrete things people can do but just kind of to put the framework in place um we The the cleaners are the vip's of our company not me not the clients not the office staff The cleaners are the people who are Bringing in revenue and they're the only people that are bringing them I guess you could maybe make the case that a salesperson is bringing in revenue But most um of us are not doing that search engine optimization people in marketing people. We're paying those people Um cleaners are actually getting cash deposited every day in the account And I was doing some quick math and I'm going to change it for My number I'm going to I'm going to shift these numbers down a little bit to make them more realistic for others I to make it more of an average. I think of what people are charging So if you have if you're charging $50 an hour And you have a cleaner who works an average of 30 hours a week of build time That means that they are billing $1,500 a week And if they work 49 weeks per year That means they're bringing in 73 500 dollars which is going to go way above What your very best clients are bringing in most likely unless these clients are having service multiple days a week at their big mansion Or something which I don't have clients like that so okay, yeah, so they're so We want to really really have our cleaners backs and make them feel like we have their back and that um, you know occasionally something will come up and My Instinct, I mean I'll follow my instinct, but typically it is to Have the back of the cleaners and they know that and I think that that makes them feel more loyalty to us Now, of course if someone I mean we've had things for you know a cleaner Obviously things will come up where a cleaner is doing something that is unprofessional or wrong or whatever. It's not going to be um my go-to Belief that the cleaner is always wrong and if the complaint Let's say there's a complaint and it's something stupid and nitpicky from a cleaner that has a bunch of five star Things that we never hear any complaints about It's very unlikely that I'm going to even talk to the cleaner about it like okay, so we didn't they didn't clean the top of your refrigerator and I look at their score card on made central and they're at a 98 percent or 99 percent like I'm not going to talk to the cleaner about that. Um, so we don't we don't want to nitpick um the I did have a I had a woman a long time ago who just absolutely lost it on us because um There was this little dish that she had that she would just swore up and down We had broke and then thrown away. This was years ago And I was like, okay I talked to the cleaner about it and the cleaners all offended and it was like touchy subject because I was too aggressive about it. This was like when I was a new business owner and I believed this client and Uh, then a couple weeks later the cleaner no longer worked for us. I didn't fire them But I don't think they liked that. I don't think they felt good and they got a new job But they didn't have to deal with the boss that was making my problem, you know their problem so, um, I was cleaning that client's house and underneath her couch was a half smoked joint That had been like put out in the in the dish the lost dish And so I'm like cleaner than I look and I'm like looking at my phone. I'm like, is that the same? It's like I could not believe it. I was like It was a really good lesson Like just because you have a cranky client or someone that's like shooting off text messages or emails about something that they think went wrong Take the time to you might my method to take the time to investigate it and you know See see what's really going on don't take people for their word right away that the cleaner was wrong because Often they're not and then if they were wrong Then decide how you're gonna deal with it, which might be to do very low my opinion I'm I'm totally on board with your opinion. I have had over the years I've had I I don't have a number but a lot of people have accused us of theft over the years But and I'm I wish I could tell you that nobody's ever stolen from my company, but that's not true but The percentage of people that have actually truly stolen Compared to the number of people that are a number of times that we've been accused of stealing minuscule yeah just So crazy and yeah times the the people are Positive one hunt. I would say the majority of the time the customer 100% positive Nobody else was in my house. There's no possible way that it ever And it ended up invariably not being us. It's your daughter's boyfriend your son Your husband Yeah, absolutely A surprising number of times the whatever it is they're looking for is is there they just can't find it and Sometimes things are stolen by their other Possible suspects and you know the the whole stereotype. Well, you know, the the cleaner must have done it, you know as unfortunately Where where where it goes so? investigation is important and keep an open mind and You know innocent until proven guilty Yep I think the main thing about what you said is not even the process as much as the mindset The mindset has to be that Just because you said it doesn't make it true. It doesn't make it wrong or untrue But we're not just going to go with the idea that somebody stole something or broke something or damaged something Just it was said No, and that is that can be a little bit tricky because Both sides of that equation want to feel like they're being heard. They're being respected So, yeah, but your point 73,500 Yeah, as well carries more weight Yeah, I don't want to mind makes all is makes it a whole lot easier to keep an open mind it's like I'm gonna I'm gonna try really hard to come up with another explanation for what's going on here because I don't want to let 73,500 a year go out the door. Oh, yeah, absolutely um Should I even move on a little bit and go to a couple of things people can do okay, so um The next thing is that We oh we want to we celebrate all of their birthdays and They get the day paid off and they get a hundred dollar gift card or cash or whatever and We do that for our ba's as well that live in different parts of the world I like even try to bring them into the team as much as possible um And we approve 100 percent of time off requests that are submitted with two or more weeks notice, um because If I were cleaning houses and I wanted to take a vacation and I couldn't get the time off I would find another place to clean houses out. So Yeah, I quit so approve it and I know that sometimes that's hard But it's worth it because it's better to Better to have them and to have them, you know, have them believe They're more than giving them that day and every day after that off Yeah And and you I we've done that for quite a few years as well And you and I both know You only think it's hard once you start doing it. It's not hard. It just becomes yeah of how you do business It's actually yeah Yeah, it's absolutely true. Yeah Yeah, um, that's good. I love that one I like that one too. Um, we started giving three weeks of pto to people on their first year So they start accruing The three weeks of pto on their first day and it's an equivalent of three weeks And then their second year they get four weeks, which is a lot of pto, but it includes their sixth time um and When I was thinking about we wanted we raised our top level pay up to 28 dollars per hour recently and we were thinking how high can we take it and I decided it was better. I mean, it's when you I don't have I don't have the math in front of me But it's like the equivalent adding that extra pto is like paying them $28 and 14 cents an hour all year like it's really not a lot It feels a lot more to the employee than the actual checks that I'm writing out for it um And the people love it and they take it and we encourage them to take it And I think it keeps people a little bit more refreshed and it's um an advantage when they're looking at jobs because Most people who are working for a cleaning company as a cleaner They're um other jobs that they would be looking at do not have no they have very little pto Certainly not three weeks the first year certainly not four weeks the second year So I feel like it really gives us an advantage and it's really a lot cheaper than A lot of other things that we've done So tell me a little bit more about it logans. So they start earning it on day one. When can they start Spending it you have to wait until the end of the year. Can they spend it as they accrue it? Yeah, we let them spend it as they accrue it so they can spend it however they want And some people do that and some people I like it when they're I like it when I see them saving it because It makes me hopeful that they're planning to really be here for a long time. Um But uh, yeah, we we're really loose with the pto However, they want to use it the only thing that we do is I think we They have it has to be like a full day like six hours or something You know, they can't like take two hours of pto. Okay like that. Yeah So we have a meet here. Hey denny. It looks like she's in Pittsburgh international airport. She's she's been celebrating jewish new year And so she's cool. Happy new year Yeah Yeah, happy new year. Good to see you denny glad you're joining us. We haven't seen her in a while or I have it I have I see her a lot Hope you're going someplace fun. Yeah. Yeah, she's just coming home. So that's awesome. Okay, so you said so you I we have to dig into this a little bit longer because anybody who watches this is going to Going to have some roadblocks not so much roadblocks about the three weeks Um, especially since you said break it down figure out the math or people are like, okay, I could do that but I am Guaranteed that a large chunk of our audience is thinking 28 bucks an hour. Are you kidding me? I could never do that They could not so talk to us about right Okay, well first of all and in seattle and we're not I'm not in a suburb of seattle. We're in seattle downtown It's expensive. It's so it's the equivalent of like if you're cleaning in california or like san diego san francisco la that kind of thing So if you are in You know like our friend dan in tulsa or okloma city Certainly, he's not going to be charging Well, okay, so I guess I got a little ahead of myself if you're if you're paying $28 an hour You're charging Enough to be able to pay $25 an hour our average ticket on made central is usually around 85 bucks an hour so that allows us to provide A higher wage whatever and we're charging $85 an hour because we are in seattle however, if we were in if my business were in a suburb in Oregon or colorado or something I think it's unlikely that I would charge less than $70 an hour Just based off of my friends who I have that have businesses in other places. I think that that's a pretty Fair and attainable price As long as you're a professional service with branding I mean you have to you're coming has to be branded and be looking Yeah, people have to believe you're worth $70 an hour or $80 an hour um And so if the problem is that like if if you think that $22 an hour if you could never pay that Then that means no matter where you're at that you need to raise your prices or cut back on overhead Probably raise your prices Yeah, it's a mindset thing I mean it's the first thing anyone is ever going to tell you raise your prices raise your prices Unless you've already raised your prices every year and have been doing that then you're probably Yeah, you probably still need to raise your prices Especially after covet right and the situation with uh, we are everything What were we looking at tom last was it? I don't know last couple weeks ago, maybe And were we looking at the joltz report? we were looking at the consumer price index and inflation and 9% year over year I think it tipped down to like, I don't know eight something but By all accounts inflation is going to be high for Actually, I was uh reading an economics report from somebody who I believe really knows what's going on and they're saying like For the rest of the decade Inflation is going to kind of ebb and flow, you know expected to start going down But you know it might get to four percent and then it might get back up to five or six percent You're going to see it kind of going up and down like that for for the rest of this decade Okay, so all right That's a different that's a different way of managing and most of us really none of us Have actually run a business with that type of economic Condition that we're going to have to manage So I haven't we're going to be ready. We're going to be raising our rates A lot and we need to get out of the mindset of annual rate increase That's something where the gas stations do it, right? And you know, so multiple times a year we might need to be raising our prices for Customers that we that are that are recurring customers Yeah new way All right, so so Logan in your area where you are in seattle And you're you're charging 85. Would you say that you're at the top of your of what people are charging? You're in the middle. Where are you? We're in the top tier. We're not the most expensive the maids Still they charge a little more than we charge if I can get it Some you know, like shop around a little bit to check their prices and we're like the top three typically And I like being in the top three. I feel like um, there's very little benefit in and charging like Low prices or no benefit in charging low prices and charging You know, like average prices are not really I just think it's really hard to run the kind I don't actually know. I think I don't think it's possible to run the kind of business that I want to run on um Low or average rates. I think we need to be in the top tier of what companies around We are charging in order to be able to provide the benefits And put all the structure in place that allows us to have really high quality And people sometimes, you know, they don't like our rates, but there's hundreds of cleaning companies in seattle They're keep calling us and trying to get us, you know to mess with my staff about charging less because they want us to clean Because they see this that we have like, you know, there's we have like 350 Great reviews on google. So they know that so it's like They're trusting that it is worth something just maybe that they don't want to pay for it. That's fine Yeah, and I can relate to that because I'm one of those people I want the best but I don't want to pay that price You know, sometimes But I still want it and eventually if I wanted enough, I'm going to pay the price You're going to give it and do it. I am I'm going to give it and do it for the things that I want A lot of our clients are really busy Really busy professionals with a great deal of I'm speaking again in seattle. I mean, I don't want to say that this is everywhere But this has certainly been my experience in seattle They have a lot of disposable income and what they want is to have it done right the first time and not have a headache They don't want to shop around. They don't want to manage anything They don't want to be reminding the cleaners and things just want it done right and for That service they're willing to pay What they're willing to pay whatever the market is right there? I don't think they care about that They just want to have it done Yeah, are you having the same experience in scott stale? I would think so No, I'm not Um scott still is a lot different and it's hard. Um seattle has really small homes It's it's real tight scott still is really big And all the houses are mic mansions, right? They're like really big. So, um And it's also just a different demographic a lot older a lot more It's just it's different group people. So it took a long time dealing with more retirees in scott stale Yeah, more than in seattle, but we still do have a lot. It's still mostly working professionals that still are bread and butter, but um It's there. They're definitely a pickier crowd in scott stale. I will tell you that So are you still in the top tier though in scott stale of what you charge? Uh, no, I was when I first got there and then I cut our rates because I wanted to grow more And so I thought I'll just you know cut rates for Oh I mean our our recurring is still pretty good, but we bring people in at pretty low rates for their initial deep clings Ah, okay, and then um in seattle we give discounts on initial deep clings, but not like we do in scott stale All right, so you have to you need better bait in scott stale. That's what you're telling me You need better baits in scott stale. Yes. It doesn't work to have lures. They need the real worm I Well, again, Denise asking about differences between the locations in terms of Price and pace. I think it's you've you certainly touched upon that, but if you're Charging a little bit less. I guess the whole compensation structure is a little bit less as well Yes, so everything I've talked about is seattle-based Um, this is what I'm sharing is the seattle numbers and it's compensation structure and benefits um scott stale is similar, but it's like not quite it's like everything's quite as good, right? Like on the top level pay in scott stale Like I think it's 25 an hour whereas it's 28 and then the bonus is the structure is all different Yeah, but still good Yeah, yeah, I mean because there they are um the people I know I know companies in scott stale and they are not Typically paying 25. So that is still really good pay Yeah, yep. I mean scott stale is not cheap either, right? It's still an expensive place It is some stuff is inexpensive, but other stuff is pricey Yeah, all right. So what else what what else should we be thinking of that we can do that people can do pay well A charge will be able to afford it Absolutely have pto Um provide medical insurance which is It's really more. I think a bureaucratic headache for yourself or whoever's in charge of getting that set up than anything else um, so the way that we do it is we have It's Kaiser Permanente. They provide great coverage and our employees are eligible for it after 90 days And they have three different plans they can choose from and each plan is between The plans are between 300 and 500 dollars per month And we pay half the premium and the cleaner pays half the premium And we think it paid every week. So if they choose the 300 dollar one That means that they're paying 150 dollars per month for it broken up out of their weekly pay checks and we're paying the other 150 um people love that and I think that it's something that That's I think it's something that sets you apart if you do it Uh, do you happen to know what percentage of of your employees take advantage of that benefit? um That's a good question. I think it's probably around 30 percent None of my employees take advantage of um our benefits at the level that I expected that they would and um Or that I would we also have a 401k with three percent company matching And a minority of our employees take advantage of that as well The only thing I just will say about 401k is that It's really easy to choose a 401k from your payroll provider that has extraordinary fees for both You as the business owner and I'm not sure if they If the employees Are getting the same fees or not So you want to be smart about that when you do the when you're shopping around for a 401k if you do it But it's a great thing to be able to offer cleaners and it helps what my goal is to be creating um a career mindset for our cleaners people that will be wanting to work here for 20 or 30 years I mean, that's what I want and So having a full package of benefits surrounding them. I think is Important if you want to do that Uh If the enrollment is low, is it worth rolling out? I mean, I think so because It's no even if none of your employees do it. I mean this sounds so cynical But I'm just gonna say even if none of your employees do it You still get to advertise when you're hiring for employees that you have 401k with company matching um and it makes you It makes you look like a good and caring employer which we all want to be good and caring employers But people need to know that you're a good and caring employer, right? Um, I don't think it's cynical because you actually are you can't force people to take advantage of benefits, right? But you encourage it by providing it and actually you're 30 percent. It's pretty high compared to From other people my experience participation is is is low and health benefits as well as as as like retirement plans Yeah, well one case and It's been my experience and and and in my business as well And I've often questioned Do we not do a good enough job of promoting it of marketing it of like trying to keep it top of mind I You know, just do you have any thoughts on that? Let me just interrupt real quick Penelope it's kaiser permanente and if you look at the comments, I already typed it up for you So you'll be able to see it there. Go ahead. Thanks, uh The person who does our benefits. Uh, this is like her she's passionate about it, right? She wants everyone to have these benefits so she rides them like she'll follow I wouldn't do that and I mean there's been plenty of especially like now. I don't care, but there were times Um previously where I'm like Why are you shaking all these people down? Constantly to give me a bigger bill. I mean like they said they don't want it. Just leave it But uh But it's because it does I think keep people there another thing that's a lot easier than health insurance But and cheaper and really so easy to roll out is aflac which has a huge suite of services that you can choose from Like health insurance. I'm sorry telemedicine life insurance um accident Yeah accident insurance Um and some of those we just automatically pay for our cleaners Like the accident coverage we just do that because I used to have people They would get sick or someone in their family gets whatever they had to take time off And I would feel bad. So I would just like still pay them some amount of money every week for a few however long Um, or I had a client or cleaner. I got cancer. Let's pay her for months a month So then I realized oh wait, it's actually cheaper just to pay for the aflac To you'll give them this benefit and then they can choose additional benefits that they want as well So we pay for some and then some we just subsidize They also get visions and dental And and aflac's not insurance Or yes, some other products are insurance, but their health stuff is not insurance It's just um Like a payout benefit. So let's say that they decide that they're going to choose the dental plan And now they you know are paying $15 a month or whatever to their dental plan And they go in to use the dentist the aflac will say, okay, now you have $700 to use You pay back something like that So we rolled all that out first then we rolled out actual dental insurance They can be used in conjunction with one another you can use both But a really good easy first step is aflac. It's far simpler than insurance and dental insurance and very inexpensive Very inexpensive Yes, people do love getting those checks Oh, yeah, because they actually get a check and a big one is you can just for your wellness check Everybody gets that wellness check. So you're going to get a check guaranteed if you sign up for aflac Which people do like They have some pretty cool swag too like the little yellow duck at you squeeze it I mean They do those things got fought over in my office. Everybody wanted the duck We had to ask the guy I can't remember his name. We had to ask me for more ducks. I'm like really we're shaking them down for more ducks. All right I really want to work at your company just because you shake down so many different people Thanks Okay, so another thing that I think is really important is having an employee manual and policies that are written down That are applied evenly and without favoritism So we're holding everybody to the same standard This is the thing that is I think really hard to do And it takes a lot of practice and I think that My experience has been when people don't have management training their experience It's super easy to fall into a favoritism trap and it is a trap people will resent you for it and it's unprofessional um, so having What is tolerated and what isn't tolerated written down makes it easier to be able to enforce things so, um Definitely if you do nothing else if having attendance um policies in place just I mean because that's like your number one thing And possibly having if you're using made central, which if you're not using made central you should be using made central, but um made central has I didn't think you'd say that Uh this they they have the surveys that are sent out so you can see the score a quality assurance score and um, you could What we're doing now is rewriting our policies so that people have to be above a certain quality score Or otherwise so-and-so action is taken Makes it easier. It's like a good, you know, like having these metrics that are easy to track It's not we don't have to guess if you're doing a good job Or it's like you can be really bubbly in the office and sweet and funny and not be a good cleaner and be late all the time and Those two things are more important to me than how you are and you know how you are in the office It's like you don't have to be you don't have to be Mis congeniality or mr. Congeniality to be a great house cleaner. You might be that's lovely, but you don't have to be Yeah, it can't be rude You know, you can't be rude. No, it's no, but you don't have to be miss sweetsy all the time Um, uh, you said something I wanted to ask you about and I didn't write myself a note Oh, I know what it was. What is your, um attendance policy? okay, so, um every cleaner can have eight unexcused absences or instances of absences per year and So eight instances let's say that you're you call in From work on wednesday and also thursday. We count that as one instance Okay Okay, so you have eight of those per year But we don't call them We don't call them calling in sick. We just it's just calling in no questions asked no attitude No feeling bad It can be and we think this crystal clear to them You can wake up and decide that today you need to watch netflix all day Or you need to be with your kids or you're having a mental health day Or you are sick or your car did break down or whatever I care what's happening in your life, but I don't care Why you're not coming to work as long as it doesn't exceed eight instances per year and I feel it's easy for me to enforce that because I think eight is more than fair and When I was an employee I I was looking back and I usually had like two to three per year and so I think eight is fine. Now, of course, we're not going to be heartless if someone has Like I would have had cleaners who have had they were having cancer treatments They're ever chemotherapy and the kids would try to okay. Yeah, this is not like policies are Not meant to be the be all end all right That this is just what this is the system we have in place and then when you have an extraordinary situation Then you can step up and do something extraordinary. Maybe or at least make an exception But um, it's you know, you don't die on that hill But nine times out of ten or way more than that actually 19 times out of 20 if someone Violates that eight time policy. They don't work here anymore Also, you can't have more than two in the first. I think it's 60 days I I like I like the idea of doing instances as opposed to Days or at least under some scenarios. I mean, I know people have had covid that have like been sick for weeks Yeah, you know but You know the no fault basically it's like you can wake up in the morning and say, you know What I just don't want to come into work today and that's one But whatever happens I'll wake up to work today and it's like, you know what? I don't think I want to come to work for the next three weeks. I mean at Some point how would you manage that? um, I Have not had that happen But if I did have that happen, I would make an exception to my own policy for sure and quickly um I think that I don't know. I assume if something happened like that happened. They would be telling me they were really sick or something I probably wouldn't even think to check in on it. I would stick out of their sector Well, I will tell you I just right before I got on this call today. I was talking with a business owner And she has lost three people in the last two weeks For because they don't want to work anymore They just they just don't want to work. I was like, what do you mean? They don't want to work She's like, yeah, they don't want to work And so they're not going to work. Oh, actually, I think I said three weeks. No, it was two weeks three people in weeks and so She's going to offer them LOA's And let them try it trying the not working thing And see if that's going to work out for you Are those great employees All three of them two of them are her top trainers Oh, man, that is rough. Yeah, she's not happy. Luckily she's got a larger company's got I think 45 employees So it's not But it's just a sad it's it's a scary thing She's like Liz. What do I do? I'm nervous three people Yeah, talked Yeah, I've been nervous too Oh, yeah, well, I mean it makes me nervous That's why it makes me nervous It's not working. What? It's not good. Yeah. Yeah Okay, well, here's the deal we only have five minutes left Okay, great. And I think that you're sharing a ton of great stuff, but I don't want to Keep talking to you and like take you back. Did you have Stuff that anything else that you know that you really want to tell us lovin that would be helpful or that people really should know um just They people work harder for praises than they will for raises so they need to be paid well as well And if they are feeling disrespected they're going to leave One little system that we put in place is that my everybody in my office is empowered to Send starbucks gift cards on you know, people's phones for when things go wrong Thanks for doing this. Thanks for doing that and we try to have everybody that works with the cleaners Send between one and three ten dollar starbucks cards to them To two different employees every week. So it's like we try to systematize it So they're not forgetting like to just send your starbucks cards this week. Um, just to try to be giving As you grow you have to put systems in place to have a personal touch Or it's easy to lose a personal touch because you're not going to be there anymore to do that Like I can't be there to do that. So we like to do stuff like that. Um, Liz i'm going to take this 25 things should I post it on facebook or send it to you or to someone else or maybe to carry Is there a place where people might want it? Or the facebook page I'm going to put it here, but we need it first Yeah, you can send it to carry and and she'll see that it gets distributed Okay, all the right Okay. Yeah, awesome Um, you know, I don't have anything else All right. Well, gosh, you shared a lot Yeah, this is uh, this is good stuff and Appreciate you. You know taking your time to do it while you're like on vacation working a little bit and relaxing a little bit Really a little bit in albania. No less um Yeah, kind of a backstory yesterday We weren't sure you were going to be able to to be with us because of like power and internet and stuff like that We had a crazy storm and it we don't have i'm from the pacific northwest We don't have flooded. Well, I mean not where I live in seattle. We don't have flooded in seattle so Huge storm power was out and then the next day I went outside and the the street is completely flooded with like I mean a lot of water Only way to get anywhere No electricity. Oh and the water I don't know what's going on with the water because In seattle if you lose power the toilet's still flush. That is not the case here so We had to like take off our socks and shoes and walk through all this water to get anywhere and I'm like This looks so gross and uh Then we lost power a second time and I was like But then I found another person a neighbor that has a generator So I was like, okay, so you have a wife and I was like, all right, I'll be able to do it from there But now we're back and we're still flooded but we have power and so Yeah, you still have water. You still have water in the streets. We still have water in the streets. Yeah, it's like Yeah, it's it's I've never been I've never seen that before Um, how often does it happen? We're in Albania. Do you know? I don't know. I've been I've I've been thinking that but not thinking hard enough to google it yet But I'll get around to that And I'm like, oh, yeah, that seems like it's a good thing to know Yeah, we're gonna lose power all the time. Yeah, I know well, we're here for another week So I'm hoping doesn't happen much more in the next week anyway. Okay. Well, where are you going next? We're going to Egypt or we're going to Greece and then Egypt so Big fun trip. Yeah, I want to say one more thing before we go. I do have my little maid central Um, oh, it doesn't work. Send my blur on my maid central notebook here with me Which I use to track my numbers every day And I absolutely love maid central and I think anyone listening to this if you're not if you have a cleaning company And you're not using maid central. I would definitely suggest giving it a try and then the other thing the next time Tom you do the training If you can make it to the training go it's so much fun It's a beautiful city and everyone I was with we all learned so much. We were so glad we went You'll make back whatever money you spend on your hotel and flights and training Very very quickly. Well, you're you're you're you're very kind and and give us a shout out We uh, don't have our training schedules together for 2023 We do all that in charleston and most of the time Liz uh puts a training together Program together and we kind of do it together in the same week and we're trying to figure out what we're doing in 2023 And we'll have that figured out Awesome. Well, I'm looking forward to it because I want to go and I want to have a couple of my people go as well Awesome fun. Well, hopefully you're going back from all the fun places all the time. Yes Yes. Yes. Yes. I will We are at the top of the hour. So we're gonna gonna wrap it up here For for today, but we'll be back next wednesday Yes, next wednesday the following wednesday. I guess we're not going to be here because we're going to be in chicago We're going to be at the SSA convention So but we'll be here next wednesday five o'clock eastern Logan, you rock. I really appreciate, you know, you uh staying up late for us One thing I don't think we said was that your company name is dazzle cleaning in seattle and in scottesville The dazzle cleaning company. Yeah Yeah, not dazzling Yeah, did I? Yeah, I didn't know I'm just saying it because we're constantly with the dazzling. Oh, okay. I just dazzling y'all razzle dazzling Yeah, the dazzle cleaning company All right, thanks you guys Papa talk Easter. Bye. Bye tight. Bye. Bye