 Hey guys, I am super excited that you have joined me today and I am Excited that we get to spend this time together My name is Angela Brown for those of you that are just joining us for the first time And I run one of the largest training companies in the world. I know it's super scary But over the last couple of years We've had tons of people that have gotten into the house cleaning business and PBS news hour the other day They did a recent survey and they decided and discovered that one out of three people changed jobs in the last two years So lots of people are getting into the house cleaning business And they're either making that their full-time income or they're making it a supplemental income to the regular job So lots of people are setting up home-based businesses and I have been flooded with questions about how do we set up a home-based business? Now the reason we're going to do this live shopping master class here today is because many of you are going to ask me How do I set up my home office? And I know you're going to run out and buy a whole bunch of things and I do not want you to buy things that you will not use Okay, I'm I've I've scoured the internet I found the very best of the best products and based on the last 30 years in the industry training house cleaners and maids These are the products. We have discovered are going to benefit you the most Okay, so don't spend money you don't have but if you're going to spend money by the right things at the first time now The the small business administration and this is the sad news They tell us that 50 percent 51 point one percent to be exact businesses go out of business within the first five years I hope I hope that's not you But if it is I'm going to help you repurpose all of the stuff that we're going to buy today Okay, because a lot of this it's durable stuff It's going to last forever and it should you ever pivot and switch your business just a little bit This is stuff you can use for the rest of your life I know do I hear a boo. Yeah, that's pretty exciting Okay So if you have a question type it in the the sidebar there And I will make sure that I answer as many of these as possible because I want to I want to get your questions answered But I want to power through this because we've got a lot to cover today The first thing that I want to talk about is a pre-recorded video that I set up for you And I'm going to show a couple of small videos so that you guys can see what we're working on and then that way you can Just take a look at some of this stuff and then ask your questions One of the things that I love best about creating a home office or a little nook in the home office is having the right table Now this is the table that I prefer. I probably have six or seven of these in my house right now But the table is four feet wide and it is made of a heavy space-age resin Now the cool thing about it is it has adjustable heights So it goes to 24 inches which is low enough You can sit in front of your TV on your sofa and you can be scanning images from your clients If you're doing the image package for the upsell or if you want to raise it up to regular height It's 29 inches or 36 inches the 36 inches is really awesome For example, if you have company over and you need like another buffet table You can raise it up high enough that then you can serve drinks off But so it's a little bit higher than normal height the 29 is the normal height Which is the height that I have right now, which is just regular office setting style. So like I say it folds up It's super easy to carry around. It's lightweight and it hides right behind a door So if you're limited on space, it is a great way to set up a home office with nothing more than just a folding table All right now if you guys take a look I have two of those tables right here in my office right now And I'm gonna kind of like shimmy over to the side here You can see how tall this is compared to where I stand and this is the 36 inch height And whenever I'm doing a demonstration of any sort I always pull it up to the 36 inch height because it gives me it's it's right at my level where I can reach things easily So it's not sit-down level, which is the 29 and it's not the down-down level Which we use when we're in front of the TV I'm gonna talk more about that later because I know that you guys are small business owners Many of you do bring laptops to the television station when you're sitting there with the rest of your family enjoying time out, right? I know I know you guys don't do this, but many people do. Okay So the durable table one of the things that I really like about it is that it is washable And so you just mild soap and water wash it down easy to sanitize You can use it a disinfectant on it if you like my suggestion is that you use it For pretty much everything it like I said it's 24 inches deep. It's 48 inches wide So you do not need a big space now the thing that is really important about this If you have a mahogany desk and a great big bookshelves, and you have a lovely office space. That's great Okay, I'm not asking you to buy anything new. Well, what I am saying is this I'm encouraging you to get a table for this reason During the pandemic listen very carefully This is really important during the pandemic when kids were staying at home when people were staying at home when there was a stay at Home mandate issued many people blurred the boundaries of work and personal life And so what happened was now? They're interrupted by kids and pets and parents and whomever is at home while you're trying to get your work done If you have nothing but a little tiny table and you move it to a little nook like I showed you What's interesting about that is this that is your holy space And so when you go into that little tiny nook do not interrupt me do not come You can even train animals do not come to me when I'm in this space, right? And so we've done this with the clutter corner Which is another series that we do on how to bring this table with you to a part of the house And we bring one box with us this also dubs as your clutter corner table So it's really great as far as having it as your own. This is like hey, this is my space Don't enter my space and we do that to try to keep Boundaries for our family members, okay, so I really love it for this reason now again It picks up and it carries should you ever get an office outside your home somewhere and you want to take it with you That's great. Like I said, we can repurpose it for so many different things But if you are at a stage where you're like hey, I'm done with it for now Or you live in a limited space where you don't have the room to keep it up You can fold it up and put it behind the door So the table is number one on my list all right So the very next thing that I want to talk about is another pre-recorded video that I have and I want to share that with you now And I am still learning how this Pre-recorded video thing works. It's the office. You don't actually need an office inside your house If you just carve out a little nook or a little corner in the house All you need really is a table and a chair now this chair that I'm in and I really like this chair It's an ergonomic chair that lets me rock back and forth It also has an adjustable height so that I can go up higher if I need to get closer to the table Or if I want to zoom down a little bit so that I can angle my computer like for an online call And then I can get eye level with the computer so based on my situation I can go up or down Another thing I like about this chair is it's got rollers on it so that I can roll back and forth And I can kind of get close to the table or I can move further away And I'm on a mat right now so it doesn't roll so far But I can swivel and so it gives me the chance to just kind of make myself comfortable Inside this little nook that I carved out for myself And then if I'm to be I can just push it up close next to my table And then my nook is out of the way So if you are creating a little nook for your business This is a setup that I highly recommend because it's very usable Very comfortable and it's very effective to get your work done All right, Jilly Bean says you're so right two years later and I still haven't set up properly to work from home This is something that lots of people are dealing with And when we talk about office chairs, office chairs is one of those things So thank you Jilly Bean for jumping in Hello Rachel, Phylliskin, Tamika Thomas, Goa K It's good to see you guys, Terilyn I'm so glad that you guys have joined me today, thank you The chair is one of those things, it's very inexpensive yet it's very durable And I love the fact that it is mesh Why? Because if you're a small business owner and you sit at an office chair for a long period of time Your back can sweat and with the mesh back then it's breathable So now you're sitting in a breathable cushioned place that's ergonomic We're going to talk a lot about the ergonomics because as a house cleaner we move And we clean all day and so our body aches when we're done with the end of a day And I want to make sure that everything that we're doing setting up our personal space at home Is suggestive and is protective of us while we're working So I want to make sure that you get an ergonomic chair and we'll talk about other ergonomic items But the chair is really important, you have to be able to rock back and forth You have to be comfortable in it, you have to be able to breathe in it And you have to be able to adjust the height up and down So that your legs are not cramped or you're not in a weird position Now here's a secret, if you are sitting at your chair And for any reason you start to feel like a kink in your back or anything You can adjust the height and it will adjust the sitting position of you And then that kind of alleviates or repositions your body weight So that's another way to like quick fix so that your back doesn't ache while you're sitting Okay awesome, so we have that The next thing I want to talk about is a computer Now I would be remiss if I said that you could run in your entire business Off of a tablet or a smartphone And I know many small business owners have tried to do this I'm going to strongly recommend you get a laptop And the reason a laptop is this I've got a couple laptops here that I use And I use these, these are personal laptops that I use in my business This is a very narrow lightweight computer I have two that I have listed here And one is a little bit less expensive than the other one And they have different, different features Which is why I have both of them Okay so this one is lightweight And you'll see if I can get up close to the camera here You'll see that this has an HDMI port And then it also has a USB port And on the other side of it it has another USB port So this I have the mouse plugged into And that's just a mouse receiver so I can use a wireless mouse But this is a touchscreen So you're going to really love this for all of your business stuff But it does have the number keys on it So that's also good as well But the reason that I recommend that you get one That is at least an i7 core processor Is because as a small business owner Especially a cleaning business owner We make lots of videos that are before and after pictures And the mistake that I made when I got involved in the cleaning business And then later on as I got into creating content With videos and stuff like that Was I went for the cheapest computer I could find And I thought oh they all work the same They do not So if you have multiple windows open Or multiple tabs open And you're trying to do accounting And then you're trying to verify it with Like the scheduling software that you use for your employees Your computer is going to crash if you have too many windows open Unless you have a good processor And my baseline is i7 They have i3, i5, i7 i7 is kind of the standard for me And I recommend it's the standard for you If you buy a computer and it's a good one It's going to last for a couple of years The other computer that I have It's a little bit bigger It's more of a workhorse And this I edit all of my videos on So this is a little bit more expensive as well And you'll see that on the side it has the USB port And on the other side it has a USB port But on the back check this out It has a whole bunch of ports for other things So these are different plugins that you will put in That you're going to be using for a more rugged editing process Now when I say editing process If you use some of the fancy software that's on the market One of the things that you will discover Is that when you go to render out Render out is when you go to publish Or to finish your video What happens then is your computer will crash Or like the audio won't match up with your mouth And so what you need is a processing power That is strong enough if you will That it will render that out in real time So you can actually see what's happening As you're producing it So I would love to say by the cheapest thing on the market I'm going to say buy this And then you have the nicest piece of equipment As your business grows I don't want you buying something And then a couple months later You're going to be mad at me and say I wish you'd have told me Okay, I just I'm going to tell you right up now Also portable office We're going to talk about a portable office in a second But what is really important Is that you have the tools you need to do your job Most of the cleaning services Will use some kind of a software That is like a scheduling software It has all of your customer relationship Management stuff inside You're going to do all of your eye learning on a computer This is done much easier on a laptop Than it is on a tinier device That doesn't have the guts and the bells and the whistles So it is tax deductible I want you to save your receipts Because all of this is going to apply towards Your business deductions at the end of the year When you file your taxes So get yourself something nice I know the holidays are coming up And if you have family members They can all put you in and buy you something nice If this is not for you But what I do recommend Is that you get the right tools the first time All right, moving on I have a wireless mouse And the wireless mouse Goes along with the computer And this is the one that I use And I have one at every one of the computers that we have There are different wireless mice that you can buy And I recommend a wireless one So it's not tagged into the computer Here's the reason why If you have a computer that's like this And it only has one USB port And you have the mouse plugged into that That's one of your USB ports that's gone So you don't get to plug another one in If you're using the receiver Then that still takes up one of your mouse Your USB ports And then you would have to use like an adapter Or something if you're going to plug anything else into it So just be conscious of that But to have a cord strong along Nobody's doing that anymore And then also there is a chargeable Rechargeable Don't get confused between rechargeable and Wireless Rechargeable means you've got to plug it in at the end of every night So it doesn't go dead And if you're in the middle of work Or you're out and about and you're using it And then it goes dead you're going to be mad at me So just get the one This one just uses a rechargeable battery And it runs for like 1800 hours And then you pull this out You charge it overnight And then you plug it back in and you're good to go So this is the one that I recommend Totally love it And it goes on an ergonomic mouse pad And I like this mouse pad because it folds up And this is Alacra And so it washes easily But it has a gel pad I don't know how do I show you this so you can see it It has a gel pad so that when your hand is sitting on it Your hand sits flat And that way your hand is not in a weird position When you're trying to type Because again we're going for the ergonomics We want our hand to be flat Now one of the common frustrations that we get for house cleaners Is because we use so much movement with our hands This is wiping, sweeping, mopping, moving, vacuum handles and whatever We get what mimics carpal tunnel syndrome And so lots of house cleaners are like Man my wrists hurt Like what is the problem with that? Well the problem is that there's a lot of movement That you normally don't get If you're not cleaning houses Okay So we have to protect our body as well But that comes back to when you are done cleaning for the day And you go back to your home office And you're sitting there for another three, four, five hours Putting social media posts together Putting ads together Closing out deals Sending invoices All that stuff I want the time at your home office To also be user friendly Okay So we're going to try to do that as much as possible I just want to say hi to everybody Thank you guys so much for joining us Angela and Mernie and Lynn It's so good to see you guys I'm so excited that you're here All right so the next thing that I want to focus on Is a printer We have to talk about printers for a second Because as long as we've been in the house cleaning business We run flyers And we're also going to print off worksheets And so you guys know I'm famous for my worksheets But in order to get them we have to print them somehow I've got a short video that I want you to watch on the On the videos I'm sorry A video on the printers So that you can see what I'm talking about And the reason why I chose the one that I did The portal So this is a printer that I used And the first inclination is that you're going to want a color printer Not necessary at all And I can save you several hundred dollars If you just get the black and white one The black and white one This is a laser printer And it will hold 250 sheets of paper inside the bin So the 250 sheets of paper is just going to draw automatically And then if you're printing up fancy brochures with a bond paper It has a slide that you just slide it in And then it comes out the top So it's very easy to use This is not Wi-Fi connected So there is a USB cable that goes from the back over to your laptop So you're going to not get all the bells and whistles But like I said, it's going to save you a whole bunch of money just starting out This is a workhorse So if you're using this for your worksheets This is going to save you a whole lot of money And the ink is a whole lot cheaper If you're just buying one cartridge Which is the black and white Instead of four for the multiple colors every time you go to print So I recommend the black and white Laser printer for your worksheets and your flyers All right, so the printer A couple things we have to talk about printers for a second The laser printer is used So that if you're running flyers, for example And I have some flyers here with me The flyer ink, if it gets wet If it's inside like a mailbox, for example And the sprinkler kicks on at the customer's home And they open up and I said the mailbox I meant the newspaper box We can't leave these inside the mailbox Let me clarify that really quick If we leave these inside the newspaper box And the sprinkler kicks on And we've used an inkjet printer The ink is going to bleed on the paper And so just having a cheap, inexpensive And I say cheap and inexpensive But affordable laser printer Which is just black and white Will be sufficient for your flyers And like I said, we print two per page So that we get the most value for our money But the purpose of this Is that you want it to look crisp and clear Because that's the business that you're promoting You're saying, hey, I'm organized I'm tidy I have left no attention to detail unturned And so that is what this says I used a laser printer So that my pages look nice Even after the humidity Or the weather Or the sprinkler Or the rain Maybe touches the paper Okay So that is the reason we use a laser printer The laser printer is also If you're printing certificates Or if you are printing a brochure Or something on bond paper So if you're using like a heavy card stock paper Or you're printing your own business cards You want to use the laser printer Just black and white Now there's another printer That I want to share with you And this is not It is a printer But I don't recommend it for printing purposes I want you to watch the video on this And then I'll answer the questions And explain the reasons why One of the things that I love best About the Brother Scanner It is a four color copier And you can use it for four color brochures But I use it mostly as a scanner Now as a business owner You are going to need a scanner To scan employee documents and contracts And if you have an employee right up of some sort You're going to have to scan that for your electronic files And so a flatbed scanner is an excellent choice Only use this with the four color printing If you absolutely need it But here's the thing While you're watching TV at night You can take photos from customers And you can scan them all one by one And put them on a hard drive And then at 50 cents to a dollar per scan Whether it's a legal document Or their photos or what have you You can create a side hustle for your business That then brings in money during the slow times Also if you have an on-the-job injury from an employee They may not be able to be cleaning houses But they can be scanning photos Which is something that most customers Of a certain age are interested in documenting So now that we're in the era of digital photos It's time to get rid of all of these boxes That everyone has of printed photos So having a scanner put you in the driver's seat For offering that upsell to your customers and your clients All right now I don't know if you guys just picked up on that But I want to highlight it one more time According to the Small Business Administration The small businesses fail in the first five years We mentioned that already 51.5% of businesses go out of business In the first five years So if you are pivoting Or if you are in that I'm not sure if this is house cleaning businesses for me If you have purchased the scanner And you're like what am I going to do with this now A great side hustle is this There are a cabillion people out there right now Not really a cabillion I made up that number But there are a bunch of people That have boxes of photos Old photos that they have inherited from Their parents from their parents from their parents In the early days Everybody printed their photos Because we didn't have smartphones And so there are a lot of documented photos That people have And they've got boxes of them And they don't know what to do with them The problem was trying to send them to a service And we've talked to hundreds of homeowners To find out why they haven't sent them off Because there are services that certainly do this for you The problem is many homeowners are afraid This is the only copy I have And if I let go of this photo And something malfunctions And I don't know the service I may never see the photo again Okay So they are afraid But if you are a house cleaner And you work in the customer's home You're bonded You're insured All those things You know the family They know you They trust you You leave one week You come back the next week Or two weeks later There's much more of an incentive for them To give you their photos And let you scan them Now this is a really awesome Awesome side hustle Okay so make note of this If you make note of nothing else The scanner is That I just showed you is a copier It's a scanner It's a fax machine And it's a printer So it does have four color printing Again I don't recommend you use it as a printer It's a very slow printer And I recommend it for the scanning purposes Also if you hire employees You're going to make copies of their driver's license And their birth certificate Or whatever it is that you use To document their work eligibility Okay So it's great for a copy machine If you have reasons to Make copies you can Again I don't recommend you use it as a printer The printing cartridges are very expensive But if you do decide to use it as a color printer Please note It is an inkjet printer It is not a laser printer Okay So this is not what you buy Instead of the other printer I just showed you And that's the reason that I've I've highlighted two of them today Okay one of them is going to be your work course And it's going to print everything And that's your black and white one The other one we're going to use for scanning But here's the thing Right now the going rate right now 2022 Is about 50 cents to $1 per document So if you have And there are a lot of business owners The higher house cleaners They're small business owners And they've got lots of documents All of those need to be scanned So if you have a scanner You can take that document Those documents home Again they trust you Because you're inside their home With their most valuable possessions Right So they can trust you And many of them will say Yes here are all my files Take them home and scan them for me Knowing that you're confidential That you're trustworthy And that you're insured Okay So with that in mind You can be sitting there watching TV At night with your family And have that little table that I showed you And a scanner on it And you can sit there And while you're watching TV Just scan document after document After document And when you're done What you're going to do Is you're going to save it on a hard drive This is a five terabyte hard drive And let's see if I have one here I think I do The five terabyte hard drive Is one that I recommend It's I just label them all So that we have easy access to them And we know where they go But I've got hundreds of these And the hundreds of these Have stored all of our online content If you do a lot of before and after photos For your own business If you have a lot of documents If you have your customer relationship Management stuff And you want to back it up You can back it up in a cloud And we have used many of the cloud services Over the years I always keep a hard drive just in case In the event that a service goes down If for some reason business goes bad And you don't pay the bill And they close off your cloud service You don't want to be stranded And not have any of your documents with you So always make a hard copy backup Just in case Now when you're selling the package To your customers That you're going to scan their documents Or their photos Those go on a hard drive as well Now the cool part about the hard drive Is you do give all their original photos back But then they can do whatever they want with them They can burn them They can shred them They can whatever Or that might be part of the service That you do shred them After you give them an electronic copy But we're now in a digital age Where everybody's taking gobs of photos What do you do with those photos Okay now many of you will say Well I can't take any more photos Because my phone is full All right the answer to that Is you can download your phone And all of the photos on your phone On a hard drive And if a customer has a hard drive Many of the customers that need hard drives That need photos scanned Those are the same customers Not pointing any fingers But those are the same customers That need you to help them download Their photos from their phone Of their grandkids So they can put them on the hard drive So they still have a digital copy Okay So the hard drives are a really great investment And if you want as a business You can buy them And then resell them to your customers Along with that service Okay So I highly recommend that All right now while we are talking about The paper end of our business A couple things that I want to talk about One is the paper cutter It would be easy to skip this step But let's not because it's super valuable Okay Here's a short video that I created On the paper cutter Do you have a paper cutter If not I recommend that you get one At least one that is going to cut An 8.5 x 11 size paper As long as we're going to be a business If we're running flyers We'll be cutting our own flyers And we do two per page So that we get more for our money With a paper cutter You can get an exact cut Every single time The important thing is That you have the tools you need In order to do the job that you're doing Now when it is not in use I do recommend that you lock it So that it is not just loose And you don't accidentally cut something You didn't intend to cut And then also make sure that this is behind locked doors Keep this out of the reach of children It is a very sharp knife It is dangerous But again it's an excellent business tool And it's tax deductible So make sure that you have the tools you need So that you can run the flyers To keep your business going All throughout the course of your career All right This is the paper cutter I have been using for about 20 years And I have a very hard time finding this exact one So the one that I've highlighted for you today Is very similar with the same specs Now here's what I want you to be on the lookout for When you purchase a paper cutter And if you don't purchase this one Be on the lookout for these features Okay this is a wooden block And I recommend the wooden block for this reason There are some that are made of plastic Or they're made of a lighter weight material This is really heavy It's important that you have the wooden block one Because if you go to cut paper with it And it lifts off the table You're going to be holding the paper cutter Down with one hand instead of your paper And you're not going to get an even cut And nobody tells you that So you need a wooden block All right the next thing to look at is This has a safety bar And so if I'm holding my paper And I'm scooching it over to the side While I go to cut it This is going to stop my fingers From running over the part that gets cut This will prevent my fingers from getting cut off Because if you're tired while you're working Oh no You've never been tired while you're working Right If you're ever tired while you're working And you're too close You're going to make a mistake This prevents tired people from making mistakes When they're cutting paper Okay Well like I said we use it for our flyers And because we use it for our flyers We're going to be using it every day For the rest of our lives If we're making flyers for our business All right now one of the things That I want to stop for a second You're going to ask me What about running flyers Because is flyers still work? It's 2022 Can I just run ads and all those things It's true that you can run ads But many of the neighborhoods that we work in You're already in that neighborhood Okay So one of the things that I recommend While you're in the neighborhood Is that you get a shoe box And this is a shoe box that we use It's a clear plastic shoe box And it had a long piece of paper there Because I was going to cut it But these are cut versions of our flyer And I recommend that you fill this up And you keep this on the passenger seat of your car At all times And here's the reason why If for example You're out and about You're going to go clean a house And then a customer cancels on you Oh no I have to go all the way back to my house And I'm going to lose all this time And then what do I do You got a whole box of flyers You already work in that neighborhood Or go to the next neighborhood Where your next job starts It might be one neighborhood over Go to that neighborhood And run a whole bunch of flyers In between that time Right So now you're working smart Not hard So keep the shoe box with you And this has an airtight lid And I want to show you this as well This is the repurposed version If you ever get into real estate Or whatever If the house cleaning business Doesn't work out for you You'll still keep all of your flyers Inside these boxes Inside your car And it has an airtight lid The cool part about the airtight lid Is we're house cleaners Okay So we have wet cloths We have wet mops We have wet hands We have sweaty hands And I don't want you touching Any of your marketing materials With that Right Oh no We're in a hurry So we drank some soda in our car Right And then it spills We don't want it spilling on your marketing materials Either Right So you want to protect your marketing materials At all costs An inexpensive plastic clear shoe box We'll let you keep inventory You can see exactly how many you have in here And you can see at all times Which one this is This one has brochures in it And it also has glue dots And the glue dots are what we use To stick our flyers on people's doors In the event that they don't have a newspaper box And you go What? I know it's true It's very cool A while ago I don't know why But a while ago The newspaper boxes went away And I think it was because Lots of people were not using Hang on one second Let me see if I can show these to you Lots of people stopped ordering newspapers And so they stopped adding newspaper boxes To people's houses Which is how we used to deliver The flyers When we were running flyers for our customers So this comes with a little strip of tape There's a little glue dot I don't know if you can see this But there's a glue dot on there It's clear It's absolutely It's like How would you say If you ever got a credit card in the mail They use these glue dots to stick them on the page And when you rip it off It's kind of like rubber And it just rolls off And it doesn't leave any marks or smears So if you were to put that on someone's door With your flyer When they come out My recommendation is put at about eye level And then when they come out They're going to go like Whoa, there's a house cleaning flyer How cool is that? And then they'll take it off And they have to read it Because it's hard to ignore But then it doesn't leave any marks It doesn't leave any stickies If you've used the laser printer It's not going to bleed In the event that there's moisture in the air Okay So there are a couple things that we're going to do Just to set up our home-based office And in the event Here's the repurposing tool for this In the event that you buy some of these And then for some reason You get out of the house cleaning business And you don't have a need to run flyers These also work really great For sticking Christmas cards on the wall So if you want to decorate your house With Christmas cards And you like to stick up the cards That people have sent you for Christmas These go on the wall really nicely And then you just rub them off The wall when you're done And you hung them up nicely Okay So there's your repurposing tip for that Another thing about the clear plastic boxes If you're stuck with a bunch of shoe boxes And you decide you don't need them For flyers or brochures This is a really great way to repurpose these Inside your pantry This keeps mice and rodents and stuff From attacking your food And things that they can smell or chew through So one of the things that we recommend Is that you get the durable Again, they're airtight They've got snap on lids Shoe boxes And these are just clear shoe boxes With snap on lids And you will use these for so many different things Okay So many different things And in a worst case scenario You can use them for shoes Keep your dust off your shoes I know Awesome, right So these are some really fun things That we have used over the course of time And startup stuff that house cleaners use In order to set up their home offices So I want to answer some questions really quick I've got a couple things left That I want to share with you But I don't want your questions to go unanswered So we have lots of people saying hello Somebody says love the photo scanning tip Somebody says Yes, yes One question about the disc that we use This is a five terabyte disc And this is really important That you have enough storage on it Because if you buy one of these for a customer Or if you sell one of these to a customer What is important about the disc Is that when you month after month And you can do this on a recurring service You can upsell the service To say every month I will update your smartphone I will pull all the pictures That you took off your smartphone Or music or whatever you have And it will make a backup copy for you And so that is just kind of a package That you sell one time And then every month or so You update it on your own schedule Another thing about the photo scanning Is you can do that at any time So if you have a cancellation for example At any time You can use that time to scan the customer's photos Also if you have an employee That has an on the job injury And maybe they still want to come to work Maybe you still are obligated To let them work But for some reason They don't have the ability To physically work in clean houses You can put them on side projects Like this where they are scanning customers photos Helping them declutter Helping them go through those boxes Scanning important documents And that kind of stuff You know worst case scenario They can scan your documents And your photos And things like that for you as a business owner So we're in an era now We're having the right tools Is good for so many different things All right I do have one more video That I want you to see Because this is the end of our How do we keep organized As a small business owner So there are a couple of other tools That we need in order to set up our home office But so far everything that you've seen Is stuff that we're going to repurpose We're going to use it again And it's good for All this stuff is really durable It's going to last you for a very long time So the tables I've only had for a few years But I have probably eight or ten of them now The computers I've been using for Three to five years I just bought a whole bunch of new computers For new members of our team that joined us But it's the same computers It's the same setup It's the same everything Once I've landed on something good I want to stay with it because it works So don't keep reinventing the wheel Go oh that works really well Because I've used it before And so I would like to use it again Right That's where we're headed with this All right so let's watch this next Pre-recorded video And I'll show you this process So that you can see How we are using the Archive and Away program For the storage end of your small homeways Now what you're seeing here in front of me I have three different categories And one is a milk crate With hanging file folders And inside I have nine by 12 envelopes And I have the name of the item Written across the top flap Of the envelope This filing system here Is for an entire year And these are my active files Now these are annual reports These are annual reports from my LLC That I have to file every year And so that is what this been here Is these are active files In the middle here I have a box of tax information Which is all of these envelopes Inside one year As a bankers box That is filed on file for 10 years Now I keep them We're supposed to keep them I believe For about 7 years But I keep mine for 10 Just in case So for example Let's say that I bought a company car 5 or 8 years ago And I'm not really sure But I need the information For the business loan for that car It's going to be in the bankers box Under the item that I tagged it for Inside this file So if I ever have to reference anything Whether it's a warranty for a vacuum Or it's something for a vehicle If it's the deed to a house Whatever it is It's going to be inside the bankers box Filed by the year And you see on the front it says 2015 So this is 2015's taxes That I'm going to use I'm going to keep this until 2025 2025 I'm going to take the lid off this box And I'm going to pull out Whatever the files are that are in here And I'm going to shred these documents And then I'm going to reuse this box I'm literally going to turn this box around And I'm going to write 2025 on there And I will recycle this bankers box So I will have this bankers box For actually 20 years Okay, but that's my filing system Okay, so I have active and archived And then my third section here is my away So it's the three a's of organization Active, archived, and away Active, archived, and away The away is the tossing or the garbage can What we're looking at here is a paper shredder Okay, so every piece of information That comes to your office Whether it's a receipt or a piece of mail Or whatever Goes in one of these three places So it's either active It needs to be paid It needs to be dealt with today Or in the near future It is archived Like the loan to your vehicle Or the deed to your house Or it could be a passport information Or the registration for your concealed carry Or whatever it is There are things that you don't need every day But it's nice to know where they are Those are the archived ones And then there's the junk And the junk goes right into the garbage can Or it gets shredded I prefer to shred it Because that has sometimes personal information on it Your address, your phone number, that kind of stuff Who knows what it is But we shred that So active, archived, and away Now this is in my office at all times This is an entire year at a glance And so for example What is inside my active files? Well right here I have an envelope that has all of my warranties in it And these are warranties for current cleaning products That we are using right now So this would be steamers It would be vacuums, mops Things like that that have moving parts Or part numbers Now I have a printer That is in our office And in here is the instruction guide Or the user's guide To that printer And it also has a DVD In case something malfunctions And I have to reinstall the software for that And so that's where this goes right here Very easy to access And it's right here in my office at all times So at any time If I need the information Boom, it's right here When I'm done with this At the end of the year It goes inside its own archive box Or it gets trashed Okay So everything is one of these three places Now if I'm out and about This is my active file for the car All right so this is really exciting The reason that we have the bankers boxes And I wanted to show you this They fold up So you could just pop the ends out And reuse them again You'll see that this one says 2003 taxes And then on the other side it says 2014 taxes So I've had this box I'm not kidding for like 20 some years Right But well 20 almost 20 years But it folds up And so when you're not using it When you're done with it When you've shredded everything inside You can fold it up And then reuse it again Now we are in an era where we're smart enough That we can tape a label over the top of it And use it once again on a shelf To store our documents And the cool thing about this is With the lids that they come with They are stackable So that you can stack them on top Just like Rhonda said So thank you Rhonda for the tip I appreciate that very much Another thing that I want to mention Is that if you have a non paper office This is a perfect setup And what's really weird about this Is I've been using this system for about 30 years We've helped hundreds if not thousands Of small cleaning business owners Set up this system Now that we've moved everything over to the internet And everything is stored on our hard drives My entire office is completely paper free Except And no lie this is it This is it right here This is my entire paper office right now And I'm 2022 here at the end And I've got all of my documents right here So at the back here in this plastic bin I have a plastic bin Let me see if I can do this I've got a plastic bin right here That's holding all of my employee records And so every time you hire somebody Like I said we scan their documents If they have something that they've signed I'm going to keep a hard copy on file But I'm also going to scan it So I have an electronic file for them And me should I ever need it But I do just hang on to the originals Just in case I also have my annual reports and my trademarks And everything right up here And then in this section here I have all of my bank documents from the bank They give you these envelopes with your legal documents And then right here I have my tax information That's all printed out In case I need to reference it At some point during the year So this is my entire paper office This is everything that I have narrowed it down to For the last 30 years And this is how I run this every single year At the end of the year Like we talked about in the video I pull this out and this goes inside the bankers box Now what is cool about that Is the hanging file folders Okay And we didn't talk about the hanging file folders much But I want to talk about them for just a second Because the hanging file folders Are what is going to let the pages stand up So if you just have a milk crate It's called a milk crate or a storage crate And it looks like this They come in different colors But I recommend that you get one And I want to point this out Because you want one with the little ridge on it Can you see that ridge? That ridge is what allows you to hang the file folders in there The file folders will keep your pages from sliding down So if I have a file folder And I stack it in the file folder it stands up If I don't it goes just like that And it falls down to the bottom And then it's just like a stack of pages And because it's a stack of pages It's out of sight, out of mind Right So you want to make sure that you use the hanging file folders To put your big envelopes inside And one of the things that I like about this process Is you can use any marking pen Any marking pen will do But I just write at the very top What it is that I have And I write it by year So for example my annual reports I have to file every year annually So this file just gets pulled out of one milk crate And put in the next one for the next year As I archive all of those from 2022 So this one just keeps getting passed from year to year Which is really awesome because it's the same system Right If it was the year Like if it was year specific It might be taxes for 2022 And so then the tax documents that I needed Would be inside here And the tax documents might be If we had a customer or a client That gave us a W2 or a 1099, a W9 If we had any of those They would go inside here for our records So if we did any other business Or I don't know, whatever Any of those documents would be year specific So it's a really great filing system And like I said it keeps all of your records Really consolidated So that you're not Where is that stuff? Like I know I have those papers somewhere Where did I put those? It's in one spot And in the event that you have to move your office Like maybe you're getting ousted And you got to leave from the dining room Over to a guest bedroom in your house You're not trying to move a heavy file Folding cabinet File folder cabinet You're just taking your little milk crate Or case with you Another cool thing is If you decide to get an office later on Somewhere else Again it totes in your car So speaking of toting in your car I want to stop for a second And talk about the portable office Because the portable office is the one That's going to save you Alright so watch this video Because this is really pretty cool And I'm a huge fan of this system The portable office is one of the best pieces Of advice I ever got as a cleaning business owner This is mine The reason I like this so much Is it looks like a very nondescript backpack And just looking at it at a glance You would never know That it has a padded envelope on the inside That is large enough for a 15 and a half Or a 17 inch computer So I love it for this reason It also has a really large pocket That the charging cable and mouse pads And mouse and all different kinds of things Go inside One of the things I like best About this is it's a very durable unit And I've probably had this one for four or five years It's been around the world with me And it still looks brand new It does have a mesh pocket on the side And it allows me to keep my reading glasses And also my smartphone for easy access So no matter where I go If I'm out and about And I just have this tossed over my shoulder I can just reach in the pocket And grab the things that I need Without having to stop And take it out and open it up And all those things It is also water and rain resistant So if you're out walking about And maybe it starts raining for example It doesn't let any water into the bag So I love it for that reason It has in the front a pouch With lots of little pockets on the inside For ink pens or car keys or whatever Now I have a rule when I go to the airport And I always carry this as my carry on If it's underneath the airplane seat It also fits in the overhead bin But it's very economical In that it's small and it's compact And so it kind of fits pretty much anywhere you go And I do take it pretty much everywhere I go with me Right inside this pouch though There's a little hook So my rule is when I get to the airport And I take my car keys out I'm not going to be needing them on the flight But what I do is I connect them right to This little clip right here Inside my pouch And then whenever I go anywhere I have my key with me So if I get separated from my hotel room Or if something happens And I have to catch a quick flight home I can still access my car when I get back Because it's always on my person So house keys, car keys They're always in my bag On my person when I travel Alright so even if you don't travel If you get up every day and you pack your to-go bag There's a great big place in here Which is the middle pocket And it's separate from the computer pocket And it's separate from all of your accessories That you have in the front This is a great place for your lunch I like putting the lunch and my purse inside here That way I have easy access to it And it's not in the computer section of my bag But I have everything compact that I need I also carry an extra set of clothes And a makeup kit with me So that if I'm on the road and for some reason Let's say that I'm on a job And I'm between houses and I have a walkthrough I can pull over to a gas station I can change my shirt real quick I can dress up my makeup And then I look presentable When I go to the next house So in the event that you have a cancellation And you find yourself short on time For traveling all the way back to your office So you can get some work done You can pull over to the nearest coffee shop Pull out your portable office Pull out your laptop Work on your social media posts Or your accounting or whatever it is You're going to do for the next couple of hours And you can maximize that time Until you then go on to the next job Which is in the same neighborhood And like I said, it's very durable And I especially love the handle The handle, the top handle that you grab onto it Is built into the padded straps And the padded straps are suspension straps They've got elastic right here So it stretches a little bit And then also one of the cool things about it Is it has adjustable tabs here So if you have it on and it's not quite right Or it's not, it's hanging too low or too high You just adjust the straps that way And then I've just tied a quick knot So that it locks it in place for my height And then when you go to grab it If it is heavy for any reason You got lots of stuff in here When you grab it It's not going to tear the seams away Because it's built into the handle So like I said, it's high Sierra But I absolutely love having one with me everywhere I go Oh wait, I have one here with me right now As I'm speaking So I'm really guilty I've got several of these I've got several laptops And I have several of these bags And I have one bag for every laptop Here's the reason why It is possible that you have family members That are helping you with your business And if that's the case I recommend you get a couple of laptops In the event that you're ever stuck at a doctor's appointment If you're ever stuck, let's say that you're flying You're going to go visit family or relatives for the holidays And you have an airline delay Or you have a layover And you have a couple of hours that's wasted time You just pull out your laptop and away you go Now this does carry a Swiffer Duster in it Without taking it apart You can also carry a small tripod in it I carry all my electronics with it And in the middle pouch if I'm traveling Like on an airplane for example I will carry my extension cord And my search protector And this is the search protector that I recommend The reason that I recommend a search protector Is because you don't know if you're traveling You don't know if you always have grounded power And so you don't want to start processing Like a before and after video Without having your laptop plugged into a grounded power Also if you are doing that What I said about the scanning the photos Chances are that you're running a scanner And you're running a computer from your In front of the TV You're going to have to make your extension cord stretch Around the side of your couch or yourself Or whatever you're sitting on The extension cord will allow you to do that I have a couple that I've listed here And one of them is just a basic one That I use as eight grounded outlets in it And this allows you to plug in up to eight different devices So as a small business owner you're going to need One or two of these The other one that I have listed is also It also has like eight outlets in it But it also has some USB and USB-C charges Which is now kind of like the new thing So depending on which one you prefer I have both but I usually keep one of these In every one of my laptop bags And that's just so that if I'm out on the road And I don't know if I'm staying at a hotel for example Oftentimes my computer cord is not going to stretch To wherever the nearest plug is This lets me get really close And so if you go to relatives' houses They might have like one plug And you're like, ah, I have five devices I need to plug in So go prepared, okay And this just folds right up It's easy, it's lightweight And it fits inside I point over here, you can't see this But it fits inside your portable office So take it with you so that you are prepared Wherever you go, right So the portable office, I use it for so many things If I'm sitting in the car And this goes back to working smart, not hard But if you're sitting in the car waiting for a family member You just pull out your laptop if that's all you need It's on your lap So you sit there and you can start doing accounting You can do eye learning You can research whatever it is you need And it's not just like really tiny You can bookmark, airmark, whatever it is you need On your laptop device One of the things that somebody asked me earlier Was what happens when you have errands to run And you're the person that is required to do them And my answer was Are you the person that's required to do them? If your time is worth so many dollars per hour My question to you is Can you outsource some of those tasks? I know that when we're doing family time Sometimes we drop by a grocery store That is not the best use of my time anymore And so I will sit out in the car While other family members go in and buy the groceries They know what we eat So they'll go in and buy the groceries or whatever And I sit there in the car And I am on my laptop and I'm working And I'm doing some of that stuff So that when I get back home And we're not out running errands and wasting time We can actually spend quality time together Where we're sitting there for example Enjoying a family meal or something like that Where then I'm not Oh no, I'm rushed and I have deadlines And I have all this other stuff that I have to do Right Because as a small business The key to setting up your small home office Is that you set it up so that it's ergonomic So that it is the best use of your space And using the little table It's only 48 inches long, two feet wide That's a very, very small nook That's like, hey guys, this is my space Right When you leave that space Those are your boundaries And now you're back into family time And that's when you sit there and you enjoy the meals And you enjoy being interrupted and chit chat And have time with family And visiting and laughing and all those things Right So we want to set up just a couple of key places That are yours and yours alone So that when people see you Oh, she's got the laptop And she's in the car She's going to stay in the car on this one While we go run errands They're not going to interrupt me When they come back They quietly load up the car and all that stuff Knowing that, hey, she's still working This is her work time And that way when you are with your family You have better time Better quality time to actually spend with them Doing the things that you love with the people you love Two more things that I want to mention Before we are done here for today And thank you so much for your time and attention This is so much fun These are the bare necessities that you need One is a stapler I forgot to tell you about the stapler The stapler is a stand-up stapler It's a grip stapler that stands up It's got a very tiny footprint And so it just stands up by itself If you are limited on space This is a really great one for that Because this is going to give you the ability To staple all of your worksheets And for those of you that know me We live and die by our worksheets For house cleaning companies But every one of them needs a staple And so you want to make sure you have a proper stapler This is really good It's easy grip and fairly inexpensive But it's one that I recommend Because if you have your own We talked about boundaries for a second Having your own equipment Is going to keep family from coming in And borrowing your stuff from you They've got their own You've got your own And then it always stays on your desk You always have it when you need it There's nothing worse than you running out the door And you're packing your bags And someone has borrowed your equipment And you don't have what you need Right? So I do recommend that you get You get some of the tools That you need that are yours and yours only Now some of the stuff you might already have And if you do that's awesome Please repurpose what you have If you are getting something new There are a couple new tools that I recommend I know many of us are Voice activated smart home people Where we give directives to all of our devices This particular one works with the scanner That I shared with you It's also great for across the room If you're running a call just like this And you want to look over and you want to see what time it is And how close you are to cut off time You want to make sure that you are on time at all times And so this can give you alerts It can give you the weather It can give you happy songs If you're taking a quick break It's voice activated like most of the other devices In your home This is the version 4 The Echo Dot version 4 There is a version 5 That I've linked to That just came out It's the 2022 version And I recommend that you get the latest one Of whatever one it is Because it's going to have more bells and whistles And the new one that just came out Is a motion sensor Which is kind of cool So I don't know exactly how that part works But if you were to walk by And it was to, I don't know, say nice things to you That would be awesome, right? So a motion sensor It still works for turning on turning off lights Again, anytime we can prevent Us from doing extra work And we can have it automated We win, right? That's the name of the game All right, we've covered a lot of stuff here today I would love your questions You can follow me on all the social media At AskAngelaBrown And I want to recommend that you really give This particular setup Some serious thought We haven't covered anything that's super expensive This is just normal basic stuff That any small business owner could use But certainly every cleaning business owner And then in the event that like I said, I don't know You get six months down the road And you decide the cleaning business is not for you You're not stuck with a bunch of stuff That you can't use, don't want, don't need The same rules apply If you get out of the cleaning business You're still going to use your smart Your laptop for something, right? You're still going to use your portable office For something So whatever it is you do next That goes with you The scanning of the photos That's just one tip for an upsell For the existing customers that you have If you're just getting started in the business And money is tight And you don't have a lot of customers It's a great way to approach customers That are not, they don't need your cleaning service Right? But as a side hustle This is something that a lot of people need Once they get to know you Once they get to trust you And once you start doing it for the neighbors Trust me, they're going to tell all their friends Oh, my house cleaner does this You're going to get a lot of house cleaning referrals As well Somebody asked me in the questions If you have the, let's see The question was If they had, I think this is it How about creating a computer Filing scanning documents into it How do you name the files? Naming the files is going to depend on the customer And so what we do, and that's a great question Naming the files for the customer If you are doing this for a customer We would do it either by trip Or by year Or it could be by family So for example If my trip was to Seattle 2022 All of the photos that we scan Would be Seattle 2022 The next one might be by family So let's say they have my family And my husband's family So if you were scanning my photos We could do it by all the browns Or we could do it by all of the obuers And so that would keep the family photo Separate from his family to my family For example And so there are different ways that you can do it And that comes down to the customer How do you want those labeled And so it is entirely up to you But I will tell you this If you are scanning photos And you're on a laptop It is way easier Than trying to do that with your thumbs on a smartphone So, and another thing that I don't know if I mentioned this or not But your echo dot Also scans for you So you can give it the directives And say, hey, scan the document for me And that way you don't have to Keep pushing the button to do it I don't know if that makes a difference or not But I know that it does to some So there's that Someone else asked the question And I want to make sure that I get this answered When you're running ads, where should you put them? When you're running ads My suggestion is that you put them where the customer will see them Now if you don't have the dots And we talked about the dots Put them at eye level And do it like right inside the door jam Where they open the door boom There's their flyer It's inconspicuous It's not hanging on the front of their door It's hanging in the inside of the door jam And so if you were looking for it You would see it But it's not going to be obnoxious in a neighborhood So that I would recommend If you don't have the dots And you decide you want to run flyers some other way What I would recommend is Most people have like a mat on the front of their porch If you'll put it just peeking out of the mat at the bottom When people step out Oftentimes when they open the door They're not looking directly out They're looking down Looking for packages and things that may have arrived So as they're looking down They're going to see the corner of that peeking out And they're going to go, hey, what's that? And they'll open it up and it will draw their attention So there are a couple places we can leave those now Where before we would leave them inside people's newspaper boxes And it's not as common anymore All right, I think that's it for today I'm super excited that you guys joined me Thank you again for your time and attention And I look forward to the next time we have a chance to chat Until then, take care Have a great day And we will talk to you soon