Latest / Cleaning Business Life / CBL Episode # 82-Balancing Business and Leisure: Running a Thriving Cleaning Service while on VACATION!

Transcript

CBL Episode # 82-Balancing Business and Leisure: Running a Thriving Cleaning Service while on VACATION! · Cleaning Business Life

• 0:58
  Speaker 1: According to progress.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Recording in progress.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome, welcome, welcome.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: My name is Shannon Miller and I am your host of Cleaning Business Life and I am joined by the wonderful Jamie Runco of All Above Cleaning Services in Northern California.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Hand it out to Ms Jamie.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Yay, woo-hoo.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: And today we're gonna talk about how to take a vacation as a cleaning business owner.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Trying to get this mic just right, you figured I'd have that set up and I'm going to go over some tips and tricks on what to do and steps you need to take to run your business, either entirely automatic or with you at a distance.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: And the first time you do it it can be a little like, hmm, your nails, your white nailing, it it's like, oh, I don't know, I don't know.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: But after you get it down for a few times, you can actually do it more frequently.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: It's just, the first time is going to be could be a little rough.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: So I recommend that you are in close proximity.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: If you don't, if you aren't a big enough operation to have an office manager, then you need to take these steps and, jamie, I know that you're probably getting ready to do this yourself, aren't you?
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we're getting ready to incorporate, actually, a VA.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: There's just some things that I just can't.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: I want to delegate and I want to be able to take a vacation, I mean, and that's exactly, uh.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Why I got into this industry was because, uh, of financial freedom and stuff like this, so that I'm able to enjoy what I've created.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: You have to take a step back and actually reward yourself and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: Don't enjoy the fruits of your labor.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: There's really no point, yeah.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: You're just an employee of your own business and that you create it.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: You created a job for yourself and you didn't.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: You didn't create a company, a business, you created a job for yourself.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: And I hear that a lot with, especially with serial entrepreneurs.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: We have one here in town I'm not going to name his name, but he's been mentioned in several magazines one here in town I'm not going to name his name, but he's been mentioned in several magazines he's done like fortune magazine.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: You know, he's younger, Um, and he has, like I think, nine or 10 businesses and if you look at his kids, he's built the entrepreneurial gene into his children, because he has four children and one of them still baby, but the other three they're all entrepreneurs and they're going to college and they're, you know, earning that passive income now, which I wish I had had that opportunity as a child.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I didn't.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: You know, I came from a parent that was self-employed.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: There was no entrepreneurial anything, it was just I'm self-employed because I prefer to work by myself or on my own terms, and so the dynamics of that have changed Definitely.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but there are steps to to getting there.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: There, yeah, you can't.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: You know you.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: You need, honestly you.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Whenever you start growing, you need some help and guidance in order to to jump over onto that vacation.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: No, it's just not.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: You're going to open up a business and then in a couple of months you're going to have all these people working for you and there's a lot of blood, sweat and tears that go into into this too in other groups where they're like okay, okay, I've been doing this five months, I want out.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: I'm like okay yeah, and that um, I I just commented on something like that this morning and in one of those groups and um, I was told that we are within three feet of being successful whenever you decide to throw in the towel Right.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Imagine being that close.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: You know you've done most of the hard work.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: It's you know, hang on for a little bit longer.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: It's you know, hang on for a little bit longer.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Know when to start delegating and hiring somebody that's been there and can lead you to that path of being financially secure, being able to have a vacation.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: I have it blocked out on my jobber that Jamie is going on vacation and I put it to all my employees so it comes up on their feed.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: I am taking a vacation, um, a lead cleaning tech, but she also has access to getting into um.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: She knows how to do a walkthrough.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: If I needed to Um, if I wanted to forward my calls to her, I can do that and she knows how to answer.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: She knows how to run it.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Enough for me to take a vacation and I'm not afraid that it blowing down like, oh my gosh, if I do this, nobody's going to know what to do.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: I'm going to come back and it's just going to be.
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: You have to enjoy the fruits of your labor.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: And yeah, you're there.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: You might have a couple of things that you need to do, but I mean got to check in on your business too.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: But I'm going silent, I'm going to be nice, so is that coming up in this near future?
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's supposed to be coming up next week.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: There's some steps you're going to have to take for sure.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, um, like I said, my, my, my lead cleaning tech.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: She wears a lot of hats.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: Um, I've made it known, you know, I verbally have said it.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Everybody keeps going what's this?
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Jamie's on vacation?
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Yep, jamie's on vacation and this person is in charge whenever I'm not here.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: Right, she knows what to do, she.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: You know, she knows and she's aware, and I've done a little bit of training with her to get her by to, without giving her the.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: You know the key to the safe, as you would say.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: You know depositing checks and she knows how to run credit cards.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, how to run credit cards, yeah, those types of things.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: There are some initial steps when you start to formulate the concept of oh my God, I'm actually going to do this.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: First of all, it's picking the date.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Second of all, besides, you know, there's vacation planning and coordination and all that other stuff for your personal life.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: But for your business life, there's a couple of things that need to happen.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: So you can you can bootstrap it your very first time and you can follow these basic steps.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: If you have a crew, the very first thing you need to do is make sure that payroll either they get paid on time automatically most almost everybody is doing automatic deposits.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: If you're still doing checks, you're going to have to either pre-write them and then you can have the, or, if you type them out on the computer I don't know how you do it, but they would have to be predated.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: So they couldn't pre-cash them because my payroll account wouldn't have money into it until like I think it was like the day before, and that was to prevent a lot of things that we're not going to discuss here on this podcast.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of reasons why you want to have a separate payroll account and then, after you've squared away all of that stuff.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: You've made the major announcement, you've instituted someone who's going to be in charge, kind of sort of, and then that way, if something major happens, they can always relay if something bad went down.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: And, worst case scenario, regardless of where you are, if someone really genuine, if you don't have an office this is for smaller operations who don't have an office manager, who aren't.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: You know, there's not 47 girls, cleaning techs or any of that other stuff.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: It's already automated, there's people in place for that.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about the small newbies.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: This is your very first time.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: So, after you've delegated most of the responsibilities, of the basic tasks that you do, then you have to make sure that you have, like, if there's an emergency, what's going to happen?
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Who do you call?
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: If you, if you're like, if you came out and visited me in Arizona, you would have to make a phone call if there was an emergency, would have to make a phone call if there was an emergency, right?
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: So, having all of those systems in place so that if something should go wrong, then there is a breaking point that, okay, I'm going to call you.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I would go on vacation.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't hear from anybody the whole week and I'm like I hope it's okay, you're on pins and needles.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I'm really going to have a good time at the beach, right.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: And there is that guilt too.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: You know that comes with it.
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Like, I feel like you're undeserving to go out and do it.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Why am I taking a vacation?
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: And I'm sure everybody's just looking at me like why she gets to take a vacation.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Though you know what.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: This is our baby.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: We created it and we're allowed to.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: We're allowed to, Right.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: So the anxiety of having what is it?
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Vacation guilt, yeah, yeah, no, um, it's.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: This is we've gotten it to where we're fully, just about fully automated, without the exception of them cleaning.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's a button to push for when you start work.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: There's a button to push when you're done.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: There's a button for whenever you charge the credit card.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: There's a button for follow-up quotes that you sent up, uh quotes that you sent um, and you'll always have uh access to your your.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: You can see what's going on and peek in while you're out on vacation, right, right, yeah, you can peek in on your your just by uh, whatever crm youM you're using.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can peek in without them knowing, or you can call and say, hey, I haven't heard from you in several days.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Nothing's burned down, right, good, right.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: So the very first thing you want to do is try to make yourself as automated as you possibly can.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: If it's in the budget, if it's not in the budget, then you have to put systems in place that work.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: And then you've made the announcement, you've delegated the responsibility to somebody else and you know.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Then you leave for vacation and you, the first time, is like wow, I can't believe I'm going to really do this, right.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: And then, after that first vacation, then you're like, okay, well, I'm taking my second vacation, right.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: And then so it's trying to work it out so that you're gone for longer periods of time.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And guess what it's like, you know, leaving home, you still come home to do laundry.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Right, I came to do laundry.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: What's on the reaper's paper?
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: And it don't even have to be.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: You know, it could be just even in the next town over.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I just like to get away with my family and go get an Airbnb over in the next town over.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: You know it's here, is far away.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: But you know, yeah, you don't have to be days.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: You know seven days have to be days.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: You know seven days you can.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: You can start off small and dip your toe in it and build yourself up to actually going wherever you want, right, england or Paris.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: First one I took, I was gone four days.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: And then the second one I took, I think I was gone seven days and then eventually it worked up to 14 days and then it went to three weeks and then I would just take months off at a time and things.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Just it was nice to know that it was running smoothly and I didn't have to worry about anything.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: And then eventually, when you, when, when you get to that point of taking a month off, you're clearly ready for the absentee owner and hopefully by then your operation is so large that you have an office manager.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: So all of that stuff is being delegated through them and, like Jamie said, you're just pushing buttons and making sure those reports are coming out and that everything's okay.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: They should be.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: You should be getting reports at the end of the day like what were our sales today?
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: That way it tells you okay, well, how come this credit card didn't charge?
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, Mrs Smith's credit card was declined.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: You need to make sure that we're following up with that, because you want to make sure you get paid, Because if not and you're gone for a whole month, they're going to be like, yeah, they never charged me, or oh, maybe I got a free cleaning, right.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: Sweep it under the rug, Right.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: They do it all the time.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: So they're like, oh yeah, I thought you were just giving me a free clean.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: This time You're like no, no, no, not today, no, no, please.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: That's like my discount.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: So those are some of the steps that you can take to go on vacation.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: If you have a crew and we can talk a little bit about how to go on vacation.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: If you have a crew and we can talk a little bit about how to go on vacation if you're solo and we can, we'll just add that in right here.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: We'll just boom, it's right there.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: So there is a lot of questions that come around to what do I do if I want to go on vacation?
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: People can work around your schedule.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: They will not die.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: I know they act like it.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: They will not die if they don't have their house clean.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: So you can do a couple of things.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: If you have a trusty cleaning friend who has the same quality, who isn't going to take all of your clients from you, and you trust them, you could actually split the cost, or they could have the whole job cost, depending on what you work out, and they can sub in for you.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: If you are, if you have networked with your community, highly recommend doing that.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Or if you don't feel comfortable doing that, cause it gives you too much anxiety, what you can do is work all the way up.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: So instead of if you did.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: When I was a cleaner, I did two to three homes every single day.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: So when I got, when I led up to going on vacation, I added in my weekends until everybody was covered while I was gone for the two weeks.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: And that's how I subsequently went on vacation and that usually it went off without a glitch.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Every once in a while, you know, you get some catty comment about I can't believe you're leaving for vacation.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, what a selfish thing to say, right?
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: I mean they really, really just don't value you and I think the clients that value what we're worth because this is such hard work.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: It is, and as a solo you're wearing all the hats, you're doing all the cleaning, you're scheduling all the jobs, you're generating your leads.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: You need a vacation and that's really whenever it's really good to come in and network with your fellow cleaning business owners in your area fellow cleaning business owners in your area, I don't know, even though you're in competition, there's a togetherness that builds and there's trust that builds and return the favor.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Return the favor whenever your fellow cleaning business owners would like to delegate their own vacation.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Right and hopefully it's a price match.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: That becomes an issue.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: If you're.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're giving them all of the cleaning for you and you're charging top rates, they're going to be like this is great.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: But then if you reciprocate that favor and then you're getting all the cleaning fee on their end and they're charging 50 or $60 less, it could be an issue.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: So you have to decide if you're going to do them the favor or not.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: It's entirely up to you.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: But reciprocity is huge in this industry.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Collaboration is huge.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: We have a private messenger group.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I believe there's close to 60 cleaners in it locally and we talk back and forth all of the time.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: You know we talk about clients coming up.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: Or has anyone ever cleaned this house?
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Did you ever have an issue with them?
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Or I can't, my schedule is full.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Can you take this house?
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: Those types of things are really helpful so that people can see what's going on, so that we are all in the pulse of what is going on in our industry locally.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: And it's so important because then you know like, for example, I had, they had someone who passed away.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: It was an older client who had been my client years ago.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I sent a sympathy card.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't you know.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those types of things come up too.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: So you're like, oh, you know, I looked in my um CRM and I pulled up his name and I sent a card.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And his daughter reached out to me and said oh my god, thank you we for.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: You know, we remember way back when you cleaned.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: I started to cry.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh my God, I was just doing, doing right and it just you know.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: And it's more than just cleaning businesses.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: There's air duct contractors there's.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: I'm looking in my because I've created a local cleaning business.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Yours is more service-based businesses.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah more service-based, yeah, but those kinds of you know, I was looking for a blind and repair, you know, because we, while we do those faux blinds, we faux wood blinds, we don't do the little metal blinds.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: So I was, and I know they exist, so I was looking for that and, um, yeah, collaboration is really really, really big, and this being the reason why.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, more than ever, and you guys have all heard me mention it, embarrassingly enough, when I had Castle Keeper Cleaning, I was this big whale that went around with my mouth open and I scooped up everything in my path shamefully up everything in my path shamefully and that was just the mindset I had at the time.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: That's not the way it is anymore in the cleaning business industry.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: It is about collaboration, be the leader.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I made a post in someone's group the other day about circle of influence and making sure that you're picking right and having people to lift you up.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: It's so important, especially when you have things that you need to do, like vacation.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: So the options for you if you're solo is hey, I'm taking this vacation and I won't be back until the new year.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: A lot of people do that over Christmas or you have someone sub in for you, and how you can do that is to start to network with your general area cleaners.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: Now, obviously, if you have someone who's subbing, you know you can't say give me your background check, let me.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: I want to make sure I get fit for my not only are you doing me a favor, can I see your background check, but you want to get some basic information from them.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: I've given out my driver's license to other people that I've helped out because they needed it to make their clients feel comfortable.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Usually, when everyone sees me, they're like, yeah, whatever, it could be a little unnerving and you can say well, I'm taking a vacation.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Or, you know, you can just say I'm going on vacation and I'm going to have a replacement, and you give your clients the option to say yay or nay.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Maybe they don't want someone new in their house.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: And these are the controls that are problematic when you're so low and it's just you, but it's some people.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: It suits them perfectly fine.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Other people want to grow and scale, like what Jamie has done.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: It's entirely up to you.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: I'm not here to pass judgment, so make sure that you are networking and collaborating in your area.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: I'm actually probably going to teach a little mini course.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: I just haven't had a chance to finish up this last part of this project and it's going to be.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: You know how to network and collaborate with cleaners in your area, and it's just.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: I'm probably going to either offer it for just a couple dollars or it's going to be free.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I haven't decided, but it's how to be free.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: I haven't decided.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: But it's how to set up and collaborate, and when I first started to add members into my messenger group people, people didn't want to be in there.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: They're like why am I in here?
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I'm like this is just for us here locally.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: There's a couple of them that are attached to the group, the maids network.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Um, they're large.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: There's like I think there's a thousand cleaners in one of them looking for helpers and like there's over a thousand businesses looking for helpers.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: I'm like you guys have to take steps to look for helpers.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: Don't just say I'm in Florida, um, posting in your local mom's group on Facebook is huge too.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, let's face it, this is a great job and gives that flexibility to be able to still go pick up your kids and do all the sporting events and you know, and still make money and be home at three in time for the kid pickup.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: So, um, yeah.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: So posting in your mom's group um is a good, a good way to look for somebody to step into your shoes if you're solo, right.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: There's very little management that is usually involved when you just have a messenger versus a full-fledged group.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: And at some point, as I get more cleaners in my messenger group, I probably will have to have a full-fledged group, but it just makes it nice.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I try to really filter who I allow in, so they have to be a legitimate cleaning business owner and I just have allowed in someone who is a real estate agent and a cleaning business owner.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: So I was kind of a little bit on the fence about that, because that's a gray area and we are very candid when we talk in this messenger group and I don't want anyone to misconstrue that we're being mean spirited or anything like that.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: But it's just cleaning related.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: So I you know I'm trying her out.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: She's super duper nice, but you have to make sure that you're watching those things, Cause it just takes the wrong person to screenshot something and go Shannon said this and they do.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: They do Occasionally you get someone who has the wind the wrong way, and so you want to make sure that it's a healthy environment where you're able to make people aware.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: But it's not like the world is ending and I need you to feel sorry for me.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I'm not about victimhood at all.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Ask anybody, I am not the last person.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I have relatives who were that way and I have to hear all the time about this and that, and they're totally victims.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: They will never not be victims.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: You're talking to the girl who was handicapped as a child.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: I did it.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: If I can do it, anybody can right.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: So make sure.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: So that's my mentality and I know that sounds jaded and I've had people call me heartless and I'm being mean spirited.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I'm not a victim.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: I'm happy to be here.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: I'm here to make money.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Let me know what you want.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I'm happy to provide it for you and if I can, I'll find someone who can, but I'm not.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Am I here to to allow you to be a victim?
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: So it's positive, healthy stuff.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: It's not eventing vibes, good vibes that you're coming to and you're complaining to all about.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: It's just.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes there's situations, unfortunately, that come up when dealing with customers.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: That is really unpleasant.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: So that happens too.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it does.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean that's an in any industry, though it does.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: I mean that's in any industry, though, Even the real estate.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: You're going to have those I want this, this, this, this.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Well, the big thing now is the commission.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: There was a lawsuit that happened in the state of Arizona, so there was this compliance that had to happen.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: So right now and I'm just barely like scratching the surface of what this is so if you engage with a real estate agent, you have to sign a contract that you're going to work with them.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: And the reason for that is because what was happening and it happens in every industry is, if I wanted to go look at a bunch of houses, but I didn't want to go with you, I wanted to use up your time because I already had my friend Susan, who's a real estate agent, and we all know that real estate agents eat their young.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: So it's this dynamic of you know, I've wasted, I've made her drive me on her own dime in her car to show me all these things.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: I had no intention of doing business with her, so that was the big thing.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: And then I found this out and I didn't know this.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: So, for all of you guys in other states, the commission percentage is always negotiable, which I didn't know.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I always thought it was the 6% 3% to the real estate agent and her team and 3% to the broker and their team.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: That's not how it is.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: So there's a couple of customers.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, there's one individual who I'm not going to name names, who wanted to have zero commission and I'm like no one's going to want to sell your house, it's just like give me a break.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: But he's awful, and every single person in the real estate agency that I know has all talked about this individual and how awful he is.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: I'm like well, you know, you only live so long.
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: How long do you want to keep this going, right?
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, and it's a beautiful property, it has a lot of potential.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: But he doesn't want to pay any commission and I'm like I don't understand why anyone would want to pick this up for free.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Because you're you're beautiful and a nice person to deal with.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the charity of your heart.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they passed some law out here in california too in regards to they have to, um, tell you what the commission is, which it's.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: I believe it's only 3.8 percent or something like that.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: Wasn't six percent.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Six percent out in arizona it's usually six, six to.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: I've seen some cases seven, but it's usually six percent.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: So three percent've seen some cases seven, but it's usually 6%.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: So 3% goes to the real estate agent and for you real estate agents that are out there if I'm wrong, hit me up.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: I'm happy to adjust my numbers, but it's it's been this way for a long time.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's changed or maybe I've been misinformed but it's 3% to the real estate agent and their team, if they operate a team, and it's three percent to the broker, because the broker takes a cut um and that's usually the hierarchy.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: So there's real estate agents, there's the team and then there's the broker on top and the broker is supposed to supervise and make sure that it's not a bad deal, that you're getting, that everybody's legal.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: All the t's are crossed, all the i's are dotted but it's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: I just went through that whole threshold for the first time and it was a lot.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: It's overwhelming, especially here.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: That was right up there with giving birth to a child.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: Mentally it's a lot.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: You thought you were prepared for it and you totally were not prepared for it.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I like when they make you sign that you have no mineral rights.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: It's like I own the land, the little teeny land that I own.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I own the house, but if you find any diamonds or gold, that's not yours.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm digging in the backyard for a pool and I find gold.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying shit.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: What's happening today?
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's just a shiny rock.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Here's all my diamonds, yeah, but yeah, it's so funny, yeah, when you go through the home buying past, like our subdivision.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: I live in subdivision number 19.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: And it's actually shaped like a cross.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: So the builder.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: There was a whole building boom here in the nineties and the eighties.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: If you and I wanted to build a house together and we could do it, they would allow that to happen.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: It didn't matter if you knew what you're doing or not.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: So they had to put regulations in.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: So their building boom the first big building boom happened in the late eighties, early nineties.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: So in the nineties we expanded all over the place, but for a long time before there were any building contractor codes.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: If you and I wanted to build a house even a second story house, we could if we knew what we were doing.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: There was no verification.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Now you have to go through the process.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: There's impact fee, all of the craziness that goes along with building a house.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: It's just, it's really wild.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Arizona real estate brothers where they build the, that bed, that bunk bed.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: Why do you let us do this?
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, we.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: I watched um this house getting remodeled that's what the, the they claimed it was and, like the building inspector, they just left the front of the house and all the rest of it was tore down roof and all and they just left the house pour down roof and all, and they just left the house.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because you took a portion of it.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: And they claimed it was a remodel to get out of doing all the codes.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: And the building inspector was like wait, you can't do that.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: What if you got to?
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: go to the proper channels.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Now right, you just can't leave one wall standing.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: It used to be.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: You could leave one wall standing and they leave like a little mini wall Just remodeling over here.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: It's not a new build.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: It's not a new build.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not at all.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Now in the state of California you have to have 220.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's all of this stuff.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really expensive to build a home in california, hence the reason why very many people are not doing it no, that'd be the dream one day.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: That's the goal for us mill our own, our own uh wood, and if only totally lumber, lumber is pretty good money out here though it's crazy.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: I was listening to a podcast the other day and he was a guy who worked the land.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: He was talking about hunting and how much meat you could get off certain animals and how how many trees it took for a quarter of wood, and I didn't know this.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: It takes 35 trees for one quarter of wood.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: I was like wow, that's a lot.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: I'm like that is a lot.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Well, this particular person was up in Maine, so maybe the trees are a little bit different yeah, well.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know, yeah, and cut it down that would be a no-no um, no, no, not, not out here.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: That would be a no-no, no, not out here.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: So where are you going on vacation?
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: We were supposed to go to Disneyland.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: However, I decided to buy a house Right, so that took all the Disney funds.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: So, great America, great America.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, is that in San Jose?
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: No, america, yeah, that's in.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Is that in san jose?
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: no, it's uh down like petaluma past, petaluma down past san francisco I've been there, I'm just trying to remember, yeah so it's when I was a kid, mickey mouse and all that, but Charlie Brown, isn't that Charlie Brown themed, I think?
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: So it's been decades since I've been there, but yeah definitely.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: I have to get that in before Bodie goes back to school on the 28th and I I just I dislike how they weren't such a small.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: I mean, the population that I live in, now that the town that I live in is, is 3400, so they start on one day.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Their school starts on one day.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Then, you know down the road, their school starts one day.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Nobody can just come together and just everybody starts on the same day.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Right, that's what they do here.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: Everybody starts on the same day.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, nope, not at all.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: Everybody starts on a different day here.
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: Some are already in school, and he don't even go back on in until the 28th.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Very cool.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: That's going to be exciting, very exciting.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: So that is how you go on vacation If you're solo.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: That's how you go on vacation If you are the business owner, and then for larger operations, we're planning that you have an office manager and all that stuff.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: I know that.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Even I know some very big businesses that don't have a brick and mortar or an office manager.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: They run entirely remotely with VAs, and I've seen that business model work to certain various degrees.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: There's a little bit of temperament that has to be tweaked and I know of one person who actually operates everything out of the country.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: So it just depends on what works for you and your lifestyle.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree.
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: And if you don't, if you want to, you guys can all reach out and we can help you get to those vacations.
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Definitely.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: That is coming up very soon.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, rumor mill, miss Jamie, miss Jamie.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Yes, rumor mill, miss jamie, miss jamie.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Go ahead and reach out.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Definitely you guys take care.