Latest / Cleaning Business Life / Your Customers Don't Pay for YOU for HARD WORK | EP 212

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Your Customers Don't Pay for YOU for HARD WORK | EP 212 · Cleaning Business Life

• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, Shannon Miller.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Cleaning Business Life.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited you are here.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oops.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I forgot to turn off the alarm.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I am watering and it's over 100 degrees today, so I have to put a timer on so I remember to go move the water for the trees.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I already took care of it before I sat down.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk about something that might make you a little uncomfortable, right?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just blanket this here.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Customers don't pay you for hard work, and you're probably going, yeah, right, Shannon.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: People pay me hand over fist for my hard work.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I make great money for my hard work.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm it's true.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: But they're not paying you for your hard work.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you do work hard.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: You you get up early, you work late, you pick up the extra house, you work seven days in a row, you do all of the crazy things, your helpers are all working a lot of hours.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: You got a lot going on.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not saying that you're not working hard because you absolutely are, but they're not paying you for your hard work.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And how do I know?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've been there, right?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've done the crazy things where I've worked 30 days in a row, or I work three houses every day for days on end because my business needed me.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the hard work is hard work is the cost of entry, right?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and the value is what gets rewarded.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to bring that to your attention because someone was on a call with me and um they didn't understand why everyone was arguing with them over their price, why are everyone was arguing with them over the fact that she worked hard.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: People don't care.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: People don't care that they're that you're working hard.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: They don't, they, that's not their problem.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Their problem is getting their house clean, giving them more time with their families, doing those types of things.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And people hire businesses that solve problems.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So if your business is a business that solves problems, you're already five paces ahead of everyone else, right?
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: They don't hire you because they skipped lunch or that you worked 12 hours or that you got up at 4:30 in the morning so you could squeeze it all in.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: They hire you because they have a dirty house.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And thank God people are messy, right?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because we wouldn't have any jobs.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: We wouldn't have businesses, we wouldn't have empires, we wouldn't have legacy, right?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're hiring you to do one thing.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So when you, and I don't I mean this in the politest, I love you manner.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Don't virtue signal to everyone else in your world that you you went up, you got up at 4:30 in the morning and no one appreciates you, that you work 12 hours in a day, then again, no one appreciates you.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: They're not hiring you, they're hiring you to get the end result, right?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just like when you're hiring a cleaning tech, you're hiring the cleaning tech to get you the end result.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And and most importantly, they hired you because you're overwhelmed.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you have walked into post-construction cleaning after the homeowner tried to clean it themselves?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Tears, tears on the phone.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't understand why it was still messy.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't know they needed to vacuum.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: They took a microfiber and then just smeared it all around.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't wring out the thing and dip it in the bucket and then repeat the process over and over and over again.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that it was just, you know, a lot, and it was an anxiety attack, right?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And let's be honest too.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Most everyone's overwhelmed because they're super busy.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're more than they're plentiful busy, right?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: It used to be the moniker that you you had to be, you know, the mom, the wife, the business owner, and then you had to carry all these things and do all these tasks.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's absolutely crazy and wild.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's even worse than it was in the 80s, 90s, and 2000.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And here we are in the, you know, the 2020s.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it is still, if we're as women, and don't say that I don't love you guys.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you're out there.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: I love you.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's just societal dictates, right?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: There is an expectation that we're going to do all these things.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So don't go around telling everybody that you're doing all these things.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Go around providing the final results.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're, they're going to buy the solution that you're offering, right?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to wave the little carrot in front of them, and they're either going to bite the carrot or they're not going to bite the carrot, but they're provide, you're providing them the end results.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're saving them time, you're saving them trust, you're saving them worry because you have consistency, right?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And consistency compounds over time.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember years ago thinking, if only people knew how hard I worked.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you want to shout it from the rooftops, ladies and gentlemen.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I work hard.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: You may have heard me talk once or twice.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember if I've ever mentioned it in a podcast episode, but I was in a Walmart.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: My delivery did not come in, and I needed more barkeepers' friends.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I picked up a couple other things since I was there.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I bought two case, I bought everything that they had because I didn't know when my supply, my order got lost.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know when the resupply was going to come.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I got too many houses.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: You guys have been there.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know what it's like.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a little girl and a mom behind me in a shopping cart, and there was a little boy too.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And she goes, Mommy, mommy, look at all that cleaning stuff.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Well, you know, maybe she cleans a lot.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then the little girl goes, I don't know.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of stuff.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then the mom goes, Well, maybe, maybe she's a cleaner, right?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: implying that I was a cleaner, like a cleaner cleaner, like a cleaning tech.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're still a cleaning tech and that's what you you're happy at being, I love you for it.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then I said, Well, I'm I'm all of those, but most importantly, I'm a cleaning business owner that employs 17 cleaning techs.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And they were like, all three of them, like this, with a big O, you know, the big I's, the big O.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because the woman couldn't fathom that I'd be a cleaning business owner.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: She just thought, well, this is just the cleaning lady.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Why is she buying two cases of barkeeper's friend?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so it can be tempting to tell everyone, oh my God, I worked a 12-hour day today, or oh my God, I had to pick up five an extra house.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: We did, you know, instead of 25 houses in a day, we did ended up doing, you know, 33 houses, or we did 50 houses in a day, and instead we did 65 houses.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's tempting.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd worked nights, weekends, holidays before I really learned how to manage my schedule.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna be honest, I was exhausted.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: There was one point I made myself sick because I worked too many days in a row.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Don't do what I did.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: This was way back in the day, by the way.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I almost wore that exhaustion like a badge of honor.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And there are lots of people who have badges of honor.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna go into detail about what I hear all the time.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: People don't care.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that they don't care about you as a human, but they don't care.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're there to solve their problem.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're there to provide an end result.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way to get the end result is to be consistent, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then one day I realized something that they weren't buying my exhaustion.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't buying, they were buying peace of mind, consistency, they were buying time back to spend with their families.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: They were buying less stress, right?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're consistent.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're constantly showing up, you're constantly doing the thing.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: There, I still have a couple of clients from when I sold the first business to the second business.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have one particular person who has been like she didn't want to be part of the sale either time.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: So Christina, if you're still out there, I love you.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: I've watched her girls grow up.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: She has grandbabies now.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say 16 years we have been together.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's been like a marriage, right?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: So when I started to really see things like that, it kind of changed the way I looked at business forever.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: It it's it's not about me.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm doing this great thing, and I can do cartwheels and backflips and twirls, and my feather duster can go all over the place if I was actually still cleaning.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: But when your perspective changes, your outlook changes.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And when you start to realize how much money you're making for what you're doing, and I know many people think, oh my god, house cleaning is super duper hard.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it can be, but when you start to see the money coming in, you start to check your pet your checking account, you're like, it's not so bad.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'll suck it up.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And for those of you who know what I'm talking about, you can go ahead and leave me a comment.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to bring Disney, Walt Disney, into the mix for a minute.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody walks into the park thinking, I wonder how many people got up at three o'clock in the morning.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody cares.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're there to have the Disney experience, right?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody thinks about the overnight cleaning cruise.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen them.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's it, it's it's a 24-hour cycle of and it's all on a schedule.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of things that happen at Disneyland that you'd probably be shocked, like about how much it takes, how much trash is generated every year.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: No one thinks about the maintenance teams, landscapers.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: It I they have I talked to one person, they have, I think they have 27 full-time landscaper people to help maintain the beauty of Disneyland even at any given time.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that was told me third hand, so it could be wrong.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: But if you have an exact number, I would love to know.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm weird like that.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody thinks about how much time and effort it took to make everything look effortless.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like when people walk in, usually people will want the smell to associate that psychological thing.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you smell something, it triggers memory.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you who don't know, my mom was a psychologist.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And still to this day, if I get a good peach, my grandma used to take peaches from her peach tree.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: She lived in this little one-bedroom studio apartment.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and she had this huge peach tree, and they were like softball size, like this.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this year we ended up getting really lucky and we had some nectarines that were just wonderful.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Not like not organic, fresh from the farm, but at Sprouts, or if you have a mother's market, you know what I'm talking about.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: So smell triggers memory.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why a lot of people go, My house don't smell, my house does not smell clean.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: In actuality, it does smell clean.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: We've just been psychologically conditioned to want the lemon fresh scent, right?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Or the lemongrass, or whatever, whatever it is that you're doing, people want it because they're they're looking for the experience, the Disney experience.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And guess experiences are pure magic.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for a while there, I haven't done it in a while.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've considered doing it again.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Is we would have the um mommy and me day.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: So mom and daughter would get picked up by a limo, they would go to a spa, and while they were at the spa, you guys, I'm you can make a mental note and do this yourself.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do, I want to know if you were successful with it.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then the limo would take them over to the nail spa.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: They would have a gourmet lunch after the nail spa.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: They got a little pampering in the meanwhile, the crew was at her house making it look spectacular.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Then they came home and it was like a mommy and me day, right?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: It just that's a really great guest experience.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: That is a cleaning package.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a lot of nuances with contracts about limo drivers and nail salons and gourmet lunches.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: But I you guys are smart.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you will figure it all out.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: But customers can be exactly the same.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: They want the consistency all the time.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: So when your cleaning tech misses a toilet in the primary bath, you're gonna they're gonna be like, so what happened?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they're gonna be like, Oh, they shut the door.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you said don't clean any rooms that have the door shut, right?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: So they experience customers experience how easy you have made their life.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: So when you are consistent and you're providing that service, the end result, it becomes commonplace, right?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: So then when the con when the the result is not the same, then you get disappointed, right?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they remember is the experience and how it made them feel.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine two cleaning technicians, I'm referencing my notes here.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: One says, we've been cleaning since six in the morning.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: I am exhausted.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: The second one says, Everything's finished, your home is ready for you, have a wonderful evening.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna give you the better result?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Cleaning tech A or cleaning tech B?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Cleaning tech B.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, let me get you a tip.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, I come with me here.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Who leaves the best impression?
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: The first person talked about themselves, the second person focused on the customer.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's a huge big difference in feeling and experience, right?
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I I see it all the time in coaching.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many times someone did a consult with me and then decided to go with somebody else.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Three weeks into it, they give me a call panicking because they're not getting what they said they were gonna get.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, you have to go back to your coaching person and say, look, this is what you said we're gonna get.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: How come I'm not getting it?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: I can't help you fix someone else's coaching problem.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a whole dynamic and dichotomy with that.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And someone says, I spent 40 hours creating this course, that's great.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Big deal, right?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually a lot.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's like when you take your real estate license, they say it's 90 hours.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's not 90 hours, it's more than 90 hours.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: But did it help someone raise their prices?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: Did it help them hire their first employee?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Depending on the coaching program, it could.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Did it help them become more profitable?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I hope so.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that every step you take with me or another coach makes you more profitable.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, find your person, interview them, find your person, find someone who resonates with you.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Did it solve the problem they paid you to solve with those other people?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: I I want to say last year and the year before, I probably spoke to 65 people who did not want to go with me, who went with somebody else, and when they're like trying to ask me for advice on trying to fix their problem.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I can't, I have no knowledge of what they promised you.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was not on the phone, you know, and they're like, but I paid nine grand.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm really sorry.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have to go back to your person.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's because they said anything and everything to close the deal, and I won't do that.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've told people, no, I don't think that you're ready for coaching.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: You need to do the following things, or I think that this person is better suited for you because they're doing this, where I only do this.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: But there are some coaches out there who just come and grab it all and they don't care because they get a commission, right?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Especially a lot of people who have a lot of um affiliates with the coaching program.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: You guys know who I'm talking about.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: You'll figure it out.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then you don't want to justify your price with your effort.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, that took me 27 hours to clean.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't discuss price beforehand.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what to charge them.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I my eyes get really big.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you just put in 27 hours and you didn't discuss price.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Silence.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're like, seriously?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this isn't a joke on Shannon, ha ha ha.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it's if you're spending 27 hours, that means the scope of the job was not as described, or maybe it was, and you just allowed it and figured you'd work it out in the end.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many times I've spoken to somebody who didn't discuss price beforehand, didn't get a 50% deposit on day of booking, and then they got ghosted.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's I and that we go through it ebbs and flows.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right now we're going through another episode of you'll see them in the groups.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: I did this job and this person doesn't want to pay me now or has complaints and blah, blah, blah.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, didn't you do a walkthrough?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, Yeah.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, if you did a walkthrough, it's on them, right?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to have the contract in place.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: So business owners try to justify their prices by talking about how hard they work.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it can become habitual.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want to talk about how hard you want to work.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: When people say, Oh my God, how is business?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's fucking fantastic.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Don't say it like that.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what you have to think about in your mind because positiveness resonates with other positive beings, right?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: When you're negative, it puts people up front and they don't know what to do with you.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's backwards when you do it that way too.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: The price isn't based on how tired you are, it's based on the value you are creating.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's peace of mind, convenience, professionalism, consistency, discreetness.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: We could have so many podcast episodes on being discreet.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I it could actually be a novel.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's amazing to me how much we see that we don't say.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm laughing, I'm starting to turn red.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Trust, and that's what customers are paying for.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're being discreet, hopefully they're paying you for that too.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, it's like, oh let me get a glass of water here.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And here's a question for you if you doubled your prices tomorrow, would you also have to work twice as hard?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: This should be an easy one.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: No, you should not have to work twice as hard.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: You could actually have less clients.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, no.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And because your value and hours are not the same thing, right?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to be paid top dollar.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm all about not leaving money on the table.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: You guys will hear me say it all the time.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: As CEOs, we have to stop measuring success by exhaustion.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, ask yourself, how can I generate more value?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hence the mommy and me days, right?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: What problem am I solving?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: How can I make this easier on my customer?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of feeling are they getting when the cleaning tech is done?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Is it to their satisfaction?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about the really extreme clients who are asking for all these really interesting, detailed, like over-the-top things.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the McDonald's crowd.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are going to cater to them, that's totally fine.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure you're charging for it.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: How can you improve their experience?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: How can I create more value?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: How can I build systems that deliver consistent results?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that does take a lot of effort to get that out of your head and into an actual system.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, your systems will change.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you'll have a beginning, a really easy system, and then other times it'll be like as you grow and evolve, your system becomes more and more sophisticated and complicated.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then AI can kind of step in, and then AI can kind of step out.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: It just depends on where you're at in your business, right?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's CEO thinking.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's an important lesson for our teams as well.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: An employee might say, I've worked really hard today.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: When the customer asks, So, how's your day?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you're saying, I worked really hard today, and they'll be like, It took me a long time when people say, Oh my God, how are you?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm great.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: They're not really looking for, I worked really hard today.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're just looking for the common mutual greeting.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm great, how are you?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then it gives them an opportunity to talk about them because that's why you're there, right?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: For them.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: But it took me a long time.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: When I became an adult, I'm like, why?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: You people would just like say all kinds of things.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, wow, way more information than I wanted.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Did the customer feel cared for?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's something that you might want to consider when you have cleaning techs going to people's homes.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of cleaning techs who don't want to give you eye contact, who have to practice in front of the mirror to say hello and good morning because it's not something that has been something that they grew up with, right?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you guys always hear me reference the phones, right?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Did you communicate well?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Did you notice something that needed attention?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes when we're in clients' homes, the cleaning tech will be like, oh my God, you know that bathroom sink in the Jack and Joe bathroom is leaking on the right side.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Then you can just casually say, hey, we noticed that your kitchen sink was not kitchen sink, your bathroom sink was left on, that it's running, blah, blah, blah.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why you want to mention it is because what will happen is they'll get their water bill, it'll be 800 bucks.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: They'll be like, well, they never said anything, or they'll blame you, touched it last.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: So if you say at your last visit, we noticed that your bathroom sink was leaking a little, we just thought you should know, then it's not, it's not on you, right?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Did you create an experience that makes them excited to have us back?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is big, especially in the Disneyland world.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a Disney experience.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Are you creating experiences where people feel how great it is to have their house cleaned?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hard work matters, and the results from the hard work matter even more.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: So people aren't buying a clean house, they're buying more time, less stress, peace of mind, a home they're proud to invite friends to, a weekend that they don't have to spend cleaning, which is always nice.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Who doesn't want to not have to clean on the weekends?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: One last thing on an already overwhelming to-do list.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what you're really selling.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Never forget that.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're selling people time and trust and how they feel.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I want you to remember: work hard.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Be proud of your work, build something meaningful.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Don't confuse your effort with your value.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Customers don't reward you because you struggled.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: They don't really, it's not, it's not on the radar.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: They reward you because you made their life better.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, people don't pay for your struggle, they pay for your solution.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And one more, your customers aren't grading your effort, they're grading their experience.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: How do they feel when your cleaning text have left their home?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you can remember these two sentences, they'll change the way you think about your business.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think the paper's stuck.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Cleaning Business Life.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: If this episode made you think a little bit differently, and I'm hoping it does, I'd love for you to share it with another cleaning business owner who needs to hear it.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep building a business, keep building a business that gives you freedom, more choices in a life that you actually want to participate in.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.