Latest / Cleaning Business Life / Every Business Has a Comforter Problem (And It's Not About Bedding) Ep. 216
Transcript
- 0:58SPEAKER_00: One.
- 0:59SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone.
- 1:01SPEAKER_00: This is Shannon Miller with Cleaning Business Life.
- 1:03SPEAKER_00: And today we're going to talk about something that is essential, especially if you do a lot of turnovers for short-term rentals.
- 1:12SPEAKER_00: There always is the debate over comforter or no comforter, laundry, no laundry, what happens, what doesn't happen.
- 1:20SPEAKER_00: And I was scrolling through Facebook and I saw an actual post from somebody.
- 1:24SPEAKER_00: It was an owner, it was an owner-to-owner Facebook group.
- 1:28SPEAKER_00: I don't remember the name of it, but they were asking, like, what was your betting system?
- 1:33SPEAKER_00: And there were over 70 comments.
- 1:35SPEAKER_00: And I was like, this would make an interesting podcast.
- 1:37SPEAKER_00: So here we are.
- 1:39SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to bring to the attention that you have to have a strategy when it comes to betting.
- 1:46SPEAKER_00: Some people like to have big fluffy comforters, which are very luxurious, but then there's the ick factor, right?
- 1:54SPEAKER_00: When was the last time it was washed?
- 1:57SPEAKER_00: Right?
- 1:57SPEAKER_00: People like us start to think that way.
- 1:59SPEAKER_00: And you guys are out there listening, you know what I'm talking about, right?
- 2:03SPEAKER_00: It's just that whole like dynamic of, I really like this.
- 2:07SPEAKER_00: This is very luxurious.
- 2:08SPEAKER_00: But then when was last time it was washed?
- 2:10SPEAKER_00: We we all do it.
- 2:11SPEAKER_00: We go to the bathrooms and we like look at the bathrooms.
- 2:13SPEAKER_00: How many of us inspect bathrooms when we're in there, right?
- 2:16SPEAKER_00: And you tell your, if you have littles with you, don't touch anything, don't sit on the ground, don't touch anything.
- 2:22SPEAKER_00: But some people like the comforters, some people like duvets.
- 2:24SPEAKER_00: For those of you who do not know what a duvet is, it's like a gigantic pillowcase, usually made out of cotton.
- 2:31SPEAKER_00: Some duvets have snaps, other duvets have buttons, some have ties.
- 2:36SPEAKER_00: We actually have a client that prefers to have the little ties tied in a bow.
- 2:41SPEAKER_00: We never do it because we're not that accommodating because we're too busy, right?
- 2:46SPEAKER_00: And it's it's nice in theory because when she does the turnover herself, she puts the bows in.
- 2:52SPEAKER_00: Definitely can tell the difference between when we do it versus when she does it.
- 2:56SPEAKER_00: And I get it, that there's a lot of carry maintenance, and I always talk about McDonald's.
- 3:00SPEAKER_00: You have to, it has to be scalable.
- 3:02SPEAKER_00: So some people don't actually know how to tie a bow, believe it or not, and other people do.
- 3:06SPEAKER_00: And we just rather than have a complication into the whole process of already in a short time frame, we're not adding on tying the tie inside of the duvet.
- 3:16SPEAKER_00: So they weren't really talking about bedding, they were talking about the system of what kind of bedding they were using.
- 3:23SPEAKER_00: So there's the big fluffy comforter, there's the that's cotton, there's the down comforter, there's the duvet, there's a duvet with a down comforter, there's a duvet with just a quilt inside, there's a duvet with a heavier blanket.
- 3:36SPEAKER_00: I mean, there were a lot of options.
- 3:38SPEAKER_00: I was really surprised.
- 3:41SPEAKER_00: And it's really nice when you have it.
- 3:44SPEAKER_00: I would like to believe that when you go to a hotel, and this may not be true, and it very well could, it just depends on the hotel you're staying at.
- 3:52SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about motel, I'm talking about hotel.
- 3:55SPEAKER_00: And when you go and you're staying in a room and it's a king-size bed, and you plop down on the bed and you just like kind of sink in, and the the comforter kind of like makes a more luxurious feel.
- 4:06SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the direction a lot of owners are going in when they have a short-term rental.
- 4:11SPEAKER_00: So you have to kind of decide which system is going to work best for you.
- 4:14SPEAKER_00: So as I was scrolling, it was getting more and more interesting.
- 4:19SPEAKER_00: Some people hated changing the duvet.
- 4:22SPEAKER_00: We, I think there's a video floating around of me changing a duvet cover when COVID was happening.
- 4:27SPEAKER_00: Oprah was out there doing the duvet cover because she couldn't, you know, per six six feet, right?
- 4:32SPEAKER_00: Couldn't have anybody over.
- 4:33SPEAKER_00: So her maid couldn't come over, her housekeeper, whoever it was.
- 4:37SPEAKER_00: So she was doing a video of her changing duvet, and I was like, I wonder how fast it would take me.
- 4:42SPEAKER_00: So I did a video, I don't remember where it is.
- 4:45SPEAKER_00: It's out there on the internet somewhere of me changing duvet, and I was like, I was faster than Oprah, right?
- 4:51SPEAKER_00: So it does, it comes down to time, right?
- 4:54SPEAKER_00: You're you're setting an expectation because you're selling blocks of time because you're selling the outcome of the service.
- 5:00SPEAKER_00: Yes, you're selling a service, and yes, there's production rates, and yes, there's an hourly spectrum, but you're selling the outcome of that service.
- 5:08SPEAKER_00: And then some hosts are like, well, we have everything done off site.
- 5:11SPEAKER_00: And if you're doing a lot of turns and you have a good deal with a laundromat, that might be a beneficial thing for you.
- 5:17SPEAKER_00: A lot of times short-term rentals are out in the boondocks in the middle of nowhere.
- 5:21SPEAKER_00: So bringing laundry offsite is gonna be like wild, right?
- 5:26SPEAKER_00: There is the mirror house.
- 5:27SPEAKER_00: I believe that is in 29 palms.
- 5:31SPEAKER_00: I would think, and I've actually never been to the property, but I would think that it would have to have laundry on site because it's in the middle of nowhere next to a mountain, right?
- 5:39SPEAKER_00: There's no trees, it's just you it blends into the landscape, right?
- 5:43SPEAKER_00: So I would imagine having some instances you probably could have off-site laundry.
- 5:47SPEAKER_00: I know several people here in my town and down in Phoenix who do off-site laundry.
- 5:53SPEAKER_00: If it works for your system, then do it.
- 5:55SPEAKER_00: If it doesn't, then you're gonna have to come up with different options.
- 5:59SPEAKER_00: But off-site laundry comes with inventory, right?
- 6:02SPEAKER_00: And and tagging and organizing and you know, all of the stuff that goes along with it.
- 6:07SPEAKER_00: So every solution that you create creates also another set of problems.
- 6:12SPEAKER_00: And that's just the way business goes.
- 6:18SPEAKER_00: And then I noticed something even more interesting as I was scrolling along.
- 6:22SPEAKER_00: Larger operators weren't talking about the bedding per se.
- 6:26SPEAKER_00: They were they were talking about the systems that went into the bedding.
- 6:29SPEAKER_00: So some people required their guests to pull the bedding off, but leave the comforter on the bed.
- 6:35SPEAKER_00: Other people wanted all of the bedding off and then the duvet separated.
- 6:39SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of like chores, is what people called them.
- 6:42SPEAKER_00: I was like, I don't know how, I mean, this could be a whole nother episode, how many chores you can give someone for staying in your house if you're charging a thousand dollars a night, right?
- 6:52SPEAKER_00: There's a there's a threshold of chores.
- 6:55SPEAKER_00: And they said things like, we keep we keep four complete par levels of every single thing for each bed, which is a lot of linen.
- 7:02SPEAKER_00: So someone's gonna have to manage that linen closet, right?
- 7:05SPEAKER_00: I've seen linen closets with bands.
- 7:07SPEAKER_00: It says queen, king, twin.
- 7:10SPEAKER_00: We I think most everybody now uses a mattress protector and it has the zip-off top.
- 7:17SPEAKER_00: We actually just got some for the house here, and they're way because we change them every year.
- 7:23SPEAKER_00: Just because things happen dogs, cats, kids, birds, everybody.
- 7:29SPEAKER_00: Those things.
- 7:30SPEAKER_00: So they need to be washed.
- 7:31SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm really kind of anal about that.
- 7:33SPEAKER_00: So I I've bought new ones and they zip off the top.
- 7:36SPEAKER_00: Totally love them.
- 7:37SPEAKER_00: And it that was easy.
- 7:38SPEAKER_00: Now, obviously, that could be a service that you wanted to add, but sometimes mattresses are really heavy, especially if they're older.
- 7:44SPEAKER_00: So that might not be something that you could execute.
- 7:46SPEAKER_00: You'd have to think about.
- 7:49SPEAKER_00: So some people even had double washers, some people had a set of washers up top and then a set of washers on the bottom.
- 7:56SPEAKER_00: Then there's the stipulation between gas and electric.
- 7:59SPEAKER_00: If you're on propane, that's going to be really expensive versus natural gas or even electric can be really expensive.
- 8:06SPEAKER_00: And then other people have a delivered linen service, which was interesting to see because I didn't think that we delivered any linens in my town.
- 8:16SPEAKER_00: So, and then then there is also the the quality assurance process.
- 8:21SPEAKER_00: So, a lot of, in case you guys don't know, a lot of operators are switching more to guest satisfaction because customer service is non-existent.
- 8:31SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times how we have customer service is you have to complain on Google and they may or may not respond, right?
- 8:39SPEAKER_00: It's just the way it works.
- 8:41SPEAKER_00: There's no more Nordstrom's customer service.
- 8:45SPEAKER_00: Like when I worked at Nordstrom's, I got a postcard, it was 11 by 17.
- 8:48SPEAKER_00: It says, welcome to Nordstrom's.
- 8:50SPEAKER_00: And on the back it says, Do your best, make your use your best judgment.
- 8:53SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's that way today, but that's what it was like when I worked at Nordstrom's.
- 8:58SPEAKER_00: And then I started to notice the language, the language started to change.
- 9:02SPEAKER_00: So if you were a large operator versus a small operator, and they weren't saying I like, they were saying our system.
- 9:09SPEAKER_00: And that makes it a group effort.
- 9:11SPEAKER_00: It's not just me and myself and I.
- 9:13SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make it singular, even though when you say me, myself, and I, it, you know, it's that whole like, are you talking about one person?
- 9:20SPEAKER_00: Are you talking about three people?
- 9:21SPEAKER_00: We won't even philosophize that right now.
- 9:24SPEAKER_00: So that and that's a completely different mindset.
- 9:28SPEAKER_00: But my biggest takeaway was I think quilts look nicer.
- 9:32SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
- 9:33SPEAKER_00: I think quilts do look nicer, but we live a mile in the sky, just like Colorado.
- 9:38SPEAKER_00: I think Colorado's actually higher than us.
- 9:41SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the people who come down are from Phoenix.
- 9:45SPEAKER_00: So they're not used to the altitude, they're not used to like we wear shorts until November.
- 9:51SPEAKER_00: Sometimes December, depending on the year.
- 9:54SPEAKER_00: So not everyone's from Phoenix is gonna wear shorts in November, December.
- 9:58SPEAKER_00: They're gonna think we're whacked, right?
- 10:00SPEAKER_00: It says I love a cozy bed, I hate Duvet.
- 10:02SPEAKER_00: Larger operators were like, what scales?
- 10:05SPEAKER_00: What reduces labor?
- 10:07SPEAKER_00: What shortens turnovers?
- 10:09SPEAKER_00: They're always looking to shorten the turnover, what creates consistency?
- 10:13SPEAKER_00: And that that really is CEO thinking.
- 10:16SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, wow, all of this over beds, right?
- 10:19SPEAKER_00: Bed spreads.
- 10:20SPEAKER_00: And as your business grows, your personal preferences become less important than operational efficiency.
- 10:28SPEAKER_00: I think operational efficiency gets you to a certain point, but personal preferences and what works best for you and your crew is of the utmost importance.
- 10:38SPEAKER_00: And one comment that really stood out was duvet covers take me two minutes.
- 10:44SPEAKER_00: And that is a training system.
- 10:46SPEAKER_00: Not everybody can train someone to do a duvet cover in two minutes.
- 10:52SPEAKER_00: Think back to me in Oprah in the video.
- 10:56SPEAKER_00: If you guys find it, message me.
- 10:58SPEAKER_00: I totally want to see it.
- 10:59SPEAKER_00: Another person said they take 20.
- 11:01SPEAKER_00: Same duvet, same task.
- 11:03SPEAKER_00: So it just depends on how they're trained.
- 11:05SPEAKER_00: And you know, there is a shortcut on doing duvets.
- 11:08SPEAKER_00: You have to have them inside out.
- 11:10SPEAKER_00: You grab the corners, you shake, and then it brings it up, and then you shake again.
- 11:14SPEAKER_00: It's a whole, it's a learned, it's a learned skill.
- 11:17SPEAKER_00: Let's just put it that way.
- 11:19SPEAKER_00: So that's not about betting, and it really does come down to training.
- 11:24SPEAKER_00: And I was just amazed that they just kept scrolling and scrolling and making more and more comments.
- 11:30SPEAKER_00: And really, it comes down to repetition.
- 11:32SPEAKER_00: So your first one may very well take you 20 minutes, but the second one may take you 12 minutes, and then the third one might take you 10 minutes, and then the fifth one might be seven minutes.
- 11:41SPEAKER_00: And it's always, you know, hey, hey, hey, I used to tease, just beat the clock, let's beat the clock.
- 11:45SPEAKER_00: And that's about having the standardized process.
- 11:50SPEAKER_00: The system was how many times have you seen this in the clean industry?
- 11:53SPEAKER_00: People were arguing over backpack vacuums, flat mops versus round ring mops, or rag mops, or microfiber mops.
- 12:01SPEAKER_00: There's a couple of you guys heard diehards about the the cedar mop.
- 12:06SPEAKER_00: And then there was the mop company that went out of town, which was really unfortunate.
- 12:11SPEAKER_00: But the truth over time, the system matters more so than the tool.
- 12:16SPEAKER_00: So you have to think again, like McDonald's, is it scalable?
- 12:19SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna make everybody's life easier or is it gonna make it harder, right?
- 12:23SPEAKER_00: So if you don't own an Airbnb, don't tune out because this applies to every business and your comforter, maybe your comforter is the problem.
- 12:33SPEAKER_00: But scheduling, hiring, inventory, phone calls, payroll, CRM, route planning, training, every business has one small operational bottleneck that steals hours every single week.
- 12:49SPEAKER_00: So think about what your bottleneck is and work on getting rid of that bottleneck.
- 12:53SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, you're you're here to create a legacy that you can either gift or sell at a later date, right?
- 13:01SPEAKER_00: So the scary part is you've gotten used to the bottleneck too, and it's really hard because you don't see it until someone goes, Hey, this really sucks, right?
- 13:09SPEAKER_00: I I can't tell you, I spent 20 years in the restaurant industry.
- 13:13SPEAKER_00: There were good restaurants, they were viewing few, very few and hard far between.
- 13:18SPEAKER_00: They mostly had really awful managers.
- 13:20SPEAKER_00: Or there was like awful restaurants that were just total chaos.
- 13:26SPEAKER_00: Many of you have heard me talk about when I worked at the MGM and it sat 691 people, and they didn't set up anything, they didn't have enough plateware, they didn't have enough silverware.
- 13:37SPEAKER_00: It was a really huge restaurant, and they used to make me train people.
- 13:42SPEAKER_00: And I was not a nice person when I had to train.
- 13:44SPEAKER_00: I was, I don't know, 22.
- 13:46SPEAKER_00: And people would have anxiety attacks because you had to go to station number one to get the coffee cups, but the the saucers never made it over to station number one.
- 13:55SPEAKER_00: So you'd have to go to station number two first before you hit station number one.
- 13:58SPEAKER_00: Oh, and if you wanted a spoon, that's back in station number three.
- 14:02SPEAKER_00: It just was not set up.
- 14:03SPEAKER_00: And after arguing with them, you just learned either you adapted or you just left.
- 14:08SPEAKER_00: It's just so not every restaurant was run efficiently.
- 14:14SPEAKER_00: And what was even more interesting is no one talked about numbers, right?
- 14:18SPEAKER_00: Because owners aren't thinking about labor unless they're paying the labor themselves.
- 14:22SPEAKER_00: No one said, I saved 12 minutes, or this particular task reduced my labor by 20%.
- 14:32SPEAKER_00: Instead, people said, I like, I like this, I like that, I like this, please do it this way, please do it this way.
- 14:38SPEAKER_00: And CEOs make decisions based on data.
- 14:41SPEAKER_00: Data is super important.
- 14:44SPEAKER_00: I cannot emphasize that enough.
- 14:47SPEAKER_00: Anytime you do a one-time cleaning, I used to keep a sheet that told me how what the address was, what the square footage was, what on the dirt scale what it was, how many labor hours it took, and then ultimately how much I made off the job.
- 15:01SPEAKER_00: So I could break that down.
- 15:02SPEAKER_00: I had a reference, it was like over a thousand homes were in there at one point.
- 15:06SPEAKER_00: I obviously no longer do that.
- 15:07SPEAKER_00: That was like 10 years ago.
- 15:09SPEAKER_00: But that was the way I tracked.
- 15:10SPEAKER_00: So all that data was important.
- 15:12SPEAKER_00: So when I had another house that came up that was the same dirt code, I could just reference and say, this is what your price is going to be.
- 15:19SPEAKER_00: And it's, you know, imagine timing every bed in your operation.
- 15:25SPEAKER_00: That would be very tedious, right?
- 15:27SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I legitimately have three people that drive around all single day and all they do is make beds.
- 15:34SPEAKER_00: That's 15, 20 minutes tops or in and out.
- 15:37SPEAKER_00: It's way different in for a short-term rental, obviously, because short-term rental has a different expectation.
- 15:45SPEAKER_00: They have a hotel feel, right?
- 15:47SPEAKER_00: Where a homeowner has, don't squish my pillows, make sure my pillows are this, make sure the bed's folded halfway down, I don't like the sheet tucked.
- 15:56SPEAKER_00: There's all this, there's all these other nuances for homeowners, right?
- 16:00SPEAKER_00: Because that's some of these homeowners spend most of their time in bed.
- 16:03SPEAKER_00: So I get why there's this whole preference over the nuances of why didn't you make my bed the right way?
- 16:11SPEAKER_00: And you have to figure out what process works best for you and causes less complaints.
- 16:17SPEAKER_00: That's the most important thing.
- 16:20SPEAKER_00: And and chaos, you've heard me say it before, chaos is expensive.
- 16:24SPEAKER_00: The comforter isn't expensive.
- 16:26SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, they're not putting$400 comforters inside of a short-term rental.
- 16:30SPEAKER_00: And consistency in processes is lack of inventory, as I just mentioned, the MGM, extra load of laundry.
- 16:38SPEAKER_00: We actually have a for those of you listening, each cleaning comes with two to three loads max for the cleaning.
- 16:45SPEAKER_00: If anything that is required to do more than two to three loads, we charge extra by the load.
- 16:51SPEAKER_00: So if we have to off-site your laundry, we charge you a premium.
- 16:55SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the people who have full service laundromat, they have time to do a short turn and sometimes they don't.
- 17:02SPEAKER_00: So sometimes Shannon gets stuck with it.
- 17:04SPEAKER_00: That's why if you view a couple of the podcasts, I don't remember last month or month before last, you saw a big pile of laundry.
- 17:12SPEAKER_00: And that was because I couldn't get the laundry turned in enough time to get it before the people arrived.
- 17:18SPEAKER_00: So we were doing laundry for like two days around until 11 o'clock at night.
- 17:22SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh my God.
- 17:24SPEAKER_00: So you just, you just never know what kind of and is that scalable?
- 17:29SPEAKER_00: No, that's my that's my own bottleneck.
- 17:30SPEAKER_00: But I had no, I had no choice, right?
- 17:32SPEAKER_00: They there was a turn coming.
- 17:34SPEAKER_00: The laundromat couldn't do it.
- 17:36SPEAKER_00: I couldn't stand at the laundromat with two teenage kids, right?
- 17:40SPEAKER_00: Or preteen kids, I should say.
- 17:43SPEAKER_00: And so I didn't have anyone else that I could send over there because everyone was busy and full.
- 17:47SPEAKER_00: The holiday was coming.
- 17:48SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, right.
- 17:50SPEAKER_00: So those are those are some of the things that you can you can go through with some of the betting for the homes.
- 17:58SPEAKER_00: I think ultimately everyone decided that a quilt stuffed inside of a duvet was this the system, air quotes, that they were using for today.
- 18:08SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean that they'll use it next year, but that was seemed to be what was working in the industry now.
- 18:13SPEAKER_00: And here is my challenge for you for this week.
- 18:18SPEAKER_00: Start to think about what is my comforter problem.
- 18:23SPEAKER_00: What's one small process, one recurring frustration, one one, one just start small, one bottleneck that everyone has simply accepted.
- 18:36SPEAKER_00: Maybe it is like MGM and the saucers and kept in one location and the cups are kept in another and the spoons are in another.
- 18:45SPEAKER_00: But because chances are it doesn't need another employee, it doesn't need an app.
- 18:49SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't need to work harder for Christ's sakes.
- 18:51SPEAKER_00: We all work hard enough as it is.
- 18:53SPEAKER_00: We need a better system, right?
- 18:56SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the biggest breakthroughs in business don't come from making massive changes, they make small changes, and those small changes compound over time.
- 19:06SPEAKER_00: I've seen it in my own businesses and I've seen it happen in other people's businesses.
- 19:12SPEAKER_00: So don't be overwhelmed by, oh my God, I have to fix all this tonight.
- 19:16SPEAKER_00: If you just pick one thing and move the needle a little bit every single day, eventually you'll get there.
- 19:22SPEAKER_00: And it's hard because our society runs so fast.
- 19:25SPEAKER_00: We run at 110 miles an hour, and you're like, oh my God, I didn't get this thing, I didn't get these 52 items done, right?
- 19:33SPEAKER_00: So if this episode made you think differently about your own systems, share it with another business owner.
- 19:39SPEAKER_00: Because whether you clean homes, manage Airbnbs, or run a completely different company, every business has a comforter problem.
- 19:46SPEAKER_00: And have you found your problem yet?
- 19:52SPEAKER_00: And I have a suggestion for a podcast episode, and it is in here somewhere.
- 19:58SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna flip it over one more time.
- 20:00SPEAKER_00: There we go.
- 20:01SPEAKER_00: It just got stuck from the humidity.
- 20:04SPEAKER_00: My hair is almost as big as Bob Ross's.
- 20:07SPEAKER_00: There, if you want more on this topic, there's a couple of related episodes that you can re-listen to if you haven't, or listen to them for the first time.
- 20:16SPEAKER_00: Training day one, what training should look like on day one, episode 214, episode 210.
- 20:22SPEAKER_00: Culture starts at the top with Paul Guillermo.
- 20:25SPEAKER_00: That was a good interview.
- 20:26SPEAKER_00: I loved having him on.
- 20:28SPEAKER_00: And then episode 213 interview, red flags.
- 20:32SPEAKER_00: There's some green flags in there too.
- 20:35SPEAKER_00: If this episode has brought you value, please consider following the podcast, leaving a review, sharing it with another business owner.
- 20:44SPEAKER_00: These three three simple actions help tell the algorithm that we're worthy, and then we can keep on growing.
- 20:50SPEAKER_00: I look forward to listening to your comments, and I look forward to chatting with you.
- 20:56SPEAKER_00: And I feel blessed that you spent part of your day with me.
- 20:59SPEAKER_00: Again, take care.