Latest / Buying Local Podcast / Cleaning Robots Solving Labor Shortages | Buying Local S3E55

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Cleaning Robots Solving Labor Shortages | Buying Local S3E55 · Buying Local Podcast

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All right, welcome everyone to Blue Collar Start up, the
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podcast where hard work meets big ideas.
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This is your home for real talk, real stories and real strategies
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from the front lines of life in the business of the trades.
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I'm your host, or one of them I should say, Mike Nelson from 5
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Towers Media. And I'm your other host, Derek
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Foster of Daigle Cleaning Systems Care Clean of Saratoga.
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How you doing, Mike? I'm doing well, man.
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I'm doing well, you know, just fresh off of many hours of snow
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moving and shoveling and snow blowing with the, I don't know,
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almost for the snow that we got over here in Saratoga County.
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Yeah, I, I heard and, and we where I, where I was, we didn't
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end up with any. And I was in the snow belt
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yesterday and making the trip back and I was waiting for a
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huge snowstorm but didn't see any.
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And then I hear, you know, Saratoga, you guys got hit
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pretty good so. We got crushed.
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Winter's here early. Yeah, we got crushed.
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I still got, I've got a roof that the the snow does not shed
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off of the the roof. I got to go out and shovel it
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and it's it's easily over foot because I didn't touch it after
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the last storm. You got one of those roof Rakes.
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No, no, no, I well, I shouldn't say that I have one.
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It doesn't do shit. It like the angle of where
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you're at in the ground versus where the roof is, the length of
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the roof, rake the whole thing. Like you can get like the top 2
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inches, but as soon as you need to like really get some snow off
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it, it doesn't work. So I got to go up there with a
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shovel. I pitched the snow off the roof
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onto the ground. Then I got to come back through
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and shovel and snow blow to get it off the the patio.
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It's it's a pain in the ass. Well, if I can give you some
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advice it would be don't fall. Good advice.
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Wear. Wear harness right, tie off.
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I actually fell on the roof 'cause it's a a seamed metal
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roof, so like once even. Worse.
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Oh, once you get underneath the snow, man, it is it is so slick.
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And last year I knew it was going to happen eventually.
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And I like, you know, did the whole thing where you're up in
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the air and you come down and like right, the one of the seams
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in the roof, like right into my arm.
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And I was like, Oh my God, I just broke my arm.
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I, I, it hurts so bad. I thought I broke my arm, but no
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breakage, just a, a nice bruise. And hopefully I don't do that
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again, but. Yeah, yeah.
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Don't about you, man. You're, you're, are you kind of
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fresh back from vacation? Yeah, we, we decided to, to pack
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up and go away for the holiday Thanksgiving.
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And it was it was nice, but still playing catch up.
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And it's good to be back too. You know, it's always nice to to
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come home so. You know, isn't that the worst
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about being? And this is for anyone
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considering owner business ownership.
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Vacations are the worst. And like you, you have to like
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triple the work you do before you go on vacation so you can
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enjoy the vacation. And then when you get back, you
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got to dig out. It's like you, you got to again,
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you got to triple your work effort for the week or two after
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you get back. It's there's such a cost to
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going on vacation. I did a yeah, I did a lot of the
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work up front this time just because I did want to, you know,
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spend as much time as I could, you know, with the kids and and
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whatnot. But I still stay on, on my
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e-mail couple times a day, you know, making sure that things
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are going well, people are communicating and, and we're
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getting done what we need to, you know, it, it never really
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goes away. And honestly, I'm able to stay
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on top of things. So if a customer or client needs
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something, we can get right on it.
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You know, I'd rather do that then come back to, you know,
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seeing things that might have slipped through and, and I'm
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just, it's my mentality. That's how I've I've always
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been. So I stay caught up and it's not
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as bad when you get back, but you know, there's still
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definitely enough to do get back to where I was.
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So obviously that we're not talking about vacations, but I
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know today's show, we're going to talk.
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You know, we had we had a guest on a few weeks back talking
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about robotics in robotics in the trades.
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And you know, we wanted to kind of do a follow up episode and
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bring you on and talk about it because you have implemented
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some of these solutions in your company.
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And so I want to get into that. But before we do for some of our
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newer listeners, I thought maybe what we should do first D is
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kind of backup and just kind of give them a quick overview of
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who you are Daigle cleaning systems and and then and then
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we'll get into the robotics side.
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Yeah, absolutely. So I've owned in and operated
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Daigo Cleaning Systems with my mother Michelle, since 2011.
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We've grown over the the course of time.
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And if anybody wants to hear the full story, jump on the Blue
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Collar Podcast and take a listen.
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You know, it's been a really fun journey.
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I love the industry. I love working with people.
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I love seeing people grow and develop, you know, through the
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organization. We work with a ton of wonderful
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clients and you know, it's really, we have a lot of fun
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doing it. We provide complete building
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cleaning services, window cleaning, carpets, floor care,
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post construction cleaning services.
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Really we're problem solvers in the the world of cleaning is how
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we like to look at it. So if a customer comes to us
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with a an issue or, or needs something fixed or a solution
5:33
put in place, we can typically find the answer.
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And, and we don't like to say no.
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So you know that that's really what we do.
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You know, we are starting to get into some different verticals
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within the industry. We started a kitchen exhaustive
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cleaning portion of our our business a couple years ago.
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That's been going really well. We've we've grown quite a bit on
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that end. We serve as restaurants and
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maintain their exhaustive cleaning compliance for the
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jurisdictions locally. And that's been a lot of fun as
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well. Something new, different,
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exciting, but still within the same realm of what we're doing,
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you know, and we're, we're always looking for ways to
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improve our services, to offer new services that benefit our
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current customers and better ways to do things.
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So, you know, that kind of ties into the robotics portion of it.
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Mike, that that you brought up and you know, Bob Caldarella,
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who was, who was on the show, I've known him for a while now
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and I've learned a lot from him. He is an expert when it comes to
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robotics and implementating implementating them not so much
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back of house, but now in front of house operations for
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businesses of all shapes and sizes.
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So, you know, back of house, traditionally you would look at
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a production line or you know, even back of house in a
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hospital. They've been using robots for a
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number of years to perform surgeries and complete different
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tasks than a a hospital setting, right?
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But now the shift is starting to move to where these robots are
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so sophisticated that they can actually work alongside
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employees and be a compliment to their current job role.
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And they're also customer facing because they're they can be in
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the waiting rooms, they can be at the front of the restaurant,
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they can be in the lobby of a building vacuuming a floor.
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So you're starting to see the progression in that industry.
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And you know, I've learned a ton from Bob and, you know, his team
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at at Clear Focus. And we've implemented a number
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of those robots into some of our facilities for for customers who
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it was a good solution for. Again, we're always looking for
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ways to improve what we're doing, ways to ultimately reduce
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the operating costs, be able to save our customers some money
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while delivering a better result.
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And it's been a key part of what we've been doing for the last
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year and a half. So yeah.
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So I've got a couple questions on the robots I want to back up
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real quick. You know, I know you've been in
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business since 2011 and I think was it 4 years ago that you
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bought another cleaning company in the area?
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It was not the ideal time. It was during COVID.
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I want to say 2021-2022 right in that time.
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Yeah, somewhere around there it was.
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It was mostly when we around the time we started the podcast,
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like it was a little bit before that, but yeah, so and it's it's
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care cleaner Saratoga. Yeah.
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So we, I was introduced actually through a a customer of ours to
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one of their clients. And, you know, she was, had been
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in the industry for a period of time and was looking to, to do
9:03
some different things, had a couple other business ventures
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going on that you wanted to get involved with.
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And, you know, we met and we actually ended up taking over
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her staff and, and book a business and allowing her to be
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able to retire. And, you know, that was the the
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first time that I had ever done something like that.
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So completely outside my wheelhouse.
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I kind of learned as as I went, but you know, we were, we were
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able to work together and do what was best for the customers
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and, and her employees. And you know, it worked for
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everybody. So worked out good.
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And you know, we rebranded the, the original company was Care
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Clean. So we just added Care Clean
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Saratoga and you know, we brought that and added it to our
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brands. Seeing as we do service
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Saratoga, we do a lot of work north of the Twin Bridges from
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you know, Clifton Park all the way up north to Warrensburg.
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So we are, you know, expanding in those areas.
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A lot of people think because we're based out of Albany that,
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you know, that's our our main market, but we cover the entire
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Capital Region. I know I want to excuse me, I
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want to do a separate, entire separate episode with you
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talking about the acquisition itself.
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I think that that's a really interesting topic and for
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companies that are out there in the trades that are looking for
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expansion ideas, you know, obviously you can grow through
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new client acquisition, but you can also grow through buying
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other businesses and adding them to your portfolio.
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And I, I want to spend some time on that, but obviously today
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we're talking about robots. Yeah, absolutely.
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But you know, I, I, I just wanted to touch on that before
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we move back to robots, though. What, when you integrated Care
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Clean of Saratoga into Daigle Cleaning Systems, did that
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'cause you're what, you're 200 employees right now?
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Yeah. Now we're we're right around
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that 200 mark a little bit over. And did that, like did it, did
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it give a big boost to the employee count or was it?
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Not, not really, you know, with that one that that was, you
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know, we ended up with probably 1010 new staff members some full
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time, some part time. You know, again, I, I mentioned
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earlier, I love watching people grow and we actually have our,
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our director of operations now, Jamie, Jamie Crown.
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She'll, she'll be embarrassed that I'm mentioning her name
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here, but we should really get her on the on the show as well
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at some point. She's been an integral part of
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helping us grow over the years and she's grown a lot
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personally, you know, and has done the work to get to the next
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level. She started off and came on
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board with us from that that deal where she was technician
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and was cleaning post construction houses.
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And you know, I saw that she had some basic skills that could be
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developed and now she's our director of operations.
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You know, you Fast forward four years and you know, it's
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incredible to watch the growth of people when they have the
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opportunity in front of them. You know, you know, as much as
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as much as anybody, you can put the opportunities out in front
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of people all day long, but at the end of the day, it's up to
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them to seize the opportunity, put the time in, put the effort
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in. Just like anything in life, if
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you want to be successful, you have to work hard at it, put
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yourself in a position to be successful and do the work.
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And she's done it. So you know, again from from
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that standpoint it was you know very valuable the employees that
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that we did bring on. Yeah, amazing.
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Yep. All right.
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Well, thanks for letting me go off on that tangent.
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I just wanted to make sure I asked about Care Clean and
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again, I want to do a whole episode just on at business
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acquisition and what that looks like.
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I'd love to hear about your experience going through that,
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especially for the first time. So you were mentioning the
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robots and one that really popped in my brain was you're
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talking about hospitals and waiting rooms and having robots
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being able to be like around people, like in a waiting room
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or whatever. Just tell me how that works.
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Like you got people walking through a waiting room.
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You got this little robot scooting around.
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Like how does that not like run into people or or commute
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safely? We could do a whole, I could
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talk for days on this, but so real, real high level the the
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robots are there. There's a couple different
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things. They will do exactly what you
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tell them to do. So it's not like you take it
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out-of-the-box. The robot just goes and does its
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thing. It doesn't work that way.
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So there's there's human interaction with the robot.
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And you know, what we've done on our end is created a position
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within our company where, you know, we have somebody who's a
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robotics expert and we train them and, and we give them the
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tools that they need. They have to do the work again,
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back to that, But they learn, they learn how the robots
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operate. They they learn what needs to be
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done. But Long story short, you take
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the robot out-of-the-box and then you tell it what to do.
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And they are very literal. So they will do exactly what you
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tell them to do when you tell them to do it.
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And the memory on the robot. So picture a full computer,
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touchscreen tablet computer built into the robot.
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And that's exactly where the technology is today.
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A few years ago that wasn't there.
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Now the interface on these is so complex and so well developed
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that, you know, in our world we create a full map of whatever
14:59
building or facility is there. Terry Hubbard from Peak
15:03
Environmental, he talked a little bit about it with the
15:05
lawn care robots. They run off of a satellite.
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So you know, the satellite, it it shoots up a signal to the
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satellite generates a map of the area based on the cameras of the
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robot, similar concept indoors. What you need to do is select
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your starting point. So you scan AQR code essentially
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wherever you want that point to be.
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And then you move the robot throughout the space and it
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generates a map with Lidar technology.
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So it'll shoot out, you know, Lidar and sound waves and
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develop that map. Once you have a map developed,
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you then whatever area or task you want it to do, you create
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that, in our case, a cleaning area, right?
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So you actually physically can draw that on the touch screen
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and you create that box, you add any fall zones, any specific
16:00
things that need to be blocked off or areas that may may not be
16:05
needed to be done. And you create that cleaning
16:09
area. You put a task to it.
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So the robots that we have, his name is Scrubby, by the way, are
16:15
four in one, are four in one. I didn't come up with a name.
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It is it is trademark though by the manufacturer.
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But we, you know, you, you program them and you have the
16:30
starting point, you create the map, you select a task.
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So the four in one robot, it sweeps damp mops and auto scrubs
16:36
floors and, you know, vacuums carpet as well as scrubs, tile
16:40
and grout. So it'll actually perform four
16:42
different functions. So once you have your area
16:45
mapped out, then you select whatever function you want it to
16:47
do in that area. It saves all of this on its own
16:51
internal memory, but it can also be uploaded into the cloud, you
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know, via Wi-Fi. So the robots run off the Wi-Fi
16:59
indoors or they can run off a mobile hotspot, whatever the
17:02
setup is. And then you're set.
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You can schedule a time for it to go out and do that task in
17:07
that area. You can schedule multiple
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different tasks to be done in different areas.
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And really you just, you work with the robot to customize it
17:17
up front to what you need it to do and it will do exactly that.
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No more, no less. The functionality is incredible.
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So, you know, we, we did a demo for a, a potential large
17:33
customer in the healthcare space the last couple days and they
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were like, yeah, we're, we're a little concerned about salt in
17:42
our entryways. And we said, OK, it happened to
17:45
be snowing, so there's salt all over the sidewalk.
17:47
So we said, OK, we'll go out and we'll manually vacuum it with,
17:49
with the robot. And we picked up two trays of
17:55
salt that was embedded in the carpet that a normal vacuum
18:00
wouldn't pick up. So the functionality of the
18:03
machines is just as good as the technology.
18:07
You know, HEPA filters, solid components.
18:10
I mean, it's they're really, really well built machines and
18:16
it's all there now. You know, a few years ago, it
18:18
probably wasn't all there, but it's gotten to the point that
18:22
the technology can save real labor and fill a lot of gaps
18:27
where, you know, facilities might be lacking, you know, due
18:32
to labor shortages or just due to other time constraints,
18:36
certain areas not being able to be accessed by a human at
18:39
certain points. You put a robot there and guess
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what? That's automated.
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So there's a number of different things.
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And for us that we found, you know, not every facility is a
18:48
good fit. You know, you have to have large
18:50
open areas. It doesn't completely replace
18:53
the human. I don't think it ever will in
18:57
our industry. They are developing a robot to
18:59
clean bathrooms, but it's not quite there yet.
19:02
Yeah. So again, there's that human
19:06
robot interaction and working it into the, into the program to
19:10
say, OK, well, the robot's going to take care of all of the stuff
19:12
that can be automated. But we still need a human to
19:15
vacuum under the desks, to vacuum under the chairs, to take
19:19
care of the high dusting, to take care of the spot glass
19:21
cleaning, right? There's so many different things
19:23
that happened within a facility. You plug it in where you can,
19:26
you automate what you can, and then the rest is supplemented by
19:29
human labor. You know, they there's robots
19:33
for parking garages, for sweeping parking lots,
19:36
warehouses. There's one for secure delivery.
19:39
There's a wheeled out meat product that's out there that'll
19:43
do heavy lift and will carry carts and transport materials
19:48
and supplies from one end of a warehouse or a healthcare
19:52
facility to another without a human touching it.
19:55
It knows where to go. It's programmed, it goes.
19:58
And I mean, you know, some of these employees are walking
20:02
hundreds of miles a week. Oh yeah.
20:05
Right. And that and the long run it
20:08
wears out. The employee could become a comp
20:10
case. You know, there's a number of
20:11
things that you know the robots will save in the long run and
20:17
allow the humans to do the work that requires thinking.
20:21
If that makes. Sense no, it does it.
20:23
It actually reminds me of the conversation with Terry that we
20:26
had with the Mobots where he was saying that rather than worrying
20:31
about his team members doing a lot of the just the mow and go
20:35
type work, it allowed his team members to focus on more
20:38
detailed stuff more like, to your point, more thinking work,
20:42
right, Like the, the landscaping and the, you know, mulching and
20:46
whatever's going on, right. So it it kind of sounds same
20:49
thing for you. Is it the scrubby is handling a
20:55
lot of the, you know, no mopping the floor, right?
21:03
So scrubby's mopping the floor for you while your team gets to
21:05
go. Then focus on the detail work.
21:07
I would have to it. It's going to increase their
21:10
time of production because now they don't have to worry about
21:13
doing that whole work. It's happening at the same time.
21:15
So now you're less invasive with your clients because you're
21:18
there for a shorter amount, shorter amount of time.
21:22
So to go back to your question about wouldn't they run into
21:25
people? So all of the robots are built
21:28
with cameras 360° around at least the ones that you know,
21:33
we, we work with. And I have yet to even see them
21:39
come close to hitting anybody. They're settings built in that
21:43
will detect motion or an object 5 to 10 feet in front of them.
21:50
And they'll actually, you can choose for whether you want the
21:53
robot to stop and divert, to gradually divert and go around
21:59
the obstacle or just stop completely.
22:03
You know, you have that choice as the operator.
22:07
It'll document in its memory that exact spot in the map where
22:12
it had to divert, and it will go back and clean that spot when
22:15
it's clear. Really.
22:17
It will. Yeah.
22:18
So what I, that's what I mean by the, the functionality of these
22:23
being so sophisticated at this point.
22:26
And we've had at, at different conference, we did the
22:29
healthcare conference a few few months ago, We had our
22:32
ultraviolet disinfection robot in the booth with Scrubby and we
22:39
programmed Scrubby to have a cleaning area and we just let
22:41
Violet run around and you know, move around and however it
22:45
wanted to. They never hit in a 10 by 10 by
22:50
10 area. They came close, but they never,
22:53
never would touch each other. Interesting.
22:56
It was very impressive. It is.
23:00
And for us, you know, I, I really like this the the
23:05
technology aspect of it and figuring out how we can deliver
23:10
for our customers and move them into the future.
23:14
That's exciting to me. So if we we have the ability now
23:18
to even facilities with their own EVs staff or their own
23:22
janitorial programs, we can go in, take a look and help them
23:27
figure that out. So now we have the ability to
23:32
help not only the customers that our traditional services were a
23:36
good fit for, but now we have the ability to help folks who
23:40
had a different solution put in place, you know, and work with
23:44
them to help institute that within their own program.
23:47
So it's really opened a lot of doors for us over the past year
23:50
or so. Yeah, I know.
23:52
Well it's, it's I know you and I've had obviously had
23:54
conversations about this stuff. And you know, I thought one of
23:57
the interesting things about this was and exactly what you're
24:01
talking about is even if, well, I should back up a little bit
24:05
previously before you implementing the solution in
24:08
your business, if you went to a company that already had their
24:11
own in house maintenance staff, they're going to be like, yeah,
24:14
we have our own, we do it in house.
24:16
We don't need you, right? And now the door's shut and
24:18
there's no no business relationship there.
24:21
But this gives you the opportunity to say, Hey, I'm not
24:24
here to replace your staff. We're going to augment what
24:26
they're doing to make them be able to focus on detail work
24:30
while Scrubby and Violet handle these things.
24:33
And I just thought that was really cool.
24:34
Or in the case where someone is having trouble staffing their
24:39
maintenance department or their janitorial department, right.
24:42
And you can go in and either support them with your humans
24:45
and your robots or just augment them with robots.
24:48
And now that staffing problem is solved.
24:50
So it's, it sounds really wild, man.
24:52
Like what A. Yeah, we could be a resource.
24:55
And you know, again, I, I love talking about this stuff.
24:57
So if anybody does want to reach out and, and have a
24:59
conversation, see if see if robots are right for your
25:02
facility, I mean, happy to talk to anybody about it, but it
25:06
really is a good way to solve a lot of problems quickly and with
25:10
intention. And yes, there's a cost to the
25:13
robots, the return and the value that we see it's paid back in
25:19
6-7 months. So, you know, at the end of the
25:22
day, now you own an asset that is now producing and able to do,
25:29
let's say you know, you have a, a staff member who goes and
25:32
vacuums a carpet once a day. Well, now for a fixed cost, you
25:37
can go and vacuum that carpet three times a day with zero
25:41
additional cost to your bottom line.
25:44
So it's just a a more efficient way to operate and it's
25:47
exciting, it really is. Yeah, I it, I mean, I'm not even
25:50
in janitorial, but it sounds really cool.
25:53
The I question I had for you is let's pretend I, you know, again
25:58
waiting room. Someone spills an iced tea like
26:02
can can you do like an on spot thing where you like trigger the
26:06
robot to go out and clean that? So you you could the new version
26:13
of Scrubby. The Scrubby Pro actually has
26:15
spot cleaning detection built into its AI platform.
26:20
OK, so as it goes and moves throughout a facility, it can
26:25
identify spots, spills and and stains, target them and clean
26:30
them. However, that area would need to
26:35
be programmed as part of that cleaning area that I mentioned
26:37
before. So there's two things you can
26:40
either, yes, have the the robot take care of that when it gets
26:43
to it. But if somebody spills an iced
26:45
tea on the the carpet, you know, most of our customers like, hey,
26:48
we got something going on here, can you get somebody over to
26:50
take care of it? And it's like, yeah, we're,
26:52
we're on it. So again, the traditional
26:56
method, you know, the robot's probably not ideal for that
26:59
right now. You can use the robot manually
27:03
as well to go over and use it as a machine to go machine scrub
27:07
that spot on your carpet, treat it and take care of it in the
27:11
moment. But you still need the human
27:12
behind it. Still need the human there, OK.
27:15
Sure. All right, so as humans are
27:17
safe, at least for a little while longer anyway.
27:19
Yeah, listen, I don't again it. There's always going to be the
27:24
critical thinking aspects of any job, right?
27:28
Are always going to be or the the areas that are difficult to
27:34
access or are not commonplace, repetitive mundane tasks.
27:39
There's always going to be the human element.
27:41
So at least in in our business, you know, I know it and I see it
27:48
as an opportunity for people, you know, who are interested,
27:53
you know, in robotics to really get involved and learn.
27:58
You know, there's a big learning curve.
27:59
I mean, we've been learning these machines for a couple
28:01
years now and are finally, and there's new things that we
28:04
discover every time we go out and try to solve a problem with
28:08
them, you know. Oh, I didn't know it could do
28:09
that. Well, there you go.
28:12
You know, and it's so there is a long learning curve and anybody
28:16
that is interested, I would encourage them again, if you
28:19
want to reach out. I'm happy to have the
28:21
conversations. But you know, there is going to
28:23
be a big opportunity, I think, over the next few years for
28:27
people who know how to operate these robots.
28:32
I'm curious from, you know, for our listeners that maybe they
28:35
have a janitorial company, they're, they're thinking about
28:37
introducing this into the picture, but still trying to
28:40
figure out like where they would use it.
28:43
I, I guess along those lines, I actually have a couple of
28:46
questions #1 like what kind of business are you work?
28:55
No, we said healthcare. So like hospitals and you know,
28:57
your urgent care facility or whatever, what, what other kind
29:01
of buildings are you putting these things in?
29:05
Office buildings has been the latest.
29:07
It has to be the right fit. Again, depending on the amount
29:11
of open space and the ability to see a real labor savings or
29:17
reallocation of Labor. It's important so you know, you
29:20
can't just go through and stick a robot in any building and say,
29:23
OK, we're, you know, we're set, right?
29:25
There's a lot of strategic planning, There's a lot of
29:28
partnership with the customer to walk them through the process
29:33
and show them and get them to believe in the technology and
29:36
what's there. So it's not just, hey, here's
29:40
what we're doing it, it's really there's, there's got to be buy
29:43
in, you know, on the part of the customer as well.
29:46
And, and they got to have confidence, right.
29:48
So we, we try to walk them through the process as simply as
29:52
we can, show them the robots, show them other cases where,
29:57
hey, we've been, we've had a lot of success here with this and we
30:01
make it interactive for the customer.
30:04
It's not always the case. Not everybody has time for that.
30:07
But you know, I do recommend for anybody who is a facilities
30:11
manager or in facilities management or operations
30:14
management to start taking a look at some of this stuff
30:17
because it is going to become relevant very, very quickly.
30:22
And the only way to make an informed decision is to
30:24
understand how the technology works from a basic level and
30:29
just to look across your own horizon and see what's there and
30:33
where that could maybe eliminate some of the the sticking points
30:37
for your team. For, for listeners that maybe
30:41
have a janitorial company or, or, or maybe they're thinking
30:45
about starting one or whatever. Do you think that let's pretend
30:49
I've got a small residential cleaning company I want to get
30:52
into the commercial space and would would implementing the the
30:58
robotic solution help them to be able to perform there?
31:03
Or is there too much of a low learning curve do?
31:06
You, you're, you're talking about two different things.
31:07
So the, the residential cleaning side of the business, which
31:13
which we do, we have, you know, a lot of residential clients and
31:19
we, we go in, we'll clean their houses monthly by weekly,
31:22
weekly. Brittany, who's our, our local
31:25
franchisee, She's done a great job building her business and,
31:30
and working with our systems and processes.
31:33
And, you know, she's done a, a really nice job, but two
31:37
different animals, two different types of, of businesses.
31:41
One is, you know, more structure around a smaller environment,
31:47
right, where there's a lot of personal belongings, there's,
31:50
you know, a lot of furniture and, and you know, dishes
31:56
around, right. So it's, it's a different
31:57
setting and it's a different scope.
32:00
It's a different frequency, you know, and then when you jump to
32:03
the commercial side, it's more wide open space, larger
32:07
facilities, you know, for somebody who's newer to that, it
32:11
could be overwhelming to take a look at it.
32:14
And you really have to, you know, understand it took years
32:17
and years to learn and develop the processes that we have now
32:22
for the commercial facilities compared to the residential
32:25
houses that we started with. And you know that we have
32:28
service for years. So you have to, you have to
32:31
crawl before you can walk, in other words.
32:33
And you know, working with customers, there's, there might
32:38
be different, there might be different objectives that they
32:42
need to accomplish, right? A homeowner is probably going to
32:45
have a different set of expectations or results that
32:50
they want to see compared to a a commercial facilities manager.
32:55
So you're dealing with two different types of individuals
32:58
who are looking for two different types of things.
33:01
And typically in a, a commercial building, there's more than just
33:05
emptying the garbage and, and cleaning.
33:07
Like there's security that, you know, you have to worry about
33:11
making sure buildings are secured, lights are off, carpet
33:15
cleaning and maintenance becomes part of the regular service,
33:19
window cleaning, floor care, all of those things need to go into
33:23
a commercial building on a regular basis in order to keep
33:27
that building looking its best. You're dealing with, you know,
33:31
100 people going in and out of the building as opposed to three
33:35
or four people in and out of a residential home.
33:38
So the best advice I could give is, you know, you have to, don't
33:44
be afraid to, to jump into it, but there is a, a learning curve
33:49
and you have to start somewhere and you have to be open to
33:52
adapting your thought process to meet whatever the expectations
33:56
are of the client. Yeah.
33:59
So I and for let's just say for again for our listeners and you
34:03
know, is that something that you guys are helping people do that
34:06
are obviously not direct competitors in your market?
34:10
Yeah. I mean, listen, we, we have our
34:12
franchising system and we've been operating that for 7-8
34:17
years now. So, you know, we currently have
34:20
two franchise locations, 1 here locally in the Capital Region
34:23
and then one in, in Westchester County, downstate.
34:27
You know, Tom's down there and, and he's mainly on the
34:29
commercial side. He's gotten in the kitchen,
34:32
exhausted cleaning. We've helped him grow into that
34:34
segment as well. And you know, they own and
34:38
operate their, their own entity. They're, they're motivated,
34:42
driven individuals who have goals that they want to
34:45
accomplish. And, you know, we, we gave them
34:48
the guidelines and, and the processes to be able to make it
34:52
happen. I've made a lot of mistakes over
34:55
the years, MM, I've learned the hard way.
34:58
And, you know, we tried to take those learning lessons and
35:03
mistakes and we turn them into processes.
35:05
And that's really what our franchise system is about, is
35:08
taking the guesswork out of it for people who want to get into
35:13
the industry and the business. And they still have to put in
35:17
the work, but they can avoid a lot of the costly mistakes that
35:21
typically happen with learning on your own.
35:24
That makes sense. Yeah, man, no, it makes perfect
35:27
sense. So what about, you know, from,
35:32
let me ask from a customer standpoint.
35:34
So you know, you're, I think we talked about banks, healthcare,
35:40
schools like colleges and things like that.
35:43
Yeah. So I mean, really the, the Sky's
35:45
the limit. We're seeing a lot of interest
35:48
in on the robotic side, you know, from colleges, from
35:51
schools. It's ideal for them because
35:54
they're big wide open spaces and they can automate a lot of the
35:56
work there. But yeah, we service all of
36:00
those. And what are?
36:03
You know, limitation. If let's just pretend I'm the
36:06
facilities manager at one of those kinds of locations, like
36:10
what would be the signifying symptoms or triggers that I
36:16
might want to talk to you about robotics and automation?
36:21
If you're having trouble accomplishing what you need to
36:25
on a daily basis with the staff that you currently have and
36:29
there are tasks that can be automated, how much time do you
36:35
have a technician vacuuming carpets on a weekly basis?
36:37
How much time do you have them auto scrubbing and pushing a a
36:40
walk behind scrubber? All those things can be
36:43
automated and you know, relatively quickly, you know,
36:47
you can have a fleet of robots to do the work of positions that
36:53
of staff members that you can't fill that position or you're
36:56
having a hard time filling that position or you simply you don't
37:00
want to a lot of folks and you know, you know this from blue
37:06
collar, I forget what the stat was, but how many blue collar
37:09
workers are going to be retiring over the next, you know?
37:13
2.2 million every year. Right.
37:16
So, OK, where's, where's all that labor going to come from?
37:20
And yes, obviously the the trade schools and everybody's doing
37:25
their part on that end. And and we're, you know, we're
37:28
trying to help that cause by bringing awareness to it.
37:31
There's a lot of careers there, but there's also a lot of roles
37:36
and tasks that are done that can be done more efficiently and can
37:40
be automated. Not all of them, right, but a
37:45
good amount can be with the right tools and and the right
37:49
robotics in place. So it'll be interesting to see,
37:53
you know, how that all works out, But it's definitely a, a
37:55
possible solution, you know, and to anybody who is looking at,
38:01
you know, outsourcing their facility services, one thing
38:03
that you know, I think is important, the Issa, who is the
38:08
governing body of the, the cleaning industry, they have
38:11
their, there's SIM standard, which is the cleaning industry
38:15
management standard. And you know, there's, there's
38:18
only a couple companies locally that have that certification.
38:22
We're one of them. And you really want to take a
38:24
look at that and make sure that they have that stamp of approval
38:28
from the Issa. The reason being is they do a
38:31
full audit every two years of anybody that has that
38:35
certification. They come in, they audit
38:37
everything that you do from an operational standpoint, all of
38:40
your equipment, tools, accounting practices and
38:44
processes, your inventory practices, your customer service
38:48
practices. They come in and look at
38:49
everything and they evaluate and give you a grade.
38:53
And it's relatively, it's a, it's a long process to put all,
38:59
everything together. They send out an auditor, I
39:03
think our last auditor came in from Chicago and they spend a
39:07
few days with you and you have to take them around and show
39:10
them what you are doing. You don't meet the standard, you
39:12
don't get the certification. So, you know, again, to anybody
39:16
out there who is looking to outsource that, you know, take a
39:19
look at that because that is something that you know, your,
39:23
your service provider should have.
39:25
Yeah, I'm glad you brought it up because that was one of my next
39:29
questions was the was the talk about that, how does that like
39:35
how difficult is that for you to attain that certification?
39:40
It's, it's challenging, it's a lot of time and effort.
39:43
From our standpoint, we, we first went through it and
39:48
received the certification 6 years ago.
39:53
So it's every two years you have to get recertified.
39:58
April will be our third recertification.
40:01
So it it is a stringent process, but what was fun for us?
40:08
Was that I got to get our managers involved and the
40:12
leaders in the organization. So, you know, they got to come
40:17
in and see how it went and they got a good understanding for
40:21
why, why the processes are the way they are.
40:24
And that really helped, I think open their eyes to why we do
40:27
things the way we do it. And you know, it's been very
40:32
beneficial for them. They felt involved in the
40:33
process and we, we passed, you know, it, it worked out well,
40:39
but it was a lot of preparation, a lot of work upfront, a lot of
40:42
planning. Once we went through it the
40:44
first time and we were able to show, hey, look, you know, these
40:48
are our processes. It's the way that we do things.
40:51
And you know, now that we've, we've gotten all those ironed
40:55
out and they've been in place now for period of time, the
40:59
renewals are much, much easier. So it's very difficult upfront
41:04
and then once you go through the process, you learn a lot, fix
41:09
what needs to be fixed and move forward.
41:11
So, you know, the renewal, I actually look forward to it
41:15
because again, I get, I get to get people involved in the
41:17
process and they have a, a good understanding of what we're
41:20
doing and why we're doing it. Amazing.
41:25
The juice is worth the squeeze. Yeah, yeah.
41:28
I mean the with the green building with honor
41:31
certification as well. So they look at your cleaning
41:34
chems, your processes for laundering, laundering clothes,
41:38
for example. Minor detail, right?
41:40
But what kind of laundry detergent are you using?
41:44
What type of setup do you have? How do you separate the incoming
41:47
clothes from the outgoing clothes?
41:49
Like there's a a million different things that they take
41:52
a look at. Are your are your chems green?
41:55
OK, And what about your more aggressive chems like your
41:59
toilet bowl, acid toilet bowl cleaner and a certain percentage
42:03
of your products can not comply. But it's very, very minimal
42:09
though you have to be very selective with what products
42:12
you're going to use for which applications.
42:14
And you know, luckily the the vendors that we work with are
42:18
great and the products that we work with are fantastic and it's
42:23
worked out really well for us. Everything from our carpet
42:25
shampoo, our carpet cleaning process is green, our basic Q
42:31
floor process. What happens if you have
42:34
something that isn't that doesn't comply with their
42:38
standards? Do they give you an opportunity
42:39
to change it or do you just fail the audit?
42:42
So they do give you an opportunity, but it's a limited
42:44
window of time. So, you know, they may Ding you
42:48
on. Let's say for example, they walk
42:51
through the the warehouse and there's a bottle that's not
42:53
labeled. OK, well, that's a major red
42:56
flag. And we actually got dinged on
42:58
that the last time we went through the, the process, my one
43:03
of our team members had brought back some product and the label
43:08
was ripped, like ripped off from the day in the field or whatever
43:11
it was. And that auditor went back.
43:13
He's like, hey, what's that? You know, and you know, you
43:18
apologize and say, OK, look, we're, we have a process for it.
43:23
This just came back and they gave an opportunity to fix it.
43:26
So, you know, they're yes, they look at everything, they are
43:31
fair with it. So it's well that's.
43:33
The point though, right, is that they look at everything.
43:35
Exactly. Right.
43:37
Like, yeah. And it's, and if I remember,
43:40
like what you said is it's, you're, they, they have a list
43:44
of best practices for the industry based around certain
43:47
parameters, right? Green chemicals being safe and
43:51
they're going to hold you to that standard.
43:54
And without that, no one's holding any, the cleaning
43:59
company to any standard whatsoever.
44:01
So, you know, like you could do any practice that may not be
44:05
good for customers, may not be good for employees, maybe not
44:07
good for anyone. I mean, I think it sounds pretty
44:10
amazing. It's cool.
44:12
And you know, the nice part about the Issa is they're very
44:15
education heavy. We use some of their training
44:19
and certification programs for our supervisors, for our
44:22
technicians. So you know, there's certain
44:24
levels and in our career road map that we have internally to
44:27
where certain positions require certain certifications.
44:30
So we tie the training back in to the position.
44:33
So the Issa has been very good at helping with that.
44:36
I actually went out to their conference this year and in Las
44:38
Vegas, and you know, again, they have all the latest and
44:42
greatest. They do a big trade show with a
44:44
trade show floor. Well, the latest and greatest
44:47
products, but they also have an educational component.
44:49
So for me, I spent one full day learning from, you know, folks
44:54
that are doing this across the country, different software
44:58
vendors and different, you know, cleaning product vendors who
45:00
actually come up and talk about some of the different
45:03
components. And you know, a lot of useful
45:05
information that you can sit down and nerd out about, you
45:10
know, with our industry. And it's eye opening.
45:13
It was cool to see, but they really do have, you know, not
45:17
only the the best intentions in mind for the contractors that
45:24
are our members, but also the facility managers who are the
45:28
end recipients of the service. There's a lot of facility
45:32
managers that attend that conference as well because they
45:34
understand the value of it. So the Issa essentially does a
45:39
lot of the homework for them. And that's why I say, you know,
45:43
if you're a facilities manager or an office manager and you're
45:46
looking for a company to service your your office or your
45:50
location, you should look at that certification pretty
45:52
closely. OK, Dia, I know we got to jump
45:57
over to the Patreon portal section of the episode here for
46:00
a couple of minutes. But before we go though, I just,
46:04
you know, I wanted to ask one final question here in the main
46:06
episode is, you know, if you were going to tell our listeners
46:10
and anybody listening to the show right now one thing about
46:13
adding automation and robotics to your portfolio of services,
46:18
what would it be? Don't be afraid of the
46:21
technology. It's very easy to get caught up
46:27
in. I don't know where to start.
46:29
I know I should do this, but I don't know where to start.
46:33
There's people that can help you with that.
46:35
You know, whether it's us, whether it's Bob at Clear Focus
46:38
Robotics, there are people who are very well educated in the
46:44
space and use that as a resource.
46:48
Start having the conversations. If you identify, you know, the
46:52
fact that you could automate some of the things and you know,
46:55
part of your program, whether it's, you know, in any type of
46:58
facility, a warehouse, healthcare facility and office
47:01
building, just have the conversation.
47:06
It may not be a good fit now or there might be a product that
47:11
you didn't think of that's actually out there and it
47:13
already exists. You just don't know about it.
47:15
So the only way to, to learn is to, to have the conversations
47:19
and, and reach out happy to talk to, to anybody you know, in the
47:24
robotic space. I really enjoy it.
47:25
And you know, I'd, I'd, I'd love to help anybody that can.
47:32
Awesome, Dee, of course, thank you for humouring me and getting
47:37
on to talk about robotics. You know, I, it's, I also think
47:41
it's really interesting and I, I just think it's something that
47:43
can help our listeners and also educate people.
47:46
You know, this is a crossover episode.
47:48
So we're doing this for blue collar and for buying local.
47:52
So for our local people that you know, are interested in and
47:55
talking to Derek about how they might be able to implement those
47:59
robotics and automation systems into their maintenance and
48:02
janitorial, you know, please reach out.
48:05
Also for folks that are listening to us on buying local,
48:09
you know, welcome to the crossover.
48:11
If this is your first time being exposed to our other podcast,
48:15
blue collar startup, you know, we are here to empower people
48:19
into starting businesses and joining the trades.
48:23
And we also have our our Patreon portal, which is where we're
48:27
going next. It's a member only portal, cost
48:31
you a whopping $5 a month, but we feel it full of all sorts of
48:34
other goodies, specifically around helping people grow,
48:39
scale, sell, market their businesses in the trade.
48:42
So if that's interesting to you, please click the link in the bio
48:46
and join up for a membership so you can hear what comes next.
48:49
If you don't choose to do that, that's OK.
48:51
We just love you for listening. Thanks for listening to Blue
48:53
Collar Blue Collar start up and you'll hear from us next week.