Latest / Cleaning Business Life / CBL EP 196 From Solo Cleaner to CleanCon Speaker — Cheryl Hajjar’s Real Story

Transcript

CBL EP 196 From Solo Cleaner to CleanCon Speaker — Cheryl Hajjar’s Real Story · Cleaning Business Life

0:59
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back, everyone.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: This is Shannon and Jamie with Cleaning Business Life.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: And today we're joined by Miss Cheryl, who is an actual speaker at CleanCon.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: We're super excited to have her on.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Cheryl.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Hi.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: Hi, everyone.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
1:21
SPEAKER_02: Do you want the short version or a long version?
1:25
SPEAKER_02: I started my cleaning company when my son was little.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: I think he was like four.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: I was a single mother.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: I started it.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: I was selling real estate and I was I started it because I needed extra money, right?
1:36
SPEAKER_02: I tell everyone I needed to I needed extra money to pay the rent because I was paying it by myself and put food on the table.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: And that's that's a real story.
1:44
SPEAKER_02: And I underpriced miserably.
1:48
SPEAKER_02: And I was mistreated miserably from clients and things like that.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: And then I finally, years later, I solo cleaned for a long time.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: I started solo cleaning in like 06, when I date myself.
2:01
SPEAKER_02: And then probably like 10 or 12 years later, I decided to scale the company and hire real employees.
2:09
SPEAKER_02: I had my hired my first real employee in 2017.
2:12
SPEAKER_02: And then it escalated from there.
2:15
SPEAKER_02: Years ago, I was a fitness teacher.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: I taught step class, aerobics, all that stuff.
2:21
SPEAKER_02: I don't even think those exist anymore.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: So I always I always knew how to like like motivate people and build teams and stuff like that.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: So I found out that I was actually pretty good at managing people.
2:33
SPEAKER_02: So it scaled quickly, more so than I ever thought.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: I remember when I hit like$10,000 at my first$10,000 a month, I thought I had like made it or whatever, you know?
2:45
SPEAKER_02: So years later, you know, and then after I think getting to$10,000 a month is actually easy.
2:50
SPEAKER_02: From$10,000 and above is actually hard because for every 10 people you have working for you, you need another system.
2:59
SPEAKER_02: So I cleaned until I cleaned until 2019, right before COVID.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: And then I was that person that just would take on four or five houses a day and go clean by myself until eventually my back said no more.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: And then one day my husband had to carry me from the bed to the chiropractor because I I couldn't I couldn't walk.
3:23
SPEAKER_02: And so I said, Well, I guess I need to learn how to hire and train people to go clean the job.
3:29
SPEAKER_02: So that's as real as it gets.
3:31
SPEAKER_02: I tell people two things either you're gonna take yourself out of the field or the field is gonna take you out.
3:37
SPEAKER_02: One of the two is gonna happen physically.
3:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure you you both know, obviously.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: We all know, absolutely, and tell us about I know that there's this big uh conference that has just been created called Clinkon, and we've talked about it several times here on the podcast, and it's a brand new one, you know.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: We've seen all the other ones.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: You were actually there as a guest, and then you weren't you a speaker as well.
4:12
SPEAKER_02: I was a speaker, I was on the panel, I was on the marketing panel, the return on investment marketing panel, and I was the only one on the panel that built my company organically.
4:23
SPEAKER_02: So that's my thing.
4:24
SPEAKER_02: We've never, we've never paid for an ad, right?
4:28
SPEAKER_02: We're where we're at, we've never paid for an ad.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: I built my business like relationships and community and social media, big fan of social media, um, and just networking.
4:40
SPEAKER_02: Also, yeah, networking and meeting people and getting the brand and the recognition out and stuff like that.
4:48
SPEAKER_02: So I wouldn't know how to run an ad to save my life, to be honest.
4:54
SPEAKER_02: But so that's what I that's what I teach people how to do, how to do it without you know, spending like thousands and thousands of dollars a month on ads, which most cleaning companies don't have that.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: Right.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: Definitely, yeah.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: So you were a speaker at CleanCon and you talked about how to grow or market organically.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: Did you notice like any major shifts in the industry from like previous years?
5:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't I know that CleanCon is a brand new entity, but I'm sure you've spoken at other places and different things.
5:26
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna think this is crazy.
5:28
SPEAKER_02: I have never spoken at a cleaning industry event.
5:33
SPEAKER_02: The first thing I spoke at, I did Jobber, I mean, did Zenmade.
5:37
SPEAKER_02: I've done Zenmade a couple of summits, and I've done the Jobber summit, but I've never been to Issa.
5:43
SPEAKER_02: I know I'm like live?
5:45
SPEAKER_02: You've never done live?
5:47
SPEAKER_02: What?
5:47
SPEAKER_02: Never been live?
5:49
SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: So I've done live for other for other businesses.
5:54
SPEAKER_02: Right.
5:55
SPEAKER_02: So I had I've spoken in real estate.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: This is crazy off the beaten path, but I have a lot of stage experience because I used to be a singer and a songwriter, and I I played in Nashville.
6:06
SPEAKER_02: Nobody knew that.
6:08
SPEAKER_03: So we are not worthy.
6:11
SPEAKER_03: I love it.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: Are there any hidden videos out there?
6:16
unknown: Probably.
6:19
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
6:20
SPEAKER_02: No, so I had that, and then I wrote a children's book and I tried to launch a toy company, which was really hard to do.
6:27
SPEAKER_02: So I've had some experience like on stages before public speaking and things like that.
6:33
SPEAKER_02: Networking, I've run like networking groups.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: So to speak in front of people like doesn't like make me afraid, except in the first two minutes when I realize I'm on stage and I get all that anxiety, and then it goes away.
6:45
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and then you look up.
6:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, but mine would be you look up and you're like, all those eyes are all real quiet looking at you, and you're like, just keep talking.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: Just keep trying.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: I don't really look at the audience of the audience.
6:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: There's really bright lights anyway.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: Once you get up there, you can't see past the heads.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: And it's hot.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: It's very it always seems to be really hot up there.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: It's hot.
7:11
SPEAKER_01: You can literally feel your voice.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: So what was uh what was what surprised you most about the the attendees and their behavior and engagement.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: And did anything surprise you, or was it just like wow?
7:30
SPEAKER_02: So a lot of people knew each other, obviously, right?
7:33
SPEAKER_02: Because they go.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: Some people just like to go to events and they may or may not execute what they learn, which is which is fine, right?
7:40
SPEAKER_02: Camaraderie is good.
7:42
SPEAKER_02: I thought two things.
7:43
SPEAKER_02: The speakers were really awesome, they welcomed me, they were super friendly.
7:49
SPEAKER_02: My panel was great.
7:52
SPEAKER_02: And some of the people that came, it was kind of weird, right?
7:56
SPEAKER_02: Because I've been, you know, coaching for a while and doing online things and stuff.
8:00
SPEAKER_02: And it was people came up to me and they were like, Oh, I've been watching your stuff and your channel.
8:05
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, Wow, that's so cool! Like, I still have that that's so cool feeling.
8:09
SPEAKER_03: I got it.
8:12
SPEAKER_02: Everyone was like super down, everyone was super down to earth and awesome, at least the ones that I met or gravitated towards.
8:20
SPEAKER_02: So it was just you felt like you were at home, right?
8:24
SPEAKER_01: Because we all do residential or or most of us residential.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: Right.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: It was a resident, it is for the residential cleaning industry, not just nice because for a long time, even ISSA had a small little sliver of residential, everything was all commercial based, and it it's it's nice to finally see that we're getting some recognition in the industry.
8:45
SPEAKER_01: So that's very man-dominated, right?
8:48
SPEAKER_01: Very dominant.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: Very, very man dominated.
8:50
SPEAKER_02: Well, male dominated for like janitorial, but like the residential market, like that's dominated by women.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it is.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: That's it.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: What do you say all the time, Shannon?
9:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh what trade are we in?
9:06
SPEAKER_00: Because this is the first time in history where women as a collective have the opportunity to create legacy and generational legacy that they can either gift to their family or sell in a future date.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: This is the first time I've ever seen more millionaires in this industry ever.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: And it makes me excited to be part of it and to like be here and do this type of thing and see where we're going.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: And I I just love it.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: Because it's a hard, it's a hard business.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: It's a hard business.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: It's a hard business.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is.
9:38
SPEAKER_01: It's very easy whenever you're solo.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: I it is, it's very it's hard, it's hard on the body, but it is very easy.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: You're just maintaining your own schedule.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: But whenever you start bringing in employees and learning that part of that aspect of it, scaling, you guys both know that I have well, both of you guys give me all sorts of advice, which I'm super grateful for.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: But uh it's a it's a different beast because we are a lot of a lot of people think that this is a pass-through job sometimes.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: So I think um I think that getting together with other residential cleaning business owners coming together, and we're all even though we're all competing against each other, even if you're in the same area, there is a camaradity that it's like you want to see that person succeed.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: And we're doing it.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: I I just found somebody in my area that's right around the same, what is it, profit or whatever that I am.
10:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it's just we're in rural Humboldt County, California, and it's just so there's enough work for everybody.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: I just love the comic camaradity of it and how we all try and help one another.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, that's how it was like Clingon.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: So like they did they they had a lot of speakers, so it was their first one, right?
11:21
SPEAKER_02: So like they're brand new, they're gonna experience growing pains too, with how to roll it out, right?
11:26
SPEAKER_02: And then they had the the best thing I thought is that they had beyond the speakers, they had these like breakout tables and they they broke everyone out by like income.
11:34
SPEAKER_02: So like they kept everyone, you know, in between, I don't know, let's say like 400,000 and 800,000.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: You would sit at that table, so like and then you go it was cool.
11:44
SPEAKER_02: You go, they went around a room and we would have like a specific problem, and the rest of the table would try and solve it.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: So like that was neat, but it's neat because you meet people like in different states, but you all have the same problem, so you immediately feel connected with people.
12:02
SPEAKER_02: Yes, that's awesome.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and they're getting ready to do another one, aren't they?
12:09
SPEAKER_01: They're doing one in September, yeah.
12:12
SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna speak at that one?
12:14
SPEAKER_02: So here's the problem.
12:16
SPEAKER_02: The problem is I do, and I'm gonna have to get with them next year.
12:19
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna have to get with everyone in the industry.
12:21
SPEAKER_02: I do a once a year in-person rise retreat, and this year my retreat is September 23rd to the or 24th through the 27th.
12:57
SPEAKER_02: So for me to get on a plane and be in Texas the 28th, I I might have rocks in my head.
13:03
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I don't know if I'll be able to, I don't know if I'll be able to pull it off.
13:07
SPEAKER_02: Like, like I'm being serious, physically, because I am so you're gonna check out.
13:12
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
13:12
SPEAKER_02: Oh, so my husband and I teach, like we teach for like three days straight.
13:16
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, it's not just like seven or eight hours teaching, it feels like 24-7 because after that there's a breakout, there's another question, there's this.
13:24
SPEAKER_02: Like, we're going like like Shannon, like you know, like when you're going on and on and on, like after three days of that, like you're ready to drop and hit the bed for like 24.
13:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I would imagine.
13:39
SPEAKER_02: My husband's like, we should go.
13:40
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I don't know, I don't know if I can do it mentally and physically.
13:45
SPEAKER_02: So next year I'll have to, I might change my retreat and talk with them just so I can be there because I would love to be there every year because it was really cool.
13:54
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, so you would consider it a success.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: It's a success.
13:58
SPEAKER_01: Clink on is going to be the new thing for residential.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: A couple of other like the when was the other convention?
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Huge or bad?
14:10
SPEAKER_00: Huge.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: That was everybody though.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: That wasn't clean.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Everyone, right?
14:13
SPEAKER_02: Isn't that my husband wants to go to that?
14:15
SPEAKER_02: So we do my company made right.
14:17
SPEAKER_02: We do residential, we do some commercial, smaller, but then we do power washing.
14:22
SPEAKER_02: We're in our fourth season.
14:23
SPEAKER_02: That was his idea.
14:24
SPEAKER_02: So now we have that.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: So my business is interesting that it's not just residential, it's just power washing thing too, and window washing.
14:33
SPEAKER_02: So it's like cool because we can cross-market our business, which I which I would love, love, love, love to try and teach everyone to do because it's so profitable.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: I like the pollination too, because it does cross over, and then you can utilize those doll, those dollars will actually stretch further than if you just focused on one thing or if you made it separate, definitely.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: Right.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, so there were a lot of attendees there.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Did did you have to?
15:01
SPEAKER_00: I and I know you've probably I I'm just making an assumption.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: I know nothing about your speech because I have not listened to it, but it it was probably something that was familiar to you.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: Was there a lot of prep involved in your presentation that you did for CleanCon?
15:13
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's always like some type of prep.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: Like, I always try and form like some type of stories that I'm gonna tell.
15:20
SPEAKER_02: So, like Drew, he's the one that you know contacted me and he's like, we want to have you on the it was I forget the name, it was like ROI, you know, return on investment marketing.
15:31
SPEAKER_02: And then there were three guys up there that all did one guy's Ray Melaski, who's super talented.
15:39
SPEAKER_02: He does he's yeah, he's great.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: I have his book somewhere.
15:44
SPEAKER_02: I think he's a good down-earth guy.
15:47
SPEAKER_02: I love down-earth people, I'm very down-earth.
15:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, he's a very good, like, down-earth person.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: So he he does like ads, it helps people scale with that.
15:55
SPEAKER_02: And there were two other guys.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: One guy was funny as hell, he was from Washington State.
16:00
SPEAKER_02: What he I forget his name, but he used to say, I have the gayest cleaning company in Washington State.
16:05
SPEAKER_02: He's a riot.
16:06
SPEAKER_02: I get he's hilarious.
16:09
SPEAKER_02: He was, yeah, but they all did like heavy ads.
16:12
SPEAKER_02: So I think they put me on the panel because I had done no ads.
16:17
unknown: Right.
16:17
SPEAKER_02: You know, yeah, that's neat.
16:20
SPEAKER_02: So they wanted your house back and speaking.
16:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and they were like, they would ask, and it was like a question, and he would rotate the panel on questions, and they were asking me questions like, you know, how did you do it?
16:32
SPEAKER_02: And I basically was like, brand, you know, and I was like, you have to have a solid brand, you have to look different than everyone.
16:41
SPEAKER_02: The big talk at the conference was AI, and I'm 50-50 on AI.
16:49
SPEAKER_02: I think some of it is good, I think some of it is bad.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: And I sat up there and I was like, Do I say this?
16:56
SPEAKER_02: Do I say this?
16:56
SPEAKER_02: And I said to Drew, I'm like, Can I say this?
16:59
SPEAKER_02: And I said, I think the problem is bad, is that everyone is using AI to make their marketing and they all are starting to look the same.
17:09
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
17:09
SPEAKER_02: Right.
17:10
SPEAKER_03: You can definitely tell.
17:12
SPEAKER_03: Go ahead.
17:13
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm just saying, you can definitely tell whenever people are using AI for ads, and it is starting to look the same and redundant.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: It is redundant.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: It's like everybody doesn't want to have human contact, so they put a chatbot on there and you're trying to figure out the vocabulary to get a human.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: So you try different like phrases, you're like, this worked last time, maybe this, and and it really does.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's a cookie cutter thing, and being different and standing out and branding and positioning, it's a lot of work initially, but it does eventually pay off.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: So if you were to start it a little bit at a time, eventually you'll get to where you need to go.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: But if you don't start, then it just becomes an overwhelming thing.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm a lot of people are like, oh, my AI chatbot's gonna do all this thing.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, but nobody wants to talk to a chatbot.
18:01
SPEAKER_02: We're all human industry, right?
18:04
SPEAKER_02: What I said up there is I was like, I see everyone doing their cartoon characters for their jobs and for their ads and stuff.
18:14
SPEAKER_02: It's way too busy.
18:15
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
18:16
SPEAKER_02: You look the same as everyone else, and then I always tell everyone if you look the same as everyone else, price becomes the only differentiator to the client, and you never want to compete on price because it's a race to the bottom.
18:27
SPEAKER_02: It is a race to the bottom.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: It's just royalty.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, I guess, but it it is gonna be the it's like the I feel like we're at the cusp of the dot com boom.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: I know I'm dating myself, but the remember how big the dot com, oh, dot com, dot com, and then the bubble burst, and everyone's like, ah, so Y2K, yeah, yeah, right, Y2K, everyone's like, oh, it's gonna explode, it's gonna explode.
18:53
SPEAKER_02: My husband Jay is a techie, so we have we use Quo, right, for our like phone, and we have a virtual assistant, we named her Julie, right?
19:04
SPEAKER_02: It's like funny to me.
19:05
SPEAKER_02: Because sometimes you know, we can't get to the phone or whatever, and let's be totally honest, it's cheaper than having a real person answer the phone.
19:12
SPEAKER_02: It is, that's where it's gonna go.
19:14
SPEAKER_02: So I am noticing that most people will talk to it and leave the information, but then if you have older people, they don't like it and they had to hang up my I had receptionist AI on Jobber, and I gave it a whirl for a little bit, and I started having people like you could tell they were getting pissed.
19:41
SPEAKER_01: They're like, Can I just talk to a person?
19:44
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm I keep getting this computer, and I'm like, We use that off for a second until I get it better.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: But I do think AI, whenever it comes to the back end of your business, I'm learning that we need to kind of grab that by the coattails, or else we may get left in the dust.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna tell you that Chat GPT took me as far.
20:10
SPEAKER_01: It's great for personal, you know.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: I it it almost feels like it has an emotion.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: I've been dabbling, I have been dabbling with Claude for my business part of things and like plugging in numbers from QuickBooks to no from QuickBooks Notion and Jabber, and really like building out, I'm like, where where is the disconnect?
20:43
SPEAKER_01: What am I doing wrong?
20:44
SPEAKER_01: And it'll build it's like building out a workflow for me almost.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: Like and it's like, whoa, and and I always I always, you know, probably get a hold of you guys to make sure that these things are okay before I'm just like, let's implement this, you know what I'm saying?
21:08
SPEAKER_01: Let's implement this, and then it's like, and you guys know that I use Erica, she's my bookkeeper as well as my map coach, and I will say Claude took it, and she was it was like$34 off, and I'm like my mind was so blown, just everything was wreck reconciled, everything.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: I my mind$34 last week.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Like, there was nothing was there someone who resonated the most who talked about AI?
21:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we all know it's gonna impact the industry.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Was there a specific speaker that really took the dominant field?
21:48
SPEAKER_02: Everyone who's talking about it AI.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: I think the only thing I mean, everyone wants to automate everything, but honestly, I think with the residential business, I think you gotta be careful because it's it's built on it's built on relationships.
22:02
SPEAKER_02: Like it's totally different than going to clean a building when it's empty.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: Like you're in people's houses, you're relating with their kids, with their dogs, and you know what I mean?
22:11
SPEAKER_02: That though I think people need to be careful because I so I still do in-person estimates, and I swear by it, I'm different than all these aggressive, let's run a bunch of ads and not care about the people that are getting on our schedule, right?
22:27
SPEAKER_02: I'm totally different, but I think that you you the residential is about building relationships, you can't do that off site.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: You have to meet them, or you have to have someone to go and meet them and build the relationship.
22:42
SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, I close really high numbers because I go in person, right?
22:48
SPEAKER_02: I don't think you can replace that.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: No, because people want a connection because we're still very much a human.
22:54
SPEAKER_00: You're in that house.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Right.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: So with the clean con convention, I mean, I'm sure you got to catch other people's talks.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Was there besides your own talk?
23:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, was there another one that really resonated with you?
23:06
SPEAKER_00: Is there a favorite?
23:08
unknown: I'm trying to think now.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, I love the uh the keynote, but he was very I was like really bummed I didn't get to see it, but yes, I want to Oh very entertaining.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: He's a very entertaining keynote speaker, he's very down to earth.
23:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, profit first.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: His name's Mike.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: I don't know how to pronounce his last name.
23:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm probably gonna butcher Malcolm.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Malchum.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: Please forgive me if you ever listened to this interview.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: He was super good.
23:38
SPEAKER_02: Ray, who was on my panel, was super good.
23:40
SPEAKER_02: The guy next to me with the gayest cleaning company in Washington, he was super good.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: I can't remember his name.
23:44
SPEAKER_02: He was a riot.
23:45
SPEAKER_02: He was a riot.
23:46
SPEAKER_02: What else?
23:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to think.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: See, people were speaking while the vendors were on.
23:52
SPEAKER_02: So like you could be walking around and talking to a vendor, which I did.
23:55
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to see like everyone.
23:57
SPEAKER_02: Like I'm friends with the whole Zen made crew.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: Like Stephanie is a friend of mine.
24:03
SPEAKER_02: Nicole Somerstein, who is the head of marketing over there, actually lives 30 minutes away from me.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: So we are friendly.
24:10
SPEAKER_02: I yeah, she's like, Do you guys ever meet up?
24:13
SPEAKER_02: We've met, we've had lunch.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: We're actually going out again this weekend.
24:18
SPEAKER_02: So, like, so so they do all like remote, you know, employees, and she just happens to be in Cambridge, which is 40 minutes away from me.
24:26
SPEAKER_02: So I hang out with them, with their editor.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: Their editor has done some things for me, like their video editor.
24:31
SPEAKER_02: So it was like I was hanging out at their booth, and I was talking to Molly Maria and Drew.
24:35
SPEAKER_02: So I was just trying to meet everyone I could because I've never been to an industry event before.
24:40
SPEAKER_02: I'm just like this lone person over here, like on the East Coast.
24:44
SPEAKER_02: But like I want to come more and do more things and meet more people.
24:48
SPEAKER_02: Because I think I think like when I was at CleanCon, I didn't say like I felt like I was among, I was with my people.
24:56
SPEAKER_02: That's your tribe.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: That's what it felt like.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: That's my tribe.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: I think that's what the key takeaway from this is when you do in-person events, it's like you finally finally found the people, and and for them to do breakaway tables with the uh the that is such a great idea because you guys are all working on the same problem, basically.
25:21
SPEAKER_02: That was my favorite part of the whole conference.
25:24
SPEAKER_02: I think that they should do more of that stuff where people because it was a lot of and they're like they're they just did the first one, right?
25:30
SPEAKER_02: So, like I said, growing pains, all the speakers were great.
25:34
SPEAKER_02: I think them adding more educational pieces will bring bring a big draw.
25:40
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
25:41
SPEAKER_02: Is what I think, if you ask me, because people like it's one thing to go and schmooze and relationship and have a couple of drinks and hang out with your people, but you really want to bring something home and execute it.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: Right.
25:54
SPEAKER_00: I I think a lot of times with in-person events, a lot of the relationship building happens out in the hallways anyway, when you're out there, you know, mingling and trying to figure out who you resonate with and who you don't.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: At least that's been my experience.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: So if if you were a regular cleaning business owner, you highly would recommend going to CleanCon.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, is it I know a lot of people were like, oh my god, 600 bucks.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, but I think that the value precedes the$600 investment.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: So let's talk about that for a second.
26:21
SPEAKER_02: So if you're gonna grow your cleaning business, you have to spend money.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: Right.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I or yeah, if you're a person in the industry, right?
26:31
SPEAKER_01: You gotta start showing out a little bit too, right?
26:37
SPEAKER_01: But it's not just six hundred dollars.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: That's let's just let's put that out there.
26:41
SPEAKER_01: It's not just six hundred dollars, you know.
26:44
SPEAKER_02: We gotta do the flights, we gotta get the yeah, it's expensive food for the next three days, and then you're going out to eat, and then everyone's having a drink or a coffee.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: Everybody else is spending money, and you're like, I I heard I wonder if people were, you know, self like looking at themselves like, gosh, why am I not there yet?
27:10
SPEAKER_01: You know, in like red company like companies, like like looking at themselves like this person is in the same industry as I am.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: Why am I not where they're at?
27:24
SPEAKER_01: Making that kind of money, yeah, making that kind of money, maybe even in the same year, you know, how many years, however, years they are in.
27:34
SPEAKER_01: But that's also a drive.
27:36
SPEAKER_01: I feel like that could be also a drive.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, social media, you always like, gosh, you you see what you want, you know.
27:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and people people are gonna say what they want too, right?
27:48
SPEAKER_02: So maybe you're not getting real solid.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but I think it comes down to risk tolerance and investment.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: Like, there are a lot of, you know, there are some women that we all know, right?
28:00
SPEAKER_02: We can talk about this like some women are really afraid to invest in themselves, right?
28:07
SPEAKER_02: They don't have that belief in themselves to do it.
28:09
SPEAKER_02: Whereas you ask a man, man's gonna invest in himself like that.
28:14
SPEAKER_02: No problem.
28:14
SPEAKER_02: So I think that's a problem in the industry, is women don't have enough confidence in themselves to take it to the next level.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: And we're a bunch of people pleasers.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, a people pleaser is anonymous, right here.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've been a people pleaser for 9,452 days.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: And I say it as a joke, but it's true.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: We we genuinely we're groomed and conditioned by our society to be people pleasers.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: And and thank goodness there's a lot of attributes that we're better at than men are.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: And this isn't a man versus women type thing, but it is true that men are gonna invest in themselves before a woman does.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: But we look at like everything, okay.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: I got this budget, I got groceries, I got all these things, and then there's anxiety about making the purchase.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, I will it be worth my while and then you know getting out there.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: I totally, totally get it.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: So, was there a repeated theme besides AI that people were talking about that you noticed when you were out there mingling and doing your thing?
29:10
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
29:11
SPEAKER_02: Intention.
29:13
SPEAKER_02: Drew kept talking about building your cleaning business with intention, and we're in the business of selling trust, which is so true.
29:22
SPEAKER_02: And so, going back to you know, why I do in-person estimates is because of that factor.
29:27
SPEAKER_02: Like, you want that homeowner to trust in me, trust in what my company has to offer, trust that, you know, I do a lot of social media posting with pictures of my team.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: So homeowners can look and be like, oh, those are the people that are coming to my house.
29:43
SPEAKER_02: I think that that is super effective, right?
29:47
SPEAKER_02: So that that was a big thing with you know, building your business with intention and trust.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: I think that's awesome.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: And and it's it's it really is important because we are a trust-based industry, and I think people forget that.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: Um in they the the opportunity for people to come in and run remote models from what I've seen in the last year or two, and they have no cleaning experience there out and they've never cleaned up.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: Can we talk about that?
30:13
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to talk about remote.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we can totally talk about that.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: And it's like a vendor, I'm gonna select, I'm gonna check this box here, and I'm not gonna have any contact with my team or my clients, but I can't figure out why I've plateaued.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: I've had that conversation at least a hundred times.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, there's a reason why this is happening.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: I don't think, um, I don't think you can build a remote cleaning business for a long time.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: No, you can't.
30:37
SPEAKER_02: I think it takes a long time.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: The only person successfully that I've seen do it is Chris Schwab.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: And he teaches that.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:47
SPEAKER_01: But there's a lot.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: We have humans on his side of it, though.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: He's not entirely remote where there's no contact.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: That that, you know, I'm gonna go a la carte at McDonald's and I'm gonna pick these things, and everything's gonna be great.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that that variation is doable long term.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: I think there's too many variables that can make a bump in the road, and then you go, oh.
31:09
SPEAKER_02: Not for residential.
31:11
SPEAKER_02: So I'll I'll tell I'll tell you a real story.
31:13
SPEAKER_02: There's a business who will remain nameless that is 20 minutes up the road from me, that they were bought out by a couple of guys who went remote.
31:23
SPEAKER_02: I recently hired one of their cleaners, and I got an inside story of how miserable all the cleaners were because they were they were never around, they ran other businesses, they would do a zoom meeting here or there.
31:36
SPEAKER_02: They had a manager that could never make a decision without them, you know, okaying it.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: And she said it was the worst experience ever.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: So I was over there.
31:46
SPEAKER_02: You go, right?
31:47
SPEAKER_00: There's a bottleneck right there, folks.
31:50
SPEAKER_02: I think you have for a long, long time, even if you do Zooms and stuff, like you have to build that.
31:57
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna build those layers of management and have people secure in their positions, like your team leaders, trainers, admin, whatever.
32:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we can we step away, like we have all those things in in my business.
32:11
SPEAKER_02: We have a you know, office manager and everything that handles all that stuff, but like that doesn't happen overnight.
32:18
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no way, it's still when we build out that, yeah.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: You have to build that oh, you gotta build that whole spot up, like I and that it's so it is a huge undertaking.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: It's something I'm working on.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: Little by little, I was told to run as lean as I possibly can until I'm ready to do that.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: But getting it out of your head and onto paper and literally building it slowly and actually implementing those systems takes a lot.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: It's not boom, here I am, I'm remote.
33:01
SPEAKER_02: I think the hardest thing, honestly, you guys can probably agree with me.
33:05
SPEAKER_02: I think the hardest thing is managing people and training them.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's it is easy, and that's where I'm at right now.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: I it is I will say that I have I'm starting uh company culture is become very big to me all of a sudden.
33:27
SPEAKER_01: Especially since I got my storefront, and the audience here has watched me literally go from where they are, wherever you're at in your business.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: Everybody that listens to the show knows that I've been right where you are in real time.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: And making a company culture has been a game changer for me.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: It changes everything, and office changes.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: The office changed it took it to a whole different level, and all of a sudden, your perspective shifts from being client-focused as you're growing, right?
34:10
SPEAKER_01: Your client focused.
34:11
SPEAKER_01: Now my focus is more employee focused, and building, I feel like if you take care of them, they're gonna do whatever they can to make sure that their client is taken care of.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: Your clients everyone wants to belong, right?
34:31
SPEAKER_02: If you think about like human nature, like people want to belong and they want to be a part of something cool.
34:36
SPEAKER_02: So if you present that to them, where they you know, they I I tell every I didn't even tell my clients this like when I go on SMS, I say, you know, we we have a really high retention rate.
34:46
SPEAKER_02: I had one girl as long as seven years with me, and she she had to leave because she had to shoulder physical, right?
34:52
SPEAKER_02: After seven years cleaning, right?
34:54
SPEAKER_02: It happens, and she just wasn't cut out for a management position.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: She didn't, she didn't have it, right?
35:00
SPEAKER_02: So I tell everyone that like you you have now.
35:04
SPEAKER_02: I lost my train of thought.
35:04
SPEAKER_02: You believe that I had something good to say and I lost my train of thought.
35:08
SPEAKER_02: I just I feel that like you have to take care of your people.
35:12
SPEAKER_02: So if they feel like they belong, they will go that extra mile for you.
35:17
SPEAKER_02: And if they feel that you have their back, like crappy jobs, crappy clients, stuff like that.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: Like I always will stand behind them before I'll stand behind my client.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: I know that sounds kind of crappy, but like they're your people, like you have to take care of your your your family.
35:36
SPEAKER_01: Yep, because idea how they do, they take care of your you, and we're all trying to get to the one thing.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: I think this ties back to what CleanCon was actually made for, is this right here, and being able to talk in a room just like we're talking right now, about it.
35:57
SPEAKER_01: Who is it?
35:58
SPEAKER_01: Holly Moore.
36:00
SPEAKER_01: Holly Moore, she's did what was she on the the panel?
36:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean not the panel, she's one of the founders.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: She's a founder.
36:10
SPEAKER_02: Holly, Drew, Larrison, and Molly.
36:14
SPEAKER_02: Molly Moran.
36:15
SPEAKER_02: Molly Moran.
36:16
SPEAKER_02: Molly Moran.
36:17
SPEAKER_02: Is she from New Mexico or something, right?
36:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
36:20
SPEAKER_02: So she's awesome.
36:21
SPEAKER_02: She's a great personality.
36:22
SPEAKER_02: So does Holly.
36:23
SPEAKER_02: They're they're all like those three, like they're good people.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:28
SPEAKER_01: I think that's what it was created for, is right right here what we're talking about.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: So I guess my next question would be, and and we're seeing a lot of things shift because of AI and digital awareness and internet and everything else.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: I I think they keep trying to take away in-person events and conferences.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: And I think there'll always be a spot for an in-person event.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: And you have your own in-person event, Cheryl.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: And I I've seen other people in our industry stop having in-person events because it is expensive and there's a lot of risk involved.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: But there's a lot of you have to reserve spots and you know, you have to fill the room.
37:07
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of stuff that goes in behind people.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: When you just show up and go, I'm here, you're like, you have no idea what I just did.
37:15
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, they're literally picking out down to the silverware that sits on your table, your drink cups.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean, literally.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot in the city.
37:25
SPEAKER_03: I think that there's a lot of work that they say.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: I can only imagine.
37:30
unknown: Yeah.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: So you recommend going to Clean Con for anybody who's new out there?
37:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would go.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: I totally would go.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Awesome sauce.
37:40
unknown: Yeah.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
37:41
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: Now, I always ask this at the end, you because it we don't get the chance to interface very often.
37:47
SPEAKER_00: This is the first time meeting you.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: Do you have any questions for us?
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Anything you want, except for relationship.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: I cannot help you with that.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: What did you say?
37:56
SPEAKER_00: What?
37:57
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I said do you have any questions for us?
38:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I have any questions.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: How do you like running a podcast?
38:04
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: It's we're getting ready to hit episode 200, and the downloads are increasing.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: I've been monitoring a lot of things on what's going on.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned before, it's just it's me, myself, and I, and occasionally we have an assistant or a podcast.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: How long are we doing the podcast?
38:21
SPEAKER_00: We're on year number three.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: So we started in 2023.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, two 200 episodes, and we're going to keep on going.
38:28
SPEAKER_00: And it's uh it's been an interesting dynamic for sure.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: I want to have a podcast editor.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: I tried to do it at the beginning of the year, and I did someone remote, and it was really challenging.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: The the payment spectrum, getting the payment to get over there was really complicated, more than it should have been.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I got lost a couple of times.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: I had to pay twice.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, how's your editing?
38:51
SPEAKER_00: Do you do it yourself?
38:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, I do all of the editing myself right now.
38:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's crazy.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: Riverside splits it up for you.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm not that I'm not endorsed by Riverside at all.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: And at first I kicked the can down the road because I was like, it was a new platform, I had to learn that.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: And then they move some things around, which I hate.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: Anybody who goes to the grocery store knows that when you go to the grocery store, you want everything to be the same because you don't want to think about it, right?
39:18
SPEAKER_02: So that's like Jamie, you'll probably agree with that.
39:20
SPEAKER_02: That's like Jabber right now.
39:22
SPEAKER_02: Jabber's like updating the crap out of everything, and everything is everywhere, and you can't just leave it alone.
39:28
SPEAKER_03: I'm like just leave it alone.
39:29
SPEAKER_03: You don't have to do anything to it.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: You're like looking for it.
39:35
SPEAKER_02: It was over here the other day.
39:37
SPEAKER_02: Where is it now?
39:39
SPEAKER_02: We do so I I have dropped them up, which is like my fundamental six-month program.
39:43
SPEAKER_02: Then I have an elite, and my husband teaches on the elite, like the graduate program, like after the where all my rock stars go is like the lead to grow to the next level.
39:52
SPEAKER_02: This Monday, we're actually doing a Jabber training because everyone, mostly everyone's on Jabber that works with me and they're lost.
40:00
SPEAKER_02: So he's gonna come in and he's gonna do do one because he's better on it than I am.
40:06
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, Jamie's actually the the when people ask me about Jabber, because you know, I've been on Jabber for over 10 years, but she knows she has the advanced thing.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, just call Jamie.
40:17
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I like it.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: Like, I like Jabber, but like they've changed so much so fast that I think it's like it's like, hey, you uh give me a give me a heads up before you change anything because I one minute my or something if we had office managers, which I don't that would have been a shit show.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: So that would have been a shit show.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: So we yeah, I would just put in for what was it that I just put in for an affiliation or something, yeah.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: An ambassador or something with Jobber.
40:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:52
SPEAKER_01: So um I'm always putting in for their grants.
40:55
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I make it to the second round and then I forget about it and then drop out.
41:05
SPEAKER_02: No, okay.
41:05
SPEAKER_02: So that would be the I was like so thrilled.
41:08
SPEAKER_02: I was like, oh my god, this is awesome.
41:10
SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
41:11
SPEAKER_02: So Rivers, maybe I'll sidebar with you after Riverside, because I don't StreamYard, I'm doing everything myself.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: It's really it's it's Riverside is pretty once you get the the basic, because um, we don't have to talk about the technicalities here on the podcast, nobody wants to listen to it.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: But it's really easy to operate versus StreamYard.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: I like it so far, and I I'm pleased with it.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: So if you guys are out there listening, I'll take an affiliation link.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: Right here.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not sure.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: That's that.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: Any other questions?
41:42
SPEAKER_02: I don't think so.
41:43
SPEAKER_02: I'd like to learn more about your business and your journey at some point, Shannon.
41:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, most definitely.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you so much for coming on.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: We we love you.
41:56
SPEAKER_00: And uh we look forward to having your episode there.
41:59
SPEAKER_00: It's probably gonna air this Saturday, is what um I'm estimating.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
42:02
SPEAKER_00: So that's actually unusual for us.
42:06
SPEAKER_00: So it's only because it's a the queue is empty.
42:08
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, where am I gonna put her?
42:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you for having me.
42:14
SPEAKER_01: Oh, thank you for coming.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: I would like I said, I was so I was like, oh, oh, I just found out at like a day a couple days ago.
42:22
SPEAKER_01: I was like, wait, wait, what?
42:24
SPEAKER_01: Yesterday I'm like, wait a minute, Jamie must know about this.
42:26
SPEAKER_02: Is she gonna be on this?
42:27
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, goodbye, nice to meet you.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: Bye.
42:33
SPEAKER_00: Bye.
42:34
SPEAKER_03: All right, bye.