Latest / Cleaning Business Life / When Trust Is Broken: What Every Cleaning Business Can Learn from the Arizona Hospital Housekeeper Case Ep. 218 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Transcript

When Trust Is Broken: What Every Cleaning Business Can Learn from the Arizona Hospital Housekeeper Case Ep. 218 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ · Cleaning Business Life

• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back everybody, Shannon Miller with Cleaning Business Life.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: And today I want to introduce something brand spanking new.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: And as these stories come up, I will make them case studies.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: So this is the first of many, I am sure, as our industry expands, that will be listed here on the podcast.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: So from time to time, a story makes the news that directly impacts our profession.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: I think that all of these stories impact our profession.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it might involve the residential cleaner, it might involve a hotel housekeeper, a janitorial company, someone working inside a hospital or anyone else whose job requires them to work inside someone else's private space.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And there are so many different layers to the cleaning industry.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we were considered essential in 2020.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: So when those stories happen, they don't just affect the people involved, they impact our industry.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And the biggest question after one of these stories comes up is can I trust someone?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: The biggest fear that I hear about, especially in some of the larger groups, is I'll never hire.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: I can't trust someone to do this.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And we are a trust-based industry.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And people go, should I hire this cleaning company?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: What's to stop them from doing this to me?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: How do I know the people I hire are honest?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, these are all fair questions.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that their questions our industry is starting to be willing to talk about.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: For a long time, it was just shh, it was kept taboo when we we'd have a blunder.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Thankfully, I didn't have anything major happen with my business, but I heard through the grapevine that had usually in um caregiving is where I heard a lot of the theft happen.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: So theft can happen in any industry.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen it happen in a lot of industries, but because we are more of a trust-based industry than other industries, it impacts us more.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why I wanted to create the case files.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: So this isn't a crime podcast.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: There are plenty of those, and I've heard many recommendations for a crime podcast or murder podcast.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: There's a couple of those out there.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so this isn't about gossip.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: These are actual cases that have made it into the news cycle.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: So instead, we're gonna talk, we're gonna take real stories that impact our industry and separate verified facts from speculation and ask one simple question.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: What can we learn as cleaning business owners?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that these are important for us to analyze in case one of us should come up with one of these situations.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: And because every difficult situation has something to teach us, if we're willing to learn, right?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: So today's case takes us into my very own home state, Scottsdale, Arizona.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: For those of you know, it's like the blazing desert down there right now.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: So according to the reporting from 12 News, her name is Tammy Watts, was employed as a housekeeper at Honor Health Thompson Peak Medical Center.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't find the exact link, which I will include inside of the show notes.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: I could have sworn that the medical center was a surgery center, but I I couldn't find the link for it specifically.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I maybe I'm misremembering, but investigators allege that while a patient was receiving medical care, the patient's debit card was taken and later used to make unauthorized purchases.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: This adds so much complication to a cleaning business owner's day.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: I can only imagine this poor person who was hired.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like they were hired by a corporate entity.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it was a private entity that and it was subbed out.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think that this was their own doing.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Investigators began following the trail.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: One detail immediately that caught my attention was according to the investigator, one of the biggest breaks in the case didn't come from a sophisticated forensic technology or dramatic police work.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: It came from her shopper card, right?
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: We all have been, especially in Arizona, there's fries, there's sprouts, Whole Foods, Nature's Grocer, any shopping retailer, with the exception of Walmart, has a shopper program, right?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: You you want to get the discount on whatever's on sale.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it came from a grocery store rewards account.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: And investigators allege that one of the purchases was connected to Basha's.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: They have a shopper program, and thank you card account registered to Tammy Watts.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: So they did a scan, they followed the paper trail because everything's digital unless you pay cash, and we can talk about that later.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so think about that for a second.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: The grocery store rewards card is how she got busted.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: She took this person's card while they were in the care of this facility and decided to do a little shopping, a little grocery shopping.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe she went and got gas.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really know.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: The story doesn't go into a lot of detail.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: So something millions of us swipe every week without giving it a second thought.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I use a shopper reward program.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: I use it when I go to Sprouts.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: I have yet to get any rewards, but I do use it.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: I use it at REI.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: I've been a member for of REI for decades, like since the 90s.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I like the rewards at REI because it gets me like$50 discounts when I buy my running shoes or whatever I've got going on there.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just one tiny habit: scan your card, boom, you just go on your way.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: You don't think anything of it.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And those are small digital breadcrumbs, right?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: She left a path inadvertently so that that's how she got busted.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that breadcrumb reportedly became one of the pieces that investigators used to identify the suspect.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, Watts was arrested and later sentenced in connection with the case.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: But before we go any further, I want to make something very clear.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: The purpose of today's episode is not to retry this case.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: I have to say this for legal attorney's like, you really gotta start doing this.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: The purpose of today's episode is not to retry the case.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: It is not to speculate about the details we don't know, and it's certainly not to attack someone I've never met.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: The public reporting gives us enough information to understand what investigators allege and how they built their case.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Beyond that, I think our responsibility is different.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Our responsibility to is to ask, right?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: What can we learn from this as leaders?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because there are hundreds of thousands of cleaning business owner leaders.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And because we if we spend the next 30 minutes talking about one person's decisions, we've we've kind of missed the point.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: But if we spend the next 30 minutes talking about trust, leadership, hiring, culture, protecting both of our clients and our employees, then we've actually created something that's valuable.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that's of course where they want to get down to.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: So that's exactly when I wanted to launch the Cleaning Business Life case files.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Not because the stories are fascinating, but some of them are really interesting.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Although I don't think there's been one that hasn't been like, wow, I can't believe that happened.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's a failed system, sometimes it's poor judgment.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: It seems to be poor judgment a lot.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's just a lack of accountability.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: There are a lot of people in a lot of industries who have done wild things over a period of time.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: I worked in, I don't think it's there anymore.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: I worked in the Caesars Farm shops many, many years ago in Las Vegas.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: The restaurant, I don't think it's there anymore, I'm not sure.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: It was called Bertolini's.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: And at the time, and remind you, this was a while ago when I've lived in Vegas, there was a kid who would double the tip.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know how he figured out how to double the tip.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: So if someone left him$50, he would add in$100.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it wouldn't show on the transaction.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: It showed after the fact when they got their bill.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then people started to obviously the chargebacks caught up to them.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's how they ended up catching this college kid who was an engineer.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: We were all shocked.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he ended up getting, I want to say this was in it was probably in the tens of thousands before they finally caught it.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: It went on for months before they finally came in and they arrested him in the middle of the lunch rush.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: I was shocked.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you just never know who it's gonna be, right?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because if someone makes a mistake, it can help us build stronger businesses.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what this really comes down to is trust.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really believe that we sell cleaning.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: We we sell an actual finished product because we're selling the product within a timeline.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: We're selling the spot on the schedule.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: We're actually really selling trust.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of they're trusting us to show up on time, they're trusting us to hire the right people, they're trusting us to do a good job, they're trusting us, right?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: They're trusting us with their one of their larger expenses and investments that we're they're trusting us to be around their elderly uh that they care for.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of trust that's involved in the cleaning industry.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And trust is kind of like our product.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, we're a cleaning company.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: And cleaning is uh something that we do, but it really does come down to trust.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: There, there's alarm codes, door codes, keys.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think hardly anybody does keys anymore.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: There's key fobs mostly and codes to get indoors.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: And most of the time they leave before we arrive.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes we'll see them, sometimes we won't.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we're inside their homes for hours, especially if they have a larger home.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: It could take several hours for you would, especially if you're working solo.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: 5,555 square feet should take you roughly four to five and a half hours, depending on the scope of the job and how neat and tidy that particular household is.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes we're clinging while they're at work, right?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: We get a, and that's great because then we have an arrival window, like a cable guy.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes they're sitting in a hospital room hoping that everything's gonna be okay.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the last thing you should do when you're sitting in a hospital room is worrying whether your personal effects are are gonna be protected, right?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure if this particular place had lockers.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times when you go into a very busy medical establishment, they have personal lockers for you to use to put your personal possessions in.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe that wasn't the case in this time.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're telling you by hiring you that they're gonna respect their home, you're gonna respect her their belongings, and they're gonna believe that you're gonna do the right thing, even when no one's watching.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and 99% of the time, that's the case.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's just these weird, oddball case studies that keep coming up.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, hmm, right?
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: And one person can really affect a tire industry.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the it's one of the unfortunate realities of our profession when is when one cleaner makes the news.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: But what I'm seeing is it's not just one cleaner that makes the news.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's not an unusual thing anymore.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's starting to become more and more common.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why I said as our industry expands, we're starting to see more and more episodes where people are getting busted for charging on cards, writing themselves checks, taking jewelry, taking coins, having a good time, having a party.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: There was a story, I haven't seen it in a while, but it floated around the internet.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it was, I think it was during COVID.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the person went to clean and they ended up helping themselves to all the liquor, ended up passing out in the home.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: A homeowner came home and said, I found this drunk cleaner on my floor.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: There was a picture of this person.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: It was just, it was a bad look all around.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: So one person, and so it's it, and it was all over the internet.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh my gosh, this is really embarrassing.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I really have lost track of how many estimates I've gone on or heard from, because most of us do over the phone.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: When someone said, I'll never hire, I've never hired a cleaning company before.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Flipping my page.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've had a bad experience with my last cleaner.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: And remember, there are two sides to every story.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Or my favorite, I hope you don't steal my jewelry, and they laugh after they do, after they say it, right?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: That's usually a little bit of a red herring.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd be concerned.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: And the very first question, if someone said, I hope you don't steal your jewelry, is have you had this situation happen before?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they'll either be really candid with you or they'll be like, Oh, I was only joking.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: But that's just something to note in the back of your mind.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I really do hope they're joking when they say it.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: But there's always just a little bit of truth behind when they say it.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: So just think about it.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: I've met thousands of cleaning business owners over the years, 16 years in, it's a long time.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: And the overwhelmingly majority are honest, hardworking people trying to provide for their families and serve their communities.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, we just get a couple of unscrupulous individuals who kind of ruin it for everyone.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, what happened with Miss Tammy is these digital breadcrumbs, because maybe she bought something that was on sale and she wanted to make sure she got a good price for the money that she was borrowing.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, according to the investigators, one of the key pieces of evidence came from an incredibly ordinary thing.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it really was a grocery store rewards account.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's reward cards, phone numbers at checkouts, credit card transactions, GPS, security cameras, doorbell cameras, access logs, cell phones.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Everything leaves a trail.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Even at the new school that my littles are going to, they have cameras that have been installed in every room with audio so they can listen in onto the conversations that are being said, which is very high-tech.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a little apprehensive because I've never had cameras in every room.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't ask if there was cameras in the bathroom, but that will be something that I cover maybe on another podcast.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: So these same same systems don't jump and identify any wrongdoing.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: They just they also protect the honest people.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: So imagine a client calls your office and accuses one of your technicians of stealing.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And having gone through this a couple of times, it's every business owner's nightmare.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a couple of podcasts that have been done about this already.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: You'll just have to search them up.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And think about what should happen if your cleaning tech didn't do it, right?
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then suddenly your documentation matters.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: So typically the protocol, depending on the situation and what the value of the items that have come up missing, is, you know, your arrival and departure time matters, your GPS records matter, your communication logs matter, your phone, your photos, not your phone, matter.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Your systems matter.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And because good systems don't just uncover the problems, they also protect the people who are doing everything right.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you want to protect your cleaning text from potential stuff like this.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think that's really a lesson worth considering.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: So is a background check enough?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: I would like to believe that background checks are still viable.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: There and it's entirely up to you.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: There was a concern about 10 years ago, well, actually, about eight, seven and a half, eight years ago, when I had a cleaning business owner come to me and they basically said, I can't hire anybody because I can't get anyone to pass a background check.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: And when we really started to dig into it, and this has nothing to do with anything, just an observation.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: At the time, it was really hard to hire anybody because every single person that came through the door, nine out of 10 of them had a felony.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, you know, you have to sit down and decide where where the barrier is for felonies.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: There's felonies that used to be a big deal like 20 years ago.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: For example, we always talk about marijuana cannabis, right?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: So there are people who are still in prison for possession of cannabis who should be released.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's it's totally legal in almost every state.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to decide where the barrier is and what that threshold marker is going to be for you.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have to be able to identify different types of felonies.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: I had to educate myself.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I had no idea, right?
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: So you would think that a background check would be enough.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: I used C4Operations.com for the longest time.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: You can use whoever you want.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: I liked C4 operations because humans actually still answer the phone.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: The owner, I've spoken to him before, still answers the phone.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to decide where you want to do.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to do a background check, I've had other people flat out say I'm never doing a background check, and that's okay with me too.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just telling what I've done in the past.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: I believe Gusto, the payroll um software, actually does background checks now, too.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's a couple of other options as well.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, have like some weird hair thing going on there.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: So if you've done a background check and a crime still happens or a misstep like this still happens, and you start to think, well, would a background check stopped the crime?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think people are going to steal whatever they're going to steal, regardless of whatever it is, whether you they pass a background check or not.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not just in our industry, it's in every industry.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen it happen all the way across the board, as I just mentioned, the restaurant.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I've always believed leadership is about balancing two important responsibility and it's giving people opportunities and protecting your clients.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: If you're doing those two things, it should keep you out of trouble 99% of the time.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: You can believe in second chances, you can believe people are capable of changing, and that's true in a lot of cases.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: And you can also put systems in place that protect everyone involved.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: So the the biggest saving grace, if you should have a situation like this happen, is that you did a background check.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you on it looks good on your side because you did due diligence, right?
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And backgrounds are a tool.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Reference checks are another tool.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: Training is helpful, right?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: You can see when you go through the training process, whether you do a working interview or just train, if that person's a good fit or not.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, probationary periods, clear expectations, strong leadership, accountability, company culture.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: You guys hear me talk about that all the time.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Not a single policy that creates trust.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Trust is built through layers.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: So all of those things I just mentioned will help create more trust and decision after decision and day after day.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_01: So eventually it's compounded, right?
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then something will happen.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: You'll be like, oh my gosh, this doesn't work anymore.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: I need to tweak it, right?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I think sometimes we put too much confidence in one hiring tool, and what we really need is an entire culture built around integrity.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, and this is just my personal opinion, we have lost a lot of what integrity means.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really sad.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's sad to see our society not have integrity.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I like to believe that 99% of us in the cleaning industry have integrity versus the rest of society who does not have a lot of integrity.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: You see it all over.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, that's not good.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that and that really brings me to something I believe for a long time.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't begin when someone has worked for you for five years.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: It trust starts on day one.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I will one day tell you about my five-year employee.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm getting I'm getting closer to spilling the beans on that one.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it's built every single day after that.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I think trust isn't just earn once.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's compounded over time.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: So it and we all have had clients that have been like I have one client who, when I sold, jumped with me again and then jumped with me the second time.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, she's been with me 16 years.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: I've watched, I've mentioned her before.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: I've watched both her girls go up and go to college.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: One of them is married, one of them had children.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one of them ended up passing away, one of them is still is gone to college, is now getting her doctorates.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I remember when she was little itty biddies, right?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you just never know.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And that's that's built up over time.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: Trust takes time to earn.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Just because you're present doesn't mean you automatically get it.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: You have to earn that trust.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: As business owners, we spend a lot of time teaching people how to clean, dust, vacuum, mop, detail a bathroom, how to make a bed.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: I really think that we should have, and this is segueing off of the thing.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: I want to have cleaners olympics.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: I know they have the bed making uh competition, I believe in Japan.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think that it would be fun to have the house cleaners Olympics or competition.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, if you're interested in something like that, reach out to me.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we can plan it for 2027.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, I didn't mean to segue off a squirrel.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I think sometimes we teach, we forget to teach something that's way more important than all of the things that I just listed is to carry the responsibility that comes with being divided into someone's home.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And there is a lot of responsibility.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: You have to remember to lock the door, you have to remember not to let the fluffy out or the other fluffy out, you have to remember to turn the air conditioner.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: On or off, or the heat on or off depending on where your location is.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: You have to remember to make sure that the oven is off when you leave.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a lot of responsibility when you're going into someone's home.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: We have to remember to handle a lamp carefully because it's two pieces instead of one.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of responsibility when we go into people's homes.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: We're the caretakers of that trust.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: And having them invite us into their home to clean is says, I trust you.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: So here's something I don't think we talk about enough.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Most cleaners are honest, 99% of them.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I would say the overwhelming majority really that yeah, I would say 99% of all the cleaners out there are honest.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: So when a story like this makes the news, honest cleaning technicians suffer too, because you see it, that the influencers are like, I'm never having a cleaner in my home.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is just wild.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'll never do it.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then they never get a chance to take advantage of what it feels like when they come home and their home is sparkly clean and everything is put back in order.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then policies become stricter.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: People become nervous about leaving someone home home alone in their home.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I get that too.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we still have people.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I had a client for a really long time.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have her anymore, but she lived in a really large home.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I made her stay at home.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason for that is because she had pieces of antiquity in her home, pieces of museum pieces that of carpets that were made by Indians and all of the stories that go into Indian carpets and how the dyes are natural.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to be careful not to drip any water on the carpet because you could ruin it, it could bleed.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: And some of those carpets at the time, I want to say they were over$100,000.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was it was a lot of money.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: She had a pilgrim chair.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you had to go over about, you know, why you couldn't sit in the pilgrim chair without permission and certainly not stand in the pilgrim's chair because this pilgrim era is 16, you know, 16th, 17th century, right?
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: So these are things that you get comfortable with over time and you explain the why, right?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: We also have the responsibility to protect our good employees, and that means investigating fairly, investigating fully, cooperating with the local authorities, gathering facts before jumping to conclusions, and having documentation, having systems, clear expectations, because sometimes those same systems that identify misconduct are the very systems that prove an innocent employee did absolutely nothing wrong.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Something to remember.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I've been here 16 years in the industry.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: I thought a lot about trust.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: My companies have completed over 15,000 move-out cleanings.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: My teams and I have been inside of thousands of homes, thousands.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: And we've cleaned around cash left on kitchen counters, cash left on beds.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: You guys have all heard that story.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: Jewelry sitting in the bathroom vanities, two carat diamond stud earrings just toss on the floor.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Real diamonds, not the you know, man-made diamonds, prescription medications that have been left all over the place, uh, firearms, important documents, you name it.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen it, my clean my techs have seen it.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: And over the years, we found all kinds of interesting other things.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Money tucked in a mattress or under a mattress in a pillow.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: I've found money.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Someone left a painting of Picasso behind, and we went to go take, they said take the Picasso off the wall.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Are you sure?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, Yes.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: So we moved the Picasso and cash was stuck behind the Picasso and it all fell down.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, not only did you leave a Picasso, there's all of this cash, right?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you just you never know.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: So in Family Heirlooms, we did a move out cleaning last year, I believe it was.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it was for a real estate agent who was working on both sides of the transaction.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: So we came in and cleaned, and the movers missed a lot of items.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, you know, you have a lot of German silver here.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: This looks like it's from way before the 1900s.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so we ended up getting it back to the owner, but it was just a missed item, right?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: So you gotta, and I had to take pictures, and then we had to document it.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: We left it in a box, and then, you know, because I didn't want to get blamed for it, or I didn't want the crew to get blamed for it.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you just document things, sometimes you don't, sometimes you leave it as is, sometimes you move it, sometimes you get someone involved.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because integrity isn't something you turn on when it when someone's watching.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Integrity happens all of the time.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: Integrity, I believe, is who you are when no one is watching.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you can install cameras, checklists, all those things have high value, but you none of them can really replace character.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think character is an internal compass.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: So having good character to me means that you're a good person.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: It could mean something else for someone else, but that that's what it means to me.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And as leaders of our our greatest responsibility isn't building better cleaning systems, it's building a culture where doing the right thing isn't an exception.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's simply the way we do business.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because at the end of the day, clients make us, well, clients don't make us.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: Clients actually hire us to clean the floors and give them sparkling countertops, but they stay with us because they trust people walking in through the front door.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And in my opinion, trust isn't part of the business.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: Trust is our business.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: If today's episode got you thinking about your own business, your hiring process, your policies, your training, and even the culture you're building, I want to invite you to check out one of the programs I poured my heart into.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Starting a Successful Cleaning Business Academy or the Structure, Scale and Profit Cleaning Business Academy.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: We've had over 600 cleaning businesses go through the program.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's a 180-day program, module by module.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Inside the academy, I walk you through all of the systems, policies, and leadership principles I've developed over the last 16 years of building and growing a cleaning business.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: We cover everything from hiring, training, client communication, pricing, operations, creating a company that people actually trust.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because successful cleaning businesses aren't built by accident, they're built one system at a time.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: You can learn more about the Structure Scale and Profit Cleaning Business Academy at Clean Freaks University.com.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: If you enjoyed today's conversation, I think you'll also enjoy these episodes.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: Episode 217, the$1.95 cookie that costs the company so much more.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_01: Episode 216, interview red flags, and green flags.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Episode 214, training day one, what should it look like?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: Because trust doesn't begin after someone has worked for you for years.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: It begins the very first day they put on your company shirt.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you enjoyed this first edition of Cleaning Business Life Case Files.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: If there are stories you've been in the news that you have seen in the news involving the cleaning, housekeeping, janitory, or in health services industries, send them my way.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: They might just end up being on a podcast.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: Our goal is to become better leaders because we're willing to learn from real situations.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, I'll see you guys later.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.