Latest / Cleaning Business Life / EP 233 | Business Is Hard—Build One That Can Handle It

Transcript

EP 233 | Business Is Hard—Build One That Can Handle It · Cleaning Business Life

1:08
SPEAKER_02: If you keep telling yourself you'll finally get serious about your cleaning business when things calm down, I need you to hear me.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: Things are not going to magically calm down ever unless you do something.
1:23
SPEAKER_02: The clients will keep calling, employees will keep needing answers, fires will keep popping up.
1:29
SPEAKER_02: And if your business doesn't have the structure, every new opportunity will feel like one more thing that you have to carry.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: That is exactly what the Structure Scale and Profit Cleaning Business Academy is designed to change.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: Over 400 businesses have gone through the program.
1:48
SPEAKER_02: This scholarship isn't for the person with the saddest story or the most perfect application.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: It's for the cleaning business owner who is ready to stop winging it, start implementing, and build a company that can actually support the life that you want.
2:04
SPEAKER_02: You do not need to have everything figured out before you apply.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: That's the whole damn point.
2:12
SPEAKER_02: The scholarship application is officially open on my website, Clean Freaks University.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: Applications close on Veterans Day, November 11th, and the recipient will be announced on Black Friday.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: Stop deciding for me that you won't be chosen.
2:31
SPEAKER_02: Fill out the application.
2:34
SPEAKER_02: Tell me where you are, where you want to go, and why you're ready to do the work.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: Talk to you soon.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: Go, Jamie.
2:49
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Cleaning Business Live podcast.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: I am your co-host, Jamie Runko, and we are with Shannon.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: Today, what are we talking about?
2:59
SPEAKER_01: Shannon, we're talking about how hard it is to actually be a it's full of being hard things.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: Hard stuff, right?
3:10
SPEAKER_02: Right.
3:11
SPEAKER_02: It is.
3:11
SPEAKER_02: Being a business owner is hard.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: It it takes a certain mindset and mentality to be comfortable in that realm.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: If you come from a really structured bureaucratic background, adjusting to the lifestyle, especially the ebb and flow of being a cleaning business entrepreneur, can be overwhelming.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: Because you're like, well, am I singing for dinner tonight?
3:35
SPEAKER_02: Well, how about tomorrow night?
3:36
SPEAKER_02: Am I singing for dinner then?
3:37
SPEAKER_02: And it, you just get, and I can tell you after 16 years of doing this, you just get to the point where it's normal and it's not so bad and it's not so scary.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: And you just know that the next ebb and flow comes.
3:50
SPEAKER_02: Because when we get into this, when we transition, especially a lot of us, a lot of us have transitioned from being an actual employee versus being a clean business owner that's responsible for payroll in other people's families.
4:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: That's whatever, yes.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: That's yeah, you're getting up there in in a little bit of fear sometimes.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I literally have to talk to myself, like just put one step, one foot in front of the other.
4:24
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: Right.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've all seen the posts all over social media, and you'll see it, they'll just resurface about every three to six months.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: It says being a uh, you know, a cleaning business owner is hard.
4:35
SPEAKER_02: And and a lot of those people who make those posts talk about freedom, flexibility, making your own schedule, being your own boss, and build building something from nothing.
4:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, hopefully you're not having to build something from nothing after Jamie and I get done with you.
4:50
SPEAKER_02: So that I I'm hoping you have a good basis of a launch pad where it's no longer required where you have to invent the wheel for sure.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: Let's be honest.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: Like it is it's hard.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: Whenever, you know, whenever you're first starting out, you're you're you're if you're still in the fill cleaning, we're you're still in the fill cleaning.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: One of the hardest transitions was me actually making it to where I didn't have to go back in the build.
5:25
SPEAKER_02: Right.
5:26
SPEAKER_01: That was hard.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: Everything I've taught you, that was probably the hardest.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: That was hard.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: And then it just it just each stage comes with its deaf different set of challenges.
5:44
unknown: Definitely.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: Every step, and it's because we've never been to this step before, you know?
5:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's there's lots of hard conversations you have to have, hard decisions, hard seasons.
5:58
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and sometimes the seasons are short, and sometimes the seasons are really long, and hopefully you catch it before it becomes a really bumpy four-wheel drive road.
6:07
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, clients leave, employees who disappoint you, money that doesn't come in when you expect it.
6:13
SPEAKER_02: They're like, oh, by the way, I'm not gonna be able to pay you this month.
6:16
SPEAKER_02: You're like, but I already cleaned for you three times.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, and I can tell you too, employees do let you down.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: And that's also it's you have to work a muscle in your brain.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: That's what I'm doing right now.
6:33
SPEAKER_01: Work a muscle in your brain to learn how to do these things as you're going along, you know?
6:42
SPEAKER_02: Um and it's crazy.
6:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's gonna be days where you're you're gonna question your decision.
6:47
SPEAKER_02: It just like, am I doing this the right way?
6:49
SPEAKER_02: I'm driving myself batshit crazy and I don't know if I've made the right decision.
6:55
SPEAKER_02: Or you come up with a brilliant idea and you're like, this is my decision, and then you're like, oh, you let me out of the gate.
7:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: But also, you know, that's also kind of when you start surrounding yourself by people that can hold you accountable.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: Uh you're at least for me, that's whenever I started investing in myself.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: Like, okay.
7:23
SPEAKER_01: And it in the business as a good leader, as a good person that runs a business, you know.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: Right.
7:36
SPEAKER_02: It's um a whole dynamic.
7:38
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I had someone actually try to call me, and I'm like, I'm on, I'm filming podcasts because that's the only thing you can't silence all the way.
7:45
SPEAKER_02: It still kind of pops up.
7:47
SPEAKER_02: Because I have everything else blocked, so I'm sorry if you see me distracted, it's not because you're not important, it's just I had to stop this person from calling me again and again and again.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: So I'm going through that transition right now where learning like learning how to put the Indeed ads up.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: Like every CD so the Indeed ads works.
8:16
SPEAKER_02: Because Indeed is glad to take your money, whether it works or not, they don't care.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: Well, we started on the lowest here.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: So the lowest, at least in my area, I don't know if this is nationwide or not, on Indeed, it's called a sponsorship.
8:31
SPEAKER_01: So we sponsor our minimum is five dollars a day, and you can press pause, stop.
8:39
SPEAKER_01: But once I realize that, like uh people are just clicking, you add a next the next step.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: Answer these questions.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: These things are hard to learn.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: Um, like I just know to do that.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: Nobody tells you, nobody hands you a book over and says, this is this, if this problem happens, do this.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, there's definitely coaches and mentors out there, and they help alleviate some of the hard.
9:13
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
9:15
SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
9:16
SPEAKER_02: And um when you blunder it in your business, it doesn't mean that you're failing.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: I I mean, how and I know I say this a lot.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: This is how I know so much, is because I have blundered it hundreds, if not thousands, of times.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: And that's how I know because I've had real life experience.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, oh yeah, I fucked up there.
9:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:37
SPEAKER_02: I did that, don't do that, don't do that at all.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: Like it asked Jamie.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: Uh if if she comes and she asks me for her opinion, I'll say, Don't don't do it because of this.
9:48
SPEAKER_02: Or I'll say, Yes, do it because I did this.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: She's walked me, you've walked, she's definitely walked me through some very but it always left my mouth wide open, like that worked.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: What?
10:03
SPEAKER_01: It worked, and then and because it was like uh, you know, it's like, gosh, I don't want to do that.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: You know, that pit of your stomach, like you're scared, you're nervous, you're shaky, but you do you put one foot in front of the other, and then you look back and it's like, oh my gosh, it worked.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: Those feelings is, I think, what fuels me for the next challenge.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: Because every step of the way of growing this business, there has been a challenge.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: Like what we're talking here, um, it just creates new problems every step.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: Like if you're if you're still at the hundred thousand or ten thousand dollars a month, the fifty thousand dollar problems a month are just different.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
10:58
SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
10:59
SPEAKER_02: There, there's a huge difference in operation and standards and systems from ten thousand dollars a month to fifty thousand dollars a month.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: And just like when it's fifty thousand dollars a month and you start to do a hundred thousand dollars a month, there's a huge gap of operations.
11:13
SPEAKER_02: All of these ducks have to be in row for you to operate smoothly because you don't want to be doing you could you could do a hundred thousand dollars a month and have complete turnover in your business and in total chaos and customers bad and everybody leaving you bad reviews.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: You could do that, but you won't be in business for the long term.
11:31
SPEAKER_02: I I think that longevity is hard in in any business.
11:36
SPEAKER_02: Um, what did they say?
11:37
SPEAKER_02: I I'm trying to remember the conversation we had that what was it, 80% of all clean businesses won't be in business five years from today.
11:44
SPEAKER_02: Is that the I don't know?
11:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that is.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: I think it's even high higher than that is what yes.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I think that's exactly it.
11:56
SPEAKER_01: I remember it was like 90%.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: It was uh and I'm like, whenever we we had it, it was an interview that we did with uh Misa.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: And he's he's really like a geek on those numbers.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: I was just so entranced, and I think he was like 90% maybe.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: We'll have to go back and look.
12:18
SPEAKER_02: Yes, but yes, I think it's labeled he he does like two hours a week and does$2 million a year.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: In I consider the hardest market in the state of Arizona, the Tucson market is very difficult to establish and and grow and create a brand that he has done.
12:39
SPEAKER_02: I it's Tucson is the hardest market.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: And then it's just like wow, you know, you sit back and think, you know, yeah, it all took structure.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: You have to stop and build up.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: You're building your your platform.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: You have there is no way you can scale without having systems in place, nor can you uh do I believe that you can scale by yourself.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: No, that's whenever you start having to you you can't you can't do it alone.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: You have to build people and structure in place to help you get to the next level.
13:20
SPEAKER_02: You don't and and the goal isn't to build a business where nothing hard ever happens because every part of your business is going to be hard until you get used to it.
13:29
SPEAKER_02: The that business won't exist and it will ebb and flow.
13:35
SPEAKER_02: The goal is to become the kind of business owner who can handle the hard stuff without freaking out.
13:40
SPEAKER_02: And trust me, there have been many days where I drank scotch at eight o'clock in the morning because something really horrible and bad had happened.
13:48
SPEAKER_02: My mom's like, so what are you doing in my country and scotch?
13:51
SPEAKER_02: She goes, Oh, it's one of those days, right?
13:53
SPEAKER_02: And it doesn't, I don't do it all the time, but every once in a while a big blender comes up.
13:57
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I just ate 100 grand.
13:59
SPEAKER_02: Or I ate last year, I ate 272,000.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: My but look, yeah, uh, that is a lot, and I don't know what I would do.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: But some I know losing a thousand dollars can be so hard for us.
14:21
SPEAKER_01: Like it can be.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: You know, just things can be hard for us right now.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: Every phase, it's just different.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: And we absorb and we, yeah, no, we as the business owners, we absorb all that stress.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: We absorb it.
14:43
SPEAKER_02: And and I I can't emphasize enough that you need to take self-care for yourself, whether it's small or big, whatever it is, free or paid, you and I and I've mentioned this, I don't know, probably in over a dozen podcast episodes.
14:57
SPEAKER_02: Self-care when you do this type of work is so important.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, suck you dry and spit you out.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: You know, it it also can get very lonely up here because nobody knows except for other cleaning business owners.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: And you guys, I don't know what this is.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: I feel like my purpose is to do stuff like this, and I'm hungry for it.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: You I I I'm so hungry for the knowledge just in this business alone, the cleaning business, the cleaning industry, and I have surrounded myself with like-minded people and to lay lean, be able to lean on them whenever things get hard like this while you're building is just such a like, oh, you get it, you understand what I'm trying to build here and what part of difficult I am while I'm building this.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: So there are gonna be bad days, but there's also people that you can lean in on to.
16:40
SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
16:41
SPEAKER_02: And in having your own group, and you guys all heard me talk about in the last Maid Summit collaboration over competition.
16:48
SPEAKER_02: There have been so many instances that my little messenger group, because I never officially created a group, has been beneficial either directly or indirectly to me.
16:58
SPEAKER_02: And all of the other cleaning business owners in there, we kind of come together and we're like, hey, just let you know this person at this address has been a problem.
17:06
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, we don't say derogatory thing.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: Of course, of course.
17:11
SPEAKER_02: Or I had difficulty, you know, with this person because they again didn't pay their bill, or what whatever the case is, it gives us all a heads up to decide to say, you know, maybe I don't want to take that person on.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: We're not trying to blackball or 86 anybody, but if you continually, if you're a client and if you're a client listening to this, I'm sorry.
17:32
SPEAKER_02: When you are overly difficult to deal with, it's not the group of people, it's usually the individual.
17:39
SPEAKER_02: Um social media itself as an entity, you see it all the time.
17:46
SPEAKER_02: How many people get stuff on their feed from other coaches, and and all it does is self-readom.
17:51
SPEAKER_02: I did$10 million in a month, or I did 20 million.
17:55
SPEAKER_02: It's so outrageous, but you never see a PL, they never show you any proof.
17:59
SPEAKER_02: It's just them this them standing next to a jet or a Lamborghini or whatever the lifestyle is, right?
18:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
18:07
SPEAKER_02: No, exactly.
18:08
SPEAKER_02: But it rarely shows the responsibility um that comes with promoting on social media.
18:15
SPEAKER_02: There, there's you guys have all heard me talk.
18:17
SPEAKER_02: I tell people no all the time.
18:19
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, you're not ready for coaching, you might not need to do this, or you're ready for coaching, but you need to do this.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: Um, other coaches, they'll just sell it to you because that's just what they're doing.
18:30
SPEAKER_02: They're making a sale, they get a commission.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: I totally get that too, but that's not me.
18:34
SPEAKER_02: No, um, so that's what I mean about responsibility.
18:37
SPEAKER_02: And business ownership doesn't eliminate the hard things either.
18:42
SPEAKER_02: It kind of makes things bubble up until you address them.
18:45
SPEAKER_02: What do you think, Jamie?
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I absolutely.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
18:53
SPEAKER_01: We it's learning how to set boundaries like that, and I it it's a muscle inside of your brain that you have to work.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: It's um I don't know.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: It's just like whenever you've walked me through some of these bids or these like outlandish bids that you told me to quote, and I quoted it and then got it, and I just was like, what?
19:31
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes the decision is there is no perfect decision.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's a decision for that moment, and then sometimes you get a chance to revisit that decision again when it comes to bids.
19:42
SPEAKER_02: That's why you should always keep them on file so you can remember.
19:45
SPEAKER_02: Because when you're a cleaning business owner, you talk to thousands of people.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I have no idea.
19:49
SPEAKER_02: I might remember your dog.
19:51
SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna necessarily remember you.
19:56
SPEAKER_02: It's nothing personal, it's just, you know, hey, I know you're fluffy.
19:59
SPEAKER_02: But that's the reality when you talk to as many people as we both do.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: Um, in hard conversations don't become easier because you avoid them.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: They actually become more expensive.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: And some of those blunders, you could end up in court or not in court.
20:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's all kinds of things you got to really be careful to protect your baby, right?
20:19
SPEAKER_02: That's the business.
20:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
20:22
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, that reminded me of the time that somebody in the group, I and I see here see it all the time because I've had it happen to me.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: Is something will happen, and I but I've put I bet you you'll put that in your policy and it'll never happen again after this.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: Boom.
20:45
SPEAKER_01: It happens, and and you know what?
20:47
SPEAKER_01: It does, but you put a policy in place, and now you know I you know it's never gonna that situation will never happen to you again because hey, it's on the policy now, right?
21:01
SPEAKER_02: It's it becomes an SOP, and this is what we do when this happens.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: This is when we do when that happens, this is what happens if if it snows.
21:09
SPEAKER_02: This is what happens if you run out of gas on the way to our house.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: Brain dumps, exactly, exactly.
21:17
SPEAKER_00: Brain dumps forming it and putting it together and structuring it.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: Um it it's building, you're building a cleaning business.
21:33
SPEAKER_02: You're building an empire that you can either gift to family or sell on another date.
21:39
SPEAKER_02: I will say it until I'm blue in the face, and you will disappoint people when you start protecting the business.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: And you will they'll come out, customers or employees, they'll come out and go, they'll try to give you the I'm so disappointed in you speech.
21:52
SPEAKER_02: And you're like, what?
21:54
SPEAKER_02: You are not my mother.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: You can't give me that speech.
21:57
SPEAKER_02: But they do, and it's because they've gotten away with it because the other cleaning businesses they dealt with didn't have any structure and they didn't try to protect their business.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: So they're either in business now or they're not in business now.
22:11
SPEAKER_01: Right.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: So the goal isn't to create a business without the hard things, right?
22:17
SPEAKER_01: The goal is to also to create one that doesn't collapse every time something hard does happen.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: And that is how SOPs, policies, everything starts to become and what you're starting to build.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: I just I'm sitting here looking at everything and and realizing every step, every hard step that I look and see my office, I I built a system around it to get here.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: And it just keeps stacking up and stacking up, and then I'll take time off and implement all the hard things that I learned and organize it.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: So it that's whenever, you know, all the policies come in place, right?
23:14
SPEAKER_02: And and it's amazing because people don't think that the cleaning industry itself have policies in place, but you're starting to see a lot of structure come in.
23:22
SPEAKER_02: I Know I've mentioned Grant Cardone on multiple occasions.
23:26
SPEAKER_02: He's now stepped into the cleaning realm, even though he probably does not know how to clean a toilet, but suddenly he's an expert.
23:32
SPEAKER_02: Look at Alex.
23:34
SPEAKER_02: Alex is like, I got this pathway.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: What for you cleaning business owners?
23:37
SPEAKER_02: Everybody is stepping into the cleaning realm because we're popular.
23:41
SPEAKER_02: Guess what?
23:42
SPEAKER_02: We're the popular people now.
23:44
SPEAKER_02: Where before we were not, we were considered you guys clean toilets.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, ha ha.
23:50
SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's a different mind shift, it's a different way of thinking.
23:55
SPEAKER_02: And being kind does not mean allowing clients or employees to take advantage of you, and they will sure are.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: And naughty.
24:09
SPEAKER_01: And then you learn that teenagers are self-serving.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: But you also stop and learn how much you're gonna take.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: How much are how much are you gonna take before you put a policy in place and start pointing that that's whenever the horror conversations become easier because then you can say it's in the policy.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: Did you not sign this paper right here?
24:34
SPEAKER_01: But yes, exactly.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: But you you allow yourself to whatever you're gonna take and what you're not gonna take.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's that's how I've leaned back on like, oh no, that's my that's the policy.
24:53
SPEAKER_01: I I know it's my policy, even though it's weird that I created it, but it's like, no, that's that's in place for a reason because obviously I had something happen in this era, you know?
25:08
SPEAKER_02: Right.
25:09
SPEAKER_02: And and you can make the right decision and still feel terrible about it.
25:15
SPEAKER_02: There are circumstances that come up that you have to remember to protect your nest egg.
25:21
SPEAKER_02: You're doing this for a reason.
25:23
SPEAKER_02: You're not arbitrarily building an info hard.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: Someone can take you down.
25:27
SPEAKER_02: There are gonna be circumstances you come out, you feel terrible.
25:30
SPEAKER_02: Like someone will come out.
25:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna, this is random.
25:34
SPEAKER_02: I'm not picking on anybody who's homeless.
25:36
SPEAKER_02: But someone who's homeless might not be as stable, hypothetically speaking, as someone who comes from a home that has a stability and has a regular routine schedule.
25:46
SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying it can't work, it has worked in the past.
25:49
SPEAKER_02: I won't go into all the details.
25:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but sometimes that's like that's a hard decision because you the emotion plays into it.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: You're like, well, I want to save this person, I want to make their life easier.
25:58
SPEAKER_02: It's been tough for them.
25:59
SPEAKER_02: All of the reasons in your head that this is gonna be a good decision, but it's not the right decision for your business.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: You guys, there are so many.
26:07
SPEAKER_01: There now that I've hired, and let me tell you, I'm really not.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: I feel it's another thing that I have to work in my brain.
26:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a muscle, it's a muscle, just like working out.
26:22
SPEAKER_01: These are things and they're uncomfortable.
26:25
SPEAKER_01: They are uncomfortable.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: At first, just put one foot in front of the other.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's in the back of my head, and I'm telling you, there's times whenever my heart beats real fast, my the pit of my stomach, but I do it.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: I can feel my face even getting flush and red whenever sometimes it happened.
26:50
SPEAKER_02: It just, do you know what I mean?
26:53
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: Jamie actually brought up an example of someone, I think it was last month, where she quoted a price and they wanted something extra beyond the scope of what they paid for.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: They came down to her office, tried to personally intimidate her while they cut the second part of the check.
27:11
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's that took nerves of steel to be able to get there and do that.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: That was a little nerve-wracking.
27:18
SPEAKER_01: And I just I held my own.
27:21
SPEAKER_01: And they had the audacity.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: Well, okay, they had the audacity to ask me if I was a Burger King or not.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: And I was trying to think of what are they talking about?
27:35
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, oh, they're talking about a franchise.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: Are they they're they're calling me a fran.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: Are you like a you know, a Burger King or something?
27:44
SPEAKER_00: Right, because after all, everyone can clean.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I yeah, you know, um, like I said, go ahead.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: I put that policy in play.
27:55
SPEAKER_01: I walked in and seen somebody cleaning a refrigerator, and I said no.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: And then he looked at one of my employees and said, Well, okay, take that off because I was adding, I was like, Oh, we're gonna add this.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: And then um he looked at my other employee and told him, Okay, I can uh come on, let's uh take this refrigerator outside then.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: I said, Absolutely not.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: No.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: So you can get a workman's comp claim, no problem.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: I said, we don't do that.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: And then he was like, I left a scaffolding in there for you to get the ceilings.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, popcorn, popcorn ceilings.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yeah, we don't use your we we have tools.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: We have tools that can reach places and whatever, you know.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: Popcorn ceilings are easy.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:45
SPEAKER_01: Anyways, it was uh those were hard at first.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh that one was easy being able to tell him no to his face, but having somebody actually come into my office angrily and filling out the rest of an uh$2,200 clean was with the credit hold of my own.
29:09
SPEAKER_01: There's no hiding away from the text, uh, you know.
29:12
SPEAKER_01: This is but I asked for this.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: This is what I wanted.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: I wanted the hard things.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: I knew that coming into this office and I don't know, it gives me fuel, it lights me up.
29:26
SPEAKER_01: That's why I do this podcast, you guys.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: It just this I believe has become my purpose.
29:32
SPEAKER_01: Whenever I talk about it, it feels it fuels me.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: I get excited and I I I just um I love masterminding.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm just letting you know some of the things that have worked for me.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: Just to get to this part, you know.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: Who knows what I I'm gonna tell you guys, I know this is not this the selling for me.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: I know it's not.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: I I just no doubt, you know.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: I you just something fuels you and drives you.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: And um, this is one of those things that just fuels me.
30:10
SPEAKER_02: I think Jamie is trying to tell you that this is her passion.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: I it's my person.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: We're two cleaning gigs together.
30:18
SPEAKER_01: Like, yo! Did you see that toilet?
30:21
SPEAKER_01: And and Ronnie, uh, learning how to run this machine, it became a machine.
30:26
SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's just it it fuels you.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: So that being said, it's not easy.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: There's days whenever there's some times whenever I'm just like, man, am I doing the right thing here?
30:43
SPEAKER_01: You second guess yourself, and then that's whenever I just like, man, why then you gotta really look at it and and be like, look what we're building here, all of us, you know?
30:57
SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: And losing a client isn't always a loss.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's an opportunity for something better.
31:04
SPEAKER_02: That's probably a really hard thing to learn initially because we take it so personal.
31:10
SPEAKER_02: Well, why did you fire me?
31:11
SPEAKER_02: Well, I didn't do anything wrong, my cleaning was perfect, and it there's a lot of variables that they will not tell you about.
31:17
SPEAKER_02: But um, some clients cost more time and and energy, and they bring a lot of chaos with them as well.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: So sometimes it's a blessing in disguise.
31:30
SPEAKER_02: There are a lot of really difficult people who try to work out whatever their issues are through either you if you're out in the field or with your cleaning text.
31:41
SPEAKER_02: They they we seem to be because we're people pleasers anonymous.
31:46
SPEAKER_02: They seem to well, it's not only that.
31:48
SPEAKER_01: I've I've I've discovered that anytime a client I dread walking in, if I dread like every clean right or and then you're like, okay, I'm gonna pass this on to one of my employees.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: No you you realize what what you're gonna take and what you're not.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: But every time a client would um give me that yucky feeling inside, it it it never ended well.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: And clients do come and go.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh we we just lost one uh a bi-week leave at 275 every two weeks after four years of serving them.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: Um due to financial reasons.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: No, no, not because of our cleaning, not be things like that's gonna happen.
32:50
SPEAKER_01: And it Christian, it's like, you know what?
32:53
SPEAKER_01: If in the beginning, I know we want all the clients.
32:57
SPEAKER_01: We want all the clients in the beginning, and it hurts us financially sometimes, you know, and that's where you're just you dig deep and and it's like, okay, we gotta dust ourselves off and get back on it.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna find a place, a replacement for that.
33:15
SPEAKER_02: Right.
33:15
SPEAKER_02: And and there's you know, the the employee piece I probably is the most challenging because hiring is hard.
33:21
SPEAKER_02: You're like, am I saying the right things?
33:23
SPEAKER_02: Am I doing the right things?
33:24
SPEAKER_02: Am I offering the right things?
33:25
SPEAKER_02: Training is even harder because then you can really see what you got.
33:30
SPEAKER_02: Working interviews are always helpful.
33:32
SPEAKER_02: Correcting someone is hard because not everyone can take um create uh not creative criticism, constructive criticism.
33:39
SPEAKER_02: Letting someone go is even harder.
33:41
SPEAKER_02: Um, you guys have all heard me talk about the very first person I ever had to fire.
33:44
SPEAKER_02: I cried with her.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: Right.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: I know.
33:46
SPEAKER_02: That's what she's yes.
33:50
SPEAKER_02: No, it's like blah blah blah.
33:55
SPEAKER_02: I did not want to fire this person, but they're like, you get to do it.
33:58
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what?
33:59
SPEAKER_02: Right.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: And and but doing everything yourself forever is also hard.
34:03
SPEAKER_02: And it it takes its toll on your body that you're not gonna be able to clean houses in your 60s, even though I know and I don't want to get any bad messages.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: There are plenty of you in your 60s and 70s who are still doing it, but you slow have slowed down with versus when you first started.
34:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was if you started in your 30s, that's a good 40-year span of being physically active.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, and not only that.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: If you're still in the field, not I did it.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: I did it.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: I wore every single hat that you could possibly have.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: I don't I it's just um you can only fit so many people on that schedule and do by yourself before you need help, you know, to scowl.
34:54
SPEAKER_01: And and that is hard.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: That is hard and getting to where you you know working out of the field to getting out of the field and then just able to focus on building this machine is hard.
35:16
SPEAKER_01: It is that stuff is hard, and and and you constantly have to feed the machine, like yeah, definitely.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: It's always uh it's uh either with clients, employees, because now I'm have a staffing.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: I have a staff.
35:32
SPEAKER_01: The next phase is having a staffing issue.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: Like, I can't put anybody anywhere, we can't do the first-time cleans, and uh you know, I I don't I don't have enough staff.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: Learning to hire and when to watch that cash flow of it letting the business tell you, okay, I can't I can't feed the machine right now, you're gonna have to pause for a second.
36:03
SPEAKER_02: Right.
36:03
SPEAKER_02: You know, uh it's hard and cash flow is different than revenue entirely.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
36:09
SPEAKER_01: And do you know what?
36:10
SPEAKER_01: I until I'm gonna tell you guys, it was this year that I discovered what the heck that meant and understood.
36:19
SPEAKER_01: This is me going almost five years into business.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: It was just this year, whenever I hired Erica, she was already my bookkeeper, but whenever I hired her as my map coach or my advisor.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: That she prefers.
36:37
SPEAKER_01: I know, apparently.
36:38
SPEAKER_01: Excuse me.
36:39
SPEAKER_01: Uh in your advice off.
36:41
SPEAKER_01: But I know, but it wasn't until then that I understood that looking at my bank account versus what our cash flow was, I had no idea.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: I I was intermingling things, I was a mess.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: I was a mess.
36:57
SPEAKER_01: But she's on the right path now, that's for sure.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I'm going to business anonymous because I'm on the right path now, you guys.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: We structured into profit first, and and just that's because my brain does not work where I look at my bank account and I had payroll, I had the business account, my personal and savings.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: For me, it had to automatically disperse for me so that I because I'm gonna spend the taxes.
37:31
SPEAKER_01: There's no, I'm not saving for the taxes and was always broke, but now I can see and understand what cash flow is.
37:39
SPEAKER_01: It's totally different.
37:42
SPEAKER_01: And some of you guys may be way ahead of me on this, some may not.
37:47
SPEAKER_01: Some some of you are right where I was, and I just that's gonna be a mistake down the road.
37:54
SPEAKER_02: And your your friends, I and we talk a lot about circle of influence.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: Your friends and families may not understand the pressure, they only see the flexibility.
38:03
SPEAKER_02: She's a business owner, she can drop whatever she's doing, but they don't understand that you had to schedule in that time spot to go to the chamber breakfast and meet with the mayor and do the photograph.
38:13
SPEAKER_02: They just see that you're not a you're not constricted to the nine to five like everybody else.
38:18
SPEAKER_02: And we talk a lot about circle of influence.
38:21
SPEAKER_02: As you grow in each stage of your business, your circle of influence will change.
38:26
SPEAKER_02: Your friends and family, when you first start out in this industry, are gonna laugh in your face if you did or didn't.
38:32
SPEAKER_02: They're gonna say this, my friend, my family didn't take me serious.
38:35
SPEAKER_02: Oh, she's just a cleaner.
38:37
SPEAKER_02: And then after a while, I heard them at an event and I they they were talking about me, like that's my cousin.
38:43
SPEAKER_02: She has a really successful cleaning business.
38:45
SPEAKER_02: Oh, she's da-da-da-da-da.
38:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, now I'm the published author, I'm this, I'm that.
38:50
SPEAKER_02: So I have moved up in credibility, but initially they were kind of supportive, but not really.
38:57
SPEAKER_02: Did you find that to be true, JB?
38:59
SPEAKER_01: Well, I know it to be true because I I just heard it last night.
39:03
SPEAKER_01: See?
39:04
SPEAKER_01: I just heard it last night that said I heard I worked so I worked too hard.
39:10
SPEAKER_01: We're we were doing something with our boatie.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: And then um my husband said, I worked too hard for this.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: I said, you know, I worked pretty hard too myself.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: You sit behind a computer all day long.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: You guys, let me tell you.
39:30
SPEAKER_01: I worked very hard to get here with these two hands right in the field to be able to do this.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: So yes, people don't always sit at your table.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: They'll come on board, but only after you make it.
39:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: But also there are people that just well, my sister is just she rooted for me.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: I remember taking my first photo.
40:00
SPEAKER_01: I was at the Dollar Tree.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: I filled up my cart with$30 worth of cleaning supplies and snapped a picture to her, and I said, I guess this is it.
40:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm doing this.
40:12
SPEAKER_01: I told her about, yeah, I sure did.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: And I love it.
40:17
SPEAKER_01: This was uh January of 2022, and then um I did my DBA.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I had a couple of clients here and there that I used their products.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: Like I learned so much through the whole thing.
40:36
SPEAKER_01: So, and that was almost five years ago, right?
40:39
SPEAKER_01: And uh I did the hard things.
40:44
SPEAKER_01: I I did the hard things, and and I know there's somebody out there that is listening to this podcast doing going through the same something.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: Maybe not exactly, but you gotta be you gotta do the hard things to scale.
41:01
SPEAKER_02: And those hard things aren't hard anymore.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: That's my point.
41:04
SPEAKER_02: Those those ones are easy, they're not those ones are not, but it just it the the hard gets different.
41:14
SPEAKER_01: It's a different kind of hard now.
41:16
SPEAKER_01: Um but I it's cra I'm telling you, every day now that we have this beautiful office that I worked so hard to get to, I wake up so excited to come to work.
41:30
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: To work, to like, okay, we're gonna get it, we're gonna build something.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: I'm building the machine.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean, and I I I, you know, trying to find out what I'm good at.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: What what part of the this part, because I know I'm gonna have to call in somebody in this next phase of the business that I'm in right now.
41:56
SPEAKER_02: Right.
41:56
SPEAKER_01: Gotta call in to help.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: Often owners also absorb everyone else's stress.
42:03
SPEAKER_02: We don't intentionally do it, but we do.
42:06
SPEAKER_02: And they will often act like everything's fine.
42:11
SPEAKER_02: And then when they're by themselves, they're like, fuck.
42:14
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
42:15
SPEAKER_02: Sorry for all the curse words this time.
42:18
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
42:19
SPEAKER_02: That's that's exactly how you feel.
42:21
SPEAKER_02: Right.
42:22
SPEAKER_02: And you're like, what am I gonna do now?
42:23
SPEAKER_02: How am I gonna fix this?
42:25
SPEAKER_02: What do I have to do?
42:25
SPEAKER_02: And then you're able to strategize at some point, not not the first couple times it happens, but then because you have experience to recall, you'll be able to either map it out on paper or in your mind, or you'll be able to do it really quick after a while on what strategy works best for this type of situation.
42:43
SPEAKER_01: Brain dump after brain dump after brain dump.
42:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you guys been going to school, literally.
42:49
SPEAKER_01: Keeps going.
42:52
SPEAKER_01: These are brain dump after brain dump.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, I learned to do that and and um we were I worked through it.
43:00
SPEAKER_01: I worked through that stack of papers, believe it or not.
43:02
SPEAKER_02: She has two coaches this summer, not just one.
43:05
SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of things that she has been working on.
43:08
SPEAKER_02: Like I've hardly seen her at all this summer.
43:10
SPEAKER_02: She's been busy going to you know the other part of the university.
43:13
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, rock on.
43:15
SPEAKER_00: Business are is ours, is us, right?
43:18
SPEAKER_00: Like I uh um I'm saying is you guys, and some of you may be well past me.
43:27
SPEAKER_01: And if you are, get up get a hold of me because that's who I I it's like I am ready for, you know, I and those who want to get to hear, you can always reach out.
43:41
SPEAKER_00: Right.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: Uh you can always reach out because I I just uh I've been there and for the people that uh way ahead of me, I I like learning from those people because that's where I want to be at the next level.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: Right.
44:01
SPEAKER_02: And and there's gonna be seasons where the business is gonna feel slightly heavier than exciting, and then there's gonna be most of the time after you get used to it, it's just gonna be exciting like what Jamie experienced.
44:11
SPEAKER_02: So she's up here, I'm going to my office, what am I gonna do today?
44:14
SPEAKER_02: That does happen.
44:15
SPEAKER_02: It is actually a goal and it is normal behavior for the for when once you get to a certain point.
44:21
SPEAKER_02: Um, and a bad day or a bad review or a cancellation or a hiring recycle doesn't mean that you're failing entirely.
44:28
SPEAKER_02: It just means that you made a blunder, like we've all hit a pothole and popped our tire, right?
44:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, it just happens.
44:34
SPEAKER_02: Then then you learn and move on.
44:36
SPEAKER_02: And and you learn, this is critical.
44:39
SPEAKER_02: You learn the difference between an actual emergency versus something that just feels uncomfortable.
44:48
SPEAKER_02: Because initially, when you start to deal with these things, everything is gonna feel like it's an emergency.
44:53
SPEAKER_02: Everything.
44:53
SPEAKER_02: You're like, oh my god, been feeling like that.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: No, I I I um it used to be about the cash flow problems that I had.
45:06
SPEAKER_01: That that making payroll or uh a client counseling that would always feel because you know I have so many hours to give to these employees, it fill and then now.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: Well now it's managing people, right?
45:30
SPEAKER_01: Everything's an emergency to me.
45:32
SPEAKER_01: Like the staffing, the this, the this.
45:35
SPEAKER_01: Do you see what I'm saying?
45:36
SPEAKER_01: Every step is a fucking problem.
45:39
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's there's some sort of fucking problem somewhere.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
45:51
SPEAKER_01: It's a freaking problem.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: It's just it's it can't get the heart is just different, is what my point is, is you know.
46:01
SPEAKER_02: So every difficult situation that you come across, don't just shrug it off and go, oh, it was just a bad day.
46:08
SPEAKER_02: Make a policy, make a process, make a contract clause, make a lesson.
46:13
SPEAKER_02: When one of your clients, but like I actually legitimately had a client, we had scheduled a post-construction cleaning.
46:21
SPEAKER_02: He cancels at like 8 a.m.
46:24
SPEAKER_02: We're supposed to be there at nine.
46:25
SPEAKER_02: When I say, by the way, there's a cancellation, he signed the contract and everything.
46:29
SPEAKER_02: You know what the exact words were?
46:30
SPEAKER_02: Is I'm taking you down and I'm writing every bad review, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
46:35
SPEAKER_02: And I at that point, I reread my contract because this is before ChatGPT.
46:39
SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, I guess I need to make my contract more firm.
46:43
SPEAKER_02: And that's when I went to an attorney who helps me revamp my move out cleaning contract and my post-construction cleaning contract so that I it was a solid, like you, and the people are like, This this reads like you're purchasing property.
46:57
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, it is because I'm tired of being screwed over.
47:00
SPEAKER_02: Nothing personal, but yeah.
47:03
SPEAKER_02: Who comes around to people and says, I'm gonna take you down and ruin your business all because you had to get canceled and what policy did you put in place after that?
47:12
SPEAKER_02: It was a firm that won't happen.
47:14
SPEAKER_02: Right.
47:15
SPEAKER_02: It was a firm 24-hour notice.
47:18
SPEAKER_02: So you had to give me 24 hours.
47:20
SPEAKER_02: No, it was a 48.
47:21
SPEAKER_02: I had to actually no, no, no, no, no.
47:24
SPEAKER_02: It was 36 hours and I moved it to 48 hours.
47:27
SPEAKER_02: And now um it still is because I then I moved it to 24 hours.
47:32
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, 24 hours is not enough time for me to try to recover.
47:35
SPEAKER_02: So I've left it at 48 hours, but it was the I'm gonna get my deposit back, I'm gonna dispute it.
47:40
SPEAKER_02: And I had he had it all in a text message.
47:43
SPEAKER_02: So I had documentation.
47:45
SPEAKER_02: He did dispute the charges and I won because I had all of that information on my phone that I screenshot it and sent over.
47:52
SPEAKER_02: Was it time consuming?
47:53
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
47:54
SPEAKER_02: Was it a pain in the butt?
47:55
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
47:55
SPEAKER_02: But I won because the you know, post-construction.
47:59
SPEAKER_02: A$650 deposit.
48:01
SPEAKER_02: He wanted it back and he wanted to send me the signal, right?
48:04
SPEAKER_02: The New York signal.
48:07
SPEAKER_02: So you you have to, these are policy changes.
48:11
SPEAKER_02: And the words, when I went to the attorney, my words were kind of fluffy and light.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: Like I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.
48:18
SPEAKER_02: He goes, No, you need to say this, this, this, this, and this.
48:22
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, people are like, this is a really, and I've had people yell at me, this is a really hostile contract.
48:28
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, it is a legal document.
48:31
SPEAKER_02: That is what a contract.
48:33
SPEAKER_00: It's not meant to be light and fluffy.
48:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: Um it's great about that, those people that came in with the mad chat writing, right?
48:43
SPEAKER_01: And on my policy, well, whenever they hired us, he came in and wrote a check for half, you know, half the deposit.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: And I printed out his invoice, and it had all of our policies and everything on there.
49:05
SPEAKER_01: That policy saved me, and that I'm sure is why she was so they I know for a fact they were you know that they were fucking over there looking at it like, okay, this says this.
49:17
SPEAKER_01: Darn it, she got us.
49:19
SPEAKER_01: That's the way boom, right when they leave.
49:23
SPEAKER_01: Take that.
49:24
SPEAKER_01: I can guarantee you, and that was a lesson learned, though.
49:28
SPEAKER_01: That was a lesson learned.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and thank gosh.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: Thank gosh for that, you know, those policies to save us like that.
49:37
SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
49:38
SPEAKER_02: And I think that you don't need thicker skin, you just need more boundaries and better systems.
49:43
SPEAKER_02: And as you grow, your boundaries and systems will grow with you.
49:46
SPEAKER_02: That's why I had to go to the attorney and spend, I don't remember what it was, 400 bucks for a console for them to look at my contract and rewrite it for me.
49:58
SPEAKER_02: So there's that.
49:59
SPEAKER_02: And then the goal isn't to create a business without hard things.
50:03
SPEAKER_02: The goal is to create one that doesn't collapse every time something happens.
50:05
SPEAKER_02: Because the goal is to be able to work remotely in other areas.
50:10
SPEAKER_02: It's now more commonplace to run a remote model.
50:14
SPEAKER_02: Chris Schwab was the godfather.
50:16
SPEAKER_02: I didn't think he'd ever admit to saying that, but he literally was.
50:20
SPEAKER_02: He lived in Japan while his business ran in DC and for many years ran by itself without him participating.
50:27
SPEAKER_01: So it was awesome.
50:28
SPEAKER_02: Right.
50:28
SPEAKER_01: And then it's a totally different structure.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: He runs ICs.
50:32
SPEAKER_01: I believe Stephanie Pipkin runs 2s from a different state.
50:37
SPEAKER_01: If you guys don't know who she is, she's an um.
50:40
SPEAKER_02: She runs out of Wisconsin and I believe she lives in in Georgia, right?
50:44
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, it is possible, you guys.
50:48
SPEAKER_01: It's more acceptable now.
50:50
SPEAKER_01: And and those are two different models.
50:53
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's not that they like Shannon said, you need you don't need thicker sin.
50:58
SPEAKER_01: You just need those boundaries definitely stronger as you're going along.
51:06
SPEAKER_02: So I have to ask, what was the one of the hardest parts of owning a business that nobody warns you about silent ladies and gentlemen?
51:26
SPEAKER_00: Let me think about that because this is managing people.
51:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a lot.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: Learning how to use my numbers to let my business talk to me.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think I may have wrote some of this down.
51:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe not.
51:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:56
SPEAKER_00: Cash flow scheduling.
51:59
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, scheduling is hard.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: Hiring.
52:03
SPEAKER_01: Hiring is I'm still working on that one.
52:09
SPEAKER_00: Payroll and everything to do with that.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, that's why I'm so I like gusto.
52:16
SPEAKER_01: I know you've heard me in previous previous.
52:19
SPEAKER_02: Just committed back.
52:21
SPEAKER_01: But they let you know, they like whenever you onboard somebody, they walk you through so well and what you need and what document.
52:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's so it's gotten easier.
52:33
SPEAKER_01: Taxes.
52:34
SPEAKER_01: Taxes are such a shock that to know that what do you mean, not all this money is mine?
52:42
SPEAKER_01: I worked for it, especially whenever, especially when you're working in the business and people start, you know, because in the beginning you're taking whatever, even if it's cash, and it's like never those are shocked.
52:57
SPEAKER_01: Taxes were a shock to me.
52:59
SPEAKER_00: I was like, whoa, that's that was big.
53:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, growth doesn't remove the problems.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: That's for sure.
53:10
SPEAKER_02: Now, I think when I first got into it, the hardest part was holding people accountable because I didn't want to have to be the corporate ugly person that I was before when I was in management.
53:20
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was ruthless.
53:22
SPEAKER_02: People were like, you're just brutal.
53:24
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, but it's because I was a I was protecting my bonus.
53:28
SPEAKER_02: I was, what's the point of working all the crazy hours if I'm not gonna get my$20,000 or$30,000 bonus?
53:34
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to make sure that we ran smoothly and we ran lean, so I wasn't as nice as I could have been.
53:38
SPEAKER_02: And in my own business, it was hard to hold people accountable because you, you, all your your emotion, because you do.
53:44
SPEAKER_02: You go, it's okay.
53:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you coddle them and you burp and you change their diaper and then the very next day they're like, I hate you, and you're like, What?
53:55
SPEAKER_02: I just burst and dead you.
53:57
SPEAKER_00: I I'm dealing with all of that stuff right now.
54:01
SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's definitely hard to learn.
54:08
SPEAKER_01: Being a leader, uh I because let's I've never managed people ever.
54:14
SPEAKER_01: So being mean to somebody, not mean, but putting up a boundary to somebody, like swallowing it and be like, well, it says right here, you know, to do this.
54:28
SPEAKER_00: But it's again a muscle that I'm working on and learning like profitability, learning at the end of the day with everything that's going on, profit, like learning that.
54:46
SPEAKER_01: It's very hard.
54:48
SPEAKER_01: And this is all a numbers game, you know.
54:54
SPEAKER_02: And if you don't manage the number piece, you can bankrupt yourself real easy.
54:58
SPEAKER_01: Really easy, and I I've almost been there, but I you know, you you pivot.
55:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, growing revenue isn't just enough, you know.
55:11
SPEAKER_01: There's you gotta learn really what the business costs in order to keep it going.
55:20
SPEAKER_00: So those are my shockers.
55:25
SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
55:26
SPEAKER_02: Well, thanks for joining us and listening to how hard cleaning businesses um are to run initially.
55:31
SPEAKER_02: And we look forward to your questions.
55:33
SPEAKER_02: By all means, if you have any of those, please reach out to either Jamie or myself.
55:36
SPEAKER_02: We always look forward to those.
55:38
SPEAKER_02: And don't forget, if you're watching, to subscribe and um hit that notification bell.
55:44
SPEAKER_02: And we look forward to seeing you on the next episode.
55:47
SPEAKER_02: All right, you guys.
55:48
SPEAKER_02: Bye.
55:49
SPEAKER_02: Bye.