Latest / Cleaning Business Life / CBL EP#147 Exit Interviews that work-Turning Goodbye into Growth

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CBL EP#147 Exit Interviews that work-Turning Goodbye into Growth · Cleaning Business Life

• 2:00
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• 2:05
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• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to Cleaning Business Life, the podcast for cleaning business owners who want to grow smarter, lead stronger, and build teams that last.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: In today's episode, we're going to talk about something every cleaning business faces sooner or later.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's the infamous exit interviews.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: When a cleaner or a team member leaves, it is easy to take it personally or rush to fill the spot.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: But if you slow down and ask the right questions, those goodbyes can give you powerful insights into your systems, your leadership, and your company culture.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: We'll walk through the best exit interview questions, the top five, how to spot red flags in your business before they become patterns, and how to turn honest feedback into better retention and happier employees.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: If you're a cleaning business owner looking to reduce turnover, improve communication, and grow your cleaning team the right way, then this episode is for you.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to Cleaning Business Life.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: And a long time no see there, Miss Jamie.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no kidding.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I am excited to talk about this because we never want to talk about the room in the or the elephant in the room, right?
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: This is a tough one.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if this happens to you, and what you know, especially if you got like a A plus plus plus cleaning tech, right?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: There was the exit, we're talking about exit interview questions.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So back in the day when I lived in Lake Tahoe, I worked for Harris Casino, and I had an awful, I was a cocktail waitress and I had an awful boss.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think her name was Linda.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: And Linda had a lot of issues going on.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: She like my biggest issue with her was she put the schedule.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: The schedule was supposed to be out Sunday.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the schedule wouldn't come out till Sunday night at 12 p.m., like 11:59 p.m.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're already in bed, you're not going to know if you have to work on Monday morning.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: So you'd have to get up in the middle of the night to see if your schedule worked.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it started to cause a lot of anxiety.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: And there was like 50 or 60 cocktail waitresses at this point.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And at the end, I had just had had enough.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: And they I remember them asking me, you know, what could we do better for next time?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just brutal with her.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was just like, she needs to be, you know, retrained.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: Should this whole like, you know, the end all be all of the schedule.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is when they hand wrote schedules.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and and the thing that also bothered me is the schedule would come out and then the schedule would change part way through the week.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: So you could already plan your week, but then you had to change it.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then if you missed your shift, you got written up.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just like, this is ridiculous.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Redonculous, right?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you you live and learn when you're in your 20s and what what you're gonna put up with and what you won't.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: But when you start to have your own exiting things, this is not for the faint of heart, and you have to have thick skin because they will just say the most brutal things, and you're like, I had no idea.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, but they don't you can make it anonymous, you could put this in a form.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: We have we have technology now.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: You can put a Google forum, it doesn't have to be with an email or a non-email, it could be anonymous.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: I would prefer that they gave the information so that you could look at it, what went wrong and analyze it, move forward.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: But as we're in the line of anonymity, there with you know how many times we're in Facebook groups and we have an anonymous post.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm not answering this.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: I put yeah, if you ask me a question in one of the groups and you're anonymous, nine times out of ten, I will not respond to you.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Just well, yeah.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're all here to learn together.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And man, I you guys can go and search my name in the maids network, and really in the beginning and just see all the questions I was asking.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: I and just, oh my gosh, like, how do I do this?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, we're all like anonymous.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta you you do have to if you're having W-2, and this is for W-2 employees, you have to have thick skin because you're up, you know, you are the leader, you're the leader of the pack.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: What if you had a A plus, like they put in their two weeks, and you're like, Oh man, I don't want to lose you.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: What I don't want to lose you.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: What can we do?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Can we adjust the schedule better?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Can we do nine times a time's pay?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: It could be and it's not a very good decision if you're losing your superstar over two bucks.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Two bucks is nothing compared to the amount of income a good W-2 is gonna bring in.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: Even five bucks.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm not talking for them, and we've seen where the abuse happens where they go, I'm not doing this unless you give me this.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about that situation.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about the person who loves working for your company, who loves working for you, understands what you're doing, sees your vision, and they're just not making it financially.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes you can do that, sometimes it's an easy fix.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, here uh, you know, I didn't realize I had no idea.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Let's give you two raises all at once.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: If you're doing raises, I like to do pay for performance when I had W2.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: So every time I did a price increase, all of those guys got a price increase.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: It made them made sure that they got more money, right?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's a good way to spin it for whenever you do do price increases.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I am, you know, I it's not like I just paying under the table here, paying them out cash to work for me.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have to pay for my their payroll taxes and work comp.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, let's not, you know.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: And there's training dollars and equipment.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's all of that.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: All the stuff that goes along with having legitimate employees, and it's it really is top-tier pay for top tier telling.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you want to make sure that you're following that.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: But if it's something that's easy, sometimes it's things that are going on at home, sometimes it's the you don't give me eye contact when I see you in the morning.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's just random.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: You just never know what it is.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's sometimes you're like, boy, see you later, don't come back.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Two middle fingers up in the air, you know.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like I I've had that, I've had that.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I mean, you know, and then uh this is whenever I was still kind of new, and I I did the same thing.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, uh there's some people that have seen me, uh you know, where I have our office.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: You guys hear me all the time.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: I have an office which is actually our storage, but it's a huge storage facility, and they've literally watched us grow from a little bitty five by five by ten to you know the storage place, yes.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, to a huge, huge facility.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh people in that storage facility, believe it or not, will drive by because it got cars parked in a line sometimes, everybody running around getting ready, and they'll look and be like, oh it's the morning ride, it's gonna come and drop off just.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: But you're pretty big, but yeah, this is I think something that needs to be implemented.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, if you guys are following us, you're watching me in real time as we're going through growth, right?
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm hoping that you guys are growing with me because I'm learning this just like you.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I something that I was I heard that just resonated so good with me.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not teaching, you're not learning.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's I don't know, maybe that's why I started doing this and didn't realize what I was doing.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and it whenever I heard that, and I was like, that's it, that's that's the reason.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: But we're at a phase now where okay, I'm trying to structure my pipeline of how I'm hiring and um working on all this background stuff, company culture.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're going through different phases, and this like exit interviews is something that I'm need to implement.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna write it down.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Something that I do need to implement because I don't usually it could be uh I've had some sour, some sour apples, you know, and sometimes it can be yeah, and but I got some really I got some really good diamonds though too.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's all part of the the game.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: You have to learn how to hire, you have to learn how to fire properly.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know there was a a properly, and and then you know, now I do because there's an unemployment thing that I have to deal with that tells me that I didn't properly fire, so you know that was a learning curve, and that's just again, it's part of the the gig.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And but to be afraid and stop hiring is not what we want to do.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: We want to still forge forward, but this these exit interviews are important.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what can we do as a company?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Is it our culture?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Is it tell us what it is?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and like you said, Shannon, it's we're in the day and age where we don't have to, you don't have to sit here and talk face to face.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: It would be nice, but some people just cannot do that.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Texting, you can text me all day long.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to learn this new.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: I see all these big companies, and then whenever I see the big cleaning companies using some technology, not that I have shiny, I I used to really bad the shiny star syndrome where I I gotta have that.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta have well there's this thing called Slack.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just now kind of figuring, you know, trying to learn it.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: I have down the I'm on the free version right now until I can learn it.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it also will help take your conversations and document them for you with your employees.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: So whenever I see these big companies using stuff like Slack, they're like, Oh, you you don't use Slack?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Oh no, Slack.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that there was a Slack.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: What's Slack?
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I those big companies is what I want to be because I know I can get there.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Exit interviews, we can text, you can email.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean Google form would probably be the easiest.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: So when a cleaner leaves your team, a Google form, it can feel really frustrated, or even it can even blindside you, right?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: It sometimes just life circumstances happen, and and then you have to think about the exit interview as an opportunity for growth on your part.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: And like I said, sometimes it can be you.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: We have not everybody is someone that you mesh with.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's a personality thing, sometimes it's just a simple fix where it's a pay raise.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we're really gonna dive into exit interviews so that you have some sort of basis on what you should ask.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, oh my god, do I need an exit interview?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: Am I big enough to even like think about something like that?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I have some basic questions that you can ask, but you can add on to the basic questions because I think that they're really relevant and getting to the nitty-gritty on why they quit.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you it's like with recurring clients, you the longer your clients stay, the more money you can make.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: When you get new clients on, the probability of them falling off your schedule is usually about the five to eight visit mark.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: We just all know that it's a statistic.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same deal with employees.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: When you start to look at how long employees are with you, sometimes it's the three-year mark and they just get irritated and they just leave.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's a five-year thing.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: I have a couple of 1099s that have been with me eight years.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:12
  unknown: Right.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then I have others who are with me for a year and then they don't want to do it anymore because life happens or they'll go through a divorce or whatever's going on, right?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: But having the courage to ask is an opportunity for your business to grow because you'll start to see.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm always, always, always, I tell my mom all this all the time.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: I always look for the patterns and everything.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: Because when you start to see the patterns, then you can pick up of like, is this a regular occurrence?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Is this just an anomaly?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: What was going because it's kind of scientific, right?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: So it really is sustainable for your cleaning business.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: It is something that we should all do, whether you want to or not.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: And again, don't do it if you're not ready and you don't have thick skin.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why this person put on airplane mode.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: There we go.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: And some of the best questions to ask when an employee leaves, we're gonna go over that.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: How to handle tough feedback without taking it personally.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's like don't go in the closet and start crying because they said really mean and awful things.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, try not to do it in front of them.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's hard not to.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's I've oh you know, I've I've mentioned how I've I've the very first person I fired, she and I cried together, and that was at like ROM Star, which was a place that was coin-operated games for arcades.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's like 20, right?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: I cried, she cried, I gave her a hug, you know.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, why are you making me do it?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then what patterns to watch for when you have employee turnover?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because it really could be that they get to the three-year mark and they're done.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: I know some of the larger companies, they are aging out.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's how long they've been with the company.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're retiring as cleaners, they're 65, they're now off to collect social security, and the only reason why they quit is because they're just too old to do it, right?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then how to close the loop with your team after someone exits.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that is probably a key component of keeping everything professional and even killed.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that is you don't when someone goes, hey, where's Susan today?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, she did la la la la la la.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not how that's not what you're doing.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's it.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: When they ask, where's Susan?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: You should say something entirely different.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: So let's go over some of these questions that you can put in your your Google form, and then you're please feel free to add on, or um, you can contribute to it.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And there are you you put in here that there's sample exit interview templates over in your clean freaks university.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: I actually don't have that up, but I'm hoping that Stephanie would well that just put that just pulled a fire.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: See, totally.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna we'll get that working.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: I did put an email with her, but she is, I believe Stephanie.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: If for those of you who don't know, Stephanie is my webperson and she is a nomad.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: So she's sometimes she's in Sedona, she's been in Spain, she's been in the one of those van trips.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, she's not driving a van, they just travel, they're international, and now she's in Canada, and then she was on one side of Canada, and then now she's on the other side of Canada.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: So every when I talk to her every couple months, I'm like, so where are you?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: I have to live vicariously through her, right?
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh neat, here are if you're looking for someone to help you manage your WordPress site, hit me up.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be more than happy to share the information.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the first questions you should ask is what made you decide to leave your position with us?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: It could be genuinely, it could be I wanted a raise or I didn't get a raise, and sometimes it's a performance issue.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, if you have a superstar who has gone through a series of blunders, you can't reward her bad behavior by giving her a five-dollar an hour raise.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you're gonna have to have to give that to you, right?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and that has to but you have to do these things.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: You you do, and you have to document.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot tell you whenever I'm doing unemployment, if I I had all the documents, uh, but it was through text.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, no, you know, was it was it right, was it wrong, you know.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it got me thinking, never again, right?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: We don't we learn from our mistakes.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Print out the text, slap them in the file, and then when it comes down to it, you can reference those as document example A, example B, example C, and then submit all make sure you don't give them the originals, make sure you submit all the copies.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: I believe you can do it digitally now.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know, or mail it in.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do mail in, make sure it's certified that someone has to because I can't tell you how many times people have lost stuff, shoved it in someone else's file.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you certify everything anymore.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I certified the last paycheck.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it says, so those are the some of the things, and it could be personal reasons, it could be your leadership, it could be that they hate your guts, which I've had people tell me they didn't like my purple hat or how I petted dogs, what other weird things?
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't like my car, my your husband stared at me the wrong way.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've had all weird.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're not my friend.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right, you're not my friend.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, you're not my friend.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why are you not my friend?
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the number two question that you should probably ask in the exercise was there anything we could do have done differently to make you want to stay?
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you have a bully in your miss and you don't know it because they've been really good at bullying the others, and they this is where they feed their their pain body, right?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it could be that.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you don't know until you ask.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I've actually had a bully that I had to let go because she went around, not only did she gossip, she belittled you, she gossiped about you, she tried to get you in trouble all the time, and it was just stressful to work with her, and she wasn't a great cleaner.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure you're asking.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, what it is, it is tracking.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of improvements could, you know, reduce your turnover?
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: Because turnover costs money.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: You put a lot of money into training them.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to lose them, you want them to stay.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: Number three, and I only did five questions, excuse me.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: How would you describe your experience working with your manager and the team?
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where you get down to the nitty-gritty.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't like Susan because she micromanages me and tells me all what to do.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't like it when she comes up and she goes, Look, you missed a spot and I can't see the spot.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, instead of giving it crushed, it's it's the sandwich method, right?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's something good, something bad, something good.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, did you see that spider web floating across the ceiling?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, hey, come down here, look.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: There, there's or when they're doing blinds, would you like me to show you a shortcut on how to make those go faster?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And the 99% of the time is like, yeah.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: But not every manager does that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: They belittle people.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, you should have looked at that spot you missed there on the blinds.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, right.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: So make sure you're not doing any of that.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and sometimes it could be the manager who's awful, right?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: Who's intimidating, who isn't a person of a lot of words, who causes a lot of issues or whatever.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Just make sure that you hire drama-free people if at all possible.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then this is a big one.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it says, Did you feel supported or appreciated for the work that you did here?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm going to assume, and this is a big assumption, that when your girls or guys have pumped it for you all day, and you're over there walking that job, or the homeowners walking the job, or you're at the next meeting, that you are saying, Oh my God, Steve and Stephanie did an awesome job at this house.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Here is a$5 gift card for Starbucks.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make sure I thank you for working your hineies off for me.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a big deal, right?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: The people want to be thanked for the heart.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: They pumped it for you for nine and a half hours.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Always, always, even if it's not perfect, thank them.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: People want to be acknowledged and they want to be appreciated.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: I cannot emphasize that enough.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it even it could just be a regular client.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I pop by Mary's house, and you know what?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, oh my God, what?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was awesome.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Here's a gift card.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, I think that also goes back again.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: So again, I'm I'm trying to structure how I do employees is really get in uh and figure out like birthdays and and I don't know if we're going into kids' birthdays, but I seen someone.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't you buy someone's kids bikes last year?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh I don't was that last year or the year before I don't remember.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Told me I helped her.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Did she she's like, you're the one that's like she'll do that.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's Kayla.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: If she never listens, if she does, hi Kayla.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've tried to get her to listen.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she's like, Yeah, whatever.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, Well, I took her out to lunch yesterday.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we had a team meeting for those of you that don't know, it's it's tax time right now for us, um, on an extension that I never asked for, but well, we'll talk about all the accounting and bookkeeping blender that happened in another episode.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're well, I you know, you're like, okay, okay, I got my tax bill.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go regroup.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it just so happened that we were all in between jobs.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: They the two were.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Miriam, Kayla, let's go get something to eat.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Kayla is the one that she is like, I just she goes, You're doing things while she's eating because she's pregnant, she's 20 weeks.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: She goes, You're doing things, she's eating.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you guys can't see me, I'm like spoonful.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, You're doing things that I just I can't even believe that you're doing.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I know, and and she's really, I believe she's on her third year, she wants me to keep her, she wants me, she's gonna do her maternity leave, and I have to hold her spot for her for when she comes back, and she wants to come back, so that was something that I was able to get from her.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, she takes little videos last year.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was of her son's birthday, and she's just telling me, Look what you created for me to be able to afford my house.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: My that's a ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: Good job, Jamie.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Woohoo! But uh you just need two more of those.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm learning as I go along.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's things like oh, I didn't know I was supposed to do that.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: The reason why I want to emphasize the thanking piece is the old mentality is you should know your job.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: I shouldn't have to thank you for anything.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not that's old school, that's like 1970s mentality when they used to smoke on planes and do all kinds of really inconsiderate, saying inappropriate things.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: We're not of that mindset anymore.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate your golden unicorns, they make you a lot of money.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Take the time to make it a big deal to thank them, take the time to acknowledge them.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: They want to be part of something bigger.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: And with Kayla, if you're listening to this, you are the superstar.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: What was that?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm like, I just so it's crazy.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I and it took a long time to get.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've flopped so many times.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many people that have been on in and out of my payroll that it's just it was a no-flaw.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: But these people are I've made it to where I'm very transparent, and I'm they want to feel like they're a part of something, and I'm like, let's grow this thing, let's do it, you know, all of us together, not just me.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: I I yeah, my phone number is connected to the outer world.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: You guys just stay with me, stay the course, and I promise I'll we'll we'll get we'll do something together, you know.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: But these are little tidbits that I need to implement for those that do come and go.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: I would like to set up, I'm gonna be talking to Sarah about this too, because she's helped create my little pipeline of some little uh exit interviews that I would love to implement.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and if you don't want to implement any of the questions we have here, you can go right to Chat GPT, it'll spit out some for you.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: But um, and and here's another question.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: It says, What suggestions do you have for making this job better for future cleaners or team members?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: And and this encourages constructive ideas that can lead to real improvement.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: And and sometimes it it really does come down to personality and they just don't like you, they don't like your culture, they don't like how you treat them.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: You could it could be a case of scheduling, right?
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't give them a firm schedule and everything's up in the air because maybe you're working teams and you don't know where you're working every single day, it can be bothersome.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: I I I've left when I was at TGI Fridays as the assistant general manager, I didn't get to write my schedule.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: My general manager did, and she didn't have kids, my adult kids now.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: So she wouldn't, and she was another one who refused to do the schedule until the 11th hour on the 11th, you know, on the seventh day.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I was an upper management.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, dude, I deserve to at least know uh the monthly schedule.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it was always curtailed to her social calendar.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: And after a while, I was just like, stick it.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, stick it when the sun doesn't shine.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's the middle finger.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, dude.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm like, you can't tell me.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I have 227 employees underneath my charge.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: You can't tell me what my schedule is week to week.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, yeah.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've never I've never been in any kind of management or I have never ran team, uh, you know, at a normal uh regular job.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've always been kind of a nomad, you know.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_01: So your your parents were you know living the hippie free last year.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it was just yeah, exactly that.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: So having structure is all new to me, too.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: Learning how to manage people is is it's a learning curve and for it, so and I hope everybody else is too.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you guys are out there and we're all just doing the darn thing together, definitely, and uh let's revisit what I wanted to talk about when you have to terminate someone, and I and I speaking from experience because I've had managers tell stuff like this to me, and I'd be like, What?
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: But you you should when you have someone leave, it's disrupting whether they directly or indirectly say anything to you about where Susan went, it's or when they're calling and they're asking for Susan, well, I'm really sorry, and you this is all you have to say, and you need to make it as non-emotional as you can.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really sorry, Susan's no longer with the company, and then they'll say the very next question we all know this is well, what happened?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's not your place to discuss other people's deficiencies or insatisfactions with you or the rest of the team with a team because it becomes a morale thing, and you put a lot of money into training them and keeping them up.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's too heavy.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a team, uh a manager or your mentor, your your consultant, like Shannon, that's who you tell.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's who you let let it out on.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: I and I know it's it sometimes it just because they've been there, they've done it.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want you gotta stay face in front of your employees.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta learn how to be professional.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Something that I probably the first couple of times I may have may or may not have done right.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: You don't know what you don't know, but I have seen other managers just vomit everything that went down to me.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I'm just an I'm not being paid for this, I'm just an employee.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: So don't disrupt the positive environment that you have cherished and brought up and kind of coddled and you know, burped and diapered and the whole deal by telling somebody what really happened.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Susan left because of this, this, this, this, and this.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: They just they don't need to know, and it's not something that you need to discuss with your team, it's bringing them in too close.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_01: Remember, you are the owner manager, and they are the employees.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying that you're better than them, but if you don't have the divide, it causes issues.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's too hard to let them go, right?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Write them up.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: They were friends, yeah, yeah.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Write them up.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's it becomes too hard to any of that.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: So there's gotta be a separation, and and it's it's it's a hard because you're very especially where we're at, it's just so small of a town.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody talks, let them talk uh amongst themselves, and yeah, don't hire friends.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's really hard to me, especially, you know, it's just really hard.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that's a uh something that Shannon told me not to do.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: This will never happen to me.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's whenever I tell you that I fired somebody wrong, or they left off the out of the office, flipping me the bird, peeling out of the thing, me running out of oh yeah, that's what you do, you know.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: You get caught in the emotion, and the next thing you know, you're just like, oh my god, I've just really I've gone off the deep end.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: And and it happens.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I also suggest for those of you who are considering it that you do not go into business with your best friend.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: I've done it twice, both times I've been burned, and I lost a real a 20-year relationship with someone over it.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: So don't do it.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: I can speak from experience, it's awful, it's like going through a divorce.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: It is a friend's been around that long, it really is.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's like going through a divorce.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I I always like, do you remember that time whenever you told me not to do that?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, not that you said I told you so or anything, but it was like I can say that.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought for a million years this would never happen, even with all the successes, and um, I don't know, it just got really weird, and uh yeah, it is, it's like a divorce, it's a horrible breakup.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh horrible breakup.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: A trend that I'm starting to see now when you are having to terminate people, and this isn't has nothing to do with the interview, it just popped in my head.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_01: Is that if you have someone who leaves on bad terms, when you give them their final check because they have to sign for it, it you can also add in I agree not to disparage above all cleaning company on any social media review platform for whatever, right?
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's a gray area, so make sure it's legal in your state, but it's just because we've become social media, it's social media, it's scary to think of how much we need social media, but don't need social media, right?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a gray area, but I've seen that trending in the last year, and you can do it with clients too.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: I I can't tell you how many times I've had to do it with a client that we had to give a refund.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, the acceptance of the refund is that you agree not to disparage made hyphen broker and any social media, any website, any review site, blah, blah, blah.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: And if they do it, then you have to send a cease and desist.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then if they still go on and on and on because they want to take you down because they're angry and have nothing else to do with themselves, then you have to lawyer up and it's a whole thing.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: So make sure that you check the legalities of that.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: I should by the time, excuse me, this episode is launched, have that template up on my website, and that's Clean Freaks University with a K K-L-E-A-N, F R E A K-S University.com.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: We, of course, always, always, always love five-star reviews.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: Love, love, love those.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and we always look back to your feedback.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we love to hear and have questions because this is where we get a lot of our ideas.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're doing an exit interview.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: I figure we fig can figure out where, like, oh, we can improve on this.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we can improve in this, you know, we're not those big high dollar podcasts.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's really Shannon runs the show, and I'm just kind of like a mentee, but I'm not afraid to go on the camera and expose all my failures, ex and share all my wins with you guys.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: We're just very transparent, and it's yeah, it's me, her, and you know, VA.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I love it.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: One day we'll get there, but we're gonna end up doing things next year.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_01: You guys will think.
• 37:07
  unknown: Yeah.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: You will.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, big things are growing, big things are growing and brewing.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, and and that's for everything for for the cleaning pot uh the cleaning life podcast, for the maids, just everything that we are involved in.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Things are evolving and growing, and yeah, we look forward to hearing from you guys.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's exit interviews.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: And until next week.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's good to see you.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.