Latest / Cleaning Business Life / CBL-Episode #79 GET PAID..Have you ever been left un-paid for a job you completed? Get some of our strategies with Jamie Runco

Transcript

CBL-Episode #79 GET PAID..Have you ever been left un-paid for a job you completed? Get some of our strategies with Jamie Runco · Cleaning Business Life

0:58
Shannon Miller: We're a little Recording in progress Welcome, welcome, welcome.
1:03
Shannon Miller: My name is Shani Miller and I am your host of Cleaning Business Life, and today I am joined by Jamie Runco of All Above Cleaning Services in Northern California.
1:12
Shannon Miller: Give her a hand.
1:15
Jamie Runco: Yay, I'm so excited to be here, and today we're going to talk about non-payment of clients.
1:25
Shannon Miller: I unfortunately have had this happen a lot since 2020.
1:28
Shannon Miller: What about you, Miss Jamie?
1:30
Jamie Runco: I have, I have, I have until I got something in place, so that never happens again.
1:38
Jamie Runco: And it's funny that we learn kind of as we go along oh, that's a ding, something I don't need to do.
1:49
Jamie Runco: Yeah, yeah, I've had it happen.
1:55
Shannon Miller: It's amazing to me.
1:56
Shannon Miller: You would think, because we're such an honest industry and we're very transparent, that the people that we're dealing with are going to be the same way, it's going to be reciprocity, when in actuality, there's telltale signs, when you review it in the back of your mind, because we all do it.
2:09
Shannon Miller: Don't lie to me and tell me that you don't, because you do yeah, you pick up on those little a little set that you didn't.
2:16
Shannon Miller: You didn't listen to your guide or your heart.
2:18
Shannon Miller: You you went forth with it and then you ended up getting yourself in a pickle.
2:21
Shannon Miller: But unfortunately, not everybody operates with honorable intention or integrity.
2:27
Shannon Miller: So they look for the loophole that you're going to give them and if you give them the loophole, they're going to take it and run with it and then you're going to come over to me and go.
2:35
Shannon Miller: I had this happen.
2:36
Shannon Miller: How do I fix it?
2:38
Shannon Miller: Sometimes I have time to walk you through it and sometimes I have time to walk you through it and sometimes I don't.
2:44
Shannon Miller: I am working on a course with a very blunt name that I don't want to say here, cause I did say a little curse word in the last episode.
2:51
Shannon Miller: I'm trying to keep it PC, but there there will be a little mini course on how to walk yourself through it.
2:57
Shannon Miller: What were some of the steps you took to fix the nonpayment of your clients?
3:04
Jamie Runco: Well, the first thing that ever happened to me, even before the nonpayment of clients is I showed up because I was still in the business cleaning.
3:15
Jamie Runco: I show up at a house and there's a note on a piece of cardboard written saying I'm sorry, I don't need you.
3:29
Jamie Runco: Today I'm there at their door with all my stuff and I was just like and that's whenever I decided to start implementing something inside of the like.
3:43
Jamie Runco: That can't happen ever again.
3:45
Shannon Miller: Right.
3:45
Jamie Runco: So who don't know, that's actually a show up fee, that's a separate fee, that is a show up fee, and, um, whenever that happened, I just started thinking well, if this happens, I need to make sure that.
4:01
Jamie Runco: So I did away with everything and, um, I make sure that I uh got a CRM, something, something that was cheap.
4:15
Jamie Runco: Um, if I can sorry, are you there?
4:17
Jamie Runco: Yeah, totally Okay Um, something that um a credit card.
4:37
Jamie Runco: So if something like that ever were to happen again, I would have a credit card on file and I could just charge a show up fee, which I do now.
4:47
Jamie Runco: Um and it it says on on my um, um, on my uh it's contract.
4:56
Jamie Runco: I call it a welcome, a board pack, welcome to the family pack, welcome to the family, um, but, uh, it says on my welcome pack that, um, if I show up to your door, one of my cleaning techs do, it's only fair that uh, you didn't give me 48 hour notice and I get to charge for the full cleaning of your your uh clean and um, because you'd be scrambling around to now try and fill that slot whenever I have.
5:34
Jamie Runco: You know, um, even if I was solo, I wouldn't been able to fill that spot and we're relying on that and that's only fair.
5:46
Shannon Miller: It is.
5:47
Shannon Miller: I know that we're still going through this transition in the cleaning industry.
5:52
Shannon Miller: It's a huge industry.
5:53
Shannon Miller: It's so big that Grant Cardone is actually dipping his toe in the water, which is a whole other thing I'm not going to talk about here, which I find interesting.
6:03
Shannon Miller: But you have to make sure that there are systems in place so that things like this don't happen, and the reason why I have so many systems in place is because I have had it happen.
6:15
Shannon Miller: It sucks.
6:15
Shannon Miller: People don't take us seriously.
6:17
Shannon Miller: They just think that you're just, it's a hobby, it's a side gig.
6:20
Shannon Miller: Oh, you're just a cleaner.
6:21
Shannon Miller: Yeah, you're just a cleaner, it's a side gig.
6:27
Shannon Miller: Oh, you're just a big deal.
6:27
Shannon Miller: Yeah, you're just a cleaner, it's no big deal.
6:28
Shannon Miller: What are you getting?
6:29
Shannon Miller: Your panties all up in a ruffle and when, in actuality, they don't see that it costs money to send someone to your door, it costs insurance, it costs workman's comp, it costs payroll taxes, there's gear that has to be carried, there's unloading and loading, there's prep involved and when, in actuality, if they had given you proper notification, you could have tried to fill the spot.
6:45
Shannon Miller: That's the whole intention, because you can only have so many spots on your schedule versus the workforce Right, and then as you grow your workforce, the more houses you can take on, and it's a you know, an ebb and flow.
6:56
Shannon Miller: So that's the show fee was something that was instituted because I actually had the TV there.
7:08
Shannon Miller: They knocked on the door and the old man said something unruly and slam the door in their face.
7:13
Shannon Miller: So I said you know, I'm in that area, I'll be there in five minutes, cause I was doing something else.
7:17
Shannon Miller: And I drove over there and I knocked on the door and I said hey, this is castle keeper cleaning.
7:22
Shannon Miller: Well, you're not fucking coming in here.
7:25
Shannon Miller: I'm sorry.
7:25
Shannon Miller: I was going to try to keep this PC and I didn't.
7:27
Shannon Miller: Um, and I said okay.
7:33
Shannon Miller: So then I got the person who actually hired us and um on the on the phone.
7:37
Shannon Miller: I said look, my cleaning techs have arrived, your father's not letting us in.
7:42
Shannon Miller: Look, my cleaning techs have arrived, your father's not letting us in.
7:45
Shannon Miller: I'm personally here on site and your father's not letting us in, so it doesn't look like it's going to work out.
7:49
Shannon Miller: I don't know what you have to do or say to your father, but we're going to have to reschedule and I'm going to charge you a show up fee.
7:55
Shannon Miller: And it became this whole dynamic of you know, I'm not paying you, I'm going to ruin you.
8:01
Shannon Miller: There's all of these threats because they're not getting what they want and when, in actuality, had I had it happen after I had instituted the paperwork too, and it worked out like a charm, but it took me a couple of tries to get it.
8:12
Shannon Miller: So, after the fact that I, you know, I wasted my time, I wasted the clean tech time, I still had to pay them and, um I it was a lot right.
8:20
Shannon Miller: So it wasn't fair that the cleaning techs didn't get paid.
8:22
Shannon Miller: They woke up this morning, took time out of their day to show up to the job Made arrangements, babysitters you know they had to pay.
8:32
Jamie Runco: I just goes on Right and it's a great area, depending on your state.
8:36
Shannon Miller: So if, typically, if they show up to a job and it's supposed to be an eight hour job, they get paid half, so they would get paid four hours.
8:44
Shannon Miller: Make sure that's legal in your state before you do it.
8:48
Jamie Runco: I don't want anyone looking at your labor laws because our labor laws.
8:53
Jamie Runco: And then this is in California.
8:55
Jamie Runco: See, that's different in Arizona, in California, here it's totally different.
9:01
Jamie Runco: You automatically get a show up fee for two hours, right?
9:07
Shannon Miller: So yeah, Two hours or four hours or whatever you work on, whatever yeah.
9:11
Jamie Runco: Make sure you're always looking into your state's rules.
9:20
Shannon Miller: Yeah, the state's rules for labor, because you don't want to, on accident, do something that's wrong Cause then you get a big fine.
9:27
Shannon Miller: But make sure that you do that.
9:29
Shannon Miller: And then when I and you guys all know I came from a merry-maids back where I was a merry-maid when the economy tanks, um, when I shuttered my jewelry store in downtown Prescott, I um, I never got paid for the times I showed up.
9:42
Shannon Miller: I was mad.
9:42
Shannon Miller: I'm like I took all this time to come over and Mary Mays would never pay me.
9:46
Shannon Miller: Then that was like the beginning of the end with them.
9:48
Shannon Miller: So don't lose your golden unicorns because of stupid stuff like that.
9:54
Shannon Miller: So make sure that they're being fairly compensated.
9:56
Shannon Miller: If it's two hours, four hours or whatever it is, I always want to go above and beyond, because that's where I make.
10:02
Shannon Miller: My money is off those guys.
10:03
Shannon Miller: Right, those are your golden unicorn.
10:05
Shannon Miller: Yes, you have your weekly clients, but it's your cleaning techs where you earn your money.
10:10
Shannon Miller: They're they're your biggest customers and got to keep them happy, so you know so, so we pay for.
10:18
Jamie Runco: uh, you know Manny's?
10:19
Jamie Runco: Oh, did you get a free day off with two hours pay, go ahead and go, here's a coffee, or not, every time you know, but show them that they're appreciated and valued because it's hard work and play a big deal.
10:40
Shannon Miller: I see it all over Facebook.
10:41
Shannon Miller: So those types of things happen with show up fees.
10:44
Shannon Miller: There's show up fees when you do move out cleanings.
10:46
Shannon Miller: There's a stipulation in the contract that I have that's been used over 8,500 times.
10:51
Shannon Miller: It says must have working water on and in working condition and electricity.
10:57
Shannon Miller: I can't tell you.
10:58
Shannon Miller: It usually happens one or twice a year.
11:00
Shannon Miller: The clean techs don't care because they're still getting paid and there's a dynamic because it pisses the client off when it happens.
11:07
Shannon Miller: So if they want you to wait around while they call the city to try to get it on, I'll usually tell them you know, here's a gift card or here's some cash, go get breakfast.
11:17
Shannon Miller: This is when I had W-2s.
11:19
Shannon Miller: You can't do this for 1099s and they would go get breakfast and then come back and hopefully the customer had resolved.
11:25
Shannon Miller: So they got charged the $400 the first time.
11:27
Shannon Miller: When they show back up, it's a fresh $400 charge and it's not because we like sticking it to people, it's because the cleaning techs still deserve to be paid for their time.
11:37
Jamie Runco: That's how it works and we live rural so there's a lot of off-grid um cleanings that we do um it's a it's a very off-gridish community that we live in here very drive on some of it.
11:52
Jamie Runco: Yeah.
11:53
Jamie Runco: So you know, you go back there and it's you're, you have you look behind you and there's a whole entourage because you want to make sure you know this job properly and that they do.
12:04
Jamie Runco: And I just I, I don't.
12:06
Jamie Runco: You know, it's like living out in the wild, wild west here.
12:10
Jamie Runco: You make sure that you're, you know um properly, good, you know just good that your cleaning techs are there, um, but you show up and there's no water.
12:29
Shannon Miller: Right, oh, sorry, the pump isn't working Well.
12:32
Shannon Miller: Didn't you check it before?
12:33
Shannon Miller: Yeah, oh.
12:35
Jamie Runco: I'm, I'm, I'm down South in LA, oh, oh, well, that.
12:41
Jamie Runco: Well, in that case, let me send all you know, this whole entourage of cars that I got over the bridge somehow, and have them go get something to eat, and I will.
12:54
Shannon Miller: I can either charge you to go get the water it will be five hundred dollars, or um or we can reschedule it and you'll still have to pay that for the whole and there's no sugarcoating it, and you are going to have people who are upset because they think it's unfair, because they don't think it's going to happen to them, but invariably it does happen to them.
13:16
Shannon Miller: And then the other kind of um non-payment is and we've seen this happen a lot in our industry.
13:24
Shannon Miller: It happens in other industries as well.
13:25
Shannon Miller: You do the job, you take the deposit it's recommended that you take a 50% deposit on day of booking to secure their spot on the schedule and then you finish the job and then you're like you know your, their credit card doesn't go through or they dispute the charges or whatever, and they, they did a walkthrough and you had them sign everything, whether it was digital or on paper, depending on your location and what's going on with that job and then they dispute it and then it becomes this whole battle of wills over trying to get the money back and it and it sucks because every time you have a dispute on your merchant account, you get dinged and depending on who you merchant account with, it's $50 or $25 or $35.
14:08
Shannon Miller: It just depends on who that bank is and so you automatically eat that right off the top.
14:15
Shannon Miller: So you have to sue them and now we're going to talk about what that's like and what's the process for it and all of the craziness that goes along with it, and it's not something that we go around wanting to do because it's time consuming, but it's to prove that we are an actual trade.
14:33
Shannon Miller: We are an actual business.
14:35
Shannon Miller: We had honorable intentions and, besides, we all know that defrauding a merchant is against the law.
14:40
Shannon Miller: I don't know why people think that you didn't do good enough job.
14:43
Shannon Miller: You're not going to get paid.
14:43
Shannon Miller: I'm like I would like to see it on your job.
14:46
Shannon Miller: If you made a mistake, if they just docked you half your pay, it's just like give me a break.
14:52
Jamie Runco: I right.
14:54
Shannon Miller: But they try to do it all the time.
14:56
Jamie Runco: The amount of fees that are associated with running an actual legitimate business, or or even if you're solo, just the solo.
15:04
Jamie Runco: So it's well, I was solo and then I knew I wanted to be big.
15:10
Jamie Runco: But you know it's so hard, there's so many hats that they wear and it's just no it's.
15:21
Jamie Runco: You gotta have those policies in place.
15:24
Jamie Runco: You have to have them in place, and so this don't happen to you, right, because nothing hurts worse than whenever you work so hard to to get the job, to to, if you're doing in-person bidding, go bid the job, do the uh, get your deposit, then just for them to turn around and now their credit card don't work.
15:51
Jamie Runco: I just um, yeah, and you could talk about, didn't something like that just happen to you recently, shannon?
16:00
Shannon Miller: There was a lady in my town, prescott, and we took a 50% deposit.
16:09
Shannon Miller: The cleaning techs called me and they're like you're coming right.
16:15
Shannon Miller: And I'm like, well, I wasn't planning on coming.
16:17
Shannon Miller: What's going on?
16:18
Shannon Miller: Then they staff photos.
16:20
Shannon Miller: So I went, I ended up going over there with them, because it's when you're doing light hoarding, cleaning or um cleaning from someone who isn't had hasn't had all of their faculties for a while, it can be overwhelming.
16:34
Shannon Miller: It's mostly trash, laundry and then food dumping.
16:36
Shannon Miller: We, um, I went over there and I helped him out because it was on, it was on good faith.
16:41
Shannon Miller: I'm like, okay, we already took the deposits, I'll worry about getting the rest of the money at the end of the day.
16:46
Shannon Miller: The end of the day came and she tried, um, she was going through AA, and so she tried to get one of her sponsors to pay the remaining bill.
16:53
Shannon Miller: And I'm like, and the sponsors full on, like letting loose on me, just yelling at the top of her lungs about how I'm just a POS, that I'm overcharging, that it's outrageous.
17:05
Shannon Miller: And I'm like, look, she contracted with me.
17:07
Shannon Miller: I had no idea she was calling you.
17:08
Shannon Miller: So I I got lucky on this one and I ended up.
17:13
Shannon Miller: I was so mad because it was, it was bracket.
17:16
Shannon Miller: We, we had 57 trash bags that we removed from this two bedroom, two bath condo and that had to be walked over to the dumpster.
17:25
Shannon Miller: We didn't.
17:26
Shannon Miller: We had to empty out the refrigerator because there was all kinds of science, projecty type things in there.
17:32
Shannon Miller: We did nine loads of dishes in for the dishwasher and we started the process of the laundry, which we of course could not finish even on the shortest load.
17:42
Shannon Miller: And how I ended up getting paid is she was on the radar.
17:46
Shannon Miller: This might not work.
17:47
Shannon Miller: It might work in your town.
17:49
Shannon Miller: So I called the Prescott police and I said I have a lady here who is refusing to pay her bill.
17:54
Shannon Miller: Is there anything that you can do?
17:56
Shannon Miller: And I happen to know the police officer because, again, I live in a smaller town.
18:00
Shannon Miller: He's like I'll be right over there, let's see what we can do.
18:02
Shannon Miller: And through the conversation because you know when you walk up to any police officer, they want to see your ID.
18:07
Shannon Miller: After you get past the formalities of what that is, he goes well, we've actually she's on the radar and she's done this on more than one occasion.
18:18
Shannon Miller: So they went to her while I stayed over at the police car and talked to her.
18:20
Shannon Miller: So the police officer, through the conversation, ended up getting a number of someone who was going to pay the bill, but he only wanted to pay part of the bill and I.
18:29
Shannon Miller: It was a very this is like gossipy.
18:31
Shannon Miller: I feel really guilty even saying this but he was actually married to someone prominent in the town, but he was also she was also his mistress.
18:41
Shannon Miller: So there was this whole dynamic that.
18:44
Shannon Miller: I did not want to step in.
18:45
Shannon Miller: Yeah, it was like drama.
18:48
Jamie Runco: How did I get here?
18:51
Shannon Miller: How did I get myself in this position and how do I just?
18:54
Shannon Miller: I just want to get paid at this point.
18:56
Jamie Runco: Get out.
18:57
Shannon Miller: Yeah, I just wanted the extra, I think never again a thousand dollar cleaning and I wanted the extra, cause initially I had quoted her 400.
19:05
Shannon Miller: So, um, I just wanted the extra six, 50.
19:08
Shannon Miller: So he's trying to knock down the bill and I'm like I finally had to go to him.
19:13
Shannon Miller: I'm like I know who you are.
19:15
Shannon Miller: If you're, if you, um, would like I can speak to your wife, and then that's when the bill got paid, and then that was the end of the conversation.
19:22
Shannon Miller: But I got lucky on that one because she was on the radar of the police department and they were nice enough to come over and say you need to pay this lady.
19:30
Shannon Miller: But I had to pull rank and say I know, you know, I know who your wife is.
19:37
Shannon Miller: I'm happy to call her if you'd like, because you know she just didn't have the money to pay the bill.
19:43
Shannon Miller: It was actually an awful experience and I don't ever want anyone or recommend anyone to go through it.
19:48
Shannon Miller: But I've had multiple experiences where people get themselves tightly wound in these situations and you have to kind of look at this from the outside in trying to figure out how.
19:57
Shannon Miller: I just want to get paid.
19:58
Shannon Miller: I want to go and I want to leave, right, I just not, you know it's not.
20:03
Jamie Runco: Yeah.
20:04
Shannon Miller: Right, hang out and be friends.
20:06
Shannon Miller: While we were there, it was like nine o'clock in the morning and she drank three bottles of Chardonnay without eating anything.
20:16
Shannon Miller: I'm like, aren't you going to have?
20:45
Jamie Runco: breakfast.
20:46
Jamie Runco: What are you talking about?
20:47
Jamie Runco: That is the whole thing that I was telling you about whenever.
20:52
Jamie Runco: Um, it was my first time ever showing up to and there was a thing she was.
20:56
Jamie Runco: She had agoraphobic, or she was agoraphobic which, but her husband is a some doctor around here and she would get cases of hard liquor delivered to her.
21:16
Jamie Runco: I just yeah, it was.
21:19
Jamie Runco: That was an experience.
21:23
Shannon Miller: I ended up getting help, because that was awful.
21:30
Jamie Runco: Yeah, yeah, I, because that was awful.
21:32
Jamie Runco: Yeah, yeah, I that was same, but um, I don't have to have ever run into, I don't have to have the problem of our knowing that I'll ever run into her, because I I drive by her house all the time.
21:42
Shannon Miller: But it's just wild.
21:45
Shannon Miller: But yeah, there are circumstances that um force you a shoe like.
21:50
Shannon Miller: There was a gentleman who, um, decided that we were scheduled to come the day of it was a weird request.
21:56
Shannon Miller: So we're getting there and he's like, oh, you guys can't come today because I've decided to remodel the bathroom.
22:02
Shannon Miller: Like you still have to pay, I'm gonna ruin you, is the first thing out of his mouth.
22:08
Shannon Miller: I can't believe you're doing this.
22:10
Shannon Miller: This is highway robbery.
22:11
Shannon Miller: Like you signed the paperwork, did you not understand what you signed?
22:15
Jamie Runco: right, yeah, yeah, you signed, I have your signature and I will say for for those things that are new, the credit card department.
22:28
Shannon Miller: So I do all of the.
22:29
Shannon Miller: I used to do it through DocuSign and now I finally have graduated over to GetJobber.
22:34
Shannon Miller: I know it took a long time because I'm old school, but through GetJobber.
22:38
Shannon Miller: So you have to have them sign in your, where it says client information.
22:42
Shannon Miller: It says by, and I put in the bottom part it says by agreeing to this quote, you also authorize and the name of my LLC is Shannon Lee and Miller LLC to charge your credit card that you have given us on file, verbally, over the phone, and because the credit card companies are now, if you don't have anything signed, you're not getting it back, they don't care.
23:02
Shannon Miller: So make sure that you have covered all of your t's and dotted all your i's, because you just don't really know what's going to end up happening in the wash.
23:12
Shannon Miller: Um, I know of a carpet cleaner here who did some floor work for someone and ate 50 grand and he and I were talking about, yeah, 50 grand oh yeah, it sucked, and so I had to walk him through how to sue the clients.
23:27
Shannon Miller: And it was just you know.
23:28
Shannon Miller: You just never know about people at all.
23:30
Jamie Runco: Yeah, no, and you don't.
23:32
Jamie Runco: And they can be nice as pie in front of your face and I can too but you're going to make sure that you get these policies in place so that you don't run into?
23:46
Jamie Runco: Run into these.
23:48
Jamie Runco: Don't do what we have done.
23:50
Jamie Runco: Take it from us, it's learn from our mistakes yeah, learn.
23:54
Jamie Runco: Uh, you know, I seen um one of.
23:58
Jamie Runco: She said you can afford to go to Lurpin some, some venue, some concert venue, but you can't afford to pay your cleaner.
24:16
Jamie Runco: And I, just my heart and I that's, that's where that networking comes in, and I was hey, hey, I can help you with that.
24:26
Jamie Runco: You know, um, I won't name names, but, um, if she's watching, you know who you are, uh and it, yeah, policies in place that way and a credit card on file eliminates everything Most of the time, most of the time.
24:51
Jamie Runco: Sometimes you'll get those ones where Shannon just told us the story of and you know, you have some of those people too, some of those people too, but, um, and that's whenever you start calling the police and filing for the services, and it's because it is especially if you have somebody that has signed off on this and has given the credit card, right, you know it's always an interesting dynamic because, like we also have a clause in there.
25:26
Shannon Miller: It says that we, for one-time cleanings this is your game changer, listen to this carefully and for all one-time cleanings, we require you, your significant other or a proxy, to come and do the final walkthrough at the end of the completion of the job.
25:43
Shannon Miller: If you refuse to do that or you cannot do it, we get that.
25:47
Shannon Miller: We will walk it and hope that we've gotten everything that needs to be addressed and we are no longer responsible if something is missed or it wasn't clean to your satisfaction.
25:57
Shannon Miller: And that alleviates a lot of problems, because what happens is they are like I'm too busy, I don't want to go, and then four days later, they show up and go oh my God, you didn't do this.
26:06
Shannon Miller: It's like you, you didn't come over.
26:12
Shannon Miller: Why didn't you come over?
26:12
Shannon Miller: Right, or send a proxy, or the lead will do it and walk it and we'll take I'm taking before and after photos is such a big ding right now.
26:16
Shannon Miller: Um, because they'll say you didn't clean.
26:18
Shannon Miller: You're like well, this was clean when I left.
26:20
Shannon Miller: Look, snap, snap, snap, right.
26:21
Shannon Miller: Um, so making sure that, yeah, having your photo, having a place for them to deposit the photos, either slack or whatever messenger group.
26:30
Shannon Miller: You guys are using um to keep those um at hand, because stuff happens.
26:36
Shannon Miller: They will try to say you didn't clean, or now I've changed my mind, I have sticker shock and I wanted to.
26:42
Jamie Runco: I want you to give me a discount, a lot of that happens, the sticker shock that yeah, or they sit there and think about it.
26:50
Jamie Runco: Wait a minute, right.
26:53
Shannon Miller: They don't see that what's gone in and what's behind, and how hard it actually is to achieve what you have done.
26:59
Shannon Miller: It takes years of practice Right and he knows Right.
27:02
Shannon Miller: So make sure that you are following protocol and that you have these systems in place.
27:06
Shannon Miller: This is um.
27:07
Shannon Miller: Obviously mentioned in um the cleaning contract bundle.
27:10
Shannon Miller: It's a template.
27:12
Shannon Miller: You just, you know download the pdfs.
27:14
Shannon Miller: You just copy and paste, load it into a document, add your logo, make it yours, um.
27:19
Shannon Miller: The only stipulation is that you cannot sell it for profit.
27:22
Shannon Miller: It's for you and your business only.
27:24
Shannon Miller: Um.
27:25
Shannon Miller: I believe I finally got the legal jargon in there that my attorney wanted in there.
27:28
Shannon Miller: But those are some of the ways that you have problems.
27:32
Shannon Miller: Because I have gone through these problems, please learn from my mistakes.
27:37
Jamie Runco: Exactly, exactly and yeah, and know when to start at you know, uh, if you have any questions, know when.
27:47
Jamie Runco: It's pretty pretty easy to talk to.
27:51
Jamie Runco: I would say, wouldn't you, shannon?
27:53
Jamie Runco: I mean?
27:55
Shannon Miller: definitely yeah but sometimes remember that we have other things going on.
28:00
Shannon Miller: So if you reach out to us, we sometimes can't get to you right away.
28:02
Shannon Miller: Yeah, texting me at night is not going to work.
28:09
Jamie Runco: Shannon is still running a business.
28:10
Jamie Runco: I think you said probably over a hundred phone calls a day, maybe, if not more.
28:16
Shannon Miller: It depends on the week.
28:18
Shannon Miller: So you know it could be anywhere from one to 200 people a week that I'm talking to.
28:22
Shannon Miller: So if I don't, if I say it's mommy and I don't remember your, specific situation.
28:27
Shannon Miller: Please don't get upset because I talk to a lot of people, but let's talk a little bit about the process.
28:31
Shannon Miller: You've tried to go through the process, you've demanded payments and they're like I'm not budging.
28:38
Shannon Miller: So then you're like okay, well, if you unfortunately don't pay me, I'm going to have to take you to court.
28:42
Shannon Miller: So there's a process.
28:43
Shannon Miller: So for here in my area, I just go right to downtown Prescott.
28:48
Shannon Miller: It's got a big courthouse, a superior court for Yappavai County, and I grab two forms of paperwork that you get at the special window where you ring the bell and I can't remember what it's called and you go right inside there and I say, ok, I'm going to have to file a small claims court.
29:04
Shannon Miller: So then you go over to where the law library is and they let you use the tables for free.
29:10
Shannon Miller: Make sure you bring change.
29:11
Shannon Miller: If you're local, believe it or not, it's not digital yet.
29:17
Jamie Runco: No, that's true, you got to bring cash and change.
29:20
Jamie Runco: Right, you have to bring change for copies.
29:22
Shannon Miller: And so you want to make sure that you know.
29:23
Shannon Miller: I believe you can do the outside of the box charge.
29:27
Shannon Miller: So if you have a hundred copies, they charge you like 35 cents each and they just bill it to your credit card plus the fee.
29:33
Shannon Miller: So you can do it that way, but try to remember to bring change.
29:36
Shannon Miller: You fill out the paperwork and there's a process to it.
29:40
Shannon Miller: So you fill out the paperwork, you file the paperwork, you pay the processing fee.
29:46
Shannon Miller: I believe here it's pretty cheap I want to say it's 35 bucks and then then there's another step that you have to do.
29:50
Shannon Miller: So you have to have the paperwork served.
29:52
Shannon Miller: So, depending on how far of a distance there is, you have to go to the sheriff's office.
29:58
Jamie Runco: Well, during COVID or somebody that's not related into the.
30:03
Jamie Runco: That has nothing to do with either side right, and you can do that.
30:08
Shannon Miller: I just choose the big sheriff.
30:10
Shannon Miller: That's what.
30:11
Shannon Miller: Five and two hundred pounds, uh, you know, because I don't want anyone to get harmed over some volatility of something.
30:17
Shannon Miller: So I I go over to the sheriff's department, I knock on the door and I say what, what's your?
30:22
Shannon Miller: Because they won't let you in anymore since covid you have to go, what's your business?
30:25
Shannon Miller: I'm, I'm here to, I need someone to serve some paperwork for me.
30:28
Shannon Miller: And they go okay, you have to bring cash.
30:29
Shannon Miller: It's 150 bucks to serve, have paperwork served and plus mileage.
30:34
Shannon Miller: So you have to give them the deposit and then sometimes you get a refund, sometimes you don't.
30:39
Shannon Miller: So then after that, then it goes um through the court system.
30:42
Shannon Miller: It takes about 30 days.
30:44
Shannon Miller: They'll send you notice and says you're, you're scheduled for mediation.
30:48
Shannon Miller: You have the option of having mediation.
30:50
Shannon Miller: Your scheduled tentative date is here, yay or nay.
30:57
Shannon Miller: So if you don't choose to go through mediation, you can go right through court.
30:59
Shannon Miller: Usually I try to go through mediation because I'm trying honestly to have them pay before I go through the process of actually suing and winning and having a ding on their, theirs right their thing.
31:13
Shannon Miller: So after we go through mediation, remember anything that's said in mediation notes or any conversation cannot be recorded and it can't be used in the court proceeding should you get that far, so you can basically say anything to them like my grandma wears blue purple bloomers and it won't show up.
31:24
Shannon Miller: So you can basically say anything to them like my grandma wears blue purple bloomers, and it won't show up and they can't say.
31:29
Shannon Miller: They can't go to the person in court and said shannon says her grandma wears purple bloomers I'm really telling what you really think and you can't tell what you really think and it can't be recorded.
31:41
Shannon Miller: And there is the last one that I did particularly.
31:45
Shannon Miller: I said some not nice things because I had had it.
31:47
Shannon Miller: She wanted to resolve it for twenty five dollars.
31:49
Shannon Miller: She still owed me four hundred and eighty bucks.
31:52
Shannon Miller: So I'm like, fine, and then I go well, I'll see you in court because I'm going to win.
31:56
Shannon Miller: And then the media goes.
31:58
Shannon Miller: The mediator told me to her in front of everybody she goes, just because Mrs Miller says that she's going to win doesn't mean that she will.
32:04
Shannon Miller: Everybody she goes.
32:05
Shannon Miller: Just because Mrs Miller says that she's going to win doesn't mean that she will.
32:06
Shannon Miller: And I looked at the mediator and I pointed my finger and I said I'm winning this case, I'll see you in court.
32:10
Shannon Miller: I left and then we went to court and I brought all my paperwork.
32:13
Shannon Miller: It was like 275 pages at this point.
32:16
Shannon Miller: I submitted them.
32:17
Shannon Miller: She had her copy.
32:19
Shannon Miller: The judge got his copy because you have to have three copies total.
32:21
Shannon Miller: I'm sorry, two copies go to the court and one copy no, one copy goes to the court because the judge gets it, is it?
32:29
Shannon Miller: I might be confusing this, I'm sorry, it's been a while.
32:32
Shannon Miller: I think it's two copies to the court, one to the sheriff and one for you.
32:36
Shannon Miller: So I think it's four copies.
32:37
Shannon Miller: So the judge has it.
32:40
Shannon Miller: He goes through all the paperwork and you have to remember that when you're in court you have to be very factual and non-emotional, and I always wait until they start to lie, because invariably they do.
32:51
Shannon Miller: And then I always get shocked because I'm like they're not going to lie, they can't make this any worse than it is.
32:56
Shannon Miller: And I go, and then you have to say I'm sorry, your honor, but this person is not telling the truth.
33:01
Shannon Miller: Here is page seven of this.
33:03
Shannon Miller: They have to because they have the same paperwork that you have, right.
33:12
Shannon Miller: So there's this dynamic that happens and then the judge ultimately decides.
33:14
Shannon Miller: In every single time I've had to do it like 20 times, unfortunately.
33:15
Shannon Miller: I've won every single time.
33:16
Shannon Miller: And I'm like I went out to her.
33:20
Shannon Miller: I went out to this person and I had to wait for her to go downstairs first, because she had to pay the check to the cashier.
33:27
Shannon Miller: And there's nothing more satisfying than watching a homeowner who's told you to stick it where the sun doesn't shine and getting that check from them, because if the check bounces after you win, then you can press charges against them.
33:38
Shannon Miller: And I asked her this last individual, who shall not be named, and, um, I did the whole finger thing.
33:46
Shannon Miller: I'm like I told you I'd win and I grabbed my check and I left, oh yeah yeah, it is yeah it takes like six months and I remember calling my mom.
33:56
Jamie Runco: I'm like I won and it's the principle of.
33:58
Jamie Runco: It's not you know, it's the whole principle.
34:01
Jamie Runco: Right, right, and not only you know, you do need to recover some of that money back, right.
34:09
Shannon Miller: It does.
34:09
Shannon Miller: It did take a long time and it is tedious and most people just write it off as a loss.
34:13
Shannon Miller: But my, my mentality is I'm teaching these customers not to treat our industry this way.
34:19
Shannon Miller: That's why I choose to do it.
34:21
Shannon Miller: It's about the money, but it's more about the principle behind the money and it was very satisfying to tell her I told you I would win, and no, and rightfully so yeah.
34:33
Shannon Miller: Don't ever call me again.
34:37
Shannon Miller: You were 86 for life, lady, but yeah, yeah.
34:43
Jamie Runco: I have a couple of people that try and call me still and we have a, like I said, we have a little gathering of other cleaning business owners, of people that are blacklisted or 86.
34:56
Jamie Runco: So we keep in communication with each other like that to watch each other's backs.
35:03
Jamie Runco: You know, hey, this person's gonna rip you off if you take them on, you know use caution.
35:12
Shannon Miller: Yeah, yes.
35:13
Shannon Miller: And then there's the other lady where I didn't have to go to court and this just happened recently where she was a bi-weekly client and decided that she didn't like the name that was being charged.
35:25
Shannon Miller: So she disputed over, I think it was, 12 charges.
35:29
Shannon Miller: It was really unpleasant to deal with, and started to argue with me and thank goodness I had done a lot of this through text, so I had a lot of hard copy.
35:39
Shannon Miller: So when I because I tried to resolve it with her before I put my dispute in and then I just submitted all that all I think it was 70 pages of paperwork and I submitted, I ended up winning the dispute, but I wasn't sure if I was going to win it or not.
35:55
Shannon Miller: But she basically she just didn't want to pay, but she wanted to, she wanted to start fresh.
36:01
Shannon Miller: Right, continue, we're just going to dispute.
36:03
Shannon Miller: You know, $1,500 in charges or more, maybe it was more than that and then move forward, and then move forward fresh.
36:10
Shannon Miller: So it was let's see how much it was.
36:12
Shannon Miller: You guys know I can't do math when I'm on these things so 158, 50 times 12 visits yeah, it was like two grand 1902.
36:22
Shannon Miller: And then I ended up eating 150 bucks because my merchant account takes 50 bucks off the top for the mediation of the dispute and it took um 52 days to get my money back oh, I I kind of I vaguely remember whenever that was going on.
36:43
Jamie Runco: I mean yeah, yeah no, it happens.
36:48
Shannon Miller: She was the nicest little old lady.
36:50
Shannon Miller: You would never have thought she would have done something like that.
36:53
Shannon Miller: But there are people out there.
36:53
Jamie Runco: I felt like I got conned yeah, yeah, like, oh and it and it hurts too.
37:00
Jamie Runco: It hurts whenever it's like did you just con me right?
37:06
Jamie Runco: Totally.
37:06
Jamie Runco: I felt good, I told them one way over here, but you're this way over here behind closed door.
37:11
Shannon Miller: Yeah, no, yeah those are some of the things that you can do to try to get yourself paid.
37:18
Shannon Miller: I know we went through it really super duper fast, but there are options out there.
37:23
Shannon Miller: You don't have to eat it if you don't want to.
37:25
Shannon Miller: You could.
37:26
Shannon Miller: It does take tenacity and patience.
37:28
Shannon Miller: You have to be methodical, you have to cross your T's and die your I's, because you're submitting paperwork to a court of law but there is a process to defunding or defrauding the merchants.
37:40
Shannon Miller: Yeah, there is.
37:51
Shannon Miller: Yeah, all right.
37:52
Jamie Runco: Well, this concludes our happy meeting again with Miss Jamie Renko from All Above Cleaning in Northern California oh fine, yeah, thank you so very much, absolutely.