Latest / Cleaning Business Life / CBL Episode# 134- Fourth-Quarter Reset, are you ready?

Transcript

CBL Episode# 134- Fourth-Quarter Reset, are you ready? · Cleaning Business Life

2:00
SPEAKER_00: Big news from the Structure Scale and Profit Cleaning Business Academy.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Starting October 2nd, we're giving away a full scholarship to the SSBP CBA.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: It's a tongue twister program.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Your chance to finally build, grow, and scale the cleaning business you've been dreaming of.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: No strings, no gimmicks, just real opportunity to change your future.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: I do this as a way of giving back to my community.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: Entries open on October 2nd.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: The winner will be announced on Black Friday of 2025.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Don't miss this.
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Your next level starts now.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: Apply and acclaim your shot at success.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Shannon Miller here, host Flying Solo Without Jamie.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: Just had to get some stuff done and we just couldn't coordinate.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: So this is just what happens every once in a while.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: And Jamie will be back, don't worry.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: For those of you who don't know me, my name again is Shannon Miller.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm actually CEO of Clean Freaks University, where I tell, not tell, I show people how to run the back end of their cleaning business instead of being run over by their cleaning business.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: So today it's me, my manny me, and then Bob Ross.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: I gotta laugh at my own jokes.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: So I want to come out here.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: It's October 1st.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: That's when this episode is going to be released.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not trying to put proverbial fear into you, but I also want to make sure that you are prepping yourself for fourth quarter.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: Fourth quarter, and this year admittedly has cruised by at 110 miles an hour.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know about you.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: I feel like it's Monday and then it's Friday.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: It's Monday, it's Friday, it's Monday, it's Friday.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: Now I don't even, I it's just Friday.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: It's Friday, it's Friday, and I'm like, where did the whole week go?
3:58
SPEAKER_00: Right.
3:59
SPEAKER_00: So you have to make sure that you are going to be able to hit your sales goals.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: So and everyone does it.
4:06
SPEAKER_00: We see it at the gym, right?
4:07
SPEAKER_00: Everyone, it's the gym is the busiest it is all year long at the beginning of the year because everyone has made New Year's resolutions.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: I should probably check my mic.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: I bet you it turned off.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: So everybody makes the commitment because we're we're brainwashed on the TV, right?
4:23
SPEAKER_00: So everyone makes a commitment to lose weight at the beginning of the year because we've eaten and we've overindulged and it's winter time and we're not exercising and yada yada yada, right?
4:34
SPEAKER_00: So at that point, usually fourth quarter is the time for me to reflect to see what I'm doing for next year.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: I got some big things.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm actually really excited about some of the big things I have on my schedule, which means that I'm gonna have to do some things for fourth quarter availability-wise that I wasn't anticipating, but I have to finish these two things before the end of 2025 so that I can set myself up to be successful for 2026.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: I have like some big, big goals.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: And we'll talk more about that later.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: So the fall is actually probably my favorite season.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: I I live in a state that is sunny most of the time, thank God.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: I I lived in Seattle for a while.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: I I love Washington, but it's just not my cup of tea.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: I need to be able to see the sun a lot.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: It really does affect me.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: And for those of you who live in the state of Washington, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: It's like living in Alaska in the summertime, it doesn't really get dark for that period of time.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't do well in that environment either.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: But I I like the fall because it makes me, it forces me to analyze every goal I have.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: For those of you who don't know, way back when, this has been over a decade, for those who don't know who Jack Canfield is, he's actually retired now.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: I think I have still access to the course I paid for.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't cheap.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: It was like five grand.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: But he had a book called The Success Principles.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: You can get it right on Amazon.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: I believe it's like five bucks.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: And it talks about goal setting.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: And the first time I did it, I was like, whoo, this is awesome.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: And you may have heard me talk about this in the past, but that's the premise of leading you into goal setting.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And then you should be able to apply the goal setting for you should have personal goals, spiritual goals, business goals.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Whatever goals you set, you're ahead of the game more so than the rest of the population because those guys don't set goals at all.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: So when you hit the fourth quarter, you're probably going, what am I going to be offering?
6:41
SPEAKER_00: What can I offer as a cleaning business, right?
6:44
SPEAKER_00: What can I give my clients a deal on?
6:47
SPEAKER_00: Now, for those of you who've taken the Black Friday Bonanza, you know that there are three sales strategies inside that course.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: Stuff that you probably wouldn't think of, stuff that's not norm.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm getting ready to add in another sales strategy for the month of November.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: And if you have already purchased the Black Friday Bonanza, don't worry, you have not gotten booted out of it.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: I just, I pull it off the website.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: It's only available one time a year, and this is it.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to go ahead and get yourself ready for fourth quarter, you could spend all of October doing the sales pages, getting the funnel together, doing all that stuff.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: If you need help with that, you can reach out to my VA.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Uh just reach out to me personally.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: I will give you her information.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: She's actually stateside.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: But you have to think about what kind of goals you were going to set for yourself.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: If you have no goals, you'll just kind of float around, which is fine.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: There's no crime in it.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: But if you have some tried and true sales goals that you want to achieve, like, you know, buying a car, buying a house, buying more property, buying a short-term rental, buying a building, those are all like excellent goals to have.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: We all know that property value revalues itself every 10 years, it doubles in price.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: I won't go on and on about real estate right here, but I'm just telling you from experience, real estate is the way to go, gold and silver is a way to go.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: So looking at your finances and seeing where you are.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: So if you don't know what you've done, and this is usually the first question I ask you do you know what you you gross last year?
8:19
SPEAKER_00: You either know it or you don't.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Some people know it.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: I would say it's gotten better over the years.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: 82% of you guys know what you did gross wise.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: Now, as far as your margins, you're kind of a little iffy, which is fine.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: You at least have an idea of where you stand.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: Some of you guys, though, you've been in business seven or eight years, you have no idea what you paid in labor, or maybe you just don't want to share.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: It's fine.
8:43
SPEAKER_00: I don't tell anybody about that stuff.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: And you have no idea what you're grossed.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: So if you had a great contract that required you to buy supplies, you wouldn't know if you could afford it or not because you don't know your numbers, right?
8:55
SPEAKER_00: So making sure that you're gonna hit your sales goals.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: So when you see, and if you're not doing any bookkeeping, it's gonna, you're gonna scramble, right?
9:02
SPEAKER_00: The fourth quarter is gonna be spending trying to put it all in the computer to figure out what you can do.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: And I don't believe they sell the hard copy of the software programs they used to.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: Like QuickBooks, you had to buy the software program.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Now you just rent it with a subscription.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if there's anything like that out there in the market if you don't want to have your stuff online.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: But you need to be able to track and trace your expenses, where you spent money on, because we all have subscriptions that we've forgotten about.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: And then you'll see you'll see where you need to push and don't push.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm getting ready to have a mommy reset bundle that I am going to be adding into the Black Friday Bonanza.
9:44
SPEAKER_00: All of the sales copy will be in there.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: All you have to do is copy and paste into your own template.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: I, if I get enough time, I actually probably will make a template that you can grab right from my Canva account and make it your own.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: I know that there are some other Black Friday Bonanza templates inside of there.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: But that's what I'm selling this fourth quarter.
10:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm only gonna sell three to four of them because they're exclusive, exclusive like everything, right?
10:13
SPEAKER_00: It's not like a Swedish death cleaning, but this is gonna be a mommy reset package that I'm going to be marketing to mommies.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: And they're not gonna be cheap.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: The the starting price is gonna be like 2,500 bucks.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: So we'll see if I sell any or not.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I'm that's what I'm thinking about adding in for the Black Friday.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: And then for those of you who didn't know, I was actually the number one most attended talk in the maid summit of 2025.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Right?
10:42
SPEAKER_00: If I couldn't come out and say that I I the only thing I could claim to fame was that I was in the top three, but I found out through an email I didn't get a certificate, I didn't get a trophy, it's just me throwing my gold stars.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Wee, we throwing my gold stars out there, and I I'm pretty proud of myself.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: But a part of that course, which is I believe they've loaded, there was a blog post that was made about it, and I believe you can watch the replay.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: I I don't know if they put it on their YouTube channel, but it's called Collaboration Over Competition.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: And inside that course, or you can go right to my website and it's it's the mindset shift.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: So if you're still struggling with it, and I every once in a while, I've been a practicing practitioner of mindset for a long time.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: It takes years in some in some instances because our money habits are ingrained from our parents, excuse me.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: And what we grow up with are the value systems that are ingrained with us, and they're really hard to break free.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: There is a lot of you who have money who are uncomfortable with money.
11:50
SPEAKER_00: It's like a hot potato.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: As soon as you get it in, you gotta spend it.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: Get it in, you gotta spend it, get it in the way you spend it.
11:54
SPEAKER_00: So teaching you guys, okay, if you're gonna spend it, spend it on something that's gonna provide for you in the future, right?
12:00
SPEAKER_00: So it so mindset shift is something that you can focus on.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: It could be a goal for 2026, and most people slow down, but high achievers lean in.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: So it could be overwhelming, you know.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: Having to deal with stuff that you grew up with is not always easy, right?
12:19
SPEAKER_00: You might what did my mom used to say when she was getting her PhD?
12:23
SPEAKER_00: My grandmother used to say it for sure.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she'd fling it at me in Spanish, but it was money doesn't grow on trees.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: What were some of the other things?
12:33
SPEAKER_00: Just you know, we had to always mend things because we didn't have the money to buy things.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: My mom, when she was getting her PhD, we were dirt poor.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: Like we had money coming in, but it wasn't like, you know, footloose and fancy-free.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: Going to the movies was like a big treat.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: So, but and it's just the way it was, right?
12:51
SPEAKER_00: And then my mom got her PhD, her whole circumstance changed because my mom was a single mom.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then if you're a high achiever and how you can determine if you're a high achiever, and I'm not saying that if you're not a high achiever, you're bad.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: There are sections of your life where you're just gonna be a high achiever.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: Like if you look at me, when I went through elementary school, I was so traumatized by my handicapped and how people treated me, I didn't do anything but survive.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: I got beat up all my time.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of things that happened to me in my elementary years and my junior high years that I was just like, right?
13:27
SPEAKER_00: All I tried to do is just survive that moment in my time.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: And then I got jobs, right?
13:33
SPEAKER_00: Because I was always willing to work hard for my money, right?
13:35
SPEAKER_00: That's my mom always said you need to work hard for your money, you need to work hard for your money.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: So what did I do?
13:39
SPEAKER_00: I worked hard for my money.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, then I became passed over for a lot of things because I was female or this or that or whatever, whatever excuse they ended up giving me.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: But you can change your mindset and you can become a high achiever if that's what you desire to be.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: A lot of us are mommies, a lot of us are daddies, right?
13:59
SPEAKER_00: You have to be able to budget that time, right?
14:04
SPEAKER_00: And then you have to be able to pick priorities as you start to scale your business.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Some of the small stuff that you focus in on right now is not going to be a priority.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna want to farm that out, you know, making social media posts or doing this or doing that, and it's it's hard to keep up with social media and social media itself should be a college degree, in addition to having a marketing degree.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it changes all every 18 months, it flips over.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: So make sure that you if you want to be a high achiever, you can, right?
14:33
SPEAKER_00: And going back to the success principles by Jeff Campbell, and then cleaning businesses are known.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: We're notorious for getting busy for holiday parties, guests, deep cleans.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: The demand is there if you want to position yourself.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: And I have found, and I'm speaking from experience, most people from September all the way up to Thanksgiving is a busy, busy time for us because most people are getting their homes ready to have people over for Thanksgiving.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: 99% of all those people have family and friends over for Thanksgiving, and about 10%, and this might have changed in the last year.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: I haven't looked, will want people over for the holiday season.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: So if you have people coming in from other areas and you have a large home and they can accommodate it, but most of the time it's busy all the way up to Thanksgiving.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: And then we were actually we're busy for the holidays, but we don't have like the intense, like, oh my gosh, I have 72 houses that have to get done today.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: So make sure that you are helping out and that you're marketing for holiday parties.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: This could be you know another strategy for you there.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: What if you decided fourth quarter was your most focused quarter, not your slowest?
15:44
SPEAKER_00: Something to think about, right?
15:46
SPEAKER_00: What if fourth quarter was your most focused quarter and not your slowest?
15:51
SPEAKER_00: Again, as soon as school kicks back in, I usually call everybody or I'll message them and send an email out and say, hey, we're getting ready to finish up the rest of the year.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure you're not going on to some Tahiti vacation and that you're you're gonna be on the schedule because I I want to sell all my spots.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to sit there and wait for them to go, oh my gosh, I forgot to tell Shannon we were going to Tahiti, right?
16:15
SPEAKER_00: And I don't blame them.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: Who doesn't want to go to Tahiti, right?
16:20
SPEAKER_00: And then look for opportunities when others miss when they're checked out.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: Right?
16:25
SPEAKER_00: So maybe, maybe we're gonna have a mild winter or a mild winter where you are, and they will have a sunroom, or their patio furniture needs to be wiped off, or there's all kinds of things that you can do to add on to get extra work.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: I have one friend who I know who is down in Phoenix, and when the snowbirds leave, she actually does house, not house sitting, it's called I'm having a brain fart.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: But she actually would go and visit the house, flush the toilets, do a quick either dust mop or a vacuum, and then she'll mop the floors.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: Really low maintenance.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: It takes the person an hour and a half.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: She bills them for I want to say it's 110.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not 110.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: I think it's 175 a visit.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: And that way, you know, someone you can make sure that your house is being watched, right?
17:14
SPEAKER_00: And then so checking out those opportunities and then explain the year.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: Well, don't explain the year.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: Think about the year and 90-day increments, right?
17:27
SPEAKER_00: The school year is done in nine weeks, you should start to think about quarter one, quarter two, quarter three, quarter four.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: So when you're breaking down your goals and you're trying to figure out what your goals should be, you need to think about every 90 days where you're gonna be.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, as school's getting out, teachers are on vacation, they they might not have service, they might have service, you know, the kids are gonna be home.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: So there's all of that sort of things, and then contrast it, and you need to make sure that you have set goals.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: Like my goal for the month of May, hypothetically speaking, is to hit 125,000.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so oh my gosh, how am I going to get 125,000?
18:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you don't have enough people on rotation to do regular maintenance, you're gonna have to pick up other houses, right?
18:20
SPEAKER_00: But I will tell you this.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: We'll do some math with my iPhone here.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: If you wanted to do$125,000 in business for the month, yeah, you would need to divide that by four, right?
18:32
SPEAKER_00: So that's$31,250 for the week.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: Or$125,000 divided into 30 days, that's$4,166 per day.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: So$4166.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Hypothetically, this is hypothetical, doesn't mean this has to be your goal.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: And if you wanted to do an average home, which is not true anymore, I'm just doing this for easy math, is$150.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: So you would need to do 27.77 homes a day to hit the 125k.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: I hope that makes math.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: And you know we all know, and I will say this caveat because that I am not good at doing math when I'm doing anything other than, you know, like math.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: I can't do math and talk at the same time for some reason.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: It's some sort of weird thing.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: So if my math is off, just politely correct me, but I don't want to hear about it.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that that's how you would break down, okay.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: I need to do 41.66.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: How many homes do I that does that need to be at 150 bucks?
19:41
SPEAKER_00: Well, we know that the price point is no longer$150.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: We know that most likely that price point is going to be$197.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: So that's gonna make it even less houses.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: That just might be 20 houses in a day, right?
19:54
SPEAKER_00: So you have to think of the dynamics of what's going on and figure out the math.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: You don't want to be vague, like I want two houses, or I want this.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: I want to have five-star reviews.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, how many five-star reviews do you want?
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, I want 100 five-star reviews.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: We've seen people get it.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: 1,000 five-star reviews, that's a lot.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: That's like, woo, right?
20:19
SPEAKER_00: So all of your goals should be trackable and they should be realistic, right?
20:25
SPEAKER_00: So five instead of like, I just want to grow my business, I need five recurring business of clients by the December 31st.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: And then decide the outcome.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: So break into break your outcome into weekly tasks.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: So, how am I gonna get five recurring clients by December 31st?
20:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm gonna network.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: That means I'm gonna network in person.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: I in-person networking still works, and then you're gonna post on your your your social media, and then you're gonna do lives on your social media, and then you're gonna start to gather emails.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: You should be gathering emails every single time the phone rings.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: Hey, would you like to be added to our newsletter?
21:05
SPEAKER_00: We sometimes give out coupons.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: So you have to say, Oh, you give out coupons?
21:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: If you if you sign up for, and then you know, then you send them over a preliminary, you give them a free checklist or whatever on the funnel, and it automatically signs them up.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Make sure you do that.
21:19
SPEAKER_00: Don't do it the hard way where you're doing it all by hand on the back end, just make it automated as much as you can.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: So those are things that you can do to try to get reoccurring clients.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Ask.
21:32
SPEAKER_00: Ask people.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: Do you know of anybody who's looking for cleaning?
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Getting the logo on the back of the car.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: You guys have all heard me talk about it.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: It works.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: I picked up a client the other day and skit in kid drop off.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: It's like, do you have a cleaning company?
21:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah, and I cracked the window because I didn't know who it was.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: The kids are in the car.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: It's just like I'm interested in having bi-weekly service.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: 210 every week, every two weeks.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Just because I had the logo on the back of my car.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: So 210 for those of you who are listening and you're mopping, 210 times 26, 5,460 bucks, all because I had a logo on the back of my car.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna complain with that, right?
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it happens.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: And then there's revenue driven driven outcomes like sales, bookings, income, and then there's habits-driven income, right?
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Input, so there's calls, marketing, and systems.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: And then you control habits more than you control outcomes.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: That's revenue driven.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: So, you're where are you spending all your time?
22:37
SPEAKER_00: Are you spending all your time on social media twiddling your thumbs?
22:40
SPEAKER_00: I hope not.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: I hope that you're outside enjoying the sunshine.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: In the fall, it's the favorite time of year for me here in Arizona because you can, it's not too hot to hike and the leaves are changing.
22:51
SPEAKER_00: I'm actually going to flag weekend after next over fall break with my son, my adult son and my two littles and his truck.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Because Lockett is three miles in, and then you you park, and then you hike three miles back.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's yellow and orange.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely beautiful.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping to share some photos with you for that.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: So you need to make sure that you balance both revenue and habit-driven goals so that they're attainable for you.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we need to scale back our goals.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Like when my brother was dying, I couldn't do both.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: I handed the reins over as much as I could to someone else, but they're they they weren't entirely trained.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, here, take this.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pay you this.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: And then following up with them, and we ended up working it out, but it was just like it was rough because I had to do it right away.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't prepared because I didn't think about the future because my brother declined.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: So acknowledging fourth quarter chaos, so there's holidays, family, busy schedules.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: This is also your time to reiterate what the personal time off policy is for your business.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: Like for a long time, I was ruthless and I made people work through Christmas, you know, after Christmas, New Year's, what we do is we are closed Thanksgiving Thursday, we are closed Thanksgiving Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: So I get a four-day weekend.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: It's up to you to figure out if you are if you have W-2s, whether you need to pay them for that time or not.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: I always just pay, it's just part of my thing.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: When I had W-2s, and then for Christmas, if Christmas fell on a Thursday, we would be closed Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, short-term rental is a different element.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: We won't talk about that here.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: But those those are that makes it easier on you so you don't have people calling out and saying, I can't make it for whatever reason.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: It's because they have family and and and friends that they're trying to spend time with.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: And I feel yes, I'm totally business, but having life is short and having family and friends and being around them over the holidays is really important.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: And then you can block out family time in your calendar.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: So if you're doing specific things, it can be a little structured.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: Here in Prescott, it gets a little crazy.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of events that happen from Thanksgiving all the way up to the New Year's.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: There's two parades, there's the courthouse lighting.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's all of these things.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: It's like a circus, it's overstimulation.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: So you have to cherry pick what you want to do and what you don't want to do and use yes, no filters for new opportunities.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: It does this resonate with my current goals.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to say no to a lot of people fourth quarter if I'm gonna finish what I have on my agenda because I I can't push it off another year, right?
26:02
SPEAKER_00: That's just been crazy.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: I need to finish this, and I'm super excited to share it with you when I finish.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: And create a non-negotiable rest and recharge habits.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: So what I'm talking about is turning your phone off after 6 p.m.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: So that you can have fam, you know, dinner with your family.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: Not answering, unless, of course, you have short-term rental, and that's a whole different story.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: Setting out clear boundaries so that people don't call you at nine o'clock going, You got my pillows wrong on my bed.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm so pissed off.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe I pay you all this money and you can't get my 52 pillows.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: You can't get my 52 pillows the right way, even with the picture.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Why do I hire you?
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Right?
26:41
SPEAKER_00: So it's this whole dynamic.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: And then make sure that you're doing small daily wins that can stack up to three or four minute increments.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: If this is all new to you and it's like brand new, fresh, you're like, I don't know.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, Shannon.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: I do everything in blocks of time, and that's the only way I'm able to accomplish what I want.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: But next year, I actually am going to scale off.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm shaving off a third, maybe a little bit more, of the things that I normally do.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: And I'm passing those on, I'm passing that torch on to somebody else.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: So I won't have to do them anymore.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm finally in a place where I can farm it out and I don't have to do it, and then they can do it.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: I can work on other things.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: So small daily wins and celebrate them.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're in such a hurry, we're like, yeah, it's like, oh my God, I totally did this.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Like me landing the whole number one talk in 2025 of the Maid Summit, right?
27:36
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I did what?
27:38
SPEAKER_00: So and then follow-ups, five follow-ups a day with people, and then make it a hundred a year by years in is a great goal to have.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: It forces you to talk to people, even if you don't want to talk to them.
27:50
SPEAKER_00: I still have people who are really non-committal on Facebook, but I'll chat with them about cleaning.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: They they want it's a lot of the lower end cleaning is going away in my area because I've taught, I think, nine businesses to be students in my area.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: And we so we all charge similar pricing.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the lower price cleaners are either A, they quit because they're not making any money, or B, they're starting to like go, hey, Shannon's charging this, maybe we can get it too, right?
28:19
SPEAKER_00: And then tie back, tie back to you know these habits to your goals and your habits so that it kind of resonates with you.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: Don't do weird things to please someone else.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: Only do weird things to please yourself.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: If that makes my if that makes any sense.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: So I get hit up on a lot on Facebook.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: Weird, random things, mostly jewelry or while the bag thing was still um in business, but they went out of business.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: I get a lot of people who hit me up from uh other countries for money.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: If it doesn't resonate with your top three goals, then don't commit to doing it.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh, there's I spoke to someone who promised to make 110 cupcakes in two days.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, why?
29:12
SPEAKER_00: Why would you commit?
29:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you can't even go to the grocery store and buy 110.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: It's a that's an expense, right?
29:18
SPEAKER_00: So don't bite off more than you can chew.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Make sure that your goals are realistic.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, and reflect when you get to the end of the year, write yourself a note.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: I usually do a summation by the end of the year so people could kind of see what I did and where I'm at, where I'm going.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then think about what worked, right?
29:37
SPEAKER_00: What worked for you goal-wise?
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Was it a success or was it a total flop?
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Did you not follow through?
29:43
SPEAKER_00: Was it too hectic because you had soccer practice?
29:46
SPEAKER_00: And then what drained you?
29:48
SPEAKER_00: Like, we all know bad clients drain you.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: There are some experiences with other humans you never forget, and and sometimes they can they slide in through underneath the door.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: So, and then where did you waste most of your time and your money?
30:06
SPEAKER_00: And that is being honest with yourself when you do an audit looking at your PLs.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have any, look at your bank account, see where your expenses are.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, I spoke to one person, they had three Netflix subscriptions.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, why?
30:21
SPEAKER_00: Her husband set up one, she set up one, and then her teenage son set up one.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you all live in the same house, right?
30:28
SPEAKER_00: It's just you know, you don't see it until it's right in front of you.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: So no, no chance of getting a money refund on that one.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: Journaling helps a lot to keep track of things.
30:39
SPEAKER_00: I use one of these.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: I've switched around.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of neurotic when it comes to paper and pen.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: But I usually buy these at staples.
30:49
SPEAKER_00: This is what this one looks like this year.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: You can pick whatever you work.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: I like this because it's got a big spiral, so I can open it and close it, and I can fit a pin here.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: And I also like it because it gives you a weekly view and a monthly and a monthly, but and also has a daily, and and it's got big spaces, and I like the feel of the paper.
31:10
SPEAKER_00: And those are all the neurotic tendencies I have when looking for a paper calendar.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: You could be a total digital mama and do everything online.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: I find that paper to pen helps me more with creativity.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: Some of my best ideas come from me writing them down.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't get as excited when they're in a digital format.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: So that can be something that works for you.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: If it's great, let me know.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: And then reflection isn't about beating yourself up.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: It's about making smarter moves for fourth quarter.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: So if you're not there, it's okay.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: You didn't get caught with your pants down.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: Next year will be better.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: It's just something to think about because we're right at the cusp of fourth quarter.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: And I want all of you to be successful.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: I want all of you to create a legacy that you can either sell or gift to family on a later date.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, don't wait till January to do it.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: January is a fresh start.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Usually, like I said, fourth quarter is when I start to plan for the following year.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: It gives me plenty of time.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: And then what's your launch pad for quarter one?
32:16
SPEAKER_00: And if you want to launch something in January, you need to start building it now because it takes a couple of months to kind of go through all of the steps.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: Like if you're going to offer a new service, like the one where the girl, well, but let's use something even better that's even I'm more familiar with is the laundry, the sheet changers.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: So this could be a service that you decide that you want to offer.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: I used to have people who did that's all they did with sheet changes all day long, eight hours a day.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: And then COVID hit, and then everyone's like, oh my god, there's a cooties, right?
32:48
SPEAKER_00: So we we stopped changing sheets because cooties, right?
32:52
SPEAKER_00: I just brought down, brought back the sheet changing, and I have two people who drive all around town.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: That's all they do all day long is change sheets.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: I charge currently I charge$35 to$45, depending on the size of the bed.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: That's per bed.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: And the girl, the cleaning tech is usually there 15-20 minutes top.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: And as you guys know, I'll be totally transparent.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: I only have$10.99, so I split that with them.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: So each house they do.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: So I have cleaning techs, that's all they do.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: They're not doing any cleaning, they're not doing anything extra.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: That's all they're showing up to do is provide that service.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: I have they're making two or three hundred bucks a day just by changing sheets.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: Just something to think about.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: If you're looking for the full rollout on that, I can probably do up a little class.
33:41
SPEAKER_00: I'll charge like five bucks or nine bucks or something if you want all of the nitty-gritty for that.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: But it could be the it could be that you need to plan that.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: So you would have to build a funnel and don't look at me cross-eyed and go, oh my God, what's a funnel?
33:54
SPEAKER_00: You can go to ChatGPT and it'll help you actually write a funnel if you don't know what one is, but you need to have a platform, a delivery platform, right?
34:03
SPEAKER_00: So if you're not ready for fourth quarter and you want potentially four sales strategies instead of three, I highly recommend that you get the Black Friday Bonanza.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: It's up there on my website.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: Someone asked me if I'm gonna put it on sale.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea what I've decided to do, it just is there in its original format.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: It is three sales strategies that you can implement in your business today, specifically for the cleaning businesses.
34:31
SPEAKER_00: So, as always, please give us an honest five star review.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: We love those.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: It tells the algorithm that we're worth it.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: Hey! And we love hearing your questions, comments, and concerns.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: You guys have a great day.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: Take care.