Latest / Cleaning Business Life / CBL-EP#145 Get Paid Right: Payment Policies that Protect Your Cleaning Business

Transcript

CBL-EP#145 Get Paid Right: Payment Policies that Protect Your Cleaning Business · Cleaning Business Life

1:16
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1:21
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1:31
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1:44
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1:47
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1:51
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1:52
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1:54
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2:01
SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Jamie.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: I haven't seen you in forever, it seems like.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: How are you?
2:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing great.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing great.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: We are growing.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, uh, after we get off of here, I doing a little bit more hiring.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: And so, but I'm excited to be here, like always.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: And what are we talking about today?
2:26
SPEAKER_01: We are going to talk about something that should be pretty plainly obvious, but there are caveats with certain types of payments.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to talk about what types of payments you should accept for your cleaning business, what types of payments you probably should not accept as a payment for your services, and the pros and cons behind all of that.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: So, and and money conversations can be awkward, and they don't have to be.
2:55
SPEAKER_01: Everyone, it's funny.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: When you grow up, you talk your mom or your dad has the combo about how you should be really careful you don't end up pregnant when you're like 15.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: But we hope they talk to you about it.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: Yes, we hope my parents did.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: My parents in the green bed.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: But we hope you're talking to your children about we hope that conversation is happening, but they don't often talk about money.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: Money is still considered very taboo.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: And I think part of the problem in our industry, the 23rd trade, is that most of us are women.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: Most of the time, it's us.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: We are the breadwinners, we are the 23rd trade.
3:37
SPEAKER_01: And that conversation about money is just icky, right?
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Nobody just pay me what you owe me, and I want to be done with it, is what it comes down to.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: Why do we have to argue about money?
3:46
SPEAKER_01: Because you have you argue about money in many instances, right?
3:50
SPEAKER_01: You're you're not arguing, you're debating, I want to say is a more polite word.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: Like your spouse, your siblings, your children, your mom, your dad, whatever situation you're currently in, there's a little bit of push and pull when it comes down to money.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: So we thought we would address what is is your son here?
4:09
SPEAKER_00: No, now now my printer decides to print.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: 25 minutes later.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: If you can hear that, I'm I apologize.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: No, I can't, I cannot hear it at all.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: But um so so money is a funny, funny thing to discuss.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: And when we're gonna go through the evolution, especially next year.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm working on the schedule about money, what you should be doing to think about your future, how you should be investing, how you should be setting up yourself for retirement.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: But those are conversations for later.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: Next episodes, this, what we're talking about today, is strictly forms of payments.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna tell you, and I didn't know, you know, I'm just like everybody else, I'm still learning.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: It took me until just recently, whenever I had a great bookkeeper finally sit me down and shake me, basically, and say, Jamie, quit taking so many different forms of payments.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: No, you can, but it's hurting your business, right?
5:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh it hurts it.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why I say that is because you have so many different forms, and whenever you try to re reconcile, reconcile your books, it's take it away, Shannon.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: Tell them why it's it's really if you are not reconciling your books, you need to get together with someone who is going to help you reconcile your book.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: If you're if you're looking for a fantastic bookkeeper who has proof in the pudding, you can reach out to Jamie.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: She's had Erica.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: Erica has done a wonderful job in her crew about getting her stuff back in order.
5:59
SPEAKER_01: She had a really bad experience with another accountant slash bookkeeper.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: I mean, awful.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: It was horrible.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: If you don't go into all the dirty details, that'll probably be an episode in itself or two.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: I want to tell everybody that, you know, find yourself a bookkeeper that can reconcile like this, and also have the grit to tell you, hey, uh-uh, you can't do that.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, I didn't know.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: So I'm taking Vinmo, Zell.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: I was using Square, I was using Jobber, I was using all these multiple platforms, cash check, you know, all these multiple different, and it just it was like probably like brain surgery, she said, for her to try and go back through all that cleanup.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: And it was like, whoa.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: And it just, you need one platform.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: You should use, you should use one platform.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Now, did that happen overnight?
7:11
SPEAKER_00: No, there's still people that are.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I try, I she's a legacy client, and I've tried telling them, like, hey, you know, like a little push, like, hey, can we get a card on file?
7:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, and you know, it just I it makes you be able to see financially where you're at better where you're at.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: It gives you a snapshot of, and um, I'm gonna tell you, a lot of people use Square, and I had no idea the amount those instant transfers that I was oh, they're a lot of money.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I didn't know, and and I have on top of the merchant.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: It's great, it's great platform to set up for employees for you, you know, doing all that stuff, but they really, really charge a lot of money.
8:18
SPEAKER_01: And I think Square actually charges more than Java.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it's it's really wild how much they're allowed to get away with me against the law, really.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and it's and you know, whenever because this is a great industry to have that cash flow.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: That's why that's why it's like it's because it's con, you know, you're constant every day making some sort of cash flow.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about what what we you're what you're accepting and what I'm accepting, so everyone can kind of figure out.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: So you're accepting Jobber right now.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: Are you doing your you're you've also got Venmo?
8:54
SPEAKER_01: What else are you accepting?
8:55
SPEAKER_01: Cash check, bitcoin?
8:57
SPEAKER_00: I do I do only for certain the these are all legacy clients.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: The checks I do commercial too.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: So we are a net 10, and you can put that into your net 10 company for checks, but whenever it comes to these little old ladies that are still, you know, I my mom is one of them.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: She still writes checks.
9:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, mom.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, who writes checks anymore?
9:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm like, you're not even ready in line.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: She's at the grocery store.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: I will tell you that Jobber also includes ACH payments, which is writing a check and it's less money if they use ACH.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: So you actually have to have a signed authorization to do an ACH if you don't do it digitally, like if you don't have the link and they don't do it that way.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: But if you do it by hand through your merchant account, you have to have a signed document on file, still to this day in 20 almost 2026.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: I believe I still take checks.
10:07
SPEAKER_01: I have one person who still writes me a check.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: I have a couple people locally who pay cash.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: And it's only because they're established with me and I trust them.
10:17
SPEAKER_01: As soon as that trust is gone, they're not getting either a service or they're gonna have to go to credit card.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: I have one person that um we who pays in Bitcoin, which is really offer awful and wonky.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm still not feeling it, I tell me more about that.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: That's it's a weird transaction.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: I have like I call it a blanket account.
10:36
SPEAKER_01: So they deposit it in, and I've actually never cashed, like I don't know enough to cash out right a bit.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: Because it's still new to me.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, should I and then how it works and what the transaction I haven't done?
10:49
SPEAKER_01: It's just been accumulating for the last year.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I mean, hopefully, as far as investments are concerned, right?
10:59
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we can we can get an expert.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, we will talk about that in and then what else?
11:03
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I take Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: I stopped taking carte blanc and what is the other credit card?
11:12
SPEAKER_01: Never heard of that.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: Carte Blanc is an international card, been around for generations, like 50 or 60 years.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: What else?
11:18
SPEAKER_01: There's one other card we stopped taking because of the international fees, and I can't think of it off the top of my head because we had to pay the merchant fee, and then there was an added on international fee because it was from another American Express.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Is like that?
11:32
SPEAKER_01: Um higher, they are.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: We we we have to pay a bit higher.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: I have one person that pays by American Express, and you just bill it in.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: I just passed bill it in, and then that's how it goes.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: When you rely on cash, you are leaving yourself open.
11:52
SPEAKER_01: And I know cash is king.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: I love cash, but I would not take, for instance, cash on a one-time cleaning for a move out cleaning.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: You are required, and this is the protocol, to give me a 50% deposit on the day of booking to secure your spots with a credit card.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: And then we build the second part of it later in the day after the job is complete.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: And so we keep that on file, and then at the end we don't keep it on file.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: But because what happens, and I've had this happen to me personally, is they say I'm gonna pay cash, and the job ends up being way more than what they described.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: And they, of course, want you to do because suddenly you've agreed to 550 bucks instead of the$900 that it should be, and then you're you have no recourse.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: And so then you get mad, right?
12:36
SPEAKER_01: So then they get mad and it becomes like this whole dynamic where if they had just followed the protocol and not lied, you wouldn't be stuck in that situation.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: But as I said, the regular maintenance clients who does who the one and only who does still pay in cash, I trust them, they trust me.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: So far, keeping my fingers crossed, we've not had an issue.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Right.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: Uh oh, I lost my train of thought.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: And then I'm only gonna ask you a question.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of the apps in the last year or so started adding tracking effects to it, is what I call.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: So there you're supposed to report anything over$600.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: I believe that has been retracted for now.
13:19
SPEAKER_01: Don't quote me on it because the tax law changes from year to year.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: It does.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: So just be aware that if you do a lot of transactions through Zell, Venmo, or whatever, that it could go back in that direction.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: But for now, as it stands, when we're talking about this in today in 2025, I believe it's still not in effect.
13:39
SPEAKER_01: And then adding a credit card processing fee, this is just the cost of doing business.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: And I know I see it all the time.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: I can't believe that I have to pay this credit card fee to process the money.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: It's the cost of doing business.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: So you either blanket it in on your pricing or you just eat it and it just becomes the cost of doing business.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: That that's that's your two alternatives.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: Is there a third alternative, Jamie?
14:05
SPEAKER_00: No, but that's exactly what I do.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: It's something that I eat because I have, but I do tell you, I'll tell you, anytime, say like I get my dogs groomed, there, if I use my debit card, they always tell me I'm gonna charge five dollars extra for and I'm like, yeah, okay.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: But you know, or my lashes or whatever I do, you know, because I still get my lashes done.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: They tell me I'm gonna charge you five dollars extra because of, and I was like, Yeah, I know I get it, but but a lot of restaurants do that now too.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: I understand that because I'm a business owner and I know like that that's cost of doing business, right?
15:15
SPEAKER_01: And also write off your merchant fees on your taxes, yeah.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: Yes, and it'll add up nicely, and it not that we'll ever see that money again because we don't, it's just a nice write-off at the end that makes your tax bill a little less.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: Right.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: It is it's an interesting dynamic, and then there is the ACH transfers and auto drafts.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: Again, it depends on what serve service provider you are using.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: Make sure that you understand the dynamics of what that includes and what it doesn't include.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: I've never honestly thank God, I've never had a dispute for an ACH or an auto draft, thank God.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: And an auto draft also can be considered a subscription.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: So if you've given someone a special price because you pre-sold something on the Black Friday Bonanza course, that that could also be considered that as well.
16:15
SPEAKER_01: And then let's talk about checks.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: How many of us have been screwed over by a check?
16:21
SPEAKER_00: I have one time, and I didn't find out until weeks later, either.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Weeks.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Right.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: It's a long time, and you're like, and it makes you mad.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: You're like, what?
16:34
SPEAKER_01: Right, what?
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then and then your your account can go under because this was a large check.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: But I did get thankfully, I got a hold of the client and they handled it right away.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: But that was that, you know, when your account dips down to like you know, five in the negative, you freak out and then call in the bank and you're asking them what happened.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: And thankfully nowadays they have pictures and all sorts of stuff.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: Did you cash this check?
17:12
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, yeah, don't I go you're yeah, didn't don't I haven't I been uh banking with you for six, seven years now, right?
17:22
SPEAKER_00: And you're you know, so it was an uh it was a mistake, and it was an honest mistake from this particular client that something happened, I don't know, but it's only happened to me one time, knock on wood.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: But I do do ACH transfers, I don't take Zell.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's uh a lot of people do, and a lot of people have great success with that.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe that as my on my business account, bank account, that we are allowed to take only to your personal account.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: So that's a a law.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's everywhere, right?
18:04
SPEAKER_01: In my state, it is you I have a credit union, so they don't do any Zell unless you do it out of your personal account.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not I'm not transferring it, gets really convoluted.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: It's extra work, and that's exactly what we're talking about.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly so I've also had a bad, I've had many bad checks over the years, hence the reason for the deposit with the credit cards.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: And I and it was a for a move out cleaning, it was for a thousand dollar cleaning, and of course, there was no the the account had been closed.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: They wrote me a hot check, they moved.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: I did not get a forwarding address, they moved out of state, so I ate the thousand dollars.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you did.
18:44
SPEAKER_01: There's so many words in my mind right now that I would say.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, you did.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's what I was gonna tell you.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we do 50 50 deposit, and we do charge before we even show up.
19:01
SPEAKER_00: We charge the day of the cleaning, yes, to secure your yeah, before we even show up.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: It's now do you charge the full amount of the one-time cleaning or you do you do a 50% deposit and another 50%?
19:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I do a 50% deposit and then the day of the cleaning, we charge it before anybody even shows up.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, make sure.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: Make sure you don't want to get there with your pants down.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: I also explain that to them.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it is explaining.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: They have to initial that.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: I understand automatically.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: Automatically, and what do you mean?
19:36
SPEAKER_01: I have to prepay.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you can clean.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: Look, lady, I've done 15,000 of these.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, you did.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, that those, and then I don't even know if there really is a thing of bounce checks anymore.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: In the past, there was bounce checks.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: I actually had a friend, I recollect this from like 30 years ago, and it maybe longer, dating myself.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: She I lived in like Tahoe, she lived down in Reno.
20:05
SPEAKER_01: This is way back in the day when I was ski patrol at Heavenly Valley, and I was also a cocktail trist, and she got in trouble for writing hot checks.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, what's that?
20:14
SPEAKER_01: And she explained, it was it's called chasing checks.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: She wrote a check for Smith's Market in one location, and then went to, and you could cash your you could write a check for cash.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: Then she would go to the other Smith's Market across town and write another check, and she explained it to me like four times I didn't understand at the time what she was doing, and she got in trouble.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: She had to do some jail time.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, What?
20:36
SPEAKER_01: Why did you do that?
20:37
SPEAKER_01: She's like, Well, I was short on cash.
20:38
SPEAKER_01: She gave me all of these reasons why she did what she did.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, so that's a bounce check.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: So she put money in her account that she didn't have to get cash, and it bounced.
20:49
SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh yeah, I remember that.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: I would not make it as a criminal.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: I just don't understand these things.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, there is, I mean, gosh, this I was probably 20.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: And my ex could put in his this is whenever ATMs and debit cards were like kind of and he could go to one ATM, pull out$400, and then go to hurry up within like five minutes and go to another ATM and pull out another 400.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: And I I didn't know if that was never got in any trouble, but because they worked enough to cover it, but yeah, I've seen that happen.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: That's just wild.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: That's probably why.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: And that was so long ago.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: And then having a simple payment policy in your service agreements, payment is due when services are rectored, you know, rendered, not rectored.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: Rendered.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: And the reason why you, unless it's a commercial account, and I still feel when I've announced this on a couple podcasts, we need to change the dynamics of commercial cleanings upon payment.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: No longer are the days, especially now, if you have a government contract, you are screwed right now.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: You're you're waiting for the government to reopen.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: There's all this battle going on with these titans in the sky.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: You're not working, yeah.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: And you're not working for working, and you're not getting paid.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: And those hurt, those hurt.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just uh uh it's also in the cleaning industry.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: I know a couple of people that are just like, oh my goodness, it's the longest shutdown we've ever had.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: So and if you're concerned and that's bothering you, call your congresspeople and complain.
22:41
SPEAKER_01: This is BS.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: So having a simple payment um policy language is very simple.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: You can come up with your own, you can chat GPT it, but you need to have something in place where it says payment is due when services are rendered.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: You're not doing the payment plan, you're not doing that, you know, the net 60 or the 180.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: What else?
23:00
SPEAKER_01: What I had someone wanted to pay seven months from now.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, no, those things are long gone, and a lot of people say usually, but that first month, usually you're gonna have to factor in that you are going to have to pay that payroll.
23:14
SPEAKER_01: Right, there's gonna be a little bit of a lag, but don't let them go over a certain amount.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: But I know now that we you can definitely do we do net 10 that's uh every two weeks, and and that's with all of our I uh all my commercial accounts, some of them I'll pay weekly, and just as long as you have that in that in your platform about we're a net 10 company.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: And I believe whenever this government shutdown is over with, you can even those days of 45, 30 days, whatever, you can put it in your contract that you are a net.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: Will they take it?
24:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, because of that, but there's always, always, always you can negotiate these things.
24:12
SPEAKER_01: And then there are the and this has gotten people in trouble.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: And Jamie just mentioned the extra fee for getting it fast.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: I believe for sure.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: Square offers a quick get paid quick.
24:23
SPEAKER_01: I believe Venmo offers instant uh it's called instant transfers, and um there's an actual service fee that's added on, so they charge you depending on how you do it.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: There's uh and who it is, there's usually a merchant fee and or a service fee on top of it, or it's just a service fee.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: And if you start to add those up, it can be detrimental to it, can shave away your profit margin.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: Let's put it that way.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna tell you, yeah.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: Erica showed me.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: I looked and I was like, oh my goodness, I had no idea.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: And that's instantly whenever I was like done with Square, I was like, I it was asked, it was a lot of money, and it because on top of the using their platform, they charge you and to take the payments.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, oh, oh, it's great because I can put different money everywhere.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: But the amount that when you do that instant transfer was astronomical, it was just whoa, it's almost three percent, right?
25:26
SPEAKER_00: On top of everything else, it's just why on top of their 2.7 percent.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it was just crazy.
25:33
SPEAKER_01: So, and then so in in in retrospect, and I I I I think actually we're probably gonna see this a little bit next year too.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna start to see people wanting to pay in gold and silver, and this is a whole extra layer of complication.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm just mentioning it here now because it's gonna be something that we talk about next year, but I have a feeling the way that I'm looking, and I'm not a financial advisor, I'm just looking at the patterns.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, don't forget to say that, Shannon.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: Right from a legal standpoint, so you actually might see people starting to pay with depending on how high gold and silver has gone, because it's both of them have doubled in price in the last year.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: They don't dip those two points.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: If you've looked over, do your research on this.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: If you look, it just it has steadily, very nice and gently.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: It is one thing that has never lost its value, it don't dip down, it steadily has always climbed.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: That's it's it's even mentioned as payment in the Bible.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: So go back to do your history.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then automate and enforce auto billing and prepayments protect your schedule.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing worse, and I remember this in my days when I was a merry maid, that they would say, you know, we didn't get paid on this job, you didn't get paid either.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: I was like, What?
26:55
SPEAKER_01: I was mad.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: I was a cleaner, I worked really hard on that job.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm expecting to get paid.
27:00
SPEAKER_01: So when you have to cover yourself to cover your payroll, if you didn't get paid, you blame yourself as the business owner.
27:09
SPEAKER_01: Don't make your cleaning text have to take the hit because you blundered it.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: There's a gray area when you have 1099s.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: We won't discuss that here, but those are their own entities, so there's a different dynamic.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: But if you're a plain old W-2, don't stick it to your cleaning text because you didn't get paid from somebody.
27:28
SPEAKER_01: It's not their fault, it's your fault as the business owner.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, so make sure that you're doing auto billing or prepayments, or Jamie does the day of the cleaning, she's like boom, yes, and that'll tell you if the card's still good.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that's because we've gotten they deserve to get paid.
27:46
SPEAKER_00: They deserve to get paid.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh, we just have this.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: What was it?
27:50
SPEAKER_00: Was it last week?
27:51
SPEAKER_00: I probably yeah, I talked to you about this last week.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: About somebody forgot to leave their key out underneath their lockout in the middle of nowhere.
28:02
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, who far, far away.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Why are you walking?
28:05
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know that the cleaners coming, and I I know this is so my fault, and what is my fee?
28:13
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I'm sorry, I she's well on her way to your house right now.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm 45 minutes away.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: I charge the full price of the cleaning, and she goes, I totally understand, as you should.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: This is I dropped the ball, and so that just makes it harder for us in two weeks from now when we go there, and she's still getting charged the same price, but that's for another show.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, we have it in the contract that we are able to, unless there's a really good rapture, rap is that the right word between me and the client, rapport, not raping.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: I will charge it.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Rapture is between you and God, and rapport is between you and the gun.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: Not the rapture.
29:07
SPEAKER_01: It took them a second to correlate.
29:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what are you trying to say?
29:11
SPEAKER_01: Rapture, rapport, rapport, yes, rapport.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm charged afterward, and and really they don't care because they know how I run.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: So they are like, yeah, charge.
29:29
SPEAKER_01: Right.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: And not everyone's gonna be as willing as Jamie's client is.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: I've had people tell me to screw off, stick it where the sun doesn't shine.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: How dare you?
29:37
SPEAKER_00: You're not really people say, I don't is that even legal?
29:42
SPEAKER_00: Yes, it is.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had a contractor, the owner of a huge contract, say, I don't even know if that's legal.
29:50
SPEAKER_00: We can't go and do that.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe he's a contractor and he has different rules that apply to him.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: There's certain he trust me, he does his draws.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: Contractors get a deposit and they do weekly draws based on the work performed.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: They say, no, wait, don't give me that.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: No, don't so, anyways, I I've had people tell me, you know, I try to basically intimidate us like we don't know your stuff, and we are here to tell you it is make sure you read your laws though, and also put it down there in your terms and conditions, right?
30:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, your terms and conditions uh on Jobber, they have to sign that.
30:33
SPEAKER_00: They have to read it, they have to sign it, right?
30:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they have to sign it, they have to read it, they have to put a credit card on file.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: We will not moving forward accept anybody without a credit card on file.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: Right.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: And it says on when you send over your bid through Jobber, it says you have 24 hours to respond to this email.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: Failure to comply to this request or this bid will cause you to lose your spot and will put you in the next available spot.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: So, in a lot of these move out cleanings and these one time cleanings or whatever this got going on, there's a time schedule that they have to abide by because they need to go.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: And if you you you have a right to resell that spot, especially if you have someone who's dragging their feet because they don't want to pay or they sort of want to pay, don't wait for them.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: If they can't do it within 24 hours, sell the Spot, don't wait for them.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, and that too.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you know, I got team leads out there, especially on move out cleans and first time cleans, first time deep cleans, and we make them either they sign off on it and look around and make sure everything because sometimes you'll get these people that'll say, Well, I like to see the finished product, you know, and it's like, Well, you know, you signed.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: I know you know, it's never it's amazing to me how people don't read what they sign.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: And you guys have all heard me talk about the 10 grand I had to pay in front of the judge.
32:08
SPEAKER_01: He's like, is that your signature?
32:09
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Yeah, and he goes, Okay, Mrs.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: Miller, you get to pay because you I didn't read what I signed.
32:14
SPEAKER_01: So you can go.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't remember what episode that was in, but that was from a car deal that went bad, really, really bad.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: So perception matters, offering modern payment options builds trust and credibility in your business.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: Cash flow is queen.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: It's protect your baby.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: The whole point, you guys hear me talk about this all the time.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: The whole point of all this craziness and being an entrepreneur or being in the 23rd trade is that you are creating a legacy that you can gift to your family or sell at another time.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: That is the whole point of you doing all of the crazy shenanigans you're doing right now to build your empire.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: So don't wait to get paid, structure your business for upfront deposits and recurring billing.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: And if you're still taking payments on a site or through multiple apps, pick one central system and train your clients to use it.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: Consistency builds authority.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: When I first remember, I've been with Jobber over a decade.
33:07
SPEAKER_01: When Jobber first came on, the team they were just a scheduler, there was no way of getting credit card payments, it just wasn't the thing.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: But to teach all of your clients to go into the portal, which is more now than it has ever been.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: But I remember initially having to try to show people how to pay through Jobber, and I was like, this sucks.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: But their customer service has gotten better, and we're we're more fluent with these types of things.
33:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I just I absolutely love them.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: I have every single thing that they have to offer.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: I have even signed up for their receptionist AI, and we can talk about that in another episode because Jamie has the premium plan.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't because I well, I I want to know, I want to hear.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: I utilize it a lot more than than Shannon does, but yeah, I want to make sure that if if if I decide it, not saying that I'm going to, but if ever I decided, if somebody were to come to me and say, hmm, your company looks very nice, would you be willing to sell it?
34:19
SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure that everything, my everything looks nice for a potential buyer, just in case.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: Right.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: Just in case.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: You never know.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: You never know which way life can take you.
34:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm definitely in I'm so involved in the cleaning community.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: Don't think that I'm running off and selling my business because I'm most definitely not.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying I've always I was trained by Shannon to make sure that things are in order and presentable.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I have a 10-year-old son that he watches me all the time.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: That I and it's like, you know, maybe he'll want to take over this, and everything's nice and structured for him to just step into that role.
35:15
SPEAKER_01: That's called the turnkey business, for those of you who don't know.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's fantastic.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: Do you have anything else that you want to add?
35:22
SPEAKER_00: No, that is right.
35:23
SPEAKER_01: It's this one's gonna be short and sweet.
35:26
SPEAKER_01: Don't forget to apply for the scholarship that is being sponsored by Clean Freaks University every year to give back to my community.
35:34
SPEAKER_01: I give away one prize, I call it a prize, but it's actually a scholarship to the Structure Scale and Profit Cleaning Business Academy.
35:41
SPEAKER_01: This year I'm actually throwing in some one-on-one coaching.
35:43
SPEAKER_01: The total value of the scholarship is$4,500.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss your opportunity.
35:49
SPEAKER_01: The winner will be announced the day after Thanksgiving, which is Black Friday.
35:54
SPEAKER_01: And I cannot wait to see who I get to work with.
35:56
SPEAKER_01: So thanks for tuning in and don't forget to share these episodes.
36:01
SPEAKER_01: If you have another cleaning business owner friend who you think might benefit from all of our knowledge, please share this with them.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: And don't forget to give us a five star review.
36:10
SPEAKER_01: The algorithm loves us and says, We are worthy, we are worthy.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: And then we'll share it to the to the world out there.
36:17
SPEAKER_01: Thanks and take care.
36:19
unknown: Bye.