Don’t Do These Things Yet! Timing is Everything

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Introduction

Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean. And in today’s episode, we are going to be discussing timing and not necessarily that decisions that you are making are wrong, but you are potentially doing them at the wrong time in the life of your business or you as a leader.

Some of these mistakes I myself have made or I’ve seen other owners make. I thought it would be an interesting one to analyze and talk about what are the alternatives and perhaps better way or better time to do something rather. So let’s get into it, guys.

Getting an Office Too Early

Number one, I think, is a very easy one to spot. A lot of owners get into this because we get really gung ho. And that is getting in office too early.

I know you might be thinking, Stephanie, you got an office within the first couple months of your business. What the F? Pot, kettle, black, all of the things, right? Yes, I did get an office very early on in my business ownership journey. However, getting an office is not necessarily about timeline. It’s about revenue. It’s about overhead, right?

So it really doesn’t matter. I think a lot of us may be asking, well, do I get it a year in? Do I get it two years in? Totally irrelevant. When I’m saying timing or we’re making decisions that are at the wrong time, it’s not necessarily in the timeline of year, two year, three year type of thing. It’s much more so in your particular business, in your revenue, in your numbers. It’s the wrong time. And it’s too early. It’s too early and it’s killing your cash flow.

There’s multiple conversations I have had with you guys where it’s just all of your money is going to the stinking office because, yeah, it’s a great location. It’s fantastic. It’s wonderful for a lot of reasons. But if it doesn’t make sense financially, it just doesn’t make sense. It can’t work because some of these commercial spaces are so incredibly expensive.

At the end of the day, I understand why landlords have expensive rent and all of that stuff, but that doesn’t mean that we need to take it. I know that an office has so many positives, and I definitely experienced that. I felt like I was taken more seriously. I felt like I took the business more seriously because I had some skin in the game. However, it was an appropriate rent for the amount of revenue I was bringing in.

Before I got that large commercial account that we got right away, it was that big manufacturing facility I’ve told you guys about a thousand times, that was a couple grand a month. And it was very high profit margins. I was able to find a really small office that I think was less than 700 a month and it included everything. So very reasonable. And it was small. It was a little tiny office, no washer and dryer or anything like that, but I could afford it. Then I didn’t have employees coming to my house to get supplies. So that was a huge benefit to me. And it was really close to my house as well. So there was just it was a perfect situation.

The Fantasy Trap of Office Spaces

But I think a lot of you guys feel like you see an office and you’re like, “Oh my God, that’s a great location.” You can, you start to do, start to fantasize. “Oh, I could see myself and the ego of it all.” It’s just like, “Oh, that would be so sexy if I had this office,” but it’s $3,000 a month or some crazy shit like that. And it absolutely makes no sense for you. And it’s going to drain your business dry.

You have to think about it’s not just about the overhead of that business expense. It’s at your worst month, can you afford that? Do not project into the future. And again, that fantasy realm of, well, if we added 10k a month, then we could afford this. No. Can you afford this right now if nothing changed in the business? If you are at $10,000 a month in revenue, can you afford an office space for $1,000 a month?

Know Your Numbers Before Getting an Office

How you figure that out, and this is why, if you guys are not bookkeeping yet, you have no business getting a fucking office, okay? Do not do it if you do not know what your every single month profit and loss is. If you don’t know how much money is left over after you pay your cleaners, you pay the supplies, pay all the current overhead of insurance and all that shit. And you yourself are taking a paycheck. If you don’t know those numbers, no business getting an office guys.

So get that out of your head, get your numbers first and make sure that month after month, it’s steady enough that you are able to afford that. What a steady enough means, it means that your business is not completely built off one off cleanings. If you are the queen of move out cleans, or the clean of, you a really busy summer season and you’re dead in the winter, put yourself in your future self’s shoes. It’s January. You’re bringing in $3,000 a month. How are you feeling about that office now, right?

So let’s think about this logically. Take the emotional side out of it. Getting an office too early will absolutely put so much undue stress on you. I’m not like, obviously, I have three offices. I have three offices. That’s a lot of overhead. And a lot of decision making went into that. And it wasn’t just my emotions and my ego about it all of, well, I really want this office. That’ll make me feel like a big, bad business bitch, right? We have to take that out of it. And a lot of these decisions are going to be related to that topic right there. At least a few of them when it comes to, we’re making decisions with our ego instead of with logic, instead of with reasoning. And instead of looking at our damn numbers and making the decision, can we actually afford this?

And if you’re not paying yourself a paycheck, if you don’t know what those numbers are every single month, do not get in office, guys. So offices are great, but at the right time, at the right time.

Overloading New Hires Too Quickly

Number two, timing related mistakes that I see. And I’ve talked about this one before, but it’s such a big issue that I have done a hundred times. This has been one of my biggest mistakes that it took me getting pounded into the ground about before I learned my fucking lesson. And that is overloading new hires immediately and giving them a full schedule.

This is absolutely too fast, too soon. And you are going to burn yourself. The reason I’m saying that so confidently is because Stephanie herself has burned herself so many times in relation to giving a new hire too full of a schedule before we have seen that they not, I don’t want to say earned it, but have proven themselves from a consistency standpoint and physically can handle the work.

So what this means is don’t hire full timers off the bat who absolutely need 40 hours of work or it’s not going to work for them. The pressure and stakes is just way too high on both ends. They’re feeling this financial burden and they’re feeling so much resentment because you are not giving them what they need. You’re not meeting their financial needs and you yourself are panicking because you’re like, I got to get them full right away.

Anytime we feel like we are rushed or forced into a decision before we have the ability to fully think about it or make sure that all of the pieces fit together, that’s a breeding ground for making panic decisions and for doing things that are going to hurt you down the road.

The Dangers of Quick Decision Making

Sometimes we have to make decisions. I’m a very decisive person, very quick, but obviously I’ve talked to you guys about that. That can burn me sometimes. But it is a good trait to have when we’re talking about this particular issue, when I say I’ve gotten burned, what happens is you bring somebody in, you train them, and then, okay, we are backed up, or we’re understaffed, or whatever. This happens all the time where we’re understaffed. We’re like, well, we have this person here, and they seem good, and they went through training. Here’s 40 hours of work. Here’s 40 hours of work.

Then one week later, they no call, no show, or they say, this isn’t right for me, or this is too physical, or what, whatever reason is, is kind of irrelevant. Point being, you actually not only are you in a bad place now, because now you have all of this work, you’re probably in a worse place than before you even hired them.

So oftentimes, we are loading them up this fast, because we are desperate. And we’re feeling the pain of too many houses, two little cleaners, right? So we make that decision. And we give them all these houses, we’re like, great, this, this body is here. But so often we have that turnover early on in somebody’s staffing history with us. Then we not only did we load them up, we started saying yes to more clients, right before they’ve actually proven that they are going to be a good fit and that they’re going to stick around.

Learning From Repeated Mistakes

I’ve done this so many times because I just have not been able to have the discipline to hold off. And now we are incredibly disciplined about this, about not loading people up immediately and in giving them a full schedule. They must get, the big thing for me was I would hire somebody, they wouldn’t even be through training. And I would be putting all of the clients that make sense from a scheduling perspective onto them, they haven’t even gotten out of training. And I don’t even know if they’re going to work out.

The problem is what that means is by taking those those clients and putting them on that new person who hasn’t even proven themselves yet. That gives me a false sense of I’ve got openings on my other cleaners or let me take on more work before we are actually ready. So then when this person doesn’t work out, now we’re all cleaning and we’ve got this other workload that we accepted when we shouldn’t have.

A Disciplined Approach to New Hires

So what I want you to do is pump those effing brakes. Do not load that person up for sure until they’re out of training, but then gradually give them some clients. I know this, it takes so much discipline and I’m not talking 10 hours a week or anything like that. We can give them 20 hours a week, or we can send them with another cleaner, that type of thing. But I’m not going to load them up fully with clients until I’ve seen one, stellar performance throughout training and then consistency that they’re showing up. They’re not giving all of those red flags that we talked about last week of they’re about to quit.

Some people just go, some people just make that decision or they find another job opportunity. That stuff happens, right? But at least we’re not putting ourselves in an even more painful position because at the end of the day, this is the risk that we have when we hire anybody, right? They’re going to leave eventually. They’re either going to leave or they’re going to die, right? So keep that in mind.

When it comes to all staff, they are going to leave or they’re going to die. So this is always going to happen. But during that beginning phase, it’s so dangerous for us to be loading them up too soon because they might leave. And then you have just put yourself in an even worse spot.

Setting Expectations During Hiring

So just wait. I’m talking wait a week or two before giving them more clients, more clients, more clients. You might be like, well, nobody’s going to work for me then. That’s not true. This works for us for pretty much everybody. And we just explained this during the hiring process of you will not have a full schedule immediately out the gate. We want to give you time and your body time to adjust. We want to make sure that this is a good fit. And, and you, we also don’t give a specific timeline on training because they may need a couple extra days of training depending on the person.

So we’re just constantly checking in, seeing how they’re feeling, if they’re ready to take on clients by themselves. And that’s when we start looking at what their regular client list is going to look like. We may tentatively plan, okay, if this person works out, we’re going to give them these clients because it makes a lot more sense for driving. This is the most efficient way, right? So if this person works out, this is the plan for them, but we’re still holding off.

This means we don’t take on as many clients when we’re in these kind of positions because we don’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot because we’ve done it so many times. So learn from me. This one is probably the one I’ve done the most on this entire list. So it’s been a very painful lesson to learn. So just hold your horses, just wait and make sure they’re working out before you start giving them that regular client load and getting them up to their full availability or close to it, right? That was number two.

Buying Company Vehicles Too Soon

Number three, this is one that luckily I don’t feel that I have made this mistake, but it is something that I see a lot of folks make. And this comes into the ego thing of it all. And that would be buying company vehicles too soon.

I don’t think company vehicles is an inherently wrong thing. Obviously franchises do it, lots of companies do it where they are providing their employees vehicles. But I will say it is, it can be a huge financial strain and it is opening yourself up to a lot of risk, right?

I have had one company, let’s see. Yeah, just one company vehicle totaled by an employee who was texting and driving. And that really sucked. Obviously, that could happen to anybody at any time, but it could have been in her personal vehicle, right? It didn’t have to be in my work vehicle.

One of the reasons that I have not done a fleet of vehicles, and I’ll say it now, Serene Clean will never have a fleet of vehicles. We never will, okay? It just does not make sense to me financially and what I am comfortable with.

The Administrative Burden of Company Vehicles

From the management of a fleet of vehicles, we’re talking maintenance, we’re talking incredible insurance needs because you’re having staff members do it. And just the administrative workload of managing who can drive all of this stuff, it’s a lot where if I can just pay them to use their own personal vehicles, it feels a lot simpler because we do currently have two work vehicles. And guess what? It feels like we’re always running them to maintenance stuff, right? They got oil changes. They got this light that came on that we have to go fix or whatever.

So there is a management workload related to having company vehicles. And yeah, it’s just the risk as well as telling employees and having to manage how employees utilize the vehicle. So if you are going to have company vehicles, we need to have very strict policies in place, Basically, vehicle usage agreement policy is what we call that. And our staff must sign that and agree to adhere to all of the rules related to that.

So that means no kids in the car, no using it for personal use, no smoking, no XYZ, all of these things that they can’t do in the car. And so one, you’re kind of inviting them to either not like you or they’re going to break the rules, right? As well as them paying for gas, and now they have access to gas cards. And we’ve had theft because of that because somebody had the work car and they started using our gas card to fill their personal vehicles. So we had to pay attention to that when people are using work cars.

So it’s just opening ourselves up to a lot of cans of worms we didn’t really think of. And for me, it’s just solidified the fact of no, I don’t want a fleet of vehicles.

Current Company Vehicle Strategy

So for us, our company vehicles, we have two of them right now. I have 30 staff members, I have two work cars. One of them is a rotating car that can be used by any staff member for any reason, their vehicles out of commission or in the shop or whatever happened, we have that so that they can use and get to work. So they can drive that and we have that, but it’s just one, right?

The other one is going to be for our management team and our quality controller, Hannah, who is also training. And that is actually my old personal car and it looks so sexy. Oh my gosh, we got a half wrap on it. It’s a black trailblazer. Every time I drive that. I’m like, this is the sexiest little work car ever. I feel so cool. I love that car being seen around town. I love that car being seen at clients’ houses because it’s just, it is so sleek and sophisticated and it just, it’s beautiful.

The Marketing Benefits and Risks

So there is a huge marketing aspect of buying company vehicles. This is why I’m saying you don’t need to not have company vehicles. It is a wonderful thing. Wrap cars, it’s great advertising. It looks great, But you’ve got to manage employees doing employee things sometimes and going where they’re not supposed to in company cars or they’re driving like assholes. And now you’ve got people calling and complaining about that. And it’s your brand on the line when people are dumb in their car or they’re texting and driving and get seen. So now all of a sudden you’re having to manage them being silly in a work car. So it just adds another management load.

But, again, there is a lot of benefits, marketing being the biggest one. But then for us also logistically speaking, that means that our cleaner has to come to the office and they have to go to the office at the end of the day to drop the work car off. And that just doesn’t really work for everybody. That’s not a requirement for us to come to the office every day. You just need to have your supplies, right? You need to have the supplies appropriate for the job. And so you come and go as you as you need to to get that.

So it just doesn’t really make sense for us to do that from a logistical standpoint. but really the financial side and the risk side is why I will never have this. But I will always have a couple of company vehicles and I do really like having them. It is a great branding and marketing tool for sure.

But I just want you to hold your horses on this being a huge immediate goal or something that you think you need to have. You do not need to have this. I know you’re going to see the franchisees have, or the franchise is having wrap cars and stuff. Molly Maids, Mary Maids, all that shit, right? I get it. It feels sexy. It feels like, oh, that should be a goal that I’m shooting for. And I’m not telling you it shouldn’t be a goal, but keep in mind the risk versus reward of this and the juice may not be worth the squeeze on this particular one.

And just keep that in mind. You can do this. Just don’t do it too soon and really crunch the numbers and look at the risk associated with having your staff members driving work cars. So keep that in mind. But again, I love my work cars, but we’re never going to have a bunch of them.

Taking Vacations at the Wrong Time

This one might be a little controversial. I don’t know. Maybe. But just based on multiple conversations I’ve had on this podcast, it seems to be a reoccurring thing of owners taking vacations too early or during inappropriate times of year, potentially depending on where you’re at in your business.

Now, this totally depends on who you have in place and what you have in place to manage this situation, meaning taking a vacation. And I am not telling any single one of you not to take a vacation. You will never hear those words come out of my mouth. However, a lot of you plan a vacation and then two weeks ahead, you’re like, maybe I should start hiring or maybe I should start teaching somebody how to handle this stuff. and you’ll wait too damn long.

If you’re not thinking about this for months in advance of how this is going to happen, it’s too late. Because if you are the sole administrative person, and you’re the backup cleaner, and you got two or three cleaners, well, how is that going to happen while you’re on vacation?

And depending on what we’re talking about, are we talking about a long weekend? Absolutely. Take your long weekend. Take Friday off. Take Thursday, Friday off and go. That can absolutely happen. If you don’t have anybody else administratively, guess who’s going to be checking in while you are on vacation? You. You have to at least be checking your phone. What if your cleaners need something?

Business Owner Responsibilities

If they are not independent contractors, they are W-2s. You cannot just set it and forget it. That is irresponsible. You signed up to be a business owner. This means you signed up for the responsibility of having them have access to somebody to answer their questions and be there for them. Also, for your customers, you signed up to have the responsibility to be appropriately communicative during business hours.

If you go on vacation and there is nobody else to do these things and or you have not communicated efficiently and thoroughly to your client base that the office will be closed on those days, well, you can’t really be mad when shit hits the fan, okay? You can’t be disgruntled. You need to think about these things in advance, okay? I know that that may feel unfair or sucks. Well, it’s not unfair. It’s exactly what we signed up for. There is no PTO here. There is no somebody else can take the workload unless you have set that up. You need to be putting these things in place in order to manage this.

Additionally, times of year is important. If you know your busiest time is August, maybe August is not the time to go on vacation. Maybe we go to the Bahamas in January or February. Let’s talk about that, right? That’s a good idea because I know that that’s our slowest time of year. I always have for the past couple of years, I’ve gone to the Caribbean in January. Because that’s the best time to do it. We’re super slow at serene, clean. Everything else is kind of slow. It’s a great time. So I appropriately plan.

Being in a Privileged Position

To be frank, again, I can go on vacation anytime I want. I could leave right now and go for a week. It’s fine. I’m in a very privileged place. I know that that may be the goal. You may not be there yet. And it took me a long time to get here. It felt like a long time. For me, it felt like a long time to be able to get here. But it was years before I felt comfortable taking a vacation. And I had office staff, I had things in place so that it did not rely on me for the day to day.

So again, you can take those weekend trips, those long weekends. But you have to just, you can’t just, this is what I see is I want to go on vacation. I deserve to take a vacation. Valid. Yes, you do deserve to take a vacation. You don’t just drop everything and leave. We have to be proactive and prepare for these things.

Planning for Vacation Coverage

Whether that be say hey this cleaner is great lead cleaner for these next two days can you answer questions that the team has let me set up an auto responder for the office saying the office will be closed reach out to this part or for emergencies whatever reach out to this number something like that or if you do have office staff this can be done as long as they’re not going to destroy your whole business if they’re a bad person so keep that in mind just based on again conversations i’ve had where you leave the business in in the hands of somebody and then they totally destroy it while you are on vacation.

I’ve heard that multiple times. So if you have a some type of administrative person who can at least keep things floating while you’re gone. Great. That’s the goal. That is the goal.

Finally, I would not load up the schedule while you are on vacation. Do not load it up to the brink. We want to have a shit ton of availability as much as possible in scale of the size of your team while you’re on vacation so that when slash if something goes wrong, it’s a lot easier to rearrange.

So if you have four cleaners, we want to leave six hours of availability for that week, six to eight, maybe even more, just so that we can push and rearrange. Maybe we don’t schedule a bunch of really time sensitive move outs during that week, if we know and so this is all of these things of being proactive, Do not wait until the week before to start thinking about what the plan is.

Worst Case Scenario Planning

Think about the worst case scenarios. What are you going to do while you are gallivanting in? I don’t know. Where do we go? Puerto Rico. Let’s say we’re going to Puerto Rico, right? We’re gallivanting in Puerto Rico. It’s bad cell service. Maybe I didn’t buy the thing to get the data on my phone. So I’m totally just ghosting everybody. No, we can’t do that, right? We can’t do that and expect things to go well. So we need to have a plan.

So I want you to have a plan for if somebody calls out, what are we going to do? Who is the point of contact for your cleaners? Who is the point of contact for your clients? What things can we put in place to lower the expectation of really great communication? That’s going to look like email autoresponders sending a text out to your clients that week saying, hey, going to be on vacation, it’s going to be limited communication, but I will get back to you on XYZ day. Or if you have an admin person, then that’s not really necessary.

We’re going to not fill that schedule up full so that we have some availability. We’re going to communicate with our entire team. Hey, I’m going on vacation. This is the plan I have in place. What questions do you guys have? Is there anything I can do ahead of time to make you feel more confident during this time? Maybe we don’t have a new person starting that week, right? All of these things of how can we make this a boring week? That’s the goal. That is a goal.

When we go on vacation, I want this to be a boring week. I don’t want the thing to light on fire. We’re just trying to hold steady. We’re not trying to necessarily grow again until you have office staff and systems where at that point you don’t need to be there anyway. You can go on vacation.

So all of this to say is I want you to plan. I want you to think about this. I want you to think of every aspect of the business that needs to operate while you’re gone. I want you to take vacations, but I want you to take vacations and not have hellfire break out while you’re there and make you regret taking the vacation. Because starts in your business and you’re on your phone checking it. Vacation sucks. It feels like, why did I even leave? Why I shouldn’t have gone on vacation.

So I want it to be like the most positive, rejuvenating experience of your life that you are actually able to shut off and turn off as much as possible. I’m not saying it’s realistic to say that you aren’t going to work at all on your vacation if you’re early on in your business. Unless you have these things in place.

And so just I talked in point one of too early, there is no such thing as too early. It’s more so you don’t have the systems in place to accommodate you being gone. So unless you plan to shut down the entire business, which if you have staff members, that’s probably not going to work out unless we’re this is the week the whole business takes a vacation. Could do that too. I’ve seen companies that this on this week, we shut down, everybody’s on vacation. That’s what we do. We plan it in there. So there’s an approach as well, but point being too early or too soon or wrong timing all just depends on you having the things in place to actually handle this thing.

So take a vacation, just be smart about it.

Hiring Managers Before Systems Are in Place

Number five timing mistake is hiring managers or administrative staff before you have systems in place. Something I see, and this goes for VAs as well. I actually saw Libby, Libby D just comment this in one of the posts in the Zen made mastermind talking about people hire VAs and they have absolutely nothing in place. And they just basically word vomit and brain dump onto them. And then both parties are dissatisfied with the results. And it’s like, well, this VA is not really working out. Bitch, you didn’t give them the tools. You didn’t give them the tools to be successful.

You need to have things in place to hand off properly. And go read Buy Back Your Time. Go read Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martel, because that will teach you exactly how you delegate. That will teach you how to hand things off to somebody else. We cannot just dump a bunch of word vomit onto a new office staff member and then think it’s going to go well. We need to have something that we can teach them.

I’m not saying, okay, my managers, they can build a system like nobody else. They fully are competent of taking something that is a total mess and is not working properly and turning it into something new. But you cannot expect a new administrative person to be able to do that. Or you guys have, you hire a full-time manager and have no idea what to do with them. Stop doing that, okay? Stop bringing in somebody full-time into your office unless it’s very clear exactly what they’re going to be doing.

Focus on One Area at a Time

You’ve had some time and bandwidth to at least spell out or record some basic how-to videos on how to do this thing. And really just focusing on one area of a time. That’s what Libby said in her comment that I thought was so insightful was do not just say, here, run the office. We don’t need to do that. Let’s focus on one area of our business that they are going to be working on. You’re going to be taking over the estimating process. And this is all we’re going to focus on until you have it right. Or you’re going to take over the inventory management, or you’re going to take over the quality control or whatever, whatever thing, right, that we’re trying to trying to delegate off of us, you’re going to take over payroll or bookkeeping, etc, etc.

I would highly recommend, a lot of ways to skin the cat on managers, I know, The personal path that I took in Serene Clean was all of my managers started as cleaners and then part-time gradually transitioned into full-time office managers. And that took a while, okay? But what that did for me is, one, they were the backup cleaner. They are always able to get pulled back into the field, which really freed me up for bandwidth to be the owner and the leader and actually think about what is this person going to be doing and how do they do it and growing the business and all the things that we’re trying to do.

So that is one thing. But two, that meant that I could just focus on gradually transitioning them into the office because it’s really hard to train a full time office person. Because that means you need to be available to teach them and show them. Otherwise, you’re going to be wasting money. They’re going to be sitting around twiddling their thumbs and you are going to get really frustrated because I’ve gotten so many emails where it’s like, I don’t know what to do with my office person. I feel like I don’t they don’t have enough work, but I don’t know what else to do with them. it’s like, well, they shouldn’t be full time if you don’t feel that way.

There is so much work that could be getting done, but you might be not having the bandwidth to teach them or show them, right? So this is why it’s really nice to start them off gradually. And if you want ideas for what your office managers can do, shoot me an email. I have whole lists of the responsibilities of my office staff or go watch my interviews. I interviewed all of my managers, April, Crystal, Katie, you guys can go watch those on the earlier episodes to hear about their responsibilities in the business as well as just their journey in the business of what that actually looked like if you need some inspiration.

The Importance of Backup Systems

But it really just it really is a nice easing transition. And again, for me, my office staff, they have to be ready, willing and able to go clean at any time because they are the backup. Remember, I’m a 20 hour drive away. I can’t just drop everything and go clean. That’s not going to happen. So we have all of these protective mechanisms in place of we now have Hannah as the on call person, we build availability into the schedule on top of that, because we know every single week, we’re going to have 20 to 30 hours of call outs, at least, at least, if not more.

So because I know that that’s the pattern, I can plan for it. So we build that availability in, we have that on call system. And then at the end of the day, well, Crystal went out and cleaned a vacation rental two days ago. She’s been with me for six years. She is the HR director and she went and cleaned a vacation rental because of the call outs that we had.

So So they are still willing to do that. The goal is for that not to happen very often at all. But that’s just a big thing of you’re bringing in these managers and you have no clarity on what they’re supposed to be doing. Or you don’t know how to even teach them because you don’t even have a system in place. And they can definitely help you build that system. But you need to be able to at least give them some type of foundation and groundwork of, okay, this is a software we use for this, or this is how I do this.

Setting Up Your Team for Success

This is where tools like Loom or just screen recording are so useful for us before we can fully think out something. I’ll give you an example. So I have my executive assistant, Veronica. She’s in France. She’s amazing. And what I did to prepare to bring an executive assistant on, I took a whole week of just recording how I do different things that I was about to pass off to her.

So, for example, before and afters. Right. We, she is the one who does our before and after graphics. So she needs to know where to get the photos from, which is going to be our before and after chat in Slack. She needs to be able to download those. She needs to have access to the templates in Canva and as well as all of the photos of our employees, because on our before and after graphics, we actually put the picture of the employee that is responsible for the before and after. It’s really cool. It looks great on social media. The team loves it because it really gives them that recognition of their work.

So she needs to have access to those photos. she needs to know who they are, then she also needs access to all of the social media and kind of needs to know what the tone that I want for that from a branding perspective of what those captions should look like, and stuff like that.

So I have, this is a fairly easy thing, but to stay organized. And additionally, if somebody gets fired, we want to take off any future posts that are scheduled out, so that it’s not like, hey, we just fired Tina last week for stealing. And now here’s a before and after of Tina’s work and us giving her accolades, right? It’s not like the public needs to know that Tina’s not there, but it’s more so like, okay, let’s stop posting them on our social media.

A lot of times if we’re scheduling out this type of content potentially for weeks or months in advance, you need to be able to check that. So all of these little details that I’m talking about, the nuance of how Stephanie wants this thing done, that’s not obvious. That is not an obvious thing.

So all of these details have to be communicated to Veronica so she can be successful because otherwise, say she puts the wrong cleaner on there. We got posts going out of people who got fired for stupid shit. And she is writing the caption all funky or ChatGPT is writing the caption all funky rather, and not what I want at all. And I’m getting mad at Veronica. No, who should I get mad at? Stephanie, because Stephanie did not set up Veronica for success.

So don’t be getting mad at your office managers or your executive assistants or your virtual assistants when they are not doing things the way that you want them because you didn’t teach them properly in the first place. That’s your fault. That’s your fault 100%.

So don’t be taking these people on before you are ready and prepared to actually give them a successful startup and a successful longevity in the company. And it really will impress them and make them feel more confident that you know what the fuck you’re doing. And you might not know. I certainly don’t know what I’m doing at any time, it feels like. But by doing this, by doing this work, it shows them that they can trust me and that I’m going to do my darndest to make them successful and to give them the tools to be successful in serene clean and not just being like, well, here you go, figure it out.

Understanding Executive Assistants vs Virtual Assistants

And something like Veronica is a genius. So she can absolutely do that where I just word bomb it. But that is that’s the difference between an executive assistant and a virtual assistant. If you guys don’t know or why I’m using these words, an executive assistant is really supposed to be able to come in, look at this pile of steaming garbage and really think about how to systematize it. So she’s really excellent at that.

A virtual assistant, they may be able to do that, but the expectation in my mind much more so is here is this process that we already have in place. I need you to do this thing now, right? And completely hand it off to them. And they may be able to tweak and improve and adjust it, but the thing is already built, right? They are now just implementing it.

So that is what I like to keep in mind. And so it’s like, okay, how do we make either of those parties successful? Well, first and foremost, we need to have a process in place. So make sure I feel like I could have done a whole episode on that, how to successfully bring in virtual people, admin staff, all of that, definitely, there’s there’s a lot of mistakes that we make that we can avoid. And a lot of it just has to do with timing and doing it before we are ready.

Investing in Advanced Technology Too Early

Alrighty, the next mistake that I see is investing in advanced tech or softwares too early before you are ready and prepared to invest the time to learn them. In today’s day and age, there’s a lot of sexy softwares out there, right? There is. And a lot of us want to know, what’s your tech stack? What are you using to run the business, et cetera, et cetera.

But remember, every time we bring in a software, there is there’s some legwork potentially to actually integrating that into the business and under utilizing the software that you’re paying for is a huge mistake because it’s a huge cost. If you don’t have the time to really sit down and figure this thing out, then then or you buy it without fully realizing exactly what you’re going to use it in the business for.

I want you to have extreme clarity before you introduce a new software to the business of exactly what area it’s going to improve, all of the all of the positives to this thing, because softwares are made to be sold to us, right? They want to sell to us, they don’t really give a shit how much we’re using it, they just want to get their monthly revenue, right? And obviously, that’s not 100% true. But the cynical side of me is like, yeah, they’re gonna try to sell to us, right?

And it’s on us to then implement and utilize that to the fullest extent in our business. They should have the resource, of course, to educate us. But I’ve seen so many people just get horny for new softwares. And then they just, they bring on too much, and they’re not using it all. And that’s a ton of overhead.

Becoming More Discerning with Software

So we have gotten so much more discerning, because I definitely fell into this trap, Ooh, sexy software, right? Sexy software. And I get something and I’m not using it to its fullest. And that meant that maybe the problem wasn’t that bad that I clearly, because I’m not using this thing. And so now we are really discerning before we add any new software. Honestly, we’re going a couple of years between adding any different softwares.

And we certainly there’s a huge cost to changing softwares as well, the bigger that you get. So for example, Gusto’s our payroll software. I will forever use Gusto unless the whole thing fucking implodes and they just completely lose it. I will not be changing payroll softwares. It is good enough. It solves the problems that I need. It’s actually great.

But if there was minor little things, that’s not that’s not painful enough for me to change. So it’s like I think sometimes we gripe about a problem in a software, but it’s like, is it painful enough to cause you to change? And if not, just learn to deal with it. That’s kind of my thought process because it’s like every software is not going to be perfect. There is no perfect software for every single area of our business, right?

QuickBooks Online, that’s our bookkeeping software. And it definitely has its issues. But at this point, six years in when all of my data and every single dollar I have ever made in Serene Clean is documented in QuickBooks, I’m not changing. I’m not changing. Why? It would have to, is the pain of that software big enough that you need to change? And if not, then don’t.

Making the Most of Free Trials

Or, you know, don’t definitely give, give the new software a lot of trial and error and, and utilize that trial period and do not sign up for the free trial until you have time to actually explore the software.

So for us, for example, we open phone, we switched over to that, which I guess, is that a software? I don’t know, but new technology to us, a different phone system. And we all play, we were like, okay, I’m starting the trial on Friday. Every single manager, you guys need to be in this for this, whatever, seven day trial or whatever. We all need to experiment and play with it. If we weren’t, we actually decided on the date because we’re like, no, that’s a long weekend with the vacation. Let’s start this trial then. So we have time to actually play with it.

So think about that before you’re starting your free trials. Do you have a weekend to actually sit down and try it?

Software Examples and Timing

Trainual, right? Trainual is something that we started, I think last year or maybe the year before. I think last year. And that’s expensive. It’s an expensive software. And so I did a lot of trials. Their onboarding process was freaking amazing. They had this, it was, it was great. They really want you to utilize the software. So I will give it to Trainual.

But for most of you guys, absolutely not. Trainual is way too expensive. If you are under a million a year, I don’t think you should be even thinking about something like that because it’s so expensive. And most likely you’re not going to have, it’s for documenting SOPs and quizzes and employee education and stuff. And honestly, you probably just aren’t organized enough if you’re under that size. And not even just organized enough, you’re not going to get your money’s worth out of a software like that, most likely until you’re kind of more at this size.

So I may be talking about different softwares, and it just doesn’t make sense. So I’m really happy that we took the time and it felt like the right time to implement that type of software into the business. And it’s been incredibly useful for us. And we really, enjoy it. But if I had started that two years ago, or three, I guess maybe three to four years ago, I wasn’t prepared to actually do the work to utilize the software. So it would have been a cost that didn’t make sense at the time.

So just making sure it’s the right time. And on the flip side, waiting too long to put in very much needed software, like a scheduling software, if you are waiting years into your business to have a scheduling software that’s it’s bad timing on the opposite end okay you need to get this in place before you start growing because this is what’s actually holding you back from growing to your full potential is a scheduling software you absolutely need one I had one since day one and I will fully attribute that to the success and the fast growth of serene clean is because I had something that was the source of truth and organization and management of the schedule, which is the most integral part of our business as a cleaning business.

The Importance of Scheduling Software

And so it was already taken care of. And I grew with it instead of, okay, I’ve got six cleaners now probably about time to switch over from Google Calendar. And now it’s just so much more stressful. And I’m having to deal with teaching my cleaners a new way of doing something, where it’s just every cleaner that comes on. Nope, this is how we do it. You download this app, you clock in clock out here, you read your notes, this is this is what you’re using. And they just learned that from day one. And there was no switching over.

So if any of you guys are continuing to not use a scheduling software, I implore you yesterday was the best time. Today’s the time to plant that tree of a scheduling software. You guys need to get on this. Obviously, I have used ZenMaid since day one in my business. It has been such a integral part of Serene Clean’s success is having Zen Made by my side and it growing with me so beautifully.

And I do 50% commercial, guys. We do vacation rentals. We do move outs, and it works so beautifully for all of us. I know that it’s really focused on house cleaning, but it works incredibly beautifully for all aspects of our business. And it really has skilled well. Obviously, they’re adding all sorts of features.

So here’s my Zen made plug of the episode, but I just, if I wasn’t correlated with them at all, I’ve used them for six years. I’ve never worked with them in any capacity other than being their customer for years. And so that’s why it’s so important to me that you guys are using a scheduling software from day one, or as soon as you hear my voice in this conversation, get on that damn scheduling software.

Because it just, you’re not going to see the success that you You are losing out on the potential of your business because you are losing out on so much automation and just the bandwidth in your brain by not having a scheduling software. I can’t imagine how many hours and hours and hours a week that I saved because of this and mistakes that I saved, too, from double booking or what have you.

Recommended Software Types

So, yeah, there is no way, no way. So making sure you’re utilizing software when you do buy it and then implementing it at the right times in your business. So yes, I highly recommend a payroll software, highly recommend a bookkeeping software, highly recommend a scheduling software. And I would definitely say a CRM slash email marketing software is definitely something I would suggest or I wish I had a more like, I wish I would have gone with go high level early on in the business. I’d never even heard of it, right?

Something to manage my leads because that was really something I was doing pretty manually. Now we’ve built it out so much custom in ClickUp to manage our leads and our whole lead management process, which I’m very pleased with. And honestly, it’s probably way more kick ass than Go High Level Ever will be, frankly, because just from people who have seen it and been like, yeah, this is really robust.

But I’m just saying a CRM is incredibly useful because lead management is a huge problem that I see in our industry that ain’t nobody managing their leads properly, meaning following up and keeping things systematic. and organized. So software at the right time, guys.

Adding Specialized Services Too Soon

And then finally, I would say going all in on niche services too soon or adding specialized services way too soon. And what I see so many times and I’ve mentioned it is I’ll go on y’all’s websites. I live in the South now. I can say y’all. I’ll go on y’all’s websites. And you are offering everything, supposedly. You are the specialist and all services that possibly have to do with the home. And you got two reviews. Things are looking like a mess. You don’t call back because you’re out in the field cleaning. Why are you saying you can do all of these things?

Focus, focus, focus on as few services that you can and get the most out of them. Milk them dry before you add more niche services. You don’t need to be a window cleaner and a grout refinisher finisher and a floor refinisher and all of these different things, a carpet cleaner, maybe reef, I don’t know, re-shingling roofs. I don’t know, things that you guys are saying that you can do. Stop it, knock it off. Knock it off.

Just focus on houses, focus on commercial, maybe focus on vacation rentals, right? And post construction, whatever the thing is that you want to focus and go and focus on it and get really, really good at it because you are going to add complexity with the amount of service types that you provide. It makes things more complicated.

Learning from Personal Experience

And this is somebody who has been a commercial queen right alongside my residential. But frankly, I could handle it. I could handle focusing on both of these things. But if and then vacation rentals, that’s where things started getting shitty, right? Where we take on a bunch of them. These are a lot more complicated. There is so much more that goes into vacation rentals and the stakes are really, really high.

So to get really good and make it coincide with the rest of the business, that’s fucking tough. And some of you guys I know just specialize in vacation rentals. And that’s great if in the area that you are, it makes sense. But most likely, you’re going to have to supplement with regular houses or some commercial during those slow seasons, because we all have a slow season somewhere. And that’s where things get complicated.

So I just implore you stop, stop saying, Oh, that worked out really well. Let me let me do this other service, because because one client asked for it or two clients asked for it, just because somebody asked for it doesn’t mean you have to provide it. It does not mean you need to go and do this thing because a client was like, yeah, you guys should walk dogs to you’re already in my house or you want to meal prep and again, there are companies that have done beautifully with being that kind of all in one inclusive Simone from house moms in Antarctica, I almost said Antarctica, that is funny as hell. In Australia, that is what they do is they are this perfect mother who comes in and does all of this house stuff.

And that’s amazing. And that is very niche and specialized. And it takes a lot of work to be able to do that well. So most likely you guys are not in the place that you can do that, especially if you’re trying to add staff members and scale, good luck, good luck, and I’m not being a bitch here. I’m saying good luck, because this is going to be hard, right? I myself would not take that on. I’m not going to take laundry services on. I’m not going to take all these things on because it makes it more complicated and difficult.

Adding Locations Too Soon

So I did lie. That was not my last point. My last point is adding locations too soon. Adding locations too soon. You guys are wanting to expand your service areas and add more locations before you even know how to run the first one. Why are you doing this?

Again, I think it’s an ego thing. I think it’s getting just kind of that fantasy of I want this entire cleaning empire. And I get it. I want that too. But you have to do it at the appropriate time if you add locations too soon and you can’t even manage the first one or a lot of you are I want to service this city that’s 100 miles away or whatever it’s like well how are you going to staff it think of the worst case scenarios how are you going to handle when people call in if you yourself is still in the field you have no business adding adding other locations you can’t even manage this one okay so knock it off stop you have some discipline and there’s so much money in your area that you are not picking up because you are so damn horny to get to that second location and get to that third location.

And it’s like you haven’t even gotten the full benefit out of this one. So it’s like, why? Why are we doing this if there’s money on the table here, and we still are working out how to run this? Why are we opening another location if it’s not for your ego?

So make sure you have your systems in place before this. We have three locations. And I and those are specifically placed in towns where we can pull are cleaners from the other ones. It’s run out of one central office and any cleaner could technically work out of any of the offices and service any of them. They’re going to have to drive a bit, right? But that was our kind of decision-making process of locations.

If we ever open another location in Wisconsin, that’s where things are. It’s going to be a huge jump because all of a sudden I’m not going to have it be within a reasonable distance of a manager going and cleaning or my on-call person being able to clean there. That’s why we’re going to hold steady here for the foreseeable future. I don’t know if slash when Serene Clean will ever add another location, right? I don’t know if that will happen. Maybe someday, years from now, but I did my three and they work because we’re able to pull from any of them and send cleaners anywhere between them, right?

If I had a location that was an hour and a half away, that’s going to take a huge learning and growth process for me to actually make that happen successfully. And I’m not being humble at all. I’m like, that is a scary, big proposition I am not ready to do yet. So if I’m saying that, what makes you think that you can do it right now? If you are still cleaning in the field, things are a mess. Your office is a mess. You don’t have these systems in place.

Focus on Your Current Market

So please don’t put the cart before the horse. There’s so much money right where you are, right? There’s plenty of business right where you are. Serene Clean is in very rural areas. There’s plenty of money, guys. There’s plenty of money. Do not hurry on this because you want to have multiple locations. I want you to actually think, slow down and think about this. Why are you doing this?

And whatever your reasons are, are they true? I really want you to think of all of the consequences of opening that second location where it’s just like, oh my gosh, there’s so many customers there. It’s going to be great. Okay, that’s true. There are so many customers there. Let’s talk about all of the negatives that could happen. And what are you going to do when these things happen? Because as we know, cleaners are going to quit. Clients are going to cancel. All of these things are going to happen that we need to manage and the fires that we need to put out. What’s the plan? What’s the plan? How are we going to handle that?

And if you don’t have that, if you can’t answer that to me right now, don’t do it until you can.

So that is a huge timing mistake.

Final Thoughts and Encouragement

All right. I hope you you’re amazing. Let me soothe. Let me pat your head gently. You’re wonderful. You’re a great person. You’re listening to the Filthy Ritz Cleaners. You’re going to be successful, okay? But timing of our decisions really does matter. And I’ve made a lot of timing-related mistakes in my business. And I want you guys to heed my warnings, learn from my mistakes, and just sometimes it, you know, I talk about action. I talk about being somebody who makes a mistake and learn, learn, learn, learn, learn.

But I want you to still think about what you’re doing, okay? There is a flip side. There is a negative to being too impulsive and jumping to things before we actually think about the consequences of that action in our business. And so a lot of this is related to being too soon. A lot of it’s related to knowing your finances. A lot of it’s related to not having systems in place. And a lot of it is related to our egos and being arrogant and wanting things because of the way it appears to others as opposed to it actually making sense for our business and for us as leaders.

So all of that to say, guys, you’re great. don’t feel bad if you’ve made any of these mistakes because I have too so don’t feel bad and yeah I’ll see you guys on the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye guys.

Note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell
• ZenMaid Scheduling Software
• Loom Screen Recording
• Trainual
• Gusto Payroll
• QuickBooks Online
• Go High Level CRM
• ClickUp