
Brought to you by expert maid service owners
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Introduction
Stephanie: Hello everyone, welcome or welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host Stephanie from Serene Clean and today’s guest is an absolute powerhouse in our industry. Juan, he has been running a residential cleaning service since he was, I believe 19 years old. Is that correct Juan?
Juan: Yeah, around 20, yeah.
Stephanie: Yeah, you and your wife Karen started at such an early age and I can’t wait to hear that story and the success that that business has grown to, followed by your incredible recruiting software PipeHire, which I’m super intrigued to learn about. I’ve actually never heard about it before we jumped onto this call and I started researching and I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. So super excited as well as to learn about that. But would love to hear just in general, starting at such a young age, you and your wife, where did this come from? What was the desire to open the cleaning business?
Table of contents
- Introduction
- Starting by Mistake: From MLM to Cleaning Business
- Building Quality and Growing Through Word of Mouth
- Marketing Excellence and the W-2 Employee Advantage
- Company Culture and Employee Retention
- Remote Management Structure
- Transitioning to Remote Operations
- Maintaining Culture Remotely
- G-Maids Core Values
- Green Cleaning Philosophy and Health Benefits
- The Hiring Challenge and PipeHire’s Origin
- How PipeHire Works
- Customizing the Filtering Process
- Multiple Job Listings and Location-Based Filtering
- Training Process and Video Requirements
- Addressing Common Hiring Challenges
- Success Stories from PipeHire Users
- Looking Ahead: Events and Community Building
- Free Trial and Special Offers
Starting by Mistake: From MLM to Cleaning Business
Juan: Well, thank you, Stephanie. We really started by mistake. We were part of a multi-level organization that was selling soaps and vitamins to people. And we were not making enough money in that business. We were 18 and 21 at that time. And one of the people that recruited us saw our situation and said, hey, let me teach you guys to clean homes so at least you guys can get by and make some money. So we said, okay, fine. Let’s show me how to do it. They said we’ll show you how to do a hundred dollars per day. At that moment, it was a lot of money. So I said, sure, teach us.
So we started cleaning training with them and they said, well, now go find clients. So at that point we started passing some cards, some flyers, just hustling with people. And we got started with just a couple of clients, but we really got started because of this reason. We never thought we wanted a cleaning business. It was really a mistake, but it’s just really a blessing now.
Building Quality and Growing Through Word of Mouth
Stephanie: Was it just demand based? Is that why you guys started hiring? You really started the word of mouth or how did that start to grow to where it became a big company like it is today?
Juan: It really started to grow and get the word out because we were doing really good work. Our quality of work was amazing. And we had all the energy all the time and we were really good with customer service and customers really loved that mix of good customer service with amazing quality. And also we were using non-toxic products, all green products, the ones we were selling. So that made people feel special. And back then, 20 years ago, natural cleaning products wasn’t really a thing. It was really brand new, was revolutionary per se. And that made us also give us an edge with people.
Marketing Excellence and the W-2 Employee Advantage
Stephanie: Well, I was looking at your guys’ website and your guys’ understanding of marketing is so beautifully done on your website. First off, beautiful website, but just from an angle, having that perspective of we’re a green cleaning company. But in my opinion, the more important part of your guys’ angle is about your staffing. You literally spell out on the homepage, we use all W-2s and this is why this is superior. And as a company who’s only ever ran W-2 employees and have had a lot of people try to go the IC route and especially nowadays, and I’d love to get your take as a proponent of remote business ownership with employees. I’d be really interested to see what you think of that. I love that you are so bold in stating why you believe this is superior for the customer’s sake. Did you ever get any pushback from anybody in the industry from that? Because that’s really, I love just the boldness.
Why W-2 Employees Over Independent Contractors
Juan: Yeah. We feel that independent contractors have their own clients, their own agenda. And at some point they work for you to kind of fill empty spots or help other companies. But the reality is that independent contractors cost more to the company and versus employees that are loyal to your company and will be there.
So the reason I like W-2 employees is because they want to be employees. They want to be loyal to a company. They want to wear a uniform. They want to be part of the team. So you can always make them do things that independent contractors won’t do because they are not your employees. And the culture of the company, when you’re trying to teach something specific, an independent contractor may or may not do it. And they might say, I don’t like that. I’m independent. So independent cleaners have that problem that is just not your brand, it’s not how you do things. And for me, that creates a problem of experience.
If you really want to retain employees and have an amazing experience with your customers, you really need to teach your employees more than cleaning. That’s why I can advocate more for W-2 employees. Plus also the cost, independent contractors cost more to the company. Seems like having employees is cheaper, but in reality, independent contractors cost more because you have to pay 50 to 70% of the revenue has to be paid to the contractor. So they go and do the job versus employees, you pay less in terms of percentage. And also you’re able to do benefits. You’re able to do all the things that will help you create a company and the culture of employees. So that’s why I like them more.
Company Culture and Employee Retention
Stephanie: I love that. And just that hint at commenting on how important culture is when it comes to the loyalty. And even I noticed on your site that you proudly showcase the longevity that you have in your staff and that the typical employee works for you for three years on average, which is a lot longer than what you can expect oftentimes in the cleaning industry. So that is quite a testament to the culture that you guys have built. And obviously, you’re here now, what is the size of G-Maids now when it comes to staff on any given day? I know it changes.
Juan: We range between 15 to 20 employees on average. Some summers tend to slow down just like anyone else. And that’s kind of our sweet spot. When you start to get to 25, 30, 50 people, it really requires a lot more.
Stephanie: I have 28 to 30, so I know exactly what you mean, the chaos.
Juan: Yeah. So we’re happy with the size. We’re also putting a lot of time building PipeHire and other tools that we’re building. So in my opinion, my capacity is at the max with all these projects. And that’s kind of where we are right now in terms of employees.
Remote Management Structure
Stephanie: From a management perspective, how do you guys handle that? Do you have an in-person operations manager? Are you and Karen involved in any of the operations or are you more – who does what when it comes to actually running each area of the business?
Juan: Sure. My wife is really all behind training employees, employee engagement, really keeping the culture of the company going and also the financial part of the company. I’m more involved in the marketing and strategic reach out that we do to clients, the brand, how we basically portray in social media, everything that’s marketing related. I’m behind that.
And we have a local person that does all the actual hands-on training, onboarding people, teaching employees, correcting employees for anything that needs to happen in local Dallas. And obviously we have other teams of virtual assistants in different parts of Asia, Latin America, doing all other things that are not required to be present in Dallas. So that’s kind of how we are organized as a remote cleaning company.
Transitioning to Remote Operations
Stephanie: Yeah, because you had mentioned that you guys are in Miami, correct? Is that full time and then the business is in Texas? Was there any particular challenges that you faced that you had to kind of level up when you did go to remote that you didn’t anticipate? Or was it all pretty planned out in advance before you guys moved?
Juan: Well, we started this journey in 2009. We left Dallas that time. And back then being a remote company wasn’t really popular at all. So we had to figure out everything from scratch back in 2009. So the main issue was quality assurance, checking the customers. Obviously we had one or two employees that we left kind of running the show and they were doing inspections and cleaning.
But I guess the biggest challenge was believing that we could run a business from different parts of the world. We started in Colombia. We went back to Colombia and lived there for a year. And we were running the company back then using a MagicJack and a Google voice number and picking up on the iPhone 3 back then. And we were managing our phone operations through these devices.
And the biggest challenge was really believing that we could do it and grow the company. Because most people say you have to be next to the company and operate there and be there every day present in order to grow the company. In our case, we were able to 10x the company being away from Dallas.
Maintaining Culture Remotely
Stephanie: So being that I was on the ground with my original cleaners, cleaning beside them, I was very much involved in the day-to-day. There was some adjustments that had to be made to the culture when it came – a lot of my cleaners were taken aback at this change of how could this work? Not knowing that operationally it was not an issue, but it was more of a culture thing. So being that your guys’ culture is so strong, how do you maintain that strength from afar considering you’re not there?
Quarterly Workshops and Team Building
Juan: Yeah, great question. We normally do quarterly workshops, in-person workshops where we go, we rent a house or we ask a client that wants to get a free cleaning. Karen mostly goes to these workshops and then retrains employees, explains processes, changes. She always has a presentation to share how the company is doing, general updates about the company.
And during these events, we obviously provide lunch or breakfast. And sometimes we bring also a chiropractor or a massage person to do something for them in the workshop. Quarterly, in my case, for a remote company is a good balance. So they feel like we don’t need to see them every day. And we always, when we hire everyone, they are aware that they don’t need to see us every day.
There’s really no need because we send our employees from their home to the customer’s home. We give them all the products, all the supplies. They don’t need to come to our office in Dallas. They just go straight directly from their home to the customer home. But we let them know every three to four months we’re getting together just to share, hang out, relax, have fun, take pictures. And also, more importantly, build that company culture so they feel like the owners are here, they are real, they are good people, I want to keep working for them.
G-Maids Core Values
Stephanie: If you could describe, I don’t know if you have definitively labeled out, how would you describe G-Maids’ core values that you would say are practically speaking how you guys behave on a day to day? Do you have established core values in the business?
Juan: Yeah, we do. They are mainly, we have them on our website and they are really five. First of all is we’re about honesty. We’re really honest about everything. We tell them, this is a trust relationship because I’m sending you to my customer’s homes under my name. So honesty and always telling us the truth about anything is very important for us.
Then being punctual or on time to all jobs. Since again, we’re not micromanaging every day and some companies make people come to the office, grab supplies and products and then go out and do the job. But in our case, they don’t. So punctuality is critical.
The quality of the service. Nobody cleans perfectly, but we tell them quality is what helps you retain those customers. You don’t want new customers every time. You don’t want to go to dirty homes every time. Well, the way you get used to that is to retain those customers that we already gave you. So you get used to do the regular biweekly or monthly service. So quality is what’s going to make you work less hard and make you a better paycheck. So quality is really core.
Then keeping the values of all green and natural. We ask people to not cheat per se and start putting toxic products in the bucket or in the caddy. And the reason for it is that there are people that really have real health issues and concerns that if you put in a toxic product inside the home, they could have issues with breathing or their pets. I mean, a lot of our customers find us because or hire us because of these reasons. So we tell them, hey, it’s not a trend or something that is cool. We really do it also for health for our customers. So make sure to not bring anything that’s outside of what we provide.
And the fifth part is to really belong or behave like a family. I know companies tend to say we’re a family, but we try to really bring that concept home by our workshops and by eating together, by hanging out together. This is kind of what we say, if you’re having an issue with something or you need some support, hey, here’s your friend, here’s your partner, here’s all these people sometimes are going through the same situations. Become friends, hang out, help each other. So we try them to bond together in some way so they can help each other. Most people are very lonely. And that’s why we ask them to hang out and exchange their numbers so they become friends and help each other. So if you’re making good money, if you have some good friends, some good relationships, and you’re treated fairly, you will most likely succeed and work at this company for a couple of years.
Green Cleaning Philosophy and Health Benefits
Stephanie: Yeah, and that really – just from longevity, if your employees are all friends with each other and have those bonds, they’re just going to associate that positively with your company. So yeah, those are excellent values. And I love that you said it’s not a trend for you that the green cleaning or anything like that, and even the health of your cleaner.
Juan: Yeah. Back when we started, and when I was doing a lot of interviews years ago, I never thought this was possible, that some people will say that their nose will bleed because of so much use of chemicals and Clorox. And I was like, really? And it never happened to me. And they showed us photos back then. It was like, oh my gosh, how can you work for this company that’s killing you slowly? And that’s why we said, this is a real problem. And most people still cling to these products, but it is a real problem.
And back then I remember that one of our selling points to clients was like, hey, when we put all these chemicals in, if we put all these chemicals on your floor and you’re taking a shower, you’re absorbing some of it through your feet.
Stephanie: Yeah, I’ve seen studies released where they look at long-term janitorial staff and they have higher rates of many diseases, especially lung related because of that exposure to chemicals over years. So it’s to be, as you said these are our homes and if we’re putting that into our homes, you’re going to be exposed to it more. Do you have any pushback then on scent? Because that is something that we have had an issue with prior with clients saying, it doesn’t smell clean enough because we’re not using the heavy chemicals.
Essential Oils Solution
Juan: Yeah, definitely. Back then, we started using essential oils. And we still do use essential oils. So when we’re mopping, we just put a couple of drops of essential oils in the bucket. And because the water is warm, I guess it kind of releases the smell even more. And if you look at our reviews, a bunch of them, like a huge amount of our reviews says they love our peppermint smell and how it smells clean but without the toxic scent. So that’s how we’ve overcome the natural products don’t have a strong scent. And people really love this because it feels clean, but it doesn’t slap you in the face with the smell. It’s really nice.
Stephanie: Yeah. And honestly, from a bottom line standpoint, cleaning with all purpose is Dawn, water and essential oil. And it’s very affordable.
Juan: Yeah, I mean, the only product that’s not affordable is the essential oil per se. The ounce of good peppermint essential oil is expensive, but the rest of the products are really affordable. Water, vinegar, and a multipurpose cleaner. Also we use Bonami, which is this powdery thing that’s really like a dollar and a half per can, which is amazing product. It doesn’t have any bleach, doesn’t have any strong smell, and it cleans. It’s like having those magic erasers, but just in a powder form. So when you mix those two products, I mean, there’s nothing that will stand to the power of that amount of friction.
Stephanie: Oh, we’ll have to try that. So the products – yeah, absolutely. We usually just use baking soda, but you would say that this is superior?
Juan: Yeah, definitely. Baking soda is fine, but I feel like it is just too soft for the job. Bonami is really a cleansing product. It has some other things in there that really help you dissolve the grime, the grease, and it’s really affordable. We buy pallets of that because it’s such an amazing product.
The Hiring Challenge and PipeHire’s Origin
Stephanie: I’m just picturing you with a forklift and a pallet of the stuff. That’s funny. Well, obviously you guys have built an incredibly strong culture and now you’ve been in business for years and kind of going into the elephant in the room of our industry is hiring. I say pretty much in every episode is this is going to be the challenge. I mean, we could all be multimillionaires if it wasn’t for the staffing and how challenging that is. So do you remember any specific events that really triggered or was it just the snowball effect of dealing with this over and over that triggered you guys for the inspiration for PipeHire? Was there a specific event that happened or was it just –
The 2016 IC to Employee Transition Crisis
Juan: Yeah, definitely. Back in 2016, we were in Dallas working, training people, hiring people. And my daughter was born at that time. But also we were switching from independent contractors because we’d run for a couple of years with independent contractors and we switched to employees. Well, 90% of people did not want to become employees. They wanted to continue on their own. So we said, how do we replace all these 15 people that we have? How do we do it? And at that point I said, I don’t have a fast way and I have to go back to Miami. I don’t have a fast way to really vet and screen and interview great people because back then, you will use a resume or a PDF and you will determine if you like this person or you don’t and kind of make a decision and then determine if you will hire them.
So that got me to work with my developer and say, hey, why don’t we build something that will just let me know and feature manager. If somebody’s qualified, kind of like a traffic light, green, yellow, red. And that way anybody can hire on behalf of my company. Because again, I have to go back to Miami. And so we started working with that and internally we developed a tool for my own, for G-Maids, which was kind of the inspiration that we’ve been perfecting for PipeHire, which really removes the guessing of is this the right person or not for the company? Because all the questions that applicants respond are scored and that makes you pretty unbiased if a person qualifies or don’t. And the system invites them to book a call on their own. So it eliminates also the chasing down of people trying to get into an office or to a Zoom call to interview. So that was the main inspiration being remote and not having people because the transition was very rough. Most people do not do the transition because they will lose a lot of the time.
The Challenge of Converting ICs to Employees
Stephanie: Yeah. It feels like you’re stuck when you’re running ICs and you see the benefits of W-2s, but as you said, why would they want to – it feels like you have to completely start over because it’s a totally different mindset.
Juan: Yep. There are two different mindsets. They have different desires and interests and an employee has one way of thinking. They want a steady paycheck. They want a good place to work. The contractor is more of an entrepreneur person. They want to be on their own. They want to do their own thing. And so transforming people or converting people from one side to another is really challenging.
I always recommend people to, instead of – you could offer them to become employees, but that rarely works. The best way is to really start hiring employees and then you’re phasing out the independent contractors. You don’t fire them, but you start prioritizing your employees and you still offer them, hey, if you still want to become employee, just feel free to switch. But that rarely works.
Stephanie: So basically you would run both and phase the ICs out and give more of those hours to the W-2 with the option of, hey, you can become an employee, but you have to agree on all of this. I love that. That’s a great strategy.
Juan: That’s how we advise people to do it. Within PipeHire, you can hire independent contractors or W-2, it doesn’t matter. But we get a lot of questions because it’s very common. There’s companies that are large companies with a lot of independent contractors, they have to go through this pain because IRS is still out there checking and that was one of our also one of the reasons we wanted to switch is there’s a lot of liability when you’re running with independent contractors.
Stephanie: Oh yeah, I’ve seen whole companies go bankrupt or go down because of this. They’re running ICs incorrectly. They are not paying the correct insurance and whatnot. And then something happens or they get audited and it’s boom, that’s it. You’re done. So yeah, you could be five, 10 years into the business and you lost all that work, all that effort in it.
Juan: Yeah, you could be five, 10 years into the business and you lost all that work, all that effort in it. We are now in the 20th year. Why would you want to do this type of mistake at this time? I’m 20 years into this business. So we fixed this back in 2015, 16.
How PipeHire Works
Stephanie: I’m sure the software evolved over time and it’s constantly getting tweaked, but could you describe the main features that it offers? If you’re selling it to me, because I am somebody who exclusively uses Indeed free, because I don’t want to pay Indeed, it’s very expensive and it doesn’t really work, it feels like. So could you just explain the software in detail and then we can dive into some of the more specifics?
Juan: Sure. Exactly as you mentioned, you use Indeed, but you still have to manually revise and see who qualifies, right?
Stephanie: Well, we do group interviews, so we just invite everybody and whoever shows up, that’s how we filter. So I’m just curious, yeah, how the filtering process is very interesting to me.
Eliminating Bias in Hiring Decisions
Juan: The main pain point for companies that are growing is that they have to go through Indeed. They have to do resumes. They have to invite people. But you still at the very end, you’re hiring based on a feeling like her or I like this person. And when you’re remote and you’re traveling around the world to give this decision, because the decision of hiring somebody is critical. It costs you money. It’s going to cost you possibly customers. It’s going to cost you bad reviews. So when you’re giving this responsibility to a manager, you cannot just tell them, just wing it, just whoever you feel like. So that was the basis for PipeHire.
I need to make it a system and it has to be unbiased. It has to be based on facts, not feelings. So in your case, Stephanie, if you want to do this, you buy the traffic from Indeed because they have the traffic. They have everybody that wants to work. Indeed knows. So you buy the traffic from Indeed, you send it to your own jobs page. And in that page, you have the PipeHire form. So all the traffic goes there and the applicants fill out the form and you get notified. Hey, you receive an A, B or C players. So you get notified, hey, Stephanie, there’s an A player here and she’s sent out to book a call or she’s there in the system just waiting. So you don’t have to now look for people or invite people or see who fits. No, you just go to the qualified people and you focus on those people. The rest of them, you don’t interview them, you don’t call them or anything, because you just want the ideal employee profile.
The Ideal Employee Profile (IEP)
And if you’ve probably heard me before, I call it IEP, the ideal employee profile. So you create the questions for PipeHire for the ideal employee profile. So whenever they apply and you get notified, it’s pretty easy for you to make a decision, because you already gone through all the process of defining this person. And that’s what makes PipeHire so efficient at hiring because from the very beginning that you onboarded, you decided who was that person. So when they show up, the system identifies them and then invites them to the next steps, which is scheduling the interview or other processes that you may want to have them do, watch videos or go through some other testing. But the system really identifies them for you. So when you’re interviewing people, you’re interviewing the highest possible and most likely employees that you could get. You’re not just interviewing random people. So you become more efficient at interviewing. So every effort that you do at trying to hire people, you’re working on the five to 10% of the best people that apply. And that’s what makes you faster at hiring and getting the right people.
Customizing the Filtering Process
Stephanie: So I would love to hear about this filtering process specifically. I love the idea of unbiased. My initial hesitation when thinking about that is some of my best staff members were not what I would describe on paper as anything. And we don’t care about – we actually don’t want anybody with cleaning experience because they typically come with bad habits. We want them. It’s more about the personality and vibes and things like that, values, et cetera, and how they’re going to fit culturally. So how do you guys – I’m curious how you establish that filtering process to not vet out the maybe unorthodox picks that are actually good.
Juan: Sure. PipeHire comes with a series of questions pretty fine tuned for you, but we always tell people to fine tune those questions. So for example, if you don’t want somebody that has experience, that’s a specific question you will ask, if you have experience, yes or no. If they say yes, that’s something that’s not good for your particular company. In my case, I do want people with experience. But in your case, yes, I have experience that will be a disqualifier for your company, or you will score them lower. You can do either or – score them lower, or you could disqualify them.
So every question that you are customizing or fine tuning is really defining who’s this ideal employee. I mean, when you’re running for so many years, you really know who’s the right type of employee for your company. It might be different from your company than my company. We all think that employees are similar, but they are very different. For people that live in New York City, they don’t need a car. But in Dallas, they do need a car and they do need a driver’s license. So I need a specific type of employee for Dallas that’s different from New York City. And that’s how every city, every market in the U.S. has some differences. And that’s how you customize based on your market, on your company type. All the things that make the ideal employee profile is what really revolves around PipeHire. And that’s what really helps you get to these people faster and cheaper than any other system.
Multiple Job Listings and Location-Based Filtering
Stephanie: I got you. That makes a lot of sense. Because yeah, either way there is still so much time spent on interviewing every week and not saying that that wouldn’t happen, but it would be good to have that extra layer of filtering. Because for us, them showing up to the group interview is the first layer of filtering, but either way there’s still time that’s being spent there. So I’d be curious. I mean, so when it comes to – because we run commercial and residential, so we have many job listings going on at once for the usually different times of day, different areas, because my business is in a very rural area. We have three locations and it’s spread out. So we have kind of a lot of listings going on at once. So how does that work with, can you just feed them all in or how would that work?
Juan: Normally when you have multiple locations or markets, we always recommend having separate job offers because you don’t want to mix possibly the people that are working in the town versus the ones that are running around all the county driving for many miles. So I would normally recommend to create a separate job offer with the specific questions and things that you want them to do or qualify them. So that makes it easy, a lot easier for you to determine if this is the right person for that specific job or this specific region. Because on PipeHire, you can set up locations. Also, if you say, I want people to live around a specific radius around this city, that will be something to qualify them or disqualify them. So you really customize this ideal employee profile to – you do it once and you’re kind of done. From that point, the system just keeps qualifying the people based on these rules and these instructions.
Training Process and Video Requirements
Stephanie: So once the interview comes in, I’m curious, in your business, do you do test cleans? We don’t. I know a lot of our listeners enjoy the concept of a test clean paid, of course. What are your opinions on that? Do you guys do that in G-Maids? And how does that work with PipeHire?
Juan: We don’t, we basically do, once they’re qualified, we ask them to go and watch some training videos. Once they finish those videos, the system gives them a certificate and then they go and book a call. So we kind of filter them also watching the videos. Whoever finished them, how soon they finished them. Sometimes people just apply and see if they get an interview and they get a shot at talking to the owner and possibly getting a job. But in our case, we do the videos and if they finish everything and they come with the certificate, then we consider those people qualified to move on into in-home training, hands-on training, which is a week. And during those days, obviously we’re monitoring every day how they’re doing, how they’re progressing. Sometimes we, at day two, we say, it’s not going to work. And we finish at day two or day three. But by the time we started first with a really good candidate because we filtered them through all the questions on PipeHire. Then watching the videos is another filter. It’s like, how hungry are you? Do you really want this job? Okay. Watch these videos and pass the questions, the questionnaires and the quizzes on the videos, and then come to us with the certificate that you really are ready. Because I don’t want to send somebody that has never cleaned or has cleaned, but never know all my company’s procedures. I don’t want to send anybody with just vague ideas to a customer’s home, even to train. I want to really get the most prepared people to be entering the home of the client to train and spend a whole week with us. So I feel like by doing all those things, it gives me the best chance of getting the best people and the most qualified people for my particular company.
Addressing Common Hiring Challenges
Stephanie: I’m definitely going to be talking to my HR director about this because this is very timely because literally we have been having this discussion of how can we – because a lot of people are getting through our interview process. And we’ve got two days ago, I had a full-timer quit without notice because of the physicality yet she made it through training. She’d been here for several months. And then all of a sudden it’s like, boom, I’m done. This is too physical. And it’s like, come on, so I just, really, it’s, yeah, we’ve been racking our brains of what can we ask during that interview process to really get in? Can they handle this? Because they think they say they can and then they can’t.
Juan: Yeah, I mean, that’s why, I mean, in 20 years for me, that’s kind of, I’m not saying it’s the perfect silver bullet to everything, but for us, that’s kind of how it’s been working for us. I know of a company in Georgia that they just hire, it’s a commercial company, they just hire part-time people. And they actually use PipeHire to ask very specific questions about personality, what they’re like, if they’re introverts or they’re not. This guy has really developed a series of questions that are so on point that really he gets the people that he needs for his company. So that’s why I always say define the ideal employee profile early on. And that’s what’s going to get you the biggest ROI for your time. Technically anybody can clean, but you know that not everybody can.
Stephanie: Yeah. And especially looking at our commercial, personality, looking at my commercial cleaners, they are much more introverted, so having those different, what did you call them? Different –
Juan: Job offers.
Stephanie: Job offers? Okay, got it. Well, I mean, I’d love to hear just in general, as we wrap up any big success stories or changes in some of your customers’ businesses since implementing PipeHire. Obviously you have your experience, recently, obviously you just described this company in Georgia. Anybody else that stand out of this really revolutionized the process for them?
Success Stories from PipeHire Users
Juan: Yeah, there’s another company in California that they hire independent contractors because California has so many difficulties with labor employees. And they ask them to upload the insurance certificates and all this paperwork needed. And his hiring process is very lengthy, but it’s because he’s in California, he needs to make sure that some things are done. And he’s grown a lot of his company because he was able to really fine tune this process. Again, there’s hundreds of people that are really ideal employee profiles in your city, but you don’t know who they are until you really define this process. I mean, we don’t need thousands of employees, right? To have a successful company, we don’t need thousands of people. We need maybe hundreds of people at most.
So a really good time that you could spend with your HR team is to really say, let’s look for the last years, who and how and where and how they behave. Who is the right person that has worked well, has stayed for a couple of years here that really impact the company positively. And then determine those characteristics and all those things that you say, okay, I know how my ideal employee profile looks like, these are the characteristics and these are the questions I’m going to make. And if you spend time doing that, that’s what’s going to give you the most ROI for the HR part.
Looking Ahead: Events and Community Building
Stephanie: I love that and definitely we’ll be doing that. And we will be looking into PipeHire. I know my audience here, you have heard me say over and over how our hiring process works pretty good, but it doesn’t mean that there can’t be always improvements and that’s where software come into handy, especially when you’re trying to scale and trying to stay on top of things. So thank you Juan for your time today. This has been really fascinating to hear about your journey. Where can people find you? Is there any events that you have coming up? I know that you and Karen are both very heavily involved in the Spanish speaking community in our industry. Is there any future events that you guys are looking at?
Juan: Yeah, we just finished our event called Panorama here in Miami. It was last week, literally. It was amazing about 120 companies in the event. Some in person, some online, have them in person in Miami. And yeah, I mean, we really want to develop the Hispanic community because there’s a lot of voids of knowledge in this community. So panoramaconferencia.com is the page for that. And also you guys can find me just by on Instagram, with my name, Juan Chaparro, or in my own website, juanchaparro.com. That will be a way to find me and happy to answer any questions that you guys have on hiring.
Free Trial and Special Offers
Stephanie: Awesome. We’ll definitely link all of those resources in the description of this video as well as linking PipeHire. Do you have a free trial or anything, Juan, when it comes to signing up?
Juan: Yeah, there’s a free trial, definitely. And maybe we can create a custom code for you guys if anybody wants to try it and give some extra time or discount, something we need to talk about.
Stephanie: That would be awesome.
Juan: But yeah, definitely go to PipeHRM.com and just give it a try.
Stephanie: Awesome. We’ll definitely talk about that and see if we can get that for our listeners. But thank you for your time. I really appreciate it. And I’d love to connect in the future again, because you guys have quite the story and influence in our industry. So thank you so much.
Juan: Thank you, Stephanie. Have a great one.
Stephanie: You too. And guys, hit that like, that subscribe, and we’ll see you in the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners.
Note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
- Gmaids
- Pipehire
- Panorama Conference
- Juan Chaparro’s website
- Juan Chaparro on Instagram
- Bon Ami Powder Cleanser
- Indeed
- ZenMaid
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