How One Cleaning Tech Employee Becomes Irreplaceable

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Introduction

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I am your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and in this episode, I will be interviewing and having a lovely conversation with my payroll administrator and accounts manager April West. And April has worked for me for nearly six years. Worked alongside me, shall I say? Really more so. And I think it’ll be really fun to talk about her journey here at Serene Clean, as well as some of our experiences and fun cleaning stories together, because we have cleaned side by side countless times, and it’s been quite a journey. So April, thank you for joining me today.

The Early Days: Moving to Wisconsin and Starting at Serene Clean

Stephanie: So let’s start off. Let’s go back six years and say where were you? What were you doing? You were birthing children three years prior. So what was going on six years ago when we decided to up and move our family from Arizona to Wisconsin.

April: I was originally from Wisconsin, so we came back here. I was a stay at home mom for about nine months, and I got bored, and I said, what do I like to do? I like to clean. So we decided to look for a cleaning job. And Stephanie was posting for technicians at that time, so at a whole $12 an hour.

Stephanie: That was a different time. Guys, don’t judge me for the low wages. And she helps, you know, she skims over being a stay at home mom. Can you elaborate a little bit on your family structure?

April: Well, I worked full time prior to moving to Wisconsin, but I have a son, and then I have triplet daughters.

Stephanie: Yes, so I knew, as soon as I interviewed April, I was like, if she can handle that, and you are a veteran, former military. I was like, oh, my. I want her.

So I was definitely very attracted, obviously, to April. She also showed up super spiffy to your interview. I remember that where people were usually rolling in and sweat pants and a cigarette in their hand, not really, but kind of. We still see that, but you were just so professional. I remember you were so nervous.

April: It was really nervous, but it didn’t help that somebody was watching group interviews, right?

Stephanie: Yeah, because it was, gosh, well, I know it was just me, oh yeah, there was another. Oh, I see, yeah, we were watching for mess ups, but yeah, so it was definitely you stood out immediately, and for you, your background from a career perspective. Can you mention that?

April: Yeah, I was in the military for six years, and then I was an operations manager for a large retail company for seven years. Then I worked in healthcare for about six years prior to coming to Wisconsin.

Why Choose a Company Over Going Solo?

Stephanie: Did you ever consider just cleaning on your own? You said you like cleaning. Why did you go the company route?

April: I did. Actually, I like organizing. So that was something I looked into becoming a certified professional organizer. But my husband, being the realistic, he’s like, but do you really know how to do that? And I was like, well, why don’t I try my hand at cleaning first? And then I realized all the back end stuff that goes into owning a business, and I’m glad I didn’t either my competition, and we’d be like mortal enemies right now, not that I’m competitive or anything.

Stephanie: That’s sarcasm. I’m very competitive.

April: So yeah, and for you, thinking back to, why did you apply to Serene Clean? Specifically, outside of you like to clean, but was there anything that attracted to you despite the low wages?

April: Particularly the flexibility and the mostly the flexibility and the part time work at the time because I didn’t need to work full time, but that kind of evolved into full time just because I liked it.

The Training Experience and Early Challenges

Stephanie: Obviously, things have evolved heavily, and the reason I’m nailing into this is you guys are just going to be seeing this over and over again. I could not offer anything except flexibility and showcasing the excellent staff I’ve gotten who started as part timers and who have either stayed as part timers, or they have evolved into other roles, or full time cleaning techs or whatever. I think my emphasis is so heavily on part timers, because even looking at our current staff, I mean, you do the payroll, how many are under 30 hours? Majority?

April: You know, majority of them, right?

Stephanie: So we just have way more employees than, I guess we could get the work done with your employees if they were all full time. But in no way, shape or form, is that going to happen. Because it’s not possible for us from meaning, logistically speaking, it’s not possible. And also, we know the call in rate, and so we’d rather have a bunch of part timers, because it’s just easier to manage from a call out perspective, because that’s just the name of the game here.

So you started as a cleaning tech, and let’s talk about your training and how extensive it was.

April: I was trained probably week, yeah, aka, you just tagged along with me, or Steve. I asked if I could jump in right away, and I was told no, watch, yeah.

Stephanie: And out the gate, I was very slow, yeah, I remember actually wondering if it was going to work out because you were slow. Also, I was probably a really high strung person, because we were so we’re always under staff in the beginning, and there was just such a high demand. And during that, when you came on, it was such a chaotic time, because it’s this thing started to really tumble. It felt like, and we had the commercial, and I was probably just a lunatic, because there’s just so much going on managing it. And so if anybody was even perceived as we’re not getting it through, I’d just be like, you gotta go faster, faster, faster, faster. We’re now, we’re probably else, probably really, yeah, I’m racially slow at this point, which is surprising, because I came out of military being physical and, but to be told I was slow, I was not accepting that.

April: Yeah, that’s my game. But it’s funny becaus once we did get you into the regular clients, that was actually incredibly difficult to get your clients off of you. They did not want to let you go. They were very dedicated to you. Also, you had perfect, flawless attendance. So we never had to. We were very consistent for your clients, because you always showed up. Because, for April, if, unless her leg is chopped off, she’s showing up to work, something wonderful about her. And even still, I think you would crawl in with a numb.

April: I’m here coach put me in. That’s just the military a duty thing. Yeah, you have a very strong sense of obligation. I feel like to your responsibilities, which makes you an excellent team member. And sometimes I feel like we have to be like, no, April, you don’t have to.

Transitioning to Office Roles

Stephanie: So it’s definitely a good problem to have for us. And so, yeah, you had a bunch of regular clients. And then remind me, I guess, what was that transition like? Because I don’t even remember, did I approach you? Did you approach me?

April: I think I was trying to think about this. I think you had started me in the office just helping with invoicing because you were out cleaning. There was probably five of us, or eight of us on staff at the time. And then I kind of, we kind of brought Krystal in, and then I stepped back out into the field, and then when it got to be a little too much there, then brought me back in. And I was trying to think of, at what, at that point, what my role had been, but I think I was still doing invoicing, a little bit of customer service at that time.

Stephanie: Yeah, I can’t remember when I started having you help with the payroll of calculation and things like that. I can’t remember either or four years. So, I mean, it was fairly early on when you started transitioning office, but any of our office staff, it wasn’t boom, you’re all office. It was a very slow, you were cleaning, still a ton. And as for you guys, the takeaway is that all of the office staff that you’re gonna see, none of them just went from all cleaning to office staff. It was a super long transitionary period, because people would call in and we’re the buffer now, we’re the buffer. We would all just clean. It would literally just be who’s cleaning the day, and just kind of tackle it as a team.

Current Responsibilities and Role Definition

And as in my discussion with Krystal, we talked about the roles were so undefined, you know, of who does what, and so now it’s very, very defined. And so going into what are your current iteration of your role is, can you just describe your responsibilities now?

April: Yeah, payroll and accounts. So I do accounts receivable, accounts payable, run payroll and calculations every week, drive times. Just do some fun and QuickBooks. I’m very analytical, so it suits me well.

Stephanie: Yeah, if I have a production rate audit or something and are really want to start crunching numbers in a very nuanced way. I’m going to take that to April, and she’s going to help tackle that project. And it seems like, Yeah, you really, really enjoy that. And she’s the one who gets on the people to pay their bills, inventory, which I also enjoy.

April: Yes, yeah, which is just baffling to me, because I just love doing inventory.

Stephanie: So yeah, you manage all of that. You manage our herd of vacuums, as I call them, our herd events. So she does all of the vacuum repairs and making sure that we have the, you know, everything getting if a cleaner is like, hey, this is broken, it’ll go to April, and she will figure it out and fix it to the best of her ability, and have just this kind of junkyard of parts of her vacuums, because we can do the same vacuums as much as possible to be consistent for that problem.

Business Evolution and Growth Phases

But yeah, so things that have changed quite a bit, you know, from your perspective, obviously, you’ve been here during the various transitions and growth spurts of Serene, Clean, from your perspective, was there very specific periods in your mind? Or, obviously, things slowly change. But does anything stick out on your mind? Of, oh, wow. This is turning into something big or something different, or the phases of the business, if you will.

April: Well, I think it was all about the service of people, and making people life better from the beginning. But then I think the biggest jump when I realized, wow, this is going to be a thing, is probably when you went to sport, yeah, and step out as being a manager, and had the managers be the manager, yeah, they’re the contacts for the cleaning tax, whereas before, it was all, whoever would answer would answer. Now it’s and that was tough on some of our cleaning texts, because they had cleaned by me, side by side with me, and saw me as a almost co worker, more so than a leader.

Stephanie: And so, that was, you know, it, but it was good because it was necessary. For the Fort McCoy project, as I’ve mentioned a lot of times, it really forced us to put Stephanie more in that CEO role of, you know, you guys, it’s actually a pyramid, Stephanie here, layer of managers who are the direct contacts for the cleaning techs, where, at this point, I do not talk to cleaning techs unless it’s for vibes. That’s literally the only reason I talk to them is I’m just here to morale basically, cheerleader, you know, whatever. But very rarely do I ever step in and, I mean, I just have no that’s not my role anymore. And it would be actually stepping on the toes of you guys at this point.

Establishing Boundaries and Chain of Command

Same with customers. You know, customers will attempt to, sometimes, circumvent you guys, and I have to almost wrist slap them and be like, hey, not cool. And a lot of this comes from some of our original clients who I clean for, you know. And so they’re like, I’m gonna go to the boss instead of going through the proper chain of command, which is you guys depending on it. And so then I’ll have to be like, don’t do this. They are the one. This is their job. You’re stepping on toes here.

So it’s been really interesting. I mean, I guess the evolution of boundaries, I would say, and what we will and won’t do. You’ve seen that. Can you speak at all to some of those examples of, where we’ve had clear boundaries established, or things that we have changed when it comes to both clients and employees?

April: Pretty much just like you was saying, you go to the management team first, creating manager chat, so they have to talk to us, although you are involved in those, you don’t respond in those. So they kind of get used to coming to us first and then just defining our roles as managers, if you need something with payroll, this is who you go to. You go to April. If you need something with your schedule, you talk to Krystal. If it’s about time off, you go here. You know, just that kind of, that definition, I think, has really helped with the business and everything.

Stephanie: Yeah, from the client perspective, I think you know you guys, I mean Krystal and I talked about this, but you guys kind of your strengths, protecting against my weaknesses, of being a yes man and things like that, of or even taking on projects that maybe you know we’re not the best for us. And even literally today, today, we just had, how long did we just talk for two hours about we have to drop a client and another one, you guys dropping clients left and right, and this is from a staffing issue.

Team Dynamics and Leadership Style

And I would love to just kind of delve into, the evolution of us as a team, meeting a management team, how has that changed when it comes to You guys feeling like you, you have a voice or a say? Because, as you can say, I was wishy washy for an hour and saying, no, no, no, we’re not doing this. And then we’re doing this. We’re dropping this because, so, I mean, I guess from your perspective, my leadership style, it’d be really interesting to hear what, I don’t have any leadership style. So, how would you describe it? And, is there things that you liked, you like about that, or things that you would say that there’s improvements from your perspective?

April: Well, I like that you’re a yes man, because I think that’s what I am. Yeah, I do. I mean, I have a perfect example, last week, something came in and he’s like, we have 600 cleanings a year for these Airbnb them. Don’t let see. Yeah, you actively hide things from me sometimes, so that, because you guys will know what’s best, because you’re managing the team. And sometimes it’s hard for me because I’m just looking at the numbers and I’m not having to deal with the problems associated with that. And a lot of times I’ll push back and be like, it’s worth the struggle, but other times it’s not, you know. And so just you guys feel uncomfortable to, push back, you know? And I just think being in the day to day and knowing the technicians, yeah, the way we do, we know this person has high anxiety they’re not going to do well in this type of situation. Or that’s just kind of the theme we’ve learned to, work around the people, which has kind of helped us say no easier to clients, yeah, no Yes, yeah, depending on what it is and and it’s just, I feel like all of us are learning and evolving really well together and kind of, and even sometimes, reflecting well, we’ve made this decision related to this prior, but maybe we need to change and being agile and open to trying new things.

Communication and Transparency

And even this morning, I was just talking about, okay, in order to replace this revenue, we’re going to have to actively pursue when we haven’t, it feels like, for a while we haven’t had to do that. And so I was like, I literally said, I’m scared because of this, and I’m nervous because of this, and just being really, transparent, but then we can, problem solve based on that and and even, I think it was maybe a month ago, when I was, super anxious about revenue, and you guys were like, what? Then you need to tell us that.

So it is just, it definitely is a work in progress for me, and you guys definitely are helping me develop in that way.

April: Well, it helps that we’re all, so different too. We, I have a very analytical so I’m looking at numbers, I’m always, oh, are we gonna make our sales goal or whatever? And then Katie’s looking at it from a completely different place. What can we do differently to make this better? And Krystal is looking at it from a staffing perspective. This person doesn’t like to go here. They don’t like, they don’t do well in this situation. So I think all of that together makes it work.

Stephanie: It really does. Because, even, looking at this morning’s conversation, how everybody was chiming in from their perspective, I’m coming at this from a high level of, growth and the business, and then, well, with this we’re in we’re all suggesting things of, how could we make this account work? We talked for an hour and a half straight. I’m like, well, how could we make this work? And, realizing, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, despite it being a giant account. And we’re like, we could just make this money up with low hanging fruit, with our current availability in residential or daytime commercial and that, it’s like, oh, well, that eased me, you know, Katie sharing, what do we have for availability? And Krystal being like, we can’t staff this. We’re never going to be able to staff this well. And that’s just everybody feeling confident enough to, share their concerns without feeling like, I’m going to just bulldoze because it is a balancing act. I think with, sometimes I feel like I have to push so that we don’t get stuck. But then other times it’s like, we need to pump the brakes a little bit.

Learning from Mistakes: The Payment Processor Switch

And, looking at the past year, I feel like we really, identified how we’re going to, handle, I guess, the business operate, really, I feel like, especially for you, a lot of things is very operations focused, when we’re, doing audits and refining, our current processes, as opposed to, actual, growth, that’s what you’re focusing on. A lot of, you know, what? How does this process work or things like that. So looking back at, even, you know, the, the switching payment processors, we tried that, yeah, can we talk about that? And I that was, a big mistake, I would say, on my part, that was a huge mistake I made. Was pushing for that.

So well, what can you briefly describe, what it was, can I say, who?

April: Yeah, go ahead, yeah, you switch from QuickBooks to Stacks. And Stacks is great, but not so great for our clients. Yeah, they had troubles. Make paint, making payments. We had trouble. We couldn’t accept, electronic check, which a lot of our clients pay that way. So it was delaying and causing, causing me stress, because it’s causing our accounts receivable to look really crazy. I mean, I think there was times where we had 20 to 30,000 outstanding, which is like a lot for us. Yeah, we like it to be more like 15. Yeah. Type. Is ideal, but I don’t blink an eye at 15, so that we just kind of switched everybody over right away. And we had a lot of issues communicating with the clients, and we tried it for a year, and decided that the fees weren’t worth the the time it took me to spend just processing all that information. So we just went ahead and switched back.

Stephanie: Yeah, because honestly, and the reason I push that through is because the payment processing fees are so much lower. Because, as all of you guys know, as you continue to grow, payment processing fees are so expensive. I mean, we spend 20 grand a year, I think, in payment processing fees alone, and that’s something you can just build in, you know, typically, I wouldn’t suggest adding that on to the clients, they’re not going to want to see that separate fee it’s just kind of an inconvenience them. Or to my, you know, perception thing, just build it into your cost. And so, here I came in trying to, slash expenses, this one’s way cheaper. Let’s go with this one, and not realizing, the customer service was kind of crappy, and the actual experience.

Learning to Research Major Changes

And so for me, that has really taught me that, when we’re about to make a big software change, we need to do a shit ton of research, we need to, attack this from every angle. Tomorrow we’re doing that exploratory call with Zoom phones, you know, to potentially be changing phone services. But that is, this is the very first step of about 1000 before we actually make that call, because we got, getting burned is sometimes very useful, I think, as long as it doesn’t, because I don’t wanna say, it’s just a learning experience, this is a mistake I made. But, okay, the biggest thing is looking at that and saying, how can we, how can we learn from this and not, and not repeat our repeat our mistakes?

And I would say we definitely have had some consistent, repetitive, why do we keep doing this thing? I mean, very for you do any standout I would say there’s a couple obvious ones. Of, we keep making the same mistakes.

April: Um, I don’t, I can’t think of anything for me, it’s like staffing, hiring somebody before, that, we know shouldn’t, maybe isn’t the best fit, and we keep doing that because we’re like, we need to. We need a warm body.

Stephanie: Yes, we need a warm body. That chip is probably four years to get out of that. Yeah. And even now, it’s still, eats at me sometimes. Yeah, we do have applicants, but they’re not ideal. Ideal, yeah? And it’s like, we have business and we have accounts that we need to cover. So just that, that patience and knowing it never works out, right? Because definitely rushing is not good. I’m just kind of figuring out the cost of time and training, and even with the stacks thing, the cost of the my time spent trying to fix the errors that were happening in the software probably washed out the 20 grand in fees, yeah.

From Corporate to Small Business

And for you, coming from, a really professional background, for a large corporation, right? That’s what you worked for previously. And obviously the army being, a very large corporation, and then coming into, a pretty much infant small business, what has that been like for you, from a security standpoint, meaning, how have you, it feels very secure to work for a large corporation. You know, obviously there’s layoffs and things, and also, and I’m not just referencing layoffs, but just the future of your, career how has that evolved? And how have I, haven’t been able to provide that security? How? How is the housing I guess I’ve tried not to think about it.

April: The future of the business, even working, you had said, working for the large corporations, you see the layoffs you see there is, there’s job insecurity, mostly. I mean, if, if a facility closes, then what is that person doing for their billing or whatever they were working on? Now you have to shift them into another role, even, one of my best friends got just completely laid off, and then they told her they didn’t after her layoff period they didn’t want her back. Wow. So it’s like, even, even then you experience that, enough you’re just okay. Figure it out. And, coming to you, I guess I all can, saw continual growth, even if there was some moments of being stagnant. I was like, it’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna be fine. Yeah, no, for sure. And you’re smart.

Stephanie: Try and and it has, I mean, because you came in at such a very we were, just a baby company. I mean, you started in September, right of 2019, so June, I opened in April. So we’re talking a few months into me opening, you know, and I already had the office, right? So we had our first office. So did that, give you some sense of legitimacy? So, yeah, instead of, meeting at a coffee shop, which I had been doing previous so I had to go to your house, it probably would have been hard. Yeah, you think so? Yeah, that’s fair. I still had a lower expectation. If you should, I don’t care, meet me at my house. Yeah? Yeah, oh my gosh, thank goodness I had an office. Fair enough. You know, everybody get an office now. Just kidding, if you can’t afford it, don’t do it. But, coffee shop would be better, at least it’s a, yeah, a public space, yeah, trying to, skin you alive or something, and make a lampshade out of you. Not that I would do. Do? I do serial killer? No.

Best Cleans: The Cat House and Chicken House

Well, I want to talk about some of our best claims that we’ve had. And by best, I mean worst. So you were on our first big, big, old, giant cleaning, meaning the cat house. So let’s, take it back to Cat House.

April: So somebody reached out. Their mom was in the nursing home, and she said it was bad. And Stephanie, even said, we’ll pay you extra to go to this place, but you don’t have to do it. You don’t have to, but we’ll pay you extra. And I was like, I love watching hoarders. Let’s go, yeah, and there. And there’s literally human and cat feces everywhere, stuff that had sat in the kitchen probably for a year, food, wet ham and my shit everywhere. Yeah, cats. And then the mice moved in after the cats got removed. And, yeah, it was, what, 24 hours of cleaning. Yeah, we could have done more 1000 square foot house, and you spent eight hours in the kitchen, if I recall. Yeah, it was, it was pretty gnarly, but yeah, and I think, just being okay with that type of cleaning. I mean, we don’t do that often, but it was, I mean, it’s a fun story.

Stephanie: And actually, honestly, you’ve been on a lot of the kind of, extreme cleanings that we’ve had. last was it last year we did the the chicken house? I’m sure you guys all name your houses too. Leave it in the comments below. Do you guys name your houses or not? I guess we’re calling them these things. And so for us, the chicken house we did last, last summer, I think we almost got an office cat out of it. If I had my way, there was that cat that was at that house. I was like, I want this cat, but it was, gosh, I don’t remember how big it was, but one bathroom, three bedroom, yeah, it’s so very big. Yeah, it wasn’t very big, but just full of stuff. And so they had a giant dumpster. And for us, I can’t believe it, we made it through that, that, you know, clean out portion in one hour between the two of us. We just tore through there and threw everything away so that we could start cleaning. But yeah, they had had, there was a owner who was getting it ready to sell. They had had tenants, and the tenants had kept chickens in the house, and they had, I think, pit bulls or something in there too. And so, it was just stinky, and, yeah, just just gross. It was really bad. It was pretty bad. And, but yeah, we, we ended up getting the whole thing done in 1010, man hours. Bumps up. 20 man hours, crack myself, 10 hours between the two of us, but 29 hours total, if that makes sense. So it was a long day, but we we killed it, you know? And it was very satisfying. And honestly, I mean, it’s we still got it. We can still do this thing, despite not cleaning empire. So that was good.

The Hard-Boiled Egg Incident

It was so funny because, you hadn’t showed up after me. And, I had my I had my eggs Hard Boiled I had my hard boiled eggs for breakfast in a bag. And I was like, April, will you bring some salt from the office? Because I cannot eat hard boiled eggs without salt. And so I’m, standing in the middle of this quarter house, eating eggs.

April: Yeah, I don’t have a really strong ache factor. And honestly, I mean, things gross me out, but, not, not to the point I can’t do them, so I might have had a plate, yeah. I mean, I had to hold it, yeah.

Stephanie: So that was really funny, but yeah. And I mean, just from, looking back as, you’re you as a individual cleaner when you had clients. I mean, you had one client that was, your Hell House, yeah, I mean, not because of the client, but just because of you. Broke so many things there. the one thing that I broke was just it was mortifying.

The Breaking Streak at Hell House

April: There was a glass she had her windows filled with these glass, crystal finger figurines. And I had picked up a cutting board that was also in the window for some reason, dusted it and set it back up there, and it had not set up there, right? It fell and it broke one of the glass figurines. While this happened to be a figurine that her dad had given her prior to his passing. Yeah, so irreplaceable. Yeah, it was, it was shattered. There was no gluing it. I was mortified. I want to crawl, yeah, and that house, I broke so many things there, oh my gosh, a letter off of an antique sewing machine.

Stephanie: That’s why glues work. Glues in our kids, yeah, we’re like, maybe if we just give them glue, we can fix things when we break up. Yeah, I broke a clock fell off a wall and broke an antique glass there. And I’m like, I can’t come here.

April: Yes, and she ended up canceling when we did a price increase, right? I think at that point, which is good because, I mean, she was cheap. It was a big house. She only wanted to pay for up to four hours. And, I mean, you had to, run to get through that. And which is just not ideal. And she had the money just to say, I know she’s not watching this.

Stephanie: We get an email, I heard you talking about, but, yeah, so, I mean, we all have our our experiences, but overall, you know, it was really hard to get clients off of you, especially when we were hiring and having some really, crappy people come in, and then basically, we just send you back in and keep trying at that point, You know, and that is kind of, for us, dictated how we are going to transition people off cleaners. How do we do that now if we have to switch a cleaner, and we have ample time, yeah? So we have the person that was their original technician go in and train them how they do the house, a couple times before we let them go on their own in that client’s help. So which is very nice, yeah, client, the client, yeah, really, just to ease their worries, because they get so attached, you know, and rightfully so, as we’ve talked about.

Technology and Software Evolution

And really, we don’t want to switch cleaners as much as possible. But sometimes somebody, well, somebody quits, somebody gets fired. A lot of times it’s more so availability changes, or we have a cleaner who is more ideal in that location. You know what I mean, from a routing perspective, because I feel like we’ve really been focusing on efficiency the past year. Of, how do we intelligently route as much as possible?

And obviously you don’t do a lot of, the scheduling or anything like that, but you are in ZenMaid pretty much every day. And I’m curious, because we had ZenMaid, you know, from day one for you, what was your perception as a as a cleaner, and now your perception as, an operator or manager in the business, utilizing that software?

April: Oh, I still love it. Yeah, I still love seeing the little name, but it was nice seeing my schedule on my phone. And, you know, back then, a lot of changes didn’t happen. So I was like, I knew what my schedule was going to be. I could work that around my kids schedule. That was nice. Now, as a manager, I see everybody’s schedule, which is nice when you’re trying to, move stuff around last minute. Yeah. So it’s been great, it really has, we’ve kind of just built the business around it, and as the features have evolved, we’ve just kind of rolled with them, you know, to add on even things like service ratings. We’ve really enjoyed doing that and getting feedback internally in that way. So it’s been very nice to utilize the different features.

Gusto for Payroll Management

But honestly, I feel like we’ve been pretty tech savvy, through the years. I mean, even going from QuickBooks Online to Gusto for payroll software, because you’re in Gusto all time. talk about Gusto people are looking for, for a good payroll software.

April: Oh yeah. It makes it easy for our staff to. They like it. They like they can go in there and do their time off requests in there. And we get notified. They the taxes and stuff are done right through them. So that gets sent to the state or the federal stuff. And then also, what if you have people that have withholdings, for child support or something like that. They take care of that too. So that’s really nice. Yeah, calculate all of that.

Stephanie: Yeah, because you’re the one kind of dealing with that and that. All of the, April deals with a lot of, I would say, a million small tasks when it comes to, administrative workload that, if you were to list all of the things out, it’s like, it’s so much, and without, these software, is it? It makes it really hard, because then all of a sudden, okay, you have somebody whose child support is getting withheld from their paycheck. before we had Gusto. How did you have to handle that?

April: We got to physically write a check for every single week, I think, you know. And that was just when you start stacking all that stuff on top of each other, all of a sudden we’ve got, it’s just annoying, you know, and missing it is, anytime we miss something like that, I know for both of us, we’re just like, ah, we hate, we hate not being on top of things. And so I think that’s where utilizing software has been, a game changer, or even, trainual, we’ve really that was, a big deal last year to input trainual, and not something, I think that one we could have even afforded in the beginning, but probably there’s no, there’s we weren’t solidified enough on the company to do something like that. I feel like from an I mean, no orientation would have been nice in the beginning, because that’s what we.

Stephanie: They mostly use Trainual, four is orientation and quizzes and stuff like that. But, yeah, I don’t think, I don’t think I was ready to do any of that yet well. And you can also record how you do your job. So if I die, yes, they can go in there be like, oh, this is how she runs payroll. Yeah. I mean, ideally she never dies. Must do or leave or need time off, really, just eat and sleep and poop, Serene Clean for all of us. But you know, hypothetically you want, you know, to take a vacation. Don’t do that. But, yeah, exactly.

Using AI and Modern Tools

But you know, that’s we’re also using trainual for, yeah, documentation of standard operating procedures, so that as we scale, as we delegate and shift in our roles, maybe bring on, you know, ICs in different ways, Veronica, you know, she’s my executive assistant, and she now, you know, she does different aspects of some of our roles. And so as it allows us to be nimble, if we want to make changes, or say, we do have a giant growth spurt, and one of us needs, addition. we need to bring on more support in that way. it’s already documented, utilizing loom and things like that. And I feel like you’ve really rolled with the, I mean, I feel like you’ve been very open to new tech, you know what I mean? Of just whatever I throw you, this, this, this, let’s try it out. And obviously, chat GPT is our AI, yeah, we literally can’t write an email now without chat GPT, hard, hard emails. Yeah, easy ones are fine, but yeah, today we’re writing that, that email to that client saying we can’t staff this. And it’s, you know, because of XYZ and blah, blah, blah. And I won’t go into all the details until the dust settles, or whatever. That’ll be a separate podcast episode, I’m sure. But right now, this is literally what just happened, April’s going into into chatty, as we call him chatty. And, you know, saying something is this good, and then we added it and, yeah, so, I mean, I mean, it spit out a professional email. We have two minutes, yeah, where we’re really, we were really struggling with how to phrase things. So, don’t be afraid to, you know, utilize that to its fullest, for sure. So, yeah, it’s definitely been a huge help, AI, but I feel like I’m starting to rely on it for all of my emotional needs.

April: Decorating, yeah, oh yeah, for sure, I’ve helped it with my landscaping projects and meal planning and everything it’s it’s amazing.

Company Culture Evolution

So I’d love to talk about, from a cultural perspective, because I feel like I touched on that a lot with Ashley B in my conversation our cleaning tech, which you guys will see that episode probably before this one. But you know, from your perspective, how has the cult, what did the culture start? How has it shifted and deepened? do you feel it definitely was all about service, and that was kind of what my mindset was at that time. serving other people, helping people in need.

April: And, yeah, this, the family first, was the first thing that grabbed my attention, and just being able to, I can be there for my kids when they need me. I could stay home if I have to. The flexibility. But yeah, as it’s evolved, I feel like it’s gotten more towards the, the flexibility of, you can have the schedule you want. I only work four days a week, so sometimes I forget, and it’s interesting because I say that, for the management team, I really, I don’t give an F, what you guys do, just whatever. get your work done, you know what I mean, and if you can’t, then, we’ll talk about, you know, taking it on elsewhere. And that’s been, really important to me. And honestly, I just, I don’t want to have I don’t have to micromanage you. I don’t have to really, any of you, you know, and it’s just, I don’t think it would work very well if I did, you know what I mean? I think that that would stress you guys out. It’s just not necessary you kind of place yourself. I feel like, Yeah, I think that gives leaving the technician some power knowing that, oh, well, I can get this done, but it won’t be tonight. It’ll be over the weekend. Yeah? And that, I think, gives them a little bit of the power of knowing, hey, I can do this job, you know, around my schedule, or if I’m sick tonight, I can do it tomorrow night after the commercial tax, yeah, for sure, especially, yeah, obviously residential. You know that one’s a little that one’s harder, for sure, but at the same time, you know, they’re not going to get necessarily in trouble, you know, unless it’s very, very extreme attendance issues, which you know, very rarely. I mean, we just fired our first person for attendance and, how long, you know, because it was so bad. But yeah, perhaps, yeah, it was really, really bad. it was like, I mean, let’s bet.

Stephanie: I would rather bet that she’s not going to show up and but she is, and you know, and that’s for us, being I think our policies are dictated by our values and what we actually behave like, because we know we’re most likely not going to fire somebody because of attendance and that, you know, we just revamped our composition structure and our raise schedule and, what that’s based off of of their behavior. And we as a management team sat down and we’re like, okay, we actually will never, we don’t fire people because of attendance. They’re not going to get in trouble. So why do we say that we’re going to write them up in this manner. We don’t do that we have years of data suggesting we don’t actually do that. So why not revamp the compensation basis based on how we actually behave, and we actually behave like we want them to not get a raise based on their attention, just tie it to money and that that’s it. And you know, if it’s extreme enough that we’re like, this isn’t a good fit because you’re not serving our clients, then we’ll just fire them, right? You know? And because it’s just not a good fit, they’re not going to be consistent. So we kind of come at it from that angle as opposed, you know. And I guess there is write up. So I shouldn’t say that, we do, you know, we have those conversations and things. But yeah, it’s more so yeah, we want them to financially feel incentivized to have good attendance, and even with, the spin the wheel, we have the spin the wheel benefit where, you know, if they have perfect attendance in a quarter, then they can spin to win, all these fabulous prizes. Yeah.

Incentivizing Good Behavior

So, you know, incentivizing in that way, the behavior that we want. But knowing, okay, if we’re offering flexibility in our ideal employees is a parent, they’re going to be, they’re going to call in at least once a month. Every single person does almost, you know, and so if that’s our best staff members are most likely calling in every once a month. Okay, then why are we gonna freak out about, you know, we just expect it now, we just talked this morning that our average call ins per week is 25 to 30 hours a week or calling in, and we had way more than that in core one, of course, but okay, knowing that we just behave based off that’s not gonna change, right? Ever. So we just have to, you know, build the business around that fact that we’re going to have this many columns a week. So how do we, you know, handle that building on call at the end of the week and not book it all of our availability and that type of thing. And, you know, I guess, from a from a cultural perspective of, I guess I really like that you said, what attracted you? Because that shows you how important it is, shows you guys how important it is to get key players and really valuable intelligent people. It’s not about money necessarily. has it ever been about money?

April: No, not for you. And I mean, obviously that’s that’s not to say money is not important and in fair compensation is not important. But as I touched on and Krystal’s is you guys don’t have to ask me for a raise, you know. And that’s think we have no I don’t think you ever have, honestly, I just give them on a regular basis as much as you go guys, and even, you know, the pets and the kids and stuff in the office. again, I know that you guys can all do that right now, but if, if that is something that you aspire to, talk about that because that’s made it to the point of you guys feel like you can’t leave.

April: Yeah, well, yeah, I get to bring my dog, and she’s, yeah, she’s a handful, and she’s a puppy. She’s a Chinese, yeah. So she gets to play with Krystal’s dogs. I bring my kids on off days if I don’t have care or someone to kind of watch over them, even though they’re getting kind of old for them. But eight hours, all day at home, I don’t trust them. Yeah, sorry, kids, yeah, but yeah, so I guess that that’s so nice to be you know, I can either stay home that day with them and still do get my work done, or bring them here and they can play here and play with the dogs, and I still am able to get to, yeah, well, that’s nice too.

Stephanie: Yeah, exactly, just knowing that, at the end of the day, you guys are it’s not just your job and your life are two separate entities. So it’s they need to work together, you know, for it to be actually ideal for you. And again, that makes it so that your key players are not going to want to leave, because they have these deepening, yeah, exactly. I want them to be, addicted to that they can’t get away. But obviously the tax, you know, again, we’re talking from a management perspective, but eventually you guys are all going to have some type of office managers. And you know, for the most part, we’ve always done it in person. it in person, and as this evolves, it might be more of a virtual role for different aspects. And I think we all become more more open to it, but we really love having people in person so that they can be backup cleaners, right? I mean, you guys still do clean very occasionally, yeah. But it’d be really slow. Yeah, we don’t look at making any money here, but just get the job done.

Building Purpose and Meaning in Work

I think you’ve deepened that, that for the technicians too. We’ve, we’ve learned that they respond better to immediate feedback. So, saying, this person loves you, this client was so thankful. as soon as we get that, we pass it over to the technicians, and that gives them that, that that sense of accomplishment, and that feeling that I am serving these people well. And then to, with your the free cleanings we do now for the cancer patients and also the community, yeah, the Fresh Start project that a lot of the technicians love doing that, yeah, I know they’re truly helping somebody.

Stephanie: So one, it touches on, for you, what you’re talking about, you were attracted to, the purpose, the meaning, making a difference. So what we’re trying to do, you know, even just based off of, what April just said, of, okay, that makes her feel more motivated and she is making a difference. Basically, her work has meaning, and I think intrinsically, that’s what we need to do for our cleaning text in order for it not to just be about money. if we can make it not just about money, we can make it be flexible for them, and they feel like they’re making a difference and getting good pats on the back all the time. You know, then, then it’s going to increase the positive, feedback loop in their mind that this job is great I make a difference, they acknowledge my work, you know. So that’s definitely been very I feel like intentional on our part to, make it so they feel both supported but also recognized for their hard work. So yeah, it’s just a continual improvement on culture, really, you know. And that’s been something always on our mind, of, how can we make this the best place to work within reason?

Navigating Business Challenges and Maintaining Mindset

So, you know, when we have gone through business challenges, how have from a mindset perspective, how have you maintained, I guess, a positive outlook, or, you know, because we’ve definitely gone through our fair share of challenges. Yeah, COVID just, you were just there for a couple months when COVID hit.

April: It was just even through COVID, offering the free cleanings, we’re still helping people that need, they’re shut down. Their business can’t afford us, but we can go in there and, make it for them. And we had the PPP at the time. And actually, I just recorded a podcast, a solo podcast episode about my first 10 staff members, even one of them. And, how many? you know, we have three of you still here, obviously Krystal you and Ashley s as a cleaning tech, and I went into all of the other ones of why they quit. And one of them asked, he, you know, did what he did. And do you remember that? of just basically telling you guys, yeah, once maybe found out the country was shutting down, he kind of put it out there that, well, we should all be laid off and get unemployment, yeah. And you were still a cleaning tech, right? Yeah. So what did you think of that?

April: I thought it was shitty. Oh, you were, thinking, yeah. I was like, well, if that’s the inevitable, yeah, I guess. But, I didn’t, I don’t like that mindset, yeah? that’s not the way to go. It seems lazy. I mean, if you can’t avoid it, you can’t avoid it. But if you, if she’s telling us we can still get paid and still work, why wouldn’t you want to still work?

Stephanie: Yeah, and yeah, just having that mindset of what? And that was for me, of, I just, if we could work, let’s work, you know, and for me, and so, from a Yeah, I guess in support, that was my first, and really one of the only times I’ve ever had, blatant insubordination, and is such a new owner, that was really sorry. It was hard, yeah, just, what do I do with this? Obviously, I fired him. But, it was, it was so shocking to for that to me, to happen, didn’t seem like the type, yeah. he wasn’t gonna work out anyway, you know, eventually, just from a from a culture standpoint, but yeah, that was very much, if you’re, if your mindset is, what’s the laziest I can get away with and, not get in trouble? one, it could that could be starting of, a cultural there might be a toxic workplace culture, but we know that that wasn’t the case. So then at that point it is, it is the the technician at that point, or the staff member.

Learning to Fire People

So, yeah, we definitely gone through our fair share of, doozies. I mean, I remember the first time I fired somebody with you in the room, yeah? Video, yeah, we did video because I was so nervous. And I was like, okay, we need to make because I thought maybe she was gonna, lose it, or she was kind of to the point of this woman could absolutely, come at us for something, right? Because she was in the ER every other day, and was calling into work all the time because she had these emergencies. And so, yeah, April was sitting in the room. I was literally shaking I was so nervous to to fire her. And she comes in and she’s got her juicy sweat pants on, and I’m fire Isaac is not working out, Please return your shirts or whatever I said. And she stands up and she’s like, this is a petty ass bullshit. And she storms out. And luckily, we now have that catchphrase, so we get to say that at all times, anytime things are being particularly stupid. Yeah, petty has bullshit.

April: But it’s just so funny because it’s you’ve seen, I feel like me and the business evolve so much of just trying to figure it, figure things out. And, I mean, obviously you, you can be honest, has there been times where you’re like, Stephanie’s acting like a child?

April: I just kind of feel like we’ve kind of Googled our way too. That’s i When you guys want to know, how to get to Serene, cleans level? Just that is our answer. We just googled it. it’s ever been a childish thing. It’s just been, I don’t know what I’m doing, yeah, by Google, by Yeah, let’s just work our way through it. And we have a sleuth in the office. So she’s really good at, anything, yeah, Krystal will find out anything you give her, the color of shirts somebody was wearing, and, maybe the day they pass through town, and she’ll find it’s nice that her, between her and Katie, they know, they know a lot of the area, yeah, no, it definitely, but helps us far as, business stuff. yeah, we’ve gotten to the point now where we’re like, maybe we should take some classes. It’d be good to, learn a little bit more in depth.

The “Everything is Figureoutable” Mindset

Really, leaning into the expertise of, each of our roles. And that’s definitely, a discussion that we’ve been having is, you know, how could we do that? And again, Chad GPT, that’s really helped us. And, for me, it’s, I don’t know how to do something, and I think that that can make it you can either go one of two ways, which is, I don’t know this, and I feel stupid, so I’m not going to pursue this. Where I feel like, especially, you know, I remember one time, you were working on a spreadsheet and you were trying to figure out how to, calculate, the length of time between two dates or whatever. And instead of just being like, or coming to me, even you just figured, you just Google it. Yeah, Googled it, and then all of a sudden, but there was no feeling of stupidity. It’s just, well, we’ll figure it out, you know? And I think honestly, overall, that’s been our general mentality of, everything is figureoutable, you know, and not allowing the, the negative feelings or shame, you know, bubble up and stop us from making decisions. Because I feel like, overall, we’re pretty decisive as a team of, okay, or just tackling problems head on and just maybe even, you know, stating the feelings that we’re having around the problem. And because I think a lot of times, especially for me, it, I I put a lot of pressure on myself to, have all the answers and seem like intelligent to you guys, although you guys see me at my stupidest. So, so there is that. But, I want, I want you guys to feel like, confident in me, and so if ever, it’s hard for me to, sometimes share my insecurities around, where the business is, or any struggles, because I’m like, I don’t want you guys to, not respect me. You know what I mean? that’s very important to me, that you guys do respect me. And obviously, I’ve gotten burned in a management position before, and, always in the back of my mind of, you guys see how much I make, you know. do you think that? it’s always there, you know? And that, for me, it’s the imposter syndrome of, do I deserve this? Because you guys are all working so hard and, I mean, but honestly, you guys helped me. You literally, mother,

April: super motivating me too. Yeah, your whole story just starting so young and, you’re at this point now with this big business, just, we know it’s gonna be okay, yeah, we’re not gonna get hurt unless we jump off the roller coaster. Yeah, it’s, you know, if you know, if you have an investment fund, and then, as soon as something seems shaky, you all of a sudden sell your shares. No, you need to weather the storm. And I think, navigating emotions as we weather the storm is, that’s been the most challenging for me, you know, and not because we’ve never done this before. yes, we’re six years in, but, at the end of the time, yeah, I feel like sometimes I’m just flying by the seat of my pants, and we, even though we know what we’re doing, yeah? it is interesting, because it’s like, obviously, we have this platform, and and Serene, clean is seen as, this thing, but at the same time, a lot, I’m just letting you guys know, we feel like we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing, all the time. And so if you’re feeling like that, or you’re, I just don’t understand, how to do this, or blah, blah, blah, we feel that way all the time. It’s just we figure it out, we Google it, we watch a YouTube video, we read a book, or, you know, so we’re always exposing ourselves to new ideas, or even, in our conversation today, of, okay, do we need to offer a coupon to all of the people you know to increase our close rates? if we’ve got to, emphasize on residential right now, because commercial is being hard for us to staff, let’s try some things out and not not see it as a failure. If it doesn’t work, it’s just an experiment. And having that mindset of, we’re just scientists, playing with variables right now and seeing if it works. If it doesn’t work, okay, that didn’t work, try something new. And I’m really just, yeah, I think overall, all of our mindsets have really grown, a lot, you know, is there anything that you see in yourself, from a I mean, I feel like you seem a lot more confident than when you came on. You know, anything else that you feel like you’ve grown a lot in from a personality, probably my, my freak out level of tolerance is a little bit higher. when somebody quit, I used to just panic, yeah. what are we gonna do? Yeah, we’re place. Is gonna burn down. Somebody quit, and now just, well, last night, somebody could. That’s why this commercial thing is happening. Somebody quit without notice last night when they were supposed to be at this cleaning Yeah, and we all were just like, Yeah, well, guess we’ll talk about that.

Growing Emotional Resilience

Stephanie: Yes, probably that’s my, I guess, just my Not, not necessarily my empathy is softened, but maybe a little hardened towards, people coming, people go, especially in this business, it’s high turnover, so it’s not getting attached to or getting our feelings hurt over people leaving. You know, I think that we all have really gotten a lot better on that because, and especially, I know in the beginning, yeah, every time somebody left, it was This colossal ordeal, because it meant, we’re cleaning, it’s so stressful because we were in the trenches. I remember that Fourth of July cleaning where, you know, somebody know, called no show you and I are both at this cleaning, I start breaking everything. Known to a man, it seemed like I couldn’t I was made. That was my cleaning, where I couldn’t stop breaking things. And I just remember, I was so angry at her. I was, how could she do this? And I was just, and that was just Well, yeah, me having that giant emotional reaction, it doesn’t make it better, it actually makes it worse. Yeah, exactly, just, and really, I’ve talked about that before, of, immediate acceptance. And, even last night, did I cuss a little bit, a lot of it on our, on our, on our little chat about it. I was like, what the fuck? But, and then that’s it, you know what I mean? Then we’re like, okay, what else is there to do? So, really giving us, you know, give our space, give ourselves some time for a little reaction, and then that’s it. And even, the rest of the staff, doesn’t even know, right? You know what I mean, they don’t even know. that, this even happens doesn’t affect them. They don’t know. No, exactly so. And I mentioned that a lot in different episodes of, shielding, shielding, the cleaning text from, you know, the stress. And that’s, something that I talked about with Ashley V yesterday was, you know, I would ask her about, what was your perception of this? And she’s like, well, I don’t really, you know, no, it’s not happening. Yeah, that’s kind of the goal is, they, we don’t want them to understand the chaos. We want it to be selective, so that they understand that, you know, these guys are going through it sometimes to create that empathy and team, hey, we’re all going through different aspects of challenges. You know, it’s not all just, you know, butterflies and roses in the office and you guys are just screwing around all day. I mean, some days, but margaritas can watch a man be drink at, two o’clock in the afternoon or whatever, especially on Fridays.

But yeah, so I think that’s important to show the cleaning text that we’re all, we are. We are a team. You know, every role matters, but at the same time, we don’t want them to be exposed to that chaos that we feel and, you know, even, you know, what Krystal said this morning in our team meeting, or in our little brief powwow, it was, I was like, I don’t want to overwhelm you guys this. And she’s like, it’s always overwhelming, you know what? I mean, every and so it’s just, this is the first time we’ve ever done this. We’re dealing with three human beings not being well from an internal perspective, and then hundreds of people from a customer perspective. So it’s that is inherently overwhelming to have to try to manage that many relationships and keep them all happy, you know what I mean, while also keeping us happy. So it’s a lot of pressure.

The Importance of Accountability

So just, you know, always cutting ourselves slack, and just, really, you know, trying to and honestly, if I feel like, if any of us do make a mistake, we call ourselves out. anytime you’ve made a little error, or whatever, you’re just, oh, I messed that up. you never just and I don’t say, April, you dumb, dumb. Just I don’t even say anything usually, because it was, you know, you already. Point the fingers. Yeah, exactly. Just really, I think at the end of the day, that’s accountability, and something that, all of you guys are so strong at of you take immediate accountability for your actions and any mistakes. That means I don’t have to, and so that’s something that makes for a successful employee and team member. But then looking at our attacks, the ones who are not successful do not take accountability for their actions. And, you know, that’s been feedback poorly, yeah, and that’s something that we’re really trying to, hone in on with new staff members, is, accountability and, figuring out, do they do that? And, you know, with the surveys, if you want to talk about that, how, how do we test for accountability?

April: Well, with the you talking about the surveys for the training, yep, trainees, yeah. So we send the trainer and the trainee each get a survey after the clean or the day, the cleaning day, and they are in controlled environments most of the time, except for, well, first week, first week, then we kind of get, we get to hear what they’re saying about their trainer and the experience, and then the trainers giving us the feedback of how they feel, the technicians doing, which in turn, we get to put that picture together and find out how that’s going overall. But, I mean, Hannah’s been a catalyst for that, yeah, she’s, she’s really got her pulse on, this person second.

Stephanie: And just having, you know, our lead trainer now is very honed in on her BS meter is strong, and also, her ability to sense, is this person going to be good or not? And that’s something for you guys. that’s something I struggle with a lot, because I was doing all of the hiring, you know, we were doing the training, and I think it was also that warm body mentality of desperation, of, well, they’re all right, we were seeing the red flags, and, you know, they’re not there, but they were good at lip service, yeah, they’re good, yeah, they’re good at talk, but not action kind of thing. And so, just really, yeah, it is a skill, you know, to be able to look at somebody and look at their behaviors and being like, right there, they’re not going to work out and and that’s, you know, been a challenge, you know, but doing these surveys has actually helped us, because if, if the trainer is saying, you know, every day, or any cleaner that they’re with every day is saying, they just, they really didn’t seem to want to work, or I provided feedback and they gave attitude every day, every single time. okay, one off, that’s one thing. But if it’s every single, every single time in training, this isn’t going to work out. they inherit their their personality, we don’t want to have to, force somebody to shift their personality in order to make this work. it naturally, even looking at you, it’s, why was this so easy to have you? Is your personality was already that. You already had a really big heart for service. You have a absolute disgust with laziness, and you hold yourself to a really high standard of, accountability and responsibility. And so it’s, I didn’t have to teach you that, nor did I ever have to get on to you about it, because that’s just who you are as a person. And so the hard part is discerning those traits, you know, because we’ve all been, we’ve been bamboozled, right? We’ve been dazzled by people because, yeah, they’re good at talk, and then until you can get them into an environment you don’t know, you know, because they can just, and we’ve had two technicians that don’t get along on that, and then it’s, well, is it this person, yes, or is it just clashing personalities, which we’ve had that happen before, and then the technician works out For some time. Yeah, because we want to get, long term, but, yeah. I mean, if we can get a year out of somebody, that’s most people can make it to a year, if they get through the what, three months, it would say, they’re gonna make it to at least that. Or, yeah, we have a lot of people who’ve made it past a year who are under their two years. So it’s really, how do we extend them past the two year mark, that seems to be the drop off. Yeah, two to three years. how do we get them to last longer than that? And, I mean, I don’t know, any improvements you think we’ve made recently that will help with that.

April: I mean, I’d say the wage increase, no wage increase, definitely the the training process and the onboarding having, just having that that’s all new, within the last what year, yeah. So actually having a legit orientation, legit training process, it kind of makes us feel more professional. I mean, I know we are. It really does the first impression their first day feels really good, you know, yeah. And then just the work quick to communicate with them. And I think all of that is really, hopefully will help, yeah, get them past that pump, yeah.

Current Challenges and Looking Forward

And there’s only so much that you can do, because, you know, their lives change. And that’s the thing. It’s not, well, if we just put in all these inputs, the output is going Be perfect. at the end of the day, if they get an opportunity that’s, you know, close to home or whatever, and they don’t have to drive, you know, it sometimes happens, but that’s why at the end of the day, why we focus so much on the culture, because it’s, how can we make this a culture that they don’t want to leave? Because that’s the only thing that we can really control, you know, so controlling what we can and, you know, we go through, there’s definitely been really discouraging periods where, gosh, we just can’t get ahead. You know what? Especially with staffing, I would say, where we’re, it’s we hit that 29 employees, rehearsed or something. And so it definitely feels that way sometimes. And I try not to, get in my head about it, of we’re doing the right things. yeah, we have made, made so many improvements. And we even talked on Monday how, we feel like we’re seeing the fruits of our labor with a lot of these things of quality control, we haven’t had a complaint in over a month. Yeah, that’s crazy. That’s crazy with this many appointments. 160 280 however many it is, a week, it varies, but, we haven’t had a complaint forever, and it’s, that’s because, okay, the training is better now. We have this orientation process. We did this new compensation plan, and they’re getting all quality controlled, regularly. And even in our in our team meeting, one of our cleaners was like, oh, yeah. I’m on my ball because I’m on a game, because I know that Hannah could be in there at any time. And it’s really, we’re, we are now seeing the effects of that in the quality, which means so much less that we have to deal with in the office because the complaint sucks. there’s, there’s, and not just from an emotional standpoint, but, there’s so much work that has to be done when we get a complaint, you know what I mean? And all of those things cost us money. They don’t make us money.

So, yeah, I think we’ve, we’ve made a ton of improvements in the last year, and now it’s, it’s kind of shifting gears of, okay, we can actually pursue accounts again, we feel comfortable to do that. And so, yeah, I’m excited, to actually, try to push for growth in that manner. And, you know, it’s not something we’ve had to do. But as we mentioned, we’re coming. People are feeling the financial effects of a lot of things right now, from, a potential recession, you know, standpoint, and house cleaning be a luxury of, we’re seeing less leads from last year at the same time. So it’s, okay, we, we haven’t really changed anything ever. A lot of things are going good. We’re still getting reviews, so we need to do more from a marketing perspective. And so that’s really kind of an interesting new challenge that we haven’t had. We’ve been had a lot of luxury when it comes to not having to pursue, not having to pursue. And so it’s kind of, oh, we actually have to do, again, I said, what did I say? I was like, I have to eat my ego, because I always say we don’t need to pursue anything. It comes to us and say, okay, new challenge. How do we recoup this lost revenue from this account? And, what’s the fastest we can do it? You know, we got until middle of May, when we sent that last Yeah, so, let’s, let’s go. So, you know, it’s ever evolving. And, yeah, I think it’s just been, it’s been a journey.

April: Yeah, it has been very fun. And, yeah, I’m just, I’m so obviously, from a luck perspective of, getting you so early, it’s just really effing lucky. You know, I said the same thing about Krystal, for you to, stumble into my life, it’s insane. So I don’t know how to help you guys with that, but, you know, it’s a good indeed, posting in a professional place. Me, yes, yeah, that’s it. And, you know, just be really authentic about, what it is that you care about. And I would say, even mentioning, you know, motivational I feel like I’m just a very, rah, rah, kind of person, you know, not, really, shooting shooting flowers up your ass, but more so, I believe in our mission. You know what I mean, you guys believe in the mission. And, that comes across, I think, in everything that we do, of, this is really important what we’re doing. And I think for for an applicant to feel that from us, it needs to just, explode out of us, you know, and in the whole environment, they walk into the office and they know who we are, kind of thing. That’s what Ashley V said. Of, how did we get such an astounding cleaning tech as Ashley V? She walked in and she could sense who we were, you know, immediately she wanted to be part of it. And so, how do you make a company that people want to be a part of? And, are excited about, you know, what we’re doing so, and obviously all the community stuff that we do, and it’s just, it’s just a part of who we are. So, yeah, it’s been, it’s been kind of crazy, crazy fun.

Final Advice and Closing Thoughts

Well, any, any advice to our listeners here? These are owners. So do you? Do you get people like you?

April: Just really believe in your mission, I guess, and then just let them know, even though it’s just cleaning, where that it matters and that i We matter because we’re serving the people. Yeah, that’s really taking pride, taking pride in what you do. And we’re not just cleaners, we’re not just technicians, we’re people’s helping other people absolutely well.

Stephanie: On that note, thank you, April. This has been lovely, and you guys leave some love for April in the comments. Hit that like hit that subscribe, of course, join us in the mastermind on the ZenMaid message of Facebook. We post a lot in their Latinx community there as well, and I will see you on the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye, bye.

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

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• ZenMaid
• Gusto
• Trainual
• ChatGPT
• QuickBooks Online
• Cleaning for a Reason
• Loom
• ZenMaid Mastermind Facebook Group