Staying Calm When Your Business Is in Crisis

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The Federal Government Shutdown Impact

Stephanie: Hello everyone, welcome back to Filthy Rich Cleaners. I am your host, Stephanie Pipkin, and today I’m going to be talking about what’s been going on in my business. And the biggest issue that we have had, I would say this past week is the federal government shutdown. And you may be wondering, what the heck, Stephanie, what does that got to do with your little cleaning business? And I will answer you, dear listener. Our largest account is a federal contract. And I not once gave this any thought that this is a possibility to occur when we took this account on.

And so if you’ve been a listener for a while, you may have heard me talk about this account before. It is our largest commercial account by far, a very large facility, five days a week. And we ended up getting this account, I think we’re on year two now. And it is actually a five-year contract. And that is an incredible thing. I feel very happy that we were able to take on that opportunity. It was quite the ordeal to bid it for sure. Any type of government contracts could be a lot of work to bid. And actually, we are a subcontractor there. We’re not even the main contractor. We did bid it directly when we found out about this opportunity.

Understanding Government Contracting

But if any of you have not done any type of government contracting before, which I really hadn’t done this type of thing either, a lot of times what people will do is when they look and find on the government website, which is called sam.gov, and they find janitorial contract opportunities, people from all over the country are going to potentially contact local companies. They are going to bid it directly, and then they are going to sub out the work to local people.

So ironically enough, as you guys know, I live in Georgia. My business is in Wisconsin. And the company that got the bid is in Georgia. They’re just a couple hours away from me, which is crazy. And then we are the subcontractor under them. So they ended up, there’s probably a couple of reasons why they got it instead of us bidding directly. I would imagine the biggest, most prevalent one is they just knew how to write the bid.

This was before, I think, yeah, this was before ChatGPT and AI had really become a thing or that we had been using it. If I had ChatGPT now, I think I would have been able to get this bid directly. And that would have been able to increase our margins and cut out the middleman of our contractor and no shade to them. But obviously the ideal is to get it directly. So that is one interesting detail there. So that’s really common.

So what will happen for us, oftentimes we find out about government or federal contracts because we start getting contacted by people all over the country to bid it, right? Because that is the job that they are trying to have is basically be a contractor that finds local subs to do the actual work, which for me, it’s so interesting how the stress tolerance of different people or what different people will go after because I could never do that. I could never get a contract and then not do the work myself in Serene Clean and be like beholden or need to lean on another company. That is just not something I like. It would be so stressful because I’d feel so out of control.

And this is a perfect example of why Stephanie doesn’t run independent contractors because she, why am I talking about myself in the third person? That’s weird. I don’t know why I’m doing that. Okay. I, Stephanie cannot handle the lack of control that independent contractors basically necessitate. Obviously go back and listen to Chris Schwab’s episode that we did recently. That was a great one on a deep dive about independent contractors. And for me, that conversation with Chris was really enlightening. I learned so much, so much stuff that I didn’t know. But it just solidified my decision and kind of made me feel very confident that I did make the right decision and choosing W2 so long ago.

So side note, I still will always be somebody who uses W2 employees, because I just want to be able to control the thing that has my name on it as much as possible and not have to worry about am I towing the line of can I tell these people to do this thing because they are their own entity, right? So this is a perfect example of we are the independent contractor to the contracting company, right? She cannot tell us how to do the work. However, there is a scope of work that we bid and agreed to do. So it’s what needs to get accomplished and to what standard, absolutely, she can hold us accountable to. And we do have to do quality control reports. We have to do all of these things that were laid out in the bid. So that’s 100% within the expectation of our contractor as the subcontractor.

Details About the Federal Account

So all of that side note, just some interesting facts about this account. So what this account is, it’s a federal research facility for natural resources. It’s really cool. They got labs all over. We don’t do the labs, but it is, I think like, gosh, how big is that place? 120,000 square feet or something like that. So it’s very large. And of course it felt very intimidating when we got this account because it was very much an oh shit moment. Like, oh no, we got it. Now we have to figure this out. And it’s not so much the cleaning side of it. That’s the issue. It was more so the staffing that we were concerned about because the background checks are so extensive for this particular facility.

When we first got the bid, we were set to start in December two years ago. And I remember I flew up because I was already living down here and I flew up for it to start. And we, let’s see, I think we found out in August and we started submitting people for background checks. And we’re like, they’re not even going to get approved by the December start date. That’s how backed up their process was for the background checks, because it had to be their background checks, right? It’s not like we could just do it. They had to pass the federal background checks that were the requirement to get into this facility.

And so that makes it really hard to hire because you don’t even know if they’re going to pass necessarily because your background check might not be as extensive as the federal one. Well, not even might not, it is not as extensive. So even if somebody verbally tells you, and you do your own background check doesn’t mean that they’re going to pass. So that was nerve wracking to have like, okay, we’re trying to hire for this thing months out. And we don’t even know if these people are going to work out right. So it was definitely a very stressful time.

I went up, I went to the facility, I think for several weeks in a row to make sure we did have some immediate turnover on it. But then we got really lucky with Pete, who’s still with us today. Pete actually worked for the previous cleaning company on this facility. So he was going to lose his job. He went on Indeed, saw our job listing, and he was like, hey, I already clean here. So he was a godsend because he already knew the facility. He already had a great working relationship with everybody at the facility. I mean, it was amazing. It was great. And for him too, he got a nice raise because we were paying higher than his other company. So it just worked out so beautifully.

So since we started it, honestly, there’s been so few hiccups. It has gone so smoothly. So we have two cleaners there. They are there for between three to four hours an evening. And I had estimated that it would take about eight labor hours a night and they are able to complete it in sometimes as little as six and quality is great. It’s just they’re there every day. And it’s not like it gets very dirty. You know what I mean? It just doesn’t get super duper dirty. So it really is, it’s just, it’s a total blessing of an account. And I’m so grateful for it.

Taking Things for Granted

And you do start to take things for granted, though, because it just runs so smoothly sometimes. And that’s exactly what’s happened this past week. And so obviously, you know, I had heard that the government was going to shut down or this was going to happen. Not once was it clocking to me that this would affect my business’s revenue. I didn’t, it didn’t even cross my mind. And here we are.

So I think it was last Thursday or Friday or when was it that we stopped work? I think it was last Wednesday was the last time we went there. You guys don’t know what day it is. Okay. Over a week ago, over a week ago, they, we got the stop work order basically saying like, you know, the whole facility is cleared out. We’re not paying for this basically. And so it stopped. And that is when it really set in of like, oh shit, how long is this going to last?

And so obviously myself and my managers all felt like a burst of panic, right? Of like, what are we going to do? And the unknown is really what it is. It’s not like we know how long this thing is going to take. And now we have two cleaners who, what do we do with them? And you may be like, well, Stephanie, you’re always so short staffed. Turnover is such a problem. Isn’t this a great thing? Well, you would think that. I like to have conversations with you guys. I like to think what you would say to me, perhaps. It’s why I’m such a good arguer because I’m like, they’re going to say this, this, and this. Are you ever in the shower? Do you ever really stand in the shower? And you’re thinking about a conversation that you had and you’re like, I should have said this. And then you play out the conversation. I literally will be talking to myself, be like having the argument again. Let me know if you guys do that. This would have been perfect to say, this would have been so good. So anyway, that’s what I do here when I’m podcasting alone in this room together.

The Staffing Challenge

So for me and the hours for my staff was definitely a concern. However, the problem is with these two staff members, they were hired specifically for this account and they’ve only ever been to that account. They’ve never gone through our training. They didn’t even go through our full orientation or anything like they know this facility and that’s it. And though they can clean well, that’s great. And everything like that, they just would not know the slightest clue about how to go into any other account.

And frankly, our thought process is, is, okay, say we take time to train them into these other accounts, and then the place opens back up, you know, in a few days. Well, what was the point of that? Because they’re never going to go back into those accounts again, these guys do not want more hours, they don’t want to go to other places, right? So it would have been kind of an exercise in futility just to get them hours. And especially if they’re not going to do that.

And additionally, if we did give them any other accounts, that would be taking away hours from another cleaner. And then we would have to rearrange and worry about quality at these other places because they’ve never done it. The managers would have to be answering a lot more questions because again, we’d have to handhold a lot and it’s not these guys fault. It’s just this is what they were hired for is this particular facility, which obviously they knew it was a federal facility, but it’s not like when they got hired, they’re like, oh yeah, in case of a shutdown, I know I probably won’t have work then. Right. So it’s just a really shitty situation, obviously for a lot of people, you know, a lot of people are out of work.

This is, I am very privileged that this is the only thing that is affecting me considering how many people are out of work. So I definitely, yeah, I can’t imagine the amount of stress that a lot of people are under right now. So keeping that in mind, this is not the end of the world or anything like that. But you know, this is my business and it is affecting it for sure.

Problem Solving the Shutdown

So we kind of, I met with my managers and the first thing I said was, listen, we know that government shutdowns historically last, you know, typically like a week or two and at most a month. That’s been, I think, the longest shutdown that has occurred is a month. And so it’s going to open back up. This is going to happen. These people are going to return to this facility and we are going to have this account back, right? Because we are under contract. It’s not like it’s going to go away. So it’s just more so when, which we cannot answer.

But then we just started running the numbers of like, okay, for every single day that we are not able to work, it costs us $500 in lost revenue that we are around $500 that we get from here. Because side note, this account, one, we were able to build in price increases into the contract. So I built like every year I spelled out what the price increase was going to be, which is awesome. So currently this service year, I think we’re at like $11,000 a month in revenue. So yeah, it’s a huge account. It’s our biggest account by far.

So like, again, it definitely is affecting us financially and that’s some months that’s our entire profit, right. And this account is very profitable because the guys are so fast. So just a lot of things financially for me that I could feel that panic rising because of the money, you know, the money of it all. I’m like, hey, that’s a big buffer for us in Serene Clean. And now it’s going to be really tight some months. And so that was kind of going through my head. But me just saying that out loud to kind of try to soothe the anxieties of my managers. I don’t know how anxious they were feeling. Maybe they didn’t give a fuck at all. But I was feeling anxious. So sometimes just saying it out loud to somebody else is quite helpful to try to tell myself the same thing. So that was kind of the first thing.

Communicating With Staff

And then the second thing that we were like, is we need to figure out what our guys Pete and Cal are open to doing because we’re like, well, let’s consider getting them into other accounts. So kind of backing up, I put this in a bit of a weird order, backing up, we’re like, all right, if they are willing to drive to other areas, maybe we can get them into other accounts where we could use some coverage because one of our largest commercial facilities in another town that we serve is much smaller than this one, but it is a big boy. It’s Monday through Friday. It is a bow manufacturing facility, like hunting bow.

We thought maybe we could send them there. But the problem is with that account is it is in the mornings and that’s not a problem normally, but our guys are used to working in the afternoons and evenings. So we did email them and we’re like, preliminarily, we’re looking at options. This is what’s occurring. Would you guys be willing to temporarily go to afternoon slash evening cleanings, which they were. And we were having some issues, which I’ll get into with the cleaner that was assigned to that account. So we’re like, okay, maybe this would be a good option. So we did preliminarily get that approval from the account. So we’re like, great, we’ve got options now.

But then Pete got back to us and was like, I am happy to help cover, but only in the La Crosse area. He doesn’t want to drive. He doesn’t want to drive to Sparta, which is where this other facility is. And that’s about, what is that, a 30-minute drive on the interstate. And so we’re like, shoot. Okay, that was kind of the only option we were comfortable with because it was one facility, it’s large, and it would be the same thing every day where anything in his area, it would have to be multiple small accounts because we just don’t have anything else like big five-day-a-week accounts in the area that he is wanting to service. So that kind of took away that option.

And Cal was like, honestly, I don’t want to go to any other facilities. And so the biggest thing is talk to your cleaners when things like this. You may be surprised that maybe they’re willing to take less hours if you lose an account. They may be willing to do things that you previously had learned from them that they wouldn’t. They might change their mind or temporarily be willing to fill in somewhere. So it never hurts to ask, obviously, with no obligation to say yes on your staff’s part. But don’t be afraid to ask. And that’s kind of going to be a fact that comes up later too in this episode when I talk about the other things.

Finding the Solution

So we asked and they answered that. And so we’re like, okay, Cal, we don’t need to worry about Pete. Do we need to do anything else? And so that’s where we had that discussion of like, yeah, it’s not going to work. It’s not going to work to try to pull cleaners from other facilities to get Pete hours and then have, you know, have these other cleaners having to drive further than they have to. That just doesn’t feel particularly fair.

And so we just asked, are you guys comfortable with just getting unemployment during this time? And they both said yes. And so that kind of that is the solution that we’re going with is they’re just going to get unemployment during this time. And honestly, again, this is, you know, Pete was retired and this is his retirement job. So we knew, again, you can’t assume anything about your staff’s financial situation. Right. And don’t be like, oh, they don’t need the money. Do not ever assume that. However, both of them have kind of, you know, by their behavior, made it clear like, yeah, this is, you know, it’s okay if they don’t have the hours or whatever. And then them explicitly saying like, yeah, no problem. I’m just going to wait until the facility opens up.

And again, the nice thing is, is they know that this is not our fault. And it’s not like this is negligence on us as an employer as to why they are not getting hours. This is very much out of our control. So we did, you know, we attempted to problem solve and we did and got these options. Those options were not, you know, what they wanted to do. So great. This is, this is honestly the simplest solution is they get unemployment. And then we’re not trying to wrangle up this work for them and, you know, affect other people’s schedules.

Key Lessons From the Shutdown

So what kind of that taught me, and I did catch us several times of like, let’s hold our horses and see what the guys have to say. We need to hear what they have to say before we go into this frenzied solution rearranging of the schedule if we don’t even have the full amount of information. So I guess for me, the lesson there was pause and do not react and change a bunch of shit until you have as much information as possible for the current situation.

And sometimes you have very little information to go off of, right? When you have to make a decision where it’s like you cannot gather any more information. You have to pull the trigger on a decision right now. And there’s been many instances of that for me where I’m like, gosh, I wish I had more, or looking back, I’m like, if I had only known this and had this context about this situation, I would have handled it differently. I would have made a different decision. But that’s fantasy land. And this is real world business land. And sometimes you do not have the ability or the time to gather more information. And you kind of have to shoot from the hip and go off of your gut and learn from yourself later.

But in this particular situation, we didn’t have to immediately make a decision. The biggest thing that I wanted to make sure that we did though was communicate with the guys, right? We wanted to make sure Pete and Cal knew that we were trying to come up with a solution and that we cared about them. And we expressed that. We literally said like, look, we really want you to stay on here. And we’re trying to figure out solutions and we’re dealing with this in real time, just like you guys. And just let us know, you know, how you’re feeling, all of these things, right?

And so don’t, when you have a kind of shitty situation, do not hold things away from your cleaners if they are also aware of the situation, because that comes across very disrespectful. And it makes you seem like an incompetent leader, right? Like you’re too afraid to have the conversation, you’re too afraid to talk to them. But it’s like the elephants in the room, guys, all right, sitting right over there. We can’t just be like, what elephant? Who? Where? What’s an elephant? I don’t even know. So we can’t do that. We can’t do that. We have to come at it head on.

And so for us, that was like, hey, guys, we’re working on this. But first and foremost, we want you to stay on. Can you answer these questions? Are you willing to go to other accounts? How far are you willing to travel? How many hours are you looking for? What days? Right. Because we would not be able to give them their typical hours. Right. Because their job is incredibly consistent right now because it’s this account, right?

So that was our timing of like, let’s hold off from trying to do anything. We did ask that other account, as I mentioned, hey, preliminarily, could we move this to evenings? This is a situation we’re trying to get hours for our guys here. And so because we wanted to have all of our options laid out before we were able to make a decision as much as possible. And again, because then in my mind, I was like, this could be done tomorrow. And we’re just wasting a bunch of time talking about it. And this is a non event, right? And so it’s still going on as of this recording, I have no idea when this government shutdown is going to end. And that really sucks.

And just for them, for us, but the guys are good. And that was my immediate concern is I want to make sure that these guys are taken care of, and that they’re not going to go anywhere, right? And obviously, they could if this lasts for months, which would be crazy, then we’d have to look at other options, or they’d have to go get a different job for the time being, but they really like their job. They love the consistency. They love it. It’s pretty easy, honestly, for them and exactly kind of what they’re looking for. Good pay, all of these things, because they are well paid at this account because we have such high margins. We give them quality bonuses. We give them attendance bonuses. They have particular things that are dedicated to this account because the margins are so great there.

So that was the first kind of, I guess, shitty crisis situation. And so my takeaways there are definitely stay calm, don’t panic and communicate what you are able to do with your cleaners at the time and keep communicating with them. And then finally gather as much information before you make a decision whenever possible. You can’t go into analysis paralysis. I know I’ve talked a lot about that here on this channel that a lot of people kind of swing this pendulum swing of really, really impulsive, which is where Stephanie kind of lies usually all the way over to the more analysis paralysis and incredibly risk averse and get paralyzed and can’t make a decision. That’s another side of it.

And sometimes, you know, we swing back and forth, right? And we are both at different times. But you kind of want to be in the middle of like, okay, I can’t take any more time to gather information, I just have to make a decision with what I have at hand and do the best you can in that situation, right? So that was kind of my takeaways from that. So I will keep you guys abreast of the situation. Obviously if you watch the news whenever the government opens back up that’s when we’re probably going to get back in there I damn well hope right I want that revenue back.

The Financial Impact

So yes so far we have lost thousands thousands at this point already and so we shall see how long this takes but I’m okay honestly it’s all right there’s nothing else I can do about it so there’s no point in being emotional frankly because that’s not going to help anything.

Rapid Staff Turnover

So the other situations that we had come up in the past week were kind of rapid turnover as always, right? And I would say more so people giving their two weeks. So the first one is definitely a sucker punch. So my cleaner Haley, who actually started with me at Fort McCoy, so she just had her four-year work anniversary at Serene Clean. Stellar employee. I mean, top tier, fantastic woman, great person. And her clients love her, super high quality, great communication. Just she’s the epitome of a great staff member, great team member. And she really, really cares about her work. Very growth minded, just a wonderful person.

Well, she put in her two weeks and we did not really see that coming. And the reason she’s doing that is basically to do some caregiving responsibilities in her personal life. And just, yeah, personal reasons, basically nothing to do with Serene Clean. And given the details of the situation, it makes a lot of sense. I totally understand. But it sucks, you know? And then just a reminder that at some point, everybody’s going to leave, guys. And you can’t operate in fear with that because then you just won’t grow your business and you won’t be able to hire people because you’re so afraid of them leaving. But this is just the reality of the situation. And she wasn’t quite full time. No, how many hours did she have? I can’t remember. I think probably 30, I believe, maybe 20 to 30. So not full time, but still, you know, consistent client base.

So that happened last week. And then another fantastic employee who is, I think, just shy of a year, she put her two weeks in, but she gave no reason. And so that one really sucked too, because she did a lot of commercial work. And so we’re like, shit, bam, bam, rapid fire. Right.

The Training Situation

And then the other third situation was somebody who is still in training and not doing so hot, frankly, just, I’m like last week in my manager meeting, I’m like, she’s not, are we waiting for her to quit? Or are we just going to cut our losses? Because this is not going to work out. We are seeing all of the signs that, you know, and she’s super sweet though. So sweet, great personality. She interviewed so well, right?

And so this is one of those of, I even asked Crystal. I asked Crystal the other day, my HR manager who does all the hiring. I’m like, looking back, anything, is there anything in that interview process? Because we do two interviews now, you know, the group interview and then the one-on-one, any red flags that, you’re like, can we learn from this? And she was like, she interviewed fucking perfectly.

And so lesson learned, guys, you can try to vet as much as you want. That doesn’t mean that ones aren’t going to slip through the cracks because they interview well. And some people who are going to be your best employees ever interview terribly because they’re nervous. Right. And they maybe they stumble over their words or they just can’t, you know, they can’t communicate super duper well verbally. But they’re really attentive. They’re going to show up. They’re consistent and they’re hard workers. So keep that in mind when when you’re interviewing. Of course, we don’t, you know, blatant red flags. We don’t want to ignore. But sometimes this happens.

And so we’re like, what do we do with her? And we’re like, okay, we’re going to see how this final day of training goes and kind of have a come to Jesus conversation with her to see if this is going to work. Because we hired her for that bow manufacturer facility specifically, we needed coverage there. And then so she started there. And we kind of did our training backwards as well, which is something we don’t do.

The Training Mistake

So if you’re not familiar with Serene Clean’s training methods, I guess their training style, I highly recommend going and listening to my Maid Summit talk from this year, it just posted a few, go on the ZenMaid YouTube channel. So go ahead and watch that totally free just to learn about our training if you’re not familiar with it. However, we always do our training in a very specific way where we’re going to control homes and residential and then if they’re going to be a commercial cleaner, then they go into the commercial cleaning side. And we did not have time for that because we need coverage immediately for this account. I can’t remember why. Oh yeah, because my male cleaner that quit last month that I told you about who couldn’t take any feedback. That was his account.

So we brought in this one and we’re like, okay, this is not normal, but we have to get her into this account. And then we’ll send her through residential training. Lesson learned. Don’t go out of order. Don’t go out of order. Because now we’re knee deep in this and realizing, whoa, she, this isn’t, you know, she could do okay at this commercial account, but we need her to be able to be competent, potentially in residential, or at least be able to make it through the training and not, and just a very anxious person, which is fine. You know, we all have anxiety, not all of us, maybe, okay, me, you, I don’t know, but some of us have anxiety, but this was to the point of she wasn’t retaining information or I, it almost felt like she was choosing to use that in a way I can’t, it’s hard to explain without going into a lot of details. I don’t feel is necessary or appropriate maybe, but just a lot of scenarios where it’s like, okay, we’ve gone over this a million times, you’re not taking that information and applying it here.

And that’s just a telltale sign of somebody who’s not going to work out, right? When you have to keep repeating yourself over and over, yes, we pick up the items and you dust underneath it. Yes. Small appliances. If you did the coffee pot, you do the toaster. You know what I mean? Like that type of stuff and repeating and repeating and not sinking in. And so, yeah, that was kind of the conversation. I was like, we need to cut our losses here. And we’re like, well, let’s give her one more day. She called out and then she put her two weeks in because she got a job in early childhood development or something and that’s what she wants to do. And so we’re like, great, problem solved there. We have coverage at the Big Bow Factory for the time being until we can rearrange, right?

And so that means three people, three people, one of them being new, right? That we had plans for, of course, tentatively. But, and then the other two being longer term staff members, right? So this sucks. And this is all within the span of one week, right guys? So I mean, yeah, that sucks. And just laugh because otherwise you’re going to cry. That’s my lesson there.

Don’t Overload New Hires

But no, there are several lessons here of, okay, one, we did not load up this new hire schedule. So, so important. Do not before they’re out of training, put them on shit, right? She was on this one account, but she had, we had no other regular clients on her. That was it. And so what that does is when she isn’t working out, we’re not having to now change a bunch of things. And we also are not putting work on her that we have to figure out shit for, right? So this is, do not do that, right?

And communicate when you bring somebody on that after training is going to take a little bit to get them to their full desired hours, because we don’t want to put too much on. And how you explain this to the staff member is, we want to make sure everybody’s training takes different paces. We want to make sure that you’re fully ready and confident and feel good. We want you feeling good. That’s what we say to the employee. True. And we do not want if they don’t work out for us to be fucked because we loaded them up prematurely and now they’re gone. Right. So there’s two reasons you don’t want to do that. And so I’m really proud of us for not doing that because that is a lesson I had to learn over and over and over again. So we didn’t do that.

Asking Employees to Stay

And then the other thing, so what we did with the two cleaners that were here longer, who were, you know, we would love to have them. We have started doing when somebody puts their two weeks in and we would like them to stay, right? We asked them, what would it take for you to stay? Like, what are the reasons? Is there anything that we could do to have any sort of availability from you? Because a lot of times people quit not realizing that you’re as flexible as you are, especially if they’re a good staff member.

You have invested so much time and money and energy into every single staff member that you have, or you should have invested time from a training perspective, right? At least W-2s, remember. So that being the case, always ask, ask, communicate. And so we asked both Haley and Jenna, the other staff member, is there anything that we can do to have you stay? Like, what is it that you’re leaving for? And with Haley, we knew that that was not the case, but we’re like, could, you know, is there a couple of days a week maybe that you could work to have that income? And she’s like, no, it’s just, it’s going to be too much. And so fair enough, enough said, but we asked, right.

We asked the same thing of Jenna of, well, is there, you know, would you be willing to share why you are leaving? Right. And is there anything that we could do or offer to you that would make you change your mind or reconsider, right? Shoot your shot, guys, shoot your shot. Because a lot of times this situation, it’ll work. All right. Sometimes it doesn’t work, but sometimes it does.

Successful Negotiation

And so we asked Jenna these questions and she was like, well, I just recently unexpectedly moved to this other town, which is in our service range. And so the drive during the winter is just not going to make sense. Also, it’s just, it’s too many hours for me because of my school schedule, or I think it was her school schedule. And I would also because, you know, then she was bold and good for her. She said, I have been a really, you know, great staff member. I’ve done a lot of training. I’ve been really, really flexible, you know, and I would like to ask for a raise. And this is what I’m looking for.

And so she has been incredible. One of I mean, God, I have just been so lucky. You know, I talk a lot about the turnover guys and the shitty employee stories, but I do have so many good ones and there are good ones, right? You just have to, you got to sift through it, right? Got to sift through the muck to find the diamonds, right? And Jenna is absolutely a diamond. She is so flexible, so communicative. I don’t think we’ve ever had a complaint on her. She’s just great. She’s fantastic. Super sweet, great team member, just an amazing person, right? And so we, yeah, totally warranted. Ask for a damn raise, girl.

And so we counter offered with the raise. We’re like, yep, we can give you accounts in that area because it worked perfectly because of the area that she’s going to be in. We have accounts that we need coverage on because we’re having other people travel to that. Oh, she also wanted to adjust her availability to mornings or something like that, where she was evenings done. We can do that too. And then we can give her the reduced hours that she’s looking for. I think it was one less day a week. And yes, this is the raise that we’re willing to go for. And so boom, boom, boom, all of the things that she wanted, she put her two weeks in.

I wish she would have just been like, hey, you know, I would need these things to stay. But I totally understand. A lot of people don’t think that that’s even possible because they’re used to working in a bit more of a traditional workforce where there’s not that flexibility, right? Where it’s like, no, this is the schedule and this is the expectations and requirements. You’re going to have to do this, right? But this isn’t normal, right? So what are you willing to do? And obviously, sometimes you can’t do that. Sometimes people ask for things and we simply, it’s like, I don’t have accounts in that town. You’re moving an hour away. We don’t have stuff there, right? So this isn’t just going to work out, right? It just doesn’t make sense.

But in this situation, all of the things that she wanted, we could easily accommodate for her. And that’s worth it because she’s such a perfect person. She’s amazing. Actually, I did joke. I was like, Jenna would be the great one to be a serial killer because nobody would expect her. Sometimes I actually do that. We’ll have conversations with our team. Who would we want in a fight club? Who would do well or who would be the murderer? That’s a fun team building activity. So of all of us, who would be the best serial killer? But you know, we play, we play. It’s the Serene Clean.

And so yeah, that worked out beautifully. And I believe she’s staying. Oh, yep. Great. Thank you for addressing all my areas of concern. This sounds amazing. And I’d be more than willing to stay with these changes. All I ask is if there would be some flexibility to meet in the middle at blank an hour. If so, I’d love to completely pull my resignation and work on figuring out my future schedule with our company. And then we’re like, done deal. So yes, that’s negotiation, guys. And it’s wonderful. And I’m so excited. So I’m so happy she’s staying on. She’s so amazing. And Jenna, if you’re watching, you’re amazing. I don’t think she watches these.

Taking Stock of the Situation

So yeah, that meant that took down three people leaving to two people leaving. And really, it’s only one person leaving because the other one was a newbie. So all of that to say, just a lot of shit going on and a lot of chaos and it feels very chaotic at times, but all you can do is just slow the fuck down, take a deep breath and look at the problem at hand and just complete emotion out logic. How is this going to affect things? Go into problem solving mode, right?

Crystal immediately, she had been off because for several weeks, she’d had shorter weeks because of some weddings that she had to go to. And so we had not been doing interviews because she handles that. And so immediately post the jobs online on Indeed, because we had just been getting an influx of applicants, and we just paused them until she was back to handle it. And we couldn’t bring anybody on anyway with training because we’ve been training so many people. So she immediately started doing interviews, we have some great applicants in the pipeline that we are interested in. And so just, there’s nothing revolutionary here. It’s just okay, we need to hire, that’s it. And always going to be the problem, right?

And so obviously the federal government stuff, we can’t do anything. So I’m just compartmentalizing that. I’m not even thinking about it because there’s nothing I can do right now about it, right? So out of my mind, out of my mind, we’re in a waiting, a holding pattern, right? But these other things we can absolutely control. We can control our hiring efforts. We can control how much we spend on Indeed. We can control how much we interview. That’s what I’m focusing on is just controlling what we can and not getting too, I guess, negative.

Reflecting on the Year

And because it’s, as you guys know, this year has been a shit show with turnover. I have never experienced this in the history of Serene Clean when it comes to our just, and stuff like this, right, where it’s a longer term employee and having to replace them because of whatever reason that they’re leaving. And, you know, obviously, I always am thinking as harshly and critically as possible of what else could we do to make this a better workplace? Why are people leaving? Is there anything we can do to prevent this? It’s like, okay, our training’s killer now. Our orientation is fantastic. We appreciate them. We give them presents. We give them gifts. We give them bonuses. We have a stellar benefits package, a benefits package I’ve never seen in any cleaning company around here. The pay is great. Workplace culture is awesome. The clients are good.

So I’m like, these are the things that are of, what more can I do? Because it’s like, okay, am I the problem? It’s me. What can I do? Is there anything? But it’s like, I really don’t think that that’s the situation. And we always are looking after somebody leaves, what else could we do? Right. And I was definitely going to do an exit interview with Jenna of like, okay, what, what is it that, you know, can you provide any type of feedback? Like, what do you like? What did you not like? Because exit interviews are really helpful when you can do them.

But in the situation now, it’s not necessary, but I will be doing one with Haley for sure, because she’s been with us for such a long time. And I would love to get her thoughts. And you know, a lot of times maybe they’ll be more honest when they are leaving and they feel comfortable to do so. So although I just, I know Haley, she talks about how much she loves it here. However, I still want to have that conversation. Of course, I’ll share that with you guys.

The Challenge of Being Stuck

But yeah, so it was kind of crazy, all of these things happening and it sucks. It’s really hard not to get down when it’s like, God dang it. We still can’t take on any more clients hardly. We’re still waitlisting we can’t fit anybody in because we’re just trying to cover what we already have and it’s just it’s really it’s tough and this is the I almost I want to call it a grind but it’s not a grind because that’s such so ridiculous compared to what you guys are doing right now as you’re literally cleaning and I’m sitting in my house right now talking to myself so it’s not a grind it’s more frustration of a sticking point of we’re running into this problem again but just stay the course.

Just keep doing the thing that we know works, which is the hiring. Now that we know that paying for Indeed ads works really well for us, that are listings, then we’re going to keep doing that. It’s worth spending the money and just pouring into our current staff because we want them to stay, right? What can we do to make sure our current staff don’t leave? Because that’s the problem, right? That is the problem is people turning over.

What We Can Control

So anything that we can do, control what we can. We can control how we act and treat our staff members. We can absolutely control that. We can control our quality control. We can control getting rid of shitty clients if they’re bad, right? And we can control prices. We can control if we do price increases, right? We did price increases on all of our commercial accounts for the most part, like I talked about last week. So that’ll bring a little bit more revenue and not an insane amount, but there are things that we can do.

And so just focusing on that and don’t just, sometimes you got to get out of your head, guys, because if I just laid in my bed and stared at the ceiling and been like, oh no, this money, what am I going to do? And this turnover, what am I going to do? Well, this is what I’m going to do, right? And just be ready to take action. But don’t be chaotic about it. Don’t overcorrect because I’ve done that before, too, where I’m like, oh, my God, we got to do all of these things because I’m in panic, right?

So it’s more about being calculated, I really want you guys to be calculated in your decision making process. And look at things in a tactical perspective, like, okay, I’m having this problem again, and again, or this, all of this shit I didn’t expect to happen last week happened, right? This all happened last week. And honestly, it’s just, it’s okay. I’m almost more emotionally removed from it now, maybe because I’m physically removed. So it’s a lot easier for me because I’m not physically going out and doing the cleaning.

Comparing to Past Challenges

And it’s nothing like it was back this past summer, this past summer, it’s October. A few months ago, it was really bad because all of my managers were cleaning, but we still had coverage. We had enough availability on our other new staff members to put basically everything on them outside of Jenna’s work. So the fact that she’s staying is great. That’s awesome. That makes it a lot easier because then we have the availability to rearrange.

So yeah, it’s all in all what I think I would have seen as a catastrophic event, like a couple of years ago, I’m just dead inside in a good way. It’s okay. That sucks. And I really want, that’s what I want for you guys is to be able to react and say, that sucks. What are we going to do about it? Like, let’s go into solution, you know, mode. And I’m not saying don’t have passion. I’m not saying don’t feel your feelings, but don’t get stuck in them.

Like I used to get so stuck in being really upset about something. And when I stayed in that emotional state, it stopped me from getting into that problem solving state, right? And as I’ve quoted before with Layla Hormozi saying fear is a mile wide and an inch deep, that is exactly what it is of, it’s not that, this doesn’t go that deep. I’m afraid of what’s happening. But when I actually look at it, and actually, this isn’t this deep, terrible thing. It’s okay, we’ll get through this just like we get through everything else. And you guys get through everything that you get through.

Don’t Freak Out

So all of that to say, don’t freak out. Freaking out is the opposite of what we need to be doing. And also, this is business. I’m six and a half years in and shit be happening. Okay. Shit be happening. And unexpected things. All I can expect is unexpected things happening, right? Or somebody leaving that I don’t expect, this is what’s going to happen. And so I need you guys to become more resilient emotionally so that you can handle all of these rollercoaster situations. Because it never stops. You can put things into place to kind of buffer and blunt it a little bit, but it never stops.

And the bigger that you get, the more effect it might have, right? With this big account, that’s a huge effect. So, but it’s just proportional, right? You losing one person in a week is catastrophic, right? Or one person in a month could be catastrophic, where for us, we potentially were losing three, rapid fire, all of their two weeks would have been done pretty much at the same time, right? So just immediate problem solving mode, but not in a chaotic way is kind of what I would recommend.

Building Emotional Resilience

And easier said than done. This has taken me years to get into this more calm state, I would say, and just developing that leadership of, okay, my managers are looking at me, if I start to freak out, they’re going to freak out. And if the managers are freaking out, the cleaners are going to freak out, and everybody’s freaking out. So don’t freak out and or if you do do it privately, right, collect yourself, cry, scream, hit a pillow, whatever you need to do, and then present yourself in a more calm manner and communicate in a way that says, yeah, this kind of sucks, but don’t show that crazed panic that you’re feeling.

That’s not good for them. It’s not good for anybody because at the end of the day, you’re the leader. It’s your business. It’s not their job to worry like you, right? You should have the most worry and that sucks, but that’s what we signed up for, right? So it’s just part of it. It’s just part of it is that we are the ones who are going to have all of that on our shoulders. And once you get leaders, you know, they do share the load with you, but it’s still your business. It’s still yours.

And you need to make sure that you are not making them more anxious than necessary. How can we soothe them and be like, all right, we got this and it’s going to be okay. And we always figure it out because we always do just like you always figure it out. Right. Or you close your business and you go work for somebody else because you can’t handle the stress. So, but as we see all of those federal workers are sure feeling stressed right now. So it’s like there is no such thing as total job security.

Yes, owning a business is definitely incredibly volatile at times or, you know, a lot of people fail at it. However, it’s like, well, there really is no thing is a sure job mostly. So keeping that in mind too.

Closing Thoughts

So let me know what you guys think. Are you having a crazy week? Anything wild happen? And how are you helping manage yourself and problem solve in those situations. I would love to hear it. As a reminder, go join the ZenMaid Mastermind if you haven’t. We are all hanging out over there. And as you guys know, or may not know, this podcast is totally possible because of our friends at ZenMaid. I’ve been a ZenMaid user since day one of my business, and there was no association there until what, a year and a half ago. And so I have been a lover of ZenMaid and they have made this podcast possible and without any ads too guys.

So make sure you give them some love and follow them on socials because we’re putting lots of funny stuff out. Me and Nicole over in the marketing department are just having a rip roaring good time recording silly little TikToks and reels and shit. So be following us for the funny stuff. Otherwise hit that like guys, hit that subscribe, leave a little red circle in the comments because I’m wearing a pretty maroon sweater today. And I’ll see you guys on the next episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners. Bye-bye.

If you enjoyed this episode of the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast, please be sure to leave us a five-star review so we can reach more cleaners like you. Until next time, keep your work clean and your business filthy rich.

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

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• ZenMaid
• SAM.gov
• ZenMaid Mastermind
• Stephanie’s 2025 Maid Summit Talk: My 7-Figure, 30-Person Cleaning Team That Goes With 0 Complaints for Months, with Stephanie Pipkin
• Watch Chris Schwab’s Episode on Independent Contractors: Filthy Rich Cleaners – E71: Deep-Dive into Scaling with Independent Contractors

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