Episode 115: Speedbumps: The Challenges of Launching a New Cleaning Biz

Episode 115: Speedbumps: The Challenges of Launching a New Cleaning Biz

Brandon Schoen:
You know, it's actually much cheaper to overpay people a little bit than to underpay because if you try to cut corners and underpay people and just like a dollar an hour here or this or that and people are gonna quit, people are gonna not show up. People are ultimately, you're not gonna have a team to deliver your service. And so if you have to pay a little more to get people to show up and do what you need, like it's all worth it in the end. And hopefully you can keep better people around. That's just one aspect of it. Obviously you gotta have culture and do other things to build that sustainability and longevity with your teams. But yeah, just being willing to be flexible. Maybe pay people a little more than you thought and and just keep adding.

Announcer:
Grow your cleaning business, make more money, have more time. This is the Profit Cleaners podcast with your host Brandon Condrey and Brandon Schoen.

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Profit Cleaners podcast. The only place where you can learn from the top 1% of cleaning business owners from around the world to take it to the next level and win. Thanks for joining us today guys.

I'm Brandon Shane, your host, and I'm joined by my magnificent co-host, Brandon Condre in the house. What's going on Brandon? Just Another day in Paradise Living the dream recording podcasts. That's right man. Talking about our business while we build it and sharing the wealth, sharing the good news. So let's get into it. Let's share, actually in this episode guys,

we just shared a little bit about our update on Texas and Santa Fe. This is a little part two of that episode. We're gonna keep talking about some issues and some problems, actually some mistakes, maybe speed bumps 'cause we're humans just like you guys and life happens and crazy stuff happens. So let's just be real with you guys and tell you a few things going on behind the scenes so you guys can relate and we can all get through it together.

Yeah, so let's do it Brandon. So what's going on? What are some speed bumps we've been encountering? Yeah, We're gonna cover some more specifics. One, you can kind of put one for Texas in a big bucket, which I think is that no one thinks that we're an actual business. And so that was like Google, Facebook next door.

They were all like, think you're real. And so part of that is because we don't have an office, part of that is because the paperwork that we file with the state is like brand new. So when people go to like look it up, it's like not in the database yet. So we've worked through those one by one by one and hopefully those business listings are turned on soon so we can get all of our reviews.

So I think that's a big bucket. Yeah, That's been discouraging. But like we always say, you just gotta keep pushing, get through it. Like just in the last few days we had some of those accounts get unflagged, we're still waiting for Google my business, but man that's frustrating. But when it all comes around, no big deal. It's just we'll reach out to the customers we did free clean for and we'll just do it all at once,

be like boom, boom, boom. You can review us on these places. 'cause people are, you know like hey we'd love to leave you a review but we can or so that's frustrating in the beginning starting out 'cause that's how we build a lot of our momentum is we do free review cleans, help people out, get reviews like blow past the competition and has been around for 20 years in just a week or two 'cause they have five reviews still.

So yeah, that's been frustrating for sure and working through that with our marketing manager and we're just, we're like man, why is Google and these places like so hard to work with. I I think part of it is next door and probably Google too, just like laid off a lot of employees. So maybe they're short staffed and maybe that's why part of the reason we're having such delays.

But they're Also huge. Like they just do not have a customer service department so they're just hard to get ahold of in general. So I don't wanna run Google, I'm trying to run a customer focused company where it's easy to get ahold of. And so when we run into companies where it's not easy to get ahold of someone, everyone's just like man,

why aren't you doing it this way? And so whatever, I'm not gonna change Google but we're working through it so if your listing got flagged or whatever, don't be discouraged. There's always an appeal process. It's just you gotta jump through some hoops. Yeah and that just made me think of something pretty cool that I was learning recently in one of my masterminds,

which is like right now it's such a cool time in history I think like we always say like when everyone's slowing down go faster and speed up. And that's still happening like in the world right now. And a lot of these big companies like the Googles of the world, like these big behemoth giant brands that are just so big, but they're gonna start cutting costs and they're gonna start doing stuff that's gonna limit the customer experience and it's gonna lessen maybe the loyalty even like some of the perks and things that some of these brands,

maybe even your competition in the cleaning market might be doing these same things. And so that's an opportunity for you. It's like a land grab to go in there and just grab that market share and do what your competition's unwilling to do. Like Google, just like pick up your phone and help people that are your customers, right? So if there's big companies in your town that are cutting costs,

that are doing stuff to basically just lower their quality and their standards and their excellence, like that's an opportunity for you to hop in there and do it better and grab that market share as we come out of this over the next few years. And you guys can be number one in your market and you can own that market share and jump in there. So don't let it discourage you see it as an opportunity.

So what else Brandon? What are some other speed bumps? Yeah so the other ones we had an issue with our payroll company that really made me mad and if you're in our Facebook groups, that's why I've been asking about gusto and things like that. So when we opened a second location, the way that our payroll provider Paylocity said we would do it is you just set it up and then the downside was if you were getting a paper check,

which is not a lot of employees but we do have several that get paper checks. The way we used to do it is they would overnight us by UPSA package of checks and then we would hand 'em out in the office on payday. Well when we switch to Texas. So like we can only send that packet one place so you either have to send it on or we can just mail it to everyone individually.

And so we're like hey that sounds great, we'll just mail it individually. And so we did it that way and then it turns out the postal service kind of sucks and so people lost checks. We've had people that didn't get checks for like 11 days and like this is a low, this is an entry level service job and so people are living paycheck to paycheck down there.

So it was very frustrating and so we're trying to figure out if we need to bounce and go somewhere else. Yeah, I mean you said it earlier this week man, you're like you can't mess with people's money 'cause that's just bad juju and it's you can't do that and we've never missed the payroll so like this happening technically like people missing their checks so like that sucks,

you know? So we wanna overcome that and maybe look at some other options but was it just the mail, like Just mail man it just didn't show up or people stole the check when it got to their mailbox or who knows what. But the point is I have lost all faith in the postal service now and so temporarily we switch back to just getting one packet of checks at the office and then we're gonna use UPS to then forward it to Brandon in Texas to distribute there for paper checks.

Ideally you want everyone to get direct deposit, you could just get your money right away and in some cases you get it the day before. Yeah, the issue with direct deposit though is it takes one payroll period, right to get them on it. So they have to get a paper check the first, Yeah you have to get a paper check in the beginning.

And so we've looked into like prepaid debit cards, either we're paying a fee or they're paying a fee to access their money, which just doesn't feel right. And so the ones that missed their checks, we did have one straight up quit. She was really mad. I totally understand that we did not pay you in a timely fashion that sucks even though we were really good at it for years.

Not a lot of loyalty there on the paycheck thing when you screw up someone's like cash. So what we did with that one is we just canceled that check and printed one in the office. We do have checks stock to print payroll stuff in the office. And so we did that and hopefully save that employee. But I think long term I'm shopping somewhere else man,

Paylocity really I'm not doing this without contacting them. We contacted them multiple times, they were like we can't do anything about it. Like we did our job, we got it in the mail. I'm like man this is ridiculous. So I'm looking somewhere else to see if there's a better option. So we're entertaining gusto, I've heard only good things about Gusto so I'm gonna set up a meeting with them and go do a demo.

If I can record it, we'll put it up on the Facebook groups. So if you're not in the Facebook groups, certainly consider joining. You can find those at Profit Cleaners dot com and if I can get a copy of a video of me getting a demo of Gusto, I'll put it up there and we'll see if it's good or bad or whatever.

But I'm mad about the payroll thing. Yeah, that is super frustrating. And we've gone through already one payroll company, right Paychex before Three we had Paychex, we left and went to a local provider, which I loved that was super small. And then later they sold to Paychex. So we went back with Paychex and I was like no I'm not doing this again.

And so then we ended up with Paylocity after shopping it around. Back then when we signed up with Paylocity, Gusto was quite small. They really were focused on like entrepreneurs that wanted to run payroll from their app and they just didn't offer it. It's grown into this full service HR suite, benefits administration, like it's a big deal payroll company now. And so like that's why I wanna look at it again.

So I think it's kind of maybe grown up to us. Hey Profit Cleaners, if you're interested in growing your cleaning business and joining the top 1% of cleaning business owners, well now's the time We're launching our new business out in Texas and documenting everything. So you're gonna want to join us and you're gonna see how six and seven figure cleaning businesses are built from the ground up so that you can do it too.

To get started on this journey with us, head over to our free Facebook group now and watch the masterclass pinned to the top of the group. Just look up top 1% cleaning business owner club on Facebook or go to Profit Cleaners dot com slash facebook and watch the free masterclass pinned to the top to learn more. Yeah, that's very cool. So yeah,

payroll issues, we've mentioned it in the other episode that we had all these accounts, we've started setting up different channels, Facebook next door, Google just been in this limbo because they flagged our accounts for different reasons or like Ryan, my marketing manager set up the accounts but like they didn't think it was me and then they thought it was fraudulent. So just a lot of back and forth and workarounds and like I'm just so surprised at how poor the customer experience is for these companies like trying to get stuff fixed.

It's been a nightmare. Like they say like it'll take one or two days or a week and it hasn't been, it's been weeks now so that's crazy. We'll work through it though. So like if you've got that going on, just keep plugging away. It'll happen. The other one that happened just this morning, we posted a job ad for Albuquerque 'cause we,

we had people quit and we need to replace them and we accidentally posted the salary range as the one in Texas. So prices are different in Texas, cleaners are paid different in Texas. And then we had one of the cleaners who's currently employed at about $3 an hour less find that job ad and she was mad notably speaking and they all talk about it on the back end.

So we had to quickly explain the situation, which I don't even think we've done yet. So as soon as we get off, Brandon's gotta send this message. We need to get that out there. But like look that was the wrong city. Our bad, we're posting job ads in three different cities right now. We got it mixed up so we're not hiring new hires at $3 an hour more than you're getting paid.

It was just a mistake. So that's a little lesson there that the devil's in the details man, you can do things perfectly for six years and you screw up and everyone thinks that you're hiring new hires at $3 an hour more than what you're paying people that have been there for two years. Everyone's gonna be mad. So that's what we're trying to avoid.

One thing I would say that I learned recently just from a, actually another service business in town that I was talking to the owner and he, he owns a multimillion dollar patio fence pool company out here in Fort Worth, Texas. And he's really good at hiring and he is very good at the labor. But again, even advice from someone like him and we'll probably have him on the podcast or something at some point to share a lot of this,

but he was saying, you know, it's actually much cheaper to overpay people a little bit than to underpay because if you try to cut corners and underpay people and just like a dollar an hour here or this or that and people are gonna quit, people are gonna not show up. People are ultimately you're not gonna have a team to deliver your service. And so if you have to pay a little more to get people to show up and do what you need,

like it's all worth it in the end and hopefully you can keep better people around. That's just one aspect of it. Obviously you gotta have culture and do other things to build that sustainability and longevity with your teams. But yeah, just being willing to be flexible, maybe pay people a little more than you thought and and just keep at it and, and hiring is an ongoing thing.

It's something you're, we're probably always gonna be doing at this point now that we're this big, we're always gonna have a few people here and there every month with the size of our teams now that it's just something we always gotta be doing. And I've been telling Ryan to just keep that pipeline going. He's help us find creative ways too. Not just posting job ads but going out and finding people in other ways kind of headhunting or even like we're talking about having our employees post on their own feeds,

like hire internally and find people more friends and other cleaners they've worked with in the past that can come on board. So we just gotta get creative guys and you gotta think outside the box a little bit and just know that this is a challenge we all experience and so you just gotta do what others are unwilling to do to survive and Thrive. And then one more speed bump before we gotta get off this to go to the coaching call.

So this is a trust verify situation. I don't know who said that but that's been around for a while. So we put in a system in place for following up with leads. We thought everyone was doing it and then Claudia caught one of our reps marking an estimate as like abandoned. Like we called him, they didn't answer the phone. So like we're not gonna call him anymore 'cause we do do that.

Like if we try and reach out x amount of times and they don't call us like give up, let's go to the next one. But she had just happened to be in the right place at the right time and was like, that didn't happen. Like you didn't call him, there's call recordings. I saw that you didn't call 'em, I saw that you marked it as this,

like why'd you do that? And I don't know the motivations behind that kind of behavior, but we're paying a lot of money to get those leads and we're paying a lot of money for a customer service rep. So you know, I just want you to do your job. So I tend to take people at face value like you told me you did it fine,

I'll trust you that you did it, but now we're in a situation where they sure I trust you, but like let's just double Check. Yeah, sorry to cut you off man. It just made me think of a really cool phrase I learned recently, which is inspect what you expect and you have to have a standard of expectations, but if you're not inspecting and if you're the owner,

the CEO of the ops whatever of managing that company, you need to be constantly inspecting those expectations. This is why we do inspections at the end of every single house. So you gotta keep those expectations up and your team has to know that you're inspecting that so you can constantly be getting better and everyone's accountable. Yeah, so inspect what you expect, trust but verify.

So we're gonna alter our little system there. Maybe put in some form of audit, like we do a huddle with the customer experience people when we listen to phone calls, but now we're trying to double check. Let's make sure that everyone like what happened actually happened that we talked to this person. So like the nice thing about the customer service systems that we have in place,

like if you said that you call 'em, I can go look up the call logs and see that you did it. If you said that you texted them and they said no, I can see that too. So it's just a matter of looking in the right place. We were looking at actual calls that happened and trying to sort through like some good and bad scenarios there and it just not looking in the right place.

So lesson learned are bad. Extreme responsibility, that was our fault for not having put that in place in the first place. And so we're working through it. But just a lesson to all of you that just 'cause they're telling you they're doing it doesn't mean they're necessarily doing it. So just double check. Yeah, exactly. Double check. And you just gotta constantly have that accountability in place.

So yeah, that's it guys. These are all problems. There's a silver lining. Those are opportunities. We're gonna solve them. We're gonna keep going and just keep getting better. So if you guys haven't checked out the masterclass yet, check it out. It's Profit Cleaners dot com slash masterclass. If you guys are getting any value out of this show,

if you're learning something, get inspired, makes you smile, make you laugh, made you learn something, whatever. Share it out. Share it to a friend, leave us a review, subscribe and help us all win together, guys. So I think that's it, Brandon, right? Yeah. In the meantime, keep it clean. Keep it clean.

Thanks for joining us today. To get more info, including show notes, updates, trainings, and super cool free stuff, head over to Profit Cleaners dot com and remember, keep it clean.