Episode 160: Pets and Your Cleaning Business: Policies, Challenges, and Opportunities

Episode 160: Pets and Your Cleaning Business: Policies, Challenges, and Opportunities

Brandon Condrey:
We've had an employee get bitten by a dog. That happened one time, I think, and that was kind of funny because it was like a very friendly dog that was following them around the house. And then she turned her back on it and it just like nipped her in the back of the leg. And so you have to have a policy in your employee handbook on how to do that. So, like you need to report an injury. That's an injury. We're going to leave the house right away. I think if the dog is biting people, we're not going to finish the clean. And first and foremost, you need to make sure your employee's safe.

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

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Profit Cleaners Podcast, the only place where you can learn from the top 1% of cleaning business owners from around the world. Welcome back, guys. Thank you for your time. Thank you for showing up for another opportunity to help you grow your cleaning business. I am Brandon Shane, your host and I'm joined by my co host, Brandon Condrey in the house. What's going on, Brandon?

Well, you know, just hanging out in my freezing cold garage because there's contractors in my house, but still recording. No excuse, right? Zero excuses, extreme ownership or taking responsibility to just keep flowing. New knowledge your way, guys. So on this episode, we're going to talk about a fun topic which is all about pets. What do you do with Peter? Pets in the homes when you're cleaning houses? How do you handle that?

What are the policies? What if someone gets bit? We're going to share a few fun dog stories or pet stories that we've had in the past. And also at the very end, we're going to share some really fun ideas to help you get more customers with pets and make it a funner experience. People with pets. So we're going to share those with you as well. So let's dive into it.

Brandon. So how do we handle pets? We've got lots of unscorable. I don't have a statistic right now, but I wonder how many, what percentage of American households have a cat or a dog? I think it's got to be over 50%, I would think, but you're likely to encounter it. The reason I bring that up is you're definitely going to run into pets. So how do we handle pets in general?

So we can absolutely clean your house if there's an animal in it, but what we tell the customers. Whenever we sign on a new customer, there's an onboarding email that gets sent out, tells them what to expect. And there's some blurbs in there about how to handle your animals. So, generally speaking, we would like your pets to be put away either in a room that we're not going to clean or they're in a crate.

If they're a dog, cats are usually not so much of a problem because when they come in, your cats are usually very skittish and they'll go hide under a bed and you'll never see them. But dogs are a different story. They're going to be all up in your business in the beginning. And so ideally, they're in a crate. And the downside of a crate is they might bark incessantly at you while you're there.

But I'd rather have that than them running around the house. So we tell the customers to do that. Hopefully it works out. Sometimes we're scheduling it with them so that they know that we're going to be there. And maybe they're having a dog walker come by or they're going to take the dog somewhere else that day. So we can claim. But that's generally how we do it. But it doesn't work out all the time.

So, you know, there's stories that we have and how do you handle those things? So where do you want to pick up? Well, I just wanted to note what you were saying earlier. Actually, 66% of US households own a pet as of 2024. So 86.9 million families own some kind of pet. But that's pretty interesting. So you're definitely going to run into pets when you're cleaning people's houses.

So that's definitely kind of just a given. But, yeah, I think we can start wherever. I mean, do you want to share maybe a fun story or two of a pet situation? We've had. We've had lots of pet situations, but we've had an employee get bitten by a dog. That happened one time, I think. And that was kind of funny because it was like a very friendly dog that was following them around the house.

And then she turned her back on it and it just like, nipped her in the back of the leg. And so you have to have a policy in your employee handbook on how to do that. So, like, you need to report an injury. That's an injury. We're going to leave the house right away. I think if the dog is biting people, we're not going to finish the clean.

And first and foremost, you need to make sure your employee's safe. So we got to bail out of the house, make sure that we're all safe, and then we got to go get medical treatment if it's required. Dog bites in general, cat bites in general, require some sort of antibiotic intervention because you never know what's in that dog's mouth. Sometimes there might be rabies involved. And if you have a good customer, they're going to cooperate.

They're going to provide vaccine records for that animal to let you know if they've been vaccinated for rabies. If not, then your employee is going to have to get a rabies shot. But really you just want to make sure they're safe. You're going to wash out the wound. If they need to seek in medical attention, we're going to go do that like right away. We're going to take you to a clinic.

If they can trudge on through the day with a band aid or something and deal with it later, that's their choice, really. But it's a workers cop claim either way, if there's an injury. So we did have that one dog bite. The dog was super small. The customer was very apologetic. It all worked out in the end. There was another one where the team in the job notes, it said that the customer has a dog, it's going to be in a crate.

And they knew that. But when they got to the door, there was just this vicious sounding dog on the other side. And they were super panicked not to go in, so they called me. I think this is really early on. This was before we had Claudia. So I drove over there, I took one for the team and opened the door to deal with the dog. And when I opened the door, the dog was very much in a crate.

It's just that it was right by the front door. And so we were able to go clean just as normal. The dog was in a crate, which is exactly what we ask customers to do. And they're going to bark the whole time. But I would rather deal with a barking dog instead of a biting dog. The other downside to having a dog roaming around, especially if they're super friendly, is as the team is mopping, the dog is just walking in the mopped floor.

So, like, the floor will never look clean. So, like, the customer's going to come home and be like, there's paw prints all over the place. I'm like, I know it's because your dog was following us around the whole time. Like we couldn't do it. So this is why we educate the customer before their first clean. This is how to handle your animals. Yeah, that's great, man. I do remember too, in the early days, and this is still probably happening with customers calling.

But sometimes customers, when they're giving you the deets and the rundown on their house, they're like, hey, when you get there, can you let my dog out? Or like, can you let my dog in when you're done? Or like, they'll ask you to do certain things with their pets. And what do we do in those situations, Brandon? We're not going to do that. We can't be held liable for that.

And here's why. Let's say it's a really hot summer day in Albuquerque. Albuquerque is the desert. It routinely gets to a hundred degrees over the summer. So let's say it was a really hot day. The dogs in the backyard, the customer asked you to let them in, you said yes. You forgot to add it to the job notes or the team forgot to do it and then they left.

And then the dogs stayed outside in the 100 degree heat all day long. They drank all their water and then died. That is not going to turn out well for you if you forgot to do that. Same reason, like, okay, I, yes, we'll let the dog out, but the owner forgot to close the gate all the way and now the dog is like loose running the neighborhood. You got rid of their family member.

Like, a lot of people consider pets family. And if you let them out and then they get hit by a car, that's not going to go well. Ears. So when it's in those situations, we just decline. Like, hey, I'm really sorry, we just can't do it. We explain why. We just tell them those exact reasons. We don't want to be put in a position where we're going to chill your dog, you know, not letting them in, or we let them.

Like the way that the teams work, letting them in is also kind of complicated because we mop our way out of the house. The last thing they're doing is they're mopping towards the front door. So to let a dog in, we're going to have to either waste time, which we're not charging the customer for, to let the floors dry, to go let the dog in, and then maybe they track something in and then the house is dirty right away.

So yeah, I have noticed though, like a lot of the houses. I remember a specific house up in the Northeast Heights. Brandon, if you remember the. I think we Damaged the floors too on this one, unfortunately. But they had a bunch of huge dogs and there was like this, this residue on the floor that had built up and was just really hard to clean. And they were complaining on floors.

I mean, houses with pets, especially dogs, are probably going to be a little more cleanup, right? Like a little dirtier. So, like, how do we work with customers have pets? How do we appeal to them so that they're more excited to work with us and we make it a better experience? Even if they have pets, it's a little dirtier. Is there anything we do? No, we're happy to work with them.

We'll ask you on the customer call, like, you know, how many pets do you have? Are they long hair or short hair? And on the initial, we might bump up the price a little bit. Especially if they say it's covered in dog hair or cat hair. If we tell them, like the tools we have are made for picking up pet hair, like, we've got a rotary brush that'll get everything off the carpet.

And the handheld one, we can get a rotary brush tool that will pull pet hair off of things. So we try and inform them that, like, the cleaning we do is geared towards you having pets. We're happy to clean hair, but like, we're not going to clean pet waste. We actually have a leave behind in there. Like if a dog pooped or peed or a cat did the same thing, we just leave a little note where it is and say, like, hey, we couldn't clean it.

And sometimes they get upset about that. But like when we hire, when we brought the team out there to clean, they were there to clean a house, not to pick up dog poop. And like, that's on you or your pet to do that. You know, like to make sure that the pet is potty trained. And sometimes people are going to cancel over that, like, if we didn't clean it up.

Fair enough. But like, that's not our customer. Like, we want to make sure pets can carry parasites in poop that can infect team members, in particular cats with pregnant women. There's one called toxoplasmosis. And so we just don't want to expose the employees to that. And that's on the customer to do that on their own. And part of that pitch is like, well, you know, like you're saving all this time by cleaning.

You should have more time to deal with these pet issues so that it's ready by the time we get there. That's kind of the pitch to the customer. Not only do you not know the best tactics for your market, but it's also all too easy to waste money and get 00 results. Once we started working with tidy your sales all of this changed. We saved time on following up with customers so we can close more leads.

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Yeah, and that's really true. Like we have those leave behinds that we leave and just say, hey, we don't clean these things. If it's like blood or you know, waste or other things. We're not going to put our teams through that because we're not a biohazard waste cleanup company. And like Brandon said, if people are doing that, they're probably not your customer or you should be able to tell them one time and they won't do it again kind of thing.

Right. Because they'll be more prepared to clean up their house before the teams get there next time. And that's just also good for employee morale and your culture. You don't want to have your teams be responsible for cleaning up stuff like that. And also people's houses that are ideal customers are usually not going to have that. They're going to be a lot more picked up. They're not going to have dog turds laying around and stuff like that for your teams to clean up.

So. So you should be attracting more ideal customers than that. But in any case, that's the system is just let people know if don't make your teams clean it up, leave a little leave behind card or something that says hey politely, we don't clean this up. I'm sorry. And you know, other than that, while we were thinking about it, I was just curious. Cause I have had people ask about this.

What do you think, Brandon, about starting a pet cleaning business inside of your house cleaning business like a dog grooming company or something? Already at the house. We'll just clean your dogs while we clean the house. People have helped me idea. So I mean if we're talking about just spraying the thing down maybe with some soap, I guess, like, I guess you could do that in a bath.

But I don't. That's again, another thing, like they get to know you. Like, dog grooming is kind of like a specialty. My mother in law is a dog groomer. She's been a dog groomer like her whole life. So there's a special set of skills, a special set of tools. She has a special sink installed in her house that has like leash clips on it and stuff so the dog can't like jump out of the sink.

I wouldn't take that one on. Plus, like if I don't think pets like being bathed in general. And so I think that's more likely when they are to get aggressive. You're trying to clean a house, some person that some person's poor turn in a rotation to be like, all right, you gotta go wash the dog in the master bathtub or something. And shaking water all over the place and making a bigger mess.

They might scratch, they might bite. That seems terrible. However, if you wanted to offer that service. I have seen more and more mobile dog grooming businesses come around, like where it's in a big van that, that's just one to partner up with someone else. So like if they ask you, can you do this or can you recommend this or whatever, like, no, but we could schedule one at the same time maybe.

So like the dog groomer is going to deal with the dog and we'll do the cleaning while the dog is in the dog van. Like, I could see that working. It's a lot of moving parts to make that happen. But I just like being able to tell the customers yes. So like, can you clean my dog? No, but I know someone who can. Like, we have already worked this out for you.

We recommend using this company and then referring business to that business. That's a great way to do it. And I think this gets into the area where it's like every, not every entrepreneur, but I definitely know myself sometimes getting that shiny object syndrome. And you're like, what if we just did this and added this? And like, because you know, you're already in the house. But this is the problem a lot of people have is getting distracted.

Instead of having laser focus, you start saying, well, they asked me if I could clean the grout and the windows and the carpet cleaning and landscape, and now they want me to clean their dogs. And then you end up diluting your business and spreading yourself thin. And like, what Brandon and I are recommending is like, yeah, maybe you could add that at some point. Maybe you could add another division of your business would be pet grooming.

When you're, when you're cleaning houses. But at least focus on your core business first. Get that really going. Then maybe consider doing something like that. But I think for the most part, what we found a lot of success with is just like Brandon said, develop your network. And you're referring those business leads to those people for the services you don't offer. They do the same thing for you.

So you build those relationships and there's that reciprocity kind of just everyone refers business to each other, and that way you stay in your lane, you stay focused, and you're not running 10 different systems, 10 different marketing campaigns, 10 different products and trainings. It's going to help you stay a lot more focused so you can grow. So our pet stance sounds kind of negative, like we're not going to touch them if they're not treated a certain way.

But there are ways to, like, incorporate this into your thing. And Brandon had run into a student who was taking pictures of pets at the end of the clean and then sending it to the owner, being like, Marco approves of the clean. And apparently they love that. And we might add that into rotation, but that's if you can see them, you don't have to go chase them down.

You know, like, it's a little thing knowing like a, you know their pet's name and B, they get a little picture knowing that, okay, the cool. The dog is fine as of this time. I know that it's okay. Yeah. That was a story from someone we talked to in Australia, actually, who and I thought it was a really funny story, but she's like, oh, man, people absolutely love it.

I send these little pictures. I'll take a picture of the dog and the cat at the end of the clean, make some funny comment, is the clean good enough? Or it's good enough for me or whatever it is. And makes the client laugh, makes them smile. Again, this is part of the customer experience, guys. Anything you can do outside the clean is unexpected. It brings surprise, joy over, you know, they're just like, wow, I can't believe they did that.

That was fun. Those are the things you want to be thinking about. So I think you could absolutely do that with pets. This is a great opportunity to do something like that. Snap a little photo of the pet, send it to the owner. Another idea that we've had is partner with a local groomer in town. You, you can trade house cleaning, of course, but also something we're working on is having a little leave behind where anybody with pets, they'll Give a little bone or a little treat or whatever it is that will say, brought to you by the grooming company, the dog company, whatever it is.

So it's a way to cross promote your brand, work with another local business. It's going to bring unexpected joy to your customers. They're going to be like, wow, this is so fun. This is awesome. I got a new little treat or chew toy for. For the doggy or whatever. And again, it's unexpected. It's those little things that people don't expect that's just going to make their day, right?

And that's the customer experience. So try that out. If you guys are thinking of what are some fun ideas we could do, those are a couple of really fun ideas and we'll let you guys know how they go in the future once we test them out more. But I think those would be phenomenal ideas to just make your customers day. Anybody with pet. So that's pretty much it.

I don't know if we have anything else to say about pets, but just wanted to give you guys the rundown on the pets. We did have one person ask us to clean it. Wasn't it like a worm farm or something? One time, Brandon, we had a. I don't remember that. I do remember we had one customer that had a parrot in a cage and they're like, you cannot spray anything when the parrot's in the room.

I'm like, why? They're like, their lungs are so small that like even a little couple particles of some cleaners like them inhaling a lung full of some chemicals. So in those job notes, it was just make sure the owner has moved the bird out of the room and so you'll run into all kinds of stuff. We had a veterinarian that we cleaned for for a while and she had a wall of terrariums and she had lizards and snakes and all kinds of stuff in there.

And the team were freaked out, but I'm like, look, man, they're in cages. Basically, like, just don't clean the glass. We told them we weren't going to clean it. Just go somewhere else. So you'll run into all kinds of weird stuff. We can trade war stories in the Facebook group if you want, which is a good time to tell you that we have a Facebook group, you know, for Profit Cleaners.

So there's a paid one, you know, if you're a part of the masterclass that's only for members, but there's also a free one. So you can jump in there and tell us about all of your wacky pet stories. I did want to circle back though. Like you were talking about getting a groomer to sponsor those treats and leave behinds. There's a number of pet related companies, so grooming is one of them.

There's almost guaranteed a dog walking franchise in your city. Like the one that was a big deal at Albuquerque is called wag. So it's like an app. It's like a gig economy type thing for dog walking. And so you could get a dog walker to sponsor it. There's a local pet food company, like that's manufactured in Santa Fe, you know, that we could sponsor with. So there's probably like a holistic pet food store in your neighborhood that might be willing to sponsor those things.

And then there's also like waste removal. So like there's a number of companies that will come pick up dog poop. So like that might be a cross promotional opportunity. Especially if you're having a customer that's having issues like, hey, we work with this company that'll come clean up your yard or whatever. And then, yeah, like there's loads of options when you start thinking about it. Grooming, dog walking, waist pickup, all these things.

Training, like there's probably a dog training school that you could work with as well. That's a great idea. And just by networking with these different businesses guys, it's again, cross promotion your networking. They refer you business, you refer them business. It's a great relationship. The more of these you build again, the more you can focus on your business and the more referrals you get. And referrals are the absolute best way to grow your business.

It's just so much more powerful to grow by word of mouth and referrals. So. So yeah, like Brandon said, if you guys want to jump into the Facebook group, we can trade some more war stories on this. But the free group is profitcleaners.com Facebook. We just hit 10,000 members. So go jump in there and talk about your clean business. Share war stories, whatever pet stories you have. There's lots of good conversations in there.

So jump in there. And if you guys are getting value out of the show, leave us a review. Pull out your phone right now on Spotify, on itunes, wherever you're at, and take a second. Pay it forward, guys. Like, we're not running a bunch of annoying 10 minute ads and all sorts of crazy stuff on the show. We're just trying to deliver value, share knowledge. That's the cost of admission.

Leave us a review if you know somebody or care about someone that would benefit from the show, share them the show as well. That'd be super huge for us. So that's pretty much it. If you guys want to learn more, you want to check out the masterclass. We teach all these things and more and you can work with us on the one on one level. But go check out the masterclass.

It's profitcleaners.com masterclass and we'll get into it more, show you guys how to scale a thriving cleaning business. We'll share more of what we did on that as well and get you guys set up for success in 2025 and moving forward. So all that and more. I think that was a fun pet episode. I think you guys probably hopefully learned a lot. I had a fun time sharing those stories.

So get out there, get some more pet customers and make their day. Make them smile and 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 profitcleaners.com and remember, keep it clean.