Angela Brown shares her journey in the cleaning industry and how she leveraged digital marketing to grow her business. She emphasizes the importance of understanding that they are in the people business, not just the cleaning business. Building trust with customers is crucial, and Angela highlights the significance of credentials and professionalism in winning their trust. She also discusses the importance of setting clear expectations and boundaries with customers to avoid scope creep. Angela shares her late adoption of digital marketing and how it transformed her business. Angela Brown shares insights on how to build a successful business before the internet era and the importance of consistency and reliability in customer service. She emphasizes the need to create a positive reputation through word-of-mouth and the power of being on time and consistent in service delivery. Angela also discusses the use of customer relationship management (CRM) software to keep track of customer details and personalize interactions. She recommends seeking expertise from specialists in different areas of business and continuously learning and applying new knowledge.
Takeaways
Understanding that you are in the people business, not just the cleaning business, is crucial for success.
Building trust with customers requires professionalism, clear communication, and meeting their expectations.
Setting clear boundaries and expectations with customers helps avoid scope creep and ensures efficient operations.
Digital marketing can be a powerful tool for business growth, even in traditional industries like cleaning. Building a successful business before the internet required creativity and strategic thinking.
Consistency and reliability are key factors in creating a positive reputation and generating word-of-mouth referrals.
Using customer relationship management (CRM) software can help track customer details and personalize interactions.
Seeking expertise from specialists in different areas of business can lead to better results.
Continuous learning and applying new knowledge is essential for business growth and staying ahead of the competition.
Sound Bites
"We're all about cleaning and we are here to help you with your... today we're talking about how to grow your cleaning business or grow your small home service business with digital tools."
"We are a marketing company and a recruiting company that just happens to do roofing."
"We have to learn to read people. We have to learn to understand their good moments and their bad moments and how to interact with them."
Chapters
00:00
Introduction to Angela Brown and her background in the cleaning industry
08:23
The importance of trust and professionalism in the cleaning industry
16:11
Dealing with customer requests and avoiding scope creep
29:36
Utilizing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
40:09
Seeking Expertise: The Key to Business Growth
Keywords
cleaning industry, digital marketing, business growth, trust, credentials, professionalism, clear expectations, boundaries, scope creep, business success, customer service, consistency, reliability, word-of-mouth, customer relationship management, CRM software, personalization, expertise, continuous learning
Angela Brown shares her journey in the cleaning industry and how she leveraged digital marketing to grow her business. She emphasizes the importance of understanding that they are in the people business, not just the cleaning business. Building trust with customers is crucial, and Angela highlights the significance of credentials and professionalism in winning their trust. She also discusses the importance of setting clear expectations and boundaries with customers to avoid scope creep. Angela shares her late adoption of digital marketing and how it transformed her business. Angela Brown shares insights on how to build a successful business before the internet era and the importance of consistency and reliability in customer service. She emphasizes the need to create a positive reputation through word-of-mouth and the power of being on time and consistent in service delivery. Angela also discusses the use of customer relationship management (CRM) software to keep track of customer details and personalize interactions. She recommends seeking expertise from specialists in different areas of business and continuously learning and applying new knowledge.
Takeaways
Understanding that you are in the people business, not just the cleaning business, is crucial for success.
Building trust with customers requires professionalism, clear communication, and meeting their expectations.
Setting clear boundaries and expectations with customers helps avoid scope creep and ensures efficient operations.
Digital marketing can be a powerful tool for business growth, even in traditional industries like cleaning. Building a successful business before the internet required creativity and strategic thinking.
Consistency and reliability are key factors in creating a positive reputation and generating word-of-mouth referrals.
Using customer relationship management (CRM) software can help track customer details and personalize interactions.
Seeking expertise from specialists in different areas of business can lead to better results.
Continuous learning and applying new knowledge is essential for business growth and staying ahead of the competition.
Sound Bites
"We're all about cleaning and we are here to help you with your... today we're talking about how to grow your cleaning business or grow your small home service business with digital tools."
"We are a marketing company and a recruiting company that just happens to do roofing."
"We have to learn to read people. We have to learn to understand their good moments and their bad moments and how to interact with them."
Chapters
00:00
Introduction to Angela Brown and her background in the cleaning industry
08:23
The importance of trust and professionalism in the cleaning industry
16:11
Dealing with customer requests and avoiding scope creep
29:36
Utilizing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
40:09
Seeking Expertise: The Key to Business Growth
Keywords
cleaning industry, digital marketing, business growth, trust, credentials, professionalism, clear expectations, boundaries, scope creep, business success, customer service, consistency, reliability, word-of-mouth, customer relationship management, CRM software, personalization, expertise, continuous learning
Enmanuel Tejada (00:01.863)
So we're live and I'm going to do the intro.
Enmanuel Tejada (00:07.455)
Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Digital Toolbox Podcast. My name is Emmanuel Tajada and this is a podcast where we bring on guests who own businesses in the home service of space and have them tell their stories, give us some tips and also talk about how they were able to leverage digital marketing to leverage their business and scale their brand. So today we're joined by the lovely Angela Brown. Angela, go ahead and introduce yourself.
@AskAngelaBrown (00:32.662)
Hey there, I'm Angela Brown and I'm with a company called Savvy Cleaner and we train house cleaners and maids all across the world. We're in 37 countries in 191 languages. We've got a YouTube show called Ask a House Cleaner where you get to ask a house cleaning question and hopefully I can find you an answer. Every once in a while I get tripped up, but that is our goal. So we're about 1500 episodes in on the Ask a House Cleaner show. We also have a show called Turnover Cleaning Tips, which is the cleaning for Airbnb.
and vacation rental owners. And then we also have a show that we do on YouTube called Clutter Corner, which is for those that have excessive amounts of clutter and hoarding. So we're all about cleaning and we are here to help you with your, I don't know, today we're talking about how to grow your cleaning business or grow your small home service business with digital tools. So I'm super excited and thank you for having me here.
Enmanuel Tejada (01:25.583)
Yeah, absolutely Angela. The pleasure is mine. So Angela, can you give us a little bit of background? I know you've done so much in the cleaning industry. And how did you get into that? Who is Angela Brown? How did you get started in all of this?
@AskAngelaBrown (01:39.274)
Well, I started back in 1991 and I was a waitress at a restaurant and the waitress came to me and she said, this is a manager, she said, would you like to help me in a cleaning business? We can do cleaning houses during the day and we can come wait tables at night. And I said, sure, that sounds like a lot of fun. So I joined her in the cleaning business and I worked for her for exactly one day. And then I quit because our work ethic was really different.
I found that she was picking up rugs and sweeping the dust under the rugs instead of sweeping the dust out from the rugs. And so she thought if she could just hide the dust and kind of move it around a little bit, she'd be good. And I was like, that doesn't sound like cleaning to me. And I didn't want to be associated with that because I thought there should be a higher standard of excellence in the cleaning industry. So I left, it was a great idea, and I earned more money cleaning houses than I did waiting tables. So I said, wait a second, how hard can it be? And the girl that...
was running the cleaning business was not real bright. So, I said, hey, maybe I'm not real bright either. Maybe I can figure this out. So, the following day, I started my own cleaning service. Did not take her client. I went and I found my own client. But I then discovered, I knew nothing about business. And so, I went on a three decades long journey to try to figure out business and how to make it work. And we've run...
Enmanuel Tejada (02:49.05)
Okay.
@AskAngelaBrown (02:59.486)
one of the largest independently owned cleaning companies in North and South Carolina, and also Los Angeles, California. So we did figure it out, and we've maximized our profits along the way. And we've done that through using digital marketing.
Enmanuel Tejada (03:12.343)
Wow, that's an awesome story right there. So when you started your own business, so you mentioned that you were good at cleaning but not in business. What's the name of that book? It kind of reminds me of the E-Myth where it's like a lot of times people that work in businesses they think that they can just go out and start their own but it's different because yes, you may have a particular skill but that doesn't mean you're an entrepreneur. So what were some of the things you struggled with initially as far as running your business?
@AskAngelaBrown (03:42.075)
You mean every step along the way or is there something specifically you're thinking about?
Enmanuel Tejada (03:47.051)
Just in general, yeah, like you were cleaning houses, but what did you struggle with? Was it like getting your next client or making sure that things were the same, the same cleanliness when you hired employees, things like that.
@AskAngelaBrown (04:00.202)
So when I started my business, I didn't know what I didn't know. And I think that's true of all entrepreneurs. So you jump in with this raw enthusiasm and you say, I can do this, not knowing what this is. So I jumped in and said, I can clean, thinking that was the business. That's actually not the business at all, nor is it for most service businesses. We're in the people business and we happen to do what we also do. I'm in the people business, but I happen to clean.
And so when I figured that out, everything started running a lot more smoothly, but I had to take accounting classes and I had to take employee management classes and I had to learn how to deal with customers and I had to learn how to negotiate price. I had to learn how to provide excellent customer service. I had to learn how to market my own business. There were a whole lot of things that I didn't know when I got started. And so let's not beat ourselves up. What do you know? Why new cleaning? Okay, great. Well, you can't clean unless you have customers.
Enmanuel Tejada (04:52.739)
Thank you.
@AskAngelaBrown (04:58.666)
So then one of my earliest courses was a sales and marketing course. I was like, how do I go get customers? Because if you don't have customers, you can't make money. And so if you have customers and you're making money, you can't keep making money unless you know the customer service end of it, which is how to keep and please those customers on a regular basis. And all customers are not created equal. And so somewhere along the way, you have to learn how to manage difficult customers.
How do you recognize the signs of a difficult customer before you say yes to a contract, for example? Lots of things to learn.
Enmanuel Tejada (05:32.907)
Man, I love what you mentioned there too. You mentioned we're in the cleaning business, we just happen to clean. That's a beautiful saying right there. In fact, I know somebody that they're saying is, and they own a roofing company, they're saying is, "we are a marketing company and a recruiting company that just happens to do roofing."
@AskAngelaBrown (05:53.102)
Mm-hmm.
Enmanuel Tejada (05:53.563)
So in your case, you mentioned you're in the cleaning business and you just happened to clean. So what does that mean per se that eventually you as the owner don't want to clean, but you're still in the cleaning business.
@AskAngelaBrown (06:04.358)
No, we're in the people business. So, what happens is every person that hires us is going to hire us for some reason. Is it because they're trying to help their elder parent and they don't have the time to clean their own house? Or is it because they want to live in a beautiful space, but they work full-time and then they've got kids when they get home? Is it because they have other priorities and they're making a whole lot more money and they can outsource their cleaning of their home to someone else? What are the reasons? Everybody has their own reasons.
So when you go to a customer's house, everybody's reasons are different. And so you can't go in and just say, well, I'm here to clean and this is what I do. And then you do the same exact cookie cutter clean on every house. You can't do that because it's not appropriate for every home. A home with five children and five dogs is very different than a professional that has no children and no dogs. And so you have to customize your service and then you have to understand the type of person that you're dealing with. And then something might happen.
So you have a regular customer that you're servicing and you have your own little routine that you do on a regular basis when suddenly their life is upturned. Maybe they get pregnant and now they have a new child in the house or maybe they get a couple of new dogs or a cat or a bird or something. What happens is when you have different things going on in your life, you need somebody who's coming in on a regular basis as a service provider to provide you consistent service even if your life fluctuates a little bit.
And so if we are in the people business, what that means is we have to learn to read people. We have to learn to understand their good moments and their bad moments and how to interact with them. I can't tell you how many houses I've gone to and a good customer that I always get along with suddenly one day will be like, weee! I'm like, whoa, what just happened? That's not me. There's something going on in their life that requires a little bit of compassion. And so because I'm in the people business,
Enmanuel Tejada (07:50.361)
Hahaha
@AskAngelaBrown (07:59.026)
I have to understand, wait a second, maybe they're having a bad day. This is not about me, don't get bent out of shape, continue to do the job that you do, or be sensitive enough to say, hey, this seems like something's going on here today and you're having a tough day, would you prefer that I come back on a different day? And so maybe you have to read the room and then make your own adjustments based on your wisdom, not just your schedule, if you will.
Enmanuel Tejada (08:23.555)
Hmm. Yeah, I can definitely see how that can get in the way, right? Like if you're just following a schedule and you're like, oh, you know, fuck this client, fuck that client Let me just go in and clean the house. That's all I want to do that You know, you can run into hiccups I can imagine with that So those are some amazing points right there. In fact, what you mentioned there too, it's Pleasing the customer right in my case since for example, we were to build a website For a home service company with them. One of the most important factors is the reason why the customer
wants to purchase a service, right? In our case, we brand ourselves as we're the company that helps home service providers when the trust of the homeowner. So I want to ask you this, Angela, when you were out here in your business at first,
How were you winning the trust of the customers, for example? How would you express that when you were marketing yourself, when you were maybe door knocking for new jobs? How would you express that comfort and that you're not gonna do any harm to them and that you really genuinely want to help them?
@AskAngelaBrown (09:26.242)
That's a great question. And I think it's a question that a lot of home service providers ask and worry about. And it comes down to your credentials. What are your credentials? Because credentials build confidence. And so when you go to a customer's house, can you look them straight in the eye? And if you can't, and you're kind of like afraid, many house cleaners are afraid. They're afraid of confrontation. They don't want a customer to say no to them. And so they...
kind of like look around and they're squirmish and whatever, but that does not build confidence. There's a program called Toastmasters International. And if you're not familiar with it, it's like a public speaking course that walks you on a series through eight different segments. And the segments are things that you will use in every sales job for the rest of your life. It's things like eye contact and vocal variety and using hand gestures and speaking in sincerity. And at the end of every focus, like you give a little speech and you focus on one of those elements.
At the end of the element, somebody evaluates you. And they're like, hey, Manny, I loved what you did, but you were skick squirmish with your eyes. You kept darting around the room and you didn't... It made me feel like I didn't trust you or it made me feel like you were lying or you were uncomfortable or whatever. And then you're like, oh, okay, let me focus on that. And so they give you tips and tools that you can then work on as you're perfecting your sales presentations. And so what I recommend is that if you're going to build confidence...
Enmanuel Tejada (10:39.235)
Mm-hmm.
@AskAngelaBrown (10:51.894)
You have to have that as a person. And so what does that look like? When you knock on someone's door, and this happens a lot in the house cleaning industry, where you go to bid a job for someone or do a job estimate, you show up at the customer's house and what do you look like? Do you look like a house cleaner? This is where a lot of house cleaners get tripped up. They go looking like they're just come from church on Sunday and they got their hair all woofy and they're wearing some fancy blouse or something. And then they walk in and...
heels and they're like, hey, I'm here to do a bid. You don't look like a house cleaner. So, there's a disconnect immediately. You have to look like a house cleaner if you're going to go clean someone's house. They have to be able to picture you doing the job, right? If you show up and then you got fingernails that are this long, they're going to go, whoa, how does that work? How can you even hold a sponge with the very long fingernails, right? There are certain things and clues that people look for even at an unconscious level.
Enmanuel Tejada (11:37.249)
Oof.
@AskAngelaBrown (11:49.95)
So the question and the message is, do you meet the criteria of the product you're selling? And if you're not, there's going to be a disconnect and you're not going to get jobs. So then the next thing is you're standing and many people have like little transoms, which are little glass windows next to their front door. And people can look out there and see if the packages have arrived, right? They can also see if there's a house cleaner out there waiting to come in. So if you're out there and you're knocking on the door and this is the first impression that a customer has of you.
Enmanuel Tejada (12:07.787)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
@AskAngelaBrown (12:19.894)
Are you standing up straight? Because if you're slouching and you're looking down at your phone, that's what they see. This is a not confident person that maybe they don't want to be here. They're squirming around on my front porch. Is that the person that I'm going to recommend to all my neighbors that says, hey, this is my house cleaner? And the answer is no. Many times they've already made an impression of you before you open the door. So they're watching you through the ring doorbell. What do they see?
If you showed up from your car and you walked up with confidence to the front door, you were smiling, you had great posture, you banged on the door with confidence, hey, how you doing? When they opened the door, they're like, whoa, this is a house cleaner. Yeah. And you got your clipboard with you. And you say, here's what we do on a walkthrough. And you give them a copy, right? Already you've involved them and you've engaged them in the process. So how do you get through that weird, awkward moment? You got to prepare yourself. You got to know what it is that you sell.
You got to know what it is you don't sell because the customer is going to ask you, oh, do you do this? That's not what we do. This is what we do. Right? You can't agree to stuff and set unrealistic expectations just because you want the job. So if you're confident, you know your pricing, you know your product, you're well prepared, well rehearsed, boom, you're good to go.
Enmanuel Tejada (13:27.031)
Hmm.
Enmanuel Tejada (13:38.395)
I love that. I love that. And on that same topic that you mentioned at the end of what it is that you don't sell, what are some of those experiences that you've had where you say yes to a job that you really don't do or that you don't specialize in? How do you avoid that? And how did you deal with that one at the time?
@AskAngelaBrown (13:57.834)
Well, I mean, if it's in cleaning, a lot of people have requests. And are the requests part of your regular service or is that an upsell? Imagine if you were to go to a restaurant and you go to the restaurant and there's a menu of items. And you go in and you say, wow, I would like to have a burger and fries. And they say, great, here's a burger and fries and some ice cream. They just threw the ice cream in. That's nice and it's awesome, but you didn't pay for it. And it's hard to run a business if you're giving away a lot of freebies.
Enmanuel Tejada (14:23.64)
Mm-hmm.
@AskAngelaBrown (14:27.006)
And so knowing what you don't sell is knowing what services are not on your menu. So when I show up at a customer's house and I have a clipboard and I say, here's what we normally do on a maintenance clean. And I'd like to find out your priorities, Manny. Let's take a walk through your house and you tell me how you use each room. And I will point out to you along the way what we do on a maintenance clean, what we save until a deep clean, which happens four times a year, and then any special projects that we don't do on a deep clean or a maintenance clean. Is that fair? And they're like, yeah, that's fair.
Okay, what happens is when we go through, excuse me, this always happens. We get to the kitchen and somebody is like, oh, can you clean out my oven? And I'm like, yes, we can, but that's not part of the maintenance or the deep clean. That's like the dessert at the end of the meal, right? We do offer it as a special package, and it's an upsell that you can pay for at a separate time or you can pay for it now, and we'll put together that package for you, but we don't do that on a maintenance or a deep clean. And they're like, oh.
Enmanuel Tejada (15:12.069)
Right.
@AskAngelaBrown (15:24.33)
What we're saying is, sure, you can order the burger and fries, but the ice cream is separate. That's called a dessert. And on our menu, we have drinks and appetizers and desserts that are all separate from our regular main course. You're like, oh, now I know how this menu works, right? It's not that you don't offer the service. It's that you don't offer it on a regular maintenance clean. And a lot of house cleaners just kind of throw everything into the same bundle because they think that they're selling an all-you-can-eat buffet.
No, that's not the case. It's actually a menu service. So in order to keep your profits in alignment with what the customer's paying for and the time you have allotted to clean the house, because it is a physical labor job, you only have so many hours to clean. You can't do all the stuff all the time.
Enmanuel Tejada (16:05.635)
Mm-hmm.
Enmanuel Tejada (16:11.435)
Wow, that's great. And so what would you do in that situation? Let's say that somebody comes to you and they want to add additional things, right? Like, let's say that you, they signed up to clean the kitchen and the stove and the refrigerator. But then now they also want you to take out the garbage, for example, because I'm sure in a lot of home services, that's a very common thing. I know a lot of the landscapers I work with, they do the mulching and they do the flowers, but then the customer comes out, it's like, Oh, can you also mow this part of the lawn? Can you also do this? So how do you deal with that situation? where they're asking,
you for something, but you don't want to be rude, but you do it. I guess it just pull out an invoice right there or tell them, no, I can't do it right now. What's the best way to go about that?
@AskAngelaBrown (16:50.926)
I'm glad you asked that question because every house cleaner asks that question at some point. The reason being is because without really clear boundaries and clear expectations, it's easy for a customer to say, oh, hey, can you do this? And then create some wiggle room in the scope of work. Now, as a cleaning business owner, I want to tell you there's no wiggle room in the scope of work. If I have allotted three hours for you to be there and I have another customer three hours later at the next house.
You don't have four and a half hours to spend at one customer's house because you're obligated to go somewhere else. And I'm not trying to be ugly, but that's just how you run a business. And so what we have to do is this. We have to set clear expectations right up front. So when I come to your house the very first time to do a walkthrough and to give you a job estimate, I'm going to walk through the house and I'm going to talk to you and you're going to share with me how you use the rooms in your house and what your priorities are. And together we're going to come up with a game plan.
of how we're going to clean it and the price and the frequency. Is that fair? Okay, cool. Awesome. At the end of that walkthrough, we'll put you on the schedule, on the calendar, and we'll give you a price. Now, if there's anything that we discussed that is not a priority, it's not included in the package and it's not included in the price and we're not going to do it when we come. If I get to your house and you change the scope of work, I got to change the price.
Enmanuel Tejada (17:52.131)
Thank you.
@AskAngelaBrown (18:15.774)
And so what we request that you do is then you call the office and you say, hey, I know that my mother-in-law is coming in from out of town and she's going to be staying with us for a week and my oven is a mess. I got to have my oven cleaned. That's great. Already when we got to your kitchen and you said, hey, do you clean the oven? We don't. That's a special package. We do any five appliances for 250 bucks. So anytime you want that package done, call me up and we'll put it on the schedule. I might not be the one that comes to clean. I might send somebody else on my team that only does the appliance package.
but we will make sure that when your mother-in-law comes, your dishwasher is sparkling, your garbage disposal is sparkling, your refrigerator is cleaned out, your freezer has been defrosted, your oven shines from top to bottom, and you're going to go, yes, that's what I'm looking for. Awesome, okay, cool. So at any time you can call and pick up the phone and add that to your package, but that's not going to happen on any of our cleanings that we're scheduling right now. And so, because you know that, it's like saying, hey,
Enmanuel Tejada (18:54.787)
Thank you.
@AskAngelaBrown (19:11.262)
If you want to go to the bar at this restaurant and you want to order a stiff drink, that is going to be an extra fee. That is not part of the drinks that are included inside the regular meal when you order drinks. Does that make sense?
Enmanuel Tejada (19:23.547)
It does make sense. Yeah. And now that person knows that if they want that drink, they can have it, but they have to pay extra for it, or they know what's going to happen in order for them to be able to get it.
@AskAngelaBrown (19:32.718)
Right, right. And along with that comes extra responsibilities. If you go to the bar and you have a few drinks, the extra responsibility is you got to hand over your car keys to someone else who is then going to drive you home or you got to call an Uber, right? There are different parameters now that have happened because the scope of the situation changed. And it's the same in the cleaning business. If the scope of work changes, stuff changes, the price changes, the surrounding factors around it change. It might be a different day. It might be a different person.
We might bring a different set of equipment, all that kind of stuff.
Enmanuel Tejada (20:06.051)
1000%. I love the fact that you explained it that way because those analogies are really, really on point. And I have a question actually Angela for you. So I know that when you first started your cleaning company, you were in the early 2000s, right? And at the time really the internet was just coming out. So I'm assuming that you had to do a lot of door knocking or maybe you had to get the phone book out and start cold calling people to be able to get new leads.
kind of become a thing, were you guys leveraging it from the start or were you guys kind of late to that?
@AskAngelaBrown (20:42.894)
I was so late, I didn't get started until 2017. Yeah, so 17 years into my business before we really discovered the internet. And I knew it existed, I avoided it at all costs because we did really, really well on word of mouth. And so they say that's the best form of advertising and we maximized it. When we would run a flyer in a new neighborhood, our flyer said, this is the only flyer you're ever going to get from us.
Enmanuel Tejada (20:46.915)
Wow.
@AskAngelaBrown (21:09.326)
And so if you don't need a cleaning service today, hang on to this because we work by referral only. And we're expanding into your neighborhood today, which is why we're introducing ourselves. But after today, that's it. We're not gonna keep hounding you with flyers. And so two, three, four, five years later, people would call and say, do you still do house cleaning? I still have your flyer. And we're like, yes. And then we would go over, but we worked off of referrals. And we were very specific about the way we asked for referrals. So when you ask...
But the question about was I late to the internet game? Yes, I was. And it wasn't until I pivoted in my business and I decided to sell my business and then go training all in at 2017. And we had a lifestyle change then. We had a troubled teenager come to live with us. And she was violent and destructive and suicidal and a whole bunch of things. And I needed to sell my business so that I could care for her 24 seven. And in the process of that, I was like, whoa, how do I still make money if I'm not cleaning houses and running this big cleaning empire?
Enmanuel Tejada (22:03.848)
Thank you.
@AskAngelaBrown (22:06.57)
And the answer was, there's this thing called the internet. And I knew nothing about it. And I'm like, oh dear, I'm going to have to learn a whole bunch of new skills.
Enmanuel Tejada (22:09.655)
Thank you.
Enmanuel Tejada (22:15.955)
Wow, that's a pretty crazy story right there. So, and I, cause this is something I always think of, Angela, I always think to myself.
You know, how did companies before the internet, right? How, how did they get like the successful businesses? How did they get so big? Cause right now it's so easy, right? If you wanted to run some Google ads and you have a very good website, you can pay for the traffic and the people that visit the website get converted into a paying customer. If the website is good. Now that wasn't a thing in the nineties and the eighties in the early 2000s. So how can you walk us through that? Like you mentioned that you had the strategy with the door hangers.
How did you come up with that idea? Because I've never heard of that actually. Because what you mentioned was you had them hang on to the door hanger and they would hang on to it for years and when they needed the service, then they would call. I've never heard of that. Can you speak about that a little bit more?
@AskAngelaBrown (23:09.698)
Well, ultimately, people are going to talk about you. Either it's bad and they're going to go, oh my goodness, you're not going to believe what my house cleaner did. She skipped this, and this. Or they're going to talk about you and say, what an amazing house cleaner I had. And we have a choice. As a business owner, we have a choice. Which one are you going to be? And which conversation is going to be said about you? So we decided that we would aim for affordability, consistent service, and reliability.
Enmanuel Tejada (23:19.331)
Mm.
@AskAngelaBrown (23:37.962)
And I don't know why, but everybody that I talked to said, I fired my last house cleaner because I never knew when they were coming. I said, what? No, they cleaned just fine. They were a good company and everything. I just didn't know when they were coming. Sometimes they'd show up at eight o'clock, sometimes they'd show up at noon, sometimes they didn't come at all. They would cancel on me, they would reschedule. And I said, well, wait a second. If I'm just reliable and consistent, then I'm hired forever? That's really great.
Enmanuel Tejada (24:05.608)
Thank you.
@AskAngelaBrown (24:06.25)
So there were a few things that we did that were not brain science. These were just like little tiny things that we would tweak because customers we found work off of a schedule. Oh wait, all doctors appointments are on schedules. Schools are on schedules. Classes are on schedules. Buses are on schedules. Airports are on schedules. How come house cleaners can't follow a schedule? What is going on? So what we did is we decided we would be different by being reliable, which doesn't seem like a very hard thing to do, but.
It's make a schedule and stick to it. When we stuck to a schedule, the things that got out around town about us was you could set your clock by the time that they're gonna arrive. They are exactly on time, every single time without fail. They come on time, they leave on time. They come and they do the job they're supposed to do and it's consistent every single time. We did things that would then paint a picture of consistency. For example, I wear this blue shirt. I've been wearing this blue shirt for 30 years.
Enmanuel Tejada (24:45.053)
Yeah.
@AskAngelaBrown (25:03.562)
Now that seems a little excessive, but I'll share with you this. When I show up at a customer's house and I'm wearing the same clothes, my hair is in the same way, my cleaning caddy is stocked, fully stocked and organized, my car is clean and I pull up and I park in the same spot. What message does that send the customer? It sends them a message that the cleaning is consistent.
Enmanuel Tejada (25:19.371)
consistency.
@AskAngelaBrown (25:24.646)
If I rolled out of bed and my hair was in a ponytail, and the next day it was just pulled up in a bun, and then the next day it was a messy bun, and then the next time I showed up it was just hanging down, whatever. What happens is every single time the customer sees you, there's something different. And unconsciously they start saying, what is different this time? And so, because you're there to clean, they start looking at your cleaning, and they start finding inconsistencies in the cleaning. But the goal is to be exact every single time.
And if we have agreed to something, I want to do the same cleaning every single time. And I mentioned before, we don't want to cookie cutter cleaning until we have agreed with the customer what that is, what is the price and how long is it going to take. And then we want to maximize that by doing it the same every single time so that when they walk in, they look around the room and go, yes, she had all the hot pockets. We know exactly what she did while she was here. And I leave a checklist every single time because that's my satisfaction guarantee.
You asked me about the consistency of the door hangers. What we're looking for are the little tiny steps along the way that are gonna make our customers recommend us. And you work by referral only when customers recommend you, but they cannot recommend you if your picture is always changing, if your job is always changing, and your workflow is always changing, and your scope of work is always changing, and your price is always changing.
It's really hard to recommend that because what are they recommending? But if they know exactly you're gonna show up at eight o'clock in the morning and you're gonna get out of your clean car and you're gonna have a cleaning caddy in both hands and you're gonna come and you're gonna start here and you're gonna do the whole job and you're gonna be done at noon, whatever your project is for them, what's easy is this, if you get sick or if you have a family emergency or if you have to send another cleaner and they can follow the system because you've trained them appropriately, they're gonna do the exact same thing.
They're going to show up in a blue shirt and their hair is going to be pulled back and they're going to have the cleaning caddy that's fully stocked. And they're going to come in and they're going to start at one side of the house and they're going to follow the scope of work and they're going to fill out a checklist when they're done. And the customer is going to walk in and they're going to see on the ring doorbell that a new face arrived, but the cleaning is exactly the same and it was done the exact same way. And so what happens is they turn around and they say to their neighbors, you're not going to believe we get the same cleaning every single time. And the customer is like, I need that. And so they're going to hire you based on...
@AskAngelaBrown (27:47.362)
There was a process. It's like if you go to a restaurant and I recommend a meal and I say, you gotta have the piccata chicken because it's this, that and the other and I explain the dish to you, when you get there and it looks exactly like that, you're gonna go, whoa, it's exactly like you told me. But if you get to that restaurant and it comes in, it has refried beans on the side, they ran out of chicken so they gave you some lamb instead. And then they gave you some, I don't know, grits instead of potatoes.
Enmanuel Tejada (28:01.817)
Thank you.
@AskAngelaBrown (28:14.934)
You're going to go, well, this is not exactly what I was promised. You're never going to go back and you're not going to recommend it to your friends because you don't know what it is you got. It didn't look like what you thought you were going for. And so if there's a picture that's painted, and this is how you work off of referral only, but if there's a picture that's painted and the customer gets it and they receive exactly what was painted, they're going to go, oh my goodness, this is amazing. I wasn't tricked. I got exactly what I thought I was getting. They're going to turn around and recommend you to the next person.
So you have to make your sales process so seamless that it's easy to understand and that they can turn around, I say they meaning the customers, can turn around and sell you to their friends and or their neighbors. And if your customers can sell you to their friends and neighbors, you will never lack for a word.
Enmanuel Tejada (29:05.535)
Wow round of applause right there round of applause right there for you Angela and I didn't even think of what you mentioned before of parking in the same spot every time Wearing the same hairstyle every time making sure that wow like those are small details that
I missed and I can imagine other people miss them all the time. But the fact that you were able to point that out is very, very impressive because you really, really know your industry. I think that's an amazing tip right there. And now my next question is,
When you were with your team, right, you guys were systemized because you guys had systems. But how do you keep track? Again, this was in the early 2000s. You guys really weren't leveraging the internet too much or any of the online tools. How were you guys keeping things organized and repeatable? Like how do you know that this client needs this done? How do you know that client only needs that done? How did that work?
@AskAngelaBrown (29:57.418)
Well, I wasn't really keen on the internet, but I was keen on a customer relationship management database. And at the time it was called FileMaker Pro. Right now we use a program called Fluent CRM. There are a lot of different programs and softwares that are on the market today, but basically here's what it is. It is a way to track all of your customers so that you know their names and their birthdays and their anniversaries and all of the details about them. So every time you have a conversation, you learn something new.
Enmanuel Tejada (30:04.913)
Yeah.
@AskAngelaBrown (30:24.642)
You learn the names of their kids, the brother that lives in California, the grandmother that lives in Colorado, you learn their dog's names and all the things. And so what happens before every single job, and we had this on our database and then we pulled it up and at the time we didn't have smartphones. We ran businesses for years with no smartphones, but at the time we would print it out and it was a work order. And so you go to a customer's house with a work order and you'd look up all the details.
And before we arrived at the customer's house, we did this on every house that we went to. We would try to get to the customer's house five or six minutes early. And we would sit in the car down the street before we pulled up and parked in that exact same spot. We would park down the street and we would go over all the notes. We'd say, okay, the brother that lives in California, his name is Peter, and he's kind of between jobs and he comes for visits on occasion. Okay, great. Now their anniversary is this week.
Okay, great. Now, those are two pieces of information you want to remind yourself of because in the course of every day, that stuff's going to slip your mind. Now, you go to the customer's house and you say, hey, I want to really make sure that I do a great job for you because your anniversary is this week. Whoa, how did you know? And then it's just a surprise, right? But it makes it look like you're really paying attention to their lifestyle. Or you might arrive at the house and like there's a stranger there and you're like, you must be Peter. He's like, yes, how did you know? And then he's going to tell the homeowner like...
Enmanuel Tejada (31:33.744)
Hahaha.
@AskAngelaBrown (31:49.358)
How did the house cleaner know that I'm from California and who I am? Oh, I must've mentioned you sometime. So there are little tiny things that will keep coming up in conversation and you always want to call their animals by name. Their animals are like pets. And so if it's just, hey dog, not cool. Okay. But if you can say, hey, Layla, how you doing? They're going to go, wow, even the house cleaner remembers my dog's name. Right? They're little tiny things. I don't remember every dog's names. I don't.
Enmanuel Tejada (32:06.099)
Hahaha
@AskAngelaBrown (32:17.13)
But before I would go to a customer's house, I review all the details. And that way, if there's anything new, like, oh, Scotty is in soccer and there's a big tournament coming up. So if in chance I see the homeowner, I can say, hey, how's the soccer coming? How's the game going? If I run into Scotty, I can say, hey, how you doing in soccer? If I don't see the homeowner, I can leave a note on the bottom of my worksheet. Okay, this is the work that was done for the day. Hope you guys have fun at the soccer games this weekend.
Whoa, wait a second. That's what gets you recommended. It's the little tiny details that you tweak and you make it your own. And so I've been really big into customer management, relationship, software, way back when, for the reason that it's the way that we keep email contact with our customers and do email marketing. It's the way that we remember birthdays and can send a handwritten note for their birthday or can leave one at the house when their birthday's coming up. It's the way that we keep track of
This is a really high maintenance customer and we want to make sure that we are managing that properly from the back end. So that if I send someone in my place, I want to prep my customer and I want to prep the person that's going to be dealing with the high maintenance customer so they both have a really pleasant experience. So those are things that we keep track of with the customer relationship management database. So the technology has been around forever, as long as anybody's kept records of customers.
but you have to keep really good customer records and you got to stay on top of it. Because if you let it slip by and you just kind of have a whole bunch of customers and you're just going to a house, you're going to lose really big time in the business. It's not a house, you're in the people business and you happen to clean.
Enmanuel Tejada (34:00.163)
Thanks for watching!
a beautiful, that's a beautiful, beautiful thing right there. And even then you guys were using a CRM, right? So nowadays, cause I know that you also do coaching, right? You're this heavy cleaning people can sign up for coaching guys, whoever's watching this. If you, if you're in the cleaning business, by the way, you need to get in contact with Angela. You can already tell that she's an expert by this conversation. So definitely reach out to her. And my question, Angela is now that you're, you know, now that you sold your business and now you're coaching,
@AskAngelaBrown (34:24.234)
Thank you.
Enmanuel Tejada (34:30.821)
businesses. Now we have some more phones and there's different CRMs that we can use. Do you recommend a specific one today? Can you repeat the names of those two that you mentioned? Are you guys still using that today?
@AskAngelaBrown (34:43.822)
Well, what we switched to over the last couple of years is not what we've used in the past. And we have evolved as many small businesses have evolved. And when you start going on a global scale, you then, you know, you scale your software and your solutions. One of the solutions that we've scaled is the Fluent products. So we were with FileMaker Pro, and that's a customer relationship management database that's housed somewhere else. And so we switched and we came to Fluent CRM, which lives inside your WordPress database.
Enmanuel Tejada (34:51.157)
Mm-hmm.
@AskAngelaBrown (35:12.942)
so that all of your information is inside your WordPress site. And then we had another program that was called like ConvertKit, and that was the email marketing program that we used that would send out reminders and things like that. We moved to a program that was SMTP, that was built inside the Fluent Suite. And the Fluent Suite also has Fluent Support, and it also has a social media checklist where you can get ratings and reviews and all the different things. And it was several different pieces of software that integrate with each other.
Enmanuel Tejada (35:29.704)
Mm-hmm.
@AskAngelaBrown (35:41.622)
And it's a young startup company that I say startup, they're young, they're a few years old, but I found that every one of their tools is spot on. So the minute that they release a new product, they have agency lifetime deals, and I will buy the agency lifetime deal because now Savvy Cleaner has several brands. And so we have 11 different brands under the Savvy Cleaner name. And so every one of those has its own individual website, and every one of those has the same set of tools.
Enmanuel Tejada (35:56.673)
Mm-hmm.
@AskAngelaBrown (36:09.33)
And so for me, just like we did in the house cleaning business, and we'll talk about digital tools for a second, but as we started going online and then marketing online and doing email marketing online and customer service online and making sure that we were doing all the different things online, what was important to me is that just like I hired a house cleaner and I would have them go out and repeat the exact same process, I want any of our technicians to be able to jump out of one website and jump into another one and pick up right where they left off.
So we're using the same plugins and the same tools and the same setup and everything so that it's a seamless process for any of the independent contractors that we've hired or anybody that's on staff that has a particular role to do. I don't want to trip anybody up and like every time they show up, there's like a whole new set of plugins and a whole new set of rules and whatever. Let's make it really easy for everyone across the board. Our focus and our motto is easy and effortless because we're all here to make money because we have bills to pay.
but nobody wants to spend all their time just learning the basics of their job. Once they learn the basics of their job, they can become very creative and very proficient and then just follow the system and then everyone wins.
Enmanuel Tejada (37:17.428)
right.
Enmanuel Tejada (37:21.555)
I like how you mentioned that you've carried that over the same aspect of being repeatable from your cleaning business now to the other brands that you've started. So that's definitely that's the way you run your life now I would imagine now.
@AskAngelaBrown (37:35.146)
Well, the goal is how much time do you have, and then you have decision fatigue. And if you're spending all of your time just getting to work and getting set up and getting going, there's not a lot of time for progression, if you will. And so if you can remove all of the background noise from your life. And for me, like I said, I've been wearing the same shirt, not the same one, I got like 17 of them, excuse me, but it's the same uniform every day. In all my videos, I wear the same...
Enmanuel Tejada (37:58.327)
Okay.
Enmanuel Tejada (38:02.548)
Right.
@AskAngelaBrown (38:04.642)
the same outfit. Well, here's where it gets really cool. I've done over 3000 videos in the same outfit. So if I was going to do a pickup shot on something, I can grab something from five years ago, I can grab something from yesterday, I can grab something from two days from now, and I can piece it all together and it looks like one video. So the cool part about it is, you can streamline what you're doing if you future-proof your business. So the question is, what are you doing today to future-proof your business?
Enmanuel Tejada (38:23.003)
Hmm.
@AskAngelaBrown (38:32.194)
Do you have a support system in place? Do you have a document or a knowledge-based system in place on your website? Do you have a customer relationship management that will fire off automatic emails when a customer completes a job that says, thank you for the business, or something that says, hey, we have a new service that we've just announced, or, hey, it's that time of year again, we're sneaking up on the holidays. How about that five appliance package for Thanksgiving and or Christmas?
There are reminders that are seasonal at a certain time of the year. And so if you have a system that's in place and you have emails from all your customers, you can send out regular reminders. Many house cleaners, and I'm not trying to be ugly, but many don't even have their customers' email addresses. They're like, I don't know, they called me and they texted me and I just have their phone number. Okay. Well, unless they've opted in on your SMS program, you can't just start randomly advertising and texting them. Right?
Enmanuel Tejada (39:16.867)
Mm.
@AskAngelaBrown (39:28.17)
So you have to either register that and make that a part of your marketing, or you gotta have them opt into your email program and or your newsletter. And if you don't have a newsletter, how are you staying in touch with your customers? So you gotta have all that stuff in place and that's all digital marketing. And that's what you do, Manny.
Enmanuel Tejada (39:45.911)
That is what I do. Yeah. And man, Angela, it's been, it's been incredible having you on. And the things that you've said, the gems that you have provided us here are invaluable. And I really, really hope that the listeners here reach out to you because working with you, I can already imagine it in my head is working with an expert. You're going to go to somebody, you're going to invest in yourself.
in coaching and they're going to tell you exactly what you need to do instead of you running around like a crazy chicken with your head cut off, trying this, trying that, trying this. And I'm a huge fan of coaching myself. One last question, Angela, because I do want to be respectful of your time. When you were piecing together every single aspect of your business, who did you look to for coaching? Who inspired you? Who did you get motivation from?
@AskAngelaBrown (40:31.522)
That's a trick question because it wasn't one person. I'm a firm believer that you need to go to the experts. And so if I'm looking for accounting, I don't want to go to my dad. He wasn't the expert in accounting for me. I want to go to an accountant who specializes in accounting and they've done it all day, every day for years. When I'm looking for creating a website, I don't want to go to my mom. She can crochet, but she's not a web designer. I want to go to the best web designer I can find. And I want to learn as much as I possibly can. And so if you're looking for different aspects of your business, because you will.
Enmanuel Tejada (40:47.668)
Hehehe
@AskAngelaBrown (41:01.378)
Go to the person that specializes in QuickBooks if you're using QuickBooks. If you're using Fluent CRM, go to the specialist that specializes in or created Fluent CRM. If you're going to go to somebody that specializes in employee management, go to somebody that specializes in employee management. So you're going to have thousands of coaches along the way, but go to the expert that has proven they know what they're talking about and can do the specialty that you're looking for.
because it doesn't make sense spinning all of your wheels and spending all of your money going to somebody that is gonna kind of learn it at the same time that you're learning it. Doesn't make sense. Go to the expert that does the thing you wanna learn. And those are my coaches. I'm not trying to be vague, but that is my best tip because I've had thousands of coaches over the years that have taught me a whole variety of different things. And so if you're learning email marketing, go to the email marketing expert.
Enmanuel Tejada (41:53.099)
Go to the expert. I love it, I love it. Well, Angela, thank you so much again for being on this podcast. Do you have any closing thoughts? And also, how can the listeners get in contact with you, whether they want your coaching, or they want advice, or they want help from any of your 11 businesses that you run, how can they reach you?
@AskAngelaBrown (42:10.458)
You can find me, I'm on all the social media, AskAngelaBrown, at AskAngelaBrown, just a little at sign. And you can find me on all the social medias. My YouTube show is called Ask a House Cleaner, and that's on YouTube. The closing advice that I would suggest, and this is probably the best piece of advice I've ever learned from business. We're all in business for different reasons, but it's pretty much because we have bills to pay and we have to make money. But you will thrive in business if you will learn one new thing a day.
that you can apply in your business. And I don't mean just learn it. I mean apply it, learn it and apply it every single day in your business. And you will fall so far leaps and bounds above all of your competition within a matter of just a couple of years. If you learn 365 new things that you apply about your business every single year, you're gonna leave your competitors in the dust and there's not gonna be anybody that can hold a candle to you.
Enmanuel Tejada (43:05.767)
That's amazing. Learn one thing, not just learn, apply. Learn and apply. That is the motto for the rest of today guys. Learn and apply. Let's go Angela. That was an amazing podcast. Thank you so much for being on. Yup. Absolutely. And maybe we'll even do a part two. Maybe I'll even come on your show. We'll see what happens.
@AskAngelaBrown (43:09.482)
Apply. Learn and apply.
@AskAngelaBrown (43:20.93)
Thank you for having me. This was fun.
@AskAngelaBrown (43:28.77)
That'd be awesome.
Enmanuel Tejada (43:30.347)
Awesome guys, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode with Angela Brown. Definitely check her out. Definitely reach out to her. Hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Have an amazing rest of your day or evening.