BRCbuilders e-zine

Dear Reader,

"Ahh, employees", my friend Larry said. "Can't live without 'em and can't live without 'em!" I tried to correct him, "You mean can't live WITH them and can't live without them". "No, I mean I don't know how anyone could live without them", he continued.

Knowing what he meant and agreeing wholeheartedly, but not wanting him to stop with his diatribe, I let him go on.

"Scott, you know how it is. Employees can make or break a company, but hiring and retaining the right employees make so much more money for my company that it would be nonsensical to even attempt to run my business alone." He went on, "There's no way I could have done what I've done by myself - NO WAY"

We chit-chatted a bit more and I walked away from the conversation wishing everyone could grasp Larry's words of wisdom. Larry owns an incredibly successful landscape business and has around 75 employees on staff 3/4 of the year and about 25 1/4 of the year. He owns many rental properties in Michigan and Florida, and his success was leveraged from profits derived from his landscape business.

In this issue, I'm going to show you how you can build your empire with your brains and the legwork of others. Not only that, I'll show you why remaining a one man show could be the worst business decision you could ever make.

This is a profound e-zine and I expect there will be some who don't like what I have to say. I'm fine with that, but it's time the truth be told.

First things first. Let's explore the service industry and get a picture of what we're up against so that we can get a better understanding of what it is our customers truly care about.

Many, if not most, service business owners enter the field for a few primary reasons. Number one - the new service business owner almost always knows they can do a better job than the competition. I'll bet if I took 10 cleaning business owners and stuck them in the same room and asked, "ok, which one of you is best?" I'd get 10 raised hands. Cool, now we know that these 10 pride-driven business owners all know they're the best.

Let's assume these same 10 business owners all serviced the same service area. Now we have 10 owners telling the same neighborhoods they're the best. Meanwhile, an employee-based franchise "owns" the same service area. Instead of 10 owners who do the work, this company has 1 owner, 1 manager, and 8 employees doing the work. The employees are paid well and don't much care that they're not owners - they will tell you they're the best and let their volume speak for their success.

Another primary reason people get into the service business is because they're tired of working for "the man". Perhaps they had a micromanaging supervisor who reigned in all the power and took all the credit. I was in the Air Force for 10 years, I know all about that. In fact this is the main reason I left the AF and got into this business - I was sick of being underappreciated AND underpaid.

A third common reason is the anticipated profits that business ownership "promises". A common entry pitfall is the belief, "just do your best and the money will follow". Most of us know that's a laughable statement because there's so much more to it than merely cleaning carpets or cleaning up after a fire or flood. There's marketing, financial knowledge, equipment maintenance, cashflow management, etc. etc.

I hope that you've started to see a pattern starting to develop here. Owners get into the business primarily for the 3 reasons above, which can be summed up with 3 words - pride, accomplishment, and pay. There are a few exceptions, sure, but I'd be willing to bet most readers of this e-zine fall into at least one and perhaps all 3 categories.

Now let's move to employees. Most employees fall under variances of the 3 categories described for owners too. The very best - the cream of the crop - want the same things you do. They work for pride, accomplishment, and pay, just like you. With that said, why is it so scary and difficult (or at least perceived to be) to hire and retain "clones" of you? Let's get to that now.

Your employees take some of the profits and virtually none of the risk that you have. Therefore, in order to limit YOUR risk, simply setting up checks and balances will ensure your employees are well within your system. If they break the rules, they break the system and then it's time for the system (not you) to correct them. But I digress - if you've done your due diligence with a thorough background check, looked at their work history (we don't hire anyone that jumps job-to-job, no matter if he appears to be the best employee to ever walk the face of God's green earth), hire the smile, teach them and enforce the system (rules), you limit your risk of low quality and liability practically to zero.

I can hear some now. "Who needs the hassle? I can do it myself". Sure, you can clean carpeting, upholstery, tile/grout, do some minor flood work alone, etc., but the things that truly matter in your life - especially long term - WILL SUFFER. We only go around once in life and doing all of the details that sap your time, energy, and resources is unhealthy. Speaking of unhealthy, what would happen, God forbid, you broke your ankle and were down for the count for a month...or longer? I hate to be the bearer of bad news but events don't wait for cleaners. When your customer is ready to clean, they need it NOW, not 2 months from now when your ankle is healed.

There is a happy medium and that's one where employees are "cloned" to be like you. Believe it or not, most employees are not out to rob you blind and tarnish your image - the ones who are employable genuinely want to help you succeed. Don't you owe it to your customers to satisfy their time needs?

Another objection I hear from those who have been in the "Vicious Circle" (that's where an owner hires, gets fed up, fires, hires someone else, gets fed up, fires, over and over again) is that "nobody is as good as me". When I was a cleaner, I thought that too. I'm here to tell you if you set up the parameters of success to benefit the entire company, your employees WILL surprise you. Sure, sometimes an employee isn't cut out to be in the position they're in - get 'em out then - quick - and find someone else who is cut out for the position. I've hired many employees over the years in ANY economy, so don't give me the old line, "it's different here" because I ain't buying it!

Larry was right, "Employees: Can't live without 'em and can't live without 'em!" There is no way I could ever do without employees. There's not enough time in a day for one person (or even 2 people) to do all of the tasks required to grow a thriving cleaning and restoration business. Your customers don't care that it's not "you" that's cleaning, they just want to be assured that it's YOU who is in charge, who created your "clones", and along the way that if there is ever a problem YOU (your company, not you personally) will take care of it.

I'll leave employee "cloning" and systemization to another e-zine; just know that you and your systems are the biggest variable in your ultimate success with and without employees.

Become Wildly Successful!

Pembertons - 2006 - Date TBD

Flooring Institute of Ontario - Fall or Winter 2006

My site is 99.00% complete now. I've updated the "landing" audio message and continually update the cleaning blog, so be sure to check back often. About the last things left to add are a few more testimonials I've recently received.

Take a look at it and see what you think. If you have suggestions, I'm always "all ears".

Click to go to my Cleaning Mentor website

Scott

INTERESTING NOTE: Within 1 month, I went from a zero to a hero, according to Google. Approximately 85% of the time (and growing) if you type "cleaning mentor" in google, my site pops up first - and that's still with a ZERO pagerank. (It takes lots of links to get a nice pagerank, but the site still consistently pops up above page ranks of 4-6)

I'm considering doing a teleseminar or online tutorial regarding getting that illustrious 1,2,or 3 on Google but need a bit of pushing to do it as I don't have much free time. If you're genuinely interested in learning how you can propel your site to the top 3 or above in Google like I did, QUICKLY, shoot me an email and I'll consider it based on the feedback I receive. SR

I spoke with them today and they thank you for your generosity, care, good thoughts, and love. They're still several months away from re-building, unfortunately, but have started to do a few cleaning jobs per week. They're still chasing down the insurance companies and trying to get some level of "normalcy" back, but they have a long ways to go.

If you haven't donated, please consider doing so. I've written extensively about their losses and don't want to bore you with the gory details once again, so I won't. They still need your help - badly - and are still too proud to ask for it.

My buddy, Paul "Industry Giant", has stepped up to the plate to give some great freebies if you donate a few $$ to the Tsao's. If you donate $50-$99.99, he'll send you a few letters which helped him add $500k to his total sales in a few years. If you send $100 and over, he'll not only send you the letters, but also a few more bonuses worth a few hundred $$.

Please email me if you haven't yet donated to Tom and Liana's Tornado fund, but wish to. Thank you!