#2: Building a Luxury Home Assistant Business with Simone Angell

Coming up next on the Filthy Rich Cleaners Podcast. Being naive and being ignorant can sometimes be a beautiful thing because you don't know what's coming down the line. I have the burden of knowledge now to know how hard it is. From your first dollar to your first million, welcome to the Filthy Rich Cleaners Podcast, presented by ZenMade. Join your host Stephanie Pipkin, founder of Serene Clean, as she shares proven tips, tricks, and harder lessons. Whether you're just starting out or ready to scale, get ready to discover how to build your own cleaning empire. Let's roll up our sleeves and dive in. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners Podcast. And I am super excited about our guest today Simone, all the way from Australia. And she has a fascinating journey, a fascinating business, especially to me. And I have a million questions, but first Simone, thank you for your time. And how about you just start out? Tell us about your history. You have a really interesting backstory and very motivational message. Okay, yeah, amazing. Thanks so much for having me Stephanie. I've been looking forward to today. So my business house mom is almost five years old. I started it in January of 2020 as a single mom of five at the time. And basically I just wanted to bring all creative service that could come in and do so much more than just cleaning because I understood as a busy mom that there's so much more to running a household than just bathrooms, kitchen floors, dusting, you know, all the general cleaning. That's what about, you know, folding washing and doing dishes and just supporting busy families with those extra tasks. So that's what I did. I grew very quickly and still here five years later with a beautiful team and continuing to grow. Yeah, that's amazing. And we actually have fairly similar, I guess, timelines. I started in April of 2019, so you being 2020, right? We have similar aged businesses. And I'm curious what time of year because obviously with COVID, COVID was going full blast then tell me about that. Because I know what that was like for me as a new business owner. So was that terrifying? It was so I started it in January of that year. And so it was only by March, things was sort of really ramping up and it became quite real here in Australia. And so it was, I just had those thoughts like, what have I done? Like what are trying to start a business? You know, but actually it seemed to work well in my favour because borders were closed. So there was no international students getting in to the country, which a lot of people do usually rely on international students for cleaning services. So people were reaching out to me because they needed someone to help. And then I was also getting people coming to work for me because they were losing jobs in the industry because they were shouting down. So I had people coming from the beauty industry or hospitality and things like that. So it did work well in my favour, if I say so. Yeah, that's similar to us especially because we offer commercial services, a lot of the businesses that were deemed essential needed a bunch of that. And then everybody was working from home and losing their minds because their kids were also at home going through school. So yeah, like we were in the right industry, I think, to go through college. Yeah, absolutely. It definitely worked out well for that anyway. But it's a very great thing. And it's interesting to hear like you basically lost competition. I'd never thought of that aspect of it with the closed borders. Like that's very interesting to hear. And even though I'm sure a lot of people were kind of trying to do the same thing, like I need more money. So like opening cleaning businesses at such a low barrier to entry. So sometimes there's a lot of like low quality competition I find. So even when I started the business, I was worried about that because I thought, man, there's just every person starting their own version of some kind of cleaning service. I thought, why am I different? But then I quickly realised which will probably get into more. It's the difference between someone who says they can do something and someone that actually does what they say they're going to do. Oh, absolutely. Just that integrity and even for us, that's like literally one of the core values of serene cleaners, integrity in doing what you're saying you're going to do and really doing right by everybody to the best of your ability in every situation and using that as kind of your nor star of it. Should I be doing this thing or is this the right path for the business? And sometimes, you know, obviously we all make a ton of mistakes. But if you try to come at it from, am I doing the right thing? Like usually you can't get led too far astray. So I'm just an apparent. I'm trying to approach it too as how would I appreciate being treated or things like that and having been, you know, we've all been customers essentially at one point or another in different industries as well. So we know what we would expect in a service and so just making sure you're delivering that for people. Yeah, and that just kind of brings me to like such a big core aspect of your business is catering to mothers for a workplace and having that flexibility. And I just, I so relate to that because that is the majority of my staff. Well, we're, you know, 90% women, we've always been that if not more. And the majority being mothers and that was honestly the only benefit I could offer in the beginning was extreme flexibility because I couldn't offer high pay. I couldn't offer any like, you know, actual benefits, PTO, that type of thing or health insurance. But what I could offer is you do not need to work a typical schedule. You don't need to give me 40 hours. It's just what is sustainable and what's going to work for you as a mother. And so obviously that's, you know, coming from a five children like that blows my mind. And I've got so many questions on how you actually did that. And that's the thing is like I again, having been in a workplace before and not having that flexibility. I just understood what it meant to have that flexibility in the workplace and to be able to offer that to people. It blows their minds when I have an interview with people and on my questions are when are you available and you know, what would your ideal schedule look like and things like that? Because they're like, no, I'm used to being told when I have to go to work and what things I have to be there. And I say I schedule differently because I actually schedule clients around your availability. And that it gives you longevity and it gives you access to a workforce that otherwise you would never tap into because people think that, oh, because they're not available, the expected number of hours, 40 or whatever, then they're not going to be a high quality employee when I look at some of my best staff members that I have some. I can think of one off the top of my hat. She's been with me for over, I think three almost four years and she has worked for me for 20 hours a week. She had her son, she went through a divorce, both of her parents going through extreme health situations and then her father, her caring for her father, like through hospice and like her name's Ashley and she stands out so strongly to me in this of like, she is who I created this workforce for. If I could clone her, I'd be a bajillionaire because she's so good. That's a good heart. It's like I would never have had her if I had been a stickler of nut like this is what you need to work. And so I just think having more part-timers, like I would rather, oh, there's a fuzzy, I would much rather have, you know, 10 part-timers than five full-timers. Absolutely. I agree with you completely. No. And it creates more loyalty and they really value what they have because they know that what we've created is not something they can just get anywhere else. And just really leaning into that as like another for us family versus another core value. And so the thing is who we're serving is also who our company is made out of. So it's so easy to make those connections with your clients because you're them, you're the avatar, you know, not personally. But you are. I mean, I have to tell you this story. When I started the business, my youngest was still not in school yet. He was only in Kindi, which is like a two-day-a-week situation. And so when I would go and meet new clients, he would come with me on the days he was not Kindi. And so I thought some people would be so limited. They think, I can't do it. I've got my little one with me. Can't do it. And I'm like, no, because I'm showing people that we're a family-friendly business and this is who you're getting when you're booking with House Mom. So I'd show up at the door and a lot of people would say to me, oh, make sure you bring Harry along if you need to. And he did that. Yeah. If I needed to go to work in Clean Houses, he was coming with me. Well, you know, you were basically filtering before you even took on the client and saying if they weren't okay with that, they're not going to probably be a good fit for you. That's exactly right. And yeah, that's amazing. And that was one of my initial questions of if you had children who were not of school age, what were you doing with them during that first year? Because that is where, whenever I talk to new owners and they're also parents, that is the struggle, especially if they're a single parent. How do I provide the consistency and showing up? Because that is one of the biggest selling points. I actually just saw one of your reels that was talking about like showing up. And so when you're the primary caregiver, something falls through. And you're just trying to be a good fit for your child. And you're trying to be a good fit for your child. because I knew that the end goal is for me to be managing a business and I can't do that when I'm working with clients. So that was only the first 12 months and Dan you know obviously he's off at school now but I also don't work with clients anymore because I just don't have time of going to be managing a business so yeah but yeah I think and the key is also not to take on too much because some people just think I've got a jam in and say yes to everybody and that's when you start to fall apart. I'm a bit of a people please up and I had to learn very quickly that they're doing that. They're trying to say yes and people pleased everybody meant that that's where things come undone so just making sure that you're keeping a bit of wiggle room in there in case things happen. Yeah and I think it's such a struggle especially you know it's it is the we're we're trying to make money we're trying to make a living and support ourselves and our families and so it's so tempting to say yes to everything it it really is because you're like you see that money you see that money right there and even if it's not a good fit and I definitely made that miss I mean I'm actually not allowed to like talk or pick up the phone or anything my managers will like pry the phone out of my hands because I'll they'll be cleaning gutters we literally we're painting interiors of apartments on moveouts one time because Stephanie picked up the like what do you do we can do that we can win no process there's like it was for turnover cleans for an apartment management company and they're like well we really want it to be all in one where it's it's the cleaner and then if they have to touch up paint then then they can do that too we don't want to have different service providers and I was like yeah no problem we can totally paint and of course and I have my cleaners just absolutely I rate like why are we being asked to do that so we don't think about anymore but it's just it's it's really tempting it's so tempting to try to be the jack of all trades and yes and and serve everybody and you can make a lot of poor decisions when when it's just money and I get it like we're trying to make a living but gosh you got to you got to be smart about it and think long long term definitely thinking long term and realizing that everybody you turn away is leaving space for your ideal clients so get comfortable with saying no and be really you know how those clear boundaries have I create an avatar of who my ideal client is and that makes it so much easier than when people come through and they messaging or contacting us do they fit this criteria yes and if they're not then here's a list of people we recommend who might be able to help you yeah and and just having that clarity of yeah like an avatar of who is my ideal and likely buyer and obviously if you have different service types you know we do residential and commercial vacation rentals having one for each of those categories get out of here cat you're gonna be all right Peter and and sticking to it and saying okay does this match long and it's a strategy you're just being more strategic and more controlled as opposed to just kind of chaotic and willy nilly for sure so yeah that's especially because we mainly work with ongoing clients so weekly or mainly main clients and so I'm trying to build that long lasting relationship if I'm saying yes to the wrong client then they're either not gonna stay long term or my team not going to be happy there or they're gonna give me trouble and so then I'll just hate every time we have to go there so it's just better off to just move them along yeah and if your if your cleaners are dreading it and also like you like you described it's an opportunity cost of I see it as okay this four hour time slot is being charged this much and they're paying in the butt to deal with we could drop them or they could cancel and then we can immediately fill it with a higher paying easier to deal with client who who loves our cleaners so it's kind of it feels painful because I think we all have that scarcity mindset and that desperation especially in the beginning because they're like I can't lose a client but every single client that we've that is left because of price we have replaced with higher paying and like they'll come if you're branding and marketing is they're they're not selling and it's reassuring I think the more that happens you get more and more confident and you just know that oh it's okay someone else will fill that but like you don't even feel sad for them to leave anymore yeah and and even yeah you're just more confident and it's not to say like you should not care about losing clients depending on it's all why why are they leaving and making sure you're you're figuring that out but if it it may be for legitimate reasons and for me it's always kind of almost having like if possible an exit interview with a client of like tell me everything and obviously that's part of the whole are you checking and touching based with them often and you know even just then made releasing the service rating features recently has really helped us keep a pulse on those regular clients because we're really good at hitting those first times and enailing it in that first month of service but then you know the little things can kind of slip by and slip through the cracks so I've definitely been really appreciating that feature that they release so I guess I'm super duper intrigued by the training your the aspect of how like these services that you're providing are so yeah bespoke niche how do you scale that how do like like I just even you know teaching them the the organizing like that's something I've even struggled with a lot of clients asked for like organizing service and like how do you train somebody to organize you know you just know or you don't it feels like that's exactly right and to be honest with those sorts of things I don't train in because I don't I don't organize myself I have people to do that so in that case I you know things like ironing I don't train in that and when I put out job ads I ask them what are their specialties so then I know when I'm pairing people so I'm pairing our home assistant to a client are they able to be a good match because they've got the same skills that they're looking for so if someone's once ironing but this person doesn't iron well then I can say well they tick all of these boxes but they don't iron would you like to you know book that home assistant or would you like to continue waiting for someone to call the person so those are what I call a specialty skill they get trained in all of the general cleaning and presentation of a home but as far as those specialty skills it's a they have that unique skill set within themselves I see so would you say that having a wait list is something that very often happens as they're waiting for a particular person I have yeah I have a waiting list so it's not necessarily just because they're waiting for a particular person it could just be because it's an area we do at service yet or you know we just don't have staff available in that area at the moment so I don't like to rush hiring just because we have a waiting list I'm always told a waiting list is a good problem to have and then that also gives you that confidence again if people move on more than you know you've got that waiting list to fill but we check in with them often to make sure that they're still happy to wait or if they've found someone else you know we still touch base with them even we do have someone available so we can say you know I get happy with this up as you book to athology like to try us and I think that's something that especially newer owners or less experienced owners are really scared of is having a wait list they see it as a negative or that those people are not going to wait the exclusivity feeling that that gives of you are in high demand and they don't need to know why you have a wait list you always frame it as yeah we're just we're so popular and people want us as opposed to I'm struggling so badly with hiring right now they don't need to know that we just keep that to ourselves yeah and that's really it really a lot of times is so much about acting confident even when you're not and and portraying a sense of I've got this to the client and this is something we try to teach our cleaners to especially when they're they're newer and they're they're nervous it's like just just act confident and like keep that internalized because the client is sensing your body language there's they are they are gauging if you are trustworthy and they can they can relax and give you their home over by the way you're acting so it's so crucial that you do not seem like you don't know what you're doing and and and even when booking it's the same thing of I find almost being quite authoritative of like this is what we're going to do for you this is what we can provide and really like taking charge because I find especially you know when we're when we're dealing with overworked just losing their mind moms that mental load if we can just like take that off the shoulders of them and say hey we got this and this is all what we're going to do for you like they will gladly pay extra because they feel so relieved you know it is a really some people present far too many options or they come in a little bit nervous and they're like you know what would you like to do what would you what do you want us to you know like I still ask you know an apple king call what what would really make their day you know what are what how would they you know feel more supported in their home but at the end of the day when we go in there we we just give them you know a you know get it right down and just just give them very clear options on how to actually give them what they want to you yeah and I think that that reduces the analysis paralysis and you know another decision for them to make because this is the whole thing as we're trying to reduce decision fatigue on their end and like you said giving them a million options or kind of having them like build a bear the cleaning it's like no this is this is what we do and you know like even for us we follow one standard checklist and our cleaning checklist is most people's deep cleans so that my cleaners are trained at a super like we do everything every time and we're not a wipe down service and we don't offer a basic package it's not even something we offer because you can go find somebody else to do that that's not you know what we fell on and I don't want my cleaners getting in the house of leaving things off. Even if the client asks for it, I still don't want to do it, 'cause that teaches the cleaners like, "Oh, sometimes we don't do this, "we don't do this." Like, "No, every time we to the night." And you know? - And I think that's important too, is being really confident in your niche, so that you're not accepting those basic claims, if that's not what you feel comfortable doing. So, you know, me, I'm very comfortable knowing that we're a luxury housekeeping service, not a basic cleaning service. And so, someone says, "Why just want cleaning?" I said, "Well, we're not the service for you." And you just have to be very comfortable and stay in your lane, I guess, so that you're not just saying yes to everything. - So, for the listeners who aren't familiar with the services that you do offer that are not the typical cleaning services, can you list those off? - Absolutely. So, luxury housekeeping is essentially having another mom in the household. So, we'll come in and we'll do all the general cleaning, we'll do tidy, we'll do organizing, we'll fold washing, we'll change linen, we'll put a meal on in your slow cooker or prepare some meals in advance. So, all of those extra jobs that you know would really when people are rushing out the door in the morning and knowing that they come home in their houses essentially reset and they don't have to do anything, that's what we do. - So, yeah, just the scaling of even like the meal side of it, I mean, I would imagine your intake process is very, very robust compared, 'cause how could it has to be, you have no choice, but to just have this massive kind of intake, which I know sometimes again feels like it would be overwhelming to the client, but what that's doing is showing like, hey, we're gonna customize this and it's gonna be exactly for your family. So, even though you know down food preferences, all of that I assume? - All of that. So, I get all of that information in my initial cooking call and then they'll be matched with the home assistant, the home assistant then goes out and also meets with them. And so they can have that conversation about likes and dislikes and we have a slow cooker menu, so they'll get sent that when they book in. But then the home assistant might have her own recipes that she likes to make and so they know that's the starting point and then the home assistant then can build on that from there based on their skills. - Okay. I see, I see. So, I would imagine that turnover is much more painful for you than the typical cleaning company owner because it's so highly specialized. Like, that's gotta hurt. - That's gotta hurt. - Yeah, absolutely, it is. But again, because I'm hiring moms and our job ads are very, very specific, we're getting more and more people just sending us job applications without even having job ads because they hear what we do and they say, "Oh, they might say, you know, I'll service" and they go, "I wanna work for that company because I wanna just do that stuff." And so, because a lot of people now are booking us and they have clean and separate to us. So we're not even doing any cleaning, we're just doing all the presentation and the meal prep and running errands and things like that. And so that's why they're booking us and so people are like, "I wanna do that as a job." - Yeah, no kidding. It sounds like you get the right people because you're so highly specific with what? - Yes. - Again, that filtering on the front end, and only getting applicant to make sense, only getting clients that make sense for you. So then on the back end, you're not dealing with a lot of drama and unnecessary pain because you chose the right people. - Yes, absolutely. And making their assual values, everything is spoken about in that initial interview. So I can filter people out pretty quickly whether it's interviewing a new staff member or whether that's doing a booking call with a new client. That's not a, okay, we've had a call now where immediately booking you. That's my filter as well. I'll wait the right service for you. And I even say that at the beginning of the call by the end of this call, we'll know if we're the right fit for each other. - So how do you charge hourly? Is it all a cart or how do you do that? - We do an hourly rate and we do that because it's so specific. So if they booked four hours, then we know, okay, well, what are we gonna do in that four hours for you? It's not, okay, we're gonna do this, this and this and keep repeating that. It's what are we doing today and requires my team to be able to be proactive and see what needs to be done by getting into a good routine. - Yeah, what is the priority list? And we charge hourly as well, which a lot of cleaning companies or even goers in the space, like they think you're dumb for charging hourly and there are negatives, but there's definitely a lot of positives, especially we have a ton of limited hour clients because they're on a budget and they want us to rotate tasks every time or rotate rooms, not tasks necessarily, but rooms. And so it gives them the freedom to say, this month, do this, this, you know, buy weekly, do this. And if they were on a flat rate model, it would be a little bit more challenging, I think to sell them. - Absolutely. - I think that's a difference between a flat rate model and an hourly is the flat rate model businesses are generally rinse repeat. They're doing the exact same thing every time. Whereas if you wanna create a more flexible personalized approach, an hourly is, obviously, what's going to suit that been on. I always thought, - You know, one of the things I could choose your own adventure, like, what do you want? What are you going to do today? - Not what it really is. And one of the biggest skills that I see, you know, lack sometimes in applicants, but that make the employees I have that shine the most are the ones who can critically think and who can come into a space, analyze what is going on and what needs to be done, how much time to give things. And it sounds like for you guys as well, that would be a huge skill set is like that critical thinking. - Critical thinking and I say sometimes even just common sense because some really people don't have common sense and I can't train it, unfortunately. I wish I could, but common sense to come in and actually work out, like, what is the priorities today? What I just cleaned that, you know, we have a lot of clients booking us five days a week. So why on earth would you, you know, be doing the same thing where you're just, I just did that yesterday. You've actually got to go in and see what needs to be done. - Wow, wow, that's a luxury. Wow, you're under thinking of a five day a week account. Like, I'm from a very, very rural area. So that type of like financial leverage is definitely not something that is very common in our area. Even weekly is that is quite the luxury expense for a lot of people in our area. So it's pretty amazing that you have the marketplace for that, like that. - I think it comes. I think it also comes down to mindset as well because it's all, I hear so many people, I work with a lot of people in the cleaning industry 'cause I also consult. And, you know, a lot of them are saying, "You know, no one can afford me." And people are just can't sing on me. And, you know, times are tough for whatever they're saying. And I'm like, "Well, that's because you're telling yourself that story." Yeah, like when you start telling yourself a different story, I say, you know, we used to have a lot of fortnightly clients and now we pretty much don't have them at all. And they are the ones that we can't sing on us, whereas we've got people now booking us five days a week and you're telling me that times are tough. Like, there is enough money in the world and you just need to get it funneled to you. - Well, and it's true and that's where, like, the very specific brand imaging. And I just see so much branding out there that's cheapening their brand and that's how people are going to interpret them. It's also going to limit the amount you can charge and if you are selling on being, quote, unquote, affordable or even that concept of affordability is so malleable. And it's like what I think is affordable, versus what she thinks is affordable are two different things because in the same day, I have been cost out for how much I charge and then the next call will be, "Oh, this is so affordable." Like, I can't like lots of books, though, it's like, "Well, who's right?" Neither. So don't keep that in mind. It should be. You said you were able to set your quality and it should speak for itself that, like, "Hey, we're not for everybody. It is a luxury service." - Exactly. - There is a marketplace. - And at the end of the day, we have bills to pay. And if you are not charging the correct amount for what you're doing, then your business is not going to last very long anyway. So it's so important to be having the, you know, be very clear on what you need to be charging before you even get to what to be charging because, although I see, you know, going to last very long. - Yeah, absolutely. And I know when I started, I started at $30 per man hour, obviously, USD. And I remember thinking to myself, nobody's going to pay that. Like, I'm crazy. Like, nobody's going to pay that. And now, you know, we're double that. And we still, it's, you know, still got a weightless. So I wish I had started so much higher, but I didn't, because I would never have paid that amount as broke 22-year-old Stephanie. I assumed that the rest of the world had that same frame of reference. And that's so natural. - No, absolutely. I, and the thing is too, is it's, sometimes other people get in your head. When I started the business, I was also very low rate. I think it was $38 an hour. And we're more than double that now. And so it is one of my very close friends said to me, no one will ever pay you that. That's, that's very expensive. If I had to listen to her, then, you know, I wouldn't be where I am right now. So it's, it's very important to be making sure you're not listening to people because at the end of the day, they're not the ones paying you bills. So correct. - Yep. And I think, you know, it's just that overabundance of information and the internet's a beautiful thing. Obviously, we're having this conversation. But there's a lot of voices out there and people can get drowned in the information and then don't take it. any action. So obviously I'm not saying go and blind, but there is some gut instinct. And sometimes you just got to go for it, try and adjust because even when it comes to pricing, okay, you lost your butt on that job. We'll learn from it in a just, you know, it's not the end of the world. It's just okay. Or I need to pay more or whatever I have you. And even that, like you want to pay as high as possible, we all know that. But that, like the only way to pay high is to charge high. And the only way to charge high is to have super high quality and just emphasizing that to your staff. Like, yes, I tell them all the time. It's like, I'm hard on you. Like we're super picky because that's why you have these giant Christmas bonuses. That's why you get paid, you know, all of these things. And so connecting the quality to their paycheck, you know, and also obviously pride in the work, of course. But it is, it is a job. And we want to make sure that people are taking care of financially because that's why you and I both started the business. And I say to the team as well, like always be looking after those clients, like so many people when they apply, why did you apply? Oh, I need a job. That's not the right attitude. Like actually looking for people who actually care about what they're doing as well because money is money. We all need it. You know, yes, that's we can't get around that. But you have to actually care about delivering a good service as well. So people feel like them, you know, paying for a service that's quality. Yeah. And I definitely, you know, I mean, I have so many hiring mistakes, you know, that I've gone through a lot of employees over the past five years. And you know, that's always going to be probably the glimony factor for most companies that I, you know, obviously marketing and branding. Once you get that on lock, honestly, it does itself. It sometimes feels like when you get enough reviews, when you get enough word amount, it's kind of just this churning machine. And it takes care of itself, but the employees, it's like, gosh, that is, that can be challenging. And, you know, not even having the core value spelled out and hiring based on that, even I've had excellent cleaners who they hate kids. And that didn't come out until months in. And it's like, well, all of your clients are stay at home moms or, you know, busy moms. And the house is going to be a mess sometimes. Like they did their best to pick up. But the cleaners coming back and just gripping about about them not picking up or the kids did this or blah, blah, blah. And it's like, ooh, like this is a, this is a value like mismatch here. Like this isn't like, I don't care how good of a cleaner you are skill wise. It's, if you can't stand this aspect, like this is a core aspect of the business. So I can, I can think of several examples of that. So I'm curious if do any horror stories stand out for you from the employee side? I mean, any like really big mistakes you made. I'm sure. I mean, I have some that are probably I can even share on the. Yeah. I mean, my first biggest mistake was that I didn't have contracts when I first started the business. I didn't have contracts for the first two years, which was a massive, massive mistake. Obviously, when you start a business, you don't have the money usually to be putting into things like that because I cost a little bit to get that drafted up correctly. And so, yeah, so I had employees when they left, they'd steal my clients, you know, they'd start doing clients on the side, we're doing them, doing other services for those clients that were with me. So, you know, those sneaky little things or yeah, that was that was my biggest problem in the beginning. So once I got those contracts in place, it made a big difference. And again, just getting that hiring right because even me getting clearer on my own business values, now that when I'm hiring the job ads that go out as so much clearer than what they used to be so that I know people who are hiring, then they fill out an application form before I even decide if I want to interview them and that filters it's always about filtering and making sure that you're not wasting your time just talking to anybody. Yeah. Just out of curiosity, do you have employees or independent contractors? Both. Oh, interesting. How do you, I have all employees. Obviously, I've talked to people who have had all contractors and there's a time and place for both. So how do you utilize and blend? So, I started doing that April last year. So it's been about 18 months up until that point. I only had employees. But what happened was, is when people were leaving and I would help this scramble of, you know, what am I doing? Or if someone was calling in sick and then I'd always be canceling these clients. So what I did was, as I actually reached out to other cleaning businesses who aligned with my values. And so they look after house-mom clients on half now. So it's about, I think I doubled essentially my revenue by working with these, these other cleaning businesses because I've seen them advertise on community groups and they'd be like, you know, I've got these availability. So I'm like, how do you have availability? Let me help you with that. Let me feel that. And so I pay them what their rate is. So whatever they charge private clients, that's what I pay them. And then that way that also creates that loyalty because there's no reason to go around me because what's the benefit that they're, I'm sending them clients and they're getting regular work for me. That is so smart and I'm sure a lot of listeners just tightened up at the thought of like contacting competitors and how it's very that that may seem. And I think obviously it can be done when done correctly. And as you just described, the strategy is to make sure there is no benefit to going around you. And that's going to come down to finances obviously, respect treating them well so that they have no need to steal the client or attempt to, you know, do anything like that. So have you had any situations where with the, because what I could see is the client trying to solicit in that manner because they're like, hey, like I can pay you less than what I'm paying some own and you're still going to make it. Yes, yeah, absolutely. It hasn't happened yet. Well, it has been attempted to happen. But they always come to me and say, just letting you know this happened. And then again, it comes down to working with the right people. I don't have an interview with them, but I always meet them for coffee. So we meet up with chat about their business, for chat about their business goals. Like I want them to know, you're not an employee because you're not. I'm here to support your business growth. And so that's how that works. And they really appreciate that. Like I get Christmas gifts from them, which is so lovely. Because they appreciate that I'm sending them regular work. And without that, then they'd have to go and find their own clients. So again, that creates that loyalty and they shot that down with the client because they're like, no, actually, because I really like working with Samaritan. If they start going around me, I'm not sending them any more work. Yeah, yeah. It kind of, it kind of governs itself. That is a really amazing strategy. And like you said, because that's really what it is. It's a strategy to grow. It's a strategy to offer consistency because as we grow, I have a team of what's 30 now. It's every day. Somebody's calling out every day. If not, I've had up to four or five in one day. What it means for whores. And so our strategy for that is we always made sure we have, we never book ourselves full. So we have an offer. And that's another benefit to having the part-timers I find is they're okay with, you know, if it's just this range of hours, like, I only got 20 this week. I'm good with up to 30. It doesn't matter to them. So if somebody calls in, we can put it on them and that works. But now we've finally been able to afford a full-time, on-call person who's also my quality assurance and on my lead trainer. So she wears a lot of hats. But five years in, we're finally able to do that. And that's something I would have killed for in the first year, you know, and unfortunately, independent contracting, it's still, you know, there's really not that many companies or people who even, I think, would be open to that. So I'm kind of wrapping my brain and like tossing in my head of like, how would that work? I'd be worried about quality. That would be the. So I do a lot of research on that business. So it's not like I'm contacting them going, let's just have a chat. Again, I'm doing my research. What are their reviews on their business? What are their before and after photos look like? All of those sorts of things. And then when I'm chatting with them initially, would you choose an email or a Facebook message or something to start that initial contact? I introduce myself as a local business owner. I'd love to chat with you. And I feel them out. Like, what are their values? Why are they doing their business? But they are the most reliable because it is their business. And so when I have people calling in sick from my team, I just send out a text to all of the businesses that we work with saying, who's free and can fit in this client. So it's like a substitute to teach the situation almost. And they just. One of them picks it up. And we let our clients know that we work with independent contractors now to help fill those gaps. And I say, this is for you, again, it's all in the wording. It is for them. How you approach things with your clients, they will have confidence if you're confident about that decision. And so by us saying, this is giving you more reliability and consistency in your service. It may not be identical to your regular home assistant, but we're still going to give you a service that so that you know, you're getting what you're wanting. And you just made such an excellent point that I hope everybody listens to is that communication and how you verbalize what the thing is you're trying to accomplish and seeing it as a benefit to the client. And anytime we make a policy change, anytime, you know, even we've reduced certain services or eliminated certain aspects of services. For example, like we just took out. laundry other than for vacation rentals and that's for you know our strategy of scaling what we do and again trying to focus more on the commercial side and just having enough situations where I'm like you know I don't want to we're not getting into like yeah laundry at scale so I'm just taking it out completely and yeah it's all in the phrasing of you know if you're taking something away make sure you are able to provide something like in its place meaning additional value better training whatever what have you and so because that's something even just when our cleaners call in we have that in each client's notes of if if their cleaners calls in would they prefer to skip and wait for that cleaner or are they okay with a replacement or these particular people and we literally have that in the zenmay notes for our management so that we know at a glance who can we send or can we send anybody at all because some clients are like nope I only want Sally don't send me anybody else and I'll wait for Sally you get to know there's ones there they like you know this is just like send me anyone else like you know yes yes so have you had any like client horror stories I'd be curious and he that come to mind when it comes to really anything behavior wise or just attitudes I mean it's funny because some of the cheapest people I've had have been the most like nasty I've found or most disrespectful so have you noticed that that is lowered or do you feel it's really at every single like income level if you will it's it's definitely more so at the lower income level because they expect the world for nothing whereas I find the high income bracket they seem to understand that a lot of them work in business so they do respect that however that doesn't you know there are still some in that bracket that I have had to part ways with one very very recently but when these things happen it gives me a chance to review my policies and I'm always just wondering like where where did something go wrong so this particular person booked us five days a week I had someone specifically for her and then it was very strange so our initial contact was she was given all the information or the pricing and I was speaking with her assistant we'd had our book and call everything was great midweek of her first week with us so by the Wednesday her assistant emailed again asking the pricing and I'm like so it's interesting you've been given pricing but hey here it is again then Friday came and she that afternoon phoned the home assistant she was booked with and said too expensive don't want to pay it but I want to book you directly and this person who she'd only been with me two weeks this is like a recent like I'm talking like a last two weeks ago and she phoned me immediately and said I just want to let you know this happened it's very awkward for me I did let her know you know I work for Simone on loyal to house but I'm like wonderful like you're only seeing with me two weeks and she already did it. She was right yep obviously it's in my contract but the fact that she respected that and respected me so that just gave me a chance to review my policies and our new service agreement for 2025 it includes a no solicitation policy because we ask specifically now especially for our more high-end clients booking us multi times a week we're hiring specific for that client so you know if I've done that they will it felt like she was almost using me as an employment agency to find and invest someone and send her a person yeah and then it was like okay thank you I'll take that I'm like no this is not how this works I have no regret uh yeah that's we have that in our policies our client guidelines that they sign is basically they'll be charged a $2,500 training fee or however we have it listed if they attempt to do that and have we ever actually done it no usually it's a slap on the wrist and just typically we're gonna get rid of that client immediately because I can't I don't trust them I don't trust them no it's like I wouldn't want to work with you again and the the hardest thing for me in that situation was she's a woman in business that this client and I just thought how can you do that to another woman in my room? sorry Rome to me I'm like that's that's not my value so I'm like good you sort of do self-out quickly so you don't always get it right um but it was a good lesson to learn and review policies for the new year yeah and and really you know for everybody it's it's these are living breathing documents all right you don't just want and done client policies you don't just want and done employee documents literally we add a dozen or so more change a dozen every single year and adding every year of oh this needs to be changed and and one of the biggest lessons I want people to learn is that when something goes wrong like stop and pause and say okay how could we prevent this in the future and that's really what sit-limitizing is is like when problems arise when the burning fires come to you then take a moment and say how could I prevent this in the future is that a policy isn't firing somebody maybe is it you know a communication error because yeah for us when I remember we had Collins and then we send somebody else thinking well we're doing right by the client and then there I rate because it's not the cleaner they expected and it startled them and so oh light bulb going forward anytime we have to make a schedule change over communicate that because you can never go wrong with too much communicating right exactly right they they appreciate even the ones that you know they're going to be fine with it but they value the communication and if a client of us is me that wasn't communicated I'm like let's look at this like why wasn't that done because communication for me is so important because we know that we appreciate it so you know just keeping people updated doing what we say we're going to do they really value that oh yeah and it just it makes it so easy to stand out because people are so used to service-based companies and all flavors plumbers electricians whoever not call not even calling back not communicating just frankly terrible service so if you can just be so good at that of you communicate you do what you say you're going to do I mean you know I'm charging what you want to charge will not be an issue no like I have so many calls with clients I once stood out in particular very recently and when she picked up the phone and we saw the spaking she was like said to me I'm so impressed that you actually found when you said you were going to find I'm like it's so basic and people just don't understand those little things are actually a big thing and that's what makes you stand out amongst everywhere else when we are in an industry that is saturated all you've got to do is just do those little things to make an impression and people will just love you especially yeah especially when you're a smaller outfit or you're you know if you're listening you just started out or you're just thinking about starting out these are the things that can make you stand out against the competition if it if you have a high competition area just do these things excellently communicate while be extremely professional spell out what exactly services you're going to perform for us we've always done a checklist we leave behind and so they they know what to expect and what they're getting and honestly like the patients I know like you had kind of a quick growth as did I so do you have any you know comments on being patient or or just um because I struggle with that and everything's gone very quickly so I'm sure if you have any with them well I think the thing is is people don't want to make that move on hiring because they're like I can't afford it and I actually had a conversation with a friend last night she owns a cleaning carpet cleaning business and she's a few years into it now and I was saying no me if you don't like start thinking about or start hiring even if it's just one day a week and you then focusing on things that only you can do because people get so scared to hire I think they can't afford it but when are you ever going to be able to grow if you don't make time for it and so I just think for me it was the secret was just hiring fast like don't don't even think about I'm going to be in this forever my plan was never to be working in the business forever it was start hiring and growing my business mm-hmm yeah and and you know if if you are terrified of it listen like I always keep in mind that every single person is going to leave eventually they're either gonna die or they're gonna quit right so like like keeping that in mind of like it I have shed so many tears over employees especially in that first year of like literally like just like like so and even my my first person I ever hired because I was running out of my two-bedroom apartment she ghosted me and then my second one tried to game the Zen made app by clocking and sitting in the driveway for four hours and then clocking out and leaving the house so that was my first two experiences and then a hundred percent churn rate and I started like I started in April of 2019 and I hired my first person in June two months later so it was the same thing of like I had my full-time job there was no way I could even and I never intended it to be like this of course nobody ever plans I think that to happen but I certainly knew I wanted at least a couple part-timers and for me not to be cleaning and that yes I'm here to manage and and though I'm sure both of us are excellent cleaners I could clean the pants off anybody our our our you know value and and purpose in the world is not to be just a cleaner and I don't say that in a derogatory term because it's a wonder like like it is a beautiful skill and people do not respect it enough because to do that well it is laborious it's hard and that that attention to detail time management it's such a skill and I'm preaching to the choir I don't need to tell anybody who's listening to that, but I still have a chip on my shoulder. People could be like really disrespectful to our industry. And that's another reason I just love to elevate what we do. And Sean, if you go to our social media, our website, it's just plastered with my staff and adoring them because they are intelligent, hardworking, wonderful people. And I just, cleaning has been seen as just this thing that's beneath. And so, I think you know, but I always, I take pride in what we do because I know someone's day is a little bit better because we've been there. They're coming home. They've had a busy day running around with the kids or being at work and in the other by the bus, whatever their situation is. They come home and they feel better because we've been there. And I really instilled that in my team. I want them to feel pride in what they do. It's also a reason why we changed their, so I've never called my team cleaners. They used to be called housekeepers, but at the beginning of this year I changed that to home assistant. Because we are coming in and assisting you and you're home in whatever way you need. And so just that change in itself really boosted my team's morale. They were like, I'm a home assistant. So knowing that they can call themselves that and be referred to as that. And with my clients, I always make sure that they know their name, you know, because I don't like them just saying the cleaner. Sometimes I'll still say cleaner and I correct. I'll say, your home assistant Kylie will be looking after you or whatever it is and just making sure they know that's that's a person. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And just, and yeah, teaching and correcting gently is never a bad thing again. It's okay to speak your mind in a respectful way and always keeping it as professional as possible. I know especially in my, in the beginning, just when people would be disrespectful or would do me wrong, either on the employee or the client side, it was so hard to bite the top. And it, especially when they're just doing you so dirty. Oh, yes. But I will say some of my biggest regrets in the business is not taking that step back to breathe and like just absolute professionalism. And that at the end of the day, when you look back at that situation, you can stand on your high horse and say, I handled it the best way I could. Yes. And I see. Because we have to remember we are professionals and we are employees as well. So just being mindful of how we're speaking to people whether that is a client or a staff member. Because I tend, I try and look by that motto, I don't want to burn bridges because you never know what's around the corner. So I always wish people well. You know, if people move on or they do the wrong thing by me, I still wish them well. Because you just never know what's around the corner. And I'd prefer to take my business and my reputation rather than fly off the handle event for something that won't even matter in a week or six weeks, whatever it is. Well, yeah. And I think that's one of the best skills that I personally have developed over the years of business ownership is absolute acceptance of a situation immediately. Because frankly, bitching or whining about it is not going to change anything. And all it's going to do is delay your ability to get to the problem solving. And having that be a skill and something I look for employees of like, we take accountability. And that starts at the top. So when myself or one of my four managers make a mistake, we share with the team. Even if it's embarrassing because it's like, one, it makes us seem like human and that we're not arrogant or see ourselves above because we all started as cleaners. And I never want it to feel like a gap. But two, it encourages them to say the cleaners to my, we call them cleaning technicians, I suppose. And my staff to say, oh, like they fast up when they messed up, then I can do that too. Because then we can, it's more of a collaborative thing of, we're just, this is the problem. And how can we tackle this problem together as opposed to like, you did this, you did this and point the fingers. So just the faster I could get over even like cleaners leaving. And like, like I said, like tears and just hysterics from me of, how could they do this to me and it's not serious. Yeah. The fact that we're both still here, you know, we were determined. But I was exactly the same I spent that first 12 months, a lot of time crying because people didn't share my values and I was hiring the wrong people. And now that's changed so much because I never, I never just accepted something. I know you just said acceptance, but it's more about, I always self reflect, I guess. I always say, well, where was my part in that? What did I do that could have been done differently? Or do better next time? Always learn from your mistakes. And don't just sit there and blame everybody else because you always have a part in it. And so I think that's a very big key to success in businesses. You know, we're going to cry about it. Yeah, that happens. But I don't cry anymore because I just know now what do I need to fix? Let's just, yep, just fix this and everyone. What's the action? And at the end of the day, it's like, okay, something's wrong with the training procedures that I created or I did not hire correctly. And when you take that, everything is my fault. It's actually quite freeing of like, okay, then I've got power because when you control, yeah, I'm in control because when you blame other people, you're taking the power away from you to do something. And so when I say, you know what, our training sucks, you know, this past year has been about revamping. And I'm not that our training sucks. But there was so many discrepancies as we continue to push and scale of, okay, why is this person making these mistakes? This should be getting covered in training and they're, you know, they have, I'll give you some examples. Like they weren't getting adequately trained on deep cleaning tasks like ovens, fridges. So then six months down the road, when they got assigned to a move out cleaning, they've only done an oven once and they totally screwed up. We get a complaint and it's so easy to say, hey, cleaner, what's wrong with you? Like, why did you do that wrong? And it's, absolutely, it's, oh, they saw that one six months ago. Of course, they don't know how to clean ovens properly. They're repressed. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Even if like, because we look after a lot of ongoing clients, sometimes with my team, they'll go and do a new client because maybe someone's moved on and so they've got a new client. And I always tag them because we have lots of training videos. I'll tag them the day before in the video on our first service and how to nail it because I feel like it's been a while. Here's a, here's a refresher. I'll make sure we watch this before tomorrow because it's just, it's about keeping that information fresh. If we're not doing something regularly, of course, we're going to lose that skill. We've got to keep that up to date. Yeah. So I'm just curious logistically speaking because obviously you have such customization for each home. How are you getting the, obviously, Zenmay notes, all of that? When I think of our most unique accounts, it's going to be commercial. And so for us, we literally do a video walkthrough at every facility and then we create a custom checklist and then also take videos of anything like a paper towel holder that's hard to open. We'll take a video of that. So are you doing any of those strategies in people's homes? How do you train on that house? So we actually use Google Docs for our client notes. We use Zenmay notes for more on the day information. So if there's something, you know, all clients have to key out today and they don't normally do that. So he's that information. Our Google Docs are what our, our Herm assistants keep up to date after every service. So if they ever move on or someone else has to feel in for them, we just literally share those docs for someone else and they're picking up that information, reading past services. I used to be a dental assistant before, you know, getting into business. And so that a lot of that was very note heavy. Like we, you know, sometimes it was six months before we saw a patient again and then we relied on those notes. So that for me was everything went in there of like, you know, clients taking a holiday or they got a new dog and all of those things that when you see them again, you can remember that information. So that I applied that principle to this as well. So that my team know they don't have to remember that information because they seeing a lot of people every week, it's nice for them to just bring them and then they know our next time when I come, I'll refresh that and people right back up where I left off. I love that. And that's actually part of our daily morning reminders that go out to all staff members is update your client notes as if somebody had to fill in for you. And not really created this like very team atmosphere even though we do individual cleaners. We're not sending teams. You're very rarely. First times, of course, when they're so large, but we run individual cleaners. And so what that has done is like if you had to go into another house blind, what would you want to know about that? Because obviously we can all say a house is a house, but to be successful in this house, it's like, hey, here's the pet's names. This door is tricky. Make sure you get this basement bathroom. It's hard to find all of those things to set up your co-workers for success. And then obviously for the business, that makes it when somebody leaves or has to leave, then we can really seamlessly provide the same perfection basically to the client. And the client doesn't feel so much pain because turnover is going to happen. And the clients don't like it. They don't like it. But anything we can do to ease that transition from staff members, staff member is going to make, you know, and even, you know, yeah, this week we had a kind of a complaint, I suppose, of we had switched cleaning technicians on a client because her cleaner changed her availability. She dropped her availability down and she had been with this cleaner for a couple years. Amber is my cleaner. And the client, we had sent a new technician, another great technician, and she'd been their multiple times and both amber and Hey, Lee, the new cleaner had requested off that specific cleaning date of the next rotation because his Christmas Christmas is coming up, right? This is literally what just happened. And we got an angry email of like, I don't appreciate that, you know, I can't, you're, and we had sent her an email saying we'll be sending this person because these two people requested off. And she was all, and we said, if you want to have one of these two specific people who you like, then you'll have to wait till this day. And she don't want to do that because she's having company. So, but she didn't want a different cleaner. And so it's like, you can't have your cake and eat it too. And, you know, and then of course she had some complaints that she hadn't been sharing for the past three clean, you know, just comes up. You admit it with word vomit. And they like to do that. And this is something that with that, with women, especially I find it's going to be, you know, sometimes they wait until they have this pile of little tiny things. And then it just explodes. And so asking them for that feedback all the time and say the smallest things. Tell us the little minutiae. Because I'd rather, I'd rather have every note possible and give you what you want because you are paying a high price. You should get what you want, but you need to tell us. Yeah. Yeah. And I mentioned that on that onboarding call as well just to let them know, like, communication is key. We'll communicate with you. We expect the same in return because we're not mind readers. So if you've got someone and they're doing something because that's how they've been trained, but you like it a specific way, actually don't do that for me. That's okay. We're happy to leave that off, but we got a auto pilot that first time to just give you a house mom experience. And then from there we can tweak it, but we can't tweak it unless you tell us. So my team actually sent follow up texts off the each service that comes directly from them so that they know that they've got that her assistant contact. If they've got a question, they can ask them because they used to come through me or my admin team. And then it would be, well, now I've got to go and ask that person and then we've got to get fun relay the information back and forth. But we just send those check ins off the each service update them on anything they might need to know about their service that day. And we find that that really helps. It'll help with retention too because they feel heard, they feel seen and any little misses or frustrations are just nipped in the bud. And I just know those people are very happy then because it's like, wow, they actually care, like caring and doing that follow up makes such an impact. So well, now that I've been taking up your time, I'm curious what is the next year. I mean, I could talk to you for like four more hours. I'm enjoying this. I never do have somebody, somebody questions. So looking towards the, you know, 2025, obviously, we're coming up on the new year. Like, do you have any specific goals or visions that you're trying to obtain? My plan is to be a shadow wide by the end of next year. And so we've just, I've just started a goal course team. I've got three people down there now. So I'm now learning to train remotely, which is kind of cool. And I'm higher people that I may not ever meet or meet for a long time. And then I've just got a client on my waiting list down in Melbourne now. So a whole different state, which is really cool. So that's a January, not a January problem, but a January task for me. I guess you could say. And that's just going to help get me closer and closer to being a shadow wide. That's that's amazing. And yeah, one of my favorite little flexes is like I get to meet employees for the first time at like the Christmas party because I don't do the hiring or the firing. And I'm like, oh, nice to meet you. Yeah. I know it. I'm like, oh, sorry. Who are you? Like in your head, you just thinking, I don't know who you are. I'm not going to pull. I got to pull the pictures before I actually see a group. I'm like, OK, who's who? But I get it all up to you. But Christmas party is a hot because everyone's dressed up really. And then I'm like, oh, no, I don't recognize you. Yeah, I kind of like check my little folder of photos. Like, hey. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So between that and obviously I've got a training account of me as well. So just helping people grow their cleaning businesses and not families. My two big goals for next year is just to keep growing and adding value and helping people be successful in what they do. That's amazing. And it's just so cool to talk to people who are in it, who have accomplished a lot, but are still wanting to do so much more because the goal post always moves. And it may move in a direction you totally don't think it is. And I think it's the whole just like as you grow, you don't know what problems you're going to face. You also don't know what your goal is going to be because five years ago, when I hit seven grand a month, I was like, that's it. We're done. We're done. And I'm like, I'm going to go back to the top and now it's like, okay, 130 a month and I'm like, okay, now what? Like it totally, it changes your brain. It really does. And it's really exciting. And you really can open to possibilities and because you realize, you start to realize before when we talk about where in control, I also love to see that we're in control of creating our own wealth as well. And that's something we shouldn't apologize for or be feeling bad about. It's actually quite exciting to know that that's within our power and we can do with it. What we want. Now it really is an impact that we can make because of that. And even, you know, like, that's why I wanted to get into the whole content thing because I'm like, okay, I have all these things in my head that could help other people and just like you, it's the same thing and that's connecting and business ownership can feel so lonely. I mentioned this in our intro episode. And it's really cool that now because of the internet, because of, you know, Facebook groups and community and creating community, we can feel less alone and also learn from others mistakes and hopefully avoid them. But sometimes you got to touch the hot pan and get burned into yourself. Cool. I want to know what are your business goals for 2025? It's so 2024 has all about been about internal, I guess, focus. So revamping training, creating a really robust orientation process, having our quality control system basically be psychotically perfect and having our cleaners check each other and just this high focus on quality and really nailing that. Obviously we've been taking on clients, but we have done pretty much no advertising or attempting to get clients. So I think really pushing for the perfect commercial accounts and more of them is going to be our big goals. So we're looking, you know, like three to five nights a week. It's pretty much your version of your idea, like, in commercial form. And no late night, you know, daytime or early afternoon, early evening at the latest and just being like super specific of this is our perfect account because we can nail it for them every time and we can we can staff it and the money is excellent and the consistency. So that's been a big thing. And then obviously for myself, just being super involved with ZenMade, it's kind of been my, you know, even internally with their design processes and, you know, new features and kind of having my fingers in that that pot has been really exciting. And so yeah, it's pushed me to do better in Serene Clean as being involved with ZenMade because I'm like, oh, there's still there's so much work to be done. Like I'm working more honestly now and it's been, but it's been so like life giving. I'm like, I just, I want to work. I want to do this. Yeah. I think it's when you're spending time on things that you actually enjoy as well. So, yeah, that's not really. It doesn't feel like work when you just, it, it doesn't. Yeah. When you, when you wake up excited to get to it and, you know, I know a lot of people listening are like off must be nice, but you'll get, you know, everybody will get there. It's just you got to get through the trenches as I call it, which is that for fear. And sometimes it can extend much longer than that, but the goal is to dig yourself out of that hole. And a lot of life is going to be into that. Yeah. And that's the difference again between out business and maybe somebody else that's out at the same time because they, a lot of people don't survive that first year because it's hard. It is, it takes a lot of grit, a lot of determination and a lot of tears. And it's whether or not you come out the other side. It's so true. And I look back at that year of work and I, I don't know how I did it. I don't think I could do it again because I know how hard it is now. You know, being naive and being ignorant can sometimes be a beautiful thing because you don't know what's coming down the line with it. Yeah. But at least we can share that with people and just obviously give that reassurance that we will be there. But it does get better and as long as you're still reflecting in reviewing policies, then you'll only get better. And be willing to take the risk that is hiring because you're never going to get anywhere near your potential without it. You know, you have to. No. Absolutely. I feel like that could be a part two. Hey, because you nearly, nearly lady me until like the next thing. I'm trying to, I could, yes. Well, this part two will be coming up. But first, I could talk to you all day. So where can everybody find you, you know, Facebook, website, anything like that? Yeah, absolutely. So I've got the House Mom website and Facebook. So it's just always House Mom or at House Mom home services. Otherwise you can look me up Simone Angel. I'm on Instagram and Facebook and yeah, I always happy to chat with people if anyone wants to reach out. Okay. Awesome. And I hope we can talk again because this has been really insightful and I appreciate your time. Thank you. Yeah, we'll definitely be talking again, but we'll wrap it up there, I suppose. And thank you to everybody for listening to this episode of Filthy Rich Cleaners Podcast. And we'll see you next time. Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode of the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast, please be sure to leave us a five-star review so we can reach more cleaners like you. Until next time, keep your work clean and your business, Filthy Rich!