March 25, 2025 • 33 mins
Managing high volumes of jobs, clients, and team responsibilities can feel overwhelming, but preparation and effective leadership make all the difference. This episode shares practical strategies for handling stressful workloads, from building margin into your schedule to prioritizing high-value tasks. Discover how to plan ahead for peak seasons, manage employee callouts with grace, and maintain team morale during busy periods. Join host Adam Sylvester with Crystal Hamm of Go 2 Girls and Kelly Guerrero of Fast Lawnscapes.
New to Jobber? Masters of Home Service listeners can claim an exclusive discount for Jobber at https://bit.ly/4d0KAEh
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
You also never know whereyour next superstar is going to come from, right? Yes.
You never know if that next hire thatyou make is someone who can really just
become a leader within your organizationand help your company move up to the
next level.
Welcome to Jobbers Masters of HomeService, a podcast for home service pros,
buy Home Service pros.
(00:20):
We're in Las Vegas and today we're talkingabout how to handle stressful volumes
of work. I'm your host, Adam Sylvester.
Today's guests are Crystal Hamand Kelly Guerrero. Ladies,
welcome to the studio. Thank you.Yeah, glad you guys are here. Kelly,
why don't you tell our audiencewho you are, what you do, and your.
Background. Sure. Myname is Kelly Guerrero.
(00:41):
I am the co-owner of Fast Landscapesand I also do mentoring with
Home Pro coaching.com.
Crystal.
Hey, good morning, Adam. My nameis Crystal Ham. I own Go-to Girls.
We are a residential cleaningservice in the Raleigh,
North Carolina area and we've beena business for about nine years.
I'm glad you're both here. Both businessesare doing over a million dollars.
You both have teams and you havestressful volumes of work at times.
(01:05):
We're going to get into that,
but what have you guys found to behelpful when you just have a stressful
amount,
like maybe a surge in of phonecalls you're getting or maybe a
couple employees quit and suddenlyyou're in a lurch. Let's start there.
How do you guys go about that?Just initial like we're in.
Trouble. Bourbon no
(01:29):
one thing at a time. I'm only one person.
Each one of my team is only one personand you just have to take things as they
come and do one thing at a time. For me,what helps is to sit down, make a list,
prioritize and start with the mostimportant things first and then go from
there.
I think definitely when you're in yourslower season create your systems and
processes.
(01:50):
Then so when the craziness comesbusy season for me cleaning,
it's the holidays so that whenthe busy season does come,
then you know what to do.So definitely prioritize.
I think that would be the key.
There's a lot of overwhelm.
It can just feel so overwhelming andour listeners are in the same boat.
They're in the same boat as we are.
So what are some things that you guyshave found to be helpful when you're just
(02:14):
like, we have too much work todayand not enough staff people to do it,
and also tomorrow, next day andthe next day and the next day.
What are some ways that you havefound to help with the overwhelm?
Some things that you've said arehelpful, like one bite at a time,
just like one step ata time. Anything else?
For us, it depends on if it's calloutsversus if it's the busy season.
(02:35):
So for example, in the cleaning world,
I'm going to prioritize highprofit jobs versus for example,
I would prioritize taking aclient that wants a deep clean,
I have the opportunity for a recurringclient versus if it's a move out clean,
that client is going to bookthat cleaning and then move on.
So I think that we prioritize what'sgoing to be best for the business and just
(02:57):
look at the overall potential for futureas well as potential for profit on that
job. So we would do that.
We also have a wait list so our clientsunderstand once the busy season comes,
then we create a list. Wecover an entire county,
so we have a list of northernwait lists, Eastern wait lists,
southern wait list, andWestern, and so we prioritize.
(03:18):
So if there is a last minuteavailability with a client canceling,
then we go to our wait list and we fillthat spot to ensure that our cleaners
have the work. I like that.
Because the wait list sounds soprofessional. Instead of saying, oh,
we're just booked, we can'ttake any more clients.
Wait list is way more of asoft below to the caller.
That sounds okay. Yeah,put me on the wait list.
Yeah. For us,
for a surge of jobs that come inlike a hurricane or a tropical
(03:42):
storm or some kind of anatural event like that,
we get blasted where everybody wantsservice and so we do what I like to call
the triage approach,
where in a hospital they would takesomeone who's bleeding out first over
someone who maybe has a cough.So we do the same thing.
If there's a tree that falls onsomeone's house or on their vehicle or
significant amount of debristhat needs to be cleaned up,
(04:04):
those are the ones that we go to firstand then folks that just need, oh,
I have a tree that's leaning. If youcould just set it back up for me,
those would be a lower priority andwe're very transparent with our customers
and explain, Hey, we have to get to thesefirst because these are more urgent.
Thank you so much for your patience.If you can just hang on for me,
we'll get to you and we'llget you all straightened up.
(04:26):
I think also planning ahead, soagain, in the cleaning world,
we're busy during the holidays, so we arealready planning now for Thanksgiving,
we're closed Thursday, Fridaywe're reaching out to clients,
we're being very proactive.
Do you want to keep your cleaningthe week of Thanksgiving?
Do you want to skip your cleaningthe week of Thanksgiving?
And we start that a month in advance.
(04:47):
So I think anything thatyou can do to prepare,
if in the case of a hurricane youcan't necessarily prepare maybe,
but we know when our busy season is,
so we start preparing forthat a month in advance.
Same with us. We do have our busyseason. It's usually March or April,
and so ahead of that for mowing,
we get make sure all of our machines areready to go and make sure we have the
(05:08):
right amount of people to handle the jobsand just kind of get everything ready
to go so that when busy season happens,we're ready no matter what. And.
You'd mentioned callouts earlier,what do we do with callouts?
So we do leave a little room in ourschedule for if we do have situations for
callouts,
but one of the things we found that isvery helpful if it's near the end of the
(05:29):
week,
we ask for volunteers for Saturdays andwe actually pay our employees bonus pay
if they volunteer to work on aSaturday. So if your schedule's packed,
then that's an opportunity not onlyfor your employees to make more money,
but it's a way to cover your clientsas well. We actually do the exact same.
Thing with volunteers for Saturdays, andsometimes you get a lot of volunteers,
(05:50):
sometimes you don't,
but it definitely helps fill in that timewhen you have more work than you have
week.
So.
Then you know how to get all thatwork done in a shorter amount of time.
I think the word I'm hearing alot is preparation helps a lot.
If you're prepared for the busiestseason, for the Thanksgiving for March,
preparation makes a lot of differenceAnd if you're well prepared,
you can absorb a lot of punches soto speak, but if you're not prepared,
(06:14):
then you really arefeeling a lot of stress.
There's a lot of otherstress related business too,
though I would call surge volume,
kind of good stress likeman, we're just so busy,
we can take our pick of whateverclients we want to serve.
And then there's weeks that it justrains all week in the lawn care world and
then you have the same,
nothing's really changed except fornow we have to make up all this stuff.
(06:36):
We have to make up makeup and cram.
Well, we've had that happenwhere obviously Florida,
it rains a lot and so if it rains,
I'll send out an email blast to ourcustomers and say, Hey, it's rained a lot.
If we mow your grass, we'reprobably going to mark it up.
So if you think it'll be better that itwaits till next week, just let us know.
Overwhelmingly clients say, oh yeah,wait till next week. There's no rush.
(06:58):
And that instantly takes that pressureand that stress off because we're not
assuming that they want us todo that for them. Of course,
you do have the clients who say, oh no,
my grass has to be cut no matter whatbecause if it's more than three and a half
inches long, somebody.
Will.
Lose their mind.
So.
We do accommodate those customers too,
but it is easier to accommodate a hundredclients instead of 400 clients in a
(07:20):
week.
And crystal weather may not be as big ofa factor for you because you're working
indoors, but you have breakdowns.
You have crews that go down just forthe whole day for whatever reason,
and suddenly 15 homesaren't being cleaned today,
they had to be cleaned tomorrowor the next day or the next day.
And so how do you accommodate for thosekinds of unforeseen because dealing with
that kind of stuff?
Yeah, I think it's just beingauthentic with your clients.
(07:41):
Just explaining to them we are realpeople with dealing with real issues.
Most of our clients arepretty understanding.
We do allow room in our schedule to,
because we understand based on thenumber of employees that we have,
we will have call outs.
Let's talk about that.
You've mentioned a couple oftimes margin in your schedule.
Yes.
Explain that.
(08:01):
Yeah, so we have over 55 employees,
so we account that we're going to haveat least two call outs every single day.
So generally speaking,
we'll allow two openings in the morningand two openings in the afternoon.
Worst case, we have what we call flexhouses. So if someone needs the work,
I'm generally on the list. I would loveto have my house cleaned every week.
So we do have those availabilityto where we could call someone last
(08:26):
minute if for some reason we did not havecallouts to ensure that our employees
have work, but we know thatstatistically speaking,
we're going to have callouts. Sowe never fully book our schedule.
We have the callouts too,
and in our case we'll pullsomebody off of a different crew.
Usually we have two leaders onone of our commercial routes,
and so what we'll do is we'llpull one of those leaders off,
put him on where he needs to go, and thena lot of times the operations manager,
(08:50):
he'll have to jump in and runa route, run some one-off jobs,
whatever the may be.
But we try and just always have a littlebit of a cushion in with our schedule
just to make sure we're not overcommittingbecause the worst thing you want to
do in business is over promise and underdeliver. You want it to be the reverse.
Margin is so important.That's a great point.
So you can build margin in byeither just space on the calendar,
(09:12):
but then also you can have rolesin your company that are hybrid,
which some days you're managementand some days you're doing the work
production. Those are great ways.
I remember the first time I usedto get so frustrated, I was like,
how in the world do we, we're alwaysbehind. We're just constantly behind.
It gets to the end of the week and we'restill not finished with everything just
constantly. And then my buddyDiamond Quesenberry said, man,
(09:32):
just book Monday through Thursday,
keep Friday wide openand you'll be amazed.
And I've never slept better since we'vebeen leaving that margin open because
here's the thing, it's usuallyeasy to book up Friday.
If it's been nice weather and nothing badhappened, it's easy to book up Friday,
but if nothing went well that week,
because the goal for meis to finish the week,
(09:54):
complete everything that was booked forthat week within the week and not having
any carryover to next week,that's the goal for me.
And so if I can do that by havingsome margin on Friday, that helps.
I'm curious how you guys handle yourteam members and the flexibility.
You might have a rain day orsomething or the vehicle breaks down,
and then how do you make up? Doyou had them work later, boss,
(10:16):
I can't work later. How doyou handle that kind of stuff?
Well, for us it's going todepend on when it starts raining.
If it's raining all night long beforethey're coming to the shop, we're say,
Hey, we're just not working today.
We're going to work late tomorrowand probably the next day.
But if it starts raining in themiddle of the day, like say 10 30,
we get some freak storm out of nowhere.
They can come into the shop andsharpen blades, tidy the shop,
(10:37):
do some things there for a few hoursto get their time in for the day,
to finish their day so theirpaycheck isn't impacted.
But usually we will do that or theymake it up the following day or the
following, following day.
And So on.
So we very similar situation iffor some reason a bunch of clients
cancel or things like that, we'll havethe ladies come into the office clean,
(10:59):
vacuums, help withsupplies, things like that.
So really sort of our philosophyis you never know until you ask.
So let's say we have a bunchof call outs, five in a day,
that would be a lot for us. Then wewould just ask the other team like, Hey,
can anyone work late or does anyone wantto volunteer to work on the Saturday?
So it is a very rare circumstance wherewe cannot clean someone the day or the
(11:20):
next day or even push them to theweekend. So our goal is like you Adam,
we want to clear that scheduleby the end of the week not to.
I want to hammer this because I know ourlisteners are thinking the same thing.
I'm thinking I'm a man of the people.
I want to ask thequestions they're asking,
do you require your people towork late or work Saturdays,
and is that part of the hiring process?
(11:40):
How do you juggle obligations to clients?
Especially if it's our fault we doublebooked or we made a mistake and we
promise you we'd come today,we need someone there.
How do you manage thatwith team morale and Oh,
I'm always working late or there's a lotthere. You guys have any tips on that?
So our employees are our number one asset.
(12:02):
We treat our employees like they'regold because they really are.
And so we never require anemployee to work late. In fact,
we allow each one of our employees tocustomize their own schedule and they can
tell us what time theyneed to be off every day.
So it's their option if they want towork late and they have the flexibility
because we do look out for employees.
We offer to pay thembonus pay on a Saturday.
(12:24):
There's no obligation to do that,but because we treat them so well,
they know that if we reachout, we really need the help,
but they're not required to and wealways find away. It usually works out.
For you. It sounds like it usually works.
Well because also part of the variablefor us that we're not talking about is
that clients also skip.Clients also cancel.
So there's typically always anopportunity we allow for that too.
(12:47):
We get skip requests, we getlate, cancel my daughter's sick,
something like that. That allows someflexibility on the schedule as well.
Yeah,
we always make sure that we take care ofour employees first because our team's
everything,
They're the ones who are going to people'shomes and taking care of their homes,
and so we would never require them towork overtime or extra time or Saturday or
anything like that. We do get,hey, who wants to volunteer?
(13:11):
And we always get volunteers andit's not always the same people.
Sometimes they have things they have todo with their families or they'll let us
know, Hey, I can't work tomorrow.
My wife is going to the doctor and I'mgoing to take her. I want to be with her.
Okay, great. Now we knowand we can plan accordingly.
And we don't ever give 'em a hard timeabout that because our employees are
people too. They have families, they havechildren, things that they have to do.
(13:32):
And I feel like you have to have atwo-way respect in your business.
It's not just they're there working foryou, you're also there to serve them.
How can I help you? How can I makeyour life a little bit better?
Your day better?
It's a dance. Yeah.
It sure is.
I want to pause the conversation eventhough this is a really good one to talk
about. Jobber and jobber can helpa lot in these kinds of situations.
(13:53):
High stress, high volume of work.
What do you guys like about jobber somuch that helps you handle the high volume
so no one falls through the cracks?
Well,
I really love the request feature wherepeople can submit their requests online
or the staff in your office can go aheadand enter information from the phone
calls that they'regetting right in that way.
Nothing's stuck on a sticky note anddoesn't get missed or left forgotten about
(14:15):
and oh, we never got that person a quote.
Everything is right there in the system,
easily convertible toquotes and then to jobs.
And I love the ability toset up the recurring clients.
So whether it be weekly or biweeklyfor us, monthly is every four weeks.
Jobber allows that option.
And then the great thing is once theyare set up for that recurring service,
they get the email reminders,the text reminders as well.
(14:38):
Yeah, my favorite is being ableto tag, it's not actually tagging.
I use a calendar user called Flexible,
and so then I assign that flexibleschedule to anyone who says, oh,
just come anytime.
So then our office staff can pull upthat flexible schedule and say, oh,
John's ready. He said anytime.So we call him. Yeah, come on by.
I work from home.
It's really easy to keep track of thosepeople who might otherwise we may never
(15:02):
get to because they're flexible,we just keep pushing them back.
But it's a great way to keep track ofthose people. So you need jobber as well.
You need to keep track of all yourclients in a very organized way,
and jobber helps you do that.
Stop letting people fall throughthe cracks they deserve better.
Go to jobber.com/podcast deal anexclusive discount and start managing your
(15:24):
business better with jobber. Iwant to talk about leadership,
especially in these hot momentswhere we have a lot of work,
we're juggling all these different teamsand assignments and all these clients.
How do you delegate in those situations?You can't be in 10 places at once,
you can't be doing allthese different things.
How have you found the best tactics fordelegating and splitting up all your
(15:45):
to-do lists in a different people andgetting it all done without just being all
on you?
I would say going back towhen you're not crazy busy,
that's when you develop your people.
That's when you develop your systemsand processes. So for example,
I have six ladies in my office,
anywhere from sales tocustomer service to scheduling.
(16:05):
We all have a backup,
so we need to understand whatthe other people do just in
case it's crazy in the office.But I think at the end of the day,
for me it's about perspective.We are here to serve people,
but at the end of the day, ifsomeone's house doesn't get cleaned,
nobody's dying. So we arebalancing perspective. Yeah,
(16:29):
perspective is really,really important. I always.
Say there's no emergencies andlandscaping. We're not curing cancer. Yes,
we provide a very valuable serviceand it's important to do that well,
but if we don't mows somebody's grass,they're not going to have a heart attack.
I mean they're going to be okay.
And so perspective is a hundred percentkey just to keeping some levity,
(16:50):
keeping things light thatthere's not so much pressure.
So I know sometimes we put a lotof the pressure on ourselves.
We want everything to go exactly perfectlyand we want to run this very well
oiled machine, but let's be honest,sometimes it doesn't happen like that.
And just to give yourselfsome grace and it's okay,
we can get it together tomorrow.
Sometimes our people and you both haveexperienced this, you have great people,
(17:13):
they will take on the stress too.
So you're stressful and you think I'mthe owner and they're just the employee.
But if you have good people,
they feel the stress they wantto deliver for the clients,
they feel all this overwhelmjust like you do a lot of times.
How do you manage that?
Again, we talk aboutperspective. We give grace.
(17:34):
We have for us at this point,
we're back to all females andso we have a lot of single moms,
they get sick children,things happen. I'm a mom,
I give them grace. Is it tough whenyou get five callouts in a day?
Absolutely, but at the end of theday, we're there to provide a service.
We're doing the best we can.We're humans. We give grace.
(17:58):
It's the same thing with a client.
Maybe they left to go on vacation andforgot we were coming. We show up.
There's no key under themat. We give grace now.
We do not allow abuse. We don'tallow our employees to abuse us.
We don't allow our clients to abuseus, but there's grace. We're all human.
We're all doing the best we can,
(18:18):
but I'm going to hone back in systemsand processes because if you have
things that are well-defined and in order,
then it makes things a loteasier when the chaos comes.
I want to come back to that Crystal.
Give us an example of what youmean by give us an example,
but we'll come back toyou. Kelly, go ahead.
No, I was actually going to piggybackoff of what she said with the systems and
(18:40):
processes where our teamknows what they have to do,
of course the service part itself,
but then also the internal processesthat we have, the checklist, the photos,
requests that they submitand things like that.
And so by educating all of our employees,
all of our technicians in the field aswell as the office staff on how to wear a
variety of hats,
(19:00):
when we do have call outs or things thathappen or there's a huge influx of new
work,
more people are there in a position tobe able to take care of those projects,
to take care of those requests.
We're just able to catch up a lot quickerthan we would be otherwise if it was
all on one person's shoulders.
Crystal,
give an example of what does it look liketo prepare in the off season or in the
(19:23):
slow season I should say, for thesereally big surges for the overwhelm,
for the stress.
Can you give me an example of a processor a protocol that is in place that
helps manage that kind of stuff?
As far as callouts or just hugevolumes during the holidays or.
Either one is fine. I'm just trying.
I want to give our listenersare really practical. The deal,
a lot of our listeners don'thave anything like that in place.
(19:44):
They're doing 10,000 a monthsmall business, which is great.
It might just be them and one employee.And now is the time, as you guys know,
to be developing those SOPsand those protocols now.
And so what's one thing they can donow to help when they are doing bigger
volume and they have a callback orcall out whatever the case may be?
Well, so we have a team meeting everyTuesday with my entire office staff,
(20:07):
and so that's when we develop whatthose strategies might look like.
So for example, we'll talk about for us,
we're very high volume right now withsouthern clients where we live, right?
I don't have enough southern cleaners,
so we know once the holidayscome that could possibly be.
Crazy.
For us.
So right now we are preparingfor that looking ahead,
(20:29):
we're trying to hire a lot of southernemployees that will cover our southern
clients. So again, it's just sortof knowing what's coming your way.
I know that the volume isgoing to increase starting in the next couple of weeks
for the month of November. So thatwould just be one example preparing,
making sure that we have on theschedule. I have a tendency,
(20:50):
so green for us on jobber isone things I love about jobber.
We code the word open andit turns to schedule green.
We know those are openings. I have atendency to push my team, fill the green,
fill the green. That means that'smore money that make that money.
Make the green, make.
The green make that green, yeah. Sosometimes I have to remember back off,
we need the wiggle room. So it'spreparing my team. Now they know, okay,
(21:13):
worst case, we have a ton of openings,we'll run a flash sale tomorrow.
Those are systems and processes that wehave. It's okay if we have the green.
We had someone in a caraccident over the weekend.
We had somebody whose kid's inthe hospital. This is real world.
This happened over the weekend.
All those green spots that we had onMonday that I was pushing my girls to fill
before I came here, guess what?We had girls that called out.
(21:36):
So we developed that processof understanding just because you have the opening,
sometimes it's okay to sit back.
It doesn't mean your team's notgoing to have work for the day.
Understanding sort of getting in a feeland having a process for what that looks
like. Worst case, it comesMonday, then what do we do? Okay,
(21:56):
we move our afternoon clients to themorning and then we can send out an email
last minute opening threeopenings in the north,
whatever that may look like for yourbusiness. And then we can get those
Employees work. So that would bea system and a process for us.
Not everything necessarily alwayshas to be like a knee jerk reaction,
if that makes sense. Sometimesyou let things go and flow,
(22:20):
see what happens, but then when youdon't have the work, what do you do?
That's where you have to have the process,
move afternoon clients to the morning,run a flash sale, have them come clean,
vacuums, clean equipment,
whatever that looks like toensure your team is taken care of.
Was that what you're looking for? That's.
Really helpful.
I think it's also really important,
especially for the smaller businessesthat are looking to scale up and to grow
(22:41):
for them to start taking a look at whatare my terms and conditions going to be?
And this is not something you want todo when you're slammed and you've got a
ton of requests out there.
You can sit down and define very wellyour products and services so there's no
confusion during the busy times whenclients are receiving quotes and approving
them or what have you.
And making sure your terms and conditionsare in place and making sure that you
(23:02):
have all of those things.
And then imagine what it would be likewhen you have more people doing quotes
and what that procedure is going to looklike from the time you get a request to
the time you issue thequote, schedule the job.
And so the best time to do that is on thedowntime or the slow season or outside
of your busy time. So thenwhen the busy times do come,
you're prepared because you've set allthose systems up on the front end so
(23:26):
that now that it's a lot smoother whenthe times do get busy and stressful,
you're able to just kind of followyour system, follow your process,
and it goes very well for you.
Yeah.
If I could add to that, for us, itmay not seem like a system or process,
but two things we never stopdoing. We never stop marketing.
(23:46):
So just because things are crazy busyright now, don't cut your Google ads,
don't cut your whatever that looks like.
Never stop marketingand never stop hiring.
So that may sound, or if you'venever experienced that before,
it can be very stressful.What do you mean hiring?
We have all these opening on theschedule. We always need leverage, right?
(24:09):
As amazing as our employeesare, they could possibly
quit, give your two week notice,they could quit you, no notice,
whatever that is. And plus,when you have leverage,
it also provides you the opportunity ifyou have an employee that perhaps is not
performing as well as they should,
if your schedule is stressedand you're maxed out,
(24:30):
if you have an employee that you reallyshould have on disciplinary action or
need to let go, they're notgreat. They're not that bad.
If you had someone better,would you keep them?
So if you continually as part ofyour process, never stop marketing,
never stop hiring, then when you dohave these crazy busy seasons that come,
at least you have a flow of employeesthat you can continue to bring in.
(24:51):
You also never know whereyour next superstar is going to come from, right? Yes.
You never know if that next tire thatyou make is someone who can really just
become a leader within your organizationand help your company move up to the
next level.
One thing I thought about earlier,for a tree company, for example,
if a huge storm comes through,
a simple process could be simplymaking sure that your office staff,
(25:14):
the CSR who answers the phone,
know knows exactly what servicesyou offer and don't offer.
So if someone's calling, Ihave a tree on my house, sorry,
we don't do tree removalsright now, crystal clear,
so that way that lead doesn'tclutter the rest of the lead,
then it's not a good lead.
Just making sure your office staffknow exactly what you offer makes a big
difference because you don't want toclutter your leads with that leads.
(25:36):
Well, and also too,
I think it's really important to makesure you've dialed down your services of
what you're offering, right? Youcan't be everything to everyone.
So I think it's better to have five orsix or seven services that your team
is really good at. Thisis what you can do,
this is what's profitable for and makesense for your organization versus trying
to do other things that are kind of onthe fringes of what your core services
(25:58):
are. And if you're able tojust kind of focus on that,
it keeps things a lot less stressful.
Yeah. I also think,
do you guys think it's a goodtime to maybe cut loose some
clients that are a littlebit too low last year,
just low profit now is a good timeto reevaluate some of those clients
(26:19):
and either raise their priceor kick 'em into the curb.
Absolutely. Problematic ones especially,
we all have those problematic customersthat no matter what you do, they.
Hassle your people. They're.
Not going to be happy. They.
Complain.
They're abusive to your staff. Wehave a zero tolerance policy for that,
where we had a situation where the ladycame out and was cussing at our team
members. I had to callher and say, I'm sorry,
(26:39):
we won't be working with youanymore. So I think it's important.
Definitely look out for your team on that.
Yeah, we do the same thing,zero tolerance policy.
If anyone mistreats or speaks poorlyto our employees or treats them poorly,
that would be a good time tolook at rate increases as well.
So if all of a sudden you find thatyou're winning every single job up, okay,
(27:02):
the bells should go off.
Wait a minute.
Am I the low price guy now whenI'm providing the most value?
So that's a good opportunityand maybe in that hustle bustle,
it's hard to prioritize that, butjust put that on the back burner.
I need to look at my prices.
I need to shop my competition and seewhere we stand. But yeah, absolutely.
And also when we are getting theseleads, just like you mentioned Adam,
(27:25):
it would be if you just geta sense for someone like, ah,
this might be more of a difficult clientthan the other person that called five
minutes before. Do what'seasiest and best for your team,
a client that just seems sortof more go with the flow.
And your team will loveyou for it too. Kelly,
I want you to speak to something that'svery acute for a lot of our listeners
(27:46):
out there who live in areas that havenatural disasters. You live in Florida,
you've lived there for a long time,you've gone through a lot of hurricanes.
People live in California,wildfires, blizzards,
all these things that just completelydisrupt operations at times for several
days. You have a unique perspectiveon this. How do you handle that?
Treating your team right, treating yourclients right, all at the same time?
(28:07):
Well,
the first thing that we do when there'sa hurricane or some kind of a natural
disaster is we reach out to our teamand make sure they're okay, right?
Do you have what you need for your familyto make sure you guys, you have power,
you have food, and I hopeeveryone's doing well.
Here's some informationabout local emergency
management, road closures, howthis may affect schools, et cetera.
(28:32):
And then the request starts coming inand when they come in, it's just like,
I dunno, I just imagine thehurricanes coming all over again.
This time is blowing right in myface with the request of weeds.
So then you have to prioritize, okay,which ones are the most serious?
We tend to prioritize our schooldistrict. We have a contract with them.
The idea is you want to get back to sometype of normalcy as soon as possible
(28:54):
and get the kids back to schooland so forth. So you say, Hey,
who's available to work? And mostrecently when we last had hurricanes,
we had two employees that they weren'table to, couldn't leave. Their family,
their children were very young.And so it's like, that's okay.
Do what you need to do,take care of your family.
We're going to be here next week or theweek after or whenever you can come back
to work. But anybody who can,let's get all hands on deck.
(29:16):
And I know after the last hurricane, weworked all day Friday, all day Saturday.
I'm talking seven to seven, workingto clear things all day Sunday,
all day Monday, I thankedmy team profusely.
A lot of them were working with nopower in their own homes. So Florida,
it's hot, so you're sleeping in 80,
90 degree weather withmosquitoes and all of that.
(29:38):
So.
As a business owner, we did what weneeded to do to make sure they had ice.
And I got together withsome of my resources and we made sure everyone had ice,
made sure they had battery powered fans,
made sure they had lanterns to justto provide that very basic needs for
your people. I feel like that showsthe respect that you have for them.
(29:59):
And then they in turn treat you withrespect as the employer as well.
And so it's a lot of moving parts,
but taking care of your people meansthey'll always take care of you.
That's really helpful. Thank you.
Can I add to that? So I think it's,again, back to policy procedure.
I don't deal necessarily with that,but it snows. In North Carolina,
(30:20):
we deal with inclement weather.
So develop your inclement weatherpolicy now so that both your
clients and your employeesunderstand what that is.
We communicate with both of themprior to something happening.
If we know there's a snowstorm, we'llreach out to all of our clients.
We understand you're on the schedule.If there's inclement weather,
then this is our plan. A, B, C.
(30:42):
Just because school's closed doesn'tnecessarily mean that go-to girls is
closed.
They'll close school sometimes whenthere's not a flurry that hits the ground.
So just creating clear expectationsjust because your kids are at home,
as long as our team is working,
that doesn't mean we're notgoing to come clean your home.
So I think just setting really clearinclement weather policies for both ends
(31:04):
and communicating that. Andthen we're the same as Kelly.
If the weather is, we have employeesthat have come from the north,
they're comfortable driving in the snow.
We have employees that come from Florida,they would never drive in the snow.
Everyone has a different comfortlevel as long as we are operational.
We allow each employee to decidewhat is best for their company,
(31:25):
and that is not considereda call out for us.
Crystal Kelly, that was a reallygreat conversation. I appreciate that.
I'm going to try to boil it downto three actionable items here.
Number one is you have to buildmargin into your schedule,
whether it's day by day,
having two hours each day freeor you just keep Friday open.
The goal is to finish your week, all thework so you don't have any carryover,
(31:46):
build margin in your calendar. You'llbe happy and your people will love it.
That's less stress for them. Number twois prepare staff up for the busy season.
Make sure you have herms and conditionsin place so people know exactly what to
expect if it snows over, a hurricane,
comes through and maybe even trainyour people in the off season. Prepare,
prepare, prepare. And number threeis use a wait list. I love that one.
(32:06):
Use a wait list and so many peoplecall your, it's too busy. Say,
we'll people on the wait list andthen call 'em when there's an opening.
I think that's a great way to soothe theblow when people are disappointed that
you're too busy for them. So ladies,that was great, Kelly, crystal,
thanks for being here. I reallyappreciate it. Thank you.
How do people find outmore about you, crystal?
Yes. So my company isGo-to Girls. It's go dash,
(32:27):
the number two girls.com.That's our website.
We're also on Facebook and Instagram.
My website is fast ons.net. Thatis for my landscaping business.
And if you are interested in coaching,
you can go to home pro coaching.comand I'd be happy to talk to you any way
I can help, any way I can.
Well,
I think your staff are superblessed to have you ladies as their
(32:51):
bosses CEOs, and I think that you'rehaving a huge impact on your teams.
So keep it up and I'm reallythankful. So thank you.
Thank you, thank you.
And thank you for listening.
I hope that you heard something todaythat'll help you build more margin,
your schedule, and prepare for thesurge of busyness. I'm your host,
Adam Sylvester. You canfind me@adamsylvester.com.
Your team and your clients deserveyour very best. So go give it to 'em.
You also never know whereyour next superstar is going to come from, right? Yes.
You never know if that next hire thatyou make is someone who can really just
become a leader within your organizationand help your company move up to the
next level.
Welcome to Jobbers Masters of HomeService, a podcast for home service pros,
buy Home Service pros.
(00:20):
We're in Las Vegas and today we're talkingabout how to handle stressful volumes
of work. I'm your host, Adam Sylvester.
Today's guests are Crystal Hamand Kelly Guerrero. Ladies,
welcome to the studio. Thank you.Yeah, glad you guys are here. Kelly,
why don't you tell our audiencewho you are, what you do, and your.
Background. Sure. Myname is Kelly Guerrero.
(00:41):
I am the co-owner of Fast Landscapesand I also do mentoring with
Home Pro coaching.com.
Crystal.
Hey, good morning, Adam. My nameis Crystal Ham. I own Go-to Girls.
We are a residential cleaningservice in the Raleigh,
North Carolina area and we've beena business for about nine years.
I'm glad you're both here. Both businessesare doing over a million dollars.
You both have teams and you havestressful volumes of work at times.
(01:05):
We're going to get into that,
but what have you guys found to behelpful when you just have a stressful
amount,
like maybe a surge in of phonecalls you're getting or maybe a
couple employees quit and suddenlyyou're in a lurch. Let's start there.
How do you guys go about that?Just initial like we're in.
Trouble. Bourbon no
(01:29):
one thing at a time. I'm only one person.
Each one of my team is only one personand you just have to take things as they
come and do one thing at a time. For me,what helps is to sit down, make a list,
prioritize and start with the mostimportant things first and then go from
there.
I think definitely when you're in yourslower season create your systems and
processes.
(01:50):
Then so when the craziness comesbusy season for me cleaning,
it's the holidays so that whenthe busy season does come,
then you know what to do.So definitely prioritize.
I think that would be the key.
There's a lot of overwhelm.
It can just feel so overwhelming andour listeners are in the same boat.
They're in the same boat as we are.
So what are some things that you guyshave found to be helpful when you're just
(02:14):
like, we have too much work todayand not enough staff people to do it,
and also tomorrow, next day andthe next day and the next day.
What are some ways that you havefound to help with the overwhelm?
Some things that you've said arehelpful, like one bite at a time,
just like one step ata time. Anything else?
For us, it depends on if it's calloutsversus if it's the busy season.
(02:35):
So for example, in the cleaning world,
I'm going to prioritize highprofit jobs versus for example,
I would prioritize taking aclient that wants a deep clean,
I have the opportunity for a recurringclient versus if it's a move out clean,
that client is going to bookthat cleaning and then move on.
So I think that we prioritize what'sgoing to be best for the business and just
(02:57):
look at the overall potential for futureas well as potential for profit on that
job. So we would do that.
We also have a wait list so our clientsunderstand once the busy season comes,
then we create a list. Wecover an entire county,
so we have a list of northernwait lists, Eastern wait lists,
southern wait list, andWestern, and so we prioritize.
(03:18):
So if there is a last minuteavailability with a client canceling,
then we go to our wait list and we fillthat spot to ensure that our cleaners
have the work. I like that.
Because the wait list sounds soprofessional. Instead of saying, oh,
we're just booked, we can'ttake any more clients.
Wait list is way more of asoft below to the caller.
That sounds okay. Yeah,put me on the wait list.
Yeah. For us,
for a surge of jobs that come inlike a hurricane or a tropical
(03:42):
storm or some kind of anatural event like that,
we get blasted where everybody wantsservice and so we do what I like to call
the triage approach,
where in a hospital they would takesomeone who's bleeding out first over
someone who maybe has a cough.So we do the same thing.
If there's a tree that falls onsomeone's house or on their vehicle or
significant amount of debristhat needs to be cleaned up,
(04:04):
those are the ones that we go to firstand then folks that just need, oh,
I have a tree that's leaning. If youcould just set it back up for me,
those would be a lower priority andwe're very transparent with our customers
and explain, Hey, we have to get to thesefirst because these are more urgent.
Thank you so much for your patience.If you can just hang on for me,
we'll get to you and we'llget you all straightened up.
(04:26):
I think also planning ahead, soagain, in the cleaning world,
we're busy during the holidays, so we arealready planning now for Thanksgiving,
we're closed Thursday, Fridaywe're reaching out to clients,
we're being very proactive.
Do you want to keep your cleaningthe week of Thanksgiving?
Do you want to skip your cleaningthe week of Thanksgiving?
And we start that a month in advance.
(04:47):
So I think anything thatyou can do to prepare,
if in the case of a hurricane youcan't necessarily prepare maybe,
but we know when our busy season is,
so we start preparing forthat a month in advance.
Same with us. We do have our busyseason. It's usually March or April,
and so ahead of that for mowing,
we get make sure all of our machines areready to go and make sure we have the
(05:08):
right amount of people to handle the jobsand just kind of get everything ready
to go so that when busy season happens,we're ready no matter what. And.
You'd mentioned callouts earlier,what do we do with callouts?
So we do leave a little room in ourschedule for if we do have situations for
callouts,
but one of the things we found that isvery helpful if it's near the end of the
(05:29):
week,
we ask for volunteers for Saturdays andwe actually pay our employees bonus pay
if they volunteer to work on aSaturday. So if your schedule's packed,
then that's an opportunity not onlyfor your employees to make more money,
but it's a way to cover your clientsas well. We actually do the exact same.
Thing with volunteers for Saturdays, andsometimes you get a lot of volunteers,
(05:50):
sometimes you don't,
but it definitely helps fill in that timewhen you have more work than you have
week.
So.
Then you know how to get all thatwork done in a shorter amount of time.
I think the word I'm hearing alot is preparation helps a lot.
If you're prepared for the busiestseason, for the Thanksgiving for March,
preparation makes a lot of differenceAnd if you're well prepared,
you can absorb a lot of punches soto speak, but if you're not prepared,
(06:14):
then you really arefeeling a lot of stress.
There's a lot of otherstress related business too,
though I would call surge volume,
kind of good stress likeman, we're just so busy,
we can take our pick of whateverclients we want to serve.
And then there's weeks that it justrains all week in the lawn care world and
then you have the same,
nothing's really changed except fornow we have to make up all this stuff.
(06:36):
We have to make up makeup and cram.
Well, we've had that happenwhere obviously Florida,
it rains a lot and so if it rains,
I'll send out an email blast to ourcustomers and say, Hey, it's rained a lot.
If we mow your grass, we'reprobably going to mark it up.
So if you think it'll be better that itwaits till next week, just let us know.
Overwhelmingly clients say, oh yeah,wait till next week. There's no rush.
(06:58):
And that instantly takes that pressureand that stress off because we're not
assuming that they want us todo that for them. Of course,
you do have the clients who say, oh no,
my grass has to be cut no matter whatbecause if it's more than three and a half
inches long, somebody.
Will.
Lose their mind.
So.
We do accommodate those customers too,
but it is easier to accommodate a hundredclients instead of 400 clients in a
(07:20):
week.
And crystal weather may not be as big ofa factor for you because you're working
indoors, but you have breakdowns.
You have crews that go down just forthe whole day for whatever reason,
and suddenly 15 homesaren't being cleaned today,
they had to be cleaned tomorrowor the next day or the next day.
And so how do you accommodate for thosekinds of unforeseen because dealing with
that kind of stuff?
Yeah, I think it's just beingauthentic with your clients.
(07:41):
Just explaining to them we are realpeople with dealing with real issues.
Most of our clients arepretty understanding.
We do allow room in our schedule to,
because we understand based on thenumber of employees that we have,
we will have call outs.
Let's talk about that.
You've mentioned a couple oftimes margin in your schedule.
Yes.
Explain that.
(08:01):
Yeah, so we have over 55 employees,
so we account that we're going to haveat least two call outs every single day.
So generally speaking,
we'll allow two openings in the morningand two openings in the afternoon.
Worst case, we have what we call flexhouses. So if someone needs the work,
I'm generally on the list. I would loveto have my house cleaned every week.
So we do have those availabilityto where we could call someone last
(08:26):
minute if for some reason we did not havecallouts to ensure that our employees
have work, but we know thatstatistically speaking,
we're going to have callouts. Sowe never fully book our schedule.
We have the callouts too,
and in our case we'll pullsomebody off of a different crew.
Usually we have two leaders onone of our commercial routes,
and so what we'll do is we'llpull one of those leaders off,
put him on where he needs to go, and thena lot of times the operations manager,
(08:50):
he'll have to jump in and runa route, run some one-off jobs,
whatever the may be.
But we try and just always have a littlebit of a cushion in with our schedule
just to make sure we're not overcommittingbecause the worst thing you want to
do in business is over promise and underdeliver. You want it to be the reverse.
Margin is so important.That's a great point.
So you can build margin in byeither just space on the calendar,
(09:12):
but then also you can have rolesin your company that are hybrid,
which some days you're managementand some days you're doing the work
production. Those are great ways.
I remember the first time I usedto get so frustrated, I was like,
how in the world do we, we're alwaysbehind. We're just constantly behind.
It gets to the end of the week and we'restill not finished with everything just
constantly. And then my buddyDiamond Quesenberry said, man,
(09:32):
just book Monday through Thursday,
keep Friday wide openand you'll be amazed.
And I've never slept better since we'vebeen leaving that margin open because
here's the thing, it's usuallyeasy to book up Friday.
If it's been nice weather and nothing badhappened, it's easy to book up Friday,
but if nothing went well that week,
because the goal for meis to finish the week,
(09:54):
complete everything that was booked forthat week within the week and not having
any carryover to next week,that's the goal for me.
And so if I can do that by havingsome margin on Friday, that helps.
I'm curious how you guys handle yourteam members and the flexibility.
You might have a rain day orsomething or the vehicle breaks down,
and then how do you make up? Doyou had them work later, boss,
(10:16):
I can't work later. How doyou handle that kind of stuff?
Well, for us it's going todepend on when it starts raining.
If it's raining all night long beforethey're coming to the shop, we're say,
Hey, we're just not working today.
We're going to work late tomorrowand probably the next day.
But if it starts raining in themiddle of the day, like say 10 30,
we get some freak storm out of nowhere.
They can come into the shop andsharpen blades, tidy the shop,
(10:37):
do some things there for a few hoursto get their time in for the day,
to finish their day so theirpaycheck isn't impacted.
But usually we will do that or theymake it up the following day or the
following, following day.
And So on.
So we very similar situation iffor some reason a bunch of clients
cancel or things like that, we'll havethe ladies come into the office clean,
(10:59):
vacuums, help withsupplies, things like that.
So really sort of our philosophyis you never know until you ask.
So let's say we have a bunchof call outs, five in a day,
that would be a lot for us. Then wewould just ask the other team like, Hey,
can anyone work late or does anyone wantto volunteer to work on the Saturday?
So it is a very rare circumstance wherewe cannot clean someone the day or the
(11:20):
next day or even push them to theweekend. So our goal is like you Adam,
we want to clear that scheduleby the end of the week not to.
I want to hammer this because I know ourlisteners are thinking the same thing.
I'm thinking I'm a man of the people.
I want to ask thequestions they're asking,
do you require your people towork late or work Saturdays,
and is that part of the hiring process?
(11:40):
How do you juggle obligations to clients?
Especially if it's our fault we doublebooked or we made a mistake and we
promise you we'd come today,we need someone there.
How do you manage thatwith team morale and Oh,
I'm always working late or there's a lotthere. You guys have any tips on that?
So our employees are our number one asset.
(12:02):
We treat our employees like they'regold because they really are.
And so we never require anemployee to work late. In fact,
we allow each one of our employees tocustomize their own schedule and they can
tell us what time theyneed to be off every day.
So it's their option if they want towork late and they have the flexibility
because we do look out for employees.
We offer to pay thembonus pay on a Saturday.
(12:24):
There's no obligation to do that,but because we treat them so well,
they know that if we reachout, we really need the help,
but they're not required to and wealways find away. It usually works out.
For you. It sounds like it usually works.
Well because also part of the variablefor us that we're not talking about is
that clients also skip.Clients also cancel.
So there's typically always anopportunity we allow for that too.
(12:47):
We get skip requests, we getlate, cancel my daughter's sick,
something like that. That allows someflexibility on the schedule as well.
Yeah,
we always make sure that we take care ofour employees first because our team's
everything,
They're the ones who are going to people'shomes and taking care of their homes,
and so we would never require them towork overtime or extra time or Saturday or
anything like that. We do get,hey, who wants to volunteer?
(13:11):
And we always get volunteers andit's not always the same people.
Sometimes they have things they have todo with their families or they'll let us
know, Hey, I can't work tomorrow.
My wife is going to the doctor and I'mgoing to take her. I want to be with her.
Okay, great. Now we knowand we can plan accordingly.
And we don't ever give 'em a hard timeabout that because our employees are
people too. They have families, they havechildren, things that they have to do.
(13:32):
And I feel like you have to have atwo-way respect in your business.
It's not just they're there working foryou, you're also there to serve them.
How can I help you? How can I makeyour life a little bit better?
Your day better?
It's a dance. Yeah.
It sure is.
I want to pause the conversation eventhough this is a really good one to talk
about. Jobber and jobber can helpa lot in these kinds of situations.
(13:53):
High stress, high volume of work.
What do you guys like about jobber somuch that helps you handle the high volume
so no one falls through the cracks?
Well,
I really love the request feature wherepeople can submit their requests online
or the staff in your office can go aheadand enter information from the phone
calls that they'regetting right in that way.
Nothing's stuck on a sticky note anddoesn't get missed or left forgotten about
(14:15):
and oh, we never got that person a quote.
Everything is right there in the system,
easily convertible toquotes and then to jobs.
And I love the ability toset up the recurring clients.
So whether it be weekly or biweeklyfor us, monthly is every four weeks.
Jobber allows that option.
And then the great thing is once theyare set up for that recurring service,
they get the email reminders,the text reminders as well.
(14:38):
Yeah, my favorite is being ableto tag, it's not actually tagging.
I use a calendar user called Flexible,
and so then I assign that flexibleschedule to anyone who says, oh,
just come anytime.
So then our office staff can pull upthat flexible schedule and say, oh,
John's ready. He said anytime.So we call him. Yeah, come on by.
I work from home.
It's really easy to keep track of thosepeople who might otherwise we may never
(15:02):
get to because they're flexible,we just keep pushing them back.
But it's a great way to keep track ofthose people. So you need jobber as well.
You need to keep track of all yourclients in a very organized way,
and jobber helps you do that.
Stop letting people fall throughthe cracks they deserve better.
Go to jobber.com/podcast deal anexclusive discount and start managing your
(15:24):
business better with jobber. Iwant to talk about leadership,
especially in these hot momentswhere we have a lot of work,
we're juggling all these different teamsand assignments and all these clients.
How do you delegate in those situations?You can't be in 10 places at once,
you can't be doing allthese different things.
How have you found the best tactics fordelegating and splitting up all your
(15:45):
to-do lists in a different people andgetting it all done without just being all
on you?
I would say going back towhen you're not crazy busy,
that's when you develop your people.
That's when you develop your systemsand processes. So for example,
I have six ladies in my office,
anywhere from sales tocustomer service to scheduling.
(16:05):
We all have a backup,
so we need to understand whatthe other people do just in
case it's crazy in the office.But I think at the end of the day,
for me it's about perspective.We are here to serve people,
but at the end of the day, ifsomeone's house doesn't get cleaned,
nobody's dying. So we arebalancing perspective. Yeah,
(16:29):
perspective is really,really important. I always.
Say there's no emergencies andlandscaping. We're not curing cancer. Yes,
we provide a very valuable serviceand it's important to do that well,
but if we don't mows somebody's grass,they're not going to have a heart attack.
I mean they're going to be okay.
And so perspective is a hundred percentkey just to keeping some levity,
(16:50):
keeping things light thatthere's not so much pressure.
So I know sometimes we put a lotof the pressure on ourselves.
We want everything to go exactly perfectlyand we want to run this very well
oiled machine, but let's be honest,sometimes it doesn't happen like that.
And just to give yourselfsome grace and it's okay,
we can get it together tomorrow.
Sometimes our people and you both haveexperienced this, you have great people,
(17:13):
they will take on the stress too.
So you're stressful and you think I'mthe owner and they're just the employee.
But if you have good people,
they feel the stress they wantto deliver for the clients,
they feel all this overwhelmjust like you do a lot of times.
How do you manage that?
Again, we talk aboutperspective. We give grace.
(17:34):
We have for us at this point,
we're back to all females andso we have a lot of single moms,
they get sick children,things happen. I'm a mom,
I give them grace. Is it tough whenyou get five callouts in a day?
Absolutely, but at the end of theday, we're there to provide a service.
We're doing the best we can.We're humans. We give grace.
(17:58):
It's the same thing with a client.
Maybe they left to go on vacation andforgot we were coming. We show up.
There's no key under themat. We give grace now.
We do not allow abuse. We don'tallow our employees to abuse us.
We don't allow our clients to abuseus, but there's grace. We're all human.
We're all doing the best we can,
(18:18):
but I'm going to hone back in systemsand processes because if you have
things that are well-defined and in order,
then it makes things a loteasier when the chaos comes.
I want to come back to that Crystal.
Give us an example of what youmean by give us an example,
but we'll come back toyou. Kelly, go ahead.
No, I was actually going to piggybackoff of what she said with the systems and
(18:40):
processes where our teamknows what they have to do,
of course the service part itself,
but then also the internal processesthat we have, the checklist, the photos,
requests that they submitand things like that.
And so by educating all of our employees,
all of our technicians in the field aswell as the office staff on how to wear a
variety of hats,
(19:00):
when we do have call outs or things thathappen or there's a huge influx of new
work,
more people are there in a position tobe able to take care of those projects,
to take care of those requests.
We're just able to catch up a lot quickerthan we would be otherwise if it was
all on one person's shoulders.
Crystal,
give an example of what does it look liketo prepare in the off season or in the
(19:23):
slow season I should say, for thesereally big surges for the overwhelm,
for the stress.
Can you give me an example of a processor a protocol that is in place that
helps manage that kind of stuff?
As far as callouts or just hugevolumes during the holidays or.
Either one is fine. I'm just trying.
I want to give our listenersare really practical. The deal,
a lot of our listeners don'thave anything like that in place.
(19:44):
They're doing 10,000 a monthsmall business, which is great.
It might just be them and one employee.And now is the time, as you guys know,
to be developing those SOPsand those protocols now.
And so what's one thing they can donow to help when they are doing bigger
volume and they have a callback orcall out whatever the case may be?
Well, so we have a team meeting everyTuesday with my entire office staff,
(20:07):
and so that's when we develop whatthose strategies might look like.
So for example, we'll talk about for us,
we're very high volume right now withsouthern clients where we live, right?
I don't have enough southern cleaners,
so we know once the holidayscome that could possibly be.
Crazy.
For us.
So right now we are preparingfor that looking ahead,
(20:29):
we're trying to hire a lot of southernemployees that will cover our southern
clients. So again, it's just sortof knowing what's coming your way.
I know that the volume isgoing to increase starting in the next couple of weeks
for the month of November. So thatwould just be one example preparing,
making sure that we have on theschedule. I have a tendency,
(20:50):
so green for us on jobber isone things I love about jobber.
We code the word open andit turns to schedule green.
We know those are openings. I have atendency to push my team, fill the green,
fill the green. That means that'smore money that make that money.
Make the green, make.
The green make that green, yeah. Sosometimes I have to remember back off,
we need the wiggle room. So it'spreparing my team. Now they know, okay,
(21:13):
worst case, we have a ton of openings,we'll run a flash sale tomorrow.
Those are systems and processes that wehave. It's okay if we have the green.
We had someone in a caraccident over the weekend.
We had somebody whose kid's inthe hospital. This is real world.
This happened over the weekend.
All those green spots that we had onMonday that I was pushing my girls to fill
before I came here, guess what?We had girls that called out.
(21:36):
So we developed that processof understanding just because you have the opening,
sometimes it's okay to sit back.
It doesn't mean your team's notgoing to have work for the day.
Understanding sort of getting in a feeland having a process for what that looks
like. Worst case, it comesMonday, then what do we do? Okay,
(21:56):
we move our afternoon clients to themorning and then we can send out an email
last minute opening threeopenings in the north,
whatever that may look like for yourbusiness. And then we can get those
Employees work. So that would bea system and a process for us.
Not everything necessarily alwayshas to be like a knee jerk reaction,
if that makes sense. Sometimesyou let things go and flow,
(22:20):
see what happens, but then when youdon't have the work, what do you do?
That's where you have to have the process,
move afternoon clients to the morning,run a flash sale, have them come clean,
vacuums, clean equipment,
whatever that looks like toensure your team is taken care of.
Was that what you're looking for? That's.
Really helpful.
I think it's also really important,
especially for the smaller businessesthat are looking to scale up and to grow
(22:41):
for them to start taking a look at whatare my terms and conditions going to be?
And this is not something you want todo when you're slammed and you've got a
ton of requests out there.
You can sit down and define very wellyour products and services so there's no
confusion during the busy times whenclients are receiving quotes and approving
them or what have you.
And making sure your terms and conditionsare in place and making sure that you
(23:02):
have all of those things.
And then imagine what it would be likewhen you have more people doing quotes
and what that procedure is going to looklike from the time you get a request to
the time you issue thequote, schedule the job.
And so the best time to do that is on thedowntime or the slow season or outside
of your busy time. So thenwhen the busy times do come,
you're prepared because you've set allthose systems up on the front end so
(23:26):
that now that it's a lot smoother whenthe times do get busy and stressful,
you're able to just kind of followyour system, follow your process,
and it goes very well for you.
Yeah.
If I could add to that, for us, itmay not seem like a system or process,
but two things we never stopdoing. We never stop marketing.
(23:46):
So just because things are crazy busyright now, don't cut your Google ads,
don't cut your whatever that looks like.
Never stop marketingand never stop hiring.
So that may sound, or if you'venever experienced that before,
it can be very stressful.What do you mean hiring?
We have all these opening on theschedule. We always need leverage, right?
(24:09):
As amazing as our employeesare, they could possibly
quit, give your two week notice,they could quit you, no notice,
whatever that is. And plus,when you have leverage,
it also provides you the opportunity ifyou have an employee that perhaps is not
performing as well as they should,
if your schedule is stressedand you're maxed out,
(24:30):
if you have an employee that you reallyshould have on disciplinary action or
need to let go, they're notgreat. They're not that bad.
If you had someone better,would you keep them?
So if you continually as part ofyour process, never stop marketing,
never stop hiring, then when you dohave these crazy busy seasons that come,
at least you have a flow of employeesthat you can continue to bring in.
(24:51):
You also never know whereyour next superstar is going to come from, right? Yes.
You never know if that next tire thatyou make is someone who can really just
become a leader within your organizationand help your company move up to the
next level.
One thing I thought about earlier,for a tree company, for example,
if a huge storm comes through,
a simple process could be simplymaking sure that your office staff,
(25:14):
the CSR who answers the phone,
know knows exactly what servicesyou offer and don't offer.
So if someone's calling, Ihave a tree on my house, sorry,
we don't do tree removalsright now, crystal clear,
so that way that lead doesn'tclutter the rest of the lead,
then it's not a good lead.
Just making sure your office staffknow exactly what you offer makes a big
difference because you don't want toclutter your leads with that leads.
(25:36):
Well, and also too,
I think it's really important to makesure you've dialed down your services of
what you're offering, right? Youcan't be everything to everyone.
So I think it's better to have five orsix or seven services that your team
is really good at. Thisis what you can do,
this is what's profitable for and makesense for your organization versus trying
to do other things that are kind of onthe fringes of what your core services
(25:58):
are. And if you're able tojust kind of focus on that,
it keeps things a lot less stressful.
Yeah. I also think,
do you guys think it's a goodtime to maybe cut loose some
clients that are a littlebit too low last year,
just low profit now is a good timeto reevaluate some of those clients
(26:19):
and either raise their priceor kick 'em into the curb.
Absolutely. Problematic ones especially,
we all have those problematic customersthat no matter what you do, they.
Hassle your people. They're.
Not going to be happy. They.
Complain.
They're abusive to your staff. Wehave a zero tolerance policy for that,
where we had a situation where the ladycame out and was cussing at our team
members. I had to callher and say, I'm sorry,
(26:39):
we won't be working with youanymore. So I think it's important.
Definitely look out for your team on that.
Yeah, we do the same thing,zero tolerance policy.
If anyone mistreats or speaks poorlyto our employees or treats them poorly,
that would be a good time tolook at rate increases as well.
So if all of a sudden you find thatyou're winning every single job up, okay,
(27:02):
the bells should go off.
Wait a minute.
Am I the low price guy now whenI'm providing the most value?
So that's a good opportunityand maybe in that hustle bustle,
it's hard to prioritize that, butjust put that on the back burner.
I need to look at my prices.
I need to shop my competition and seewhere we stand. But yeah, absolutely.
And also when we are getting theseleads, just like you mentioned Adam,
(27:25):
it would be if you just geta sense for someone like, ah,
this might be more of a difficult clientthan the other person that called five
minutes before. Do what'seasiest and best for your team,
a client that just seems sortof more go with the flow.
And your team will loveyou for it too. Kelly,
I want you to speak to something that'svery acute for a lot of our listeners
(27:46):
out there who live in areas that havenatural disasters. You live in Florida,
you've lived there for a long time,you've gone through a lot of hurricanes.
People live in California,wildfires, blizzards,
all these things that just completelydisrupt operations at times for several
days. You have a unique perspectiveon this. How do you handle that?
Treating your team right, treating yourclients right, all at the same time?
(28:07):
Well,
the first thing that we do when there'sa hurricane or some kind of a natural
disaster is we reach out to our teamand make sure they're okay, right?
Do you have what you need for your familyto make sure you guys, you have power,
you have food, and I hopeeveryone's doing well.
Here's some informationabout local emergency
management, road closures, howthis may affect schools, et cetera.
(28:32):
And then the request starts coming inand when they come in, it's just like,
I dunno, I just imagine thehurricanes coming all over again.
This time is blowing right in myface with the request of weeds.
So then you have to prioritize, okay,which ones are the most serious?
We tend to prioritize our schooldistrict. We have a contract with them.
The idea is you want to get back to sometype of normalcy as soon as possible
(28:54):
and get the kids back to schooland so forth. So you say, Hey,
who's available to work? And mostrecently when we last had hurricanes,
we had two employees that they weren'table to, couldn't leave. Their family,
their children were very young.And so it's like, that's okay.
Do what you need to do,take care of your family.
We're going to be here next week or theweek after or whenever you can come back
to work. But anybody who can,let's get all hands on deck.
(29:16):
And I know after the last hurricane, weworked all day Friday, all day Saturday.
I'm talking seven to seven, workingto clear things all day Sunday,
all day Monday, I thankedmy team profusely.
A lot of them were working with nopower in their own homes. So Florida,
it's hot, so you're sleeping in 80,
90 degree weather withmosquitoes and all of that.
(29:38):
So.
As a business owner, we did what weneeded to do to make sure they had ice.
And I got together withsome of my resources and we made sure everyone had ice,
made sure they had battery powered fans,
made sure they had lanterns to justto provide that very basic needs for
your people. I feel like that showsthe respect that you have for them.
(29:59):
And then they in turn treat you withrespect as the employer as well.
And so it's a lot of moving parts,
but taking care of your people meansthey'll always take care of you.
That's really helpful. Thank you.
Can I add to that? So I think it's,again, back to policy procedure.
I don't deal necessarily with that,but it snows. In North Carolina,
(30:20):
we deal with inclement weather.
So develop your inclement weatherpolicy now so that both your
clients and your employeesunderstand what that is.
We communicate with both of themprior to something happening.
If we know there's a snowstorm, we'llreach out to all of our clients.
We understand you're on the schedule.If there's inclement weather,
then this is our plan. A, B, C.
(30:42):
Just because school's closed doesn'tnecessarily mean that go-to girls is
closed.
They'll close school sometimes whenthere's not a flurry that hits the ground.
So just creating clear expectationsjust because your kids are at home,
as long as our team is working,
that doesn't mean we're notgoing to come clean your home.
So I think just setting really clearinclement weather policies for both ends
(31:04):
and communicating that. Andthen we're the same as Kelly.
If the weather is, we have employeesthat have come from the north,
they're comfortable driving in the snow.
We have employees that come from Florida,they would never drive in the snow.
Everyone has a different comfortlevel as long as we are operational.
We allow each employee to decidewhat is best for their company,
(31:25):
and that is not considereda call out for us.
Crystal Kelly, that was a reallygreat conversation. I appreciate that.
I'm going to try to boil it downto three actionable items here.
Number one is you have to buildmargin into your schedule,
whether it's day by day,
having two hours each day freeor you just keep Friday open.
The goal is to finish your week, all thework so you don't have any carryover,
(31:46):
build margin in your calendar. You'llbe happy and your people will love it.
That's less stress for them. Number twois prepare staff up for the busy season.
Make sure you have herms and conditionsin place so people know exactly what to
expect if it snows over, a hurricane,
comes through and maybe even trainyour people in the off season. Prepare,
prepare, prepare. And number threeis use a wait list. I love that one.
(32:06):
Use a wait list and so many peoplecall your, it's too busy. Say,
we'll people on the wait list andthen call 'em when there's an opening.
I think that's a great way to soothe theblow when people are disappointed that
you're too busy for them. So ladies,that was great, Kelly, crystal,
thanks for being here. I reallyappreciate it. Thank you.
How do people find outmore about you, crystal?
Yes. So my company isGo-to Girls. It's go dash,
(32:27):
the number two girls.com.That's our website.
We're also on Facebook and Instagram.
My website is fast ons.net. Thatis for my landscaping business.
And if you are interested in coaching,
you can go to home pro coaching.comand I'd be happy to talk to you any way
I can help, any way I can.
Well,
I think your staff are superblessed to have you ladies as their
(32:51):
bosses CEOs, and I think that you'rehaving a huge impact on your teams.
So keep it up and I'm reallythankful. So thank you.
Thank you, thank you.
And thank you for listening.
I hope that you heard something todaythat'll help you build more margin,
your schedule, and prepare for thesurge of busyness. I'm your host,
Adam Sylvester. You canfind me@adamsylvester.com.
Your team and your clients deserveyour very best. So go give it to 'em.
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