How To Build A Remote Cleaning Business Without Ever Touching A Mop | Parker Smith

Ladies and gentlemen, we are here with Parker Smith. We are recording from Nashville. We just met at the huge convention. Kind of hit it off. I like I like some fellow home service entrepreneurs in the game. So, Parker, let's just start out for anybody that doesn't know who you are. Give us your elevator pitch on exactly what you do and how you got here.

All right. Well, first of all, appreciate you, you know, inviting me on the show here, especially on short notice. I love the the mobile setup we've got going here. You wouldn't even be able to tell, honestly. I'm sure you won't. Um, but uh, yeah, my name is Parker. I'm from Chicago. I was a professional athlete. I started my first home service business about 2 years ago. Originally was just like my only option.

I was driving Door Dash to make rent. I was applying for jobs as an Amazon delivery driver. I really was just in a spot where uh, it was either, you know, sink or swim and uh, decided to give this a shot. Actually got started in residential cleaning like made services and then just fell in love with the industry. Loved the fact that I could go out, acquire a client and get paid every week, every two weeks, every month, every year depending on the business type and just reap the benefit of that relationship over and over and over again. And I loved that it was so tangible.

From there, just kind of parlayed that into adding more service locations, adding more service types. Ran Christmas lights last year for the first season, fell in love with that business, and then I was like, "Wow, I want to own a hundred home service businesses and realized I couldn't." So, that was when I I started kind of my pseudo franchising uh program that I have now where I help other people start home service businesses and direct partner with them. I'm a I'm an active consultant in the business, take equity, all that stuff.

Okay. And the predominant one with that model is they start with the remote cleaning for the most part.

Yeah. In general, we find it it's the lowest hanging fruit. It's really easy to get started. It's easy to find really good subcontractors. We love the remote side of the model. So, you know, you really we we are like before you want to go jump into some crazy equipment intensive, skill intensive like start with something easy. Everyone's got a broom and a mop and a vacuum and some, you know, some fabuloso. Great. We can find cleaners anywhere and we can start the business.

Yeah. Okay. This is really interesting. The reason I I was fascinated talking to you guys is like we come from the W2 brickandmortar like boots on ground home services. So everything that I've ever started is like we bootstrap it local market. We did all of the sales, marketing, fulfillment ourselves. You're in more of like the like almost 1099 lead arbitrage, get it going there. And I think it's fascinating because it's two completely different worlds and two completely different models, but essentially you're doing the same thing. You're just like really good at finding contractors. So, let me like let's walk through like with the remote cleaning thing specifically. So, you're running ads, everything remotely, but you're not W2ing anybody. You're finding 1099 cleaners and just rocking from there.

Yeah, man. It's crazy. I break it down to people. And when you actually like like what what is my company? What does my company own? What does my company do? My company is an email inbox, a phone number, a piece of software that has our schedule. and and a website. Like that's my company, okay? We don't own vehicles. We don't own supplies. We don't have a payroll or employees. We don't have an office space. We we don't have anything. Uh most of the >> in fact, all of my companies operate in a city that I don't or have a man. No one lives there that I know, right? You know, I mean, I own a a a cleaning business in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I not only no longer live there now, but I never live there at any point in my life. I've been there twice in my entire life. Right. It just doesn't matter because it's all subcontracted labor. And what we focus on is providing the best customer experience that we possibly can remotely. And that is just really bringing in leads, nurturing them, offering a high quality service, and then really like you said, just having A++ subs. Like that's really what it comes down to.

Okay, cool. So, anytime I I talk to somebody with a a different business model, I'm just for the audience, we're going to go through it step by step by step. So, so I'm going to go marketing, sales, fulfillment, repeat. Beautiful.

So, let's start with marketing. So, remote cleaning business starting from the ground up, zero. You go into a new market. What's the go to market strategy with marketing?

Yeah, I I think the go to market for remote cleaning, it's most often pay-perlead ad platforms because really you can just cheat. like you can really just you can just pay to get leads right now. It's is it is it is there a longevity in it? Absolutely not. Got it. But just what you're starting from >> it's go to market, right? You know, and and I don't I don't have the luxury of, you know, being super super selective and all this. I can just say, "Hey, Google, Google LSA, here's $80. Put me on the phone with someone who wants a house cleaning." Okay, done. you know, and and if the sales process is good enough and you can close even at a 50% closing rate, let's say, or a 40% closing rate, let's say you get 10 leads, will go astronomically high lead cost at $70 a lead. You spend $700 to get four clients, okay? You won't make money on the first service, but that's not the point of the business, right? In the beginning, we just sew the seeds. We get reviews. We allow oursel the luxury of then getting away from payer lead and getting more into Facebook and referral marketing and you know organic and SEO on the website and map pack and all that.

Okay. So let's let's dive into it. So payer lead you're going Google LSAs.

Thumbtac Yelp.

Thumbtac Yelp. Angie will you touch Angie?

I personally am like the biggest Angie hater in the world but there are people that use it.

I say this a lot. If Angie has no haters then I am dead. So

amen to that. Yeah. No, I'm with you. I think they're the worst most predatory business model on planet Earth. Absolutely. There's one exception. I think if you're in an ultra high ticket trade like roofing, I think it pencils. But I think that any business model where their main sales structure is they get the new filed LLC's in every state and then they just hammer that because they don't know any better. It's probably a pretty telltale sign that they're working. So, I'm sure that the cease and desist for me is coming because I'm I I destroy them on social media a lot. So, I'm sure I'm sure I'll get a piece of mail eventually.

Okay, so paper lead, Google LSA, Thumbtac, Yelp, just like for anybody that doesn't know for, you know, audience, maybe new guys, may never even touched a home service business. This is just you're giving the platform a flat dollar amount to have a customer's phone number or a prospect's phone number that's looking for whatever service you have.

Exactly. It is, in my opinion, it's the hottest lead you can get as a new business.

Yeah. Because it's just so easy. You could start a Thumbtac account tomorrow and get a lead. Y start a thumbtack account today and get a lead.

Yeah.

So, okay. Okay, so let's start there. One caveat though, the LSAs in a remote market. How are you getting approved in a remote market with a

Google? That's the sauce, you know, that's part of our sauce is we are we're we're exceptional with getting Google business profiles approved.

Okay. How are you doing?

Um, we we have an offshore team. They handle it all. We have a a direct rep with Google. We have >> we we've got sauce from that standpoint. So

interesting.

Now, one caveat I will put in there, right? It it does require us to at least for a small period of time have a physical location in the area. Now, you don't have it doesn't have to be a permanent building that you own. It doesn't have, you know, but it may require you to lease an office space for a week in downtown Minneapolis. We can push the approval through then real quick and then whatever lease expires, you know, you don't you don't actually live there, you don't work out of there. No problem. Once we're once we're through, we're through.

Yeah. Get the signage up, like all that jazz. Take the video. Exactly.

Got it. Okay.

You know it.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. We've The Google businesses are a lot of people's bane of their existence.

Oh my god.

Yeah. And they've really cracked down, too, which is interesting. We used to get Google business page approved on houses like five years ago. My home was a Google business page.

My home actively is a Google business.

You're lucky, dude. You better you better be careful. One of these days you might wake up to to an email. I've seen it happen to me.

I'm sure. I'm sure.

Yeah. Okay, cool. So then go to market strategy, pay-per-le platforms. Now you start getting some traction. You're getting these customers in. You're then we're gonna get to the sub model in a second, but let's stay at customer acquisition. So, let's just pretend you have some you you get some of these thumbtack leads, these Yelp leads, you start closing them.

When do you start going outside of payper lead? Like, where do you go? Like you start doing Google business, like Facebook ads, where are you going after that?

Yeah, it it really depends on on the individual because, right, we're working with thirdparty operators. If it's me, I'm starting that on day one cuz I have the bank roll to do the two simultaneously, you know. Uh if it's somebody who is like >> they're kind of they only have the the funds to do one thing at a time, right? Then it's typically I would say around the 3-month mark, >> like they're eating off of the income they're making from this business. They can't just sink. >> No, I wouldn't I wouldn't say that, but they're not flush with cash. Like, sure, I'll throw two grand at this and two grand at this. And like, you know, they're they're needing to be a little more selective. Then we don't want to go, okay, we're going to just run everything all at once, you know. Um, >> but I would say about the 3mon mark, 3 to four month. We also are big fans of cold outreach. Um, you know, we love small commercial.

So, it's really hard to do residential cold outreach, especially for home cleaning,

for sure. Um, but for uh small commercial property management even partnerships like I love you know, one one of the be best avenues for my business has been going to general contractors remodelers people who do work like that and saying hey you already have to have somebody clean up after you when you're done >> either you price it in for the client so give them the best experience possible or if that comes out of your pocket we'll give you the best rate possible.

Okay. Yeah, tell me tell me cold outries. Walk me through it. Like are you email, are you phone? Where are you buying a list? What are you doing?

I love phone. We just use a lead scraper software, you know, go and just hammer it out. And honestly, this is the type of thing where in my ideal world, you have a you have a part-time VA right when you start. Right when you start the business, you've got a part-time VA 25 hours a week. This is the stuff you give to them >> just all day, five hours a day. Ring, ring, ring, call everybody. Call everybody. Yeah. You know, and just follow up over and over again. Um, but if you're doing it yourself, yeah, I tell people, you know, can you can you just put aside an hour a day, make some phone calls? You'd be amazed, you know, and even we like to partner up with plumbers and and people who do, you know, drywall or HVAC or anything, you know, any of those people, they make a mess and they don't clean it up themselves.

Yeah.

So, it's a lot of call. We also do email.

But it in the beginning, I feel like when you can call and say, "Hey, I'm another small business owner, manto man, you know, business owner to business owner. I want to help you. You help me, you know. Can we can we eat off each other's plates here a little bit?

Yeah, dude. Okay. So, then you're This is good. The fish don't just jump in the boat. You're not just doing lead form and whatever else. You're you're going out and you're getting business.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Got it. Which I think is really interesting because I >> and I think you agree with this. We talked off camera about this. Remote cleaning has got a little stigmatized off of like there's a lot of bad actors and info as a whole got really stigmatized. But in the months in COVID, remote cleaning had quite a few bad actors come in. Guys that built five to10,000 revenue a month cleaning businesses that were like, "Oh, I could actually just sell a course on cleaning instead of actually growing my cleaning business any further." There's guys on Twitter, there's guys everywhere else. And so I think what a lot of people think from the outside looking in and like somewhat myself included before talking to you guys was like it was basically just like lead arbitrage whatever but you're actually running the entire business. You're cold outreaching. It's much more than just like what some people like to position as like it's a passive money printer.

Yeah, absolutely. I think you there's there's two reasons why that perception of it I is so common and so false. First one is obviously that sells way better. You want to sell info, tell people they don't work and they make a bunch of money, right? Like like >> it's the it's the Amazon FBA course of home services. >> It's automated drop shipping store and you just own the store and it makes you 30k a month and you don't never touch product, never do it. Like of course yeah, give me 10 of those, please. Um, but that doesn't exist. So you know from that standpoint that's why that's how it is. But then on a secondary level there was a period in time where that's what it was.

Yeah. like 2020 >> there really was a period you know and honestly I got in like right at the very tail end of that you know I turned on LSA full transparency right I turned on LSA in my market I was getting $28 leads hot leads like boiling hot leads for $28 I was closing at an 85% clip >> upselling 40% of them to recurring afterwards I built a 40k a month business with 40% margins in three and a half months >> all while like never touching a mop yourself.

Never touched a mob. I mean, and and not only that, >> didn't run Thumbtac, didn't run Yelp, >> didn't do cold outreach, only Google LSA. Yeah. >> 40K a month in in three and a half months.

And what year was that?

And that was uh 2022.

Okay. Yeah, cuz even even like all the Google platforms have gotten a lot more difficult. Like Oh, yeah. Like for example, even in junk removal, when we were in junk removal in 2020 or 2021, our customer acquisition cost on Google pay-per-click ads was about like it was like $15 a a conversion and then we were closing like dude, I'm not kidding you. It was like $15 to $20 a conversion and we were closing like one out of every two or three. Wow.

So like my customer acquisition cost was like anywhere between like $40 and $55 >> and jungle was a way higher ticket than cleaning.

Yeah. Yeah, it was. It was. And what was interesting is Jack and I laugh about this in 2021. We So cuz Jack was my first employee ever in any business, which is like the best and worst thing that ever happened. It's like Jack's your first employee. Yeah. Good luck. Now downhill from that.

Yeah. Now we're now we're equity partners in in one of the companies and everything else. Regardless, we used to have days in peak 2021 during that, you know, illness that we don't really say the name of it on YouTube, but uh >> we would have one job on the calendar and we would know that with Google PPC, we would have an 8 hour day ahead of us. Like we would sell >> same days, >> same days. Like, and I'm talking like we would sell same day full load cleanouts from Google PaperClick for like $45. And then in 2022 it was like customer acquisition cost clicked up to like maybe $65 $70 on Google PPC. 2023 we were buying jobs for like $100 to $110 which like if your average ticket's between $3 and $400 you're cooked.

Oh yeah.

>> Like >> especially for a onetime service. Yeah.

Yeah. 20 and a one time service that has a lot of labor attached to it. So you're talking like 25% customer acquisition costs on a very high operating cost business. Yeah. So what it was interesting we saw and this is what I've seen in the marketplace which I kind of this is why I wanted to bring up like the bad actors in the remote cleaning world a little bit is like when we looked at all of the advice on the internet for like any home service business a lot of it is coming from like what people did in 2020 >> of course >> and like 2019 >> is though that's the sexiest success story.

Yeah. And what's interesting is like those guys built massive wagons and then you essentially at a random point you reach this critical mass in your business where like your organic starts to outpace your paid. And so then you have these new guys coming in and it's even happening at the franchise level where people are we do like home service accelerator has a ton of a ton of individual franchises in it >> and we even see it at the franchise level where people will come in I'm not going to mention any by name but people will come in and they'll say yeah when we were sold this franchise the franchise packet you know all that it was hundred something thousand and they positioned it to us that as long as we put $10,000 a month into this was what they modeled off of was 2029 numbers, 2021 numbers in a bunch of different markets. If we put $10,000 into Google pay-per-click, >> we will never have to call outreach. We're never going to have to do anything. And like, so these people were bought in on these numbers that were 2020, 2021 numbers in these franchises. And then 2023, 2024, 2020, 2025 comes around, Google PPC is literally not even profitable for a lot of these businesses. Like they can't run them. And like the same thing was happening with these agencies set up at the national level. And so we're seeing this almost wash out of home service businesses in every trade where a lot of these people bought into the like, oh, I just buy a franchise and I'm a off hands owner op whatever else and they're just cooked. Do you see that with like in the remote cleaning world and in the cleaning world in general of like people being fed terrible expectations from some other bad actor and like does that affect the process of you guys getting partners on your cleaning business?

You know, I would say yes to the first question, no to the second. Okay. Um, it really doesn't affect our process because I think the most important thing you can do as a business owner, whether be the home service business owner or like the bisop business owner, you know, it's just setting expectation correctly. So, I get on calls with people all the time and they tell me something about my own offer that's not correct and I'm like, "No, wait, wait, let's back up." You know, they're like, "Okay, yeah, so I'm just going to do this and I'm wait no no just going to do No, you're not. that's not how that's going to work or you know, oh well you guys are going to do that. Wait, no, no, no, we're not. You know, so we have a lot of there's a little bit of this kind of reeling people back in >> for sure. >> And I think the other thing is we also are we're getting a little poisoned by this really young demographic of people that are buying info with this pretense that like I need to make $100,000 a month. I need to make $30,000 a month right away. Right? And it's like your day job, you make like $3,500 a month and now you want to make $30,000.

They're they're ready to buy the AP and the and the and the Bugatti.

Exactly. So, I think it also just comes down to your targeting, right? I I am thankful that I get to sit on most of our prospective partner calls with competent adult individuals, uh, which are rare. And you know, I can actually say like, yeah, you know, you you're going to be looking at $15,000 to start up and then within, you know, four to 6 months, you should be looking at making five to 6,000 a month in cash flow and then, you know, if you if you actually project that, like it's a pretty sweet [ __ ] deal.

Yeah.

You know, but you have to have somebody that has a critical thinking brain >> and you have to you have to be like overly aggressive on expectation setting on the front end. Exactly. Like if somebody's going to get into this, like you're not going to you're not going to take profit for a while.

No. And and the funniest thing is the only people who really are actually put off by accurate legitimate numbers are like these like again, no, I was I was this person at one point in my life, but you know, I get on calls with these 21-year-old kids and they're like, you know, I just don't know if the upside in this business is high enough for me, you know, like how much can I really make? Can I can I can I net like 50k a month on the bottom line by the end of the first year? No, >> no, you actually can't. And and anywhere that you think you can do that, >> you are wrong. >> And and you know, it's it's honestly like I would just rather have that person be someone else's problem regardless.

Oh, for sure. Yeah. Okay. I I know that that was good sauce. And I think we got sidetracked on the the marketing a little bit, but Okay. So then you're going there, your LSAs, all that jazz. Let's go down to the sales process. So you're trying to sell like recurring. That's the end goal of this cleaning type of business is you're trying to sell a recurring business.

So, okay, let's talk about sales. So, I convert on a Google LSA. I call you right now and I I call one of your, let's say, your one's in Minnesota, right?

Yeah, one of them.

Okay. So, I convert on your Minnesota LSA and I say, "Yeah, I'm looking to get my uh, you know, three-bedroom apartment cleaned. Are you selling over the phone? Walk me through it."

Yeah. Yeah. So, it's all remote. Um, so we will sell over the phone.

But, I mean, by remote, I mean like are you text? Are you closing people in text? Are you phone? No, it's phone. phone. Yeah, we're going to get them on the phone whenever possible. Some people are weird and they like, "Oh, I I'm in I'm at work. Just text me the quote." But whatever.

I am that person, by the way. I'm that buyer.

But you are a buyer. Most of those people aren't buyers. Most of those people are rate shoppers.

Fair.

You know, and they just are like, I can't say no on the phone cuz that's scary. So, I want a text quote and I can just ghost you after you text. So, you know, whatever. If that's the case, it's the case. You know, I teach any of my partners or any of my businesses, my VAS, anyone.

We what we do is we start by selling them the service that they need and then we sell them the service that they want.

Right? So that starts you calling in, you want a deep clean. We're on the phone. You tell me, "Yep, I'm in a three bed, two bath uh apartment, 1600 square ft. I'm moving out. I want to get, you know, the the inside of all the cabinets cleaned out, the fridge, the oven, interior windows. I need the whole works stuff.

Right. So, we start, we go through that. I'm going to get a gauge for who's in the house in terms of individuals, pets, things like that. Uh how how just kind of grimy or dirty, how much buildup there is going to be at at the move out time. And then >> I start by just selling you that. So then I'm going to say, okay, everything you need is going to be encapsulated in this package. and it it's $4.99. This is where people go wrong is they try to sell that $4.99 package and then you the uninformed buyer who in all likelihood probably doesn't hire a cleaner very frequently or you know maybe ever >> especially on a big onetime service you're like well $4.99 I mean that's just like that's ridiculous like no way you know or it's the well you know I got to talk to my wife my roommate whoever whatever right so that's we we start by trying to sell them what they need >> we'll percentage of those people that just right away are perfect. Yep. Get it off my to-do list. Okay, here's the card. We take card over the file over.

Yeah, the lay the lay down.

Good. Yeah, the lay down.

And we'll get a lot of those actually, but um, you know, still more so of the non-laydowns. Then we start by I am a big proponent of just asking the budget right then and there because I already paid for the lead, you know. Um, there's somebody I forget who it was, one of the speakers actually was like, you can't say no to me twice, you know, like you say no or you say yes, whatever. So once I get to that point, we know the call back rate is extremely low in cleaning.

You're not going to get a call back.

Like if you don't close them on the phone, your chances of getting them after, >> you know, if it's recurring and they're calling saying, "I'm looking for a bi-weekly service and that's specifically what I need." Maybe it's a little higher because they will shop around a little more and whatnot. But onetime services, the call call back rate is like zero. You got to close on the first call >> because a lot of the other side too is like cleaning is a very commoditized service. So, if they're getting off the phone with you, they're going to eventually, if they're quote shopping, they're going to eventually find the owner op who's not paying taxes, not doing anything legally, that's going to be half your price. It's the problem every trade has, but it's a problem that your trade has a lot.

Well, it's funny cuz they're going to if I give them the chance, they're going to find the subcontractor that I was going to send to them.

That's what I always say. So, you know, um, like the same guy's going to clean their house regardless. Whether they find them directly or they find me, it's the same guy. But regardless, then we we just start to sell them the service that that they want. So, it's okay. What's your budget? What what did you expect to pay? You know, no problem. That $4.99 is just not really what you were thinking. And if of course, if I was expecting to pay $80, that's what I Okay, have a nice day. CL, you know, but if it's >> I was really hoping we could get something done for for 300, >> I always use the frame of okay, here's what I can do for $300. And I just I just take no off the table. Okay, you wanted a $300 clean, we'll just give you a $300 clean. So from there, instead of what people get wrong is they go discount and they say, "Here's a $100 off. We'll get you down to 400. Will that be close enough?" They devalue themselves. They devalue themselves. And then your labor cost when you're subcontracting is going to be pretty fixed. You know, like my subs want half of the job total. My prices are built appropriately. So if I'm selling at 500, the sub's going to get 250. If I drop my price to 400, sub's still going to get 250.

Right.

Right. So now I've just I'm just killing what I've got left on the bone.

You just lost 33% of your net.

Exactly. I'd rather just sell them. Okay. Here, what we can do is a $300 service. $300 service looks like a six-hour deep clean. Based on what you're telling me right now, if you're like, it should only be 300 bucks cuz it's really not that dirty. Cuz no one's house is that dirty, right? And so it's really not that dirty. I think it was 6 hours. We could probably get pretty much everything you want done. Now, I can't promise we're going to get everything done because >> it may be a little dirtier than you think, but how about we do this? You give me everything that you want in order from most important to least important. We'll come through. We'll put it on a checklist. I'll send my crew there. 6-hour deep clean. If it's really not dirty, like you say, I think we get almost all of it done. And if we don't get something done, it'll just be the least important stuff. Running the vacuum in the living room. You can just do it after we leave. But that way you won't pay a dime over the budget that you set for yourself. At that point, there's no more objection left, right? So then I just sell it at 300. But now that I've capp my service timewise, I can also bring my subcontracted labor costs down appropriately back to 50%.

Okay.

And then if you deliver a bangup service, you get them on recurring, you get the review, you build the LTV of the client.

Okay. And that sounds wonderful in execution.

Yeah. I am skeptical >> for sure.

So, let me ask you some questions and hopefully you'll make me less skeptical. Yeah.

So, sounds great in execution until the homeowners like, >> "Hey, you gave me six hours. Your cleaners were slow, dude." Like, they were just what? Like, does that happen?

Yeah, of course.

So, what's the like cuz then it's like, well, you guys were on an hourly thing now. Now, I felt like they were just kicking. I saw your cleaner texting. I saw your cleaner doing this. Does that happen a lot when

No. A lot. No. It does it happen? Absolutely. Yeah. And you know, typically those are the clients that were going to find something to complain about. Even if they bought the full $500 service, they would have been >> unhappy that they paid they paid over their budget and they still didn't get the perfect clean. So, you know, you have to remind yourself that as a home service business owner, your clients that complain are your clients that complain.

Got it. And then how often are they like coming in at the 300, their six hours get up and they're like, "Hey, cleaner, can you keep going?"

All the time.

Yeah. And then it's they call you back.

Yeah. Because at what point do they does the sub try to go behind your back?

Very rarely. It typically comes down to the, you know, don't bite the hand that feeds you.

Yeah.

You know, if my subs can keep themselves busy 15 hours a week with their own little word of mouth, friends and family marketing >> and I can give them 35 hours a week >> and get them up to the full 50. Yeah. I mean, they might they might screw me out of three clients when they try to go behind my back and whatever. As soon as I get a whiff of it, they're just cut out. and and they're not going to be able to fill their own schedule because >> they're too busy actually in the field doing the labor to take sales calls during the day. They're running on too tight of budgets to actually advertise properly.

They don't they're almost all English second language, right? They're not going to be as smooth selling on the phone. All of those things like it really does come down to the fact that most of them >> just want to get paid. and screwing me out of an out of a $100 on a job here and there and then losing the $1,500 a week that I bring them.

It's not a good arrangement for them.

Got it. Okay. And then now that we're on the fulfillment side, where are you finding these subs and like how are you vetting them out?

Yeah. You know, this this is really like the this is the trade secrets, but I I I'll spill a little bit of the sauce. Um, the vetting process is far less important than the locating process. Okay? Because if you find them in the right place, you've already done the vetting when you find them. And I'll give a little more context to that. Um, I typically like to just absorb existing companies, right? I I like to go find Claudia's cleaning company and it's Claudia and her husband and her sister and they clean houses together and yeah, they they've got a website or maybe the website link just goes right to the Facebook page. they got six reviews and like a logo that they spun up on Canva and you know whatever, right? And uh, you call in and Claudia doesn't answer because she's cleaning and then she calls you back at the end of the day and she's super heavy Hispanic accent. I'm like, "Claudia, how are you, sweetheart?" Like it's such it's so great to hear from you. Um, I'm like, "Do you clean in uh, you clean in Chicago?" And she's like, "Yeah, yeah, I clean in Chicago. You are you taking more clients?" "Yeah, we're we're what do you need? Do you need something done?" Claudia, actually, I might be able to do you one better. I own my own cleaning business here in Chicago. Um, and I was actually thinking right now, I've got my own staff, but they're overworked. I have too many jobs, too many people calling in, too many bookings on the calendar, and it is such a nuisance for me to go out and try to hire full-time W2, train them, do all this stuff. I'm seeing on Facebook, it sounds like you've got a really good operation going right now. would you be interested in just subcontracting some of these jobs out from me? Like, I'll do the marketing. I'll sell them. I'll do the follow-up, process the payments, you get paid right after you complete the job. No if, ands, buts about it. All you got to do is show up on time. Do a great job. Wear an apron with my company's logo on it. Is that something we can figure out? Boom. Claudia's like, "Absolutely. Send me every job that you have."

Okay. Interesting. You're making the subs wear your brand.

Not necessarily. They could be unbranded. I typically like to have them throw an apron. Easier than a shirt because they're they're maybe doing a clean in their own shirt. It's a summer, they're sweaty, they want to change the car.

That's interesting.

But it can't be their own brand. That's the only thing that I that I won't let fly because it just creates confusion for the customer.

For sure. Yeah.

Okay. Interesting. So, they're coming out. What like again on a podcast sounds wonderful and execution. How many of these did you find and like you have the conversation with Claudia, then you go they go do a first clean and you're like, "Oh gosh, never again." Versus

they're solid.

I would say if I find them through a channel that I actually like, like, you know, Facebook, they've got some reviews, people have spoken highly about them there, you know, whatever. Um, and then I can get a real Zoom interview in with them. So that that's the prelim phone call. Then we get on a Zoom interview and I just confirm like what type of equipment are you guys using, supplies, you know, all that stuff. Confirm that they have their wits about them with their cleaning processes, all that.

I would say it's probably 80% success rate. Um, okay.

And the good thing is I don't need to go and hire 15 subcontractors. I can hire four Claudias and then Claudia brings the whole team with her. She manages all them. Don't even know their names. Don't even care what their names are, right? Because it's Claudia's cleaning company. That's who I work with. Claudia gets paid. You know, honestly, I don't even know I in the details of what their arrangement is. They could be making $10 an hour off Claudia.

I don't care.

Right. Okay. Interesting. Cuz one of the things I saw on your Instagram that was so funny, I just have to bring it up. You or no, you tweeted it. Uh, it was like you showed this this uh this screenshot or something of your one of your remote cleaners texted you and said like their mom died, but the caveat is they had already texted you and called out of a job in the past saying their mom had died. So they had used the same excuse

just happened. That was literally like two weeks ago, three weeks ago.

Call out. Okay, so like this is the reality of it. Not just like the YouTube podcast like it's all sunshine and roses. Like that's hilarious.

Oh, it is. And the the thing with >> the subcontractor model is these business owners forget that like I am them. Like I, you know, I am also we're we're we're not so different after all. And like the same way that your employees and helpers call in sick with [ __ ] reasons.

You call in sick to me with [ __ ] reasons. And I know. And you know the majority of them genuinely it comes down to how much they value the work that you're providing to them. And that's the issue that people have is they try to go out and hire 50 of these subcontractor teams and then they're like, "Well, I just shoot it in the WhatsApp group chat and whoever claims it first gets it." None of those people have any loyalty to you. Okay. I'm running a $40,000 a month cleaning business out of Madison, Wisconsin. Okay. with three individuals that I speak to. I have cleaner A, cleaner B, and cleaner C. Team of four, team of four, team of two. That 10 cleaners is 40K a month for me.

Okay.

But they get a lot of work from me. Like [ __ ] with me is really not in their best interest >> because I am their livelihood. Right. Now, from a standpoint of if I had 30 different subcontractors that I was spreading that same amount of labor out to, yeah, it's really easy. Like that woman who was like, "My mom died again, right?" Like, that is someone that I I call once a month when I really just need some help to backfill something.

And that's why she has no loyalty to me and that's why I get the text at 8 a.m. the day of the service with some BS reason.

Yeah. So this is a really interesting model and so I hope I can I hope I can like illustrate this well through a microphone because if you think about anytime we hire an employee or a contractor of any kind like internally we say if we were on the other side of this table is it a good deal for them and that's like that's been a really good way for me to hire and retain people in all of my businesses.

So when I'm going through this I'm thinking if I'm a sub why don't I just go to Thumbtac? Why don't I just go to Angie or excuse me, not Angie, but Thumbtac, LSAs, myself, whatever else. But I think the sauce that is left out of there is they're not as good of salespeople on the phone and they won't price appropriately. So even if you're taking a 50% cut, I'm thinking through it because I hire a cleaner. I have a two-bedroom, maybe 11, 1100 foot spot in North. Yeah. And I pay my lady $150 a week. She comes every week, but she does my laundry. She'll clean the shelves of my fridge. She'll She'll clean my patio. My dogs have like a little turf spot out there. She will clean the turf where they poop and pee. Yeah. Like that's my gal.

And so my gal is getting what 150 times four. So she's getting, you know, $600 before tip a month out of me. But she was not a good salesperson because I probably would have paid a lot more. And I love her to death. But I've even like >> I'm not going to say her name, she might watch this, but like you're too cheap. Like I've said that like you're too cheap. Like I tip her really well because I know like I would be paying a lot more than this. And so the interesting model is like why they can't a lot of these can't go do it themselves is you clearly have the sauce on the sales side where you're just going to get a way higher average ticket because you're not going to devalue yourself like there. Is that fair to say?

Yeah, I think it's that and then I also think it's um it's they don't want to do it. Like you and I can sit here and we can say as um moneyoriented people, people with business acumen, people who are trying to look at how can I increase my margin, how can I decrease my CP?

We like to we like to use the phrase bagget getters.

Yeah, we're baggetters. Exactly. Professional bagget getters. Right. These cleaners aren't baggetters. Yeah. They're not. They're bad cleaners. Yeah. And that's fine.

Moral and ethical bagget getters. But every business owner that does anything substantial is a baggetter.

Exactly. And the reality with them is >> they want to 5:00, be done working, go home, be with their kids, take be with their husband, do what it is that they have to do. They want to take Sundays off and go to church and relax and you know and they and they can have all of that while also maintaining the autonomy of being a business owner and selecting who they're bringing with them on jobs and managing their own supplies and their own >> schedule and working with me on stuff and taking time off whenever they want, right? Because they're not my employee. I don't treat them like employees, but they can make so much more. I mean, I had a a team of two last year, a woman and her father that cleaned with me and they made $127,000 cleaning houses for me. Like, >> take home for them.

Take home for them. And I know that the the the woman who is actually like, you know, the my my my lead, >> she probably took home 80 of that and paid her dad 50. You know, he's an old man that came along and helped her and she did she did everything. So, she made $80,000 cleaning houses for me. no capital risk, no time outside of the time that she spent cleaning, like you know that that there is so much value in the simplicity for them. So even aside from ability to do so, it also comes down to desire.

For sure. No, that makes a lot of sense. So then, so now we're going through the list. So marketing, paper lead, all that jazz, scale it up, sales, over the phone. You're going over the phone hard. Get them in the one time. Try to sell them up on the upsell. Now we're talked about a Now we've talked about fulfillment, finding the good ones. Usually they're good 50 50% split. Then repeat. Walk us through the sales process on the

Repeat. How do you get them on the monthly plans after? Give us the sauce.

So the monthly plan, I it's it's all about the fulfillment. I mean, as as with any service, right? The first one, the first time service has to be a wow service, right? So that that's the first thing. And we do really well with incentivizing the subcontractors to give a wow service. Like they get massive bonuses for any five-star reviews. Hell, even my VAS all get significant bonuses when we get five-star reviews, right?

Because I know that's another part of the customer experience is how quickly did we follow up after? If we were running 10 minutes late, did the customer get a call that we were running 10 minutes late or did we just show up late? Little things like that. And then what it also comes down to is the pricing of that of that recurring service because one-time service customers are far less price-oriented than recurring for obvious reasons, right? I can afford spending a little out of budget on a onetime service, but if it's going to be every two weeks, like man, I really can't be overbudget every two weeks. That's that's not going to be sustainable for me.

So, it comes down to again really focusing on selling the service provider or selling the client what they want, not necessarily what they need. Some people are like, "Well, you know, I need a bi-weekly and I need all this stuff done." And I'm like, "Susan, what what's the budget for this service?" Oh, it's $300 a month. Well, Susan, you can't have a bi-weekly. We could have a monthly, and and or we could do a bi-weekly that's like a super brush up like come in, wipe counters, mop floors, vacuum, leave, and then a real significant clean once a month as well. But we got to just build it into that.

I always like to be budget-oriented even on the um on the fulfillment side because or on the recurring fulfillment side because the the reality is once we give them a taste of a high-quality service at their price point, they can never replace us, right? Because even even myself as a consumer, I've hired a lot more cleaners than the one I have now and the majority of them were ass. And so once I got the good one, I am loyal to the soil. And if you've got a good one and at a price that you're happy with, you're you're just you have no incentive to look elsewhere.

And the thing is what we what we realized is and from personal experience, if I talk with a client and I ask them, "Oh, you already have a bi-weekly cleaner?" You know, we go and we do a big deep clean for you at your place before a party. And then I'm like, "Hey, do you want to get on bi-weekly?" And you're like, "Oh, well, I actually have my own bi-weekly cleaner. I just called you guys cuz she wasn't available short notice for this party." And so I was just kind of filling in a gap and I'm like, "Okay, maybe we can beat her price. You know, maybe we can do something to kind of win you from that client. You are super happy with the deep clean. Let's talk about it."

You are always going to oversell what your existing service does and the price that you do it for. You're going to discourage me as the potential shark trying to come in and take that client. You're going be like, "Well, you know, my current lady, she cleans my whole place. You know, she wipes my ass for me, too, and she does it all for $125." And that's not true, right? But because that's how we built the service in your mind. That's how you're going to portray it. So no one ever even tries to compete with us on that price because you can't you can't compete with us on it.

Now if she actually said, "Oh yeah, well they really just like quick dust, wipe the counters, mop, sweep, vacuum, and leave for $125." You might be like, "Hell, we could do that for 110." But that's not how she's going to describe it. She's going to say, "They take care of everything for me." because that's the feeling that she got when we come and that's the feeling that she got when we sold the job to her because it was all based budget but with your budget, you can get everything you want. You know, and then of course this is not a foolproof strategy like I'm not here to say like every single time every client is going to be super floored but pick your poison. I mean pick your battle. This way you get yourself an at-bat, for sure. If your cleaners show up and they do a damn good um, you can keep that client forever. I mean, my average shelf life of my client is like 19 months.

Okay. Yeah, let's actually go into that. So, what percent of the inbound booked calls end up being a one-time versus end up being a recurring claim?

So, booked inbound booked calls. Booked calls. So, you go out there for a clean, uh 25 to 30% if you're doing right.

Okay. So, a lot of these are one-offs. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then I assume the one-offs get put into some email nurture everything else to try to get but okay. So and then what's the a what's the LTV of a recurring clean customer on average?

Yeah. I mean I would say our average residential recurring client for my business is say 224 is a ticket. Um, my margin might be slightly thinner on a recurring service. So maybe instead of straight 50/50 maybe I'm like 45, you know, 42%. So, um, for ease of numbers, let's say I make 110 on a 224 service.

Take home to you. Yeah. Take or 105, you know, something like that. Um, and then the average shelf life of that client is 19 months, let's say. So, if it's a monthly, I'm making two grand as my LTV on that client. Um, if it's a bi-weekly, four grand. Um, and then that is not including, and again, your bi-weeklys, your monthlies, those are the people that refer you clients. Those are the people that you always give a five-star review. Those are the people that say, "Oh, you guys do Christmas lights this year? Yeah, come by, swing by, give me a quote. Oh, you guys are now doing carpet cleaning. I need my carpets done." Oh, you guys do dryer vent now. Whatever. And that's another part of the reason why I love the model the way that we do it is I can go get good subs for any any business model and I can just tack it on onto an email or the text sequence right after you finish the clean. "Hey, clean went great. You left a five-star review just so you know cuz you you maybe you didn't make it through the website yet. We also do X, Y, Z. You're eligible for 10% off of any of it. Give us a call if you want a quote."

Yeah. And then you're you have obviously separate subs for so the LTV on the cleaning let's say two grand, but so much higher than that when you start to look at kind of the stuff that's hard to calculate in.

Yeah. And you and you said your retention rate on a recurring clean is 18 months.

19 months. Yeah.

19 months. Okay. So your subs are dialed.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The subs and and the customer experience is about more than the subcontractors. Like I I will say it, you know, the subcontractor if your subs suck, your business sucks, full stop, right? But you can have uh I mean I had an Airbnb client for example, right, that um our sub like went awall like she just like did two [ __ ] services in a row and just like was a huge issue and then like the client her mom died for the second time. Yeah, exactly. Right. [ __ ] like that. And uh the client like tried to give her feedback and she was like, "You're so ungrateful for Yeah. It was it was a whole mess, right? Love that. And the the the client, you know, I got her on the phone and and unfortunately when when it's time to cut the sub, you go with the pile-on method. It's just like I cannot believe that she did that. I am that is unbelievable. That is the last clean she's going to do for my company. Like don't you worry. Like that that is not something I would ever expected from her. I am so sorry you had to be on the receiving end of that. Thankfully for you two months ago I brought in a new girl. She is honestly even better. I know you had a great thing going with Britney. So, you know, we kept Britney here, but but we have a high standard. But this new girl, Laura, she is she's she's even better than Britney if I'm being honest with you. And I know this maybe soured your you know your taste towards us for a little bit here, but I'd love Can we come in? You know what? I'll do this one for you. 25% off. Just kind of let's just let's just fix this, you know, water under the bridge. Laura's going to come do an even better job than you've ever seen before. And then we'll get right back. We'll pick right back up where we left off. So, you know, even if the subs aren't dialed, dial dial dialed all the time, if you have a good customer service and followup and all that, you know, track that your customers walk down, it it's still very very feasible to maintain and mend these relationships.

Interesting. Okay. And then let's uh that's that's some sauce for for all these people listening. So, give me like I'm going to go into the economics of your business a little bit, but give me like the best like give me the best funny story you have on like a cleaning where you get there and you're like, "This was a crack house. This was, you know, whatever else." They told us it was a mild to moderate mess. You get there and it's like you're basically in the trap.

Oh, dude. There's one that jumps out to mind. And a part of the reason why is because it was actually one of the very few cleans that I did myself.

Of course. Of course.

Of course it was. Right. And you know, God bless my wife Emily. We haven't talked about her yet, but love you, sweetheart. I know you're not going to watch this, but if if you do

What do you mean? Emily watches the show. What do you mean? Emily and she's she's subbed, too.

Oh, well, there you go. She doesn't sub to my podcast. Well, there you go. Yeah. Um, but you know, uh, we uh, she actually was working. So, she's full-time works as she's an engineer stud. Um, she gets off work on a Friday, 20 minutes before she gets off work, four o'clock. She gets off early. It's Friday. We're like, "Oh, we're going to have a day." 20 minutes before I get an inbound Yelp lead, ladies. I get her on the phone. She She just sounds like she's not in a good place. Like, she's going through it. And she's like, "Hey, my place is really messy. Like, I need you to know that it's very messy. I need help. I I don't really care what the price is. I need help and I like I need it today because this is something I've been putting off for months." And the fact that I'm really feeling like doing it today, I need to get it done today or I'll put it off again. Mhm. Um, and I couldn't get a sub to do it. Had no one available. It's Friday at 5:00. And so I I called my wife. I'm like, "Sweetheart, we don't have plans tonight. Would you be willing to come do this clean with me? It's going to be gross. It's going to suck. It's only a two-bedroom apartment. It really can't be that bad."

So, you didn't frame it to your wife like, "Honey, I have the best date night idea."

No, no, no. It was like, "Honey, I will owe you the rest of my life forever. I already do anyway, but please come do this with me." And uh she was like, "Okay, I'll come with you." So we go, we get there and I mean this place was horrific. Like like you couldn't even see the ground, McBags everywhere. Like you know, like the moldiest Oreo McFlurries pouring out into the carpeting like like genuinely. She was like, "It's been like this actually. I've been living in a hotel for a month because I can't live in my own place."

Yeah. It's a hazmat.

Yes. Actually hazmat, right? And we don't have the proper equipment. We don't of course we're not I have like my Swiffer that like I clean my own apartment with because we don't even have professional cleaning supplies. We're not cleaners. Uh so we have our Swiffer, we have a vacuum, we have a couple bottles of multi-purpose. And as soon as I get in there, I quoted her $1,500 to do the clean.

Sure.

And as soon as I get in there, I'm like, "Okay, it's going to be $1,500 for the first four hours for each of our time." So that's eight hours of labor. We're basically charging her like 200 bucks an hour. And then it's going to be $100 an hour per person for every hour after that if we need to stay longer. It ended up being like a 9-hour clean for the two of us. We actually cleaned from 5:00 p.m. until like 2:00 in the morning. Um and we made $3,000, you know, in 9 hours, which was crazy. Our rent was $1,700. We're living like in in Wisconsin. We're like, "All right, horrible, but worth it." And the lady was like in tears, so grateful. And we did a bi-weekly service for her every two weeks after that to like keep it up so it never got bad again. We did a move out clean for her when she left the the area and moved out to somewhere else. And you know, she probably spent a total of like $10,000 with our company over the lifetime of it. But I mean, it was like maggots, flies everywhere, mold growing in the carpeting. Like it was horrific.

Oh, dude. Uh we you were preaching to the choir when Jack and I were doing the junk removal.

Oh yeah.

Dude, hoarders like we used to like we we did a hoarder clean out one time where you walk in the bathroom and it looks like they intentionally missed.

Oh yeah.

They were trying. They were trying.

They were trying to They were trying to go everywhere. But Jack and I had one where I remember it really well. They piled the entire probably lifetime of themselves at the house on the side alley. They had a cement wall. And when Jack and I started getting into it, we were making money on it. We got to the bottom and there was a family of rats, but not just like full-grown rats. Like I'm talking like newborn rats that weren't crawling yet. So we opened like a newborn and like Jack and I looked at each other like what do we do? Like we unfortunately had to take care of the rats and I will always have nightmares on how we took care of the rats. It was the most terrifying thing I've ever done. But they were all going to die.

Oh yeah.

Like it was like hitting a deer with your car. Like you had to take care of business. Mom was gone. And Jack and I looked at each other and we're like I think we're probably good. And shortly after that we got rid of the junk removal business. That was that was that.

All right. Dude, it was terrible. So I always liked it. Anyone that's in like the cleaning or junk world, I know you I just set you up on a silver platter cuz I know you'll have stories like that. We Yeah, there I've had and that was one I was actually at, but dozens of once where I'm like, I can smell this photo. You sent me this photo. I I know what it smells like in this house and I'm so grateful that I'm in Miami on the beach and not there dealing with that. I mean, dude, when you run a cleaning service or a junk removal service like that, you start to get a little like cynical on society as a whole, cuz you see the like you see the types of people in the way they live in worlds that you might not ever interact with this person without owning a cleaning business or a junk rule business or something like that. Do we went into one house one time where there was used diapers uh stacked to the ceiling in the room that the baby was in? And you're like, "You people deserve to be euthanized." Like at this point, like look, like you you do not deserve like we were It was dark, dude.

You're like, "Everyone deserves an opportunity. You guys had it and it's over."

Dude, we we did one I I quoted one where we went into the uh bedroom where the the this side of the bedroom had the child, like the crib, everything else, and this side had needles and rubber bands and everything. And we're like, "No." Like, one, we're not going to do the job. We don't have the hazmat stuff, but two, we were just like, dude, this is dark, man. This is the part that no one sees. Like, this is dark.

You do get people like in the in their lowest of lows some of the times. And it's Yeah.

Yeah. Lowest of lows or just, you know, whatever else. When there's a baby in there, I'm like, it's not lowest of lows. You're just a terrible person. You've just you made that decision that that is okay. And it's not.

It's one thing when they're like they have a hoarding problem, there's no kids in there. When I saw like when we saw baby stuff in there and like we were just like, oh my gosh, it's the worst thing I've ever seen. But on a brighter note, let's let's jump over uh how many markets do you have remote cleaning businesses in right now?

Um where I am the primary owner. Yeah. I have four. Um and then I have uh one Christmas site.

Okay, cool. So in the four primary markets, do you mind sharing numbers?

Uh yeah. Yeah. So one of them is actually like full-grown business been operating, you know, fully staffed. Uh that that business does between 35 and 40,000 on the top line. Mhm. Um it does have full-time staff that run it in terms of like I have virtual assistants and um nets. I would say between like 10 and 13 on the bottom line. Um, you know, depends on the month. Uh, and then next biggest one would be it does between 18 and 22,000 topline a month. Um, spending a lot more heavily in ads there. Mhm. Uh, probably only brings in maybe 6 to 8K on the bottom line.

Okay.

Um, it's it's yeah, slightly lower margin. Probably probably honestly more like 5 to seven.

Okay.

Um, and then two ones that have both been started in the last 6 months. Uh, one of them is being literally built by a VA. Like I didn't hire a single person. I that's like my proof of concept business right there where I'm like I trained this VA on what I want and I showed them what I have in my other businesses and I said like go like I set up the ads for you go hire cleaners turn the ads on take the sale like run the business it's your company essentially and she has a rev share in it and like everything so that one um doors opened August 1st I think we have like 2600 on the books.

Rev share for the VA is wild.

Yeah, that's only 5%. No, I like that.

But yeah, I mean I'm like you genuinely like lock in for eight months and you will double your salary just from your rev share.

Yeah. Is this a VA? Like a South American VA?

Yeah. Yeah. Uh her name is Favor. She's uh she's based uh in uh Venezuela.

Nice.

Okay, cool. And then how many do you have partial equity in?

Uh 36. So I have 41 in total but five are mine and then 36 that I have five to 15%.

Got it. And what's like best case worst case scenario in those? Like what's I always like to like obviously everybody wants to hear the crazy number but like we also like to like hear the reality of like what's the best one and what's like the one that's not performing well.

Yeah. I mean we have ones where the partner just sucks and they this I mean I have one guy I'm not going to say his name um but he definitely won't watch this because he doesn't do anything. Um, but you know, he started five months ago and I'm like, "Do you have [ __ ] cleaners hired yet?" No. You know, so like we have partners like that. Like I I give the the big number cuz it's the number. And who knows, 3 months from now, maybe he pulls his hat out of his ass and starts making some money. Um, but in all reality, we have partners that make nothing. Um, you know, that that's how it goes when they have to do at least 25% of the work and they are not willing to. So from that standpoint, yeah, worst cases are zero. Um, people come in and do nothing. People that actually are operational, low-end guys do, you know, 4500 to 6K a month. Um, and then, you know, we have people that started yesterday. I onboarded someone yesterday. So, he obviously has nothing yet.

4500 to 6K net.

No, no, no. Top line.

Top line. But, you know, we started the the partner program six months ago.

Oh, got it. So, it's so new.

It's super new. And like our best performing um shout out Pearson Grant, uh Raleigh, North Carolina. They do like they did 29,000 last last month. Fourth month in business. They're going to do 50K by the end of the year. Month.

Damn. They ramped up fast.

Oh yeah, they're unbel Well, they're just they just get it.

What did he do to ramp up to 20? Because that's that's faster than you yours, right?

Uh about same pace. Okay. About

What is he doing?

Um working.

Trying. Yeah, mainly. Um.

Oh, okay. It's So he do he he's working.

Yeah. Like he owns the business and then like when there's things that the business needs done like he he does.

That's a really foreign concept.

It is. It is. I know. Especially to like remote online business owners like they think they forget about working.

Dude, he should sell a course.

Should he probably will. Damn it. Don't watch this. Um, Okay. But that's great, you know. No, he uh market's great. The the market's fantastic. He's in Raleigh.

It's a really good Christmas light market, too.

Great market, right? So, uh that definitely lends well to him. uh his client acquisition cost is not not astronomically high. He also is just well known in his market and he when he leaves and he goes to the bar, he puts on a polo with his logo and he goes and he flirts with people, flirts with chicks at the bar and says he owns a cleaning company like you know he also the other thing he did and you know this is this is game as well and shouldn't be foreign to anyone if you if you pay attention at all but I tell my partners if you hit a hundred reviews if you get 100 five-star reviews you will be making $10,000 a month.

I think that's probably that's probably accurate. No, there's no way around.

Because if you are willing to do that, you'll by association be willing to do the other things you need to do. Um, and that was how they started. They hit 60 five-star reviews in like 35 days of being operational by legitimately going up to girls at the bar and being like, "Hey, I will buy you a drink if you leave a five-star review on my on my company right now." And then they just flirt with them and, you know, they wanted to talk to the girl anyway. They're going to buy them a drink for free. Might as well get a five-star review out of it. So, you know, little stuff like that, like those our winners are just the people that get it done.

Another winner, this girl, Rehea, she came in, she was in a different uh she paid for some like buy my buy my $4,000 course and you're going to, you know, be rich on remote cleaning. Paid for that.

We're only working 5 hours a week.

Yes. And she was like, I've been doing this for 4 months and like I can't crack 5K in revenue. I What am I doing wrong? Right. They had her on like a white label Facebook agency that was just like charging her exorbitant rates and all this crazy [ __ ]. So we she came in, joined the partner program. So she came from an existing business, you know, brought her business in. We immediately like scrubbed like two grand of just waste off of her monthly expenses, flipped her on to different ad platforms, expanded her service area, and added two new service types. Added carpet cleaning and uh she had a contractor whose husband was a window cleaner. We're like, "Great. Add window cleaning, add carpet cleaning, and and expand the service area, market new PL." She went from 5K a month to like 19K a month in in like 50 days, you know, and it was literally just like applying the right principles to a wrong market that she was struggling in. So, but again, she works like she just tries. She actually cares about the business and gets on real phone calls with her subcontractors and checks in and like knows their kids' names. Like just little [ __ ].

Yeah. Interesting. And then you're getting into the Christmas light world now. Same model.

Yes.

This year will be 100% subcontracted. I will live in Florida and run it in Chicago.

Okay. Gotcha. And so for context, you and I met at the CLC Christmas light training. Shout out to Christmas light contractors. They put on a great event. Uh okay. So interesting. So where are you finding the subs for the Christmas light business?

So I ran it in person last year. I found them. I met them. They were studs.

Cool. So you went out and I'm like I cosign you, you know. So you went out there and you found guys who are installing like with their own businesses.

Yeah. Okay.

I did the exact same thing. And it's like this is one of those things where you know I don't know maybe you have more action takers that watch your content than I do, but like I I can give game on my content. Like no one actually does the [ __ ] because they just like to watch it and like write it down and then not do it. Mhm. Um, but you know, I actually just went and I just found like the shittiest, like worst yard signs that were like way too small and like terribly designed that said Christmas lights. And I just started calling them all. And I waited until I got some guy again that didn't answer the phone. Called me back later, you know, all this stuff. And I asked for a quote on my house and he's like, "Well, are you going to supply the lights? If you supply the lights, we can hang it up for $3.50 a foot." I'm like, "Bingo, that's my guy. That's my guy." And I was like, I was like, "All right, yes, I will supply the lights. And what if I give you 10 installs a week? What can you do it for then?" And he was like, "$2.50 a foot." So, we got him. We sell jobs at eight. He does them for 250, $150 for our light cost. Uh, and I would meet him at the first job of the day. Give him like a bunch of spools of already, you know, bold C9s and these are this is the drawings of what you're doing. Here's the addresses. Here's your, you know, your route plan for the day. And he would bring his own guys with him, bring his own ladders, his own everything. I just drop the lights at the first job, you know, watch my phone if he calls at the end of the day. I meet him at the last job with an envelope of cash, you know, give him 1,500 bucks for the day. He pays his guys right then. Goes home, meet him the next day.

Was he insured?

Uh, he he told me that he was.

Got it. Okay. Interesting.

I did not get a COI. That was that was my own that that was a mistake I won't make again this year. Um, I've already figured out my insurance for this upcoming year.

Okay, cool.

Because that we just we got lucky. We got we got too lucky. We had no incidents, no damages to any houses, no, you know, no one fell, no one got hurt. Like, I'm not going to push my luck on that again. So, you know, we we'll have that cross tea, dot the eye again this year. But, um,

And sorry, remind me, what market was this?

Chicago.

So, he's installing in the snow.

Yes.

Okay. And he was cool with that.

He is. Jose, if you watch this, man, you're my guy.

You are my guy. And you're getting equity in the business this year.

We haven't we haven't talked yet, but you're my you are my guy.

Shout out to Shout out to Jose.

He's unbelievable, man. I mean, I literally I would just be like, "Hey, Jose, can we do 12 installs today?" Like, "Can you make that happen?" He's like, "Yep, I'll bring eight guys with me today." I'm like, "All right." He's like, "I just stopped at Home Depot on the drive up and brought it brought another bought another 30ft extension ladder." I'm like, "Great." Like, thank you. just just and not only like like that, you know, quality of installer, but also just like a fantastic like human, right? Like I mean, I'd show up to the job site and I'm bringing these guys, you know, large hot coffees from Duncan and um I mean he's just like, "Oh, Parker, I love you." And he's like giving me a big hug. I don't I'm like, "Dude, you made me like $2,000 yesterday. Like, yeah, I can get you a $5 dunk." But he's thrilled, too. He's thrilled cuz he was doing terrible tangled up lights from people's houses that were probably failing half the time and making less money.

Yep. Exactly. And he's a he's a landscaper. He does construction landscaping. So, in the summer or in the winter, he doesn't he doesn't have sufficient work, you know. And he was just like, "Yeah, I started doing Christmas lights cuz I needed to pay my bills." And he still installs lights on his own. You know, he'll maybe do 20 of his own houses in a season. And this year hopefully 200 of my houses. Mhm. So, he was already trained on the wiring, all that jazz. You didn't have to do any of that.

Teach him anything.

That's really interesting. That's really interesting.

I just went and did quality check on like the first four or five jobs and just was like, "Does this look good? Is this safely wired? You know, are we going to have an issue?" And as soon as he got through the first like three days, I was like, "All right, go."

Makes sense. Shout out to Jose, dude.

God, he's the man.

What's your customer acquisition process for that?

Yard signs only. 300 yard signs.

Yeah. And you just just printed.

Yep. We bought 500 and I literally was too busy. I couldn't even put the last 200 out.

It works. But you're going to do Facebook ads and stuff this year.

Oh yeah. And we're going to do the nice cuz we we just did the gaudy like they just said Christmas lights. They were bright red. They had a phone number. That's it. Christmas lights. Phone number. Bright red. And they people just loved them. They just ate them up and they they stuck out everywhere. We'll we'll we'll we'll use your uh your Christmas light tactic of like the nice branded sign and the card.

We'll do the A-frames this year. I'll I'll hook Jose's crew up with a couple of those. We'll do we'll do Facebook ads this year. All

Yeah. Was Jose's crews wearing your brand?

They were wearing parkas.

Really?

Yeah. It's It's

So You know, it's so cold.

So cold. No one's getting branded anything. I'm looking at it from an Arizona perspective. And as I'm thinking through it, it's like snow boots and parkas and thick gloves and hats. No one was wearing branded anything.

Got it, dude. That makes a lot of sense. Okay, cool. Now, we're going to get a little bit uh to wrap it up. I like to just go into the brain of of Parker a bit. So, you're what, 25? Four.

Four. So, 24.

Uh this is the fantastic question. It's really good when the guys are older. I think it's you're going to be more you're going to be more aware of the answer because it's closer to when you started. So, what was what was the first year you became an entrepreneur?

Oh, boy. I mean, I have

A legitimate entrepreneur.

A legitimate entrepreneur.

Not like Steve's pets sitting service like entrepreneur.

Uh 2023.

Okay. So, 22. You were 22 years old.

Yeah.

Okay. What is one thing you did at that age that you think like, "Oh, I did this right and I would do it again." Based on talking to a lot of other entrepreneurs, you're like, "Oh, I nailed that early." And a lot of guys don't.

Um, I didn't overthink it.

You just executed.

I just did it. Like if I saw something interesting, even even like a YouTube video and this guy's like, "Dude, you got to try this." I was like, "All right, cool.

Same day, just make the plan, do it the next day. Done." You know, and I lost money on some of those things and I made money on other things. Like I just I have I'm not I'm not a planner. I really don't care for planning. It's I'll probably be the same answer to your next question, but you know, I I just did it. Like I I don't think about the what if or weigh the risks and make the pros and cons T-chart. And you know, in my opinion, it's cope. Like all that is is you saying you don't have confidence in yourself to figure it out. I have the utmost confidence in myself to figure anything out. So if it's a good idea and it worked for you, why the hell would it not work for me?

Yeah, we talk about this a I know you and I just met, so you probably haven't watched a ton of it, but like the pretty common resounding trend in a lot of my content because a lot of the guys that watch are younger guys. Uh it's just like the the phrase like I tell these guys all the time, if you get one thing from me, it's just imperfect action will always trump the perfect plan. Like stop watching the YouTube videos, just go do it. Just go do something. Yep. like imperfect action because the guy that makes a hundred decisions in a month and actually executes on them versus the guy that tries to like snipe the perfect one and think through every pros and con list like the guy's going to run circles around like I have made I we have gotten valley Christmas value premiere and home service accelerator to where it's at as fast as we did solely based on the fact that like I just made more decisions per month than most of these guys make per year.

Yep. And it's not to like say I'm so great and whatever else, but like we just like we see something we just go. Yep. Like okay, cool. Like for example, uh um Noah, he's one of the members in HSA. He has a permanent light business. Like the other day he was like, "Yeah, dude. I'm doing these folders now and they're branded and I leave these folders on site for these people and it shows like before and after pictures on the left of the permanent lights and on the right." I got off the thing with him and I was like, "Natalie, we want these we want these folders. Let's get these printed and they're in they're in our mailbox by like the next Friday." It's like then it's just executed. Yep. It's just like stop thinking, just do it.

Well, your most valuable asset is your time. If you genuinely see yourself as someone who either is or will be successful, your your time is so much more valuable than your potential loss on a bad decision, right? Like that that's really it. You will lose so much more in inaction that just prolongs things than you will from making the wrong decision and then correcting it.

And that's it. I'll be able to to try three different things and find a winner before someone else even just makes the first decision. And yeah, they're going to make the decision right on the first try. It doesn't matter. I still got to the right before they did because I tried, failed, tried, failed, tried, succeeded. Okay, great.

Yeah. And I think like one of the things you said too that I thought was really interesting is like uh if it's working for someone else, why can't it work for me? And I think that's amazing advice and I agree with it with the caveat of like confirm who the messenger is first.

For sure.

Because like one of the things we talked about earlier is like the guys that make it look really easy typically they're selling you some info product on the back end.

Well, they're they're lying.

Yeah. And then that's what it comes down to. And so it's like the caveat, vet the messenger, confirm the messenger is legit, then execute. And I think that's pretty easy to do, but most guys like the good common thread online is if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Yeah. Yeah. So, like if you cuz I just met you. Like if you sat up here and like as I start asking you questions, you're talking about like it's so easy. Everybody that does this is they'll get to 10K a month in their second month and it's all like I'm just going to raise an eyebrow immediately. And most intelligent people watching would also. So the only people that would be attracted to anything you said or I said would be the idiots. Yes. And that's like the gross reality of like the post coming out of 2020 internet guru world we're in is like there's so much bad advice out there attached to like some ulterior motive. And so I think like the people that win through this side are like the people that are really real about it.

Yeah. And Yeah. And it's just like I think it's such a dangerous time too cuz even in the home service space there's still dudes out there where I watch their content and you're like even the numbers you're saying in this video don't add up.

Yeah.

Like I've watched content of guys talk about like they're selling a Christmas light course through Twitter or they're selling Christmas lights through whatever and they'll say my average ticket is this and we did this amount last year in sales and it doesn't add up.

You're like I can do multiplication and that's not how that works.

Yeah. They'll say like, "I did $300,000 last year and then their average ticket was $1,800 and they did 105 installs." And I'm like, "No, that doesn't even like it doesn't even like they did 80 installs or something." And so that's the other side too that I think is really interesting in this current world because there's also more access to information ever like even now compared to 2020.

Oh yeah.

When I was starting.

World of difference.

Like I I tweeted this a while ago and it got like mixed feedback. Like I'm curious what your thoughts are on this because you're you're much more in like the partnership world and like building actual like brands in there than like just like selling info or something like that. So I said I said the baseline competency of the average entrepreneur now is definitely higher than ever before. Like the competition is higher because of just access to information globally.

Now wait.

Okay.

Now wait. However, the level of execution is lower than ever before because it is so easy to be lazy and just look at the information and not actually act on it. So it's like the baseline competency is higher. You can go find out how to run Facebook ads on a YouTube video now. You can read every Alex Hermoszi book and have a structured understanding of marketing and sales of any product, but the execution is probably worse than it's ever been before.

No, I I would agree. I I think the way that I frame it, and it's the same exact it's the same thought process about it, but the the frame I use for it is the highest level of the entrepreneurs in every industry are just getting sickeningly good. Like so good. because like you said there is so much information and people can make decisions so quick and move and implement so quick and you know we just have levers that previous generations and years of people just couldn't pull in the same way. Mhm. But I would I would say that then the you know bottom like 50% 60% of entrepreneurs it's pitiful. It is literally like you call yourself an entrepreneur because you don't have a job. Like that that is that's your definition of entrepreneur. But you don't do anything. You don't make money. You're not even like like how can you be pre-revenue on a home service business?

Yeah. Or call it a startup.

Exactly. It's not a

Or call yourself a CEO.

Yes.

You don't have a board.

From those perspectives, I think it's very Yeah. There there's it's easier to start. It's easier to get in. It's also easier to grow and get big. But it it is that doesn't mean that the the average is getting better. It doesn't mean that you know that the bottom line is rising. No, the rising tide is not raising all ships. It's sinking most of the ships and the the ships on top are going up even higher.

Yeah, dude. It's funny like you know what radicalized me was, you know, you came to my like training speech at the CLC conference.

Yeah.

And so I've been presenting pretty I it's gotten better over the years as like our business has grown, but I've presented on pretty much the same presentation because most people don't go to that training twice. Yeah. Yeah. So I can just play the presentation over and over again. And so what's really funny is like what radicalized me was maybe 3 years ago I did a presentation at one of the training conferences and uh the next year I went again same place and I would say probably like 10 to 15 people. And for those that like my presentation's on the YouTube somewhere so if someone wants to watch it it's the one where I talk about like how Christmas light businesses can just market and scale up to like six figures pretty easy. And I give like I don't talk about myself. It's not a Steve Jerkfest up there. I just go like here's what you're going to do. You're going to get this many signs. You're going to get this A-frame. You're going to do this on Facebook ads. Like there's no nuance to it. It's just like pure sauce. It's a playbook.

It's just a playbook. And like that's why it resonates well is like I don't want to go up there and talk about how great I

am and tell my life story for 15 minutes, cuz that's not what people at a public place want to hear. That's not what they're coming to a training for.

And the next year I came back and I asked the guys that put on the training. I was like, "Hey, you guys get like the product orders from the people that come to these." And so I was like, "How many guys like bought even $10,000 worth of product?" And they were like, "Not very high, like very low." And there's maybe a hundred people in the room.

Yeah. Yeah. And so just knowing that that's the only vendor they're buying product from. These guys know and these guys were buying product from them just very low amounts. It's like what I presented on is a foolproof market proof blueprint that like you didn't have to guess about anything. Even if you just did the yard signs and nothing else, you should have like baseline even if you're a low-level entrepreneur, you should have sold 50 grand.

I would like easy. And it like radicalized me where I'm like, and it even happens in Home Service Accelerator a little bit. Now lately it hasn't happened as much, but it's like you can give the same guy, you can give 10 guys the exact same information and one of the guys will take it and go 10x his business. Four of the guys will take it and they'll do some of it, part of it, and they'll be super thrilled. And then maybe like four or five of the other guys like don't even execute on it at all.

No. And it's really interesting because it's the same information and it's like even down to the s even down to the sense of like we have more window cleaners in the because we were talking last night one of our first customers was a window cleaner. So all of our testimonials were for window cleaners when we were starting Home Service Accelerator. And the window cleaning rule book is the most dialed in one we have. Like when someone joins there's there's probably been 60, 70 window cleaners. But the in Arizona we probably because I'm in Arizona we probably sold like four or five people it. We don't like tell them.

There's no exclusivity agreement. It's just it's it's marketing. It's whatever else. In my market we have had maybe four or five window cleaners buy it. Four of the five, yeah, we've had five. Four of the five have like ripped in their businesses. Like most of them have doubled, some of them have tripled. One of the five messaged me one time and I was just like doing like a quality check and I was like, "You know, what do you think, man?" He's like, "It's just all the stuff on your YouTube." And I was like, "Hm." So I went into the So I went into like the learning platform we have and I looked and it said that he hadn't accessed any of the content in 98 days.

And but he and so he like on one hand he was like trying to like blame me when I have like this. I mean, you see it like undeniable amount of proof in all trades but specifically that trade. Yeah. But then the one guy he was older too. So he's like, maybe old dog, new tricks, whatever. And I responded back to him. I was like, "Dude," and I gave him five names or four names in Arizona and I was like, "Dude, reach out to these guys." Like, I didn't even say like, "You're wrong." I just like, "Dude, reach out to these guys." And he never did. But the point of that is is like all five of those dudes got the same information and same playbook. Four of them executed flawlessly. One of them like didn't do anything. It was in the exact same spot.

And it's like really sad to see that at one level. And it's also like really convicting for you because like for me, I'm you in general, but like for me it's like sometimes I catch myself watching these YouTube videos or reading these books or whatever and I never execute on anything. And so I've almost stopped watching self-help content as much cuz eventually I was like, I'm just mentally masturbating.

Yeah. Like I'm not actually like I've got the info. I'm just like executing now. But like I don't know if that's a young man's game of like you get the you get the like the learning makes you feel like you're being productive.

I was just gonna say that. Yeah. It's that idea of like you feel like preparation is doing the thing. And you can kind of trick yourself into being like, "Well, I'm I'm getting ready and getting ready is helpful." And yes and no. Mostly not. Honestly, getting ready is actually the antithesis of work because it's you either you're either working or you're not working. Getting ready is not working. So, um, no, I I 100% agree with you.

Yeah, it's interesting. So, like even with your network, like what do you see as like the common personality trait for the winners that come in with you and what do you think like the common personality trait is for the losers?

Yeah, you're gonna love this. I mean, the the winners are the people that that work, of course, you know, like we've said. Um, and I also think the winners are the people that they just come in and they just they're like, "Okay, I want to do this. I've done my research, you know, whatever amount that is, whether that's I watched your whole YouTube channel or whether, you know, whatever." And I'm ready to start. Give me the information. Give me the give me the playbook, and then I'm going to start executing on it immediately. And I'm not going to start with follow-up questions. I'm not going to start with, "Wait, I don't understand this about step G." I'm not. Those are the people that either never start or the people that uh just never get momentum to get to there, right? I'll give two examples. Um, one example is a younger guy who just started in the group. He's like, "Yeah, I'm already building, you know, this ICP and this stuff and and whatever and all this." And I had to tell him right from the beginning, "Dude, you are so you're worried about like step X. Like you're like six months from now when we transition fully away from paper lead into Facebook ads and I want to geo-fence them. I'm like, "What are you? Like, you don't even have a cleaner hired yet. Like, can we can we get the insurance back? Get a cleaner hired? Turn? Like, can we just start with that?"

Right. I think he's going to do well. But that that kind of illustrates my point. Similarly, I mean, I have people that get on sales calls or partnership uh calls and and they're like, "Well, I just don't understand how once you hit this threshold, how you're going to be able to prevent this this." I'm like, "Why are you worried about that?" Like, that is not the trademark of somebody who finds success. Somebody who comes in and says, "Well, what about when my cleaner has such a large book of business inside of my company that they could then solicit all of them and they're no longer biting the hand that feeds them because they could take $8,000 a month off of my books and then do?" I'm like, "Bro, what?" Like, you're you're worried about a hypothetical 18 months down the line from now and it you work a 60k a year corporate job for the last two decades that you hate.

Yeah. It's also like, buddy, that's actually what we would call a champagne problem. Let's get the Let's get the champagne first before we start having champagne.

And that's exactly it. Like, I just have to sometimes just reel people back in and be like, you're you're going to have problems where you actually are. Let's just focus on those. And then we'll deal with the next set and the next set and the next set. So, I think those are the the common traits of the people that, you know, don't really find success um or that just struggle and move slower. And then the people that really win, like I said, they're just the ones that are just like, "Give me the give me the steps. Do A, do B, do C, do E." You know, I'm going to go through. Because at some point, it's like if you've sought out expertise and you've vetted and qualified the source of that expertise, now you got to just do the easy part and [ __ ] take it. Yeah. Like you've done the hard part. Now just do what the expert that you found and paid to tell you what to do. Do it.

Yeah. And then the other side like emotionally almost is like I find the trend of like these guys have this weird the guys that win have this weird balance of like really humility in the way they gather info but like borderline arrogance in the way they know they'll be able to execute on what they don't know.

Yep. Yep. And so like that was me probably like if I go back and like answer the same question I asked you like my answer was like very similar to yours. I just executed like a lot more. But it was like while executing I also made like really stupid decisions because I was executing so fast. But the difference was like part of that is like I want I got the information I went and sought it out wherever I needed to and then there was never a doubt there was never even a thought in my mind that it wasn't going to work.

Yeah. Like ever. And so it's this almost like humility to be like, "I don't know [ __ ]. Let me go find it." But then also being like, "I'm going to execute. I'm better than everyone else." Which like sounds so bad, but like anybody listening knows what I'm saying. Like like it's not that I truly think I'm a better human being than anyone else. But you have this almost like inside of you like this is like if someone else has done it, I'm just going to do it.

That's exactly what I said. If they did it, why can't I? Like I'll do it at the same or probably even better. And that's that's good. You should have a little bit of that, you know, arrogance to you. And there's nothing wrong with that. You need that chip on your shoulder. You need that self-belief. You need that fire if you want to get to certain heights. If you if you want to just be the average Joe, you can be the average Joe. There's nothing wrong with that. I always tell people that. I have people that come into my uh partner program and they get to 15K a month and they're like, "I got a VA hired. I am going to make 4K a month in cash flow. That covers my mortgage, covers my car payment, and I like my job. I'm gonna keep my job now. I don't have to stress about finances and that's it. I don't I don't even want to grow past this." Beautiful. I am so glad you found a vehicle to help you do that. And I wish you nothing but the best.

Yeah. Right. And that's okay. If you don't want to be that and you want to be the killer, act like it. And and and you really. You I also think you could tell the difference between like the fake arrogance and the and the like the "oh, I'm the man. I'm the man" and the real people. I mean, I sit on calls with people all the time who they come on, they sell me the entire call. Entire call, they're like, "I would be so good at this. Like, oh my god, the model makes so much sense. My market is perfect. I know everybody. I'm the top G. I'm the best sales guy ever. I'm the." They're like, "Gosh, man, this is such a no-brainer." And then I'm like, "All right, let's get started." And they're like, "Got to think about it." I'm like, "Okay, so you're not actually the top G. Like, you you're you're patting your own ego. You want to get on the call. You want to, you know, kind of put your nuts on the table and be like, 'Oh, I'm the guy.'" And then at the end of the day, when it's time to, you know, actually [ __ ] or get off the pot, you're like, "I'm afraid." So, you know, you you got to run that balance of, like you said, the humility, but also being able to have some gusto and be like, "Yeah, I'm that guy. If you did it, I'm going to do it. Same or even better."

For sure, dude. I love that. That's a great way to end. So, dude, Parker, where can they find you on socials?

Yeah, it's Parker J. Smith on everything. That's Parker J A Smith. Uh YouTube, Tik Tok, Twitter or X, Instagram, uh all of it. And at Parkerjmith.com.

Oh, look at that. He's got his own website. All right, gang. Parker, thanks for coming on, dude.

Pleasure, man. Appreciate them.