A strong benchmark for average residential job value is $450 to $600, compared with about $180 for a typical operator. Reaching that range depends on package pricing, relevant add-ons, better targeting, stronger positioning, and a sales process that communicates value instead of reducing the service to a basic room count and price.

John Clendenning
[00:00:05 – 00:00:41]

Hey, well, thank you so much for that warm welcome, everybody. Welcome to today’s talk. As we say, John Campbell. We got some exciting things to talk about today. So I’m going to walk you guys through today. This is, this is an interesting talk because the subject matter, do you know if you are truly one of the best or just one of the rest? is critically important in September of 2026 while I’m recording this live in front of all of you guys. Anybody on, thank you, all that kind of stuff. Or if you’re listening to this on replay, we get dozens and hundreds and thousands sometimes of downloads and replays and stuff like that.

John Clendenning
[00:00:41 – 00:01:30]

So I really appreciate all the attention, understanding how to grow these home service businesses, home cleaning businesses, how to think it through. But as we’ve been talking about, it’s 18 months Since I did an emergency session, 2-day virtual summit with Jeff Cross, Clean Facts Magazine. We had John Braun on and Kevin Kluth and Mark Sager and Nate Sisney, strategists and consultants, my good friend Frankie Finn. We had all kinds of cool people joining that call. And as teachers, a training on this call about the coming reckoning called AI. Everyone, ah, John, you’re full of it. Well, I think in the last couple of weeks, regardless of what you believe is happening with AI going to kill us all or not, the words finally got out. It’s recursive self-improving.

John Clendenning
[00:01:30 – 00:02:09]

It gets better and better and better. But for what does that mean for us? Hey, great. I get to do things easier. I get to get rid of staff. So does everybody else. Now you don’t have customers, right? We got it. We got to think the bigger picture here, guys, right? So the idea is, yes, you can use AI to simplify the menial tasks so that you can be more strategic, keep your team members, but have them reach out to clients more, have them reach out to business owners more, do a better job. If you’re one guy in a truck, what can you do to get out of that truck as quickly as possible? Are you a technician? Like my technicians made like, what, $80,000 a year? Like 5, 6— I sold the business 5, 6 years ago.

John Clendenning
[00:02:10 – 00:02:37]

So like 10 years ago, right? So, you you know, if you’re not making that, maybe you’re— you get to go home at the end of the day and not worry about the problems. When you’re a business owner, the goal is to build something, right? So there is the haves and the have-nots. There is the few best I keep talking about. They are legitimately— everything about their business is different than the rest. The few best learned something. They didn’t get— weren’t born with it. They didn’t go to university and get it. I didn’t even graduate high school.

John Clendenning
[00:02:37 – 00:03:17]

I got the job, the right to be Ron Wood in a Rolling Stones cover band in May, and graduation was in June. I didn’t finish the final exam I always planned to go back. I got a chance to be on the road, was on the road for about 5 years, right? So, and then started cleaning companies and grew a million-dollar, multimillion-dollar cleaning company. So I didn’t go back to school. I just had to learn it from everybody else, which is what we do. I don’t think school teaches it to you anyways, right? So you want to be in the right rooms, the right clubs, the right groups, the right people that are growing and understand this, not the ones that know how to get dog pee out with a butler, whatever. version system you have, right? That’s the technician’s job. The business owner’s job is entirely different.

John Clendenning
[00:03:17 – 00:04:19]

So we’re going to get into that today. We’re going to go through what a benchmark report— so I built a benchmark report. I’m going to show you guys this that was based on 30 years of being in the industry, almost 35 now, based on 20 years of consulting in this industry and working with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cleaning companies to grow them to whatever size they want, doubling, tripling, millions, wherever, right? All of that kind of stuff. And other— I’ve talked to thousands and thousands of home cleaning business owners, carpet cleaners, pressure washers, window cleaners, you name it, maid services, all of those things. And ones that are sort of always stuck at $100,000, $120,000, $250,000, $300,000, that’s these normal stuck points. $500,000 is actually— $500,000 to $600,000 is a stuck point. A lot of businesses get there and have no clue how to scale beyond it. I’m going to show you somebody who scaled was running $11 million service business and losing $3 million a year, figured this stuff out and expanded to the point they’re in the $20s, $20, $30 million, something like that, whatever the number is, I’m gonna get back to you.

John Clendenning
[00:04:20 – 00:04:59]

And 1,000 employees and highly profitable by understanding some of this stuff. Again, way outside of the realm of what you’re thinking about, possibly, right? Some people, some of our clients are actually thinking about getting to $10, $15 million and selling to private equity for, you know, $30 million, $40 million, which is what’s happening right now in home service. So, private equity, franchises, all this, know numbers. They deal with numbers. Everything is a numbers game, right? If you know your numbers, you know how to run the business, right? So, there is the best, and I’m going to show you what the best numbers look like, what they know, and I’m going to show you what the rest who don’t think that’s important don’t know yet until they watch this.

John Clendenning
[00:05:43 – 00:06:14]

Amazing graphics again. Thank you, Sarika. My gosh, the best graphics person on planet Earth. If you need her, you can’t have her. I got her. So anyways, but did you know if you’re truly one of the best? Everybody thinks, oh, I’m the best carpet cleaner in town. Is that what the public thinks? Do they know that? Have you— is your brand precede you based on trust, competence, confidence, all of that kind of stuff? If it does, your paid ads work better. Your every door mail works better.

John Clendenning
[00:06:14 – 00:06:33]

Now you can actually do it. I know a lot of guys go, I don’t do that. That’s expensive. It’s only expensive if they don’t know you first. You need to be in people’s brains, your ideal customer profile. And we’re going to talk about that. So the best scales, the rest are failing. And right now we’re talking about in a tight economy, we’re talking about interest rates just went up again.

John Clendenning
[00:06:33 – 00:07:23]

We’re talking about the recessionary feeling and sentiment. We’re talking about people getting their jobs replaced on one side, like anything behind a computer and white collar while they’re trying to onshore in blue collar in pretty much every country right now. Wherever you’re listening to this from, this is all happening. I don’t care if you’re in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the US, England, Europe, we’re all dealing with this. This is a— it’s not about Iran and oil prices and stuff like that. Yeah, Venezuela, great large reserve. That’s amazing. Did you know it’s about 10 to 15 years before they can actually refine that properly, get the sulfur out of it before it actually hits the reserve tanks? Did you know that we’re at a 40-year low in critical energy reserves, oil reserves? Yeah, probably.

John Clendenning
[00:07:23 – 00:07:56]

So all of this is going to come home to roost. All of it means that we got to run better companies. Today’s call is going to show you exactly what the best companies are doing that are growing like crazy right now. They’re even buying smaller companies that are dying. You’re on your way down. You don’t get top penny for your, for your business at all, but they’re buying those guys because they can take the database, they can grow, you know, so bigger carpet cleaning companies are buying out smaller ones just to take over the market. And it’s a great idea right now because most people Most in our industry never get out of the truck. 85% never get out of the truck.

John Clendenning
[00:07:56 – 00:08:41]

86% of solopreneurs never stop being a solopreneur. They can never— they never open an office to run a team. They never learn that skill, right? They never market their business properly to get to that point. So, want to turn off your cell phones, turn off Facebook and social medias and TikToks. And if you’re a cleaning or home service business at all, and you’re serious about getting the best results, as we’ve said for 5 years now on these calls every single month, All on different topics. Give me the next 60 to 75, sometimes 90 minutes if we go on a little bit, um, and you will learn a lot. What we’re going to cover today, the benchmark. Where do you stand and what would you change if you operated like one of the top few in our industry? There’s barely one in every town.

John Clendenning
[00:08:42 – 00:09:06]

If you’re a big enough city, there might be one, rarely two. Right. More leads will not fix a broken system. In fact, more leads can drive you out of business. Sounds weird, but I can prove it to you. The math doesn’t math. You’re missing focusing on the right numbers. And I’m going to tell you not to take my word for it.

John Clendenning
[00:09:06 – 00:09:27]

I’m going to start pointing at other people that you should take the word for instead of me. Stop leaving money on the table. There is a lot of money on the table that People don’t— who don’t know what we’re talking about, who think that they’ll get to that later. I just got to go out and clean today, John. I’ll get to that later. I just got to go out and clean today, John. Later never comes. You have to be working on both sides of the business.

John Clendenning
[00:09:27 – 00:09:43]

You are the business owner and operator. You have to be running the business, working on the business, even if you have to work in it. That just means you have to put in more time. Sorry, that’s it. Your buddies might have an 8-hour day. 10-hour day. I know a lot of trades. That’s not even a thing.

John Clendenning
[00:09:44 – 00:09:52]

I know friends that have worked 12-hour shifts at auto plants and overtimes and all that kind of stuff. So, if they have to do it, why can’t we?

John Clendenning
[00:09:52 – 00:09:52]

Right?

John Clendenning
[00:09:52 – 00:10:13]

So, and it’s not out cleaning. You don’t make most of your money when you’re cleaning. Keep these thoughts in mind. Challenge me on them if you don’t. If that just hit, if any of this stuff hits and goes, what’s he talking about? I don’t know if I believe that. Pause and challenge that for a minute. This is true. I’m not the only one saying it.

John Clendenning
[00:10:13 – 00:10:42]

I’m not the only one who’s been saying it for 40 years, 50 years. You know, you go back 30, 35 years ago to Joe Polish or, or Howard Partridge or Dan Kennedy, you know, or Russell Brunson or Alex Hormozi nowadays. Tommy Mello, Home Service Millionaire, sold his garage door repair company for $2 billion because he figured this out. Right. Customer is worth more than one job. Right. So who am I? Why should you even trust me? Well, I wrote the book on it. That’s helpful.

John Clendenning
[00:10:42 – 00:11:17]

I run the podcast on it. That’s helpful. I’ve been in the industry since— I’ve been a career business owner since 1990 while still in high school. And yeah, I’ve taught this stuff forever. My first presentation, red-faced, nervous, stomach clenching because I never did any of them in high school, was in 2002 in Orlando at a convention on the experience economy, how to deliver a client experience before anybody was talking about booties and red carpets and all of that stuff. I was putting that in place in my business. Didn’t speak in front of audiences at all. How did you play guitar in a band, John, if you’re— because I only saw the good-looking chicks in the front row.

John Clendenning
[00:11:19 – 00:12:04]

Be straight up. Everything else is dark when you’re on the stage. You got lights in your eyes, right? Pretty easy to play guitar. So anyways, so I sold my businesses. Cashed out, invested, and decided to start up Carpet Cleaning Marketing Masters, and now the Blueprint for Success coaching and the Carpet Cleaning Success podcast and stuff like that. Became Industry Leader of the Year in Cleanfax. I’m on Cleanfax all the time, and this benchmark report we’re going to be talking about right now will be public— published on Cleanfax and syndicated throughout the entire industry because it’s the benchmark report from my experience and data from all third-party sources we can find. And I want to show it to you because something I compiled internally and then decided to create a, a, an industry report around to help teach the industry, to help people understand where they fit in.

John Clendenning
[00:12:06 – 00:12:06]

Right.

John Clendenning
[00:12:06 – 00:12:47]

Don’t care about me. Care more about these characters. We want companies to grow, be number one everywhere, increase by 40%, increase by 55% in one month, 40%, because they follow not, not just the marketing. Right? They follow the training. They understand their role, right? That’s why we have people that, you know, in our purview that can build a million-dollar business in 2 years, never owned a carpet cleaning business in their life, right? Or people that have scaled from $1.2 to $2.4 million in the last 18 months by doing this stuff we’re going to be talking about. It’s not a better Google ad. That’s just one of the many poles in the water. And it ain’t one of the most important.

John Clendenning
[00:12:48 – 00:13:26]

Not a better Facebook ad. Terrible pole in the water to land for leads. Great pole in the water for billboard effect and brand awareness that generates better sales conversations and more conversions when they do see your ad, your flyer, your every door mail, stuff like that. So if you want to make— we want to make our clients the top cleaning brand in their local marketplace so they can attract attract the best clients, the ones that still have money today and aren’t worried about the economy. They can— are able to charge top rates. If your average job isn’t north of $500 residentially, you are way behind. You’re not making enough money to run ads. And nor should you be right now.

John Clendenning
[00:13:27 – 00:13:47]

You should be learning what— how to do package pricing, how to do upsells, how to target the right ICP, how to get referral partners. Lots of really cool stuff that has always worked that Mark Sager talks about. Kevin Klooth talks about. Nate Sisney talks about. John Braun talks about. Frankie Finn talks about. All those guys from 18 months ago. All the people that I’ve had on my podcast and training for years.

John Clendenning
[00:13:49 – 00:14:15]

Again, don’t believe me? Go listen to Tommy Mello. He did $2 billion. I didn’t sell for $2 billion. So, let’s listen to him then. How do we do this? 3 simple principles of omnipresent marketing. You are the best-known cleaner if you’re known everywhere to your ideal clientele. And the ideal referral partners for that clientele. They better know you before you show up, knock on the door, or see your ad, or need you.

John Clendenning
[00:14:16 – 00:14:42]

They better already know your name. In today’s day and age of AI, you’re not going to get recommended by AI without omnipresence online, not Google reviews. This ain’t about more Google reviews and a Google ad. Those don’t work very well at all in the world of AI recommendations. It’s entirely different. And that game is not a game. It’s not fake backlinks and fake articles and ChatGPT. That will not rank you at all.

John Clendenning
[00:14:43 – 00:15:26]

In fact, all the major AI LLMs have to now put watermarks hidden within the content so that Europe— it was a European requirement, but so that everybody, Google algorithms, all know if the content was AI generated or not. The truth is, it doesn’t matter if you had AI help you because it can be a thought partner, an assistant. Did the content meaningfully add to the, to the public knowledge and conversation? If it’s just dribble, if it’s the same service page, service area page on everybody’s website, same blog article, just different, change your name for somebody else’s. It literally doesn’t even get indexed anymore. It will not show up anywhere.

John Clendenning
[00:15:26 – 00:15:27]

Right?

John Clendenning
[00:15:27 – 00:16:05]

So you want to be omnipresent before people find you online, offline, referred anywhere. Oh, I’ve heard of those guys. Yeah, let me call them at the dinner party when somebody mentions your name. How are they going to mention your name? There’s a whole bunch of things you need to do for that to happen. But one, you want to maximize your opportunities to generate a qualified inquiry. What qualifies for you? The person that has enough money to clean A couple times a year. We’ve got clients that their average, their average job is $800, $900 residentially in markets where the competitors are $99 because they’ve run an entirely different business. Their duct cleaning jobs are $2,000, $3,000 with 3 furnace systems.

John Clendenning
[00:16:06 – 00:16:34]

And yes, they spend an entire day, sometimes 2 days. And yes, they do zone bags and all of the, all of the things done properly. National Air Duct Cleaning Association done the right way. Well, who’s going to pay for that? Nobody ever wants to because you’re targeting the wrong people with the right script, the right message, the right trust coming before you to the right house, they will pay that in spades. Go listen to some of my podcast interviews. Mark Goodman, good example. Cleaner to the Stars. Lots of podcasts we have.

John Clendenning
[00:16:35 – 00:17:19]

Truth, right? 2, you want to maximize your brand impressions. That’s what we just talked about, right? So, if you are in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, you know Diamond and Diamond Personal Injury Lawyers. They’re everywhere, branded everywhere. Do you need a personal injury lawyer? Hopefully never in your life. The odd moment that you do, does that mean Diamond and Diamond comes to mind and you call them directly and, or you run to the nearest billboard? Nope. You still Google them. You ask your ChatGPT, you ask your neighbor, you ask your friend. Somebody goes, yeah, what about Diamond and Diamond? Or ChatGPT or whatever says, oh, well, based on that, Diamond and Diamond seems to have a lot of Great recommendations, referrals online, people talking about them having won cases.

John Clendenning
[00:17:19 – 00:17:52]

They got a lot of case studies and stories online. Yeah, I’ve heard of those guys. Yeah, let’s call them. The 2 play together. Without it, they don’t work as well. Not even close. 3, you want to maximize your conversions, right? It doesn’t, like, doesn’t make any sense to generate phone calls Local service ad phone calls, pay-per-click, database, referral partners. If you don’t answer the phone, if you don’t follow up, most people don’t book when they call.

John Clendenning
[00:17:52 – 00:18:30]

Like, do you get an 80% booking percentage on cold people that have never heard from you? If you do, your prices are probably too low, straight up, right? Do you get an 80% booking percentage if your average price is 2 to 3 times higher than the competitors? The average competitors, the rest. Not the best. The rest, not the best. Conversion optimization and maximization deals with that. It’s not a tactic. It’s not a, it’s not a, not a trick. It’s a strategy that we all had to learn. The best operators learn this stuff in their spare time and put it in place as a system, lock it in and move on to the next.

John Clendenning
[00:18:31 – 00:19:26]

And they’re a little bit better every single week. every single month than they were the week before. That’s the point. Hopefully that hits home a little bit for some people. But this is the brutal honesty time. This is look in the mirror at yourself time. Do you know if you are truly seen by the marketplace as one of the few best, or are you just seen as one of the rest? If I went into your town and pulled 1,000 homeowners in the best neighborhoods in town, would your name come up most of the time? Or are you invisible? Right? So revenue isn’t the whole story either. Most owners know their revenue.

John Clendenning
[00:19:27 – 00:20:02]

But do you know your call answer rate? How many phone calls get answered? When we start tracking calls on local service ads for our clients, on their phone systems, through our Carpet Cleaner Lead Pro tools and all that kind of stuff, we two-way sync into their Housecall Pros or ServiceMonster or Marketz or Fields and all that kind of stuff. When we start tracking all those call rates, we realize how many calls don’t get answered. And when they do, they get answered as a commodity. Because their booking rate sucks. Because, hey, how much does it cost to clean 3 bedrooms and a hallway? Well, we charge $250. Thank you. Click. You sound like you answered their question.

John Clendenning
[00:20:02 – 00:20:36]

You did the entirely wrong thing. They think carpet cleaning is all the same, and the only thing that matters is price. Your job with your marketing, your brand awareness, and your scripts and your approach The best companies do this, by the way. All of them. I’ve talked to many, many, many of them. They all know exactly what I’m saying. They go, hey man, John, of course we— and not only do we have scripts, we constantly refine them, listen to them, all this good stuff. We’ll talk about what they do, right? This stuff isn’t hard, but it doesn’t happen automatically.

John Clendenning
[00:20:38 – 00:21:44]

What is your booking rate on repeats, on referrals, and on Cold and from source. Best to know it at first, just what is it every single week, every single month, and how does it compare to previous weeks and previous months and previous quarters, right? What is your average job value? Is it going up? Is it going down? Right? If your average job value again is $250, $300, $350, Do you use 3-pack price package systems and upsell scripts and like honorable, ethical upsell scripts? You sell a customer the right stuff, they will love you for it. They will thank you for it and they will come back for more of it. It’s not about bait and switch at all. It’s about providing value to the client and giving them opportunities to buy more from you or better package of services that meet their lives better. And don’t package in pet urine removal in a package. We’ll talk about that someday if you want to give me a call. That is not part of a 3-price package.

John Clendenning
[00:21:44 – 00:22:09]

Not everybody has a pet. Not everybody needs it. You just took them out of your package. All 3 packages should be viable and they should have a pricing strategy and psychology that pushes most people into the middle package. Right? So you don’t give quotes on the phone. You give estimates. You come out. Some people do it where they never give a price on the phone and they only do quote visits first.

John Clendenning
[00:22:09 – 00:22:30]

Have to see, show up if you’re a brand new customer. Not going to give you any information, any pricing. I’ll give you all kinds of information on company, but no pricing until I show up. A lot of companies do that. Those companies do tend to run $500, $600, $700, $800 average residential job against the other competitors. Why? And because they’re doing it stealth behind your back. And those customers never leave them again. So, you never hear about it.

John Clendenning
[00:22:31 – 00:23:27]

They’re locked in for the rest of their lives because they have a repeat customer system proven, managed, and increased, worked on and tweaked over time. Right? They have a referral system that generates a predictable amount of new inquiries because it’s a system. You set the system up once. You monitor it and make tweaks and improvements as needed, but it runs and runs and runs and runs the same way. And what is your average lifetime customer value? Well, you’re not in the transactional business. What is each customer worth in the entire lifecycle with your business? You need to know these numbers because the best operators can tell me these off the top of their head. And I talk to them and I ask them these questions all the time. The numbers behind your revenue tell the much bigger story.

John Clendenning
[00:23:28 – 00:24:07]

Will you survive or will you become one of the casualties as this tsunami of change in our world is hitting all of us at different times, but harder and harder and harder and harder and harder? It’s not going away. Before we look at numbers, I want you to think about your own business. How many of your key numbers do you actually know? Tell you the top operators, they can even just be one guy in a truck. We’re not talking million, multi-million dollar. I’ll do that someday when I get there, John. Nope. They know these numbers when they’re the only guy in the truck. And they’re trying, they do desperately to get out of the truck.

John Clendenning
[00:24:07 – 00:24:42]

That’s why people that know their numbers and know how systems and what I just talked about and what their core role in the company is, Typically don’t stay in the truck longer than 3 months, 6 months at the most. They have built a business even in a brand new town where the competitors are much bigger than them. They figure that they’ve, they’ve learned parts of this and they understand what their real daily job is. And within no time, they’re scaling. $150,000 in the first 90 days of a brand new business. Tony, well done, brother. Right. Doing exactly what we’re talking about here.

John Clendenning
[00:24:42 – 00:25:20]

So where do you stand? Getting and booking the inquiry, right? So these are all from the benchmark report. I’m just going to switch over to that for a second to show you where that is. This is one of the guys I think you should learn from as well. But here’s the benchmark report on our website, carpetcleaningmarketingmasters.com. Just go to learning library, find the benchmark report. It’s getting a little buried now, or you can just go to carpet cleaning benchmark report. Right? carpetcleaningmarketingmasters.com/carpet-cleaning-benchmark-report. Not only do we give the data, you can actually even take this page and ask Claude, ask ChatGPT, ask Perplexity, or copy it here and put it into your Gemini or your favorite AI of choice.

John Clendenning
[00:25:21 – 00:25:58]

These buttons just open up a new window in your tool, and you can have all kinds of questions about and go back and forth about the benchmark report versus your numbers and how to do it. But here’s the benchmark right here, the report. That’s the numbers we’re going to go through today. And then here’s a breakdown of each one of the 20 variables or the 20 stats. We got before the sale, during the sale, and after the sale, and your scoreboard. The way I think of business, you have 3 businesses, 3 hats. Before the sale, lead generation and brand awareness. During the sale, you have from scripting from the moment they call to the moment you go, bye, ma’am, see you next time.

John Clendenning
[00:25:59 – 00:27:02]

That whole thing is the during-the-sale experience. The better you optimize that experience at every single touchpoint, right? One of our clients, Amy, they’re now good, better, best, best, best, best, iterate, iterate. They mail out a kit to every single booked job with the technician, their background report, care guides, prep guides, all that kind of stuff in beautiful glossy binders or folders and stuff like that. Because it sets the customer up for a great experience, locks them in when they start sending their repeat and referral stuff afterwards, and preps the situation and upsells the average job subtly, privately behind the scenes. Why? Because they started with one thing years ago and just got a little bit better over time. Just improved, learned from other people, learned from us, learned from everybody else, and just keep making these improvements, right? So Get and booking the inquiry. What is your live answer rate? The typical operator we listen to is about 50 to 65%. There’s a lot of calls that go missing.

John Clendenning
[00:27:03 – 00:27:35]

Or like, because they’re on your cell phone, you’re trying to answer it while talking to Mrs. Jones. And do I talk to Mrs. Jones? Do I do this? I’m in front of a commercial quote. Do I pick up my phone? Right? Top operators, well north of 95%. They have live and then they’ve got some sort of an AI backup now, no longer answering machines, AI backup that will take a message, not book a job because it’s not a psychological positioning. Live people need to psychologically position scripting done well. That’s a training internally, right? It’s not just please answer my phone.

John Clendenning
[00:27:35 – 00:28:04]

So I hope you know what you’re doing. No, there’s a process to all of this. When you do it right, that person, you hire somebody on their phones and train them properly. Their paycheck is made by themselves times 2 or 3 or 4 every single week over you just trying to answer the phone yourself. It’s not like when I can afford it, I’ll hire somebody. You can’t afford not to. You should not be answering the phones and trying to clean and also trying to build the business at all. It’s, it, they don’t work together.

John Clendenning
[00:28:04 – 00:28:43]

You will lose money, right? Call to booking rate. We’ve listened to millions of calls by this point. We have tools and AI that now listens to calls, reads them, and rates the operator. The average person is 25%, 35% at a high watermark is their booking rate. If you actually tracked it, top operators sitting north of 50% booking rate, call-to-booking rate. Speed to lead. Phones answered in 2 rings, text messages answered in 30 seconds or less, emails within 5 minutes. All day, every day.

John Clendenning
[00:28:44 – 00:29:09]

And then you can add AI to do this after hours. Sorry, no, nobody’s available. This is the AI assistant. Off they go again, right? Website leads to book jobs. When you actually get a lead from your website, the average website only converts at 1%. 99% of people that come to the website don’t see what they need to see. Babies lying on carpets, family and dogs lying on couches and generic dribble, they just leave. That’s average.

John Clendenning
[00:29:10 – 00:29:58]

The goal is to try and 5x that or 10x that if you can, with proper psychological positioning on the, on the, on the website. We know how to do that. I know how to do that because I went through tens of thousands of dollars worth of training on psychological positioning as a carpet cleaner just to write better ads for my carpet cleaning business. None of this was to do with what I do now. That was just for me to be one of the top operators. That’s what people learned because I was no longer in the truck after the first 18 months in 1995. So I did everything I needed to do to get out of the truck and grow. I kept doing all of those things, core forever engine, I call it, and then started learning all the stuff I didn’t know, right? Lead sources, poles in the water.

John Clendenning
[00:29:58 – 00:30:24]

The typical operator has 3. The top operators have close to 40. Hole in the water is a way to generate an inquiry, a qualified inquiry that you can turn into a job. You start stacking. You don’t replace, you stack. You want to get about a 3 to 1 ROI, return on investment for paid ad sources. You want to have brand awareness mixed into that as well. You want to build your company brand.

John Clendenning
[00:30:25 – 00:31:05]

That’s not me talking about it. Go listen to Tommy Mello, A1 Door. Go listen to this other guy I’m going to show you in a second. Again, that fellow I showed you in the video, right? You want to invest close to 20% of revenue. I say 20%. I say nail 20% as hard as you can. How do I know that? Because I and most of the other top operators are well within that range. When you put everything in, when you’ve got, you know, if you’re no longer doing the outreach yourself and you’ve got somebody on your team doing the outreach like Howard Partridge and those guys, that their paycheck is part of this as well, right? That is your— Your marketing investment, your marketing investment to the database, your marketing investment to the public, your marketing investment to your referral partners, all of it.

John Clendenning
[00:31:05 – 00:31:30]

Repeat reactivations, all of it. And all that outreach should be about 20% of your revenue. That’s growth mode. 15%, maintenance mode. 10%, you don’t even know what you’re doing. You don’t care. Cost per inbound lead, right? The top operators spend way more. Because it’s an investment, right? The average typical operator thinks that you should be able to get a lead for $20 or less.

John Clendenning
[00:31:31 – 00:32:04]

That’s not a good lead. There is no $20 leads left, right? Again, you’re chasing the wrong thing. The top operators are doing it better, willing to invest more because they get $400, $500 an average job. So if they have to spend $100, right? And their booking percentage is good. They’re still at a 3 to 4 to 1 ROI because they don’t care about that. They don’t care about this at all. All of their money comes from somewhere else, not the first-time customer. You want to blend, blend cost per book jobs, right? The blended cost to book a job.

John Clendenning
[00:32:04 – 00:32:41]

This is just for the calls. That’s not for a book job. The blended cost for a book job sits around about $90. See how that’s higher, but the blended cost for book job is lower? Why? These guys understand assets. SEO, LLM mentions, Google Maps, not just one, but Tommy Mello again, we’ll go back to him because everybody knows his name. Um, 14 Google Business Profiles in Phoenix, Arizona alone, right? Becomes an asset to also— you become best known everywhere and there’s a growth strategy around it. It’s not fake. It’s not, oh, I’m just going to slam Google with— no, no.

John Clendenning
[00:32:42 – 00:33:23]

There’s a way to do it properly. We call it our area expansion plan, and we recommend it to all of our clients at a point. Did you know that your local service ads, now moving into Google’s ad platform and getting a little bit more complicated, ties to your Google Maps listing? You should not be trying to run local service ads outside of your Google Maps radius, which is only about 5 miles, sometimes only 3, sometimes only 10 in major centers, 15 to 20 in rural areas. At best. Beyond that, don’t run local service ads. You won’t show up because Google ties the two together. New Google reviews per month. Again, Google reviews count, but so do every other Google review or every review, right? So before the sale, you need to get all that right.

John Clendenning
[00:33:24 – 00:34:09]

During the sale, average job value, typical operator, about $180 from all of our studies and stats. Top operators, the $450 to $600 range. Same cities, different clientele, different marketing, different target, different knowledge. Protectors and add-ons, about 20%. Top operators have about 60% add-ons and upsells that the client loves and will call them back forever. First-time job acquisition, 2 to 1, you broke even. Top operators aim at 3 to 1, Closer to 5 to 1 if they’re at the top end of this and their booking percentages are really good. They can easily get to the top end of 5 to 1 return on investment at the first-time customer.

John Clendenning
[00:34:10 – 00:34:50]

Know your numbers, fill the gaps, grow stronger. You run a profitable business. After the sale, what’s your customer worth? Repeat rate. By luck, you might be 10 to 15% where you send out text messages every so often. Understand that if you send about 4 or 5 text messages to a customer and that’s all you’ve ever done and it’s just, you know, time to book. Would you like your cleaning again? They will hit stop. And now you don’t have a text message clientele anymore, right? Top operators get about a 60% repeat rate on any given week, month, quarter, year. They are managing how many repeats and referrals is the average daily jobs.

John Clendenning
[00:34:50 – 00:35:19]

It’s about 60% for the guys that are growing and acquiring. They’ve locked that in. That’s marketing. That doesn’t just happen by luck. It happens by a series of events and good marketing and good outreach. Repeat referral share of all jobs, 6 weeks, again, approximately about 60%. Rebook interval. The top operators have their best clients, their average clients, their ideal clients every 9 to 12 months because they’re marketing to them 30, 40 times a year in different ways.

John Clendenning
[00:35:20 – 00:35:36]

Not buy now, buy now, buy now. But hey, here’s some advice. Here’s a tip. Here’s some information. They’re staying top of mind. And providing value and making the appropriate offer every so often. Gary Vaynerchuk wrote a book called Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook. Jab, jab, jab is value, value, value.

John Clendenning
[00:35:37 – 00:36:16]

Now you got the okay to give them, um, some sort of an offer or opportunity. Alex Hormozi talks about the exact same type of stuff in his frameworks, right? Database reactivation campaigns, usually never or shotgun. They don’t even know a campaign like organized and systemized. Top operators, it’s a locked-in system every single month. They know who has gone stale and how to stay in touch with them. Database reactivation is anybody who’s gone 24 to 36 months without a cleaning. Customer lifetime value. The average operator, the lifetime value of their customer is 1 to 2 cleanings, maybe 3, about $1,000, usually less.

John Clendenning
[00:36:18 – 00:36:56]

I’ve seen guys where their average lifetime value is about $400. Top operators sitting around $7,500 to $20,000. They know how to lock a client in and get repeats and referrals from those people forever. So the lifetime return on investment is barely 3 to 1. The best operators, any one new client, customer they bring in the first time, because they’re targeting the ideal people, they know what they’re doing, they’re marketing them properly, they’re nurturing them. Even if they don’t book right now, they’re going to book in a month, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months. They didn’t like the guy that they booked last time with and now they are because they’ve got conversion tools in place. And I get it.

John Clendenning
[00:36:56 – 00:37:36]

I’m talking fast because this is all of this should just be, yep, yep, John. Yep, John. I get that. Those guys, they expect about a 25-to-1 return on cost of acquisition cost, CAC, your CAC, a 25-to-1 against lifetime value. We’re in a transactional business. Other businesses, they install a roof, they might make $5,000, $6,000, $7,000, $8,000 profit, right? Not revenue, but profit on a $25,000 roof or whatever. They’re not going back to install the roof again next year. Plumbing companies need to come back a bunch of times.

John Clendenning
[00:37:36 – 00:38:06]

They want to make again that $5,000, $4,000, $5,000 lifetime value with a client. Their best clients are installing water heaters and And, and, and, and, you know, replumbing an entire house, whatever they’re doing, right? All that kind of stuff. Think of any, any, any job like that. Our business needs multiple visits. I did carpet cleaning, duct cleaning, maid service, janitorial, all that. You never make your money on the one job. Never. You make your money in our industry.

John Clendenning
[00:38:08 – 00:38:31]

A few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars at a time. Over time, if you’re not building that part of the business, you don’t know your numbers. You’re not one of the top. You are definitely one of the typical operators. And these guys are having trouble right now because we’re back into 2008, ’09 feeling in the public. If you know your numbers, find the gap, grow stronger, more profitable business. The scorecard. Bottom line.

John Clendenning
[00:38:31 – 00:39:09]

What is your revenue per truck? Top operators expect about $250,000 per truck, right? Second truck might be only $220,000, growing $200,000. Third truck might be $180,000, growing its way to $200,000. You know your numbers. You’re— by the time you’ve got your third truck, your second truck should be sitting close to $250,000. One guy in the truck, right? You can run a half a million dollar two-truck business and not be in one of the two trucks when you know what all the other stuff we’re talking about. If you know what the core forever engine is that everybody’s always done properly. If you do it properly. Again, the top operators, not the typical, right? Owner hours per week, 40 hours a week, typical operator.

John Clendenning
[00:39:10 – 00:40:19]

Top operators could take a couple weeks off and the business wouldn’t stop running. I got down to about 5 to 10 hours a week in my business and started consulting in 2007, ’08, started digital marketing, started working for a restoration company that grew and sold through to Belfors and stuff like that. Um, in 2010, started a marketing company in 2013, like doing for the Chamber of Commerce and doing presentations and teaching this stuff, right? Started Carpet Cleaner Market Mastery just after I sold most of my businesses and then finally sold the carpet cleaning one out to do this education and training. Because I was close to zero, I had systems running in my business with people. Right? Know where you stand is the only— is only the first step. Know your numbers, find the gap, fix the bottleneck. The goal today isn’t for you to walk away with 20 more numbers, right? It’s not to walk away with 20 more numbers. The goal is for you to identify which number or which part of your business is holding you back.

John Clendenning
[00:40:20 – 00:41:13]

Most people think I need more leads before the sale. Everything’s before the sale, before the sale. I will tell you right now, if you work on during the sale and after the sale and fix that machine, double your average job, you’ve just doubled your average, your business. Hard to do that with more leads, straight up. Doubled your average client retention where they come back, repeat and refer with good marketing, you’ve doubled your business again. You take a $100,000 business, turn it into a $200,000 business because you just doubled your average job. You went from $200 to $400 average job because you learned how to package, you learned how to upsell, you learned how to create little selling environments in the home, just like anybody else who knows what I’ve just said has already learned, studied, and then teach to their staff if they need to, or have a salesperson out in the field. That’s why the bigger companies, HVAC companies, carpet cleaning companies, they actually have trained business development managers who will go do quotes.

John Clendenning
[00:41:13 – 00:41:53]

And stuff like that because you have to learn it as the owner. If you’re the technician, maybe you don’t. As the owner, that’s one of your core skills. How to communicate better so you get the highest value, right? After the sale, the repeat and retention, you take a $200,000— now you took a $100,000 business to $200,000 and then you double your retention. More repeats, more referrals because you market the crap out of them. Now you took that to a $400,000 business and you haven’t generated one new lead yet. Now you double your lead volume with more poles in the water to the ideal customer target, better brand awareness, all that kind of stuff on the front end. You took that $400,000 business, doubled it.

John Clendenning
[00:41:53 – 00:42:29]

Now you’re at $800,000. You will not get enough leads to take a $100,000 business to $800,000 or even $400,000 with the other 2 pieces being broken. They literally come first, the cart before the horse. Right? More leads won’t fix a broken system. That’s the point here. So, the Benchmark Report just tears this apart and shows the proof why more leads can never fix a broken system. Getting more opportunities doesn’t matter if your business isn’t built to capture, convert, and retain them. You’re just literally putting them into a leaky bucket and looking for more water.

John Clendenning
[00:42:30 – 00:42:49]

That’s the problem. You don’t have a lead problem. You have an ideal That’s actually ICP, not IDP. I should change that. Ideal customer profile and conversion problem. Right? Lead comes in. Answer it immediately. Have that conversation.

John Clendenning
[00:42:50 – 00:43:09]

Have a script that you know books more people than not having a script. Then, you get better and better and better. You tweak the scripts. You listen to all your last calls. Or if Nancy at the front office, you listen to her calls. Or have AI listen to all calls for a week. At the end of the week, create a report. What she did good, what she did bad, what needs improved.

John Clendenning
[00:43:11 – 00:43:33]

Sit down, you train her a little bit farther. Do it again. Do it again. If Nancy can’t handle it, Nancy’s not right for the job. The right person will understand exactly what we just said and get so good at it, you incentivize them by booked jobs as part of a performance bonus. You’re both on the same page. You never stop monitoring those numbers. You don’t ever assume that they just know their stuff.

John Clendenning
[00:43:36 – 00:44:13]

Peter Drucker, what gets measured improves. What gets measured— what gets measured and reported improves exponentially, right? You want to book, respond properly, follow up, give them good information, have a drip sequence, why you started the business, what, what, you know, what’s unique about you. Again, all the top operators do. They’re indoctrinating the client, the potential client. If it’s the right person, they’re even sending them like right neighborhoods. They know where they market. There would be no reason not to send them a mailing package as well. I really want to be your home cleaning service.

John Clendenning
[00:44:13 – 00:44:35]

Let me tell you why we’re better and different than everybody else. That’s going to the right neighborhoods and the right people because you’re marketing into the right spots with the right message. And when you show up, you match that promise with the experience. You don’t show up in a white van with a magnet on the side, jeans and t-shirt. The whole thing is tied together. You look like this nice gentleman right here. And that’s you coming in to clean, right? It ties the whole experience together. The neighbors are looking out the window.

John Clendenning
[00:44:36 – 00:45:34]

All of that’s good. You show up properly, you sell them the things they need better, and then you put them into your retention machine and you return again and again and again. So where are you? Oops. Let’s go back to that one. Where are you losing them? You got 100 inquiries. Are you answering all 100? Are you responding quickly with scripts and good psychology? Are you booking? Is your booking percentage right? Are you showing up well, delivering an experience? Are you giving them the opportunity to buy more and knowing your percentage of upsells? Your technicians should be incentivized by their ability to enhance the value of an invoice While you still have from the office call the next day or the day after, next day follow-up call, 2 days after is what I like to do. Give them a chance to fill out a survey first, right? And make sure that none of that feels— that’s done well. It’s done ethically.

John Clendenning
[00:45:34 – 00:46:04]

It can be done ethically. Every business that top operators know exactly what I just said. Some of the average operators say, well, I don’t really want to sell my clients anything because I feel like I’m taking advantage of them and taking their money. Nope. The people that pay more, the right people, the right target market, are willing to pay more. And when they pay more, they pay more for value and they won’t leave. They’ll actually want to give you even more of their money. It’s a funny psychology, right? And you come back.

John Clendenning
[00:46:04 – 00:46:28]

Every step creates more potential leaks. You need to know which, where the water’s pouring out of your business and plug the holes. And you actually work from the bottom up. That’s how you plug the holes. The number behind the leaks. These benchmark numbers show where opportunities are won, lost before the sale. Small improvements at each level can create big results. We talked about that.

John Clendenning
[00:46:29 – 00:46:56]

You can double a business just by doubling your average job, by learning the things you need to learn, providing the marketing that you need to market, indoctrinating the customer before you show up. Like I told you, Amy does and we used to do and everybody does and then deliver a better experience. Like, again, the top operators know what I just said. Your live call answer rate, your call-to-booking rate, your speed-to-lead rate, your web lead-to-booked jobs rate, your blended booking cost.

John Clendenning
[00:46:59 – 00:47:00]

Right.

John Clendenning
[00:47:00 – 00:47:55]

Improve these numbers and you’ll see the biggest return on investment you’ve ever had. Not only that, you will survive and thrive and buy out the competitors As recessionary feelings in the marketplace and dynamic changes in our world that I’ve been talking about for 18 months now or more start to compress the actual total available marketplace, your TAM. You should be running TAM reports. Your total addressable marketplace is getting smaller. Because people are getting scared and they do not need cleaning. For the most part, it’s not an emergency. So same lead, same inquiry, different system. It’s not just about getting more leads, more inquiries.

John Clendenning
[00:47:56 – 00:48:49]

It’s about what happens next. Typical operator, more leads, missed calls, slow follow-up, fewer bookings, higher cost of acquisition. Even though they pay, they want to pay less for every, every lead source. It actually ends up costing them a lot more because they don’t have the other things locked in. Top operators, right? Fast response, strong booking process, scripts, not the owner in the truck. More jobs get booked. Their cost per acquisition is blended across paid ads and SEO and organic, like organic rankings and Mentions and, and referral partners and people talking about you and happy customer stories on social media, what we call the local story engine, where you’re getting the billboard effect, the Diamond and Diamond personal injury law firm billboard effect. You’re telling great stories and not asking for anything else.

John Clendenning
[00:48:49 – 00:49:14]

You’re just locking into people’s heads. That’s the best use of social media ads. And also our secret stealth strategy that we, we teach our clients. The opportunity isn’t always to generate more. Sometimes it’s just to waste a lot less. Waste less missed calls, less slow follow-ups, less fewer bookings. Right? Waste less. So, stop leaving money on the table.

John Clendenning
[00:49:16 – 00:49:47]

Most of your opportunities are already at your door and already in your database. What happens during the sale? Again, before the sale, during the sale, after the sale. You have 3 businesses. You wear 3 hats. You should be working on your business in 3s. Every single month. You should have 3 to 4 at the most big rocks that you’re going to solve every single quarter, that at the end of the month or end of the quarter, you have checked those off the list. I have put my 3-price packaging system in place, John, learned all the scripts, and have the average client going to the middle package within 3 months.

John Clendenning
[00:49:48 – 00:50:10]

I don’t know how I’m going to do it right now, but I know there’s training on it. I know I can learn it from somebody somewhere, a coaching program, a mentorship. Sitting in the right rooms. Everybody who learns this stuff doesn’t just wing it. They learn it and they constantly learn. They’re a student of business. They constantly learn stuff. They’re not just trying to guess.

John Clendenning
[00:50:11 – 00:50:51]

Right? Average residential job value. Again, you want to get— make sure during the sale you’ve got ways to get it to that number. Protector add-ons, add-on services. Hey, ma’am, while we’re here, would you like us to clean your husband’s favorite armchair? I noticed it’s looking a little rough. While we’re in your home doing any one service, any second service has an in-home savings because we don’t have to drive out, set up the equipment again, and stuff like that. So, that armchair right there, for example, our typical price is $125, and we can do that for $95 while we’re here. Would you like that added on or any other piece of upholstery? How did I say that so easily? Because that’s our scripts that we taught our clients or our technicians. I haven’t even had technicians for 6 years.

John Clendenning
[00:50:52 – 00:51:45]

I haven’t had to say that script in a very, very long time, but we trained it every Tuesday morning. We trained it for every single technician. That’s part of the upsell. And our average job went way up in the mid-2000s, early 2000s when I learned that, put it in place with our techs. Right? First job return on investment, you’re trying to hit at least 3 to 1 ROI. So same service, different value. $180, under 20% upsell, 2-to-1 first job acquisition. Our top operators on the benchmark report from all the data we have and all the sources, you can see the sources actually, every one of the sources is cited all the way through, right? $450 to $600, 60% Upsell add-ons to higher packages.

John Clendenning
[00:51:45 – 00:52:15]

That’s where protection comes in. We became 100% protection sales. We didn’t even give them an option to clean only because we got so good at it. We got rid of the clean only package by 2001. I only learned packages in 1997, ’98, somewhere in there. By 2001, not even, it was even less than 2000, we got rid of the base package because it was less than 10% of the people took it because we were so good. So good. At targeting the right people and explaining the value of protection, even to people moving out.

John Clendenning
[00:52:15 – 00:53:01]

Rental property. It’s a whole neat script on that one too, right? And then you make a 3-to-1 or more, 4-to-1, 5-to-1 return on your initial investment. You don’t necessarily need twice as many customers to grow. You need to get more value from them, and you’ve just doubled your business. That’s almost 3 times your business. You can take a $100,000 business, turn it into a $300,000 business Just getting, figuring that part out, right? What do you invest to buy a new customer? And customer’s in quotes for a reason. And what is your first job return, which equals your front-end ROI? That’s your front-end ROI, not your true ROI. Most people only think of their front-end ROI, call that their ROI.

John Clendenning
[00:53:02 – 00:53:11]

Cost of customer acquisition. First job, revenue generated is your return on acquisition cost on the front end only, not the lifetime value. You want to know both.

John Clendenning
[00:53:13 – 00:53:13]

Yeah.

John Clendenning
[00:53:13 – 00:53:59]

What did it cost to get them? What did you invest to get people? SEO will be your biggest investment in return at first and massively your cheapest at scale. It just takes a long time, so people stop doing it. I’m not really getting any leads from my website. I shouldn’t do this anymore. Well, the website leads feed your Google Maps because those 2 tie together with if you’ve got good content and articles. So your Google Maps is actually part of your website SEO, your organic rankings, your Google, your AI mentions come from your content on your website that’s structured properly, done well, local, local, locally identified and personalized and all that kind of stuff. Again, not fake, really authentic, all that. So yeah, it’s the biggest asset.

John Clendenning
[00:53:59 – 00:54:31]

It’s just the hardest. Typically in life, if you live life the hard way, do the hard things, life actually becomes easier. If you try and do the easy thing and take the easy button approach out, it becomes harder. So same here. The big picture. What did it cost to get them? What did the first job produce? How much more value could you have captured? What did you get back at the— after paying all the bills? You know those numbers, you know where you’re at. Most people have no clue when we talk to them. All right.

John Clendenning
[00:54:31 – 00:54:47]

Most customers or more customers does not mean more profit at all. In fact, big myth. Oh, I just need more customers. I need more leads. I need more profit. Profit’s the amount you take home. You get the customer, you maximize the first job, build the relationship, add more value. That’s where profits come from.

John Clendenning
[00:54:48 – 00:55:37]

But here’s where it gets really interesting. What if the customer you, you just serviced isn’t worth $180, but is worth $800 or $600? What if that customer’s worth thousands? Your client’s worth is more than one job and a hope that they come back. That’s the 10% average in our industry. The job isn’t over when the technician leaves. In fact, your real job just started. Commercial job, do you show up the next day to see how it turned out? Meet and greet the people. Do you show up every 3 months just to check on things and give it— do a free spotting and stuff like that? One of the things I’ve coached on for years. Why? Because now you locked in your real job.

John Clendenning
[00:55:38 – 00:56:30]

Turn them into a client. Don’t hope. Hope is not a strategy. First job, repeat, referral, rebook, reactivate, lifetime value. So after the sale, what’s a real client? What a real client is really worth. If your repeat rate is 60%, right? Repeat referral share of all jobs. If your rebooking intervals are half what typically are for the people that come back. Half your customers will never come back because they book, they clean for totally different reasons, right? Done well, 50% of your customers, 60, 40% to 50%, depending, right? Just needed a cleaning for a totally different reason, right? You didn’t impress them, whatever.

John Clendenning
[00:56:31 – 00:56:54]

Typically, 80% of your customers never come back in any reasonable amount of time. For the typical operator who doesn’t do any marketing to the database? Well, monthly, every single month, stay in touch with helpful information. Welcome guests, not an annoying pest. Giving them offers and deals is an annoying pest. Learned that from Dan Kennedy. Lock that into my brain. Put it in place. Works like a charm.

John Clendenning
[00:56:55 – 00:57:18]

Database reactivation campaigns are never done. We talked about that. Are monthly, right? The first job Creates the customer. What happens afterwards creates the lifetime value client. What happens after the first job is where your business grows. The client equals multiple opportunities. One customer, $450 to $600. There’s our best operators.

John Clendenning
[00:57:19 – 00:57:49]

Then they add on stuff, extra services, packaging, stuff like that. They get a repeat out of that person normally within the first 30 to 60 days. Did you know? Here’s a little story. A restaurant. If you walk into a restaurant one time, you have less than 20% chance of ever going back to that restaurant again. That’s just typical restaurant stats. 80% chance you will go somewhere else next time. If you go to the same restaurant twice, something you like, something about it, something caught you the right way.

John Clendenning
[00:57:50 – 00:58:24]

The experience was good, all that stuff, because it was predictable and repeatable and you went back a second time. And everything was still good. Everything impressed you, even the bathrooms. You have a 50% chance of repeating at that restaurant. You get— go back to a restaurant the third time, and now you have an 80% chance of being a repeat patron of that restaurant. The best know that, and there ain’t a lot of them. The rest of them have no clue what I just said. They run a typical business and struggle and go out of business.

John Clendenning
[00:58:24 – 00:58:37]

And restaurants close like crazy. The best ones don’t. They expand. They have multiple locations. They may eventually franchise. Like, holy crap. The best just understood what I know exactly what I said. In carpet cleaning, very, very similar.

John Clendenning
[00:58:38 – 00:59:10]

If you go to a customer’s home, if you can get into a customer’s— like, so restaurants 4 times, by the 4th time you’re locked in. In carpet cleaning, it’s typically about 3. So what we always did was have What else can we sell you? Right on a survey at the end of the job. We didn’t word it that way. It was worded psychologically so much differently than that, but that was really what the intent was. And we’d call them up, thank them for the work, and offer to sell them that other thing at the in-home savings, even though we’re not in their home right now. As long as you get it done within 30 days, we want to be back in the same house. Let a brand new customer test the water once and be back in the house.

John Clendenning
[00:59:10 – 00:59:53]

They loved us so much. We delivered such a great experience. Everything around it, the, the before and after the sale was done so well, they came back within 30 days for that second service. We have other systems on top of that where they have their cleaning where they get a touch-up visit in 6 months if they chose the right package. And they have an offer to upsell into that package at 6 months because we wanted to be in the house the third time in 6 months. Residentally. Because once we knew, I knew my numbers, that anybody we did that to stayed with us for 20 years. Brilliant.

John Clendenning
[00:59:53 – 01:00:15]

They’re in a club. They get grandfathered every, every annual appointment. They’re platinum pre-booked into our calendar again with all kinds of benefits, not discounts, extra stuff for the same price. VIP rewards, grandfathered pricings. All kinds of cool stuff. Why? Because that’s marketing. We’re in the marketing business. You know what I just said there? You run a much better business.

John Clendenning
[01:00:17 – 01:00:30]

You’re rebooking. Your referral rate. You have a referral program. They love you so much. Of course, they’re telling their friends about you. Not because you’re the best carpet cleaner they ever had. But because you’re the best service provider that’s ever been in their house. Because you orchestrated it.

John Clendenning
[01:00:30 – 01:00:50]

And not you. Tommy the technician can also do it that well. Because you made it easier for him to do it right than do it wrong. You learned what that means and you trained it into them. And then you do database reactivation. That’s how you get $7,500 to $20,000 or more lifetime value for your client. We’ve got clients. Hey, George.

John Clendenning
[01:00:50 – 01:01:29]

Hey, Mia. We’ve got clients where they’ve got residential customers whose lifetime value is $200,000. They’ve paid the— we’re not talking a 50-year-old business. We’re talking like clients that 15 years or less repeat. $200,000 in home cleaning services in markets where they got competitors for 3 rooms and a hall for $99. So what happens to your customers after the job? Right? Typical operator, complete the job, invoice is paid, customer disappears. They wait for them to call again. That is typically what I hear every single day when I talk to carpet cleaners, strategy, do strategy sessions, see where you’re at, how we can help.

John Clendenning
[01:01:30 – 01:01:54]

What I can help consult you on, anything like that. The top operators, when I talk to them, yeah, we follow up with thank-yous and check-ins. We rebook them. We do database nurturing campaigns that go out every single month, sometimes every single week, depending on the guys who I’m talking to. We have referral request programs and campaigns and VIP clubs. We have future services offerings and seasonal mailings, stuff like that. Not just one-step, but multi-step mailings 3 times a year, all automated. So we don’t even have to really worry about them.

John Clendenning
[01:01:54 – 01:02:23]

They just, they just go out like clockwork. I did that in my office with Heather. We have a paper cutter and a photocopy machine so that we could do all of this. This isn’t, you didn’t have to be a 20-truck operation. You just have to learn it, put it in place, automate it. Sure, you can job it out. I could. I also had Keeley, um, and my, my kids, Caitlin and Brianna, when they’re 13, 14 years old in the office after school, making some money, doing this stuff, helping out as well.

John Clendenning
[01:02:24 – 01:03:00]

Keely was a high school student, came in and helped out for a while. Cheryl, my very first employee, was a college student on co-op. Right? Customer stays connected. They love you for it. Do you have a plan for the customer after the sale? If you don’t have a plan, you’re not— if you’re failing to plan, you’re actually planning to fail. That’s the wording I was trying to look for there. What happens after the job determines whether you get one payment or a lifetime of opportunities with that customer and their neighbors. Your database isn’t a list.

John Clendenning
[01:03:00 – 01:03:12]

It is your core business asset. When you sell a business, you most— only 2% of carpet cleaners sell their business for more than the price of a truck on Kijiji, Craigslist, whatever. Right?

John Clendenning
[01:03:12 – 01:03:14]

That’s stats.

John Clendenning
[01:03:16 – 01:04:03]

Why is that the case? Because they don’t even know what they’re selling. You can buy those guys for this. Do they have a decent database and a good, you know, a good customer base that you can work up? There’s easy, easy ways to figure that out. You can take their entire database and run it through some data enhancers and figure out where in town and the average income level and stuff like that and find out if it’s a good business to buy or not. Because you’re buying it for the price of the truck, maybe $5,000, $10,000, $15,000. I paid $100,000 and some, $200,000 and some for businesses I bought. I know guys that have bought that are in the millions now that have bought 10, 12 businesses. I bought 7, right? At all different prices because of the value that they, they had and whether they knew it or not.

John Clendenning
[01:04:05 – 01:05:03]

The past ideal customers are one of the business’s most valuable and critical growth Resources? Are you actively nurturing them every single month, re-engaging with them in a meaningful way, and turning them into future revenue and referrals? You stay in touch, you reactivate, you rebook, you get referrals. That builds your business. If this is a someday I’ll get to this, John, this is that other way to double your business after the sale. During the sale and after the sale are the best ways to grow your business. Then you add more acquisition sources from the ideal person at the front. The numbers that changes everything. Lifetime value. If you don’t even know it, you don’t know how to calculate it, you haven’t figured it out, right? Your business is running as a commodity and everybody sounds like a price shopper.

John Clendenning
[01:05:04 – 01:05:34]

The question is, how much did your customer spend today? How much could this customer be worth over time? That’s the question every technician that you have driving away should be able to tell you. Is this an A, B, or C client? An A, B, C neighborhood? Do they have children? Do they have pets? That adjusts your marketing. We used to have that printed on the back of our invoices. 3 copies, white, yellow, pink. Pink always came back with us. White always stayed with the customer. Yellow followed the money. If they paid, they got the yellow.

John Clendenning
[01:05:34 – 01:05:51]

If they haven’t paid, or sorry, if they paid, the yellow came with the payment. Sorry. If they didn’t pay, they got the yellow. That’s the one they send in. We take the pink. That’s our record, right? That was the way we did it before the days of digital. On the back of that, originally it was just a little thing we stapled on to every single work order. Eventually we got it printed.

John Clendenning
[01:05:51 – 01:06:30]

The next time we got printed, ask those questions, put them in our database, marketed differently. Wasn’t hard. Said teach technicians to check a checkbox. Customer lifetime value determines the growth of your business. The companies that are growing and scaling even in these difficult times have this locked in and know it cold. And they know the referral partners that have these ideal people, their ideal customer profile in front of them, and they go talk to them every single day and incentivize them too. Stop buying the same customer again and again. A lot of businesses acquire customers, serve the customer, right? You want to retain them.

John Clendenning
[01:06:31 – 01:06:47]

Customer reactivation, referral, and repeat. You want to do this. A lot of businesses, what they do is they market, market, market, market, whatever. Paid ads, paid ads, paid ads, get the customer. The next time the customer needs somebody, they can’t remember who it was. They go back. All of a sudden they clicked on a pay-per-click again. They did something else.

John Clendenning
[01:06:47 – 01:07:26]

If they found you again and got lucky, You just paid for the same customer again and again and again. If you do this right, retain, reactivate, referrals, repeat, you buy them once, most expensive. After that, if you send them a mailing every single month, that’s $12 a year. Cost you over $100 to land them, $12 to keep them in the mailbox. Well, I’ll send emails, John. Yeah. What’s the open rate? 30%? Did you know that even on the open rate, the number of people that— if you put, put something down on the bottom, the scroll, I will give you a brand new Lamborghini, just click on this right here. I don’t suggest you do that, but you could.

John Clendenning
[01:07:27 – 01:08:04]

When they do these tests, the number of people that make it down the page beyond what just shows up before they hit delete is very, very, very few. So your email is meant for, for somebody to read the subject line. Before they dismiss it, possibly read into it a little bit more, the headline, to see if it’s valuable. You should stay in front of them with it. Doesn’t mean it has no value. It has a value in a system. It’s part of the pieces that connect with the right people. Voicemails, ringless voicemails, mail in the mailing mailbox at least gets open all the time if you do it right.

John Clendenning
[01:08:05 – 01:08:40]

Like, I’ve got examples here of people that mail me that know what they’re doing. It didn’t come from a company. It came from a person handwriting on the, on the COVID I obviously opened it and then it has a really good, strong emotional draw. Thank you, Dan Kennedy, Gary Halbert, John Carlton, all the people that taught us carpet cleaners how to do that and home service businesses and all that. Best marketers always win. AI plus authenticity. The new advantage is only for the best, right? The best have available The AI plus authenticity. There is no game.

John Clendenning
[01:08:40 – 01:08:54]

The new gold rush right now is everybody’s going, oh, you’re out. You’re not ranking. You’re not showing up in ChatGPT. You’re not getting recommended. Let me fix your business. That’s like, oh, your Google Business Profile isn’t verified or isn’t optimized. Like, that’s the same phone calls again. It was never Google calling you back then.

John Clendenning
[01:08:54 – 01:09:18]

It’s not Google calling you now. And it’s not true. To actually get AI plus authenticity, it’s— you got to put an effort into it. It isn’t a tactic. It isn’t more ChatGPT articles. That’s not what AI looks for. In fact, I know people that are writing really high-quality press releases every single week because AI likes recency and newsworthiness. That’s one of their examples.

John Clendenning
[01:09:18 – 01:10:10]

$450 a week on the newswire plus the cost to write the article. Big companies, not terribly big, but big enough that they were easily put in a you know, somewhere in that $2,000, $3,000 a month. And that’s just one of the many things they will do, right? So we don’t have a lot of competitors doing that stuff in your marketplace, but you do want to be authentic. Happy customer stories, sharing them into the marketplace, um, answering every single review, creating content on your website that teaches the public but also teaches AI, all that kind of stuff. So AI plus authenticity actually connects the dots. And when AI doesn’t mention you, Your brand awareness does to the people that go, ah, no, I don’t want any of those people. I want this guy, right? Or when AI does mention 2 or 3 people and they go, I know that guy, call him. The diamond-in-diamond effect, right? The new advantage is only the best have available to them.

John Clendenning
[01:10:12 – 01:10:32]

So let’s recap. The benchmark. Where do you stand? Go to the site. CarpetCleanerMarketingMasters.com. It’s in the learning library. The benchmark report has this picture with it. Right. But you can also just go to Carpet Cleaning Benchmark Report, dashes between each.

John Clendenning
[01:10:32 – 01:11:00]

So CarpetCleanerMarketingMasters.com/CarpetCleaningBenchmarkReport. Probably should have put a QR code on the website, but, or on the, on the, on the presentation here, but you can find it. Carpet Cleaner Marketing Masters, Carpet Cleaner Marketing Masters, Marketing Masters. Not hard. You won’t, you know, more leads won’t fix a broken system. I hope we proved that today. You’re probably leaving money on the table. Again, unless you’re one of the best and this was just a really, really good refresher.

John Clendenning
[01:11:00 – 01:11:21]

Hey, I’m on the right track. I went from good to better to best. And now, I’m iterating best all the time. When you’re in business, that never stops, right? That’s the E-Myth. Michael Gerber, E-Myth Revisited. Read those. Not once. Study that concept, what, every 3 months? Come back to it.

John Clendenning
[01:11:21 – 01:11:39]

Come back to it. Come back to it. It’s a program. It tells the story of a woman with a bookstore. It’s really kind of cool to listen to and stuff like that. But it’s a system that you can learn and adapt and implement. Customer is worth more than one job. You have to be focusing on that.

John Clendenning
[01:11:40 – 01:12:08]

During the sale and after the sale is your biggest focus right now. Before the sale doesn’t need it anywhere near as much attention right now. More leads will not save a broken business. So what are your takeaways? These are all great ideas. We know that we come to these calls, we listen to great ideas. You listen to other people, Tommy Mello, you listen to great ideas, all that kind of stuff. Um, and then they just kind of sit on the shelf. The hardest part is actually implementing this stuff.

John Clendenning
[01:12:08 – 01:12:23]

Why? Because you need some accountability. You need to show up. You go to the gym, yeah, you can work out. And maybe you’ve been going to the gym for decades. So you go, you know what, dude, I know exactly what I’m doing at the gym. That’s great. A lot of times you still have a workout buddy. Why? Because it keeps you motivated.

John Clendenning
[01:12:23 – 01:12:44]

Accountability. Right? But more often than not, you hire a coach for a while if you’re really serious. About getting the gains, the benefits, the health. You hire a health coach. You hire a wellness coach. You hire a diet coach. You hire a business coach. Every great business I know, every great business I know had business coaches.

John Clendenning
[01:12:45 – 01:13:19]

Hey, Brian McFadden had business coaches, right? That was mine for years. I’ve had other ones. They’ve joined coaching programs, group coaching. They’ve learned all of this stuff from somewhere. And then, they’ve had accountability to continuously Put it in place and grow because of it, right? So you want to come away with a couple of ideas and put them in place. That’s what you want to do. Because remember, AI is the great equalizer. I mentioned this 18 months ago at the virtual intensive for Cleanfax Magazine that Jeff Cross and I co-hosted and put on.

John Clendenning
[01:13:19 – 01:14:00]

It was my idea. Jeff will tell you that. I said, dude, we got to help these guys. There is a tsunami coming and they’re all walking towards the shore going, why is the water going out and why are the fish flopping? when they should have been running the other way and building a boat. Well, now it’s here. AI commoditizes businesses that fail to differentiate. They all look the same, right? If you don’t stand for something different and compelling to your ideal customer, AI will blur you with the competition and you’ll look like everybody else and you’ll be losing jobs. You’ll be losing customers to somebody else who thinks it’s you anyways or doesn’t care.

John Clendenning
[01:14:00 – 01:14:31]

Commodity. The winner and the winners, the few, will be authentic, trusted businesses nurturing real human relationships. The best-known cleaner wins over having discounts and deals. If you feel that you need to drop your prices to get more customers, everything I just told you for the last hour and a bit is the difference. You can raise your prices. When you know that stuff and you have it locked in cold. When you don’t, you’re always just struggling. Don’t take my word for it.

John Clendenning
[01:14:32 – 01:15:03]

Let’s go listen to— oops, promised you this. Let’s go listen to this guy, right? So Ken Goodrich. The story of Ken is really interesting. He got up to $11 million a year for his plumbing company and was losing $3 million. $11 million a year in revenue. Was losing $3 million. Now, he’s at $250 million across 11 locations and 1,000 employees and profitable. What was the— it’s a good hour of your time to listen to.

John Clendenning
[01:15:03 – 01:15:31]

He’s talking about ads need brand awareness. He’s talking about fixing the system, knowing your numbers. Everything I just talked about here, I just found out 2 days ago. The Benchmark Report’s been out for a month. I just found him 2 days ago. Somebody recommended I listen to his interview because it’s really, really good. It doesn’t matter if he’s in a different industry than you. It’s home service, right? So, the strong offer helps convert leads, but an omnipresent brand gets the first call.

John Clendenning
[01:15:32 – 01:16:11]

Discounts don’t get the first call from your ideal customers. If no one knows who you are, a great offer actually doesn’t even matter. Customers don’t buy based on price alone. And it’s usually about 5th or 6th down the list when you poll the best customers why they hired from one company versus another. Trust, having done due diligence on you and knowing that you can solve their needs. All kinds of cool stuff, right? They buy from brands they know, trust, and respect. Price shoppers are feeling the pinch and want you to be cheaper. Loyal customers are willing to pay more right now today.

John Clendenning
[01:16:13 – 01:16:51]

The best companies are buying more of these customers because they know how to target them properly. They know who’s already sitting in front of them and they’re making great friends with those people too. Which one does your marketing attract now? You’re in the marketing business. You’re the marketer of cleaning services to get somebody on the phone or to get somebody back. into their house. You are the marketer of cleaning services. Can you do that with a book for yourself on your Google Business Profile? Because it clicks to Housecall Pros and Housecall Pros allows that to connect. And now you can, you know, somebody can self-book from their Google Business Profile.

John Clendenning
[01:16:51 – 01:17:17]

Well, I had somebody book, John. That’s great. How many other people looked at that, saw your pricing and went, no, I don’t. Why would I pay that much? Because you haven’t, you haven’t marketed properly for that. I’d rather they pick up the phone and call or start a conversation. The ones that just want to shyly self-book typically aren’t your ideal customers. The ideal customer wants to find that person, that company that they don’t ever have to find again. They’re not shopping around every time.

John Clendenning
[01:17:18 – 01:17:45]

These guys are, these guys aren’t. There’s an actual full-blown blueprint of how to build your foundation, Your marketing foundation, why you’re different than everybody else, your brand. And don’t take my word for it. Go listen to Ken. Go listen to Tommy Mello. Listen to these guys, right? You build your before-the-sale business, your during-the-sale business, and your after-the-sale business. These are all the things you need to do. I did.

John Clendenning
[01:17:45 – 01:18:02]

I learned these one by one by one by one by one. Badly put them in place at first. Got better at them. To build all my companies. Then it became easy. Then I wasn’t needed. You could just turn the machine on to any other business. So that is an automated cash-generating machine.

John Clendenning
[01:18:02 – 01:18:23]

If you work on this, you work on your business, not in it. You can do both. You can definitely do both. Everybody has to start somewhere. You’re not sitting with gobs of money and, you know, Daddy Warbucks or whatever it’s called as your, as your, you know, father or father-in-law that’s going to just fund you for the next 5 years until you get this figured out. No, we all have to go out and feed, feed the family and do the work. Yes. And we all had to.

John Clendenning
[01:18:24 – 01:18:59]

I still got out of the truck in 3 months, 6 months, 18 months. Right. So 2006, the way people buy, work, and experience life has changed forever. We have AI agents. We have Replacing jobs and doing services. And, and, and we’ve got all kinds of stuff going on. We’ve got wars and inflation and pressures all over the place, all over the place. We’ve got massive debts.

John Clendenning
[01:18:59 – 01:19:57]

We’ve got like all of it, right? All of it’s come together. It’s all changed. Might be time. By invite only, might be time to consider jumping on a coaching program with other cleaners that are growing, that are learning all of this stuff module by module, being accountable to each other every single week, learning AI and how to automate some of these things, things that used to take me months to put in place. We’re creating AI coaches That you end one of the sessions, run the coach, 20 minutes later, 30 minutes later, you’ve built the next piece. You’ve moved the ball forward, you put it in place, you’ve tested it, and you come back. We’ve got— I’ll show you actually, because I think Sarika added these in, right? So this is what the backend of the coaching program looks like. We’ve got winter database activation kits and seasonal activation kits.

John Clendenning
[01:19:57 – 01:20:35]

We’ve got how to go out and build referral partners, how to do your core forever engine, how to create package pricing, how to deliver a client experience. We just talk about one of these at a time every single week. It doesn’t matter where you start. You just jump in, do that thing, learn the rest, build your business one module at a time. blueprintforsuccesscoaching.com. Go take a look. Request the guide there. There’s a guide you can request to download how the average forum flexer, as we call them, doesn’t It is part of the mass typical operator.

John Clendenning
[01:20:36 – 01:21:03]

The best operators aren’t on the forums. They’re not worried about their Butler truck mount or whatever and stuff like that. Like their teams have those. That’s great. They’re doing all of the things that grow a business, even if it’s just they have 2 technicians on the road and they’re only needed 10 hours a week off a scale and they can do something else with their time. They still exist. So what happens when you close those gaps, right? These are people right in the coaching program. I’ve got 100% strike rate.

John Clendenning
[01:21:04 – 01:21:47]

That’s PJ’s way of saying success rate at getting past the gatekeeper because of one of our programs and our approaches, right? The pickup artist style. Amy, there’s lots of things on this call today that are just so easy to implement. Multimillion-dollar cleaning business owner. Jumped in and went, holy crap, right? Tony built his, his business to $1 million in 2 years, 24 months out of, from zero, right? We’ve got Peter just wrapped up the entire Blueprint for Success Power Pricing module and it is genuinely awesome. Version 1 of the full offer and sales path sheet is completed. Thank you. That was in 1 week. That was just a message in the backend saying, hey, just finished it.

John Clendenning
[01:21:47 – 01:22:15]

Got it done. Did my homework. Didn’t take him very long at all. That would have taken us weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks of training calls back in the Piranha Marketing days and Howard Partridge days. Now it’s just an AI coach we build, right, for each module. John and his strategies have been my secret weapon for becoming the market leader in our area. More calls, more bookings, repeat referrals on autopilot at the highest prices in town. And we’ve taken every Friday and weekend off for years now while the business runs And the money rolls in.

John Clendenning
[01:22:16 – 01:22:37]

These aren’t big. This isn’t a million-dollar company. This is a couple trucks on the road. They’ve just built it into a lifestyle because of what we just talked about and joining the accountability. I ended up with between $5,000 and $6,000 in sales in the last week in referrals just from the database training in the program. Thanks, Diane. Thanks, Paul. All right.

John Clendenning
[01:22:37 – 01:23:18]

Did you add $5,000 to $6,000 of newfound money last week? Because of a database training program you learned. Anyways, if you’re interested, Blueprint for Success Coaching— Blueprint for Success Coaching with the number 4— blueprintforsuccesscoaching.com. If you’d like to hop on a call, learn about all of this stuff, go through your numbers— we actually do an entire— actually show you what it looks like. I built an entire app around this. We’ll actually go through all your numbers It looks daunting. It’s not. Figure out where you stand, where your hard cap really is right now. What some quick levers to earn a whole bunch of money right away.

John Clendenning
[01:23:20 – 01:24:02]

Again, how to get more often and then more customers before ever worrying about, um, more money— or sorry, more money per job more often before worrying about more customers. Right? You can generate $26,000 extra to this business, this client I was working with, right? More money, more jobs, more, more often before we add that on. If all we did was add that on, they’d add about $1,300 a month in growth. That’s where their budget caps out. You learn this, you learn this, don’t even worry about that. $26,000 in more revenue per month before even chasing more customers. So now you know where the buried treasure lies. This is just an interview.

John Clendenning
[01:24:03 – 01:24:33]

I literally, we just interview, we chat some behind the scenes stuff, ask you questions. I just fill this out and we go through things that will move your business. The 47 poles in the water that grow, which ones an agency like us can do, what coaching can help with, and what you should be doing. Right? It’s not done for you. It’s done together marketing. That’s what we do. Right? So, if that interests you at all, carpetcleanermarketingmasters.com/schedule. Let’s have that conversation.

John Clendenning
[01:24:34 – 01:25:09]

Are you, are you, do you need accountability and coaching? Do you want to take the next, in the next 3 months, get out of the truck? Next 6 months, get out of the truck. It’s doable. But you need coaching. You need help. Do you want to learn how to market better? Do you want to have some help where we do some of it? Paid ads, better websites, better conversions, Carpet Cleaner Lead Pro, lead nurture automations. All of those kinds of stuff, add some AI into your business, all that, jump on a call for the schedule, join the schedule, like jump on, let’s have a consultation. I charge hourly for my consultations, obviously, but you can get into my calendar for free. I’ll give you an hour, chat this out.

John Clendenning
[01:25:09 – 01:25:29]

If you’re serious about growing the business, this is where you’re at. So anyways, with all that said, I’m going to switch back to the screen so you can see me. Hopefully there’s something there. The benchmark report is a real big eye-opener. The typical operator is struggling right now. In every business. Even Ken mentioned it. Even Ken mentions it on that interview that I mentioned on YouTube.

John Clendenning
[01:25:29 – 01:26:09]

He talks about how challenging the times are right now. A dude at $250 million a year who was losing $3 million a year when he was at 11, scaled, scaled, but didn’t know his numbers, didn’t know this stuff. Go listen to it, right? That’s the same thing that happens to a $100,000 carpet cleaner. When they figure it out, very few do. Next thing you know, they’re at $300,000, $400,000, $500,000, $600,000, but they’re not in the truck. They can scale to a million if they want. If that’s the goal, they can go golfing and work 5, 10 hours a week on the business and other people working in it. That’s all doable as well with the right systems, targeting the right customers with the right messaging.

John Clendenning
[01:26:09 – 01:26:15]

So know your numbers, see where you fit in, and hopefully found this valuable. Till next time, guys. Take care.

A carpet cleaning business should do some form of social activity every day if possible, provided the activity serves the audience’s interests. The training recommends mixing recreational, educational, conversational, inspirational, review, promotional, and behind-the-scenes content rather than posting carpet photographs repeatedly.

JOHN CLENDENNING
0:05

Yeah! So, Chris, you got your cheers back. Everybody else, you can say, who the hell is this Chris guy John keeps talking to? Anyways, so Chris texted me and said, nope, we need the cheers back. We got the cheers back. So thank you guys for showing up, or if you’re watching this on replay, listening to this on the podcast, whatever. Um, awesome. Thanks for showing up again. Every month we do these deep dive masterclasses on how to build these crazy home service businesses, run them, market them properly, how to be the marketer of cleaning services, not the doer, not the— like, understand that when you’re growing a business, the most successful businesses, and there’s very few of them, By contrast, by a lot, 86% of solopreneurs stay solopreneurs their entire life. 85% of carpet cleaners stay solopreneurs, never get out of the truck.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:02

Like, you know, matches those numbers with other industries. Most businesses don’t survive 10 years. Most, only 2% of carpet cleaners sell their business for more than the price of the truck. And only half a percent or less ever make it to sort of scale where they’re over 7 figures. They’re running a machine. They can grow, they can grow to $10 million, sell to private equity and walk away with $20, $30 million. Or they can run it remotely, like with a team and not be involved in the day-to-day and grow that $2, $3, $5 million, start buying other businesses. What do they know? Most of them don’t have a university degree.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:45

I didn’t even finish high school. I got a job, a chance to play Ron Wood in a Rolling Stones cover band and skipped the last from May to the end of the year. Didn’t finish my final exams. John didn’t graduate. Always planned to go back. Never did. Built a million-dollar cleaning business instead, right? After we came off the road and all that fun stuff. So what do they know that maybe you’re learning here? You understand I talk about that it’s not from me.

JOHN CLENDENNING
2:11

It’s from— listen to Tommy Mello, Home Service Millionaire. Listen to, um, Michael Gerber, E-Myth, E-Myth Revisited. We know the learnings. We listen to Dan or Alex Hormozi, if you want one of the newer gurus who learned from Dan Kennedy and Russell Brunson, who learned from Edward Bernays and Gary Halbert and John Carlton. And this— there is a path to success. a proven path and everybody else walks out into the woods, goes this way, goes that way. No, I know better. I know better.

JOHN CLENDENNING
2:40

I know better. And they skip the path. It’s a human condition. It’s not your fault. Your brain believes, as you know less and less information about something, that you are more right and certain than you ever should be. And we should always be challenging this. In psychology, it’s called the Dunning-Kruger effect, right? So We are, we don’t know enough information that we are naively confident. It’s just super easy.

JOHN CLENDENNING
3:06

What we’re trying to say is that if you’re the marketer of your services, you generate sales conversations. You get good at sales conversations, you generate jobs. You get good at jobs, doing right, delivering a client experience, doing good follow-up, doing good marketing to keep the job before you show up, do good marketing after it, do marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing, marketing from job number 1. From customer number 1, not someday. At the beginning, right? Then you now create retention and referral. We are in a retention and referral industry. We don’t make $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 profit on a job like a roofer does. So they need that customer once and they make the lifetime value once, maybe twice sometimes.

JOHN CLENDENNING
3:44

We need to get to that $5,000, $10,000 lifetime value by locking the customer down, finding the right people and locking it down. If you’re running a lead business, I need more leads, I need more leads. That literally has never worked. You can add leads to a great machine, but without the great machine, leads will actually run you outta business like it does everybody else, right? So you might get lucky, get some more leads, and then build a machine because you found a, a loophole for a short period of time until you built 20 poles in the water, 30 poles in the water, 40 poles in the water to generate each one of ’em generating 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 inquiries a month. You, you get good at booking. You know your booking percentage is not 20%, it’s actually 40% or 50%. You actually know it. You monitor it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
4:30

You know when it’s slipping and you bring it back. That’s running a good business. And now you generate every, every inquiry from the right source. You know half of them are going to become $10,000 lifetime clients. The other half are never going to see you again because they were moving out of the area, something else was going on. That’s your goal because you market the crap out of that database. every single month, right? So, that’s the business we’re in. Welcome to the Carpet Cleaner Success Podcast, a show created to inspire carpet cleaning business owners to build their own thriving residential and commercial cleaning business.

JOHN CLENDENNING
5:04

Your host, Jon Clendenning, has built and sold successful cleaning businesses for multiple 6 figures over his 30-year career and is the founder of Carpet Cleaner Marketing Masters, a digital agency that turns your online marketing into a lead generation machine. Tune in as Jon shares proven tips, Strategies, and expert interviews to help fast-track your success in the carpet cleaning industry. What are we going to talk about today? Today, we’re actually talking about being the best known to get chosen in the realm of social and how to use social media to help do that. The best-known cleaners get chosen 60% of the time or more, everybody else is picking up the scraps in the marketplace. If your phones have slowed down, you’re not best known. If the economy is tightening, people are getting worried. 89,000 jobs were lost in the United States in the last 3 months, according to some recent reports, to AI, never to come back again. That causes some problems, but it causes some psychological problems to people saying, I don’t need our upholstery cleaned again a second time this year, or we’ll wait, wait till next year.

JOHN CLENDENNING
6:19

We’ll see if the honey— we’ll see if we you keep the, you know, if you keep your job, if I keep my job, see what we’re doing. Like the price of gas is too much and interest rates and blah, blah, blah. We don’t know where anything’s going. That recessionary feeling that happened 20 years ago, 2008, that feeling was the problem, not the job losses that, which were pretty small at the time. It was the feeling that cascaded through the economy, right? Quantitative easing was necessary to fix it. We had COVID, then they 10x that, all that kind of stuff. Like the story writes itself. So what we’re going to talk about today is how do you become the best known? How do you become chosen? Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
6:56

In the new social media, using social media in the new era, right? It’s one of the poles in the water. It’s one of the things that you can tap into. It’s not the only thing, but I’m going to show you some folks that have used it insanely, insanely, insanely well. So, okay. Well, that’s in mind. Let’s switch over the screen. Hey, up in the top corner here. Hope you guys can see me.

JOHN CLENDENNING
7:18

Make sure you, uh, chime in and tell me that you can see me. That’s helpful. Um, and a quick second. So, um, hey, sorry, just sending a message to Sarika. Um, I think she, she had to chime out for a second, so if anybody chats in the background, um, I won’t be able to see you. Anyways, want to send the message. So we’re going to be talking about this. Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
7:43

This is social media can make or break or can not break, can make your business grow faster, better, create an awareness that we’re going to talk about that allows everything else to work better. It’s just one of those things that can do a really, really, really, really powerful lift with a little bit of effort. Right. So how do you put it in place and why does it even matter? What’s AI doing in this whole market? So let’s talk about that. So Turn your cell phones off, turn Facebook off. Cleaning home service business, you’re gonna get some value out of this. So let’s go down that rabbit hole. Um, next 60 minutes, you know, right? It’s gonna be about 75, 80 minutes, probably.

JOHN CLENDENNING
8:22

We’ll see where this, this lands this time, but we’re gonna, we’re gonna cover why be known, being known matters, and how social media can help. The AI era, how customers discover and evaluate your business. It ain’t Google anymore, guys. You know, this ain’t Kansas anymore, people, right? So, um, from random posts to strategic content, what’s the difference? Most people go, oh, I post a little bit. I post before and after pictures of my carpets. That’s what every carpet cleaner does. That’s called marketing incest. If you look at what everybody else does and go, that must be right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
8:57

Do you have a strategy? Do you know why it’s right? The very best companies don’t do that at all. The very best companies, strategic, Hire good social media companies or learn the depth of social media. Again, Dunning-Kruger. They don’t go, oh, I think I know. I think I— nope. I— oh crap. The more I learn, I know nothing. It’s called the pit of despair.

JOHN CLENDENNING
9:17

Wow. This is actually hard. Okay. I’ve learned enough. I’m— now you’re a lifelong learner because you realize it’s actually hard. That’s everything, right? The worst case scenario is when you get lucky at something, make it, make it feel super easy because that’s, again, that’s, that’s even, you know, lottery winners, right? You’ve got lottery winners who, you know, the, the stats are millions of dollars and how quickly they’re broke versus a self-made wealthy person, millionaire, whatever, multimillionaire. They know how to build it back. Henry Ford was once asked, once asked, what would happen if you, um, lost all your money today? I would make it back in a year or two.

JOHN CLENDENNING
10:07

It wasn’t a thought. It wasn’t because there’s a process. There’s, there’s, there’s knowledge. There was trial and error. There was depth. So if a hiccup happened, got in your way, you knew the plan to fix it. If you get lucky, you think it’s easy, right? So AI and authenticity, the new content advantage. We’re gonna talk about, right? So who am I? Why you should even listen to me? You already know.

JOHN CLENDENNING
10:33

Um, been in business since 1990, last year of high school. Um, I’ve owned multiple cleaning businesses, started in a town of 30,000 people, built a multi-million dollar cleaning company, sold pieces off all the way through to a number of years ago. Um, got down to working about 5 hours a week. On my business, not in it, and started consulting and coaching and being flown around the world teaching those 3-day elite retreats and stuff like that to the cleaning industry and franchise networks and you name it. I wrote the book on the Complete Guide to Internet Marketing. I run the Carpet Cleaning Success Podcast. All I do is say, hey, I know this industry inside out backwards. I’m one of you.

JOHN CLENDENNING
11:13

I’ve been in the cleaning industry and home service industry my entire life. I’ve coached for 20 years to help businesses grow. Scale, expand, understand where they need to put their focus, what comes first, what comes second, right? More leads is actually way down the list, just so you know. Without the right engine, generating more inquiries and more leads is actually going to break your business. So that’s what I do. Oops. Obviously, Industry Leader of the Year, Cleanfax. I’m on Cleanfax every single month.

JOHN CLENDENNING
11:46

hang out with the people we know, Howard Partridges and Dusty Roberts and Mark Sagers, and you name it in the industry, right? That’s, that’s my connection to the industry. More importantly, we help our clients grow, right? That’s what we do. We’ve got tons of case studies. Call us, ask for case studies. We get tons of case studies, pay-per-click, that is generating 3, 4, 5-to-1 ROIs. One pay-per-click campaign we’re talking about, the lifetime was $66,000 in pay-per-click ad spend to Google over a number of years. $1.3 million book of business came out of it in carpet cleaning. It’s not a bad return on investment, right? Direct, the first-time cleaning, $200,000 lifetime value of that because of the lifetime value engine in that company.

JOHN CLENDENNING
12:40

Know them well, know them for years, worked with them forever. The value is over $1 million from a $66,000 investment in paid ad budget over a couple years. They’re only a 1-2 truck operation, right? So we help make our clients the top cleaning brand in their local marketplace so they can attract the best clients, which are the only ones who are going to be left with money during this whole shakeout, by the way. You can’t quietly lose 89,000 jobs in 3 months. A year ago, it was like 80,000 in the first, in, in 2025, they, they believe were sort of lost permanently to AI. It’s 89,000 in the last 3 months, right? You can’t do that and stay in business and have every carpet cleaner have work, every home service, every hairdresser, you name it. Everybody’s going to cut back on stuff. We did in the recession.

JOHN CLENDENNING
13:32

We all know it if you’ve been around long enough. But the best clients on Golf Course Road, they made a ton of money with their SpaceX stock. They made a ton of money. They understand wealth, so they still clean, they still do stuff because that’s the K-shaped economy we are in. The haves know how to have more. The average don’t have the resources to play that game and are just, The victims of the commodity mentality, right? We can’t be that. We are not 3 rooms in a hall for $99. An $89 guy shows up and $79 guys show up.

JOHN CLENDENNING
14:08

All of them have rusty vans. Give them 5 years if they’re brand new van today, right? The $300, $400, $500, $600, $800 average residential job client carpet cleaning companies are growing right now. That’s interesting, right? So you want to be top rates. That’s what we just talked about and booked out weeks in advance. Right? We had our clients book a year in advance into our schedule. It’s not a bad thing to do. So, quick second. Hey, good.

JOHN CLENDENNING
14:36

Thank you, Poppy. You can see and hear me. Good. I did actually see that little note and checked. That’s weird of me, but okay. So, how do we do this? 3 principles of omnipresence. If you are the best-known cleaner, if you’re omnipresent in your marketplace, That means they know you. Think of the very best personal injury lawyer.

JOHN CLENDENNING
14:57

Think of the very best real estate agent, one or two of them in your town. Think of the very best plumbing company. They’re on billboards, on the back of buses. They’re in your flyer. They’re in your mailbox. If you’ve ever hired them before, they’re sending you seasonal information, not deals, not discounts, not necessarily. They’re sending you packages and programs and ideas and helpful tips and how to prepare if you’re in the Northeast or the North, how to prepare your you know, for winter and stuff like that, right? You got to stay omnipresent so that when they do need a cleaner and they do go to AI, when they do need a cleaner and they do go to Google, less and less are going there, by the way. Um, when they do need a cleaner and they ask their friends or neighbors or colleagues and your name comes up, they go, oh crap, I know those guys.

JOHN CLENDENNING
15:45

All of a sudden your pay-per-click campaign works twice as good. 3, your ROI, your return on investment is 2 or 3 times higher. The campaign didn’t do better. A well-run campaign should do good, but your omnipresence is what created the profit and the wealth. Never put that in place, you never get there. Put it in place starting day 1, you’re in the right spot. So you maximize your opportunities to generate a qualified lead. You pick who your ideal customer is.

JOHN CLENDENNING
16:15

Are they on Golf Course Road commercially? Are they the high-end hotels? Are they the high-end property management? that have condos that every bougie rich 55-year-old plus lives in? Is that your qualified? Or are you looking for rental apartments to clean baby puke and cat pee out of the carpets between tenants for like $50, $100 because the last guy did it for $125 and you took $25 off the price, right? Who do you consider a qualified inquiry? That could build your company, come back year after year after year. If you realize you’re in a retention, repeat and retention business and marketing to people, ’cause they don’t remember you, they will forget. Are you getting 60% of your database coming back or 10? Do you even know? Do you even track it? Right? So you maximize your opportunity to generate a qualified lead. You maximize your brand impressions is what we’re gonna talk about today. How do people know about you before they need you? Not when they need you, before, so that when they need you, you are on the top of their, their list. There are, you’re already in their mind. And how do you maximize your conversions? What the hell does that even mean? Well, there’s a lot of people that get inquiries. We have clients that start with us.

JOHN CLENDENNING
17:36

They’ll get a lot of, lot of inquiries. We start our clients off with local service ads in the mix of sort of SEO and pay-per-click and stuff like that. Like that core engine, we build a lot of services around that to make that core engine stronger. Very uniquely we do that, but that core engine is SEO, AI recommendations, organic in Google Maps, and paid ads online, offline, every door mails, yard signs, door hangers, chambers, like all that kind of stuff. There’s a whole Core Forever engine that we talk about. Cool. But that’s great. You generate inquiries.

JOHN CLENDENNING
18:08

Are you answering them in 1 to 2 rings? Are you getting back to emails and text messages in, you know, 30 seconds to a minute, not next day. And do you know what to say? Do you have a psychological, psychologically influenced script messaging? Sell by text, get them on the phone, influence them well. Just a good conversation that gets rid of their limiting beliefs and lets them know why paying more is to their benefit. You don’t. Everybody’s a price shopper and nobody— I can’t raise my prices. Everybody mocks at my prices. That’s a scripting problem. It’s a scripting problem, not, not a pricing problem, right? Maximize your conversion.

JOHN CLENDENNING
18:56

You understand what I just said? And then anybody who says maybe, you follow up with for years, days, weeks, months, years until they buy or die. Your lead database, right? Because you might not convert them right now, but what if you stayed in touch with them, shared happy customer stories, told them all the stuff we’re gonna talk about in social media here, and that you’re still in their world all the time? Your customers, you should be in front of them 2 or 3 times a month forever. Your ideal customers, your leads, at least once or twice a month forever until they buy or die or unsubscribe, which you’ll find out they won’t. If you do it right, if you send them, become a welcome guest, not an annoying pest. Now you’re maximizing conversions. Now you might generate 10 phone calls, get 4 bookings. You’re at 40% cold, right? That’s not bad. Not terrible.

JOHN CLENDENNING
19:46

There’s most— the average carpet cleaner is 1 or 2 out of 10. If you actually ran your numbers, sat with a tracking sheet, unless your prices are so low that everybody just says yes, you try and get your minimum job $250 and your average carpet cleaning customer, $500 job and still book at 40%. You can, we have lots of clients that do it, but it’s a different strategy. You now are running a company. You can hand that off to somebody, get them to answer the phones. You’re out meeting and greeting and growing the business. Maximize conversions means that instead of 2 out of 10, you might get 4 out of 10 on the front end and another 3. Over the next coming weeks or months.

JOHN CLENDENNING
20:26

Now you got 7 out of 10. So 2 out of 10 and your average job is $200. You made $400. 7 out of 10 and your average job is $500 because you know how to upsell, you know how to package sell, you know how to do all that stuff. And now you made $3,500. Same 10 phone calls, one guy at $400, another guy or gal at $3,500. You got to decide which lane you want to be in. The difference wasn’t the leads.

JOHN CLENDENNING
20:51

So, being seen isn’t the same as being known. You can be seen. Are you known? Figure out what that means. Imagine 3 companies show up when a homeowner searches. We just talked about this. You’ve got Company A, great branding. I’ve seen them before. I know them.

JOHN CLENDENNING
21:12

I’ve heard of them. I’ve seen their social media. I’ve heard happy customer stories. I’ve heard about these guys. Right. I know these guys show up in pay-per-click. They show up in every door mailed, like wherever, right? Homeowner searching finds another company. Wow.

JOHN CLENDENNING
21:30

They look familiar. Hmm. Think I’ve heard of them. Honey, is that AAA Carpet Cleaning or AAA Door, uh, Garage Door that, that we know? Company C. Who are these guys? That’s a crappy website. That looks like homemade. That’s like, who are these guys? Which one do you think gets the calls? Most of the calls I hear all day. Oh yeah, well, you know, I just need more leads.

JOHN CLENDENNING
21:57

I need more leads. I’ll worry about the rest of the stuff later. Nope. The rest of the stuff later is the stuff you need to do first. You don’t drive around in a white van with no uniform on, jeans and a t-shirt showing up at people’s homes with old Gobby looking equipment. You have a website that looks like your, your 12-year-old kid made it. You have zero social media presence, or if you do have a social media presence, you’ve got a picture of carpets in the header graphic, the big billboard at the top of Facebook and everywhere. You decide to put a piece of a picture of a carpet up there because I’m a carpet cleaner.

JOHN CLENDENNING
22:28

That’s what other guys do. No, that’s not what the best guys do. Not even close. And you show pictures of really dirty carpets looking really clean. Stairs, hallways. Look at me. I’m amazing. That’s not a strategy.

JOHN CLENDENNING
22:41

That’s not going to be seen. They’re not going to know who you are when they go look you up. They’re not going to be impressed. And I’ll tell you why, because your best clients don’t have really dirty carpets. Your best clients are maintaining high-end upholstery, tile floors, and they’re willing to pay when they get slightly smudged, slightly traffic-laned. If that’s who you’re targeting, we have no issues with the Change in the economy. So who gets the call? We know who gets the call. So we’re going to talk about the social dilemma.

JOHN CLENDENNING
23:16

If you post inconsistently, right, it’s a problem. Creativity takes a whole long time. I don’t know what to post, John. This is ridiculous. I can’t hire somebody. They cost— a social media manager costs $1,500 to $2,500, $3,000 a month. That’s the, you know, the kid with the camera used to be a photographer, now is a social media manager in every town. Whatever, right? I don’t have time to learn it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
23:38

I don’t understand it. I do a little bit, then I stop. I do a little bit, then I stop. We got to get better at our social media. Hear that every single day. Creativity takes ages. I’m going to prove to you it doesn’t. Oh, and it doesn’t pull.

JOHN CLENDENNING
23:52

I, I’ve posted on social media for like 3 months in a row. I didn’t get any jobs from it. Are you looking for direct response marketing? Or are you looking for brand awareness that generates better positioning for your brand everywhere else? Do you understand that most people don’t find your social media and they’re definitely not looking at your dirty carpet, clean carpet side by side? That is, there is absolutely zero interest in that, right? The septic tank cleanout guy could take pictures of crap all day long. Could post them onto social media. Guaranteed that’s not going to draw a crowd. The insurance agent could post actuary tables and the latest news in insurance all day long. Guaranteed nobody’s going to the insurance agent’s page or social media. Insurance agent can do entirely different things and have everybody in town show up.

JOHN CLENDENNING
24:53

And the smart ones, the rare few, understand what I just said. So the fail: low authority, low positioning, low organic movement doesn’t seem to work. I don’t want to do social media. That’s where everybody gets that doesn’t understand what we’re about to talk about over the next 30, 40 minutes. You become known, you get chosen. The goal is not to post more. Not to post more. The goal is to become the business people recognize, remember, and trust.

JOHN CLENDENNING
25:25

Right? Do you stand out like these guys? Be the business that the market thinks of first. There is one, maybe a max in big markets, 2 market leaders. Everybody else picks up the scraps. And as the market gets tight, the market leaders are buying the other guys out right now. It’s happening right now like crazy, right? If you’ve got a carpet cleaning company you want to sell, For your, you know, get some of your equipment paid back, maybe a little bit of database money. You haven’t really built systems. You don’t really have like a nurtured database, whatever. There are guys who’ll buy you right now.

JOHN CLENDENNING
25:59

Call me up. I can help broker the deal for you. I’ve got hundreds of people I know are buying cleaning companies up right now if they’re structured well, that fit into their purview, because done well, they can take on your database. And grow where you couldn’t, right? You want to be seen, show up consistently, not shotgun, be recognized. The van goes by, those are my guys, right? Oh, I’ve heard of those guys. Oh, did you see their TikTok? Right, Tony, I don’t know if you’re on the call, walks around town, people go, oh my God, haha, you’re funny, love you, love your social media. Right, Donnie? Right? They know you. You don’t have a clue who they are.

JOHN CLENDENNING
26:49

Top of mind. Be trusted. Build credibility through value and authenticity. No games. There isn’t a scam here. All the black hat, gray hat crap that, that, that, oh, I just need, I just need somebody to post for me. I just, I, I just want to put, you know, put a pin in that. Yeah, that’s mediocre.

JOHN CLENDENNING
27:13

Are you going to level up or are you going to play small? You got to decide, right? Are you going to learn what you need to know and you’re going to stay accountable, have an accountability buddy, partner, whatever? Because we all have great ideas. There’s no shortage of ideas. You’re going to have a ton of ideas at the end of this call. What are you going to do to put them in place? Do you have a plan? Think about that. You want to be remembered. You want to be that business. That seems to be solving everybody’s problems. And then when they call and they go, holy crap, wow, I called a couple other guys and they were like $99, $169 to do that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
27:46

You’re saying it’s gonna be like between $350 and $500? Yep. Hmm. And you guys are like more known than anybody else. Like most people choose you, right? Yep. Yeah, that’s true too. Hmm. What am I missing here? Like, why are those other guys so cheap? They know what they’re worth. It’s always a great answer right there, right? You want to get chosen not because you’re the discount guy.

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:11

You want to get chosen because you’re the best, you’re trusted. And the better that brand gets, the more you can charge. The better you get at selling and servicing and delivering a great client experience that wows the crap out of them, Costs you $20 more per job, but generates $200 more per revenue. All of that other $180 is profit. Same job, more money because you’re so well known and you deliver a great client experience unique to you. Compelling sales proposition. So the customer journey has changed massively. And it’s continuing to change.

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:56

More people are onboarding into systems now in August of 2026, when this is being recorded, end of August, than a month ago, than 3 months ago, than 9 months ago. The AI is becoming how everybody answers questions, has conversations, and we’re just at the tip of the iceberg. It’s scary where this is going. I run the AI Marketing Experts Podcast. Go look it up on YouTube and Spotify. Join. We’ve got a community in the back end of that. Learn AI for businesses and stuff like that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
29:30

AI Marketing Experts Podcast, group of 5 of us. Really cool. I’ve been in AI for 5 years, way before ChatGPT. I have agents. I have 7 agents running right now doing different triage and work and research and stuff like that for me across Variable things in my life, right? I know the customer journey is changing. I’m not the average customer. I’m like, I get it. I get it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
29:57

I go way too deep down rabbit holes, but the average customer isn’t just going to Google and finding the person with the most reviews and that’s who I’m going to choose. It’s not how it works anymore. The AI era has changed. This is what it used to be. We searched on Google. We visited the website. We called the business. We booked the service.

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:21

We got the job complete. That was a lot of, hey, everything’s got to be on Google. Go, go, go, go, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, Google, right? I need more reviews on Google. I need Google. I need Google. No. Even then, it should only be one pole in the water. Now, The search might start on Google.

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:42

It might not even, it might start on ChatGPT. It might start on Perplexity, right? They see you on social media. They’ve seen your reels. They’ve seen your posts. They’ve laughed at some of your fun stuff. I’m gonna show you some of these really cool things, right? They’ve gone and had AI go out and find reviews on you. They’ve watched some YouTube by this point. They’ve asked or searched as we talk about, right? Bouncing back and forth.

JOHN CLENDENNING
31:06

This isn’t a linear path. It’s like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, right? They’re saying it’s about 21 touches. Google’s ZMOT, Zero Moment of Truth. 21 touches of a brand before people feel they can trust them enough to use them. Then they might visit your website. It better be telling a great story. It better not look like white on rice Sephora, you know, whatever it, you know, or some sort of Weebly Wix free or ChatGPT. I chat, built me my website.

JOHN CLENDENNING
31:36

Cool. Does it have psychological positioning? Does it have a story brand? Does it have schema? Does it have enough content depth, H1s, H2s, H3s to get ranked? Does it have, you know, interlinking between it and authority page? You know what I even just said? Your website’s not ready. Right. Call or message, right? More people want to message. We talked about that in other calls. They want to message more. You want to get them off of message or learn how to sell by chat really, really good. Kind of hard.

JOHN CLENDENNING
32:03

You want to get them off of message and on the phone. Do you know the script for that? Do you know how to sell by chat and move them to a phone conversation if you can, where you can influence them with your voice? You want to book the service? Some people want to book themselves. Do not put a self-booking widget on your website at all. At all. If you’re— unless you’re trying to commoditize your price. Yep, we’re $99 as well. Choose us. Book yourself.

JOHN CLENDENNING
32:29

I want to go home and eat. Cheetos or watch Netflix and just have my schedule fill up. Never worked. I don’t care what the forum flexers say on the forums. Most of the guys that are successful have long since left the forums. It does not work. You have to be able to sell your services. Can you walk them through a pricing window calculator? Oh, for gosh sakes, yes, you should.

JOHN CLENDENNING
32:54

Should you have pages on your website about pricing that aren’t quotes? You’re not giving an exact price. You’re giving the range in the marketplace, what the discount guys do, what the middle of the road do, what the premium do, and here’s where you fit in and what they can expect and how to have those conversations. If they’re a discount client, don’t try and sell them. Just be a premium provider. That’s an option. It’s a great option, right? At the very least, be middle of the road and don’t let somebody else deal with the discount clients. They’re the biggest headache, the biggest pain in the ass, and the least profitable. Don’t even aim at them because you’ll also ruin a whole bunch of your business trying to get their money.

JOHN CLENDENNING
33:30

You will ruin your referral partner relationships. You’ll ruin your outreach. You’ll be so busy making pennies that you can’t spend the time to make $1,000, $10,000, $20,000 in a month with good outreach because you’re too busy doing a $150 job, 5 of them today. I’d rather you do one $500 job a day. Right? 22 workdays in a year. You’re sitting on a $10,000, $12,000 a month cleaning business with one job a day. And the other half of the day, you’re building the business to put the next $10,000, $20,000 revenue per month in with commercial jobs and referral partners and outreach. Or you spend all day doing $500 or $600 from 8 o’clock in the morning To 6 o’clock at night, 5 o’clock at night, $150 crappy-ass jobs all day long.

JOHN CLENDENNING
34:23

You’ll never grow there. So, right? That’s the new era. They’re bouncing back and forth and around. Are you in all of these places with the right message? Your compelling sales proposition, your risk reversal guarantee, your founder’s story as the hero or as the, uh, as a guide to them as the hero, the hero. They want a clean, healthy, safe house for their family, their friends, their guests, their whatever. You’re the guide to get them there. That’s the story. That’s how we work.

JOHN CLENDENNING
34:49

That’s how the Bible is written. That’s how every hero’s journey story arc is written. That’s how Hail Mary movie, Ryan Gosling, great. That’s the entire thing as well. We know how to influence people and make them lean towards us. That’s just learning marketing, right? Again, didn’t graduate high school, had to learn it, had to learn it all. Sat in every room, read every book, joined every course. Figured it out to write better ads for carpet cleaning, my own carpet cleaning business.

JOHN CLENDENNING
35:18

Why? Because I was out of the truck in the first year and a half in 1995. Grew a 7-figure business from a town of 30,000 people. Bought other companies out, started a coaching program. The whole story we talked about at the beginning, right? That all comes from deciding, hey, I don’t know shit. Let’s figure this out. Right? AI looks at— this is the other— when AI is choosing, right? AI looks at what you posted. Is it fresh, helpful, and engaging? What others are saying, are they engaging with it? Do you have reviews? Not just on Google. In fact, harder and harder and harder for AI to see your Google reviews.

JOHN CLENDENNING
35:57

Google’s kind of trying to keep that in their own ecosphere and blocking a little bit. Stories are being sold or being told about that. Have they watched you on TikTok and Reels? I’m going to show you some really cool examples of this. Who you help, your niche, your local relevance, your expertise. Are you telling AI and stories in the world about this? How trustworthy are you? Right? Are you sharing your reputation? Do you leave your Google reviews to die on Google, assuming everybody goes to Google? Not true at all. It’s about I can get you down to about 20%, 20 to 25% of new customers will make it to Google. And I can prove it to you if you want to have that conversation someday. Right? But even if you think it’s 60, even if you really still think it’s 60% of people, new customers go to Google, right? Are you syndicating your feedback from customers, your reviews from all over the web into your social so that they know other people are talking about you? Does AI see that, right? Strong signal equals more trust.

JOHN CLENDENNING
37:00

The customer doesn’t necessarily discover you in one place anymore. We know that. And it’s not just being on Google. They may see you on Facebook today, see a funny reel tomorrow, read a review next week, ask Google or an AI tool who should they call. Pardon me. Got a frog in my throat. So, your social media is part of your digital reputation. Content, expertise, proof, people, reviews, personality.

JOHN CLENDENNING
37:31

This is why we’re not talking about social media simply as posting 3 times a week. I just guess I need content. Oh, what content is— you got content? I need content, right? Any social influencer who has grown their YouTube channel didn’t get lucky. They learned. They did it wrong. They tried harder. They did it more consistently. They watched their data.

JOHN CLENDENNING
37:52

They found which videos worked well, which ones didn’t. They doubled down. They learned more. They hired consultants as they grew, and they became influencers. MrBeast or whoever you follow, right? So it isn’t just about posting to check that off the list. We’re talking about creating evidence. That your business is real, that your business is experienced, that your business is trusted, and it becomes known in the marketplace because of that, right? Imagine a homeowner asking, who’s the best carpet cleaner near me? Your competitor has 300 reviews, videos showing their technicians actually in the field talking to customers, doing work. They— you’ve got happy customer stories.

JOHN CLENDENNING
38:42

Projects that you’ve been able to solve. We got called in, their 3-year-old child got into the nail polish. Oh my gosh. Here’s us working on it. Here’s the after. The story, not just pictures. Educational videos. Answer common questions.

JOHN CLENDENNING
39:02

We all get asked the same questions all day long. Those questions are— people are asking to AI as well. If you are the answer for that, Marcus Sheridan, They Ask, You Answer, built an entire entire industry and he turned him into, from a guy that installed, or a company that installed vinyl pools and almost went bankrupt. Story of Marcus Sheridan, They Ask, You Answer. Great book to, another big, great book to read or listen to, right? He now is an influencer. He’s one of the best speakers I’ve ever, I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of the top speakers. Marcus Sheridan’s the best speaker from stage I’ve ever, I’ve ever, I’ve ever heard. He’s a kid that worked at a pool store for his parents, turned it into a conglomerate by solving that problem, answering the questions that they got asked, and using that as their main marketing approach.

JOHN CLENDENNING
39:55

Online, offline, everywhere. An active social presence. You’ve got to be active. Doesn’t mean people— Facebook is going to direct people to your page even if they like and subscribe. Still means you need to be push, not necessarily pull, but that’s okay. And recognize a recognized owner and a team. Oh, I’ve heard of those guys. I’ve seen that guy.

JOHN CLENDENNING
40:18

Wow. Yeah. I heard that guy talk at the last, you know, trade show. I went to the Home and Garden Show. Yeah. There’s only one carpet cleaner there. Guess who it was? Guess who did Home and Garden Shows every single year in every single small town around us? Right. Done well.

JOHN CLENDENNING
40:32

Not just stand at a booth, shamwow the shit out of that booth. Have people standing around watching demonstrations, right? All of it. Having people entering contests, spinning wheels, doing all kinds of stuff. Like the, the, like we called it the Wheel of Savings. It’s just like going to a stag and doe, right? You won prizes, but you had to enter the contest first. Whole home of cleaning. We would make $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 out of a town of 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 people on home shows. I tried to get in many of those as I possibly can.

JOHN CLENDENNING
40:59

We were recognized For all of this. Then we’d social media-ize the crap out of the winner. On the Monday afterwards, we’d pull the winner. We’d show up at their doorstep as quickly as we can Tuesday or Wednesday, put it in the newspaper, put it all over social media with the big giant check that I still have in the corrugated plastic board in the back of the shop. Right? Long since sold the business. Still have it hanging on the wall. Right? That was the big check so that we could get the big check. They got $500 worth of free cleaning in their home.

JOHN CLENDENNING
41:28

And there was a winner and there’s a picture within a couple days. Everybody else got mailings, not an email. I hope they open it. Mailings. We spent money, got in their mailbox. We would generate $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 first-time cleanings and hundreds of thousands of dollars in lifetime cleanings because we knew how to market our database. added to our company legacy every year. Did the home shows, made $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, made hundreds of thousands of dollars lifetime in the business.

JOHN CLENDENNING
42:00

Rinse and repeat. Do it next year. One of the many poles in the water. Or you don’t do that at all. Man, I wonder why we’re not growing. Wow. We’re slow, right? You have a website, sort of. You have 15 reviews, sort of.

JOHN CLENDENNING
42:15

You have a Facebook page. Haven’t really posted in a while. 4 months ago. Which business gives you more reason to trust them? This guy can charge $400 for 3 rooms and a hall. This guy’s lucky to get $150. They do the exact same cleaning. They both got butlers. They both use the zipper.

JOHN CLENDENNING
42:36

They CRB everything, right? Well, I’m the best. Yeah, this guy’s pretty good. He’s just beating your pants off, making more money. Growing a business. AI changes discovery. Your digital presence needs, needs to keep up. Customers don’t just see your business where they search you, they watch you, they read you, they hear you, they ask, they evaluate all over the place. Your job, give them enough evidence to know, trust you.

JOHN CLENDENNING
43:05

AI ingests all of this now too. AI is trying to be as real and authentic as it possibly can, and every single month it’s getting so much better that it’s becoming real and authentic. It’s going to become AGI, artificial general intelligence, then superintelligence in our lifetimes. That’s, that’s, you know, go listen to the, you know, the founders of AI, right? Go listen to, um, Geoffrey Hinton. Go listen to Ilya. Go listen to, um, Roman Yabolsky, um, head of cybersecurity. Go listen to Demis Hasselbaum. Go listen, like I could give you the list.

JOHN CLENDENNING
43:40

AI is getting smarter every single month and taking over more and more. It’s trying to be as authentic and real as possible. It’s trying to find, when you ask AI to go find answers, it’s trying to find the best answers for you as a real person would, not being gamed, right? Social media reviews, content expertise, SEO, all a stronger digital presence. Throw some paid ads in there, kind of a rental property. You run them, you pay for it, you get to use it. As soon as you stop paying, goes away, right? But you can build some brand equity this way as well. So random posting trap without posting without a plan leads to inconsistent results. Hey, happy Monday.

JOHN CLENDENNING
44:21

Hmm. We got nice mountains on Wednesday. You should call us. You need your, you should get some cleaning done. We, we do cleaning. Nothing for a week or two. That didn’t really work. How many of you have ever opened Facebook and thought, I know I need to post something, but what the heck do I post? The problem isn’t that you don’t have enough content.

JOHN CLENDENNING
44:44

The problem is you’re looking at content as something you have to constantly reinvent. That’s what we’re going to dispel right here today. We’re going to take you from random posts to a strategic content engine. Everything in your business needs to be an engine. I teach in our coaching program something called the framework. Think of Granny and her recipe. You might love Granny’s apple pie. You might like, love your Granny’s chili, curry, whatever, right? Guaranteed when Granny was in her 20s, the first time she cooked that, people were spitting it out and throwing it in the garbage.

JOHN CLENDENNING
45:22

She got better and better, got it acceptable, minimum viable, monitored it. Measured it, learned a little bit more, tried some. Oh, that’s really good. What do you put in yours? Oh my God. Oh, you put sage in your— oh my gosh, I never tried to. Right now Granny is like, pinch of this, dash of that. My God. Oh my God, it’s the most amazing I’ve ever had.

JOHN CLENDENNING
45:40

Yep. It’s really good. You should patent that. You should sell that. That’s incredible. Right? Minimum viable. Then you measure, you monitor, you measure. Eventually you keep iterating.

JOHN CLENDENNING
45:56

Turn it into a machine. Turn it into an engine that works for you. You’re going to educate, prove personality. Look, there’s a, there’s actually a formula to this, right? Again, Dunning-Kruger. You go, oh, I post, it doesn’t work. I, that’s all anybody does. I know everything about it. I am, I am brilliant.

JOHN CLENDENNING
46:16

You learn a whole bunch. Like even today you might go, holy crap, there’s more to this than I thought. Wow, I can’t do that. That’s the next part of the Dunning-Kruger pit of despair. You start learning a little bit more by the end of this call. Wow, there’s a lot here, but I can get started. That’s where I want to get you to. What to post daily.

JOHN CLENDENNING
46:37

You should be posting some form of social activity, right? Every single day you should be doing something to keep your social account active. That is in the interests of your audience. Your audience has more interest than cat pee on the carpet. That might be what you are interested in and do and trying to sell. They are interested in a healthy home, children, pets, green living, indoor air quality. As like your ideal client has some very— pets. Yeah. As we talked about, I think I already said pets, like has some very specific lanes that your— I, if you know who your ideal inquiry is, who your ideal customer is, what can you talk to them about? If you go to a dentist’s office, is every single one of the magazines Gingivitis Today? Um, Dentists R Us, Retainer Weekly.

JOHN CLENDENNING
47:36

Pictures of mouths with gum disease? Nope. That’s what the dentist is interested in. That’s the magazines he has at home, in his office. It’s not for you. You’re the audience. Who are you? What are you interested in? People magazine, Home and Garden magazine, Popular Mechanics magazine, Reader’s Digest. Why do you think they order all of those? Because in the— for the audience, That’s what you’re interested in. That delivers a better experience.

JOHN CLENDENNING
48:08

Think of that in your social media. If you have a mix, and I’ll show you the right mix of personalized content and curated content that educates, that informs, that makes them laugh in the lane that you are in. What is the lane? It’s not cleaning. It’s a healthy home, a healthy office, a clean and healthy office. That’s your lane, right? Healthier lifestyle. Go a little bit broader. So here’s the recipe. Take a screenshot, write it down.

JOHN CLENDENNING
48:49

You want to keep it fun and recreational. You can curate these. You can have these planned and they just come out. Every year. Nobody’s scrolling back a year to say, oh, I saw that already before. People scroll maybe a couple days, right? You can go every 90 days and re— regroup, redo this if you want. Nobody’s really gonna notice, but curate the content, right? You want to educate. So for every 6 recreational posts you put out, you want to put out 5 educational posts.

JOHN CLENDENNING
49:23

This is how you mix it up over the month, over the week, over like whatever posting frequency you want. Facts and trivia, tips and tricks, again, around what they’re interested in. Not cleaning. You’re interested in cleaning. They’re interested in the results that cleaning provides. A healthy, safe environment and home for their family. A spot-free living, pride in their home when guests come over for, you know, Friday night barbecue and Poker, euchre, whatever, right? So you’re going to have surveys and polls, fill in the blanks, this or that, advice questions, right? A little bit of conversation stuff. You don’t have a big audience.

JOHN CLENDENNING
50:01

It’s going to sit with crickets. That’s fine. But you put it in there, right? You just, hey, what do you guys think of this? Got a poll about that. Recreation, education, conversation. Nothing about carpet cleaning here yet. It’s about what they’re interested in. Inspirational, right? Now we support a little bit of before and after, right? But you can even do before and after interior design. That’s not a bad post.

JOHN CLENDENNING
50:24

You become a resource that they’re interested in around the thing that you do— help them live a better, cleaner, healthier life in their home or office. Now you get the license to promote. So you had 6 recreational posts, not all in a row, mix them up. 5 educational posts, 4 conversational posts, 3 inspirational posts. These can all be curated. Now you’re ready to do offers. I don’t like discounts. I do promotions.

JOHN CLENDENNING
50:55

Father’s Day, book your Father’s Day right now and get a free barbecue set worth $97 or to give to father or keep for yourself, whatever. You can get a whole bunch of those at Alibaba for about $10. Make it a each, $5 each, right? Make it a, you know, they’ll have come with a sticker right on it that sold for, you know, $69.99, $79.99, $99.99, whatever, depending on the quality. You could have that as an offer. Mother’s Day, you can think about back to school. Like, I can think of 12, 14 of these right now off the top of my head if you wanted to, that you could run on your social media if you really wanted to try that, right? Um, customer reviews, you definitely want to be sharing those feedback and reviews shared from all other platforms as great images and stuff like that. Live events and demos, webinars and trainings, education pieces, pod— or, um, your, your, your, your SEO, your ongoing content on your website. You need to be adding a couple pieces of content to your website every single week, at least once, to generate some topical authority called topical content.

JOHN CLENDENNING
51:59

Copy topic authority cluster. You’re creating, becoming a topic, an authority in the topic because you’re constantly speaking about it. AI looks for freshness. AI loves press releases because they decay really quickly and fall off the platform. AI actually looks for what’s new now. Google Maps and things like that look for trends. SEO, you’re building the house from the foundation up, takes a lot longer, but it’s looking for consistency. And breadth, depth of thought, right? So it looks at all of your footprint and how that expands.

JOHN CLENDENNING
52:35

AI is going, yeah, what do you got right now for me? Right now, right now. I need right now, right now. So you need ongoing updates, right? And then entrepreneur behind the scenes, employees, you know, it’s okay to walk out of the office and say, hey, you guys loading the van? Taking a video right now. Go live if you want, right? If you don’t, don’t trust your guys not to swear and be all whatever dumb on camera, record it, run it through a quick tool, use tool like BigVu or, um, Caption, really good little apps. Record, put the captions on it, just set it up to social, tell some stories behind the scenes, personal life, stuff like that. That’s your recipe. This is your activity-based content. This is your personalized content.

JOHN CLENDENNING
53:19

That’s it. It’s just a recipe, right? So your business is already creating content every day. You just don’t know it, right? Every day you’re taking spots and stains out. Every day you’re having conversations, the exact same conversations a lot of times with homeowners. Oh, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know this. What does protector do? Blah. Like, you’re having them, right? You don’t need to manufacture content.

JOHN CLENDENNING
53:43

Your business is already producing it every single day. You just need to capture it. There’s the big light bulb moment. How can we capture more of what we’re already doing? How can we take a video of Nancy in the front office on the phone answering 3 or 4 phone calls, turn that into a, here’s how friendly it is to hire us video, right? Have a really deep question about pet urine and how to get it out and it’s in the baseboards and it’s in the underpad and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I think you need to talk to John in the office. He’s the owner and he knows all about that. Let me patch you through to him. John, somebody wants to know really, really deeply about this one specific issue in their specific concern.

JOHN CLENDENNING
54:27

Oh, let me take that call. Film that. Customer questions, problems you solve, jobs you’ve completed. Right? Mark Sager, if you’re on the call, love you, Mark. Get a tripod. They’re like $10 from Amazon. Film yourself cleaning. Like, I think Mark only, only films, only cleans when he’s filming, right? The boys do all the cleaning.

JOHN CLENDENNING
54:50

Mark goes out and does some cleaning so he can chat to the camera for next, for an hour as he’s cleaning a restaurant or a church or whatever, right? Fucking brilliant. Brilliant. Customer stories, reviews. Talk about a review. How hard is that? Hey, we just got this review and I want to talk about it a bit. Really love getting these reviews, but I want to tell you, this is actually a new review. Because the first review you got with it from this customer was 1 star. Did you just lean in? Your customers will.

JOHN CLENDENNING
55:19

Let me tell you what happened, what we did about it, and why the customer was able— Mrs. Jones gave us a 5 star on the backend because of that. Already happened. Talk about it. Team moments. Go clean up the beach. Go flip hamburgers and pancakes at the charity auctions with your team, with shirts on. You know, do some team building stuff.

JOHN CLENDENNING
55:48

Go play volleyball or mini golf. Just film some of it. Take some pictures. That’s all. 5 ingredients of your content engine. You want to educate. Talked about on the other screen. You want to prove.

JOHN CLENDENNING
56:04

Again, I don’t necessarily— this picture is lovely. If your ideal customer does not drive a motorcycle down their hallway, do not show pictures of driving. If your idea— if you want a customer that lives on Golf Course Road, you show pictures of Golf Course Road houses being cleaned. They do not have black carpet. I don’t care how good you are at getting stains out. You’re not targeting that customer. If you’re targeting a property manager or something like that, or a hotel that has some specific stains, you can take pictures of specific and you send that to them in a kit. Separately, cool.

JOHN CLENDENNING
56:35

You have a page on your website all about that, cool. But if you’re trying to target high-end people, they’re cleaning because it looks slightly dusty. You’re cleaning clean stuff. Thank you, Dr. John Harvey, for teaching that to me back in 1998, ’99. Yeah, I don’t clean for dirty customers. I only clean for people with clean stuff. Remember the day he said it to me, right? You want to put your personality Your local expertise.

JOHN CLENDENNING
57:04

Talk about your community, your homes and neighborhoods, right? Local problems. You talk about that. They’re going, this guy knows me. They’re not some out-of-towner. And real customer stories. Now, instead of asking, what should I post today? You’re going to ask, which ingredient do I post today? You have your activity posts going out like a heartbeat, and then you drop in your personality posts, your education posts, your local expertise posts. You just drop them in. One job can equal weeks of content.

JOHN CLENDENNING
57:47

Imagine cleaning a heavily stained carpet, right? If this was in a super high-end home, family came home, kids had a keg party. So right client, fringe case. That’s a content engine. You’re not creating 7 different things. You’re taking one real thing that happened and finding 7 different ways to make it useful. You film. Before, during, and after. Do a little bit of film, set up a tripod, whatever, right? You can ask the client.

JOHN CLENDENNING
58:22

Maybe the client’s not there. Don’t show personal shit. That’s all, right? Be respectful. Can this carpet actually be saved? The before and the after transformation, right? Educational post. What caused this type of carpet staining, right? We were able to remove it because we’d cleaned this carpet. A year ago, 6 months ago, and applied protector. If this carpet was 2 or 3 years old and the protection had waned in the traffic lanes, a lot of this might’ve been less removable. We guarantee to remove it more than anybody else, up to the limits of science and physics.

JOHN CLENDENNING
58:58

We absolutely guarantee that. If we can’t get a stain out, you find anybody else that can, we’ll pay them to do that for you. Lovely guarantee, by the way. But here’s why this worked out so well. How often should you professionally clean your carpets. Well, these guys got lucky because they clean every 6 months. Therefore, the protection was nice and strong. And this mishap, by the way, the children have been scolded.

JOHN CLENDENNING
59:19

They’ve got their phones taken away from them, whatever, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, there’s your little story. Carpet also came up, came back to new. And they appreciated the fact that we had recommended our stain fighter package and not the basic cleaning. that they thought they were going to go with, right? You just sold more protection because of that. They just learned you have packages, not à la carte pricing. You got a personality video, right? You could just have pictures of the job and record sitting at your desk, flapping through the pictures, coming back to you standing in front of your van, right? You can make it as simple or as fancy as you want. Turn this story into additional captions, hooks, Scripts, FAQs.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:00:04

I’m actually gonna give you a prompt where you can actually take this stuff and figure out a calendar properly, how you can tear this apart, how you can use AI, right? You want to bring AI into it, and this is where AI becomes incredibly useful. AI doesn’t have to invent your content. You provide the customer, the job, the story. The expertise, the personality. AI helps you provide, organize it, repurpose it. How can I use this across multiple platforms? Create the hook, write the variations, turn it into different formats. You provided the story, the context, the education, the piece. AI helped you tidy it up.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:00:53

Real business, real customers, real jobs. AI in the middle, more content. That’s all. That’s it. Stop asking, what should I post? Start asking, what happened in my business today that would help prove or connect with my ideal customer? Just ask that question every day. What happened in my business today that would help my ideal customer, prove something to my ideal customer? Connect with my ideal customer, capture it, organize it, repurpose it, publish it. There’s your engine. Here’s an example of a monthly plan.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:01:34

Before and after recent project. Tell your origin story. When to clean your carpets before or after the holidays. Coming up to, say, coming up to holidays, back to school, before the kids go to school, after they go to school, right? Whatever. Right? Build, create a little bit of a content plan. Now, you know, ahead of time, what kind of story. So you’ve got your activity-based posts and maybe you don’t want to do it every day. You say, well, you know what, John, I’m going to do it every 3 days, every day.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:02:04

Cool. Your activity-based posts, your reputation posts, syndicating reviews from all that kind of stuff. The posts from your blog post every single week coming in as an education piece. Hey, look at this blog post I just wrote. on this really cool topic that helps you rank in SEO, but also gets the word out and helps to educate. That does that for you, keeps you active. And we even have a package or a program that helps you film better and, and, and, and do all that kind of stuff, right? So AI plus authenticity, your new content advantage. You want to start with the problem.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:02:37

How many of you are already using AI in any form of marketing? You think that you can write 10 blogs a day with AI and that’s going to work? By the way, Google’s just killed that, but It’s a topic for another day. Um, that’s great, but there’s a danger if you ask AI to create everything from scratch. Your content, content starting sounding like everybody else. AI knows so much that everything regresses to the mean. Go look it up if you don’t know what that means. Regresses to the mean, which means it’s garbage. The best stay up here. The worst are down here.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:03:06

The mean is a mess. That’s why AI gives dumb answers, because you didn’t give it context. You didn’t put it in a lane. You didn’t tighten it right up and say, based on all of this, what can you do? Oh, now I can do a lot more. That’s how you use AI better. AI-generated is generic. ABC Carpet Cleaning, we are committed to provide exceptional service and exceed customer expectations because our competitors don’t provide exceptional service and they don’t want to exceed customer expectations. No, everybody says that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:03:40

We almost told this homeowner the stain couldn’t come out. Then our technician tried one more process. Which one feels more authentic as a story, as a post? The problem— AI can create content, but if it’s not your story, it is ignored. Content is not the goal. Attention is the goal. Explain the new role of AI. Your AI is an assistant. You are the source.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:04:12

You are the director. AI multiplies your content. You are the source of the content. You create more impact. The mistake is asking AI to invent your business, to do the thing you don’t know anything about. The opportunity is giving AI the raw material from your business. And letting it multiply that with training and context, with skills, with knowledge. You provide the customer stories, AI turns them into captions.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:04:45

Real experience, it finds the best hook. Will it always be the best hook? Nope, not at all. Marketing is all about split testing. You test it, you test it, you test it. You find the one that works. You try it. What was about that one? Hey, hey, Chat. So we did about 20, 30 posts recently.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:05:01

This one kind of went nuts. What do we think it is? Oh, let me go look at the last 20, 30 posts. And yeah, you’re right. The stats are pretty average for the rest. And this one, hmm, could be a couple of these things. Let’s test that on another couple posts. Hey, I think we’ve dialed this in, but you can’t hit the same key all the time. So let’s mix it up.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:05:22

Let’s try and get one of these viral posts every couple weeks. I’m going to show you what that looks like in a second as well. Um, videos and photos— can you create variations? Can you take a long-form video like this one, chop it up into little 30-second, 1-minute Shorts and Reels? Can you take a conversation? Can you go speak at a chamber about maintaining a clean and healthy home or whatever? At a— maybe you’re going to speak at, um, the, um, like I used to do at the real estate offices and stuff like that, the Monday morning meetings about How a real estate agent could know if a carpet should be replaced or can be cleaned to sell the house, to save a carpet credit request, right? I would teach on that. I could take that video in today’s day and age and grab out of that 10 minutes, 3, 4, 5 short little segments. Didn’t have to rerecord it. Just had to trim it. And there’s tools that do that. CapCut, BigVu, Captions, lots of tools that do that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:06:28

Your expertise, turn it into education. Have somebody on your team ask that question. Hey, you just gave a great answer. Can I ask you that question and film it? Sure. Stand in front of your van, stand in front of the wall, whatever. Hey, so I’m here with, uh, I’m Nancy, the office manager here at ABC Carpet Cleaning. I’m here with our owner, Joe. Um, just asked Joe a great question.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:06:45

He gave me an amazing answer. So I just thought I’d Record this. So Joe, what I asked you was this. What, what is your opinion of that? Turn the camera around. Yeah. Yeah, actually. That’s pretty fun, right? Your personality. I’m going to show somebody who does a really good job at putting their personality in the marketing.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:07:03

Not a carpet cleaner. A lot of carpet cleaners that do that too, but I’m going to show you something, right? Customer reviews, repurpose them into content, read them, talk about them, share them, all kinds of cool stuff, right? Carpet cleaning examples. A technician gets a difficult stain on the carpet. You capture the photo, before photo, after photo, technician actually doing it, photo or video, customer reaction, if you can, what caused the stain, how you solved it. Right? Could you do that? Before and after, before photo. Oh, that looks like crap. After photo. Wow.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:07:34

We did a great job. Technician doing the video. Mark Sager. Thank you, buddy. Right? Tony Pero, good job. Customer reaction. Hey, I just wanted to— you okay to be on camera, ma’am? Cool. I wanted to show you what the stain looked like.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:07:47

I’d love, I’d love to film your reaction. Everybody loves reaction videos these days. Show it, right? Have them walk into the room. Don’t have to, it’s just an idea. Here’s what we did to solve it. Just talk back into the camera, whatever, right? That’s an option. AI turns that into reels. Short, engaging videos, social posts, before and after, telling the story, educational tips, FAQs, a happy customer story blog post on your website of 1,000, 2,000 words telling a story in a narrative.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:08:18

Emails puts it into the email sequence. Can you imagine you’ve got prospects that are interested? They called, they didn’t book. That’s at least half of the people. You are not that special. You don’t, don’t book it above 50% on cold new inquiries. If you do, your prices are too low, straight up. But you can add, you can drip. We talked about that conversion.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:08:37

You can drip. Well, what if you dripped happy customer stories in the mix? Why I started my business would be one email. Keep an eye out for my next email. Let me tell you why, um, a customer had a similar problem to yours and how we solved it, right? AI will help write that email for you. Website content. We just talked about that happy customer story turned into website. AI didn’t create the story at all. Your business created the story.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:09:04

AI just helped you get more mileage out of it. AI content and AI enhanced content. AI create, you publish. Kind of bad. Start with AI generic, easy to replace ABC. We’re committed, blah, blah, blah. The problem. It could have been written for any carpet cleaner anywhere.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:09:27

AI enhanced content. Your experience. Real moments. AI amplifies it. You publish it. Start with you. Authentic. Impossible to copy.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:09:44

Real script. Social post. Educational tip. FAQs. Customer story, emails, website content. We just talked about that. All of that from Enhance. The question isn’t how do I use AI to create more posts? The question is how do I capture more of what is already happening in my business and use AI to turn those into real moments, those real moments into content people can learn to trust, remember, and act on, become known and get chosen.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:10:14

Your goal isn’t, isn’t to post more. The goal is to become known. AI helps you scale your visibility. More content, more places, more people see it. Authenticity gives you the reason to be trusted, not AI, not volume. Real stories, real results, real people. Consistency keeps you top of mind. Show up more.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:10:41

I want to show you an example of this. I hope— I have no way of knowing if the audio is going to come through or not. I don’t even know how to— no idea. Anyways, so I’m in a small town right next to a large city. This town is 11,000 people and half of them dress like Little House on the Prairie Laura Ingalls. We are literally in a Mennonite town. We have horse and buggies going by every day, all day long. They are bonnets and, um, flowery dresses, men in round hats, suspenders.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:11:23

Girl behind the counter at my dentist’s office has a bonnet, right? Half the town, Mennonite. The whole entire countryside, Mennonite, right? That’s the town I’m in. We have a butcher shop in town. Been here as long as I’ve been here, 20 years. Butcher shop’s been here 50, 40 years. I don’t know, longer than I’ve been here. Every— that’s the only one in town. Everybody knows it, right? Elmira Meat Markets, right? A new guy showed up called Homestretch.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:11:53

Interestingly, he’s An immigrant of some, some description, right? Nothing wrong with that. I just know our town. That’s it. Lots, lots of German Mennonites, right? Um, he’s only been in business for, I think, 4 months, 6 months. They literally, in our small little town, one-stoplight town, line up around the corner to get into the butcher shop. Why? I asked the question. Holy crap, what the heck is going on here? Why is he— why is— why is that such a thing? Because of his social media. I’m going to show you.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:12:40

He does it in a lot of places, but I’m going to show you his TikTok. Hopefully this works. I’m not sure you’re gonna hear it. I’m gonna have to narrate if you can’t, right? I’m gonna show you one of his videos. So whether he did this on purpose or not, I do not know, but he tapped into the biggest fear of going to a butcher shop. I don’t know how much they’re gonna spend. I don’t know anything about meat. I’m just gonna go to the grocery store and if it says grilling steak, I’m gonna buy grilling steak.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:13:13

If it says, you know, you know, Pot roast or, um, slow cooker, whatever steak, or, you know, whatever I’m gonna buy that one for if I’m doing that, whatever, right? I don’t know crap about meats, right? So the average person never goes to a butcher shop, number one. Number 2, personality, right? Hopefully the audio comes through because this is him just filming a customer Obviously set up a little bit, right? Ask them if it’s okay to create the film. I’m going to show you this, right? But this is why he’s blowing up. Again, website, good stuff, good, good marketing. This is one of the pieces, not the only piece. They drove 6 and a half hours to come and see this guy for meat. So very short video, it’s just about to end. Let me go to his channel.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:15:14

Do you think he’s figured something out? He is representing his personality, his expertise, his education, makes it easy for people to buy. What’s it gonna look like to come into my shop? He’s become a little bit viral. He’s just using an app. Like, it’s a really simple— one of his other staff is just filming this. There’s nothing hard about this at all. This is like, again, the app creates the Alex Hormozi style captions, right? Here’s another one. $200 budget, right? Feed the whole crew for $10. He’s tapping into the money mindset.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:15:58

He’s tapping into how to buy at a butcher shop, how he’s going to be able to help you, how you don’t need to know anything, how friendly he is. And people are driving 6 and a half hours instead of going to the butcher shop around the corner from their own house. And he is lined up around the corner, one block away. Is the comp— the, the, the, the butcher that everybody’s known for decades with one or nobody, one person or nobody in the store. He’s consistent, top of mind, understands what he’s doing. That content is cross-posted on other platforms, all kinds of stuff, right? Not hard at all. And has blown up his business because of a brand new business. Sounds kind of cool.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:16:45

AI doesn’t replace authenticity. Done right, it amplifies it. AI is not the enemy of authentic marketing. AI actually makes authentic marketing easier. Authenticity is where we need to be. You can’t hide behind fake ads, fake, I built my website this weekend, like anything. Tell real stories about your real company. On your website in the right psychological way, on the phones, in your emails, in your socials, in your ads, all of it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:17:19

And you will stand out like a sore thumb, like my buddy at Homestretch does in the marketplace. Before AI, creating enough content was a problem. Now AI helps us solve the time problem. That’s amazing. But here’s what AI can’t give you: your customers, your jobs, your experience, your team, your personality, your stories. So don’t ask AI to pretend to be your business. Give AI real— your real business, real stories, and let it help you tell the story. That’s the advantage.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:17:50

Your final takeaway. Let’s show our little robot guy. There’s a robot guy. Anyways, I’m gonna put myself right there. Capture it, organize it, repurpose it, publish it. Become known, get chosen. So if AI gives us the ability to create and distribute more content, and authenticity gives the content meaning, your question becomes, are you actually capturing the real things that are happening inside your business? If you would like some prompts, AI-powered social media planner, there’s another prompt on the other page. There’s 2 pages on this.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:18:23

Scan this QR code. I’ll hold this for a second. I’ll move myself out of the way. Um, I’ll put the link in the show notes if you’re watching this afterwards, but pause for a second, scan that, go download this. It’s a good starting point. Go grab it. It’s no opt-in. It’s just a Google Doc.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:18:38

Just gonna get it, right? I have no way of knowing who you are. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not trying to capture you. This is just for you, right? Help you out a little bit. If you have any questions, reach out to us. We can help. Being known matters more and how social media can help you. Did we cover that? Yep. The AI era, how customers discovering and evaluating your business.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:19:00

Did we cover that? Yep. From random posts to strategic, strategic content engine. Did we cover that? I think so in spades. AI plus authenticity is your new advantage. Did my homestretch example prove that to you? I hope so. I’ve got carpet cleaning examples too. I just thought that was It’s in my town. The guy has just literally created a wealth business.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:19:25

Doesn’t mean 20 years from now he’s still got it figured out. Well, here’s hoping he’s got off to a great start and he understands how to tap into modern psychology on a modern platform as part of the mix of everything he’s doing well. That ain’t the only thing he’s doing well, and ain’t the only thing he’s doing to market the business. It’s just one of his engines, but it’s the one that generates so much attention that when they do see the flyer, when they do see the, you know, whatever, see him at the Elmira Maple Syrup Festival and he’s got a booth or he’s got his store open and blah, blah, blah. Yep. Oh, I know you. I’ve seen you. So what are your takeaways? Hopefully you’ve got some.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:20:09

The biggest issue is there’s not There is never a shortage of ideas. Never a shortage of ideas. Are you planning to implement them? Do you know how to implement them? Do you have an accountability team? Do you have an accountability partner? We don’t work, do well solo. I mean, we humans, we don’t do well. We have accountability. We join groups, right? We have one-on-one psychology, like psych— psychologists and therapists and coaches, and we have group coachings and we have Like, there’s a reason why AA exists, right? If you could just quit drinking on your own, everybody would do it, right? You need to know that you have a way to implement this stuff. Keep learning, put it in the right order. When is the right time for this versus that? Do you have your foundation right? Does this fit in now? Can I get started, do good, then get better, then get best? Minimum viable, monitor, measure, turn it into a machine.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:21:08

Right? Do it. Pick 3 things that you learned here today that you aren’t doing and make it a machine, not an idea for a week. AI is now the great equalizer. We’ve been talking about this since this slide was made February of 2025. AI commoditizes businesses that fail to differentiate. Do you see how we proved that? If you don’t stand for something different and compelling, AI will blur you with the competition. If everybody’s the same, the competition’s getting easier and easier and easier to be you. The winner will be authentic, trusted, and nurturing real human relationships.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:21:55

Do you know how to do that? Do you do that every single day? Do you have an accountability checklist? To do that every single day? Are you working in your business as the technician or on your business as the growth officer? If you’re in the truck, you got to do both to get out of the truck. If you’re out of the truck, are you spending your time in the office behind the computer thinking that’s useful time? Not at all. The best known cleaner wins over having discounts. A strong offer helps convert leads, but an omnipresent brand gets the call first. You have a great offer that doesn’t have to be a discount. A great offer that doesn’t have to be a discount. That guy didn’t discount his meat. He had a great offer.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:22:47

What can I do for $200? What can I do for $500? What are you looking for? Let me, let me, let me put that together for you. I know meat so well? He didn’t discount his prices. He’s not the cheapest meat market. Nothing about that. He’s just the busiest. People are driving 6.5 hours, not because he’s got better cows or buys from people that have better cows. That’s never part of the story. If no one knows who you are, a great offer don’t matter.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:23:17

Customers don’t buy based on price alone. They buy on brands they know, trust, and respect. The better your customer is, The more they care about know, trust, and respect than they care about price. Jeremy Bieber, Justin Bieber’s dad, never cared that we charged $1,800 to clean his rec room with the dog pee and stuff like that and did it 3, 4, 5 times a year. Why? Because we were trusted. It wasn’t about price. So, are you targeting the people that come back again and again, are loyal, love you, and you can go the extra mile because you can charge the right dollar? And you can put out, wear the booties, roll out the red carpet, lay the mats down the hallways, put the corner guards on, use the CRB. You can deliver a high-end service and have that as one of your packages.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:24:04

Or are you discount clean only in and out? I need 5 jobs a day to make money. I need 1 job a day to make money per truck. I need 5 jobs a day to make money. This guy gets out of the truck in a month or 2. Building a great business with good outreach. This guy is still in the truck targeting this crowd 20 years from now and still on the forums talking about the last $2,000 check they got. This person’s getting one every day. Which one does your marketing attract? Do you have marketing that attracts? Do you even know what that means? Is it structured and systemized? Did you learn enough to know what I just said there? Not from me today, but all the books, all the education.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:24:53

You’re behind a windshield if you’re out driving for cleaning. You’re behind a windshield if you’re out driving to build the business. You’re one of those two. If you’re not one of those two, we got a big problem to start with, right? But you’ve got tons of university time when you’re in front of a windscreen. Are you listening to Country music and death metal or whatever you’re into? Or are you listening to knowledge, writing it down, getting excited and going, crap, how do I start implementing more of these ideas? Now I’ve got too many. How do I create a system to put them in place? That’s a strategic business owner. There’s a blueprint for this whole thing called Blueprint for Success. I developed it 20 years ago, part of our VIP consulting group.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:25:42

Got hired by franchise networks, got hired by startups, got hired. Sean and I— partner ran a beautiful company himself as well— became consultants because we were needed in our business 5, 10 hours a week at the most by that point, right? About a year or 10 years into the business or less. Freed up so much time, ran a great company, created a consultancy, not just for carpet cleaners. In fact, it wasn’t for carpet cleaners originally, but the Blueprint for Success is how you run a home service business that continues to scale. You turn it into a machine that you can walk, automate, monitor, manage, but don’t have to be. Or do. 2026, huge shift. We saw it at the beginning of the year.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:26:36

We’re feeling it. 2027 is going to be insane. Lots of reports on it. Go read them. The way people buy, work, and experience life has changed already. We are in a whole new paradigm of human existence, and it’s right in front of our face. If you don’t believe me, just keep watching. If you do believe me, say, holy shit, what do I do about it? We do have the Blueprint for Success coaching group, very private coaching group.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:27:03

One of our members just talked last, like every Thursday night, one of our members just talked, uh, um, last week about how on the call, the accountability part of the call, that they had added $5,000, one truck operation, $5,000 the week before from some of the outreach. that we’d been teaching and gave them the motivation to do properly in the right order. 20-year, 25-year business, found money. Rest of the business still running, just $5,000 more in a week. Right? We’ve got other members that have, have, have grown massive businesses by implementing and doing the work. All right? Understanding what that work is, what a Core Forever Engine is. So better clients, predictable growth, real scale. How to do all of this? We provide AI agents, we provide AI training, how to use AI properly.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:27:58

We do prompts every single week. We create, you know, how, how, how to do all of that. So we’re training on that. We’re training on, on, on core parts of running one of these businesses, how to implement it while you’re in the truck, how to do it if you’re already outta the truck, how to scale, how it can generate a million-dollar business in 24 months done well. Even if you got, uh, $250,000, you’re not needed in the truck and you make an income and can grow to $300,000, $400,000, $500,000, right? You think of it anyways, limited spots by invite only. You can reach out to us if you’re interested at all. blueprintforsuccesscoaching.com. Go there.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:28:41

It’s a bit of a free guide. This is, this is the backend of the membership site. This is where we, that we have all the replays and community winter database reactivation trainings. Um, all kinds of stuff. Like every week, every week there’s a piece, parts of, of, of a, a kit and a program being grown for each month. Each one’s standalone part, part of the whole blueprint where it sits before the sale, during the sale, after the sale, how to create that money machine so you get more money more often, then add more customers to that machine. You can double your average job. You have a $200,000 a year business and you can double your average job.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:29:14

You have a $400,000 a year business and nothing else changed. You can have your customers come back, turn into clients and come back twice as often. You now have an $800,000 business and you didn’t add more customers, more leads yet. Then you add a lead engine for those ideal people to put it into your retention engine. Now you can double the business again. Now you’re at $1.5 million. That’s how you get there. Everybody else chases more leads and wonder why it’s just a churn.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:29:48

It feels like a hamster wheel. You build the right machine, it feels easy. Takes time, takes effort, but there’s a plan. Blueprint for Success Coaching, number 4, blueprintforsuccesscoaching.com. You want to jump on a call with me? CarpetCleaningMarketingMasters.com/schedule. Love to have a chat with you. I don’t mind tearing apart your current marketing, good, bad, or ugly, giving you some ideas, some tips, a growth plan and a direction. I charge for private consulting a lot.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:30:25

You qualify, you jump on one of those calls with me for free for an hour. Might be a good hour to spend. Up to you, your decision. But if you’d like help creating a larger-than-life appearance online, offline, and understand How this is just one of 47 actual poles in the water I recommend that you eventually grow into so that you can be running your company while on vacation with other people doing it because you’ve grown an actual growth machine. You can buy other companies and just plug them in the machine. You figured out what I just said. Or if you don’t want to do anything, any of that at all, but you want to have A highly profitable, high-end business. You do one job a day, go home, and it pays all the mortgages.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:31:11

Do a little bit of outbound calling and stuff like that. You have a 5, 6-hour day and you have a machine in place that you’re, you and your vendors, marketing providers, growth partners are running together. Done together marketing. Thought to path to. So anyways, interested in any of that? carpetcleaningmarketingmasters.com/schedule. We made it 90 minutes, not bad. Um, let us know in the comments of wherever this is posted, whatever, um, if you have any questions, anything you’re interested in, um, anything we can help you with. Would love to jump on a call with you.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:31:50

Reach out to the team. Yep, we’re in a huge transition right now. I’ve been talking about it every single month for Since February, a year and a half ago, almost 2, almost, well, yeah, a year and a half ago, right? I’ve been harping about it. I’ve been talking about it longer than that. I’ve been harping about it to the industry. Most cleaners are announcing that their phones seem slower. Not everybody, a lot. Less calls.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:32:15

Customers are willing to spend less money. I told you why that is. We know where that is. We even know how to fix it. Most people won’t. If you’re one of the few that want to, let’s have a conversation. CarpetCleaningMarketingMaster.com/schedule. And until next time, I shall let you go.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:32:29

Peace out, everybody.

You need to track monthly revenue, labor costs as a % of revenue, average job size, cash flow, customer acquisition cost, and customer lifetime value. Side by side, these metrics help you understand both operational efficiency and long-term profitability.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:49

Hey, welcome back for another exciting episode of the Carpet Cleaner Success Podcast. So today I’ve got a really special guest for you. It’s Chris Pappan, and Chris is a CPA and attorney and helps small businesses with that whole thought around tax planning and running your business properly, you know, putting the right hat on and stuff like that. Some of us get to our 40s and 50s and go, dang, I wish I’d done stuff differently, you know, 10, 20 years ago, set things up differently, all of that kind of stuff. So I get asked these questions a lot in our coaching sessions and, you know, when I’m dealing, talking with the industry on a regular basis. And I just thought Chris would be a great guy to bring on the show and let’s unpack some of this and try not to get too nerdy, but let’s get into the weeds a little bit and see, you know, what you need to do to think like the CEO of your cleaning business, your home service business, and not just the, as Michael Gerber would say in The E-Myth, not just the technician, but you’re actually running the business so you can maybe be on the golf course and the business still runs on its own at some point in your life. So anyways, if that makes sense, uh, welcome, Chris. Thanks for, uh, showing up on the show today.

CHRIS PAPIN
2:58

John, it’s a pleasure. I appreciate the opportunity. And this is our small little world. So, hopefully, we got something to share that’s meaningful to folks.

JOHN CLENDENNING
3:08

Hey, so talk a little bit about you. Let’s introduce you to the crowd. Who’s Chris? Um, what got you into this line of work? And, you know, all that kind of stuff? What keeps you ticking? What makes you happy?

CHRIS PAPIN
3:20

Well, that, that may take up the whole episode, but I’ll try to do an elevator speech version.

JOHN CLENDENNING
3:26

Fair enough.

CHRIS PAPIN
3:26

So, Chris Pappin, attorney and CPA. I’ve got a CPA firm and a law firm. We represent small businesses and small business owners. Kind of our tagline is, you know, this is who we are and who we represent. So, we really don’t know any other way, right? But I think this resonates with folks because they forget that sometimes their service providers can be a wealth of knowledge in a lot of different ways. You know, a new startup, we predominantly focus on service-based businesses. So carpet cleaners, you know, I’m gonna say trades is probably a better way to frame around that, you know.

JOHN CLENDENNING
4:07

Yeah, the blue-collar side of things, right? Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
4:09

That are doing things. Um, even if it’s just clicking buttons, you know, advertising, insurance, technology, software. But in this bubble, most people have both roles, kind of like you illustrated. They are both the technician and the entrepreneur. You’re the owner and the operator.

JOHN CLENDENNING
4:27

Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
4:28

So that, because we represent several hundreds of businesses any given year and have several thousands of experiences over this time, I might see something 6 or 7 times this month that you’ve never experienced before. So we try to position ourselves in, in this board of directors type role where we’re sitting shoulder to shoulder with business owners to help them reason through and decide on what’s best or how to grow or whatever those things might be. Now, they might jettison a few things off to us, like CPA firm will do tax and accounting filings, law firm can do entity formations, buy-sell. exit planning type stuff. But really, it’s the decision-making. And I think that’s where a lot of people get stuck because they don’t know where to begin. They don’t know where they’re going to end. And it’s hard to kind of figure out that quicksand in between.

JOHN CLENDENNING
5:19

And it really is. And just as a little caveat of mine, like, I’ve owned everything under— well, eventually under a corporate. I think it was 2002, 2003 we incorporated. So, it wasn’t a sole proprietorship as we grew and we’re heading towards that 7-figure mark and buying other businesses. Um, and even when we went to sell the businesses off, we sold them off as entities under the corp and eventually sold the corp off to the person who bought the final group of things. Um, so without that liability, they took— like, I, I was able to offshoot the liability and learned that from my accountant, um, and, and lawyer, both of those. We were able to funnel off some cash into a holding co in the, you know, the year before and prep with all that. I wouldn’t have known any of this.

JOHN CLENDENNING
5:58

I need to literally— I didn’t know you at the time, but I needed to talk to, to one of you to figure all that out. So, What are some of those mistakes that you see sort of these average, like, because you’ve worked with a bunch of them, what are some of the big common mistakes that you see come up time and time again that, um, could really be nipped in the bud if they, they planned early, met with somebody like you early, something like that?

CHRIS PAPIN
6:20

Yeah, I see 2 things that happen the most, the most common. The first is, is kind of the reality of life. Uh, I didn’t know that I was going to end up in this business. I thought I might try it, and then 18 months later, here it all comes. Like, I, you know, I got job 1 and then I got job 15, and I’m overwhelmed and I’m trying to keep up with myself. So we didn’t really go in with an intentionality, and I get that, and I’m not saying you don’t. Like, if you have an opportunity to earn, go earn. But you do have to pause and remember, once a business, you get to play by business standards regardless of whether you know them or not.

CHRIS PAPIN
6:57

Ignorance is not an excuse. So one that we use as an example that I, that I think people can relate to is, you know, hey, I got a few jobs, then I hired somebody and I just started paying them. Cool. What about workers’ comp laws? Because the insurances or these government regulations lay over the top. You can get fined $1,000 a day for not properly complying. That can bury people.

JOHN CLENDENNING
7:22

Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
7:23

Now, I get that that one’s an easy one and a lot of people know it, but it’s, it’s a good example of sometimes you got to stop, dot the i’s and cross the t’s because you don’t want to miss something. Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
7:33

Second, I mean, I’m in Canada here just so I just put a little— the, the other— like on that workers’ comp. Um, so what do you guys call it in the States? I’m just trying to remember the numbers from every— the 1080 or like your employee. Like in Canada, you can’t subcontract. Um, and you got to know your laws. We got clients in UK and New Zealand and Australia, and I get to ask these questions and throughout the entire United States, most of our clients. And, um, We get asked that question a lot. Can I have employees as subcontractors? Is that okay, John? And I’m going, well, around here it isn’t, because unless they own their own van, their own equipment, and you’re just one of their many jobs, it doesn’t apply. So they have to be on payroll.

JOHN CLENDENNING
8:08

And then you’ve got to deal with all your federal and state laws around that.

CHRIS PAPIN
8:12

So I tease people on this because in the US, independent contractor and employee have 2 different meanings. And it’s similar in most jurisdictions that kind of follow like a, like an English or French-based rule of law. But if somebody says to me, can I have an employee as an independent contractor, I immediately say no. You defined them in the first statement. They are an employee. Move on. You know you’re trying to get away with something, whether it’s intentional or unintentional.

JOHN CLENDENNING
8:41

Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
8:42

And just because you call it that does not mean that your Department of Labor functional equivalent is going to agree with you. And all of these different tick boxes. Yeah, either they’re a business or they’re not. It’s pretty simple. If you’re the only person they’re working with, they’re an employee. Live with it and move on. Yeah, yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
9:01

And then, and deal with what that means exactly— the, the WSIBs, everything else like that. Yeah, it’s like sometimes— I think it was my granny told me this one years ago, but my— from Ireland. But, you know, um, when I was just a wee boy, she was like, John, if you live life, uh, try and live life the easy way, it’s going to be really hard. If you live it the hard way, you’re going to have an easier time. And, uh, I think Granny had some good advice, like just do it right from day one and stop trying to pull the wool over Uncle Sam’s eyes, because pretty good chance that’s not going to happen for the whole long term of a business.

CHRIS PAPIN
9:31

Well, the struggle is, is by the time you figure it out, sometimes it’s too late, plus penalty, plus interest, and you can’t overcome those things. If it’s good faith, I made a mistake last week and we’re trying to correct it, you can overcome that. But to get everything reclassified, plus, you know, whatever your payroll taxes are that you didn’t pay, penalty interest and everything else, that’s where people get in trouble. It really is.

JOHN CLENDENNING
9:55

So, yeah, and I say— Yeah, and we’ll get to your second point in a sec because you mentioned there was 2. But the other one is that— so from my world, we do— we help businesses market.

CHRIS PAPIN
10:04

We’re growth partners.

JOHN CLENDENNING
10:05

We help them grow. We help them market. We consult them on things that work really, really well to grow. 7-figure home service businesses, which is rare. Less than 1% of home service businesses make it to 7 figures according to national stats that we’ve come across in many places. Um, and most stay as solopreneurs, just like the solopreneur stat, like 85, 86% of solopreneurs never go beyond solopreneur, right? So all of these kind of stats fit in. And how do you get out of that? Well, you do things differently. One of those things I always talk about is marketing is not an expense.

JOHN CLENDENNING
10:33

Marketing generates a sales conversation. Sales conversations generate revenue, and then you keep retention on the back end and build the machine.

CHRIS PAPIN
10:40

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
10:40

The other one is that knowing your numbers and like, you know, legal and financial planning is not a someday or an unnecessary, you know, a necessary evil or an expense either. It is a critical function like marketing of business that needs its own line item, needs its own planned budget. It’s part of day one. And again, I get it, a lot of people don’t think that way, and you and I both know that, but start thinking that way from this moment forward. If you’re hearing this conversation, you know, and you— it isn’t that primary focus where if it’s the once a year that you talk to your tax provider, um, probably not enough to be in business if you’re planning this to be an actual thing that you exit from someday, sell, have organized well enough to sell for multiples of EBITDA and all of the fun stuff that you can get to versus just a hobby that, you know, you’ll discard the truck on Kijiji someday and start again, right? So, or do something else. If that’s the plan, that’s a hobby. But if you’re actually running this as a business, You can grow it to where, you know, you are golfing a couple days a week and the business runs with staff and teams, but you have to be intentional from day one, including this part of it, the legal and financial. So, yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
11:49

Yeah, you’re spot on. Number 2 dovetails with this in the sense of misunderstanding financials.

CHRIS PAPIN
11:56

Because the folks I work with have a pure intent to be in it and kind of know what’s going on, but they think in the terms of bank statement ins and outs. They don’t think in profit and loss and balance sheet. They don’t think in terms of tax. So, you know, the, the common faux pas that plays out in all of this stuff is debt service distorts the way cash flow plays. I’m saying words and people are going, what’s debt service? What’s the thing? Like, did you buy a truck? Did you get a loan on your truck?

JOHN CLENDENNING
12:25

Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
12:27

Those are the things that— it’s completely normal, but Your bank account can have $0 and you can have money owed and nobody gives a rip what your bank balance is. So, if it’s taxes, if it’s debt, if it’s all these other things, this is, you know, I’ll set this up, we’ll talk about it later. But all of these different things and I’ve got a book, 168 Hours, that outlines all of the different business functions, all of the things that are in a business plan. But what it really boils down to is you got to focus on the 5 or 6 that matter to you. One of which better be numbers. And I’m not saying you have to do it on your own. You can hire a guy like me to translate it for you, but you better damn well have an understanding because we assume that the bank balance has a certain amount in it. And that means I get a certain dollars that come home.

CHRIS PAPIN
13:14

And that assumption is 85% of the time what burns people. Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
13:19

Yeah. No, I’d agree with that because, I mean, cash flow is like Cash flow is king to keep the business alive, but it’s not like, oh look, my bank’s balance is this, I can go buy that, which is a really common thing in not just, not just businesses, but just the average consumer’s life. Oh, look at it, honey, our bank balance says this, we can go do that without any thought of, you know, again, what, what debt is against that, what’s coming up, you know, and then the emergencies of life in business. The technician can literally drive the van without oil in it. Not saying that anybody did that. Carl, he bought my business so I can mention him now. But, and have the rods blow through the front hood of the truck about 45 minutes away from the shop on a Tuesday morning while I was heading away camping. Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
14:07

So that can happen in a real business where you need to buy a new van and, you know, like the unexpected. And you better make sure that your, your whole entire financial plan isn’t, let me look at my bank account today and see what balance it is and make decisions off of that. So.

CHRIS PAPIN
14:22

And I would add to this, if you’re looking at your bank account, you’re looking at what happened Yesterday. It’s just a history of what you already know because you swiped the card.

JOHN CLENDENNING
14:32

Yep.

CHRIS PAPIN
14:33

Or tapped or whatever your version is.

CHRIS PAPIN
14:36

What most are worried about is what is about to happen, where the dollar is going to come from. And that’s a little bit of an art. I mean, I know as well as John does how much money you’re going to make tomorrow. We don’t. It’s a guess.

JOHN CLENDENNING
14:50

We don’t.

CHRIS PAPIN
14:50

Educated guess. Yeah. But with certain metrics in place, Hey, I made 10 phone calls today. I’m probably going to close 1 job. 1 job on average is $1,000. That means I’ve got $1,000 coming in in the next week. You can use those reasonable estimates to start to figure out how you should behave. What are the next steps that you should do? The technician, the minute you show up to a house, you immediately know 4 things that the homeowner does not know.

JOHN CLENDENNING
15:19

Okay.

CHRIS PAPIN
15:20

And sometimes you choose to say them, sometimes you don’t. But it’s the same thing in financial land. And that’s where we want to be. We want to see those blind spots. We want to help people overcome or at least try to anticipate through— I super dumb it down. I want rules of thumb as simple as, you know, 10% of your revenue is going to go in your pocket. I know that’s oversimplified, but I want it that way so people can have a predictability around it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
15:46

Yeah, that’s like I read the book Profit First and one of the mastermind groups I’m in, one of the guys is a Profit First coach or whatever. She brought it to us for 90 minutes, then we read the book. And it’s just the idea behind it is like, um, having, you know, I think there was one, I don’t know if it’s, um, what’s his name, um, Dave Ramsey or somebody else, but jars, you know, like have, have take your paycheck and, and put it into, or your different accounts and stuff like that. Same idea. Make sure that you allocate well and know what that means, um, becomes part of your you know, financial plan instead of just sort of bootstrapping it, uh, so that you do have that intentionality that so much of every dollar goes back to marketing to get the next customer, so much goes towards, you know, um, an emergency fund, so much goes towards, you know, servicing a debt and things like that. Uh, and then somebody like you can help out where, um, or somebody looking at the numbers or understanding the numbers, you don’t run into the situation like we ran into with a couple of clients where everything’s growing From leads and bookings and organic reputation and pay-per-click is generating thousands of dollars a month. And then, you know, I still get a call that say, hey, John, we’re down. Like, we’ve been with you for 5 years and we’re down in the last 6 months or whatever revenue-wise.

JOHN CLENDENNING
17:03

Like, we’re off 10%, 15% off of the same month last year. And I’m like looking at all our numbers and we meet on a call and I’m going, well, So everything on our side is up. So either you’re not— your booking percentage has dropped, or what’s your current average job now? Oh, I don’t know. Okay, well, when I last asked you that last time, like 3 years ago, we were able to look it up on your CRM or whatever, your QuickBooks or whatever, and your average job at that time was sitting about $450. Well, let me look that up now. Oh my gosh, John, it’s down at $308. $308 is my average job. And I said, okay, so you’re off by 33%.

JOHN CLENDENNING
17:35

So We’re working our butts off for you. You’re working your butt off and your technicians have slipped and nobody caught it. And it was hiding in the numbers, right? And unless you watch your numbers, you wouldn’t have known.

CHRIS PAPIN
17:48

This accountability scares people too, because now I have to discipline somebody that outside of my family I see the most, or I have to change my behavior to do the extra thing or You know, the, the one we see the most is people, you know, they start kind of slacking on Fridays and all of a sudden, you know, maybe it turns from a full Friday to a half Friday and then not a Friday and then revenue’s at 80%. We’re like, hmm, wonder why. I wonder why. I’m working 80% of the days, so I have 80% of the revenue.

JOHN CLENDENNING
18:22

Yeah, yeah. We’re not all, we’re not all doctors or whatever. We can’t take Wednesday off and go golfing, right? So So we don’t charge doctors’ wages either, right? So, um, so when should an owner start doing this proactive tax planning, um, and, you know, and things like that? Like, if, if we’re gonna say, okay, they’ve bought into what John and Chris are talking about now, we, we do have to think this thing through a little bit more. Things like tax planning and legal planning and stuff like that. But tax planning is the sort of the annual, at least it cycles, right? Um, legal planning should be, you know, decided, brought up every so often to see if it still aligns with what your plans are. Is that— are you handing it off to the family and need to do that? Oh no, your kids don’t want it anymore. Okay, now what is your plan? And we have to adjust. But that’s more multi-year.

JOHN CLENDENNING
19:11

But tax planning is sort of like aim at it, see how close you hit, right? Ready, fire, you know, aim, fire, aim, see how close you hit. But every, you know, you can plan through the year and then see how it turned out at the end of the year and make adjustments for next year. So, when should somebody start proactively tax planning? How does that work in your world?

CHRIS PAPIN
19:34

So, the simple answer is yesterday. I mean, the best day is yesterday, right? What a lot of people, I think, default into is, oh, it’s year-end, so I should start making phone calls because we’re doing year-end planning. And in my world, that’s too late because we’ve got 60, 90-day runways where you may not even get admitted into the roster if you called me in December because, you know, setup may take us 30 or 45 days. So the way I’ve always tried to approach this with folks, and I’m going to answer this from a startup’s perspective because I think a lot of people are conscious of dollars, you may not need somebody monthly. You know, you may not need the highest level of engagement, but if you DIY’d your startup, maybe used an online platform or something like that, didn’t really put structure to it, you better be talking to somebody at least 6 or 8 months in advance so that you know what’s coming at you.

JOHN CLENDENNING
20:32

Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
20:32

Now, if you talk to somebody and structured your startup, you might have some expectation about best practices. So maybe you can cut that timeline down and say, Hey, maybe I can check in, into Q3 or something along those lines. But I’ve always looked through this, a little bit of a sarcastic tone here, but, you know, the running joke is always we get a phone call the last week of the year every year.

JOHN CLENDENNING
21:00

Yep.

CHRIS PAPIN
21:00

Oh my God, it’s an emergency. I’m thinking about buying a Range Rover SUV. Who thinks about spending $120,000 in with 2 days’ notice. That impulsive, especially in family-owned businesses. So you’ve been thinking about it for a while. When you start thinking about it, if you are serious, make the call then. That’s the reality when the space should be, so that you’ve got time to digest properly, not based on AI or your neighbor or, oh, I saw some other guy write off his G-Wagon on TikTok. You might be able to, but is that really a wise financial investment based on all the factors you got going on? That’s what matters for you.

JOHN CLENDENNING
21:42

And I think that that prudent conversation, whether, whether I am considered thrifty is a very polite way of wording me because I’ve always been self-employed. So I’ve always been worried about the next shoe that’s going to drop. So planning, you know, like being the squirrel planning and in the cleaning industry in the Northeast, you’re also used to January, February, March, sometimes April, depending on the year. The odd year, May, you know, is just absolute crap because the weather’s terrible. And more than half of your lead flow and even your existing customer repeat and retain and all that, they just, they’re not interested in the sloppy season, right?

CHRIS PAPIN
22:17

Sure.

JOHN CLENDENNING
22:17

So, um, so you’ve got to be, you still got to pay the bills, you still got to pay the mortgage, you still want to keep the employees. You don’t want to start having brand new employees every spring and, and, and those kinds of things. So you’ve got to be like a squirrel and hoard your nuts and, and all of that stuff. And that always was our analogy around here is like, you know, we talked about, you know, You know, how much did we get buffered in the bank account before the offseason that we could still market through the offseason? And when was that bounce, as we always talked about, before the year took back off again? Because it’s like it’s a delayed bank account bounce, right? So the season might have kicked off in April, May, but the bank account will bottom out in like late May, June on some bad years and stuff like that. So knowing all of that, you’re not making your G-Wagon decision, as we called it, without like, you know, that G-Wagon decision. I don’t care if you, if you like Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kurosaki or not, but in my world, that G-Wag decision is bought by an asset. That ain’t bought by a bank account. I want to build asset structure and have the dividends and whatever pay it off.

JOHN CLENDENNING
23:16

And if I lose the asset, I decide that the thing tied to that asset, the toy tied to that asset as part of it also has to go out the door as well. But again, I’m a far more financially prudently disciplined person than most, and I get that. I agree with you. The fellow that’s thinking of keeping up with the neighbors and the Joneses and his buddy that’s, you know, an HVAC business owner who just bought the big, you know, king cab truck with duallys or whatever, the 350 and stuff like that, and decides he needs that for his carpet cleaning business for some reason, you know, just to keep up with his neighbor, better be doing that on a decision that isn’t going to come back and bite him and bankrupt him, you know. 6, 12, 18 months down the road because it was sitting on the books and you could have seen it. So yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
24:04

Well, something you said inside of here, I mean, all cyclical businesses— all— let me rephrase that. All businesses have cyclical tendencies. Some are truly seasonal. But for carpet cleaners, if you’re in the Northeast and your slow time is, I don’t know, March, April, May, June, like, as is, that’s when you do your financial planning. You’re not doing client service work.

JOHN CLENDENNING
24:26

Yeah, not as much. You have more free time.

CHRIS PAPIN
24:28

In a different way. Yeah, exactly.

JOHN CLENDENNING
24:30

Yeah. Nope, that’s all. That’s always it. So what financial metrics should, do you think, the average owner at least monitor monthly, like on their own, check in with their, their accountant, whatever? Like what, what are those, those for the service businesses you deal with that you think are sort of like, you know, the core 4, core 6, whatever that is?

CHRIS PAPIN
24:52

Sure. So revenue is always number one for me because it is the purest, easiest measure. Even if you don’t know how to do math, you can do math because the bank statement does it for you. It shows you deposits.

JOHN CLENDENNING
25:03

Yeah, exactly.

CHRIS PAPIN
25:04

I like revenue in that sense because it gives you an indication. It’s a trailing indicator because you did the work yesterday and typically you get paid after the fact, but it’s a pure indicator. Another one, if you have employees, are labor costs. Kind of keeping an eye in, in relation labor to revenue. Uh, that by far is the one that gets abused the most. And I put that in air quotes for the listeners.

JOHN CLENDENNING
25:33

Right.

CHRIS PAPIN
25:34

That gets abused, kind of like we were teasing about earlier about the, the average job. If we’re not upselling or if we’re not doing the proper job and we have to come back and do like a courtesy service clean efficiencies get eaten away. And people are people. We have good days and we have bad days. So, you’ve got to stay on those things to make sure that revenue and those labor costs are mirroring what they should.

CHRIS PAPIN
25:59

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
25:59

And I guess in retail, we talk about like, you know, cost of goods sold. I sold a bunch of products on Amazon for years. It was one of the many things I dabbled in. So, I was up to $50,000 a month at one point selling bamboo utensils to, you know, from out of China, you know, in in little kits or across Amazon and stuff like that. It was a neat marketing experiment, right? $50,000 sounds— ooh, no, you take home maybe $5,000, right? So the rest of it is all eaten up by, you know, the longshoremen you have to pay and the shipping. It’s insane. It was a crazy business anyway. But cost of goods sold became a big thing.

JOHN CLENDENNING
26:30

And in our cleaning world, that, you know, those direct tied to the job, the gas, the solution, and the labor, whether you’re the guy doing it, make sure you run the math. Because how are you ever going to replace yourself if you don’t know if you’re earning enough to cover, you know, Tommy the technician that should take over your seat and that kind of stuff? So, you know, yes, no, no, those— and know that, yeah, if you’re drifting beyond— we found that it was roughly about 50%. If you could, you know, cost, cost of any job, roughly depending on the price you sell it, but roughly about 50% should go to labor all in. That includes employee taxes and everything else that— but the labor eat plus the solution and the ability to get to that job, right? So, and then the other 50% is all the rest of it, the marketing and the office expenses and, you know, employee or employer wages, the owner wages, and hopefully a profit at the end of the day that still accumulates beyond your wage. You don’t take everything home, leave some of it behind for growth and reinvestment and all that stuff. So, yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
27:29

So you said 2 things that are key. I obviously didn’t go to them first because they’re harder measures. But if you are someone engaging in marketing or online ads or whatever it is that you do, it doesn’t necessarily need to be an elaborate marketing plan. Are you measuring results on that? How? I don’t really care because I’m not a guy that wants to get overly elaborate. Sometimes it is literally, did I go to my centers of influence and ask them, do you have any Did I go to my realtors and say, hey, do you have any new listings I can go buy and clean up? It could be that simple.

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:07

Yep.

CHRIS PAPIN
28:07

Because that’s low-hanging fruit, and you’ve got to track those. You’ve got to know who to call. You’ve got to know good times. What I have found is when times are tight, those centers of influence, you can ask and say, hey, I’m slow, I’m willing to give you a 10% discount. It’s better than zero revenue in the door, so it allows you to manipulate the other numbers.

CHRIS PAPIN
28:27

Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
28:28

Then you get to that owner profit. Like, we all need to know what we can take home. And that’s what changes over the years, like what your expectation is. If I’m funding retirement or if I’m not, or if I own a building or if I’m not, like all of these other long-term decision points are driven by how much money do I have to take home that I can freely spend without sacrificing all of the other pieces of the puzzle?

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:53

Yeah. And without being the guy that decides to work 16 hours a day and burn the candle on both ends because you don’t want to hire Nancy in the office. To answer the phone so you can go out and make those sales calls. I call it the core forever engine that a lot of guys forget because there was sort of like an easy money train for a little while. You could stand in front of Groupon early, you know, 2010s, whatever. Then you could stand in front of other like Facebook ads and things like that. And everybody got quantitative easing, they got money, and then we had COVID, then they all got their PIPs. And like, it’s just there’s money, money, money, money.

JOHN CLENDENNING
29:22

And we’re now back to the real world where I started 30 years ago, Grandpa started 50 years ago, all that kind of stuff where Well, no, there isn’t just this money train that to start a business, you just put your name, you know, on a, on a plaque, show up and, you know, the world will beat a path to your door because everybody’s paying for it. We’re back to where middle class are tight, tighter, like it’s right. So you’ve, you know, people are more wise with their dollar. It doesn’t mean you have to be a discount provider. You can still be a premium provider, but premium provider to the right people by marketing the right way. And that isn’t just always running ads. That ads complement a really well-known brand. So exactly what you said, if you are the one that you know all the real estate agents, all the interior designers, all the, all the carpet stores and furniture stores, and you stop in regularly and they go, hey, how’s it going, Chris? You’re going, hey, how’s it going, buddy? Right? And you walk in with coffees and all that kind of stuff.

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:13

Then yeah, when times get tight, which right now we’re in a period of time where there’s a, a weird transition, feels like 2008, ’09, there’s a weird transition, or at least a buzz of, is AI going to take my job? What’s going to happen? Is, you know, robotics— are we, are we going up? Are we going down? Are we investing in infrastructure is, you know, we don’t know. Like, the world is doing a whole bunch of this right now, and that mixed feeling creates discretionary income pause in some people. So the market softens a little bit because people just go, I don’t know what my job’s going to be like in 6 months. Maybe we don’t need the couch cleaned again this time this year, again this year, right? Maybe, maybe we can just spot clean it. The kids can go spill pop and popcorn on the couch, you know, on movie night again, and we don’t need to call the cleaner every time, right? That those decisions get made differently when the market feels different, like when just the whole, the news cycle feels different, the price of gas feels different, right? So, um, yeah. And in that world, business owners better know their numbers and know when they need to double down on the grassroots stuff that doesn’t cost them a fortune. If you knew that you had a 3-to-1 ROI on your Google Ads and you’re investing $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 a month and it’s generating $15,000 in first-time revenue, $5,000 goes back to Google, $5,000 goes to the technician, or $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 goes to the technician and gas and solution, you’re 50%, you got a little bit left over. That’s That’s a good front end, maybe, but your lifetime value of that client is where the big money, the 15, 20 to 1 ROI comes from because you send mailings, stay in touch with them, and boom, for the cost of a stamp once a month, $12 a year, you retained a client, right? For $12, not bought them for $200 or $150 on pay-per-click.

JOHN CLENDENNING
31:47

So again, knowing your numbers well enough to be able to say what John just said actually makes sense is a good point to be. And not knowing your numbers and saying what John just said and what Chris and John are talking about is over my head. is probably not a good place to be, right? You know, trying to figure this all out, especially during tighter times. A little bit easier when everything’s running freewheeling and up and to the right, but a little harder when there’s those dips in the scale, right? So in the, in the chart. So, um, so I guess we get like, we talked about cash flow a little bit, cash flow and risk. I wanted to come back to why some companies stay broke despite revenue, right? The warning signs they’re missing, right? Because there’s a lot of people that go, I make a lot of money and there’s still nothing left in the bank account at the end of the month. And I’m in it 5 years and it still looks the same, even though everything seems to be— revenue’s going up. I ain’t got anything left.

JOHN CLENDENNING
32:39

Like, what do you notice is sort of some of the big drivers of warning signs that they’re maybe ignoring in that world where they are sort of myopic, only looking at the bank account at the end of the year? They see, oh, last year we made $200,000, this year maybe $280,000. Hey honey, where’d all that money go? Because it ain’t in our household. Right.

CHRIS PAPIN
32:59

So we, we literally had this conversation the other day and we’re staring at the numbers. Client’s up $100 grand and we went through all the stuff. They didn’t understand the tax calcs, didn’t understand the conversation. And at the end of the day, the response was, well, it didn’t feel like it.

CHRIS PAPIN
33:16

Hmm.

CHRIS PAPIN
33:16

Guess what? Feelings have no place. They have no place. Data matters here. I recognize that, that was a frustrating spot for the client to be in. And then there’s other pieces of that conversation at play that are relevant. But answering your question directly, it’s one of two things in my world. It’s either we overcommitted on the— on debt or buildings or growth. You know, there’s, there’s a pull of cash away from core operations.

JOHN CLENDENNING
33:44

Hmm.

CHRIS PAPIN
33:44

Or our business is our piggy bank. We just take money as we need it and then, oh, well, I’ll put it back when. Or I’ll just leave the next deposit in. But then you’re, you’re chasing because you took your operational capital out.

CHRIS PAPIN
33:58

Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
33:59

And that’s where you’re not behaving like a business owner. You are not operating as the owner, the CEO. You’re doing what’s in your best interest to the detriment of the business.

JOHN CLENDENNING
34:09

And then— And treating your bank account like a payday loan, like a payday loan company, really. Like, that becomes that method, that mindset where you’ll never catch up because you’re always sort chasing good money after bad.

CHRIS PAPIN
34:21

So, well, the, the percentages change. So we’re teasing about like, hey, you’re going to keep 50%, but if you’re payday loaning this, all of a sudden it’s 60% or 70%. Well, the rest of that’s probably going to go to tax. So you just did all the work to retain none of it. Is that really where you want to be?

JOHN CLENDENNING
34:36

Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
34:37

And I didn’t mean to get there. I’ve got to play catch-up. I get it. But this is where strategic partnerships with banks, lending, getting capital stretched to where you can chip away at a different way. But there’s a cost. to every single one of those decisions as you go. Yeah, the one we see in this industry the most is, I want insert brand here, but the fancy van.

JOHN CLENDENNING
34:58

Yes.

CHRIS PAPIN
34:59

Yep, it does just the same as the 1996 Ford Ecoline.

JOHN CLENDENNING
35:04

Yeah, with a good— oh my God, you know what I mean? Like, no, you’re preaching to the choir. I’ve never bought a brand new— like, listen to this, guys. Anybody listen to the podcast here? I had never bought a brand new Cleaning van in my life. I love them 2 to 3 years off lease with the shelves already put in by some plumber or whatever who bought them brand new. I got them white, labeled the— like, logoed the whole thing up, full wrap, so you couldn’t tell. Like, as long as it didn’t have rust on it, mechanically sound, took it to my mechanic. I’m like, I get to make the same amount of money every single day that the van’s going to make. I just get to pay 1/3 the cost versus leasing or trying to buy out the—

CHRIS PAPIN
35:39

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
35:40

the van and the whatever, right? So yeah, I, yeah, that’s a big one that I see a lot of people become focused on. Oh, I own a business, I get to buy all this new stuff, never running the math to say, hey, what if I could find something just as reliable that saves me $300, $400, $500 per van on the road per month? What does that mean in the long term? Right? So—

CHRIS PAPIN
36:03

And this is that forward-looking, longer, longer-term conversation again. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a car, or a cleaning solution or a tool or a software. It’s, it’s about how can I be more efficient? Where is a true value proposition? I want is generally not a value proposition.

JOHN CLENDENNING
36:21

Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
36:21

It’s, it’s a need and an efficiency base for your business. Then it can spill over into the I want. And what I see is the emotional creeps in. I want the sexy thing or I want the status symbol. Yeah. Makes me feel good. Okay. At what cost? Oh, well, but I’m going to save on taxes by doing that so I can justify what is a bad decision because I’m going to save on taxes.

JOHN CLENDENNING
36:44

Yeah. Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
36:45

No, I mean, once the money’s gone, it’s gone. You don’t get— you’ve got to earn it again and it’s too hard to earn.

JOHN CLENDENNING
36:51

Save it. Yeah, I agree. I agree with that so much because the other one becomes debt service, as we talked about. As you buy these things, if you don’t qualify for a low-interest loan, you can’t get it from like your, your bank or tap into some sort of like, you know, really low-interest line, which is what We actually, with ours, it was our insurance company. Every time I went to buy a van, I had to, you know, pre-get, you know, get insurance to be able to drive it off the lot kind of idea. And so as I’m looking around and saying, hey, I’m about to go look at some vans for the company and all that kind of stuff, so I want to make sure we just have trip insurance on it. And they come back in like eventually our insurance company said, oh, we started becoming a lender as well. Would you like us to compete against whatever rate you’ve got from your bank? And they would always beat it by like a percent or a percent and a half.

JOHN CLENDENNING
37:37

So we would negotiate the very best rate we could with our bank and then go back to these guys and go, cool, we get to save another $80, $100, whatever, $120 a month in interest. Pure profit, pure cash back in the pocket, right? For every piece of equipment we bought, it was just like, let’s find our lowest. And other people go, oh, I need it. Well, I guess if you know you’ve got jobs lined up and you can earn it, and you don’t qualify for low interest, maybe that becomes that decision. But that would be a great call for your, you know, for your CPA is to say, hey, I’ve got the opportunity to add this whole new service wing on. I want to start doing pressure washing. I want to start doing duct cleaning. It’s going to cost me $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 to buy a trailer-mounted duct cleaning unit that we can tow behind our van based because my interest, the interest I’m going to be able to get on it is consumer rate.

JOHN CLENDENNING
38:24

It’s terrible. It’s 15%, whatever, 12%. Is that still a good decision? Here’s what I do know I’ve got lined up in work. Beyond that, I’d have to build the business from there. And that’d be a great conversation to have with your, you know, your CPA.

CHRIS PAPIN
38:39

I 100% agree. And paying attention to vendor financing versus bank financing versus alternatives. We watch this in medicine a lot because the vendors will show up, oh yeah, don’t pay us down. But they are by far the most expensive financing. It’s not in financing. They phrase it as a lease payment and all this other stuff. Just the cost of equipment gets really expensive. And then my cynicism lays over the top.

CHRIS PAPIN
39:05

All this so your guys can go out and drop it and wreck it.

CHRIS PAPIN
39:09

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
39:11

You have worked with home service, haven’t you, Chris? Oh my gosh. Yeah. Well done. No, and that becomes part of it because I think we’re in a subscription mentality, whether, you know, we don’t need to go around conspiracy theory rabbit holes and you’ll own nothing and you’ll like it. there is a point where we rent everything, we lease everything, we subscription everything. So, it’s become easier for these vendor finances just to say, oh yeah, this is the same as your Netflix and your Spotify and your hot tub and your whatever. Just add that on like that, right? And so, we make all these bad decisions at home, right? We’re not watching, you know, next thing, death by 1,000 subscriptions and that way.

CHRIS PAPIN
39:52

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
39:52

And now, we’re making those same decisions because We take that same person and put them— we’re running a business, right? And it feels, it feels the same. But to be prudent, you probably shouldn’t have been doing it at home either. But in the business, let’s be a lot more strict because businesses will ebb and flow. It is not—

CHRIS PAPIN
40:10

Yes.

JOHN CLENDENNING
40:11

Again, heyday and rosy and green grasses for the next 20, 30 years. And then you sell to somebody who wants to pay you 5 times more than you even asked for it, and off you go into the sunset. It is going to be crap hit the fan years and you better be able to, you know, white-knuckle it through and come out the other side and maybe double your market penetration because you’re the only one that was able to market and make it through while your competitors backed off on their promotions because they didn’t have the wherewithal and the money and you had a little bit of seed capital saved up to market through a slow time or to make a transition as the marketplace changes. So which kind of leads us to sort of that That logical point, if we’re kind of saying, okay, set up right. If you didn’t do it day one, you know, the best time was yesterday. The next best time is today, right? At least get it started. Think it through. Have somebody smart in your corner helping you know what numbers to look at and plan.

JOHN CLENDENNING
41:04

Make decisions based on data, not emotions. All great stuff, right? Then we’re going to say, okay, well, how do we, you know, if you’re 10, 15 years into this thing, You at least have an eye towards what does exit look like? You don’t just want to wind it down to nothing, right? It’s got to be building something. Solopreneur, maybe as we talked about before we jumped on, buy the property that, you know, so you own— a good friend of mine, Pierre, owned his building. He actually renovated the whole upstairs and turned it into their retirement suite, but owned the building. Right beside was the yoga studio that he rented to. Right beside was the other guy, whatever. Over the 20 years, That he, he owned the, the building, it appreciated in value like crazy, right? So good on him. So he, he created that equity value of something that was paid for that he would’ve had to rent anyways.

JOHN CLENDENNING
41:53

He needed a shop to, for the vans and to do the area rugs and have the team show up and stuff like that. Well, now he’s, he was able to, to buy something instead of, and now it’s the asset that he can, he can even turn into apartment as he did, retire in it, sell things off and stuff like that. So how do we start thinking of exit planning? How early do we start thinking about exit planning and how do we put that into our brain as we’re sort of trying to just keep the business going?

CHRIS PAPIN
42:18

Yeah, the exit plan. I mean, here’s the clickbait of all clickbait, right? Everybody will exit their business. The question is, will you choose your path or is the path gonna be dictated to you? And that one hits hard for some people. The best time to plan it is in the beginning, because if you are going to be in aggressive growth, maybe go multi-company and then sell to some sort of acquisition group, we need to structure the business straight out of the gate with that in mind so we can get some tax benefits that way.

JOHN CLENDENNING
42:51

Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
42:51

There’s a clock, and if we can meet that clock, then there’s benefits. Now, if you are going to extract cash, own and operate, kind of, kind of, it’s going to be your family business, it’s going to be your cash cow, we might take a different approach. Or let’s say this is a second career deal. I’m going to own it and operate it for 10 years. How do I extract the most value out of that? You know, again, different paradigm. So, yeah, there’s 2 or 3 different fundamental ways to think about your exit. But there is nothing wrong with operate, extract all the value, close the doors, and not sell it. That is a permissible way to do it.

CHRIS PAPIN
43:30

And tons of people have over the years that bought buildings They funded their retirement account and they just closed. But yeah, if you want something different than that, then you need to build towards something different than that, which means you need systems, you need all the infrastructure to be able to sell.

JOHN CLENDENNING
43:47

And I think, I think that, that moment is that part you want to, you want to think about is if you are an employee, right, you can make $70,000, $80,000, $90,000, $100,000 a year. In the cleaning industry as an employee at a great company, as a, you know, maintenance manager at a— at an office. But like, there’s a whole bunch of ways that you can, you know, sort of earn that income that would be sort of like a baseline tier 1 you’re trying to aim at as a own the business, right? But the own the business, you’ve got all the sleepless nights. You wake up at 4 a.m. worrying about this and that at the quarter results spike. You got like, you had all of that, that stuff that as an employee you just go home. Like, you just go home and watch Netflix, right? And stuff like that. So if you’re going to take on all of that extra pressure and risk and stress and workload and, and, and upleveling your skills, you better have a plan that if you are going to extract all the cash and just close the doors, it’s because that went to an asset that creates equity of some sort.

JOHN CLENDENNING
44:43

You didn’t extract it all and go to Disney, right? Every year, right? And stuff like that. You still have to think of, I don’t have a 401, what do I do? Right. Kind of idea, right? So that’s got to be the— so whether it’s the business becomes the asset and you can exit for multiples, whether it becomes the property, whether it becomes investments, because, you know, you just extract all the cash and, and pay yourself in investment funds or whatever, you still have to have a plan with that, that money. It’s still got to go somewhere that builds something over time, or you’d probably be farther ahead. being an employee somewhere and just make the cash and be on payroll.

CHRIS PAPIN
45:22

We’ve, we’ve teased about this, but it’ll land in the right way. But there’s lots and lots and lots of people that are a landlord. They just pay their rent by cleaning carpets. Yeah, yeah, you are your own landlord in that scenario. And, and I know I’m kind of playing on the words, but that is the reality of it. Yeah. One is the ends to the mean, or one’s the means to the end of the other objective. So, this all starts with clarity of what’s your goals, what’s your objectives, what’s your ambitions.

CHRIS PAPIN
45:53

Because if you can’t enunciate those, others, they can try and help you. But John, I can’t pick what your goals are and you can’t pick what my goals are. It’s just not the way it works.

JOHN CLENDENNING
46:03

No, but clarity of them and having them. So, I just did every June. So, every January, I do a Get your, you know, preloaded year, get your year ready. Think of what last year looked like. Look at your numbers. We do a masterclass on that. It’s on YouTube if anyone goes follow it. It’s in history of this podcast as well.

JOHN CLENDENNING
46:20

And then we do a mid-year check-in in June. So just like last month’s training. And the very first part of it is all about, you know, goals. Like, and I guarantee you it’s the part that people roll their eyes at the most when we get there. It’s like, no, John, just tell me how to make more money and do all this. And It really does come down to like your why. You have to put your goals in. If you don’t have a why, nothing will stick.

JOHN CLENDENNING
46:45

It’s the same reason why, you know, gym memberships, you know, gyms make all of their money January of the year, you know, in gym memberships. Nobody ever shows up. They have dead equipment by, you know, February, right? And all of that kind of stuff. And they know it because it’s like if you don’t have a goal and an intent and a big enough why, it’s, it’s just good for the moment, right?

CHRIS PAPIN
47:05

Yep.

JOHN CLENDENNING
47:06

So, if you’ve got that goal planned, and you know what that is, or, you know, as, as detailed as you can. Harvard did a study on graduates, and anybody who had a goal written down— it was only 3% of the graduating class, um, can’t remember, I think it was 1977 or ’87, one of these years— and they, 3% of them had the goal written down. Uh, a huge chunk had the idea of what they wanted to do with, with their degree, um, but they had never written it down. It was just their thought. And then the rest of them had no clue what they’re going to do. And the 3% out-earned by 10 times— check back 20 years— out-earned by 10 times the, the entire 97% combined, right? So that 3% was 10x more because they left with an intent of what they’re going to do and how they’re going to get there. So if we— it doesn’t mean you get it right in planning. That’s always that mistake.

JOHN CLENDENNING
47:58

Um, you get it right for now, and as things adjust professionals help you go, does that still apply? Oh my gosh, I haven’t thought of that. Let me, let me go do some deep thinking. I’ll get back to you. Right. And you got to make those decisions. So, so if a carpet cleaner was listening today, wanted to improve their financial health, what are some, like, say, 3 things that you would suggest they do right out of the gate? Like, where do they start getting their education? What should, you know, who should they reach out to? Like, what are, what are some of the things that they should look at, do consider that would sort of help their financial health, especially in this time that things are just kind of creaking or feeling a little off? Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
48:40

So I’m going to give you 4 because one’s self-serving. I do, I do have a book that kind of helps along these ways, The 168 Hours. If you search for 168 and Chris Pappan, you’ll find it. But it’s a small business owner guide that respects—

JOHN CLENDENNING
48:52

We’ll put in the show notes as well. Send me the link and we’ll put it in the show notes as well.

CHRIS PAPIN
48:55

Yeah, it’s designed to help this thought process. But the 3 things to actually answer your question that is not self-serving. First and foremost, I am a big fan of relationships and networking. You need to be in front of people. You need to be talking to people because that word of mouth and the power of that referral relationship, especially for what you’re going to go do, because your boots on the ground, you’re not going to drive halfway across the world. You can’t clean anything virtually. Or if you have, let me know how.

JOHN CLENDENNING
49:23

I’ll sell it. Elon’s got some robots we’re going to get someday. Give him 5 years then maybe. But until then, yes, we’re good.

CHRIS PAPIN
49:30

But that power of community and network is number one. It’s always gonna be number one. If you lean into it, you’ve got something. Number 2 is whatever the clarity and the goals are, I always kind of use sports analogies here. You need to be accountable to it. Like flip over to football/soccer. We just came outta World Cup season. All the teams know the objective is score more goals than the other team.

CHRIS PAPIN
49:53

Well, in business, what’s the objective? Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
49:55

Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
49:57

That’s a toughie. You’ve got to define it. Yes, it’s to make money, but how much? And how many hours a day are you going to do that? And then number 3 would be, are you accountable to whatever those goals you just set are? Because you can say it all day long, but if you don’t do it, it isn’t going to happen.

JOHN CLENDENNING
50:14

Oh, those are great. Because I mean, just— I’m just rattling through the hundreds of conversations I have a month with cleaners, thousands, tens of thousands by this point over the last 20 years. Consulting and doing this and working in the industry and all that stuff. And we run into a lot where, for example, if you don’t understand who your ideal customer could be, what the fringe— like that, what the top 5% or 10% in our industry do differently than the other 90%, you never even heard it. They’re not on the forums. They’re not. So, you know, Dan Kennedy had coined the term marketing incest. We look around and go, oh, these guys are all 3 rooms in a hall for $99.

JOHN CLENDENNING
50:50

I guess I should be $89, I’ll get more jobs. And then they come across people like me and they like— I say, well, our average client that we coach and work with, their residential average is sitting north of $600, sometimes north of $800 residential customer. Well, how do they get that? Well, they start off by not advertising their price. The right people don’t respond to $99 carpet cleaning. They treat it as a scam. They don’t even look at the same places. They don’t— they, like, again, they network more than they— like, if you’re in a gated community And, you know, I’d rather know the maid service and the lock service and the gardening service that’s in there and have that relationship on my BNI groups and stuff like that. And, you know, become good buds and good friends.

JOHN CLENDENNING
51:35

And they know we do a great job and they’ve had us to their house and, oh no, don’t worry about paying for us. You know, you’re one of my buddies. I’ll clean your house for free. All this kind of stuff. And then next thing you know, hey, we’ve got a client that needs cleaning. Could you guys go give them a quote? And then all of a sudden you’re in that neighborhood too, and you a little bit more because you networked properly. You did what grandpa did to run a business. Ads still work.

JOHN CLENDENNING
51:54

Direct every door mail still works. Google still works. Websites still work. AI recommendations nowadays still work. Social media still works. But it all works inside an ecosphere that still run the business the way grandpa did. Be a real person in the real community, right? So—

CHRIS PAPIN
52:10

What’s, what’s interesting in what you’re saying is there’s, there’s a value proposition with face-to-face and dealings. Most people do business with people they like.

JOHN CLENDENNING
52:19

Yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
52:20

And, and that’s part of this recipe of being in front of and being there. I have had service techs to my house that I have never met because a dear friend of mine’s a realtor, and I said, hey, who does this? And he was like, this is the best. Cool. Where do I send them money? And will you let them in for me?

JOHN CLENDENNING
52:36

Yeah, yeah.

CHRIS PAPIN
52:37

I mean, that’s a little aggressive, but I trust that much in him. And it’s the same thing we’re trying to illustrate to folks. You want to be that trusted provider. Show up, get the deal done, get the money, move on.

JOHN CLENDENNING
52:49

Yeah. Yeah. And again, dovetail it back together. When you have a goal and you know your ideal clientele, then you’ll know which real estate agents you should reach out to and which ones aren’t collecting the same people. Right. There are real estate agents that work with, you know, Golf Course Road people. Right. So if you build that trusted friendship and relationship well, properly, you know, if you have to read Dale Carnegie’s, you know, Win Friends and Influence People, I don’t I don’t know what skill you need to upgrade, right? You know, I’m a, I’m a painfully shy, introverted person.

JOHN CLENDENNING
53:23

Didn’t present anything in, in, in, in school. Stood on stage and, you know, in the band because I could only see the hot chicks in the front row and everything else was dark. Like, I mean, literally, I mean, so if I can figure out a way around this with some Tony Robbins and Napoleon Hills and, and just figuring out what I don’t know, I’m pretty sure anybody with even a slightly better, you know, vocabulary and skill set in, in and being friendly could, could blow me out of the water. But I mean, the amount of relationships that we had that were $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 a year worth of work coming from a real estate agent or an office or a, you know, a flooring store and a furniture store that you walk in the door and they’re just happy to see you because you built that, right? So yeah, there’s a lot there. There’s a lot there that, you know, totally, totally side tangent on finances and taxes and legal and stuff like that. But It’s all part of the same nut. You’re trying to crack that same nut. How do we build a business, stay in business, aim at the right goals, and have our CPA and our legal team actually understand our vision and help us align that way? Because that’s the worst-case scenario is walking into, you know, an accountant or get a new accountant, get a new lawyer, and they just take you, well, this is it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
54:35

If they don’t do any good onboarding, any good triage, they didn’t go do the deep dive to ask you, okay, where are we at with everything? What are you actually planning to do? What do you know? Without that information, you know, you could probably get a pretty smart ChatGPT to do the work in today’s day and age, but it’s not going to have the human nuance in it that you need from a professional.

CHRIS PAPIN
54:56

So, yeah, you can get the work done.

JOHN CLENDENNING
54:58

We—

CHRIS PAPIN
54:58

the way we like to say that is you’re not going to get the judgment and the wisdom that you actually want, and people have a hard time verbalizing that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
55:05

So, yeah, and no, and again, we are in a world where Same like in marketing. You can get AI to do your marketing. There’s a million people that have gone out and said, oh, I just— I gotta do blog posts. I’ve got ChatGPT writing me 30 blog posts a month. I’m going, cool, for how long? Well, at least a year now. That’s amazing. You haven’t ranked a single iota higher than you did a year ago. Why do you think that is? Maybe you don’t know the strategy behind blog posts run right as part of an ecosystem with 87 other touchpoints that then teaches AI and SEO to pick you up, right? So you can doesn’t mean you should.

JOHN CLENDENNING
55:38

So, and I’m sure the exact same feeling you guys deal with it in your world as well is, oh, my Xero, my QuickBooks, it has all of this, you know, you know, AI built into it. Yeah, well, it might be able to find fraud in your credit card a little bit faster than calling us up to do it, but that’s not the strategy. That’s not a tax planning and life planning full strategy. So cool. So I think we helped the listeners out a lot. I think we’ve got a really good understanding of, you know, either you’re already on this path, we’ve just had people nodding their heads going, cool, you followed along, you’ve been doing this, you’ve got it. Or you went, oh crap, oh crap.

CHRIS PAPIN
56:15

Wow.

JOHN CLENDENNING
56:16

I’ve heard this, little bits of this before. And yeah, I really need to start attacking this. So again, we’re going to put in the show notes your book. Where else can people connect to you? What should they do to follow, learn a little bit more? If anybody wants to reach out to you, all that kind of stuff, where do you work? it like, you know, is it anywhere in the states? Are you local to your area? Give me a little bit more info.

CHRIS PAPIN
56:34

Yeah, so CPA side, I can go 50 US states. Uh, that’s pretty easy. Uh, law side, or I guess pappincpa.com is, is the CPA side.

JOHN CLENDENNING
56:44

Okay.

CHRIS PAPIN
56:44

Uh, law side, I’m in Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and New York. So perfect. I will go to states that justify me, but pappinlaw.com. Um, push a bunch of free material that is designed to be advice for small businesses, small business owners, to my LinkedIn. If you search for my name, Chris Pappin, on LinkedIn, um, you don’t have to know all the answers. Sometimes you, you need some help with those, but the idea is to generate thought and give people a path so that, oh, I, I’ve heard of that before, let me do a little research. But all of this does not matter if you don’t do something about So, my challenge always back to the audience is pick one thing. I don’t care what the one thing is.

CHRIS PAPIN
57:26

If you need me to tell you the one thing, the one thing would be go get your financial statements and see if you know what they actually mean. But start there and then it’s a compounding effect, no different than the way you started your business or the way you’re about to start your business if you’re not there yet. Over time, it starts to— all of a sudden, I got a thing. You got to do the same thing with those financial disciplines, too. Yep.

JOHN CLENDENNING
57:50

And I just noticed here, so 168 Hours is obviously anybody can get it on Amazon. We’ll put a link in the bottom wherever you want to send them for that. But I think that’s the next obvious step too, is, you know, start learning what you don’t know. I’m one of these people that, again, I have a million books. Do I read nowadays? I probably in the last 15 years read maybe cover to cover less than 20 books, right? But have I listened to hundreds and hundreds of books, buy the physical copy to dog-ear and highlight and put notes in and sort of, you know, I used to reserve books to be pristine on the shelf. Now I realize, nope, that’s my study guide because I’m going to listen to the info and I want to be able to come back to it and go to the really good section. So that would be, again, one of these, one of these upgrade your skills moments is, you know, 168 Hours would be a great book to sort of start diving into what you don’t know, follow you on LinkedIn, things like that, and just really get open up those questions that, you know, you need to get answers for. Yeah, having good questions is 90% of the, of getting there anyways.

JOHN CLENDENNING
58:55

The right questions get you to the right answers. So cool. Any famous last words, Chris? Yeah, go ahead.

CHRIS PAPIN
59:01

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, I’m kind of dovetailing there anyway, but I always tell folks, I, I may or may not be able to help, but I’m looking for good people to have conversations like this. I mean, John and I love doing exactly what we’re doing and giving back as a whole. So Reach out, contact, even if it’s just a, hey, high five, virtual coffee or something like that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
59:19

I’m in. I mean, that’s how you develop the network and get with people.

CHRIS PAPIN
59:22

So I appreciate the opportunity.

JOHN CLENDENNING
59:25

No, I love that. And again, my big motto this year, Jeff Cross from Clean Facts Magazine will preach this to the choir as well as I— he just loves it. As I keep saying, it’s what’s old is new again. As our world is changing around us, the human connection, the networking, You know, again, do what grandpa used to do to run the business is the other, the other little catchphrase I use a lot now. It’s like we kind of got away from what centered us. A lot of people did in running a business. You know, you’d go down to the barbershop and, you know, there’d be the butcher and there’d be the other and you’d sit around and chat or whatever and know all of the, the other folks in town that did all the other work and, and stuff like that. And we kind of drifted away to this, you know, Google, Google Ads and Google Business Profile will cover it for me and we don’t really need to know anybody.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:00:10

And There’s a lot more still to who you know versus what you know, um, and tap into the right, the right worlds and the right resources and stuff like that. So, well, I appreciate your time. I will put all the show notes in. Anybody has any questions for Chris, anything, any comments, and they share it in any of our show notes, we’ll share it on to him as we always say as well. So definitely reach out. And, um, yeah, thanks so much, Chris, for jumping on. I think this was really informative and helpful to this audience in, in, in a big way.

CHRIS PAPIN
1:00:35

Yeah, great conversation.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:00:36

Thank you.

Start with influential gatekeepers—interior designers and estate managers. Offer a free service or educational session, wow them, and ask directly: “Who else should know about us?” The law of reciprocity kicks in fast when you lead with genuine value.

JOHN CLENDENNING
2:20

Hey, well, welcome back to another exciting episode of the Carpet Cleaner Success Podcast. I’ve got, um, somebody I’ve wanted to have on the podcast for a while now since we had a chat a couple months ago. I can’t remember, 3, 4 months ago. Um, so we’re talking to Mark Goodman today. Um, if you’ve been in the cleaning industry 30 years like me or longer, I know you’ve known the name. I knew the name when, when he popped up on my radar. So Mark is the Mark from Mark the Carpetbagger. So Hollywood Hills, his dad ran that business and, and grew that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
2:53

Then he became Fibermark, right? So, and then has coalesced the 2 businesses together. He’s the cleaner to the stars. Best way to mention it. That’s how I knew of his name prior to ever having met him. And I wanted to get him on this podcast for a while just to, you know, tell us a bit of the wisdom and the years and the, the ups and downs and the trials and tribulations from being a rugrat as a kid, like my kids were, um, all the way to, you know, now running, running, running the business, having the business run by the office and, and, and, and not having to be in there day to day and stuff like that. So welcome to the podcast, Mark. I really appreciate you jumping on today.

MARK GOODMAN
3:29

Thank you, John.

JOHN CLENDENNING
3:30

Yeah. So tell us a little bit about the story. Like I gave a little bit of a Coles Notes, the part I know, but, um, So, tell us a little bit about what, you know, like, you know, you grew up as a carpet cleaning rugrat, as we call it.

MARK GOODMAN
3:42

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
3:43

What attracted Dad to the business? And then why did you carry on it?

MARK GOODMAN
3:49

My father started back in 1963.

JOHN CLENDENNING
3:53

Wow.

MARK GOODMAN
3:53

And he went to law school but decided he liked working with his hands. Instead.

JOHN CLENDENNING
4:03

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
4:04

And I always thought he was a nut job because that idea, and then the idea of Persian rugs, he loved it. And I never, I never understood it. Being in the business now, I totally get it. And, uh, I love it also.

JOHN CLENDENNING
4:24

So did he start with like the area rugs and the Persian rugs, or was it just the traditional wall-to-wall carpet and Von Schrader? 1963 is quite a long time ago. Did we even have truck mounts back then?

MARK GOODMAN
4:37

He did not have a truck mount back then. My grandfather owned a building in Westwood, which is now a parking lot for UCLA. Anyway, As people would move in and move out, my dad would clean the apartments for my grandfather. And, uh, he was in school at UCLA, uh, in law school.

JOHN CLENDENNING
5:11

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
5:12

And then decided law school was not for him. He liked the idea of cleaning. He liked the immediate satisfaction. Whereas you’re gonna wait a year or so to get some kind of kudos. He didn’t like that aspect. He liked working with his hands and his head and he built his company.

JOHN CLENDENNING
5:41

How big did he get it? So 1963, by the time you kind of showed up in the business and understood what it was, not just somebody showing up and seeing what area rugs are and stuff like that. How big did he— did he get his business before he sort of retired out and you were doing your own thing by then?

MARK GOODMAN
6:01

Yeah, I was in business the same time my dad was.

JOHN CLENDENNING
6:05

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
6:06

Which was great around the dinner table.

JOHN CLENDENNING
6:13

Were you competing for the same clients? Was it because I know you do the high end and did you get that from Dad or was that something you’ve transitioned?

MARK GOODMAN
6:22

happen. And, uh, it did happen. Yeah, we just have 2 different personalities.

JOHN CLENDENNING
6:29

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
6:29

And, uh, I was able to take the business much farther and do a lot more with it. Um, when I was working with him, um, it was a joke because he would go into a house and get an $800 job, and I’d go to a similar house and I’d bring an $8,000 job.

JOHN CLENDENNING
6:56

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
6:57

And, um, it’s not that I was doing anything different.

JOHN CLENDENNING
7:03

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
7:04

So you just tell—

JOHN CLENDENNING
7:05

you just be able to talk and tell a better story and just connect with the people a little bit better and stuff like that, maybe, or whatever.

MARK GOODMAN
7:11

Yeah, it’s, um, that’s Really the crux of the business, personalities and knowledge, being able to tell the stories that the clients need to hear.

JOHN CLENDENNING
7:32

Yeah, because it’s in those stories that they understand that they can start to know, like, and trust you. and realize your recommendations are coming from a place of good faith. And when you’re talking about like, you know, $8,000 residential, I’m sure we just knocked a few people off their seats. And, you know, if you’re driving in traffic listening to this, yep, that you heard a real number. But when you target the right people, then we are in a business that should be repeat, retention, referral. Ideally, When we do it right, we create the environment where people trust us. They trust our team as we start to have to hand it off to employees and stuff like that. And we have to start hiring the right people that can hand that, that can do what we did, at least as close enough that we’re not, we don’t lose the business that we get.

MARK GOODMAN
8:23

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
8:23

We keep those retention referrals. How did you make that transition? Because that’s always a big moment where, yeah, I can do it well, but I can’t train anybody to do it well.

MARK GOODMAN
8:33

Yeah, I was just gonna mention that’s a huge hurdle.

JOHN CLENDENNING
8:37

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
8:38

Um, and unfortunately, um, sometimes you just have to say, well, the client isn’t gonna know the difference between my work and my employees’. It’s close. And, um, I don’t feel good about that statement. Because I know how I clean and how I do things and how I get them clean and how I talk to the clients. And I can’t expect anyone to be me. Yeah, I had some close calls. And on the other hand, you know, they might go out on their own.

JOHN CLENDENNING
9:20

Yep. Yeah. And sometimes that’s not a bad thing. I’ve had technicians over the years that My goal was never to keep them forever. I would love to, especially our best guys. But I mean, I think the longest I ever had anybody was 8 years. Joe, lovely guy. But we had other guys 4 and 5 years that eventually decided, you know, I’m going back to trade school or I’m going— one became an optometrist.

JOHN CLENDENNING
9:40

So he worked with us for a couple of years and then went to university in the same town. So we were able to keep him as our— one of our backup guys for the next 4 years as he went to university. You know, evenings, weekends, like summer break, stuff like that. If we can help a person out, if they’re good and they represent our company well, um, you make room. Yeah. You hang onto them as hard as you can.

MARK GOODMAN
10:04

Yep, absolutely.

JOHN CLENDENNING
10:06

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
10:06

Had many people like that where I’ve accommodated their schedule.

JOHN CLENDENNING
10:12

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
10:13

Because I’d rather have them than not.

JOHN CLENDENNING
10:16

Yeah. And how did you— so how did you start that? Like, starting is always that hard part because you, you, you, again, you just go to your website alone and you see the list of customers that, you know, everybody knows their names. The, the Mike Tysons and, and, you know, Steven Spielbergs and, and stuff like that. The list is just a who’s who of, of, of Hollywood. Um, if you had to go all the way back to how— why you started that, because there’s many, there’s hundreds of, hundreds of other cleaners that Thousands probably have come and gone in your area, but hundreds at any given time that don’t make that transition. And there’s like only a couple of you that actually sort of kind of compete and target in that, you know, get trusted by that crowd, let alone anything where they talk about how did you get that started? How did that ball get rolling that sort of turned into the repeat and retention engine that it became?

MARK GOODMAN
11:10

Um, good question. Oh, you can’t sit here and say, I want to work with Spielberg. Um, although sometimes I used to read the real estate section and find out who’s buying and who sold and where they’re going.

JOHN CLENDENNING
11:32

And— Okay, there’s a tip. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
11:37

Don’t do that anymore. Although it doesn’t stop me from reading. Yes.

JOHN CLENDENNING
11:47

And then do you really— did you reach out to the real estate agent? Did you reach out to the— like, you’re not going to get a hold of, again, Aaron Spelling. You’re not going to get a hold of, you know, whatever. How did you sort of say, hey, I’m in this market, those are my people, I can’t go to them directly, I got to kind of run around and find the people managing the property, managing the house, another service provider that’s the landscaping? Like, how did you, how did you sort of break that thing?

MARK GOODMAN
12:13

Fortunately, Mr. Spelling’s— I forgot what you call him— personal assistant knew me, and I knew him from another house. So now he’s again at another house.

JOHN CLENDENNING
12:32

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
12:33

Bringing me there. So, um, with these estate managers, if you make them look good and you, uh, educate them, they’ll keep you and they’ll refer you to other estate managers.

JOHN CLENDENNING
12:57

So yeah, and see, what I found is that works as well in like— so if you’re not in a— like, we’re talking estate managers, we’re talking like mansions and all that kind of stuff. Some people are in marketplaces where they don’t have that, but there are still interior designers, there are still the real estate agents that work with the executives that live around Golf Course Road and stuff like that. There is still the opportunity that where your average job is $800 to $1,000 when your competitors are still 3 rooms and a hall for $99? Because those people that, that in those worlds, you need that, you need that referral in, you need that endorsed trust.

MARK GOODMAN
13:35

So what I did is I gave something that I call the dirty class.

JOHN CLENDENNING
13:41

Okay.

MARK GOODMAN
13:42

Dirty class is educating designers and And housekeepers, house staff.

JOHN CLENDENNING
13:54

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
13:54

How to deal with things when they happen and what not to do.

JOHN CLENDENNING
14:00

And really, how did— where did you— where did you give those classes? Like, how did you get that rolling? Because that’s brilliant. I used to go in front of real estate offices and stand in front of them and not teach them about my business, Acclaimed Carpet Cleaning. I would teach them about, hey, how to tell if a rug needs to be removed or carpets removed and replaced before you list the house, or when when you can actually have them clean, deodorize, sanitize, whatever. And if you don’t know, call me in. I’ll do, I’ll do a free assessment and leave the homeowner a free bottle of Spotter for between showings, right? They loved me for that. That was just my presentation, right? How did you get, how did you get your, or where did you do yours? Like, what, how did you do your dirty class in front of people?

MARK GOODMAN
14:35

Um, I did them at, uh, colleges in the design departments. And, um, yep. So a couple schools came to my office, to my shop, because it was better to do it there because I was set up to show them the differences between synthetic and wool and what cleans better.

JOHN CLENDENNING
15:06

Perfect. If you pause for one quick second, we’ll just cut this part out. But if you can turn your camera back on, I think you might have just hit a button with it. We just lost your face.

MARK GOODMAN
15:14

Okay, I’m sorry.

JOHN CLENDENNING
15:15

It’s all good. Our editors will deal with it. We’re good. Perfect. Okay, so you mentioned this, you ran a class out of your shop, you ran, um, and like you met with the people, you gave education. Education is like retention, repeat referral retention business. Educate the public is the industry we’re in. Well, we got a lot of people that think it’s a lead gen business.

JOHN CLENDENNING
15:38

I just need more leads. I need more leads. And they have a leaky bucket where they don’t deliver a world-class service across their staff. They don’t, they don’t repeat, retain their clients for a repeat visit. They don’t just stay in touch. They don’t educate after the sale as well to get the next sale, right? To all that kind of stuff, right?

JOHN CLENDENNING
15:56

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
15:57

What did you guys do over the years and what do you guys do now that sort of makes sure that, you know, somebody else isn’t nipping at your heels and saying, you know, maybe meeting somebody that— a new house manager, because Aaron Spelling or Tori Spelling has, you know, hired somebody new and they don’t know you guys. Like, how do you— how do you make sure that you’re— you guys stay in the places you’re in right now with the office that’s running the business for you? What do they do now that they’ve picked up from you?

MARK GOODMAN
16:26

I have them reach out to the house again.

JOHN CLENDENNING
16:28

Okay.

MARK GOODMAN
16:30

I do a lot of showrooms. And I just had my new manager go into the showrooms, introduce himself.

JOHN CLENDENNING
16:40

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
16:40

And I called the showrooms first, letting them know that he’s going to come by and do this.

JOHN CLENDENNING
16:49

Yeah. And what kind of showrooms? Like, where are we?

MARK GOODMAN
16:51

Like, what’s that? So, you know, $50,000 sectionals.

JOHN CLENDENNING
17:02

Okay, gotcha.

MARK GOODMAN
17:02

Yeah. It’s all European. Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
17:11

So sort of when you see, if you watched any of those, like the behind the scenes Come In and See My House, or if you watch the Michael Jackson special where part of it he’s walking through, they shut down an entire high-end showroom of something, he’s like, I’ll take 2 of those and one of those. And it’s like, he’s not even like, it’s a Ming vase. He doesn’t even like it. Money doesn’t matter kind of idea. So you’re talking showrooms for the people that outfit these houses and, and yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
17:38

Yeah. And then not only do I get the client, I have the showroom.

JOHN CLENDENNING
17:45

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
17:46

And sometimes I do I’ll give the showroom, the person that referred me, a, um, a kickback.

JOHN CLENDENNING
18:00

Okay.

MARK GOODMAN
18:01

I hate that word, but we all know.

JOHN CLENDENNING
18:02

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
18:03

I’ll give him 10%.

JOHN CLENDENNING
18:06

10? Okay.

MARK GOODMAN
18:07

Yeah. Yep.

JOHN CLENDENNING
18:09

And is that a formal relationship you have with some— like, some of them will keep it— like, everybody’s different. Some people go, you know what, love you, Mark. Yeah, just that’s cool. Other ones want it sort of like, I will refer you, here’s my, you know, I will give them this code. And if, you know, whatever. Do you have some formal ones? Or is it all kind of, you know, old boy club, word of mouth?

MARK GOODMAN
18:29

Nothing formal about it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
18:31

Okay.

MARK GOODMAN
18:34

And then what that does is it leaves me the door open where I just Call them and say, hey, you know, John, how you doing? How’s business? Yeah, I could do for you. Do you have any clients you want to refer me to?

JOHN CLENDENNING
18:50

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
18:51

Um, you know, and they’ll usually say, yeah, um, I have a client that is waiting for the delivery, but I want you to protect everything before it gets to the house. Perfect.

JOHN CLENDENNING
19:10

Yep. So yeah, I used to do that with, um, so I, I was into Theater Town, like there’s the theater crowd, right, on all this kind of stuff. So Shakespeare in Theater Town. And so obviously when I realized that early on, I need to know every interior designer, every bed and breakfast back in the day before the days of Airbnb, all that kind of stuff, all the high-end hotels. But yeah, every interior designer. How I got into them is I called them up and introduced myself and did all that. But I also just brought coffees and met, just chatted up between jobs or between outs and abouts with the reupholsterers.

JOHN CLENDENNING
19:45

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
19:46

Because interior designers love putting the most expensive and hardest to clean fabric on an item. And there is very few people that knew how to do it. And I would chat up the upholsterer, usually older guys that have been doing the craft for years. And they would put my business cards on the counter. They would introduce me to all the interior designers saying, if you’re putting that fabric on, you need to talk to John. Right. So it sounds like a similar, you know, know a lot of people, the right people, and stay in touch with them and be, be real.

MARK GOODMAN
20:19

And also, when I did get phone calls, I wanted people to call me to pick my brain. For which materials to use.

JOHN CLENDENNING
20:34

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
20:35

Because a lot of designers don’t know shit about cleaning.

JOHN CLENDENNING
20:40

They don’t know crap at all. You’re right.

MARK GOODMAN
20:43

And what they want to use. Yeah. So I love—

JOHN CLENDENNING
20:50

I’m glad to hear now that Haitian cotton isn’t their go-to anymore. Do you remember those days? Like, go back You know, 20— everybody put Haitian cotton in everything and nobody knew how to clean it back in the day. We were like one of the few.

MARK GOODMAN
21:00

So each set opened up.

JOHN CLENDENNING
21:02

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
21:04

Oh, a blue one, a green one, a yellow one, a red one. Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
21:09

Yep. Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
21:11

I come out every so often.

JOHN CLENDENNING
21:14

Yeah. So right now you’ve got the carpet company sort of running like that way where you’ve got people that are still making those connections and staying In those referral partner relationships, again, as casual as you guys have them, but you’re introducing yourself around. How many— like Howard Partridge talked about that for years as well. How, like, how aggressive or active would you say sort of staying in touch with the ones you know, keeping them educated, helping them out anywhere you can? Is it a monthly just to check in every 3 months and then finding new ones, like finding a new showroom, finding a new interior designer so that you keep that that, that, that pond stocked kind of idea and not just hang your hat on 2 or 3 and one of them retires or, you know, moves away and next thing you know, you’re down? Like, how did you— how have you kept the momentum?

MARK GOODMAN
22:05

What I love about designers is they have staff.

JOHN CLENDENNING
22:09

Yes.

MARK GOODMAN
22:09

And the staff, uh, once— and they always go off on their own.

JOHN CLENDENNING
22:15

Okay. So, so one becomes 2 becomes—

MARK GOODMAN
22:18

Yes.

JOHN CLENDENNING
22:19

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
22:20

Yeah. So there’s a couple really big designers that I worked for and, uh, I got an email the other day and, um, I knew the designer died, but all of her little, uh, the girls, all the helpers all went off on their own. So yeah, I like when that happens because It’s not even a sale. They already— yeah, they’re calling me because they know that their boss relied on me. And they saw our work.

JOHN CLENDENNING
22:58

Yeah. So, and that’s so what I tell a lot of people nowadays, because, you know, we’re in that age bracket, to be straight up, where the younger crowd is like, how we run our business is how, again, how dad would have run a business, how grandpa would have run a business. And you actually literally have dad and grandpa in the business. I didn’t, I was First generation in cleaning. But it’s, you know, the old days when business owners talked to business owners and knew each other and referred each other and trusted each other. Not saying that the internet broke that, but there’s a lot of people that hid behind, let me just try and be a brand, right? Maybe franchising didn’t help this as well because they all try and hide behind a brand. But even in a franchise, the owner should put himself out there in the public to be the expert in the category, right? If you’re in cleaning and textiles, how do you educate the public anywhere you can? Because when you come across being the one they can go to like that, the thought leader, then it is where the staff says, hey, or you’ve got a property manager and he leaves this building and goes to that one. Not only did he hand you off to the other guy, Because, hey, I’ve always used these guys.

JOHN CLENDENNING
24:10

They’re great. He goes to the new building and says, by the way, I want to bring my carpet cleaning company with me because they’re better than the guys you got. Right?

MARK GOODMAN
24:18

And that’s the case. Yes.

JOHN CLENDENNING
24:20

Yeah. If you can. Yeah. If it can happen, like you want to build that little bit of a muscle. So, yeah. Yeah. So, to get into the— and this is what we tell a lot of our— the people that follow me is, How do you get into these higher-end neighborhoods when they don’t trust the commodity marketing? 80%, 90% of carpet cleaners, 3 rooms in a hall, $99, $169, you know, $199, whatever they’re up to these days. And your vans will be rusty.

JOHN CLENDENNING
24:56

You can’t keep a business like that. You can’t keep enough employees like that. You can’t make enough money like that to whatever. But that’s what everybody sees, so they think that’s the business, and they try and get into these neighborhoods. They have no clue how to get into it because they think it’s the same thing. Oh, let’s just put coupons on their doorstep. And I don’t think there is somebody living on Golf Course Road that cares about a $99 special carpet cleaning coupon. It’s the wrong message.

MARK GOODMAN
25:19

Yeah, you’d be surprised. Yeah, we’re paying you thousands And this guy’s going to do the same thing for $99.

JOHN CLENDENNING
25:31

Yeah. Yeah. And again, it is that relationship with the house manager or the person that trusts you. Like if they trust the interior designer and the interior designer trusts you, you’ve come across that bridge, right? So now you’ve got the— you’ve got at least the foot in the door with a bit of authority and then you can start your game.

MARK GOODMAN
25:52

Well, the other thing is Like you said, people know the name. I—

JOHN CLENDENNING
25:57

yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
25:59

So I have that first, then I come with the designer, and then the showroom selling them the products are referring me to.

JOHN CLENDENNING
26:08

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
26:09

So, um, you got 3 different, uh, avenues of—

JOHN CLENDENNING
26:14

Yeah. And what do you, what do you think was the biggest way for the, for you to get the name out? Because that is like that brand awareness. helps everything. Like, people doing pay-per-click in smaller markets and, and stuff like that, where they— if you know the brand, your pay-per-click works twice as good. If you’re the best-known cleaner in the marketplace, your door hangers, your every-door mail, even like into the right neighborhoods, like everything works better because you have a brand awareness to start with. Um, how did you get the name out there first? Obviously your dad, but then FiberMark. And because that, that’s a whole new name, that’s a whole new product, right? And A whole new business. How did you, how did you get the name out there so that you did have a bit of name equity in the marketplace?

MARK GOODMAN
26:55

I had trucks that were lettered.

JOHN CLENDENNING
26:58

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
26:59

I would walk into, I’d walk into showrooms, into real estate agencies.

JOHN CLENDENNING
27:07

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
27:08

Hit the carpets and upholstery and I’d say, I can get that spot out. Yeah, I can do right now and I’m going to do for free. All I ask is you refer me.

JOHN CLENDENNING
27:23

Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s— yeah, because give to get. Bob Burg, The Go-Giver. I recommend that book to anybody. Listen to it if you don’t read, right? You’re in the truck all day long or you’re driving around, you’re out doing these, these meet and greets. Listen, like, learn that I can take that out for free. I want to give you a bit of value, some value to start this relationship off. If you lead with a giving hand, it comes across way more genuine.

MARK GOODMAN
27:51

So, my father and I, when we split, it wasn’t a good split.

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:00

Okay.

MARK GOODMAN
28:00

So, going off on my own, I went into some furniture showrooms. And, uh, I looked at the owner and said, I can clean anything in this showroom and I’m gonna give you 2 days for free.

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:24

Wow. Bold.

MARK GOODMAN
28:26

All I ask is that you refer me.

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:29

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
28:29

The first day he gave me 5 referrals. And, and I started a relationship where he allowed me to set up a shop in the back of his building.

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:42

Oh, wow.

MARK GOODMAN
28:43

And within the first month, I had a key to the place.

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:48

That’s awesome.

MARK GOODMAN
28:51

He hooked me up with a company called Soil Shield.

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:56

Okay.

MARK GOODMAN
28:57

Soil Shield was a protection company Where if you had it sprayed by Soil Shield, if the spot didn’t come out, they would, they would replace whatever the item of furniture was.

JOHN CLENDENNING
29:19

Wow. Yeah. So a solid warranty because they backed their product well. Yep.

MARK GOODMAN
29:25

Yeah. They backed it with me.

JOHN CLENDENNING
29:27

Yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah. So what got you so confident? Because I know you do like, you do the heirloom stuff and the specialty fabric care and high-end furnishings. And we’ve talked about that already, but that is one of your, like, your company’s claim to fame. How did you get so confident in that ability to walk in and make that statement? Because The reason, again, nobody else did that. You stood out like, hey, I’m willing to do this for free. I’m willing to build the relationship with you and prove myself to you. And you had the confidence to do it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:05

Where did the confidence come from?

MARK GOODMAN
30:07

Ego.

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:09

Okay. Any training at all or just ego? Like, how did you know you weren’t gonna turn a Haitian cotton couch brown?

MARK GOODMAN
30:19

Sometimes I did.

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:21

Okay.

MARK GOODMAN
30:22

And then I had to fix it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:25

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
30:26

So, you know, on-site training.

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:30

Yeah. On-the-job training. It’s like build the plane on the way down training. Yeah, that’s awesome.

MARK GOODMAN
30:39

I protected this wall that had 3-foot by 2-foot panels. That were padded and the wall itself was— they used the wall as a headboard.

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:54

Okay.

MARK GOODMAN
30:55

It protected it and it left lines and it’s because the sprayer nozzle was—

JOHN CLENDENNING
31:04

Oh, yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
31:05

Yeah. Well, the problem was the designer called me later and said, Mark, we’ve got a big problem. I went back to the house and the guy I was with, he goes, Mark, let’s just overspray it. So we sprayed the whole wall again and overspread it much heavier. Just blend it in.

JOHN CLENDENNING
31:29

Turn the whole thing into one big line basically.

MARK GOODMAN
31:33

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
31:36

I think you’re right, part of it is sort of being willing to be smart enough to be willing to take that risk, but jump in and do it. A friend of mine, PJ, in Auckland, New Zealand, had one of the buildings he does clean. He works for high-end buildings and high-end properties and stuff like that. And one of the commercial buildings there asked him if he happened to know anything about drive or the parking lot line painting, just as an example. And PJ went, you know what? Let me look into that for you. Came back and he said, you know what? I think we can do that for you. And one of my guys is willing to do it. So he, they secured the contract, bought the equipment, did the lines.

JOHN CLENDENNING
32:18

One of his guys wanted, didn’t mind, you know, sort of doing that kind of stuff as well. They do commercial and residential and industrial sort of cleaning and stuff like that. And yeah, and have a whole new line of business that they want now. The job paid for the equipment. The the the the equipment he needed. The the set—it’s it’s a lot of labor and a little bit of machinery. And now he’s got a something else he can offer because he does commercial buildings and stuff like that. And and um yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
32:44

So again, that idea just be willing to help and learn and and do so. And then yeah, doesn’t hurt to have a little bit of ego or confidence to say hey, because that walking in the door is the. Is the, is a key that people miss, to be honest, right? How did I get to $10,000 a month in 1995 as a kid that just came off the road in a, in a rock band? Well, Tony Robbins, Awake the Giant Within, because I’m shy. I hated talking to people. So I moved to a new town. I wouldn’t know anybody other than my sister and my brother-in-law, rented a broom closet and just started walking up and down the street doing exactly what I did. I’m willing, I’m here, I want to introduce myself and I’m willing to take a free spot out. Free spots and stands, right? Some of them I got referrals, some of them I— some of them turned into great relationships.

JOHN CLENDENNING
33:32

The one hotel I walked into, the mother that, like, she owned the hotel, but father had died, kids were running it, like a big, big hotel around the theater. And Eleanor turned out to— they gave me a try on one hallway, and it turns out Eleanor knew everybody, ran the town almost. And took me under her wing, saw this young kid and had me clean the house. Thought I was, you know, again, nice relationship. And she said, are you part of the Airbnb Association? You’re part of the Property Manager Association, whatever? No. Well, I am. I’m going to take you to the next meetings with me. Right? Had I met hundreds of people before I met Eleanor? Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
34:14

But I continued to meet people and then I met Eleanor and then I continued to meet a lot more people.

MARK GOODMAN
34:19

Yeah, absolutely.

JOHN CLENDENNING
34:21

Yeah. So there might be an Eleanor, or there might be a, you know, one of these designers. There might be the 50th person you meet. It might be the 2nd. It might be the 100th. So just keep going. Yeah, right. That’s the growth.

JOHN CLENDENNING
34:36

That, like, let them get the name out there in today’s world, online, offline, everywhere. Walk in the door, but just be— grow the business again the way grandpa and dad would show up. Don’t hide behind, you know, you know, I need a Google ad, I need a Facebook ad. You can do that to promote the brand. Sure, get the word out. But again, if they know you already, they will pick that ad. If they don’t know you already, now it’s a crapshoot. Now your ad costs are way through the roof as well, right? So that’s all part of it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
35:08

So how big is the company right now? Like how many, how many Staff? Does the cleaners, the crew?

MARK GOODMAN
35:17

And 2 people in the office.

JOHN CLENDENNING
35:20

And how many on the road? Sorry.

MARK GOODMAN
35:21

6.

JOHN CLENDENNING
35:22

6. Perfect. Yeah. And there, do you have different levels of competence? Like if somebody’s going out to do an heirloom something, is that certain guys in the company versus everybody cross-trained and know how to do the fancier stuff that you would have known how to do?

MARK GOODMAN
35:38

When you say cross-train, that’s an interesting term, and the reason being is the, these, the cleaning has a simplicity to it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
35:52

Mm-hmm.

MARK GOODMAN
35:54

Through the years, I’ve noticed a lot of times you don’t need all these chemicals, and you can get away with that. hand tool often with a lot of spots. And you learn just by using water or something that’s non-soapy to fix things.

JOHN CLENDENNING
36:21

Yeah. And I think part of that is the higher end the stuff is, the better it started anyways. So in a lot of cases, again, except for these Haitian cottons, if you know, like how to use them. But there is a sort of a low-end builder’s grade something is, you know, terrible. But a high-end luxury— Well, there are—

MARK GOODMAN
36:41

yeah, there’s a little bit silk things you got to be careful with. And then of course, the 4-letter word viscose.

JOHN CLENDENNING
36:54

Yep. Gotta love those viscose area rugs and And rayon furniture and oh my gosh.

MARK GOODMAN
37:01

Yeah. Yeah. Fortunately, people don’t really want to hear what you say about viscose because the rug cost them 20 grand through the— oh, she told me it was silk. Yeah. Don’t be mad at her because she was probably told it was silk also. Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
37:24

So now do you do, do you run them in an area rug? Like the area rugs that you do, are they back at an area rug shop? Do you do a, like, do you take them out and do plant cleaning on them?

MARK GOODMAN
37:31

Yes. Yeah. Got a 7,000-foot building. Yeah. I don’t have any of the fancy pits and dryers and spinners and— no, no, I do have a rack to hang things when I’m done. But being in Santa Monica, I have every environment law there. I can’t even wash my trucks.

JOHN CLENDENNING
38:01

Do you dust them at least? Do you use the Rug Badger or one of those? Do you do the grid and the shaking?

MARK GOODMAN
38:09

I had Dusty come out to my shop Yeah. And he did a hard sell, my father and I, and, uh, we bought one, but we returned it soon after. It just wasn’t for us. Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
38:32

Yeah. So, so you don’t even bother with that sort of thing. It’s like, again, as you said, keep it simple has been your, your, your claim to fame is like, don’t be like— there’s a lot of people that, that as technicians of the industry, they’re almost technician first. They’re, they’re really happy with their zipper wand and their, their XPSI truck and their— and which is great, but the customer doesn’t, doesn’t necessarily see that, that massive difference as a, you know, in, in the end result. Because it, as we always know, it’s, it’s the person doing the cleaning and their attention to detail That still becomes one of the most important aspects of it. Yeah. Is the right person on the job.

MARK GOODMAN
39:14

You could have the right person using a portable and the right person using a truck mount. Yeah. Great job. And then, so I don’t own a truck mount. I used to. Yeah. But, um, personally I like truck mounts. I like the heat.

MARK GOODMAN
39:34

I like the suction.

JOHN CLENDENNING
39:36

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
39:37

Unliness. And we only use portables because we do only, you know, 90% residential.

JOHN CLENDENNING
39:51

Yeah. Yeah. And I think in the houses that you’re in as well, like that whole hoses through the house and all the way, like, if you can just take— if you can move from this wing to that wing and here to there, it, it, it, it kind of— there is an efficiency to not having tied up to one machine roaring in the driveway, right?

MARK GOODMAN
40:10

So the presentation isn’t great. Yeah, the door is open, you have a loud noise, you have water dripping. Um, there’s nothing pretty about that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
40:24

Yep. And yeah, I agree. Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
40:29

And I’ve hired companies to come into my home that are tripping.

JOHN CLENDENNING
40:36

Yeah. Now, did you do that as a sort of almost like a mystery shop to see how they’re doing? Or what was the reason why you brought other people in? Yeah. So, no, sorry. And I agree. I think we all need to do that as well. I mean, if we’re not mystery shopping our competitors on how they’re answering the phones, how they’re pricing, how they’re working with clients. We just always think we’re the best, which is great, but we should also be the best with a little bit of governance to know, hey, somebody’s starting to come up and nip at my heels, right? Let’s see what they’re all about so that I can learn from them if I need to, or at least understand when I’m educating my clients, we do this, most of the others do this, and you come from a place of knowing, not just guessing.

MARK GOODMAN
41:19

So yeah. Yeah. The, the other reason I use someone else is because, um, I live 30 miles away from my shop. Yep. And my dad, my dad was about 45 and he was getting 3 guys to clean his home. I said, no, you’re not. I said, we’re gonna hire a company over by you.

JOHN CLENDENNING
41:45

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
41:46

He goes, I want another company. But it doesn’t make any sense. Yeah, I have 3 guys that can make money for us. And pay the other guy, it’s gonna be cheaper anyway.

JOHN CLENDENNING
42:02

Yeah. That’s interesting. Yeah, especially at that distance. Yeah, keep the guys busy where they are. They’re gonna be happier too. It’s okay to go and clean the boss’s house or whatever, you know. But It’s always— they prefer not to as well. The technicians are, you know what I mean? Like, it’s— yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
42:17

So good, good on both ends. You got a bit of mystery shopping going on and you also keep the guys in their lane as well. So yeah. Yeah. So yeah, go ahead.

MARK GOODMAN
42:28

I have them come to my house and clean and I actually train them while they’re here. Okay.

JOHN CLENDENNING
42:36

So And who does the training now? Because I, I get— I know you’re, you’re trying to work from home and stuff like that. Who, like, as the company has matured and as you’ve, like, you’re well established, um, do you have like a technician manager that’s been around for, for years that trains the other guys? Is it a rotation like we talked about earlier? How do you kind of make sure the new— the newest guy in the door, um, gets up to speed because of, you know, yeah, needs to be congenial, but he also has to do a great, great job. You know, he’s got to treat the homeowner like he’s their nephew or grandson, you know what I mean? Kind of idea. You got, you got to have the right people that can present and, and also have the app— the attitude to want to deliver that great result.

MARK GOODMAN
43:21

Yeah, that’s the most important is you need someone that wants to do a good job. Yeah. Because I tell people, you are your worst Yeah. I mean, if I can make me happy, I know that the client’s gonna be happy.

JOHN CLENDENNING
43:38

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
43:39

So, and as— question about who, um, we cross-train.

JOHN CLENDENNING
43:47

Okay.

MARK GOODMAN
43:47

Meaning you could go out with this guy this day, this guy, uh, the other day. Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
43:54

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
43:55

They’ll learn different ways to do everything.

JOHN CLENDENNING
43:59

Yeah. And how many guys are typically on a job? Because you’re in the bigger homes, I don’t think it’d be a lot of one guy on a job getting bogged down forever. Like, do you send multi-crews out to the bigger jobs, bigger homes, if they’re doing, you know, a large swath of upholstery and carpets or whatever?

MARK GOODMAN
44:19

Um, typically 2 guys in a truck. Yeah. Sometimes we’ll have 2 trucks going somewhere depending on how big.

JOHN CLENDENNING
44:38

Yeah. And what is the mix of services right now then? Like, so because again, with those house managers and stuff like that and interior designers, they kind of like to know that you They can call somebody. You do the area rugs, you’ll do the heirloom furniture and stuff like that. What else do you like? You know, and the carpets, obviously. But what else do you do? Like, do you get into the tile and grout cleaning or the stone floor cleaning? No. Do you refer somebody for that that you trust, or do you leave that to them?

MARK GOODMAN
45:06

I refer to them and I tell them if he doesn’t start reciprocating, I’m gonna stop. Yeah, I tell everybody, I said, well, it doesn’t work. Yeah, I told him how to do it. I said, Jim— James, you know how you’re doing all the floors? You’re typically doing the entry, right? Well, what’s in the entry before you do the floor?

JOHN CLENDENNING
45:34

Those area rugs.

MARK GOODMAN
45:35

Yeah, I said, why don’t you just always tell them That you’re going to get this clean for them. Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
45:49

Yeah. No, again, I think that’s part of that, that whole— the right people in our lives know the right people. If they do a good job and are willing to work and referable, like if they’re referable, they should be willing to reciprocate anyways, because that becomes that relationship that we Like we all know about, right? So it’s like the, again, the old folks used to, you know, the, the old business owners, the guys would sit around the barbershop on Saturday with the butcher over here and the whatever, you know, you sit and chat and tell stories and refer each other and, you know, all of that kind of stuff like that became what BNI groups eventually. And that whole idea is, can you, can you know somebody you can trust to refer and make it a rewarding, a win-win relationship for both sides? So, so what other services? So we got the carpet, the upholstery, the area rug. Is there anything else on that? Do you do any draperies? Do you do it like— is there any like, where does it end?

MARK GOODMAN
46:46

We will do draperies. I don’t like doing them.

JOHN CLENDENNING
46:51

No, they’ve always sucked. But yeah, do you do them in place or do you take them out?

MARK GOODMAN
46:56

I do not take them up or down.

JOHN CLENDENNING
46:58

Good. Yeah, that is, that is the moment where every clip decides it wants to break. And, you know, it’s Yeah. So yeah, good call on that one. You guys do leather as well? Like leather cleaning, restoration, things like that? Any—

MARK GOODMAN
47:11

Yes.

JOHN CLENDENNING
47:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that’s a big service because again, people in higher-end homes have their leather and they still have their dogs and cats that want to scratch on this or whatever. They spill something on that, they don’t know it’s— they didn’t know they got nubuck. They didn’t know they got, you know, aniline dye. They don’t— it doesn’t have a coating on it. They didn’t realize that. You know, that that bagel, you know, butter and cream cheese size down is going to actually leave a mark. You know, on their on their their leather and stuff like that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
47:41

So so knowing how to clean it one thing, knowing how to actually restore it and be a little bit more more in that level does definitely put you in front of interior designers and higher end people as well. That’s a skill to that’s that’s a specialty that the rest. of the crowd will choose not to learn, probably. Right? Right. So all of those things. So, so yeah, so I think, yeah, go ahead.

MARK GOODMAN
48:09

Yeah. Do it myself. Yeah. I outsource several things that we do. Okay. I outsource my drapers, I outsource my leather, I outsource my air duct cleaning.

JOHN CLENDENNING
48:29

Okay.

MARK GOODMAN
48:31

Now, on the other hand, I know how to do all this work, and because I know how to explain it, um, it’s, it’s an easier sell. So if you’re going to use some other, uh, vendor, yeah, best to be taught how to do it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
48:52

Yeah. Yeah. And do you— so do you get a commission or like a— is that 10 or 20% that you take for giving them the work?

MARK GOODMAN
49:01

No. Nope. Typically, I’ll almost double their cost.

JOHN CLENDENNING
49:07

Gotcha. Okay. Even better than I thought. I was gonna say, no, I do it for free. I’m going, no, you don’t. So, so yeah, so you can sell better. So you get to They’re going to charge it. And do you just bill directly and pay them? Or do they know what they’re getting, what you’re getting paid? Like, do you keep— like, how do you— how public do you keep that between you and them?

MARK GOODMAN
49:25

I don’t. Yeah. So they know what I’m doing. Yep. Sometimes they will collect for me. Oh, good. I always collect the same day. Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
49:40

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
49:41

Yep. That’s cool. And so good relationship for them. They’re getting paid their rate, which is great. It’s not like they have to give you a kickback off their rate. You’re getting paid because you have the client relationship. If they tried to steal the client, not talking to anybody, you know, Mark at Rainbow back in the day, trying to give him work to re-dye carpets and fix bleach spots. And next thing you know, he’s pitching to steal the client.

JOHN CLENDENNING
50:04

Well, guess what? Mark never got from me ever again. You know what I mean? Like, you know, you’re not referring somebody who’s going to try and steal your clients because We were giving them quite a bit of work until we gave them zero, you know what I mean? So yeah, honorable people with the right attitude and understanding that there’s an in with you to get work, and especially if they don’t have to discount their prices, it’s like their full rate, you get more, win-win for everybody. So yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
50:30

To give you an example, air ducts last year, Was $145,000.

JOHN CLENDENNING
50:40

Yeah. Your take on it for, for jobbing it out to somebody else.

MARK GOODMAN
50:46

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
50:46

Yeah, exactly. So, and again, we do know the houses that you’re in aren’t just— some of them aren’t just one system, right? Like heating or cooling or whatever. It’s like the bigger the house, the more you got 3 furnace, 3 or 4 furnace systems, 3 of them. And you’ve got, you know, the guy has to know what they’re doing. They have to know how to do zone bags, just almost like commercial. They have to, they have to understand the system well enough. So you’re going to be trusting the right person in there anyways. That’s a better business owner already who isn’t just, you know, a guy with a pig nose blower or a van with billows on it who just wants to rattle through a bunch of dryer vents and some, you know, quick 10-register houses.

JOHN CLENDENNING
51:25

You know what I mean? So, yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
51:27

Yeah. A house that had 200 registers.

JOHN CLENDENNING
51:32

Wow. Yeah. Huge. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think it would be better to job that out to somebody who loves doing that than it is to try and either have a crew that will do it for you consistently, or we both know that the ideal carpet cleaning tech who works on fabric and upholstery and area rugs and stuff like that isn’t necessarily the ideal duct cleaning tech. It’s a different, it’s a whole different service, a different feeling about it. Everything about it is like, yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
52:05

And it’s the guy that’s good with upholstery and fabrics and stuff like that finds it way too mechanical and, you know, industrial for them. Right. So it’s not, not their specialty at all.

MARK GOODMAN
52:16

Yeah. Because I mean, you have guys that are better at upholstery and better at carpets.

JOHN CLENDENNING
52:23

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
52:24

So yeah, I jumped across the people.

JOHN CLENDENNING
52:30

Yeah. No, that’s a good way to do it. That’s that again. No, no. What your, your limitations. Again, my buddy PJ painting lines now, he’s got one guy. Maybe at some point that guy spins off, you know, PJ just becomes an investor and the guy runs the whole business and does that because he likes that. But that’s not a guy that likes to deal with area rugs and meticulous cleaning.

JOHN CLENDENNING
52:48

That’s a guy that likes more of the— on his team that also doesn’t mind doing, you know, industrial cleanups and things like that, right? That’s his thing. So if you get one good, if they leave, you’ve got a problem, right? So it is better to sort of say, hey, I can— I’ve got somebody who wants to do this for the next 20 years. Why don’t we just give them the work? And I, as you said, you can sell the customer, your team could sell the customer at the better pricing anyways. So. Yeah, my—

MARK GOODMAN
53:17

yeah, good. My leather guy I met working for my father, and then I stopped working with my dad. I went off on my own, and when my dad would get a phone call for leather, he’d send the guy out to give the bid, and I’d give the bid myself. And yeah, I knew what his numbers were. Yeah, but it’s funny because, um, I would give my bid and 9 times out of 10 I would get the job over the same guy. So the only issue I had was when we got the job, the same guy would go out and do my work.

JOHN CLENDENNING
54:06

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
54:07

That was only an issue a couple of times.

JOHN CLENDENNING
54:09

Yeah. Well, who was it that said— I can’t remember who it was, but you’re— the price you charge is all related to your ability to sell, right? I would put an ethics in there, like ethically sell. Like there’s obviously, you know, you’re going to do the job better, guarantee it more, do it like— do it just like— again, they’re, they’re, they’re buying the brand FiberMark, Mark the Carpetbagger. going to make sure it’s done, done well. And for that, there is a surcharge, there is a premium. Like you’re providing the better brand, the better service, the better, all of that. So there is like, again, that’s why, that’s why you can get a coffee at McDonald’s for 99 cents or whatever, but you can also buy, you know, a fufu latte, whatever, at Starbucks or, or beyond, even the higher end at like $20. It’s still caffeine in a cup, but the difference is the presentation, the feel, the education.

JOHN CLENDENNING
55:09

We’re humans. We buy on emotion and then try and justify with logic afterwards. And as long as when we sell, if we can sell it that way, you know?

MARK GOODMAN
55:17

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
55:18

Here’s what I’d like you to, you know, here’s the feelings I would like to, you know, imprint upon you so that when you make a decision, you’re based on, I think, I feel Mark’s going to do a better job and his company’s going to be— and again, if the guy that shows up is the same guy, So be it, you know what I mean? But it’s— you sold them, you know, a value that will have them coming back. Like, if you’re too goofy high, they won’t come back next time anyways. So, you’ve got to be reasonable, but you do not have to be a commodity at all.

MARK GOODMAN
55:47

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
55:48

Right. So, what would you say, like, kind of famous last words, you’ve met a lot of carpet cleaners over the years. You’ve met a lot of people in our industry. You’ve seen, you know, Guy, competitors in your area come and go. And what would you say to the younger class of guys in our industry, the guys that are in their late 20s, early 30s, having just gotten into this, been into this for the, you know, next, you know, last 4 or 5, 6 years and haven’t really got to any sort of growth or scale. They’re kind of still figuring themselves out. What kind of advice would you give to the, you know, those guys going back to the, you know, the 28, 29, 30-year-old, you know, Mark Goodman himself? What would you say to these guys is really where they should hang their hat, chase the business if they’re going to—

MARK GOODMAN
56:40

You might want to join some of these places like the CFI.

JOHN CLENDENNING
56:48

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
56:49

The Cleaning Fabricator Institute, uh, because you’re gonna meet people that wanna help you. Mm-hmm. And it’s a great place to learn.

JOHN CLENDENNING
57:00

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
57:00

And yep, you can look on the internet and, and watch a lot of videos, but I would say one of the best places is probably the CFI has meetings every month. And, or you could find like yourself, I’m sorry, yourself and stuff. We are very approachable.

JOHN CLENDENNING
57:34

Yeah. And I think it is an education thing. I think you’ve got to be a student of life and a student of business. It’s if you’re driving around in your truck and you’re listening to country music, heavy metal, K-pop, I don’t care what it is, or you’re driving around learning how to, during the day, how to grow a business, how to think, how to sell better, how to communicate better. Like you’re upping your skills just like you would if you are a doctor, you have to go back for continuing education. You’re in real estate, you have to go back. You’re in insurance, right? It’s all required to maintain your certificate. In carpet cleaning, it’s— or your own business, running your own service business, it kind of isn’t.

JOHN CLENDENNING
58:17

But, and I think a lot of people forget that there are things like, like you should join the associations, you should get around the other people that are pushing themselves forward, learning their craft better. You have, you have that resource that way and learning how to sell and grow a business better.

MARK GOODMAN
58:35

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
58:35

Because we are in an industry that, 85% never get out of the truck. 2% only ever sell it for the price of the trucks, and less than half of 1% make it past 7 figures. Well, why is that? Like, well, a lot of that is because we kind of get in our own way and think we know everything and don’t learn the missing pieces from the people that have already gone there, right? We might learn how to clean something on the forum, but we haven’t learned how to build the business. From somebody who has grown an enterprise like you. One of the reasons why we do these podcasts, right, is to say, hey, let’s, let’s change your mindset a little bit. There is who you know, how you meet them, how you approach them.

MARK GOODMAN
59:16

All that. I had another cleaner come to me and go, Mark, I want to buy your business. And what I’ve learned by talking to you Is that I spent way too much of my time learning how to clean. And I didn’t spend enough time learning the business. And I should have done it your way. And honestly, I never thought of it that way.

JOHN CLENDENNING
59:51

Yeah. But you, on your own, credit where credit is due. I started in a town of 30,000 people and had to hustle to a million-dollar business because I didn’t know what I didn’t know. You started in the right town with the right people, you know, and understood this, the gift of going out and introducing and meeting people and the gift of sales and the gift of conversation is invaluable. There’s like, it opens so many doors. So, The more you can do that, even if you’re doing it red-faced at first because you feel like a fraud or a phony at first, whatever, the more you can do that, the more you’ll stand out against everybody else who just won’t.

MARK GOODMAN
1:00:35

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:00:36

Yeah. Cool. All right. Well, I appreciate the conversation. I will definitely publish this out everywhere. If anybody has any questions or anything like that for Mark, obviously, as always, comment in the comments on Spotify, YouTube, whatever. We’ll pass them along to him. Um, you know, keep an eye on what he’s doing, watch everything that’s going on.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:00:56

Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
1:00:57

Yeah. And there’s a couple people that I mentor that I met in the CFI.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:01:04

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:01:05

And, uh, yeah, find a mentor for sure. Like, I mean, if you’re mentoring people, my, my gosh, great for them, you know what I mean? Like, and I had mentors early in the day and then became a mentor. Same idea. Like, it’s like You know, give back, right? The go-giver again. But, you know, I had people that took me under their wing when I was, you know, 26, 27 and met Dr. John Harvey, who was a CEO and a business consultant who happened to own a cleaning business on the side. I met him at that, but then learned business from him. You know what I mean? Because I was a guitarist in a band, not a university graduate, right? As they say.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:01:40

So, you know what I mean? It’s like, do that and engage. Know your competitors, meet them. be friends with as many as you can, as long as they’re not assholes, right? Like, make a community out of it. You might be able to get a hand. You might find that duct cleaner, that, you know, the guy that can help out with the other stuff that, you know, and create that relationship because you’ve met. And, you know, we actually used to have meetups at the Jack Astor’s and, you know, just a bunch of carpet cleaners. Let’s get together and have some wings and talk shop and laugh. you know, once every couple months kind of idea, just decades ago, 20, 30 years ago, just to know a few of them.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:02:21

Not everybody showed up, but the word got out to everybody. You were allowed to, we could have conversations. Yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
1:02:26

That’s the reason I go to these, uh, CFI meetings is to catch up with my friends. Yeah. And everybody, like even yourself, came at me with, you know, cleaner to the stars. Yeah, I mean, you’ve got— I’ve got a couple.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:02:49

Yeah, you’ve got a lot of wisdom to share, and I appreciate, I appreciate you jumping on this call. Any famous last words before we let you go? Anything that you want to put out to the audience that, you know, anything at all, any connections, any sage advice?

MARK GOODMAN
1:03:03

Baby steps. Okay. When you clean, baby steps. Don’t think you know it all. Yeah. And that you can clean anything you want. Baby step it. You get in trouble when you think you know it all.

MARK GOODMAN
1:03:22

Yeah. I’m the only one that’s ever used my insurance.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:03:29

That’s telling right there. So you’re the only one that the team’s not allowed to screw up? You’ll give it the run.

MARK GOODMAN
1:03:37

Well, it’s because being the owner allows you a little more leeway. The problem was, again, my ego cost me about $4,000. I thought for sure I could clean these elevator corridors, and I did. But I also lighten them all up. Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:04:08

So yeah, not bad. I’ve— we’ve had it where I bought a Haitian couch, loveseat, and chair. One of our technicians was left on the job and shouldn’t have been, and too early on. So we, we bought it through insurance, had to replace it, but I made sure we got it back at the shop and it became the the learn how to clean Haitian cotton pieces. Like we would just soak them, destroy them, yellow them, get them back again, teach the guys so that as we ran into that, they were just more skilled. Right. So every time, every now and then a mistake could be a learning experience too, for everything else. So.

MARK GOODMAN
1:04:44

Yeah. If you don’t learn through your mistakes, there’s your mistake.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:04:49

Yeah. There we go. I think that’s the title of our podcast too. That’s exactly it. So, yeah.

MARK GOODMAN
1:04:58

John, thank you so much.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:05:00

Hey, no, I appreciate the chat as always, my friend. And yeah, for everybody else, just any questions for Mark, then just in the comments, we’ll pass them along. And yeah, join your local association and get involved and be the guy that stands out in your marketplace because we know most of them won’t. So, with that said, thanks for staying, sticking around for the Carpet Cleaning Success Podcast, and we will see you all next time.

Aim for 45% or higher. With strong scripts, fast response, and good follow-up, top operators can reach 50–55%. Anything less signals room for improvement.

JOHN CLENDENNING
0:04

Okay, so I changed it up a little bit. Chris, if you’re listening, you didn’t get your cheer this time. So you can call me and say, dude, I need to hear the cheer. For everybody else, you have no clue what I’m talking about. That’s fine. But yes, we don’t have the cheer. We had the drum roll this time. So this is going to be a funny statement as we move into today’s topic.

JOHN CLENDENNING
0:22

So you’ve heard me say, and I will probably harp on it throughout this entire presentation because I do every single time. I have talked to thousands and thousands and thousands of cleaners, carpet cleaners, duct cleaning, pressure washing, maid service. The industry I’m in, the industry I’ve ran for 30 years, the industry I’ve coached for 20 years, the industry I’ve done digital services in for 15 years or so, and Carpet Cleaner Marketing Masters for 7 now, 6, 7. Anyways, edit it. And I will tell you straight up, 100% of the time, if you’re a cleaner and your phones are slow, you don’t have a lead problem. You don’t. Which is funny because we’re going to talk about LSA, local service ads, which is a very interesting lead source when you get it right. But I have not met a cleaning company that’s not growing that has a lead problem.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:32

They literally have a business building problem. And I want to kind of nuance that through this conversation. If you don’t believe me, hopefully by the end of this conversation you do. Go back to some of the other podcasts, buy the book on Amazon. Like, there’s a whole bunch of it. Jump into Cleanfax Magazine. Me and my buddy Jeff Cross, we talk every single month or couple times a month sometimes about all of this stuff. A little bit shorter segments there on Cleanfax, ISSA, the association we should all be members of, by the way.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:58

Join the ISSA. But yeah, what most people don’t realize is that you can’t outrun a bad business with more leads. There is no cheap source of leads. There are a lot of cheap customers that you will find at inexpensive lead sources.

JOHN CLENDENNING
2:16

Bark.

JOHN CLENDENNING
2:18

Thumbtack. Oh my gosh. If that’s even on your radar, stop right now. Learn the business you’re in. Readjust. That’s not the business you’re in. 100% not the business you’re in. I have never met a successful service business owner, home service business owner, carpet cleaner who chases leads to grow.

JOHN CLENDENNING
2:42

So, there’s a lot to unpack there. But what you need is a forever engine. We are in the client building, client retention business. That’s what cleaning is. We want to come back to the same home 1 or 3, 4, 5, 10, 20 times. We want to get $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 out of our clients. So, we need to target the ideal clients. We talked about that in June on the June call.

JOHN CLENDENNING
3:10

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
3:10

About the mid-year reset and stuff like that and setting your goals. So, go back to that one if you haven’t. If any of this is— if you’re going, amen, Jon, preaching to the choir, cool. You’re going to have a great time here today. If any of what I just said went, yeah, I don’t know if I believe him, go learn. Because literally, the numbers you always have to remember: 15, 2.5. 15% of carpet cleaners ever get out of the truck. 85% stay solopreneurs whether they want to or not.

JOHN CLENDENNING
3:43

At some point they justify it. They didn’t come into business to work harder and then also be stressed at night and wonder how to get accounts receivable and bills and blah, blah, blah, and deal with all that. They’d rather just go to work, jump in a van that somebody else pays for and maintains and fixes and doesn’t, you know, engine problems, that’s their fault, not their problem, not mine. Take a paycheck, come home, hang out with the family, cook hamburgers, steak on the barbecue, have a good weekend and all that. That’s not what business owners do. So if you’re going to be a business owner, you have all of the stress and all of the risk. Where does the reward come from? Well, the reward comes from building a great business that needs less and less of your time to make the same amount or more money and builds you something at the end that you can sell for more than 2%. 2% of cleaners sell their business for more than the price of the truck.

JOHN CLENDENNING
4:32

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
4:32

Other key point. You can sell a 1 and 2 truck business for hundreds of thousands, half a million dollars, a 3, 4 truck business for $1 million. And plus, we’ve got some clients that are growing to that, you know, $10 million mark, $10, $12 million. So they can sell to private equity for $25, $30 million because they built a great system business. That might not be you. That’s totally fine. What if you wanted to be one guy in a truck? With a helper who’s going to take over the business maybe someday. So profit sharing, something like that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
5:04

You bought your building, you’ve got your exit plan, you’re going to make half a million dollars on the way out or whatever for a great run systemized business. The E-Myth, Michael Gerber 101, go, go learn that. You’ve built all of the systems where you don’t need to be the guy in the truck if you don’t want to be, and you still make your paycheck. You can be the guy in the truck if you want to be on the wand. Love meeting customers and the physical activity of it. Great. You still— that’s working. In the business.

JOHN CLENDENNING
5:28

You still have to work on the business, or you can go get a job. My technicians made $60,000 to $80,000 and above 10 years, 15 years ago as carpet cleaning technicians. So if, if you want a paycheck of $120,000, $150,000 a year being a business owner and a little bit of prestige amongst your buddies in the neighborhood and stuff like that, that’s business systems. That is learning one step at a time. and implementing and growing. And 2026 has exposed a massive amount of problems because a lot of the people that I talked to didn’t go through 2008, ’09, ’10 recession, don’t know what it means when the phone dries up because consumer— there’s less and less and less people thinking about using their discretionary income to clean the couch the second time this year because the kids spilled popcorn and pop on it, or doing the carpets or whatever. The right clientele are doing that even more. They’re richer than ever before and have gotten richer than ever before in the last 5 years because of stock and being in the market and stuff like that, running businesses of their own that have grown and stuff like that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
6:34

The average consumer is feeling pinched. When they feel pinched, they hold back. When they hold back, the best marketer wins. So we’re gonna talk about marketing today because the best marketer wins. Again, not lead gen marketing. Marketing is a big topic, but when you market well, You generate a sales conversation. They don’t happen on their own. Once you generate a sales conversation, if you’re good at learning how to have a sales conversation, you’ve scripted it, you’ve thought it through, you’ve rejigged it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
7:02

If you work with AI right now, you know that it comes up with a bad answer. How would you do that better next time? How would you do that? Next thing you know, it self-iterates through. Every iteration is better and better and better and better and better. I have 7 agents running right now building a whole bunch of different things for me as we’re talking because they’re getting better and better and better. And now they need less and less of my attention to help me with a whole bunch of stuff, right? So that’s how scripts work. That’s how business works. You do good is good enough, and then you iterate to get better, better, better, best, best, best. So good, better, best, right? So marketing generates sales conversations.

JOHN CLENDENNING
7:33

Great sales conversations generate a one-time customer that you can impress the crap out of and get a decent amount of money for. If you have a $300 job average, I could show you how to get a $600 job average. From your marketplace, we’ve got clients that are getting $800, $1,000 residential job averages in markets where they’ve got competitors $99 for 3 rooms and a hall. You do not need to run $99 3-room-and-a-hall ads. No carpet cleaner does. In fact, every carpet cleaner who does has a rusty van eventually. Straight up. I’ve talked to thousands of them, right? This isn’t common knowledge.

JOHN CLENDENNING
8:08

If it is common knowledge, it’s not put in practice or in place. Only 2% ever sell the business for anything more than the truck. Only half a percent get to the point where they can retire out of the business, usually about $1 million or up, 7-figure business where they’re not needed. They have a general manager. They can go and build another business, go to the golf course, do whatever. And they’re running an enterprise that they monitor the numbers and have growth, right? They can grow to buying other businesses because they’ve figured out the machine. It’s— we don’t have to go through university to figure this out. I painfully missed the final month High school, did not get my high school diploma because I was Ron Wooden of Rolling Stones cover band and did that for— and then our own band for years and stuff like that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
8:52

Did the whole thing, tried to become rock star famous and didn’t work out. Drummer got his girlfriend pregnant, lead singer left for another band, all that whole story. And I started a cleaning company as a shy kid that hated talking to people. So I moved to a brand new town. So if I can do it, as I always say, and got to $10,000 a month within the first year in 1995 to 1996, was out of the truck within 18 months and started buying other businesses with no money. I started my entire business with an S10 pickup truck. I’ll show you the picture someday. If I can do it, anybody can do it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
9:24

And that’s what we’re gonna talk about here today. So you don’t have a lead problem, you have a business building problem, right? Leads are not the same as real growth, but we’re gonna show you that when you have a good machine, Where that fits in.

JOHN CLENDENNING
10:19

I’m going to do something a little scary because I have been talking about AI and robotics being this massive wave that what we have to do as business owners is not put our head in the sand and go, oh no, that’s crap. That’s not real. Put our— don’t put our head in the sand. Actually recognize what’s really going on around us. Don’t believe the media. Be real about what’s happening and understand what does that mean? SWOT analysis. What’s your strength, your weaknesses, your opportunities, and your threats? AI is a threat. It’s a great equalizer.

JOHN CLENDENNING
10:54

All your competitors can all look like you, right? It’s a great equalizer. So you want to have a first mover advantage. We teach that in our coaching program, AI, every single week and a whole bunch of other cool stuff of how to run your business like grandpa did. What’s old is new again, and then how to use all the new stuff and all of that so that you have a momentum and accountability, right? But robotics is real as well. I want to show you that this is not— I just want to show you. This is not an AI-generated video. This is actually what’s happening in China right now. And not just China, there’s other labs.

JOHN CLENDENNING
11:27

There’s a lab in, uh, um, that builds these in the United States that has sent over 10,000 similar all-black— go look at those movies we all watched as kids. Oh my gosh, they’re real now. Um, robots that go with the, the, the Ukrainian army to flush out buildings and stuff like that. They’re not allowed to carry guns right now because they don’t know what they’re gonna do with them. But watch this. I’m just gonna play the beginning of this. That part I found the funniest. Look at it, it’s leaning over the car like I used to do when I was a kid fixing my old, uh, 68 Beaumont, if you guys know what I’m talking about.

JOHN CLENDENNING
12:17

Anyways, so there you go. So why did I share that? Well, let me stop that video. Because threats are real. Business is hard. If it was easy, everybody would do it. Threats are real, right? So, um, we want to make sure that you understand What we mean when I say poles in the water, what we mean by when I say you can’t have— you can’t be victim of one, one lead source. What I mean when I say you have to have a forever engine that you put great front end into, right? There’s a, there’s a right way to do it. So today we’re going to be talking about local service ads, how they’ve changed, how AI has changed them forever, and what’s going on right now.

JOHN CLENDENNING
13:01

So if that makes sense, let’s carry on. I can find the right There we go. I have too many monitors. Turn off your cell phones. Turn off your Facebook. Well, if you’re watching this on your cell phone, keep your cell phone on. If you’re a cleaning home service business and you’re serious about actually figuring out how to grow a business, not all the things you think that is true, right? False beliefs. We’re all victims of it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
13:23

It’s a human condition. We believe we know the truth. The more we learn, the less certain we are about something. Right. So there is, there’s a principle that the less you know about something, the more ignorantly confident you are about it. Not ignorantly as in rude. I mean, just like you’re, you’re not aware of what you don’t know. The more, and it’s actually, so it’s called the Dunning-Kruger effect.

JOHN CLENDENNING
13:44

Again, kid didn’t graduate high school. These are things that we learned since. Up, right? Down. All of a sudden there’s despair. Oh crap, I know nothing. Or I know so much now, I don’t know anything about the subject. Then you learn and you get to a point of Understanding, hopefully mastery if it’s something you’re interested in. And then you never get to that level, that level where you are ignorantly confident that I have the right answer, everybody else is wrong.

JOHN CLENDENNING
14:12

The best answers are found by the best operators behind the scenes, under the rug, in the corners, in the cracks and crevices that they won’t show and tell you. Right? Did you know that, again, for example, the best tree services get most of their inquiries and new customers from direct mail? Most tree service companies don’t know that. My friend Braden figured that out, built an entire multimillion-dollar business on doing direct mail a very specific and certain way. For tree services because he talked to enough tree services and then reverse engineered, figured it out. A couple years of iteration and technology later has created an amazing system that would take other people a lot of time to try and replicate. Blue ocean, figured it out, right? So what is it that the best service providers, carpet cleaners or otherwise, do? HVAC, plumbing, whatever. that the one guy in a truck who never got out of the truck didn’t do. We’re going to talk about that today, some of that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
15:22

So what’s new in LSA in 2026? How has AI fundamentally changed local search? AI has changed the way people find cleaners, their service providers entirely. And it’s going to change in the next month or two again. Google’s algorithm completely changed May 8th, completely changed. LSA changed last summer, August last year fundamentally changed. If you’re doing the same things and you didn’t know anything I just said, get with somebody who knows what I just said. The biggest LSA mistakes will cost you all kinds of growth in your business. Turning LSA inquiries into booked jobs and lifetime value. This is always your goal.

JOHN CLENDENNING
16:03

It’s not an afterthought. In fact, you need to put that in first. How do you get more money more often? Then build more customers. More customers will not grow your business if you’re not targeting the right people that can give you more money more often. You are literally spinning your wheels and staying busy in work that will put you out of business, or at least keep you broke. Right? So that sounds like a lot of bold claims, John. Why should we trust you? Well, if you don’t know me, Been in the industry since I was a kid. Told you a little bit about the story.

JOHN CLENDENNING
16:37

I have consulted for 20 years. I’ve been flown around the world. I’ve taught call centers at franchise networks and you name it, how to answer phones better and get higher booking percentages with psychological scripts. Why does John Clendenning know psychological scripts? Because I wanted to write better ads. And I learned that you should read the book Persuasion and Influence by Robert Cialdini, Dr. Robert Cialdini. They don’t even allow it in prisons because you could probably influence the guard in letting you out. 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene, not allowed in prisons because it creates— you understand how the human condition works, right? E-Myth and Systems and, and, and, and neurolinguistic programming.

JOHN CLENDENNING
17:17

Learned it from Richard Bandler, the founder of it. So it’s just Tony Robbins. His entire business is neurolinguistic programming. He built a billion-dollar empire. Learning how to talk behind a person’s blockages and I’m afraid of spiders and blah. Okay. Can you picture this box? Close your eyes. Shoot it to the moon, blah, blah, blah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
17:41

Create this state, create the state, create the state. Cool. I’ve now got a spider walk on your arm. You go, oh, it wouldn’t happen to me. It does. That’s how people walk on fire. That’s how, right? It’s a mindset, not a reality. He’s all about breaking your mindset.

JOHN CLENDENNING
17:53

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
17:54

To get to the truth, not for malicious purposes. We’re not talking Charles Manson and Summer of Love and cults. We’re talking about, can we influence a client or a customer calling to choose us because we literally offer a better service and we know how to explain that in a way that gets past their filters and radars? We know how to educate them. That leads all the way towards us, either on the call or in a nurturing sequence afterwards. Right. That’s all I have learned, wrote books on, am the guy, run a podcast about. Oops. I really like when that drags across.

JOHN CLENDENNING
18:35

I clicked on it too soon. It’s kind of a new cool little feature. And again, talk about it on the industry stage and considered an industry leader because of it. What I care more about is that I help these people Learn enough of it to be scary dangerous. Because what do we do? We make our clients the top cleaning brand in their local marketplace. If they’ll come along, we call it Done Together Marketing. There is no marketing company that will do it for you. If that’s the case, they should take over the business and make all the money because that doesn’t make any sense to build you a million-dollar enterprise business without having you know how to do anything.

JOHN CLENDENNING
19:13

Somebody else runs it. For a couple thousand bucks a month, right? That’s not a real world. An agency and a growth partner should be there to help guide you, give you direction, give you understanding, and you should get out of your own head and out of your own way and go, wow, if I believe this source, probably should follow along because what I’ve been doing to this point isn’t getting the results I want. These other people have the results. This guy knows how to get you there, or this company, or this growth partner, this, this strategy. It is a strategy. Most people get in their own way. I just happened to not finish high school.

JOHN CLENDENNING
19:56

I just happened to be sort of a dumb kid, solid C student that said, I don’t know anything, so you show me, and picked it up. I didn’t have the blustery confidence that I knew everything. So, I had a mentor early on. I invested a lot of money early on. Like, I paid Howard Partridge, what, $500, $600 a month to be in his inner circle. I paid Joe Polish like $300, $400 a month to be part of Prana Marketing every single month. And I’ve been masterminded to this day, many of them. I went to— flew to courses and trainings, and not just for the cleaning industry, for better businesses and better leadership.

JOHN CLENDENNING
20:32

As I learned how to run a business, I had to learn how to operate it better. Coaches and consultants. And like, that’s what we all do. When you do it, when you realize you don’t know, you’re a student of the game. You don’t know how to play golf, you’re a student of the game. You don’t know how to play pickleball, you’re a student of the game. You don’t know how to run a million-dollar business or grow it to the level you want, you’re a student of the game, right? And where do you get your best information? You can get a million pieces of competing information. Source matters.

JOHN CLENDENNING
21:00

Find your Voice, your source, your guru, lean into that. If you keep finding contrarian views, contrarian views, contrarian views, you literally stay paralyzed, right? So we help our clients attract the best clients, able to charge top rates, booked out for weeks in advance. We do that with 3 simple principles. These are the principles you should run your business, whether you work with us or not. That’s not the point of that, my little statement here. Maximize your opportunity to generate a qualified inquiry. Your ideal customer is somebody. It’s not everybody.

JOHN CLENDENNING
21:37

Qualified means they fit your lifetime goal. You know who that is. Then you figure out where they are and you figure out how to get in front of them. What they look at, what they see, who they listen to. Find their influencers. Find People that already have their attention, already have their respect.

JOHN CLENDENNING
21:55

Get—

JOHN CLENDENNING
21:56

work that system. Get endorsement through qualified inquiries. Maximize your opportunities to generate those. One pole in the water has nothing to do with the word maximizing. I can show you 47 poles in the water in the next 2 minutes if you wanted me to. All 47 are necessary if you’re a multimillion-dollar cleaning business, or if you got $2 million. Most of them are necessary to get over half a million. If you don’t even know what I just said, we need to have a chat.

JOHN CLENDENNING
22:23

Maximize your brand impressions. If people don’t know your brand and your name and what you stand for, they won’t buy from you. So this has to happen ahead of time. How do you get LSA ads to work better? Pay-per-click ads to work better? Everything you do— yard signs and door hangers and backup buses and and, and, and, and, and how do you get them all to work? By doing all of them and having a message out in the marketplace, by doing happy customer stories and sharing them into Facebook and Instagram groups or, or, and LinkedIn groups and, and, and stuff like that to be a voice in the community, right? Offline and online, you maximize your brand impressions in front of your ideal target market so that when they are ready for you, which could be 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 3 years from now, damn, those are the guys I’m going with. It’s obvious. It’s not about price. So this is a growing and building thing. This is what’s going to keep businesses in business as the AI apocalypse and those robots take over average jobs.

JOHN CLENDENNING
23:34

Don’t believe me? Call me in a year. Maximize your conversions. Big missing piece. Most people think that I’m good on the phones. Do you have a script? No, I’m just really good. Do you follow up with anybody if they don’t book? No, no, I don’t want to bug them, but I’m good. Nope. What you just told me is you’re terrible.

JOHN CLENDENNING
23:52

Those 3 answers are actually, you know, I’m polite when I talk to clients. The back of my brain is, wow, we’ve got a lot of untraining to do. You have a bunch of false beliefs. You’re fully in the Dunning-Kruger. I know so little. I am confident in my lack of knowledge. I don’t even know I don’t know. Right? Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
24:12

Humans do this. It’s not an insult. It’s just recognize it. Confirmation bias. Unpack it. Be emotionally aware, right? So you want to maximize your conversions. That means that you want to make sure that you know how to turn more people into customers now and nurturing in the future. That’s what makes local service ads work better as well.

JOHN CLENDENNING
24:34

One of the reasons why it makes everything work better. Brand impressions make everything work better. Local service ads make— or sorry, conversions make everything work better. So let’s talk about what are Google Local Service Ads. Well, Google Local Service Ads, I’ll show you where they are when we get in, but they are Google’s pay-per-lead service. Google noticed years ago that HomeAdvisor, Thumbtacks, different— and a whole bunch of others were getting— using Google to rank. or even Google pay-per-click to get people to their platform, generating their attention, and then selling that lead to 3 or 4 businesses. Lead for hire services all over the place, lots of them, right? And they would get multiple, and then first person responds, everybody, whatever, you get 3 quotes, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff.

JOHN CLENDENNING
25:30

And it’s in every industry. And Google said, huh, We own the platform. Why don’t we just make the money? And they created local service ads. Google Guarantee is the other word for it, because Google guarantees your work up to $2,000. They have to— you have to be vetted. We’re going to go through all of that. They have to want you, and then they’re only going to promote you regardless of how much you want to spend with them. Google’s not greedy, much as it seems like it is.

JOHN CLENDENNING
25:54

They want the best user experience so that they don’t They, they stay the number one platform. They got to be the number one platform by delivering the best search results and user experience. And they want the user, the searcher, to get more of what they want. Thus the AI mode and all of that. They, they want the searcher to feel so confident in the platform, they keep coming back because of the results they got. So they don’t care about you and they literally don’t care about your money. They are flushed with cash. So You want to be seen at the top of Google for the few people that— the few small percentage of people that stop there.

JOHN CLENDENNING
26:33

Other people stop at the Google Ads and then like the pay-per-click ads. So pay-per-call, pay-per-lead, pay-per-click, way more sophisticated. You have to understand keywords and ad copy and psychology and landing pages and optimizations. And it’s a constantly tweaking system. Local service ads, a little bit less, but comes with its own issues and challenges that we’ll talk about here today because of that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
27:02

Right?

JOHN CLENDENNING
27:03

So Google guarantee, Google has a tracking phone number that will never be yours. Why? Because Google only gets paid. They only bill you, take your money off your credit card when they generate a qualified lead that calls you. If the lead is not qualified, they don’t charge you. If the lead is outside of the area you determine, they don’t charge you, right? That used to be something you could dispute. We’ll talk about that now. Now, now that’s off the table because Google last summer changed the rules to their benefit. Sure.

JOHN CLENDENNING
27:39

But they changed the rules, right? So they sit at the top. When you click on it, It’s Google’s page, not your website. But if you notice here, look at how many reviews, like they prominently show the reviews. You have to be in, you have to have Google Business Profile and reviews, minimum review count, or they won’t even let you in the platform. You have to be somewhat competent, right? And then we’ll go through all the rest of the criteria as well. But this isn’t the most amazing page now, is it?

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:07

No.

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:09

That’s the page. You got, you got a very little, little chance to adjust. So there’s a good and a bad that we’re going to talk about. Doesn’t mean it’s, oh, maybe it’s not right for me. No, nope. It’s a great pole in the water for everybody. And it’s a great first pole in the water to learn what you are good and not good at before moving on to any other poles. Love local service ads for that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:32

So why it matters. Lots of online consumers search Google. We know that when looking for home services, if they don’t have a name in mind already, they have a name in mind, this doesn’t count. They’ll look you up, they’ll call you, they’ll ask chat, they’ll do whatever. That’s fine. New customers looking on Google see them right at the top. Doesn’t mean everybody stops at the top. I didn’t just say, oh, that’s 100% of the traffic.

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:58

Everybody’s— no, no, but they see them. If you show up there, you’ve got a brand impression, even if they like to go to the maps. Oh, they’re there again. Even like, oh, oh, that business, I just saw them in the top of the page in pay-per-click and the maps, and now I saw them in organic. Let me go read about them, right? AI recommended them because you’ve got the right content and answers that AI is picking up. So they don’t even make it to your website, but it’s all fed by your website, your local service ads, your pay-per-click, your Google, your social media, all of that everything burger. Topic for another day. But local service ads come up at the top on mobile and desktop.

JOHN CLENDENNING
29:34

There is no higher intent prospect than somebody who’s searching today for a service and Google goes, oh, oh, you want to buy? Then I’ll show you my buying stuff. Google doesn’t show it to people that aren’t looking to buy. It’s based on buyer intent keywords. That’s who Google shows the ads to. Google picks the keywords. So if they’re ready to buy, Google’s showing that at the top. You must have a plan to win because your competitors also know this and to some degree have jumped in. A lot of them just set their ads on, you know, Conversion Max, right? Or something like that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:13

Limit their budget. I just want you to figure out, hey Google, you got my credit card and you’ve got all my competitors’ credit cards. Can you take money off my credit card? for sending me some leads and you can pick the price. That’s what most people do on their pay-per-click and their local service ads. Yeah, I trust you. You made 89% profit margin last year and $82 billion. Yeah, I still trust you to take the right amount off my credit card and not too much. I don’t want to manage it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:41

I don’t want to learn it, which is great. You shouldn’t. You should be out the door selling. There’s a core forever job that you should have running a business. This isn’t it. This changes so often. If you figure this out, open up a local service ad or a pay-per-click ad agency. It’s that complicated of a topic, right? If you don’t believe me, you’re at the top of that, hey, I know so little, I am confidently ignorant.

JOHN CLENDENNING
31:05

Again, not being rude. Ignorant just means don’t know. Don’t know. So I’m so confident it’s not a thing. Start learning more. Holy crap. Wow. I can’t do this at all.

JOHN CLENDENNING
31:14

Nobody can do this. Okay. And that’s the curve we all need to go through. So what’s new in 2026? Local service ads have evolved. Google’s local service ads are evolving, right? Search has completely changed. So Google— people search, they see the AI overviews. AI is trying to answer their question before they go anywhere else. Google Maps, local service ads, better results.

JOHN CLENDENNING
31:43

You want to make sure that you’re in the game. AI has transformed how people search. They talk now. They tell big, long, rambling stories to their AI friend. Either that’s Gemini in Chrome and Google, or that’s ChatGPT, Perplexity, you name it, Claude. I don’t care what you use, right? But we’re talking on Google, like those local service ads influence none of those other ones. But Inside Google, local service ads influence the AI and influence buyer behavior. Customer expectations for speed and trust are higher than ever before.

JOHN CLENDENNING
32:20

We’re going to talk about that as well. If you cannot understand speed to lead, don’t run paid ads, local service ads or any other. You’re literally just throwing money away. Hand it to me. Go in the front yard and burn it. Be the crazy neighbor. I don’t care. But don’t run ads because it isn’t going to work.

JOHN CLENDENNING
32:40

If you’re still managing your local service ads the same old way you did a year ago, you are missing out on an opportunity to generate the right intent. The good news is most of these changes are opportunities, not obstacles. You can adapt faster than your competitors because you’re on this call and they are not. 5 Google LSA updates every business owner Needs to know for 2026. AI has reshaped local search. Google is integrating AI into everything. We know that. We talked about that, right? Trust signals matter more than ever.

JOHN CLENDENNING
33:12

Google doesn’t care how much money you want to give them. They care about you doing the right things the right way. And there is a right way and there is absolutely a wrong way. Faster response wins more inquiries and jobs. Businesses answer calls quickly and respond to messages promptly are better positioned to convert. Not only that, Google will demote you, push you way down the list if you’re not responsive within 1, 2, 3 rings of a phone call. If you can’t answer the phone in 3 rings, don’t run Local services, I do recommend don’t even run pay-per-click. Don’t run anything that’s lead generating because customers don’t care.

JOHN CLENDENNING
34:00

Like your repeat clients. So customers, one-time, repeat clients, multiple. Clients might give you grace because you did so good. You followed up so well. You stay in touch with them 2 or 3 times a month. Yeah, I just said that 2 or 3 times a month. Go back to one of the other trainings. Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
34:14

So you do that well. You are nurturing them to stick around for a long time. You are their guy. or gal in this industry. You are their knowledge point, right? They’ll give you grace. These people don’t know you. They give you zero grace. Google is improving lead quality.

JOHN CLENDENNING
34:31

Ongoing improvements in verification, spam detection, lead matching. They are actually changing whether you even show up on one search or another based on AI determining how you answered your phones, what you said, and who that next person should be handed to. Google’s strategy, your strategy must evolve. Businesses adapt to Google’s latest updates and use AI to improve the efficiency and make Google go, oh, these guys are freaking amazing. Let me show them even more. Let me, let me rank them better. Right? Ranking and results are a factor of you, not them. Not even your agency as much.

JOHN CLENDENNING
35:10

There’s things that we can do to really help. But we can’t— we can only lead a horse to water. We can’t make it drink. And if the horse doesn’t drink, Google has a problem with you. So yes, local service ads. We’ve got the AI overview, then we’ve got local service ads, sometimes stacked, sometimes side by side. Then we’ve got pay-per-click, maps, and organic, right? That’s where they locate. Why they stand out is because Google has a big guarantee badge on it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
35:41

Google has vetted you. That’s crazy. Reviews are upfront. Let’s go back to that previous screen. Reviews are upfront. They know how you compare against the competitors that are showing alongside you. If there are 20 or 30 or 40 carpet cleaners in your market, depending on the size of your market, and there’s only 3 spots, How is Google choosing one over the other? Just think of that for a minute. I want more leads from Google.

JOHN CLENDENNING
36:13

Let me give them more money. No, your competitors are giving them $10,000 a month. I don’t want to give them $10,000. Yeah, maybe you do. That doesn’t mean Google puts you in front at all. They don’t care about your money. They don’t. They are rich enough.

JOHN CLENDENNING
36:29

Paper— the paper qualified leads. You’re charged only when a qualified Customer contacts the business, appear above Google Maps and all that stuff. So it’s in the right spot. Not everybody stops there, but it’s in the right spot. Different buyers have different ways of using Google. And I’d like to tell you that it’s not like, oh, all of my customers go to Google. I just need Google Maps and more reviews. You are so 2024.

JOHN CLENDENNING
36:57

That changed already. You need everything burger. That’s not what happens anymore. Are you— we started transitioning our clients to AI recommendations, AI mentions, AI share of voice as part of our SEO plan. SEO now stands for Search Everywhere Optimization. A year and a half ago, we saw the writing on the wall. So premium placement doesn’t necessarily mean as much as it used to. Google doesn’t actually mean as much as it used to.

JOHN CLENDENNING
37:31

Because there’s a shift going on. People use ChatGPT. People use Gemini just on their phone. That’s right. There’s influencing elsewhere as well. So, you have to be a student of marketing. Generate that awareness that we talked about. This is one of those places.

JOHN CLENDENNING
37:49

The cool thing about LSA is you only pay when there’s a call, right? So, how has AI fundamentally changed? Local search and LSA in the past few months. Right. We talked about this. AI reshaped how customers search. Google delivers answers, not serves up sites. Google now is an answer engine. That’s why search is way up and clicks to websites are way down. The ones that do show up on the website are really meaningfully wanting to be there.

JOHN CLENDENNING
38:23

Less garbage, less traffic, more buyer intent. If your website is designed right, if your follow-up— if they message you on a form and you get back to them within a minute by phone or by text or by email. Yeah. You wait a day or two.

JOHN CLENDENNING
38:40

Meh.

JOHN CLENDENNING
38:40

Probably not. More conversation, intent-driven searches. Customers are asking longer, more specific questions. Google understands the context. and intent better than ever before. Trust and authority matter more. AI pulls trust sources, not just reviews, real experiences, happy customer stories, and, and, and social media interactions, Reddit, other sources like that where any conversation is happening. It’s searching the ecosphere, not just Google.

JOHN CLENDENNING
39:15

They’re not stuck to their own tool. Because they want the best user experience, not be so arrogant that only their tool matters. Businesses with strong credible credibility earn more visibility in local service ads. You show up more when the background of your business proves to Google you are the better choice or one of the better choices in the mix. You’re not. Google says, meh, don’t care about your money. Way you go. LSA benefits from AI-driven matching.

JOHN CLENDENNING
39:48

They prioritize high-intent, ready-to-book searches. If you answer your phones and you’re booking 2 weeks out, Google will suppress you because they know by listening to all the calls and running AI now, not just algorithms, but actual constant improving, getting better and better. That if the average caller in the carpet cleaning world is looking for a job in the next day or two, and your average call is telling people that you book 2 weeks out, they will not give you the calls. They won’t set you up to fail as often because they don’t want the buyer, their traffic, to have to call 2 or 3 places. They know you can’t help as much as this other guy. So they’re going to go to this other guy. That’s the AI now. AI now chooses if the call is valid.

JOHN CLENDENNING
40:41

So you don’t get to dispute as much anymore at all. Hi, I’m looking for a house to rent in Santa Monica. Can you help me?

JOHN CLENDENNING
40:46

Hmm.

JOHN CLENDENNING
40:47

I’m really focused for homes for sale, but let me see if we, if we have anyone here who can help you out. What’s your blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Call outcome. Google will likely deny this credit. They won’t give you money because you helped. Right. But this one, hi, I’m looking for a house to rent in Santa Monica. Can you help me? I’m sorry, I don’t work with rentals, but thank you for, thank you for giving me a call.

JOHN CLENDENNING
41:13

This feels like, I want to be a nice human being. LSA, you don’t want to be a nice human being only because Google will charge you their $40, $50, $60, $80, some, some services, $100, $200, $300 per phone call. To hand off to somebody else. Not worth your budget. Sorry, we don’t do that. Google gets that. AI now understands that, learns, doesn’t bill you, or at least reverses the billing, helps with that. There’s a little bit of work that we can do as an agency to say, eh, and literally pick up the phone and call into a team and all that kind of stuff and trying to, you know, get some help and adjustment and stuff like that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
41:53

But For the most part, their AI is getting so much better that it catches a lot of this, right? Outcome will approve this credit, right? Because you explicitly stated that you don’t provide the service the caller is looking for. It’s also worth noting that all calls under 30 seconds are not charged by Google in the first place. So the sooner you end the call, the better. Interesting point. Most people don’t know that one, by the way. Off, you know, feedback from active users often results in lower costs than pay-per-click. Cost per acquisition, right? Cost per acquisition. How much should you invest in buying a new first-time customer? In paid world, 3-to-1 return on investment.

JOHN CLENDENNING
42:45

For every $1,000 you spend, you should get $3,000 worth of work. $1,000 goes back to pay the ad. In our world, $1,000 goes to technician, gas, solution, all that to do the job. If you didn’t have the job, you wouldn’t have it. And the other $1,000 comes into the company to pay bills, leases, and vans, and rentals, and staff, and, you know, the rest of the staff and all that kind of stuff, insurance, all that kind of stuff. 3-to-1 ROI is a great starting ROI to land A wiggly fish with your pole in the water that you can turn into a lifetime client that will eventually give you 20-to-1 ROI. You won’t get 20-to-1 on the front end. There is no magic ad source that you’ve found, that we’ve found, that no other marketing company or cleaning company or anybody else has ever— doesn’t have.

JOHN CLENDENNING
43:31

That doesn’t exist. It’s competitive. There is no 20-to-1. There’s no $20 leads carpet cleaning. 25 years ago in the Yellow Pages when I ran call tracking on all of our Yellow Page ads to figure out what ad was working and how much we got from it, you bought customers for $80 to $100 by the time you paid the Yellow Pages every single month, got the calls, and it was the single source of new customer acquisition, or the biggest source, not the single, the biggest source of new— a lot of people went to the Yellow Pages. But if you had brand awareness, they called you. So you better be doing brand awareness marketing as well, and door hangers and yard signs and all that kind of stuff, and be known. Way before the days of the internet.

JOHN CLENDENNING
44:10

And you got more phone book phone calls. That seems weird. Well, I’m getting a lot of calls from the phone book. I don’t need to do all that other stuff. I stopped doing all that other stuff. And next thing you know, next year I’m down 50%. I wonder what happened. Maybe the markets just got soft.

JOHN CLENDENNING
44:24

Nope. You just lost your— the whole idea of how to run a business. It’s all together all at once, right? So, the quality of the lead is not necessarily as good. But the cost is lower. There’s a reason for that. It says right here, higher quality leads than pay-per-click services. Sorry, pay-per-lead services. Absolutely true.

JOHN CLENDENNING
44:46

Higher quality leads than HomeAdvisor, Bark, Thumbtack. Absolutely true. These are crap services. Crap. Do not turn them on. Google Local Service Ads, a little bit better. Not great. It’s at the very top.

JOHN CLENDENNING
45:00

At the very top, you get more junk calls as well. We’ve got some little tricks that we use to try and limit that as much as possible. But understand, um, whereas a lot of businesses think as long as they’ve got a budget and they turn it on, I’m just going to get a plethora of phone calls. Oh, I didn’t get— I didn’t get 100 calls this week. That must be my marketing agency’s fault, blah, blah, blah. No. It’s a game that you slowly roll into. You understand the game that you’re in, right? If you, all you want is very, very high quality, high-end, high-intent customers, then you need very, very expensive, very, very dialed in pay-per-click campaigns, local every door mail campaigns, thousands of SEO, let it build over time.

JOHN CLENDENNING
45:48

You need a very sophisticated marketing system. to generate very sophisticated, only high-end clients and the time it takes to mature that. It’s not a light switch. There’s no light switch in marketing. It’s marketing, not magic. So with local service ads, what you get is volume. You get a lot of ups, as they call it in the auto sales world. You get a lot of ups, a lot of people walking on the lot, right? That’s great.

JOHN CLENDENNING
46:18

How you manage that determines What you, what you do with that. You can make a great ROI and then let the cream rise to the top. Some of those people were never great customers. You got a job out of it, you had a conversation, do whatever, you dial it in. Other people, other ones turn into lifetime clients. It’s great for residential, not, not so great for commercial work, just so you know, by the way. It’s not really the place that, that kind of tracks that. So, um, will price shoppers— Um, you will get price shoppers.

JOHN CLENDENNING
46:47

And you must follow up quickly. 20% of consumers are just price shoppers naturally. Some platforms, Groupon, 80% of consumers are price shoppers, 90%, right? We know that. Local service ads, meh. You will get more price shoppers there than you would with organic rankings because the organic rankings is a thinking person who has moved past all of that and is now doing research. And they’ve looked into you a bunch of times. That’s why you never ask, you know, you don’t ask somebody, hey, how did you hear about us? Terrible question. You’re going to get a crappy answer.

JOHN CLENDENNING
47:24

You’re never going to get the intel you need to run a better business. Running business is knowing numbers, knowing data, and making data-driven decisions. It’s all businesses, right? So, math plus psychology. So, I always say that’s what marketing is. Business, all that. So you want to make sure you know your numbers, know what you’re doing. Rich, or the more intentional people want to read, ingest more. You just— that’s higher, higher effort.

JOHN CLENDENNING
47:54

The less effort they put in, the more likely they are price shoppers. That’s fine. In that mix is some really good candidates that will give you $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 over the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years. With dialed-in conversion scripts that book 40% of all jobs. Are you tracking? Do you know? If you don’t track your booking percentage, repeats, referrals, cold, if you don’t track those, you are not running a data-driven business. You’re guessing. And you’re probably guessing thinking you’re right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
48:30

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
48:32

Because you don’t have enough information, so you’re more confident than you should be, right? The average should be above $350. Why? I can run the math and prove this to you any day. I’ve got calculators I’ve built. I can show you that less than that, you don’t ROI well enough on the front end that you better have an amazing back end. So great conversion scripts, great follow-up, a 3-to-1 to 5-to-1 ROI. Is a great pole in the water. How do you get to 5-to-1 ROI? It’s not a better marketing company. That is, yet your average job is closer to $450, $500, and your booking percentage goes north of 50, maybe 55%.

JOHN CLENDENNING
49:07

Then you have a 5-to-1 ROI. The volume that comes in is still built on doing it right, managing it right, keeping it right. That’s fine. But what you return on investment is 100% you. 100% you. Why is it a no-brainer then, John? You sounded like that. Wow, that sounds like a lot of crap. Why is this a no-brainer? Show up at the top.

JOHN CLENDENNING
49:32

You only pay when somebody calls. Pay-per-lead. It could be a lower-cost customer than pay-per-click, but you might have to do some customers that will never be your ideal customer and come back. It’s a mix, right? That’s fine. It’s a good pole in the water to generate some wiggly fish. Hole in the water, wiggly fish. The analogy still works, right? That you try and hold on to by great database retention. You’re in touch with them 1, 2, 3 times a month forever in a meaningful way, not offers and deals and discounts, but helpful advice.

JOHN CLENDENNING
50:05

You become the person that gives so much to them. They talk to people about you. You are remarkable means that they remark about you. Higher quality leads than other paper lead services. Absolutely. And ability to modify your budget based on your schedule. If you are booked too far out, I would suggest you either open up some slots that are about 2 days out and just have them available, right? Fill them in with, hey, Mrs. Jones, yeah, we’re booking about 2 weeks out right now.

JOHN CLENDENNING
50:35

What I can do is, you know, you wanted something sooner. Yeah, I get that. I don’t really have anything right now, but tell you what, I could put you on a reschedule list. So if somebody has an appointment, you know, needs to reschedule from us, That’s what we call it, the reschedule list. We’ll call a few, you know, a few people that are, um, interested in maybe bumping up and usually get about 2 days notice. We require that from all of our clients to give us 48 hours notice if they, if they’re not gonna be able to make the appointment or we’ll charge our, um, our missed appointment fee just like the dentist does. So yeah. So would you like to be on the reschedule list as well? Why did we always keep a reschedule list? Why did Heather have a list of people on her, on it? Well, it started on a clipboard and she just put a line through them and eventually became an Excel spreadsheet.

JOHN CLENDENNING
51:13

Why did she have a list of that all the time? And all the other gals I had in the office, why did we train on that? Why did I learn that and figure that out? and do that so that when we had gaps in our schedule, we could call somebody else. That’s beautiful for LSA. You leave an opening. If nobody takes it, you call your reschedule list and you fill it. So you at least leave one of your crews or one opening so that if you’re booked that busy, hire more, put 2 people in a truck so you can do a little bit more, free up the schedule, do something because these people aren’t gonna wait. So now you’re paying for a phone call You can’t convert, you can’t book because of you, not them. How do you set it up? We won’t spend a lot of time on this, but if you work with us, we do it for you. There’s a lot of steps.

JOHN CLENDENNING
51:57

You just gotta go through it. You gotta be patient, right? So this is what it looks like when you go to ads.google.com/local-service-ads, right? That’s where you go to sign up. You have to have a Google Ad account. They’re going to help you set one up if you don’t. You have to have a Google Business Profile or you can’t, and you have to have reviews.

JOHN CLENDENNING
52:23

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
52:23

So you got to complete the application. You got to do a background check. They’re guaranteeing you, right? You can’t be on the terrorist watch list, obviously.

JOHN CLENDENNING
52:32

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
52:32

License check, personal background check. Pinkerton Consulting is who does it. Verify your business insurance, not your vehicle insurance. You have to have liability. If you damage something in the house, Google needs to know. That’s why they’re helping guarantee you’re a legit business. I’ve— the number of people we’ve put through this and go, I don’t have business liability insurance. Oh my gosh, that’s scary.

JOHN CLENDENNING
52:58

Absolutely scary, right? You break the Ming vase in a customer’s home without business liability insurance. Somebody slips on a wet rug coming off the carpets onto the hard floor and breaks their leg, and you don’t have business insurance? Nah, don’t be in business then. You haven’t figured out what you’re doing. It’s a hobby. Business owners and all technicians must complete the background. There’s a way around this all technicians thing. That’s what they require. There’s a little bit of nuance.

JOHN CLENDENNING
53:23

Once approved, if active in your area, you will pay on a pay-per-lead business, right? So, we’ve seen that between $25 and $65 and going up. 25 on the very low end, very rare these days. Normally 40s, 50s, 60s per phone call. What if you book 1 out of every 10 phone calls because you suck on the phones? You don’t answer the calls. It goes to answering machine. You still get charged, right? That’s on you. Understanding scripts, understanding influence and a little bit of psychology and being able to educate as you give the answers they want. Let’s little dance.

JOHN CLENDENNING
54:00

Understand that you get to that 40, 45%, 50% booking percentage. You just bought a customer for, again, $25 on the low end. So maybe, so that would be the lead, the phone call. You bought a customer for $50 to $130. That’s still good all day long. If your average price is about $350, $375, right? $375 works really good. You’re a 3-to-1 ROI even at that level. Because of you on the phones.

JOHN CLENDENNING
54:28

Good math. Prices will vary by city, type, message, all that kind of stuff. So, and it should be adjusted constantly. You do not set it for maximum calls, maximum conversions. It should be managed actively.

JOHN CLENDENNING
54:43

Proof of—

JOHN CLENDENNING
54:44

once you’re ready to go, you’ve got your proof of insurance, done the background check, you’ve got the customer reviews, it’s connected to your Google Business Profile, and you have enough reviews. We’ll talk about this in a second because whether you get called and where you show up, there’s a big part of it is that as well. You’ve got your budget set. Again, my best suggestion is don’t be stingy on this. We suggest wide open. Google loves you. And then if you do all the other stuff we talk about, well, this is a great pole in the water. And then your billing information.

JOHN CLENDENNING
55:17

How does Google rank you? Proximity is a big one. I’m in Google Local Service Ads. I want to show up 100 miles away from my office. I put the pin, I put targeted that territory. Google goes, yeah, I don’t care. I got lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of businesses that also are in Local Service Ads, just as good as you or better than you, a whole lot closer. Why would they like you over them? It’s not an agency’s issue. It’s not a setup issue.

JOHN CLENDENNING
55:47

It’s a proximity issue. So Google knows where you are and creates a bit of a radius. Google Maps knows where you are. You don’t rank 100 miles away, 50 miles away, even if you do everything right in Google Maps. You’re lucky to be 5, then 10 miles. That’s why we always say make sure that your office location or the one that you give Google is really close to your ideal client. If your ideal client’s in Golf Course Road, you better be all Golf Course Road adjacent, because that way this growing Google Maps presence that takes a lot of time and effort is at least bearing fruit. Local service ads are tied to that same radius because they’re tied to Google Business— Google Business Profile, your Google Maps, your review score, and the number of reviews you receive.

JOHN CLENDENNING
56:35

Review velocity matters in local business and Google Maps, not total count. Review velocity, review velocity, ratings, 4.9, 4.8, 4.7. People trust 4.7 to 9 more than they trust 5.0, just so you know, especially the higher your review count goes. Nobody’s perfect. Everybody knows that. They believe it’s fake if you look perfect.

JOHN CLENDENNING
57:00

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
57:01

Your responsiveness to customer inquiries within 2 rings. 2 rings. Answer text messages and emails if you have messages turned on within about 20 seconds or less. Can’t do that. Google uses AI as of summer of 2025 now to make responsiveness one of the key factors. No matter how much money, how great your review score is, business hours are an obvious one. So budget, reviews, proximity, responsiveness, those kinds of things, right? If you end up with repeat complaints, they’re obviously going to kick you off the platform and just not show you. So Google will also attempt to spread out Leads over time based on your budget prevent you from spending your entire budget early in the budget period.

JOHN CLENDENNING
57:59

If an ad generates leads more quickly than your budget can accommodate, they will back off. Google will, the AI will, they know that. So we’d say, don’t put a budget on it. Wide open. So at least you give Google a great budget. You’ve got lots of reviews and reviews coming in. Right, from the customers that came through and elsewhere. You’ve got the proximity.

JOHN CLENDENNING
58:24

You’re only targeting the right immediate area. If you want to target farther— John, I want to target a whole town over. Yep, I would probably suggest you set up an office and a second business over there. That would be my suggestion. So you can run local service ads over there. Right? How does AI help enhance this? So AI enhances with— you can be faster, more accurate lead handling. I would suggest that if you’re using, um, if you’ve got local service ads on, you’re answering in 2 rings, you can use AI to answer your phones. Our industry, not as good as an industry where it is an intake.

JOHN CLENDENNING
59:01

We need your information. The lawyer will call you back. That’s a little bit more of an understood. In cleaning, they expect to call and talk to somebody who knows what they’re doing. If you’re the guy in the truck, do not answer your phones. Find a stay-at-home mom, somebody who can answer your phones for you, a trained call center that knows how to do carpet cleaning calls and sell to high-end people, not discounts. They actually understand how to sell a better job because they understand scripts and all that kind of stuff. Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
59:32

But you can use AI a little bit if you’re super busy and you want it as a third number rollover. We provide that as a service. If you want the messaging so that when somebody sends you a message lead, that conversation starts with a fully trained agentic receptionist that you can then get alerted and jump in on, but you didn’t miss the initial, right? So that there’s a right way to do it, but you want to build that trust with potential clients. You’re not going to say, this is Nancy. Hi, this is our virtual assistant, Nancy. All of our humans, all the staff’s currently busy right now. But I’m fully trained to help you. What can I help you with? There’s ways around it like that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:00:16

Is it as good as live? No. Humans in the loop, always better. But it gives you an ability to not piss Google LSA off by not answering your phones. Now you’re demoted. Or, you know, like the more calls you miss, the more they go, I’m not going to give that guy any more calls. Right? Obviously. So no answering machines, period. Improved conversion rates aligns with Google’s AI-driven rankings.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:00:42

So the key features 2025, you can have smart auto response, but you do want to follow up. Not everybody books. What do you do when somebody doesn’t book? This is that core forever engine we’re talking about. This is the You’ve got to build your more money, more often retention engine to keep the customers you get. You’ve got to build your lead nurture engine that stays in touch with them till they buy or die. Sounds crude. Way to think about it. Right from the moment they say, yeah, let me think about it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:01:15

Maybe. Maybe does not mean no. And maybe does not mean let them go think about it. Maybe means let me nurture them In a meaningful, welcome guest, not annoying pest way until they are ready to buy from you. Maybe this time they bought from somebody else. If you stay nurturing them in the right way, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 12 months from now, they need a service provider and they hated the other guy. They just didn’t choose you this time, but you stayed on them. That’s business growth.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:01:48

That helps you survive. everything happening in our economy these days. Call and message analysis. That’s another use of AI. Do you listen to all your calls and have AI recommend better ways you or your staff can respond? Can you train the AI for better ways? AI doesn’t know all, doesn’t know what you mean, what should be better, right? AI is what they call a regression to the mean. It knows everything. So everything means that the middle ground is actually Meh. Right? It’s a regression to the mean.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:02:23

The average is kind of pretty meh, right? So a well-trained AI sales assistant, right? Sales manager, coach, well-trained, can give you advice to help you improve your scripts and data and insights. You definitely need to know your numbers. Definitely need to know numbers. What is your booking percentage? With our clients, what we do is we listen to the calls. We have AI running in the background. We have real people listening to the calls as well. The last bit, did you book? Did you not book?

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:02:55

What do you do?

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:02:55

We don’t know when you follow up because that’s on you. But what we do know is the front end, we can actually get— we do all of our clients, we give them a full ROI report on the front end and then say, hey, your booking percentage is only 28%. Our average across all of our clients is 42%, 45%, 47%, whatever it is. You’re off by this much. You want some script training? Do you need some help with this? We only work with cleaning companies, so we know exactly how to do this. John wrote the book on it, wrote the course on it, trained it. We know this, right? Do you want help with that to get you up to that level? Your average booking is $220. There’s competitors in your area that their average booking is $400, $500, $600.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:03:32

How do we know? Because we audited and managed and got the data insights on them. So we know and we can find— you should know your numbers. Because your numbers tell you what to do. If your average job went from $450 down to $300 over the last year and you didn’t even track it, your business dropped by 30%. And you might think it’s a lead problem because you think that you need more leads when it’s actually a dollar-per-job problem that’s cutting massively into your profits, not just revenue, profits, right? So data drives everything. The best practice for AI-powered leads. Use prebuilt templates for common questions. Just have them ready.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:04:12

Have your staff know them, right? So regularly review AI-generated responses for accuracy. So if it’s text and you’ve got templates and accuracy, so especially message leads, especially message leads, train AI with business-specific FAQs and tone. You have to create an actual knowledge base and then you train it and iterate it and get it better and better and better based on when it screws up. Combine AI with human oversight. Ensure privacy compliance. Avoid sensitive info in any AI replies. You want to make sure you have your safeguards and all that kind of stuff. You don’t give an AI chatbot or voicebot, go scan my website and then become my receptionist.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:04:51

Could you imagine? Hey, day one of hiring a receptionist to your office. Yeah, just go read our website. You’ll know everything. Leave you to it. I’m going golfing. Tell me how well that would work out, because that’s what most people think building an AI agentic system is. It’s not, right? The biggest LSA mistake that costs you leads. What is your leaky bucket? Slow response times.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:05:18

Not answering within 1 to 2 rings. Ignoring messages. Leaving them unread. Both of these, Google will demote you. You’ll also not get anything you want out of LSA. Poor reviews, low review rating, low review volume, incomplete profile, missing information, not good pictures, not the right pictures. There’s a psychology. An image tells a thousand words.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:05:46

Are you using the right images to tell a thousand words? Do you know what the first 3 to 5 images should be?

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:05:53

Right?

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:05:53

Think— thinking that marketing ends when the phone rings. Marketing does not end when the phone rings. The real opportunity begins after the first contact. How are you nurturing the other half of the people? If you are booking at 45%, 50%, how are you nurturing the other half of the people to get 20%, 30%, 40% of those To also come back. Every call, not just LSA, every call you don’t book today should get an email and a message and a text message and a phone call tomorrow. Bare minimum. That’s bare minimum. They should actually be chased for the next 12 to 14 days meaningfully in a welcoming, warm cadence.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:06:46

That’s better marketing. Why? Because at least doing the minimum viable, you will double your booking percentage. Now, this is hugely profitable. Do what I just said and you will expand way beyond that. Your conversion rate comes from how you do it today and how you do it over the next 5 to 7 interactions that a lot of people need before they’re ready to make a buying decision. How to win with local service ads. Dial in your service area. We talked about that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:07:21

It ain’t 100 miles. Dial in your profile and dial in your budget. What that means is be as big and expansive as you possibly can be. Be willing to leave it wide open because you have openings available and you know how to run the system. Rate leads and manage scripts. Help AI on any unqualified calls. Like, go in the backend and just play around. Do your thing.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:07:46

Don’t just— a lot of people just set it, forget it. I set it to maximum calls. I gave it my budget. I’m not looking at it again. That is not a strategy. There’s nothing I just said that’s a strategy to grow a business. Drive verified reviews. Target a 45% booking rate.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:08:07

Right. So you dial in your profile. Open it up. As I always said, in the budget, update your ad schedule, set your business bio properly, see what it is, set it up, select your job types specifically, set up your service area properly, update your business hours exactly. Do not have LSA ads running when nobody’s available to answer the phones. Add a lot of photos, change them up regularly. It doesn’t mean keep stacking them. You don’t need 100 photos in there.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:08:38

Nobody’s gonna look at them. 10 photos, good number, right? But make sure that the photos tell a story and that they’re recent and that they make people feel good. Most people are only going to see the first 2 or 3 photos. The rest of them are going to scroll. Make— tell a story. Tell a story in your photos. There’s a little secret hack right there, just so you know. Mark your jobs as booked when you book them.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:09:07

AI is going to try and listen to hear if you book them, but when you do book them, even on a second or third follow-up, come back and mark it. If you book 75% of your jobs or 65% of your jobs, some of them on the call, some of them after the fact, and you come back and mark them booked, Google loves you more. They know they charged you for the call and then you’re good at converting. They are going to give you more. The algorithm is going to start working in your favor a little bit more than somebody else. So, right, so you’re going to get a lot of diverse calls and you get to play with that. You get to have a lot of conversations. Go to work and let the cream rise to the top and have an entire system to retain, repeat, and referral.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:09:56

Home service cleaning services are in the repeat and referral business, not the lead acquisition business. We started with that. I’m going to keep hammering that, right? Mark them as booked, add customer details, include the email, archive non-converted opportunities. It helps. Just helps, right? Rate your leads. You won’t be charged for disqualifying. Again, this is a hard one because Google keeps adding more and more AI and giving you less and less control over that. But there is a little bit of way with agencies that we can still help with that part of it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:10:30

Drive verified reviews. Number of reviews is a major driver. Imagine you had 30 reviews. And your competitor has 397 reviews and counting, and you both show up, everything else the same. You both show up in the search and the customer is going to be scrolling through local service ads. They’re not going to hit more businesses. They’re going to look at the first 2 or 3 that show up. Who gets the call? The guy with 397 or the guy with 30? Right? Think about it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:11:06

That’s just psychology. The number is better. That’s bigger. I like bigger, right? It’s, it’s, we could just Baby Huey this whole thing, right? The average customer is just making that, that, that lump. If the other guy’s got 3.7-star rating and you’ve got a 4.9, now you got that. He might have 397, but 3.7, you know, you got 30, but 4.9. You might have weighed your way into the conversation a little bit. Might have, right? So, provide a great service experience.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:11:36

That’s obvious. Deliver a service experience. Craft a service experience. Design a service experience. Know what’s going to happen from the way over. Phone the client on the way over. How your technician does that. How your office does that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:11:49

How that’s all done. How you arrive. How you show up. How you deliver your consultative selling experience. That should be Storybooked or story branded. That should be storyboarded. That should be rehearsed with your staff. I used to have my guys knock on the front door.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:12:05

We’re going to do some role-playing. I hate role-playing, John. So do I, right? I’m going to be Mrs. Jones.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:12:10

Hello!

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:12:10

They laugh. They close the door. Start again. Let’s try that again. We taught our technicians how to deliver an ideal client experience. Disney teaches the person giving you a fountain drink, the guy sweeping the yard in central casting, not HR, how to deliver an amazing client experience. Drive verified reviews. We know that already, right? So when you deliver a great client experience, you’re going to drive more reviews.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:12:38

That’s the point, right? You do all those things well. You want a lot of Google reviews coming from people, all your customers, including the ones that went through local service ads. You want to target a 45% booking rate? It will tell you if you fill out your form properly. If you want to increase your lead flow, again, Google’s going to cap you, especially early on until they trust you. Your mom might love you, but Google doesn’t love you yet. They need to learn to love you. You want to open up your budget? Right. You want to expand your service area or your service area, job type, schedule, all that to the right, right area to increase.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:13:26

You might want to add a second Google Business Profile in a town over 30 miles away, 20 miles away, and have it generate, build it up. That’s a strategy done well with a good secondary satellite office. You want to close out every lead in the tool. You don’t have to do any of these things. Just let me tell you, your competitors that are beating you are. You don’t have to. There’s no rules. You can choose to not run a great business and not get more work and not understand anything I’ve shared here.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:13:56

But if you do want to add this as a viable pole in the water, stay viable as the market changes all around us, continue to grab the right wiggly fish that go into your bucket, become Part of your repeat and referral retention engine, because you have one and you just want more of those so your business grows, not shrinks, as the market, as the world descends into chaos around us. Maybe you might want to do this, right? That’s just the point. Request verified reviews. We talked about that. So what should you do now? Get with a strategic partner, right? Learn a little bit more. Make sure you’re signed up. Get the process started. If you don’t, we can help you with that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:14:39

Compete your background, complete your background checks, put tracking in place so that not just Google’s tracking, but actually have your own as well. We like to put people through Carpet Cleaner Lead Pro, and then at least we know the phone number of the person who called and we can hear the call, right? We can add some AI into that then if somebody wants to add that on, right?

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:14:58

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:14:58

You can have Amanda to answer the phones. Don’t recommend it during— if you can answer your own phones, but as a third number rollover and stuff like that, or after hours. Don’t run LSA after hours necessarily, but you can have— you can actually run pay-per-click after hours and Amanda can answer the phones. That’s, that’s the name of our, our, the agent that we build out, um, on the front end. But we also have Audrey, who is a, um, a lead chaser. And, and like, done well, you need an agent team.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:15:25

Right?

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:15:25

Be sure that you are leveraging the platform. Google Local Service Ads. Google creates its own platform. You want to be leveraging that, right? You want to create lifetime value. That is really the most important thing, right? You get an inquiry, fast response, book the job, you have a happy customer. None of that builds lifetime value yet. Lifetime value now does a great client experience and amazing follow-up. To make them love you again and again.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:15:54

Understand that every month that goes by that you are not in touch with your ideal customer that you want back in a home service business that is a retention business, you lose at least 10% of their brain trust. They’re starting to drift. They don’t love you as much as your mom does. So growth is not about getting more leads. It’s about getting more value from every lead. A lead is not revenue. A booked job isn’t the goal either. The real goal is creating a client that comes back and tells everyone again and again.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:16:25

Strong relationships plus constant database nurturing, minimum once a month, more often is better, creates lasting client— done well, done properly. It’s not just spam. Done well creates real growth. And maximum lifetime value. Did you know that most cleaners have about a 10% to 20% return rate of customers for an average of 1 to 2 extra jobs? So, they make about $1,000 per customer. The very best cleaning companies have a 50% retention rate for about $15,000. Their businesses grow into the millions because that compounds. If you look at your numbers any given week, month, quarter or year and your repeat and referral rate is not about 60%, you don’t have a business that can grow.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:17:18

It’s not a growth engine. You are a lead first time, one time only churn engine. How do you get there? That is backend systems. That is learning how to build a proper business. Lifetime value simply means how much one customer or client is worth. Again, client is repeat over the entire relationship with, with your business. You don’t measure a customer’s first invoice. You measure them by everything they will buy over time.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:17:49

And you do that by understanding your database really, really well. There’s a lot of cool little techniques you can use to figure out the lifetime value of your average client and your average repeat rate. You need to know those numbers if you’re running a meaningful business. One customer can be worth thousands as a client. Here’s an example. First cleaning, $350. Furniture cleaning, 6 months later, $600. They got the sectional couch and loveseat done.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:18:15

Tile cleaning, a year later. Area rug. Oh, you guys do area rugs?

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:18:19

Cool.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:18:22

Yes. Annual repeat on some of this stuff. You’ve done these all once, you come back and there’s an annual sort of repeat on a few items and a few items and a few items, right? Actually, on a customer like this, the annual repeat would probably be closer to about $800, but whatever. You just made $4,500, right? Lifetime value. Refer their neighbors, refer their family, leave your reviews. On the low end, customers should be nurtured and developed into repeat and referral Clients worth thousands of dollars. That’s the only reason why you’re in business. You’re not in the, the customer acquisition lead churn business.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:19:05

You are in the client, ideal client retention business. Will this make you more money? So let’s recap what’s new. We’ve talked about that. How has AI fundamentally changed local search? The biggest mistake that will cost you leads. We talked about that and turning more LSA acquires into lifetime value. So we met our 4 promises. We went through that very, very deeply. Did you have any takeaways? I talk to people all the time.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:19:36

I’ve talked to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of carpet cleaners. Some of them have never become a student of business. Other ones have become massive students. They know everything. Oh, John, I know everything you just said. Cool. How much have you got implemented? Oh, oh. None.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:19:50

I don’t really have time to implement, John. If you don’t have time to work on your business, you don’t have a business. In the business is not running a business. In the business is you bought yourself a job and it sucks and it’s gonna get worse. Your knees are gonna get sore, your back’s gonna get sore. The economy’s gonna change. You’re gonna be up and down like a yo-yo. It ain’t easy.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:20:09

Most businesses don’t make it. Like 96% don’t make it 10 years. It’s not easy. How do you make it? You implement. You learn something. You have the right people you follow. You have the right team. You have— you’re in the right rooms.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:20:24

You have the right community. You have an accountability group, right? You take these ideas, you write them down, and you implement one of them by the end of the day today. Get it started. You move forward. You understand how to implement. You have an implementation process. I call it implementation is everything, and we teach it. Marketing is not a side activity.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:20:45

It is the business you are in. You are the marketer of cleaning services, the director of marketing. You don’t have to be the guy knowing how to do all of it. If you know how to do all of it, run a marketing company. You are the director of, of the marketing, chief marketing officer in your company. You understand what that means. You’re growing into that role. You don’t have to go to university for that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:21:05

You can be Ron Wood in a Rolling Stones cover band and still figure this out. You put things in place, you scale, you stack. You don’t do this for a while, stop that, do this for a while. You’re stacking. That’s the more poles in the water. Because right now AI is changing everything. Everybody thought, oh, I could just get ChatGPT to write me 50 articles a day and I’m going to rank. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:21:30

AI killed or Google killed all that. We knew it. There’s no game. You be real. But it’s the great equalizer because it’s easier and easier and easier to get answers. It’s easier and easier and easier to look like a commodity. The winners will be authentic, trusted businesses with human relationships that then people find you online. AI finds you online and recommends you because you’re real, right? You gotta stand for something different and compelling.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:22:00

You cannot be the same as everybody else. You don’t go look at the truck mount You know, the other clients or the other companies. You don’t go on the forums. You don’t listen to those and go, oh, I’m going to do that. I don’t know what I’m doing, but he must. That is not intentional marketing. The best-known cleaner wins over anybody with discounts and deals. The best-known anything wins.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:22:22

Grant Cardone. It’s better to be best known than to be best. You got to be competent, but you don’t have to be the best. You have to be the best known. How do you do that? That even works in like, think of celebrity. Think like it doesn’t matter if you had a sex tape. It doesn’t matter if you got arrested half the time, right? Probably can’t murder somebody, put them in a suitcase and in the back of your car and then fly across the world like whatever that dude’s name was, that the rapper or whatever. But the, your celebrity status seems to grow the more known you are.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:22:55

So if it works in that messy world towards humans, guess what it does in our world? Right? No one, if no one knows who you are, a great offer doesn’t matter. Customers don’t buy based on price alone. And it’s usually about 5th, 6th, 7th on the list when they’re surveyed, even in carpet cleaning. They buy based on trust and respect first. The best customers, these guys. And then they call you back over and over and over again. These guys don’t give a crap about anything I just said. They will beat you up.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:23:31

They will hate the work you did. They won’t give you any respect. They will be difficult. They will want a discount, and they’ll never call you back. They’ll find the cheapest guy next time. These people understand more emotional intelligence. They understand you pay a little bit more, you get a lot better. Their furniture they bought is going to last a lot longer than this guy’s.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:23:56

The house they bought, everything, right? They take pride in their stuff. We know who they are. We’ve all had them. Your marketing attracts the right— John, I don’t get any of those. Your marketing attracts them. Your words, your psychology, your neuro-linguistic programming, whether you know what that is or not, it exists in everything you do and say. Every script, every band, every technician, Every ad, it exists and it’s attracting one of these or the other, and it’s repelling one of these or the other. There’s an entire blueprint to build a million-dollar cleaning business or a business that you can retire from, still have running, or make multiples of EBITDA and get out of when you’re ready to exit for way more than the price of the truck.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:24:46

Don’t be the 2%. 15.2.5. Don’t be the 2% that sell their— they— that’s— sorry, don’t be the 98% that sell their— that don’t sell their business for more than the price of the truck. Be the 2% that actually sells the business for the equity value in the marketplace. And the equipment is meaningless. It’s, it’s all leasable. So 2026 has been that watershed year. Everybody says 2027 Is the oh shit moment.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:25:17

It’s coming really fast. 2026 is the transition. This is the fork in the road and we’re all feeling it and seeing it. We know it exists. I showed you at the front there with the robots, right? The way people buy, work, and experience life has already changed. If it hasn’t caught up in your world yet, it’s coming. It’s in a lot of other people’s worlds. A year ago, January, 1% of the population even knew what ChatGPT was and was using it to answer questions.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:25:47

And what that was, their intro to AI, right? It is their Kleenex brand of paper tissue, ChatGPT. Now, July of 2026, while we’re doing this presentation, about 50 to 60%. Fastest adopted technology in human history. And it’s not slowing down. It’s speeding up. And it’s getting better and better and better every single week. It’s no longer 6 months between model updates. It’s like weeks between model updates.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:26:15

Why? Because the AI is creating its next best version. We’ve invented the venture the first time in history. So we do run a coaching program, not a pitch for the coaching program, but if anything I said here makes holy crap, how do I figure all of this out? We can be on that Dunning-Kruger effect where you are Naively confident that you know everything and can figure it out. Let’s have this conversation a year from now and see how close you got. I couldn’t. And the majority, 85% or more of all home service business owners, plumbers, roofers, whatever, can’t and never did because they’re confident they know what they’re doing and they’re wrong. They’re missing little gears and little moments Because their confidence makes them believe, nah, I just know better. Prove it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:27:06

Does your history prove it? So we do run a coaching program that we talk about this every Thursday night, tonight at 4 o’clock, you know, kind of scheduled for an hour, tend to go to. And we, we walk through the entire blueprint. We like, not every week we walk through pieces of it. We talk about it right now. We’re talking about parts of your core forever engine and your referral partner retention and how to approach and, and like all of that kind of stuff. It’s all training that I learned from other people that I’ve coached on for 20 years, that I’ve helped hundreds of businesses by this point go through and seen all variations of it. But know that when it’s put in place well, piece by piece by piece, you’re stacking towards those 47 poles in the water. It’s probably more.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:27:49

47, the one number I know, that all of them generate 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 qualified inquiries A month times 47, right? That’s where you want to go. Some of them are grassroots and zero cost— shoe leather. Some of them are more expensive— paid ads, every door mail. They all have a place in a season at the right time in your business. You don’t run every door mail when you’re $100,000 a month or a year business, but you can run every door mail when you’re $60,000, $70,000 a month.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:28:25

revenue.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:28:25

It’s a great add-on for that, all the reasons we talked about already. So anyways, if you’re interested in anything like that, reach out to us. It’s by invite only. We have a killer community. We teach all the things you need to know to grow a proper cleaning business because I ran them. Carpet cleaning, maid service, duct cleaning, janitorial, to the tune of millions of dollars, as Ron Wood in a Rolling Stones cover band. Um, well, after that, sorry. Um, right, so you can go to blueprintsforsuccesscoaching.com to learn about more about it, right? You’ll hear my story.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:28:56

You actually see the S10 pickup truck I started my business with. Um, me as John, 23, 24-year-old kid. You get to see baby John as well. All that kind of stuff on that, on that page. If you’re, if you’re interested, um, you fill out an application, we can have a chat, right? Again, by invite only. We don’t want deadbeats and losers. We want people that are willing to grow Be part of a community, be accountable, fall down, get back up again, work with each other, stuff like that. Just so you know.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:29:26

Is there anything we can talk about at all? carpetcleaningmarketmasters.com/schedule. That’s how you get on a consultation. I do charge hourly for paid consultations. I do provide free consultations and we do deep dive research and we can do a growth plan and see that if there’s anything that we can help with. any of this stuff, any marketing, any, any sort of AI implementations, things like that, we’ll have that conversation. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll provide that. There’s, there’s no obligation. It’s just, hey, where are you at? Where do you want to go? Yeah, let’s see if we can help.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:29:59

Maybe I can point you in the right direction. That’s it. So a couple of places there. Blueprint for Success Coaching, number 4, blueprintforsuccesscoaching.com. If you want to learn a little bit more about that, carpetcleaningmarketingmasters.com/schedule. If you want to jump on a chat with me, team will reach out to you, have a good chat with you, and then put you in my calendar. So with that said, hopefully you learned something here today. Hopefully you got something out of it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:30:22

There’s another one of our 90-minute sessions, um, roughly the range that we try and land in. Um, so yeah, again, we talked about LSA, but we weaved it through the entire way to maintain and grow a proper business. It’s not about more leads. This is a lead source, but it’s about a great way to put More wiggly fish in your bucket, your forever engine, and your retention and referral engines. So if you’ve got those figured out, this is great. Anyways, I will let you guys go for now. Enjoy your day. Any comments, let us know.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:30:54

You know, share this with friends, family, anybody in any service business, other cleaners, you know. If you found this valuable, please let us know. Kind of like, follow, subscribe on whatever platform you’re on. You’re seeing this on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, wherever it is, livestream here, whatever, you know, let us know what you thought. It helps the algorithm, helps us, and hopefully it helps you as well. So anyways, thank you for your time. Appreciate y’all. Take care.

The skilled trades face a shortage of candidates due to retiring workers, cultural stigmas, and employers relying on outdated, transactional hiring methods that fail to address employee desires for meaning, growth, and recognition.

THOM VAN DYCKE
0:00

And so I think our role— yeah, exactly. And trades are AI-proof. And I think guys or businesses, entrepreneurs like us who want to keep helping people leverage the tools, we are— we’re building sort of an AI net around ourselves as well by being on the forefront, right? So we can help our clients implement. But a lot of these other clients that just want to stick with the traditional, you know, print, digital, all that stuff, like, It’s not sustainable for me as a consultant.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:09

Hey everybody, welcome back for another exciting episode of the Carpet Cleaner Success Podcast. Um, today we’ve got somebody that reached out to me on LinkedIn, so we’ve got Tom Van Dyke on the call today, and he’s another fellow Canadian. So don’t hold that against us. But so we’re gonna talk to Tom about sort of messaging in the business, especially as it relates to employees. We do know that as you start to grow your business, attracting the right employees and not rattling through 10 to find the one good one can be a big problem. But how your business messages in general also helps attract the right people. It’s like how you do anything is how you do everything in the world. And that, that whole messaging around your business really helps as well.

JOHN CLENDENNING
1:54

The right employees wanna work with your company. And Tom’s got experience in this, in this, this, this, this whole realm. So welcome to the podcast, Tom. Really happy to have you here.

THOM VAN DYCKE
2:04

Thanks, John. Pleasure to be here.

JOHN CLENDENNING
2:06

Yeah, it’s great. So tell us a little bit about, um, about your, your history. I do know, again, some of the notes we’ve got, and thanks to Rika for pulling our notes together as we always do. Um, but, um, 19 years as a pastor, got into this. Tell the little story. What got you into— like, what was that all about? What got you into marketing? Like, where—

THOM VAN DYCKE
2:21

where— yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
2:22

What makes Tom tick?

THOM VAN DYCKE
2:23

For sure. I was, yeah, I was 19 years as a pastor. I was a youth pastor first, very young, and ended up working at a church in southeastern Manitoba. It was great until it wasn’t. And it was a very large church. So we had 4,500 people, 80 staff. It was a big church. And during the pandemic, they went through a challenge.

THOM VAN DYCKE
2:45

And that was my, it was like my chance to leave. And I was 40 years old at the time. And, uh, so I just, I always kind of looked forward to being 40 because my dad went farming at 40. So I was like, something’s gonna happen. And sure enough, it was. And that was right at the beginning of COVID uh, so everything was shut down. It was kind of boring also. And, uh, I happened to have a book on my desk called Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller, and I had bought it for the church to read, and I just hadn’t bothered.

THOM VAN DYCKE
3:14

And so I looked at the, um, I had nothing on my calendar. So I said, I’ll read it. And in the back of the book, it says you can certify with StoryBrand to become what they call a certified guide. And StoryBrand, for those people who don’t know, it’s a framework that uses story, the hero’s journey, as a model for your messaging. So it’s not about telling your story. It’s about using the framework of storytelling, which is, which humans have just kind of evolved to find meaning in the world, through story. So if we find meaning in the world through story and we use that same pattern in our messaging and marketing, it’s gonna help them. So I certified with them, started my business and was, I just was really successful right out of the gate.

THOM VAN DYCKE
4:00

So as I started growing as a copywriter, started working for other marketing agencies, I white labeled for them, means I went, did their writing for them. And then I started meeting a lot of other copywriters who were struggling, started coaching them. That was very enjoyable.

JOHN CLENDENNING
4:16

Nice.

THOM VAN DYCKE
4:17

And, but it’s really hard coaching solopreneurs and a lot of copywriters are working on their own. And the statistics tell us 86% of solopreneurs will not make more than $100 grand. So it’s hard for them to hire a coach and that kind of thing. So I have, you know, slowly morphed into just small business. I really focus on small business now. And not just, we talk about messaging, but messaging kind of touches everything. So, you know, it touches your positioning, how you show up in the market. It shows up in your marketing and your strategy.

THOM VAN DYCKE
4:51

It shows up in your sales and then it shows up in how you reengage clients as well. So all of those 4 areas are what I do. And quite frankly, I think, I mean, we’re gonna get into this, but trades have a marketing challenge that’s unique in that they market to get more employees as well.

JOHN CLENDENNING
5:10

Yeah. And I— everything you just said there, like, I came across Donald Miller a long time ago and really loved that messaging as well. I’m a Dan Kennedy student. We talked about that a little bit ahead of the call. But so unique sales proposition, Jay Abraham, Dan Kennedy, Jeff Slutsky, the grassroots marketing, guerrilla marketing stuff, all that. And I call it a compelling sales proposition because, you know, so I talk about our core foundation, which really ties into all of, all of what— why I love Donald so much is, um, and that messaging and is— and the idea of getting your message right is that if you’ve got a compelling reason why people should choose you over everybody else that you can clearly articulate, that becomes that story. If you’ve got a risk reversal guarantee that puts all the onus on you, that becomes another step. That’s a Dan Kennedy moment, like great story and then take all the risk on, like to the point of absurdity, right? If you’re not happy, not only will we give you— come back and reclean.

JOHN CLENDENNING
6:02

If you’re still not happy, we’ll give your money back. If you— and if you can find somebody else who can get it cleaner, get the stain out, we’ll also pay their bill to do that for you. You will get the cleanest carpet cleaning no matter what by hiring us, even if somebody else does it at the end. It’s like, that’s an insane message. Never needs to happen if you know your job well. But it’s right. And then you have your founder’s origin story and your impactful branding. You get those 4 things right, storytelling is all part of how you take that and put it into— now it becomes your your message to attract employees.

JOHN CLENDENNING
6:33

Now it becomes your message to your website to convert better. Because as you said, we are creatures of sitting around the campfire or the fire, you know, in villages. The Bible is just a collection of great stories handed down over years.

JOHN CLENDENNING
6:45

You know, everything is just— we are narrative-driven creatures. So if we, we know that intuitively in, or in our soul, and then we go out and we sell Features. Well, I use a truck mount 8670, you know what, like all this kind of stuff. And the average customer goes, what? What’s that?

THOM VAN DYCKE
7:03

Right. They don’t care.

JOHN CLENDENNING
7:05

They don’t care. And employees don’t care about that either. It’s the message is why would it be great to work for this great company that has a great reputation in the marketplace, tells a great story. People talk about them and tell their stories. I call them happy customer stories. You’d be telling customers happy customer stories in your marketing everywhere you possibly go because AI now picks it up, but prior to AI, humans wanted to hear those stories, right?

THOM VAN DYCKE
7:28

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
7:28

And potential staff want to hear those stories. So let’s go down that rabbit hole a little bit. Like, so working with these small businesses, you nailed one thing like that 86%, which is really— my numbers are 85% of carpet cleaners or home service cleaning providers, homes, my niche, um, stay left in the truck. It’s the same math you just said from a solopreneur, like copywriters fit in like We all, because there’s a cap when you don’t know what you don’t know, you can’t move beyond that cap. You gotta learn that difference.

JOHN CLENDENNING
7:57

Then you can move beyond the cap. And that’s a smaller crowd. And this is one of those differences is how do you articulate and tell your story better, um, so that you do attract better employees when you actually do grow and don’t wanna be the solopreneur anymore. And you can start creating that, that, that staff. And the average service business does have Michael Gerber’s E-Myth problem. The E-Myth is the entrepreneurial myth. Oh, I’m good at doing the thing, therefore I should run the business that does the thing.

THOM VAN DYCKE
8:24

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
8:25

I’m good at being a mechanic. I should, I should run the business to be a mechanic. No. Well, if you do, you should never turn a wrench again because you should be growing the business. So carpet cleaner.

THOM VAN DYCKE
8:32

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
8:33

Same thing.

THOM VAN DYCKE
8:34

I know. Blue collar in general.

JOHN CLENDENNING
8:36

Yeah. Yeah. Let’s go down the blue collar side of it. When did you start working? So you copywriters and doing copywriting and then you switched to being sort of working with entrepreneur business owners and stuff like that. And you came across this moment where you went, oh crap, and homes and service businesses in general have this problem in spades. What did that look like? What was— how did that creep into your awareness? Like customers, you know, experience?

THOM VAN DYCKE
9:00

I think I’ve never niched down. I’m fascinated by people like you who have really hyper-niched down. Now you came out of that industry and so that makes a lot of sense. It’s often been hard when you do the trying to figure out where do you fit, you know, in terms of a niche. I have friends who are StoryBrand guides, all they do is car washes. They’re hugely successful, you know. So that’s interesting. So I think that you have to let the market speak to you though.

THOM VAN DYCKE
9:24

And so one of the things I looked at was who needs me and blue collar, I think, has been largely underserved. Now, the more you look into it, the more you realize, oh, there are quite a few other marketing people out there. But I didn’t know of a lot of people who were into like doing exactly what I did, all 4 growth levers, you know, positioning, sales, marketing, LTV. So that was one reason. There’s another really practical reason though. I wanted to look for people who have a really sustainable job and the trades are extremely sustainable, blue collar. I mean, the millionaires are coming out of the blue collar world because, and they’re completely AI proof. So I can help them implement AI.

THOM VAN DYCKE
10:13

And if I’m a thought leader in the area of AI, I can help them do that, but they’re not gonna be replaced. So, you know, if my main clients are, let’s say, marketing agencies, I go, well, marketing agencies, they like, there’s a risk there, right? How much of what we’re doing is gonna be taken on by AI eventually.

JOHN CLENDENNING
10:35

An accounting agency, like, like, look at what—

THOM VAN DYCKE
10:37

Exactly.

JOHN CLENDENNING
10:38

Xero can do now. You don’t need— like, the accountant can look it over after the AI’s done the entire books and reporting, and if you really need to still pay him.

THOM VAN DYCKE
10:46

Right. And so I think our role— yeah, exactly. And trades are AI-proof. And I think guys or businesses, entrepreneurs like us who, who want to keep helping people leverage the tools, we are— we’re building sort of an AI net around ourselves as well. by being on the forefront, right? So we can help our clients implement. But a lot of these other clients that just want to stick with the traditional, you know, print, digital, all that stuff, like it’s not sustainable for me as a consultant. So I looked at trades honestly from that perspective. But there was another reason and that’s my son.

THOM VAN DYCKE
11:22

He has a construction company. And so he went into the trade side of high school, got his Red Seal in carpentry.

JOHN CLENDENNING
11:30

Awesome.

THOM VAN DYCKE
11:31

When he was 21, he bought his boss’s business and since then has acquired another construction company. So, he’s 23 and they’re doing, you know, they’re doing incredible work. They have a— so, I’ve been very interested in figuring out what works well for him and the blue-collar space, whether you’re talking about construction, skilled trades, or carpet cleaning, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of difference in the challenges they’re facing right now. Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
12:02

Yeah.

THOM VAN DYCKE
12:03

I think there’s a lot of similarity as you bounce around in the blue collar industries.

JOHN CLENDENNING
12:09

Yeah. And there’s similarity. There is a first mover advantage. AI is the great equalizer. Everybody looks the same and commoditized.

THOM VAN DYCKE
12:18

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
12:18

If it’s done like, again, everybody can have a great website, maybe not a StoryBrand website and maybe not a high converting website, but now they don’t need to have like a a Wix or Weebly basic, you know, absolutely garbage, nothing site.

THOM VAN DYCKE
12:33

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
12:33

They could get a little bit better at it. And 6 months from now, it’ll be one click on GoDaddy. Does that mean it’s the highest converting one? No, it just means every carpet cleaner now looks the same again. Now the customer doesn’t know what to do again. Right. So, so blue collar does run into that where, you know, they, they may— some of them will embrace and jump ahead. So I’ve got a friend who runs— he’s at $5 million going up to $6 million a year. because he, he learned marketing, he learned growth, and now he’s buying other companies even outside of the cleaning and restoration niche.

JOHN CLENDENNING
13:04

He, he just bought a window chip, um, um, company and stuff like that because it’s the same. It’s, it’s manage employees, manage team, manage marketing, get the message out, all of that kind of stuff. But he will run, for example, he’s the first guy in his area, town of half a million people, doing $5 million a year. Um, first guy that had, um, AI Voice and chat, but not on the main line to answer the phones. The office gals are still so much better at the human connection.

THOM VAN DYCKE
13:31

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
13:32

But he runs it on third number rollover if nobody’s available as a better answering machine with a little bit of intelligence. And he runs it at night so he can run pay-per-click when the clicks are half the price. He can get pay-per-click having a conversation to book them in for a call the next day, not a job.

THOM VAN DYCKE
13:49

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
13:49

Don’t try and book a job and have the crew running. The staff will call you tomorrow. And, you know, is it something you’d like to call in the morning or the afternoon? Hey, afternoon would be better. I’m a shift worker that— or like, I work at the hospital. That’s why I’m calling you at 2 AM.

JOHN CLENDENNING
14:01

He’s the only guy running ads at 2 AM. Now he’s got a bit of an arbitrage moment, right? So lean into AI without having to be an AI guy. Lean into good marketing and good messaging because you’re— you’ll stand out like a sore thumb against your competitors, and that will give you that advantage. In a trade, in a world where until Elon’s robots start cleaning carpets and doing electrical and doing plumbing, you know, at some point the Optimus robots might do that, but at this point we’re still protected.

THOM VAN DYCKE
14:30

So, right, exactly.

JOHN CLENDENNING
14:32

Yeah. So let’s go down that road. So a little bit about messaging. How do you— how do you— so you, you kind of realize that trades have a need. The Sun story is awesome. I love the fact these buying businesses starting from scratch is painful. buying something existing and growing upon it and then buying the next one and growing upon it is a hack. It is like, if you can afford it and do it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
14:50

Um, my first business was from scratch. Within a year and a half, I said, oh, heck to the no. And the second one, I bought an existing one, and everything else I bought from that point on was an existing business started and run that I found a gap I could improve and, and add to the fold, right? And I think there’s a there there in that, that moment. But, um, so what kind of messaging do you find is working then? Like, what is— what would you say would be the way that you would refine a message for blue-collar trade, um, to get that— the messaging right that would, when they are growing and need to attract the best employees so they don’t end up with a bunch of duds and a whole entire problem now managing a company— the better people are easier to manage. How does that happen? What is— what does that turning the corner look like?

THOM VAN DYCKE
15:31

So in every story, you have a similar— you have a similar experience, okay? You’ve got a hero. Yeah, the hero has a problem. I like the whole man in a hole version. So, hero’s walking along, falls in a hole, then along comes a sage elder type, you know, an Obi-Wan Kenobi. They drop down a ladder, you climb the ladder out, and there’s transformation on the other side. So, it’s 3 scenes.

JOHN CLENDENNING
15:56

Yeah.

THOM VAN DYCKE
15:56

Disruption, I want something, I can’t have it. Confrontation, the guide confronts you in the hole, in your problem. Throws down a ladder and then invites you up the ladder into transformation. So, it’s disruption, confrontation, transformation. Now, when you’re dealing with customers, there’s the customer is the hero. Always, always, always, always the customer is the hero.

JOHN CLENDENNING
16:21

How many of our clients think they’re supposed to be the hero of the story?

THOM VAN DYCKE
16:24

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
16:24

No, it’s not.

THOM VAN DYCKE
16:25

Right. It’s never the brand. Nobody gives a rip that your granddaddy started your carpet cleaning company, you know, after World War II. Like nobody cares. Yeah, make— talk about the hero and their problem. Now, what’s interesting is in your— in the line of work that you, that you have with carpet cleaners, it’s very SEO-driven, local SEO-driven, right? If I need a carpet cleaner, I don’t need a compelling story. I need a compelling reason to maybe pick you if there’s 3 or 4 or 5 other competitors.

JOHN CLENDENNING
16:55

Yeah.

THOM VAN DYCKE
16:56

But there, it’s, it’s actually really important to just be discoverable. Okay, so that’s one thing.

JOHN CLENDENNING
17:01

Yeah.

THOM VAN DYCKE
17:02

But when it comes— because, because the, the arc of the story is my customer has something that they need cleaned, it’s dirty, so they need to overcome that so that they’re not embarrassed or whatever the reason. Okay, so it’s clean, healthy, all that stuff. But when you’re dealing with, with employees, it’s a different story arc. So now let’s say your employee is the hero, or the potential employee is the hero. They’ve fallen in a hole. What’s that hole? Either they don’t like their job as it is, they’re not getting paid enough, The hours are terrible. Maybe the boss is horrible. All of these reasons, right? But really what they want to become is a successful human being.

THOM VAN DYCKE
17:42

That’s really what they want. They want meaningful work that makes them feel like they’re contributing to the world. So when your company comes along, you’re no longer selling a product to help them overcome. You’re inviting them into a position that can help them become something. And this is really interesting. So every story is either about overcoming or becoming. And I think when it comes to the story that we— the kind of ads that we write, we need to talk about who we help you become as a human being, not just we pay you more or you get, you know, you start with 3 weeks of holidays or, you know, benefits or any of that stuff.

JOHN CLENDENNING
18:25

Yeah.

THOM VAN DYCKE
18:25

We talk about who we help you become. And I think that’s a very, that’s a much more attractive, a much more attractive storyline, even for carpet cleaning.

JOHN CLENDENNING
18:38

And no, it is. And then I could just think of the dozens of carpet cleaners I hired and the evolving landscape of hiring employees. We got to that whole point where as well, whether you called it quiet quitting or every, you know, anybody could cycle through a job within months and stuff like that. It was hard by the time you got somebody trained. they wanted to go off and do something else. It became even harder. There’s a lot of carpet cleaners that said, you know what, I’m just going to do it myself. I’m just going to stay a solopreneur because this whole hiring thing sucks.

JOHN CLENDENNING
19:07

Well, what was their hiring thing like? Upwork and ZipRecruiter and, you know, the same ad everybody else ran. And then they get 150 resumes and, you know, 5 of them are local, you know, whatever, even if they put a filter on. Right. Yeah. And then one or none show up. For the interview. And none of it was like, again, that’s in marketing in general. You have to market to attract a great employee.

JOHN CLENDENNING
19:32

You have to market and market well. You have to, you know, to bring that offer. And you don’t want to be marketing on features, which is what you just mentioned is like, right?

JOHN CLENDENNING
19:43

Like, you know, your marketing should never be about the features and the size of your truck mount and your this, like that when you’re trying to sell the job. It should be what’s the benefit to the client? We use this because it dries quickly. You’re drying an hour back to using it. You’re like, the benefit to your life is more. So you might want to pay a little bit more to have a premium quality cleaning because it gives you all these benefits that the discounts can’t.

JOHN CLENDENNING
20:04

And those kind of things, you start selling your message. Well, employee side of it obviously makes sense. What is your— you know, people want a career path. It’s hard to have a career path through, through a carpet cleaning company. Like what I incentivize my guys to do would be Um, you could own the business someday. You could buy— well, I sold 5 years ago to Carl, who had been with us for 14 years. We had other guys interested. We had other guys that started up their own cleaning companies.

JOHN CLENDENNING
20:30

And it’s like, that was not in the same area. They actually moved back home. One guy moved out back east to Halifax, started his own cleaning company from everything he— and it was like, I will mentor you. I will—

THOM VAN DYCKE
20:39

Totally.

JOHN CLENDENNING
20:40

All as an employee. And then as you move on, heck, I’ll mentor you for that too. Like, that’s cool. Right. So, we shouldn’t. Yeah. So, that’s part— how do you put that into an ad? How do you say, hey, we understand? Or what we’ve started teaching our guys in the coaching program is what I used to do. And one of the other guys in the group, George, is great at this, actually having the business cards that you walk around with and say, wow, you impressed me.

JOHN CLENDENNING
21:03

If you’re ever looking for a job, go to this link or give me a call.

THOM VAN DYCKE
21:06

Yeah, that’s really good. Because you know what I see? I think a lot of this, John, has— it has so much to do with leadership.

JOHN CLENDENNING
21:14

Okay.

THOM VAN DYCKE
21:15

And the best leaders, they create a healthy culture, right? They understand that there are systems that need to be in place. We need to pay our guys on time. We need to honor them. I mean, the most tangible way we honor employees is with bonuses or profit shares or whatever. But it’s about more than that. It’s about recognizing work that’s done well. And you’re talking about somebody recognizing work done well before they’re even on your job. That to me, That to me communicates such a deep curiosity about the human being.

THOM VAN DYCKE
21:47

I know that person’s going to be a good leader because they, they, they’re watching. Um, when I was a youth pastor, I, uh, we, we’re a foster family, so we’ve had lots of foster kids. We’ve had 30 foster kids.

JOHN CLENDENNING
22:00

Okay.

THOM VAN DYCKE
22:00

And, uh, one day, I, I, one of our kids was real tricky that we had. He was a real tricky kid, didn’t have a lot of friends. And as he was waiting in line for, um, the bus, I noticed that a neighbor kid Um, he had— I had told him, when you get out of the car, you don’t cut in front of the line. And he went out and he cut in front of the line, and I was about to yell out, hey, go back! I told you not to do that! And the kid, our neighborhood kid, said, it’s okay, Pastor Tom, no problem. He can cut in front of me. And then he engaged him and talked to him and treated him like he was special. And I wrote that kid— I wrote him a thank you note.

JOHN CLENDENNING
22:37

Yeah.

THOM VAN DYCKE
22:37

And I learned the power of an adult writing thank you notes to kids, actually writing them out.

JOHN CLENDENNING
22:45

Yep.

THOM VAN DYCKE
22:45

And his mom came and told me, she said, he’ll probably never say thank you. That card is on his mirror. He reads it all the time. Like, that’s the power of noticing that somebody did a good thing and rewarding them with words.

JOHN CLENDENNING
23:01

It’s huge.

THOM VAN DYCKE
23:01

We’re, we’re, we’re so used to the superficiality of social media. It feels like a reward. But it’s not a real reward. So, when a human being recognizes that grocery bagger who just goes the extra mile and says, by the way, look, you got a good job here. But if you’re ever interested, I want to talk to you because I’m impressed with how you work. I mean, that is huge. That’s huge.

JOHN CLENDENNING
23:29

And everybody should be on looking out for those. Like, again, that’s part of being a business owner in The E-Myth. You should not be the technician. As an entrepreneur, you should learn leadership skills. It doesn’t come naturally. Where are you learning them from? You should learn, right? So yeah, when you do see the, the guy at the bagging the groceries or the, you know, at the cell phone booth in the mall, and, you know, every time you walk by, the smile— they’re not the one just sitting with their head down on the phone. And, and, and you walk up and talk to them and they’re very engaging. Couple of interactions and you get to know that it wasn’t just a one-off.

JOHN CLENDENNING
23:57

The guy at Tim Hortons, the guy at McDonald’s handing you your coffee.

THOM VAN DYCKE
24:00

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
24:01

You know, I have handed cards to all of those people. I’ve had the odd one become employees, like where, right? And yeah, now you, now you can send them somewhere, whether it’s just, you know, good, better, best, just a phone call and have a conversation or send them to a page on why our business. Like, what is the message? Like, what, what is the, you know, what is the— they’ve now got a moment, as you said, just like your, um, that neighbor kid who now has a moment of, wow, I got recognized. It sticks out. It stands out in our brain, right? When I write paychecks, when I wrote paychecks, I would write a little personal note for real. I would pain over it. I’d actually get anxiety going, oh gosh, it’s payroll again. I have to pause, spend about half an hour to write a few checks because I want to actually write, add to it a little personal note thanking for something they did over the last 2 weeks since the last paycheck.

JOHN CLENDENNING
24:54

If I can at all.

THOM VAN DYCKE
24:54

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
24:55

Because they’ve heard all the negative stuff. I’ve already complained about the fact the truck came back dirty and blah, blah, blah. And I’ve already, you know, I want to— but thank you for going back to Mrs. Jones’s house and actually solving that problem. And we got a testimonial letter because of it. Really appreciate you taking that extra mile. It’s required. It’s part of the job.

JOHN CLENDENNING
25:12

But I appreciate them for doing it and not skirting on their responsibilities. It stands out as well.

THOM VAN DYCKE
25:18

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
25:19

So, how do we represent that ahead of time in a job ad, in a— on a landing page about, you know, that this job is going to give them that feeling that might be the moment in their life they’re not getting the right feeling from the job they’re in, the company they’re at?

THOM VAN DYCKE
25:36

Well, I think anytime you go away from generic marketing and generic job ads, there’s this fear attached to it. There’s anxiety because we like what is safe. So, probably, you know, we need to do the things that are a little bit maybe a little nutty, feel a little bit dangerous to stand out. And we know that we’re gonna either— that we’re gonna make some mistakes and, you know, maybe turn away a few people. But think about it. Think about talking about most people apply hoping for— hoping to make money.

JOHN CLENDENNING
26:13

Yeah.

THOM VAN DYCKE
26:14

We offer you a way to make a life.

JOHN CLENDENNING
26:17

Yeah.

THOM VAN DYCKE
26:17

You know, Like inviting people into something bigger than a paycheck. You might think that carpet cleaning is about cleaning something that’s dirty. It’s not. It’s about restoring pride to someone’s home. Do you want to be part of the pride restoration team? Right? You, but you don’t just say, hey, we’re looking for workers. We just need, we need, we need bodies. You know, we need breathing. We need—

JOHN CLENDENNING
26:44

And that’s how every ad comes across.

THOM VAN DYCKE
26:46

Totally.

JOHN CLENDENNING
26:47

Yeah, show up.

THOM VAN DYCKE
26:49

So one of the best things you could do is like we talk about it. I mean, a lot of companies do this, but you talk to your customers and you gather testimonials from your customers. Why would you not gather testimonials from your best employees? Why would you not go to them and get a net success score? You know, figure out what you’re doing really well and use that language and you’ll attract more of those people. Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
27:16

Is that a good— I’ll pit in that for a sec because I love— there’s 2 things that you just said there. So, a Net Promoter Score, a net score from your employees. How am I doing to you?

THOM VAN DYCKE
27:25

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
27:26

That’s not a light bulb. That’s not a writer down or to anybody in the audience because it’s just like, if you think about that, like we always think, well, yeah, our customers. But then this is the punching bag, sort of, at least in the back of our heads, even if we don’t represent it that way. They’re sort of like, my employees are supposed to do all this stuff. Oh my God, employees are so difficult. Because you don’t have the leadership. You don’t have the—

THOM VAN DYCKE
27:44

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
27:45

If you say, hey, how am I doing? Am I helping you the way you expected me to? Like, help me out there. The other one that we did internally, which I thought— I did it with the agency. I started doing it just at the last few years of running the Molly Maid franchises and all that kind of stuff because the book came out. Before the book came out for Love Languages for Business, Read Love Languages, right? Kind of, kind of, kind of told we have to read the Love Languages book at some point, right? It showed up. You know, we had to do the John Gray Venus and Mars. We were kind of told somebody had to, you know, somebody in our lives said you probably should read the book. And Love Languages is another one we got. We got to learn our love languages, John.

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:25

Okay. I read that book and I went, cool. Home life. Yes, absolutely. I need to know the love languages of my employees. Was my first thought out of it.

THOM VAN DYCKE
28:35

Right?

JOHN CLENDENNING
28:35

Right. Because that’s part of what we’re talking about is like, if we know what— does money actually feed them? What if it’s that note? What if it is that extra day off because they really value that because they volunteer, they have hobbies, whatever? What if that’s their bonus? What if like you need to know what it is that makes them go, wow, I really appreciate my boss and my job for that. They get me.

THOM VAN DYCKE
29:00

Yes.

JOHN CLENDENNING
29:01

So correct. And how do you put that in the job ad? Because that’s part— again, now you, if you build this system, now it becomes how you be unique in the way you represent it, you know, to, to the potential candidate in the marketplace and those testimonials from your, your, your, your current staff and even departing staff, like even folks that you’ve had.

THOM VAN DYCKE
29:24

Totally.

JOHN CLENDENNING
29:25

and move up. Like one of my— one of our employees, Mark, became an optometrist, went back to school, went to 5 years university, was only on part-time for a while, right? He is a former hockey player, blew out his ACL, became carpet cleaning technician, decided to go back and become an optometrist. And I’ve said, beautiful, how do we adjust your hours? Let’s make this work, right?

THOM VAN DYCKE
29:42

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
29:43

Because you’re helping people through their life. Well, guess who still messages me every now and then, 20 years, 15 years later? I still hear from Mark, right? Right.

THOM VAN DYCKE
29:51

And see, I think, I think that’s so important. We have to, we have to be good humans first. Just be a good human. Just be a good human. That will go so far for you. Can I ask you something? And this relates to a follow-up question, but what would you— what is kind of the lifeblood of carpet cleaners? I want to know if it’s the same as other trades. Like, how do they— the best kind of business that they get, what is it? What’s the best kind of marketing?

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:19

For the carpet, the technician themselves, or for the—

THOM VAN DYCKE
30:21

No, carpet cleaning.

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:23

Okay.

THOM VAN DYCKE
30:23

Like just to get more business.

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:25

Yeah. So what is— so what is that? So actually what average carpet cleaners think is they need more leads. And what an actual carpet cleaner needs is what I call a core forever engine. They need the great clients who respect what they’re doing, who can pay for them to come back again and again because repeat and referral business is the most important to grow a company.

THOM VAN DYCKE
30:47

Good, good. I’m on the same page.

JOHN CLENDENNING
30:49

Okay.

THOM VAN DYCKE
30:49

Repeat and referral. What if you got repeat and referral employees?

THOM VAN DYCKE
30:57

Right? See, one of the things that we do in the messaging is we put together a one-liner. One-liner is a very, very simple formula. It’s actually really hard to get it right though. It just says problem, solution, result. Here at Carpet Cleaners Anonymous, we know that your mother-in-law can’t see your carpet dirty at the holidays. That’s why we offer a holiday special so that you can open your door without fear and trepidation when you’re— okay, whatever. Here, this, we do this so that you can do that. That should be short.

THOM VAN DYCKE
31:34

It should be 2 sentences. My example was too long. It should be 2 sentences. It should be short and punchy and memorable. And what you should do is once you have that written down, You should stop randomly your employees with a $50 bill and say, give me the one-liner. And if they can do it verbatim, you give them a $50 bonus because when they can speak the language of your messaging, think about it.

JOHN CLENDENNING
32:00

Yes.

THOM VAN DYCKE
32:01

So, you just hire an 18-year-old. He’s on college break, okay, for summer and he’s leaving. And I live in a small city, 20,000 people. So, lots of family, you know, you’re leaving the supermarket and you’re next to your uncle and your uncle’s, hey, where are you working for summer? I’m working at this carpet cleaning place. And he goes, oh, well, what makes you any different than the others? Well, Uncle, one-liner, boom.

JOHN CLENDENNING
32:24

Yep.

THOM VAN DYCKE
32:25

Or he’s going to a bonfire with his friends and they’re like, well, why are you working over? Like, why’d you get that job? You know, why not working on the farm like everyone else in this area? And he goes, no, no, it’s this one-liner, boom. And you’ve turned your employees into the greatest marketing force and the greatest recruiting force. And I think that the same way we reward people even financially when they bring us new business, you might have a referral kickback or something like that. I think we should think about how do we give a bonus, a hiring bonus to people who bring in the best staff.

JOHN CLENDENNING
33:05

Yeah.

THOM VAN DYCKE
33:06

You bring in somebody, sticks around for 6 months, I, you know, I give you a check of X number because you’ve helped us grow the business. I learned those kinds of strategies.

JOHN CLENDENNING
33:16

Yeah, my— the Alternative Board tab, it’s called. Um, Brian McFadden, probably not listening, but if you are, I’ll send you the episode. Um, that was one of my consultants over the years. And, um, when we were going through a bit of a— that late, you know, 2015 to 2020 employee crunch and stuff like that as well, we were coming up with ways around this because I always had a $300 bonus, $150 if they, um, if they get hired and the second $150 if they make it to the 90-day probation, right? That was it. Any employee, right? So Brian sat there one, one day in my office right across the desk and said, okay, so you got all these employee problems.

THOM VAN DYCKE
33:55

Yep.

JOHN CLENDENNING
33:55

And like, or finding the right employee, the right people that could carry on this great message, be great in customers’ homes, buy in, Like to the one-liner, all that stuff, and then be able to— then that, if they feel pride in that, they will put the booties on, they will roll out the red carpet, literally, they’ll put the corner guards on though, because they have a care moment all the way through because they bought into the message and therefore it becomes part of their identity on the job, right? So they identify with the job properly and things like that. So you’ve tied that. He goes, so where would you possibly find somebody else you could give that $300 to? Yeah.

THOM VAN DYCKE
34:32

What do you mean?

JOHN CLENDENNING
34:34

He goes, well, at the time he goes, so I would say, how many churches do you clean, John? I go, we have a church program. We clean like 15 churches. We, we, we show them how to— the congregation can tithe back and the cleaning becomes free. It’s a whole program I teach on it. It kind of—

JOHN CLENDENNING
34:48

Like, we do, we do a lot of churches because I walk in and say, how’d you like to get your carpets cleaned for free? And that’s my opening line, right? Um, to, uh, you know, the gal behind the counter at the church, right? And next thing you know, I’m talking to a pastor and we talk about— we give them sale or the testimonial letters of all the other churches we’ve done. You can call them up, ask them about it, right? You know, it can get to the point of being free depending on your congregation. But here’s how we run the program. Anyways, she’s— he’s going, so when have you gone back to the church and said, hey, by the way, we have this $300? He goes, maybe even ramp it up to $500, whatever. But we have this ability to give you money. Do you know any— could you put the word out if anybody or they’re— they, they have a son and a nephew, you know, whatever, um, that would fit this profile. Again, not written as well as what we’re talking about now, but would fit this, this profile for the employee, um, wants this type of rewarding career. Um, if, if we hire them, if they pass the interview and, and get— do the ride-along and the other technician loves them and, you know, likes them well enough to say, yeah, we can work with this guy, does a ride-along day and then gets hired, we immediately pay.

JOHN CLENDENNING
35:49

Thank you for finding the person we hired. And then if they make it to 90-day probation, we pay the rest. He goes, so every one of the churches you just, um, that you clean for, I would suggest— I wouldn’t even call them. I just walk in the door, John, because that’s what you do now. Um, and he goes, the other one I would do would be, um, the, um, um, baseball association, the young male baseball. Like, and I said, why is that? Because his sister turned her out to run the Ontario Baseball Association, something like that, whatever. But the idea was that most of these folks that are 19, 20, 21, like, think your son’s age, right? Um, and the, the association tends to know through the coaches and stuff like that who’s struggling even at work and career or between jobs and stuff like that, kind of like the church knows that as well. Well, these, these are kind of tight-knit and they’re also athletic.

JOHN CLENDENNING
36:41

How many hockey players or baseball players, um, like who’ve been in junior sports their whole life, um, how many do you know that stand out slightly differently than the average gaming kid in his mom’s basement for the last 10 years, right? As being somebody who’s a little bit more community-minded, a little bit more able to talk to people around them and be a little bit more comfortable in their own skin. There’s something about sports and teams And that whole development process that brings out— and churches and all— that brings out the best in people, that you’ve just weeded down to at least a better crowd, right? And you pay them something and give them—

THOM VAN DYCKE
37:21

I agree. So I think it’s great. Yeah, I mean, you think about the Baseball Association, they’re probably always raising money and trying to get, you know, at-risk kids into the program. Yeah, for every, for every good employee that we get out of your association, we will sponsor a kid. Uh, to play ball. Like, it’d be amazing. Amazing.

JOHN CLENDENNING
37:39

Amazing.

THOM VAN DYCKE
37:40

Yeah. Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
37:41

And then there’s a marketing opportunity there as well, because give me a backlink from your association back to the website if we give you a sponsor, right? You know, you get a little SEO boost from a local—

THOM VAN DYCKE
37:49

Totally.

JOHN CLENDENNING
37:49

Right? So yeah. And, and there’s a whole bunch of— because that’s the other thing, like, this is a little off topic on what we’re talking about, but I think it’s just interesting, is that what we’re talking about is being a real human. Real humans that own real businesses talk to real humans. Right. They— back in the day, it might have been dad or grandpa down at the barbershop talking to the butcher and the other. And they all know each other and they all respect, you know, when you respect each other, you refer people and stuff like that. Then we decided to hide digitally behind everything, right? Business is still done. Your best referral partners, the best real estate agent or interior designer or whatever that’s going to refer their clients to you is because they like you.

THOM VAN DYCKE
38:25

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
38:26

The relationship with them is not because ChatGPT said to recommend you. It’s not because your SEO did better for that. They also still need to really— and that, that where the average customer who doesn’t have somebody in mind might go to Google, other people will ask their neighbor, their friends, their, the flooring store where they bought it, the interior designer, the whatever, and they’re gonna trust an endorsement. And, and that’s never changed. The human connection, finding employees, growing a great business, It’s still about, again, walking around those business cards and handing them out. It’s still about being authentic and real in the real world, not just hiding behind a computer and a digital screen hoping to get more leads, right?

THOM VAN DYCKE
39:09

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
39:09

Pick the phone up and call your customer the day after and make sure they’re happy with the job. And were they happy with the technician? And when they got a wow, give your technician that bonus and say, dude, customer was raving about you. I’m sure we’re going to get a Google review. Don’t really care right now. You did an amazing job. Here’s your bonus. Here’s a bonus. That was a wow of the week.

THOM VAN DYCKE
39:27

I think that’s really hitting it on the head. I’ve done a study on the difference between during a recession, how much money people actually keep investing in marketing. And the really interesting thing is that the companies that maintain their marketing budget through a downturn or recession, they don’t make up the difference in the recession. But on the tail end, because recessions never end or never last forever.

JOHN CLENDENNING
40:00

Never last forever. Yep.

THOM VAN DYCKE
40:01

They go through the roof when people are ready to spend again because they didn’t lose touch with their customers throughout. And I think that if, you know, it feels, I don’t know if this is the truth or not, but Spending on your own employees feels to me like one of the best investments you can make. Like, it just feels that way. I don’t know why. I don’t know why people hold back so much there. Yeah, I don’t know. It’s—

JOHN CLENDENNING
40:30

Could you imagine if you had 20 testimonials of past employees for your carpet cleaner or 10 or 5, right? On a landing page or in a job ad. By the way, here’s some of our former, our Current and former employees, and here’s their— because you took a Net Promoter and a, like, an internal survey review. And with the little button that says, hey, by the way, we might be using this in our marketing. We’ll share your first name and just the letter of your last name, whatever. But, and by the way, here’s what our employees say about working here. So not, you know, like, not a glass ceiling or whatever that’s called, or glass, whatever, the websites of that. But literally, you internally, because you care, you’re gauging. And then you use that.

JOHN CLENDENNING
41:08

Just like I said, I would take letters from one church to the other church going, this pastor loves us and loves our program. Would you like to be enrolled in our program too? And I started doing that with chiropractors and I started doing it with condos. Like, it was just, right? Why not be doing that with employees? It’s like, hey, here’s Mark, the hockey player turned optometrist, and the letter he wrote on exit thanking for how much we helped him get through to his new career. after 5 years and how accommodating we were and still writes me and says, dude, you’re still the best boss I ever had. And I run my own optometry clinic now because of you. And I was just figuring— I was just a dumb kid figuring it out. Like, I was literally in my 20s and 30s, right, trying to figure out how to be sort of a leader, sort of at this stuff, right? But I think—

THOM VAN DYCKE
41:53

You can be an incredibly messy human being. You can make a lot of mistakes. But when you’re a good human being, the, the, you’ll know you’re a good leader when your staff gives you the benefit of the doubt. When they go, oh, what was that about? Oh, did he ever say something stupid the other day or whatever?

JOHN CLENDENNING
42:13

Yeah.

THOM VAN DYCKE
42:14

But I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt that that’s not what he really meant or that’s not, you know what I mean? That’s some great magic.

JOHN CLENDENNING
42:21

You’ve got some grace for him.

THOM VAN DYCKE
42:22

Yeah, exactly. It’s a magical moment. Just absolutely magical.

JOHN CLENDENNING
42:26

So, so we’ve got this, this, we’ve got these ideas of, hey, the message of what the benefit. So you’re going to be the guide. Again, love Donald, you know, this whole StoryBrand idea. You’re the guide to the client that you’re trying to get as a customer. They’re, they’re the hero of the story. You’re the guide to the employee. I love that shift. I love that idea.

JOHN CLENDENNING
42:49

Um, you’re guiding them on making their business, their career choice. This is a stepping stone or a point in their, in their career journey. It might be that they own a business someday. What are you going to get out of this? And you might be buying a company out. You might become the general manager. We might be growing. You know, we have 20 employees in a flood restoration division, and you’ve got your way to go all the way up to general manager someday. Like, they’re, you know, whatever.

JOHN CLENDENNING
43:13

Like, there’s, there’s— every company has a— You might just be the guy sitting beside the owner. And employee number 1, right? But that employee number 1 becomes chief technician who employs and who trains employee number 2. So you could get all of that with like you at our job and then represent that with a really low cognitive load moment of a one-liner. Can our employees say what our one-liner is to our clients? And can we state our one-liner for having a career with our company that works for the front office gal and the technician, right?

THOM VAN DYCKE
43:51

Absolutely.

JOHN CLENDENNING
43:52

What is that, right? Think of marketing. I always like— I learned this from a good friend of mine, Jim Allene. Um, and Jim told me, um, always be building your bench. Always. Don’t be— right, the whole hire Slow fire fast. Sure. If, if, if something comes up and you can’t give— you can’t give the employee any grace because they’ve not earned the grace and you have to say, that’s, that’s destructive, that’s going to damage my company. Sorry, I will give you 2 weeks.

JOHN CLENDENNING
44:20

I’ll give you a month’s salary. I’ll be nice to get you out the door, but I’m getting you out the door because I’m also not worried. I also have constant conversations with people that might want to work here someday because of everything they’ve heard and seen. Good marketing, good reputation marketing, build a great reputation and market your reputation. Also attracts better employees because they see that your reputation is preceding you everywhere in the marketplace, like potential customers will. Now you’re building a bench, you’ve got a process in place, you’ve— you’re talking to Little League, you’re talking to churches, you’re handing out cards, right? And you’re— and you’re going, but John, I’ve only got one truck on the road. Hey, we— you might want to have multiple. One of our clients, Tony, in this really weird economy of is it a recession, is it not, are people scared of their jobs or not, is AI going to be the AI job apocalypse or not in their industry, all that kind of stuff.

JOHN CLENDENNING
45:10

And Tony, in the last 24 months, built a million-dollar cleaning business. He just hit $83,000 a month, started brand new May of 2024. He now has 6, 7, 8 employees, right? So if you do marketing right and grow right, there is still an avenue right now where you can be like your son buying a different business out and stuff like that and growing. You can buy the competitors that suck, take their database and double their—

THOM VAN DYCKE
45:33

Sure.

JOHN CLENDENNING
45:33

The job load out of it right now because there’s a bunch of them having that recessionary aches and pains where they’re not marketing through a slowdown. So, they’re dropping 40% where the person that markets through might only drop 10%. But on the back end, they jump 30%, 40% like we said. So, right. So, yeah. So, I mean, lots of, lots of there, there, lots of good stuff going on there. What would be some of the things that, like, that we’ve talked about that would, would help even, you know, in that messaging even more? Where would, how would, like, like a little bit of brass tacks that, yeah, how would they work through what they’re going to put on a list, even if they take it back to ChatGPT and say, turn this into a much better job ad using a bit of a StoryBrand style or something like that.

THOM VAN DYCKE
46:14

Yeah.

JOHN CLENDENNING
46:14

How, what, what are sort of those things that they wanna really start thinking about or focusing on?

THOM VAN DYCKE
46:20

Yeah, that’s a great question. I think, you know, if there, if there’s time to read and they enjoy that, reading Building a StoryBrand is really good. I have put my own spin on Building a StoryBrand because I’m not gonna be a certified guide for much longer. Okay. And And so, I call it narrative marketing. I just talk about those 3 acts and stuff, but I have it written down and I have a webinar on my website that people can visit and look at. But I think it’s really about changing our perspective and waking up and saying, these people, it’s not that I’m giving them a privilege of working for me. I have the privilege of leading them.

THOM VAN DYCKE
47:01

Yeah, you know, like really changing your perspective. That’s far more practical than actually people think. Um, but then also just, you know, really understanding what it means to tell a compelling story. Um, I think that’s, I think that’s really, really core. And, um, so—

JOHN CLENDENNING
47:19

No, I think those 2 things are brilliant because, no, so leadership, I would say your 19 years as a youth pastor to pastor, you naturally understand the power of leadership and leading other people to, to, to the destination, right? Whatever. So leadership becomes, well, I do it here in the church to find Christ. I do it here in, um, in business, or a business should do that to lead the employee, not oversee and dictate. That’s a cool moment. And then, yeah, really the other thing you mentioned that I just want to is Do people read much anymore? I, I tell everyone, like, there’s a lot of window time in carpet cleaning, right?

THOM VAN DYCKE
48:01

It’s—

JOHN CLENDENNING
48:02

and anything like that. If you’re the business, if you’re, if you’re the owner and still in the truck, thank your lucky stars that you have a lot of university time because you’re not listening to country music or death metal or whatever it is your thing is. You are listening to these podcasts. You’re listening to Donald Miller, StoryBrand, the book. You’re getting, you’re getting your—

THOM VAN DYCKE
48:22

Yes.

JOHN CLENDENNING
48:23

Audible subscription and you’re maximizing that out every month. You are downloading things to listen to. You’re listening to The E-Myth by Michael Gerber and anything that you need to fix yourself, any sort of like the, you know, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and stuff like that.

THOM VAN DYCKE
48:38

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
48:38

You are now building a better you and you’re— so that you can build a better company. And because you’re now— that was what you signed up for. You didn’t sign up for somebody else to give you a paycheck. You get to go home at the end of the day, eat Netflix and— or eat Cheetos and watch Netflix, as I say. You signed up to be the role leader and the model of the company, even if you’re only just one person right now, so that you can build something that grows from there. So that whole leadership and then how you’re engaging in the study of personal growth and business growth at every moment gets you there for sure.

THOM VAN DYCKE
49:13

Right. Brilliant. I think that’s a great summary.

JOHN CLENDENNING
49:17

Yeah. So definitely, we’re gonna put the show notes. Everybody should go and check out that webinar that you’ve got. They should start thinking in that narrative-driven marketing. They really like marketing for employees, which we spent a lot of our time talking about here. But marketing in general, you’ve got to stand out. You have to tell a better story. Why should somebody choose one business over the other?

THOM VAN DYCKE
49:41

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
49:41

They don’t know. It’s the story moment, right? It is. Does this one feel better than that one in pictures, in sentiment, in the way they present the information? And does it feel right for me? That’s what a story done well imparts on the person. This just feels better. I’m willing to spend $400, $500, get my carpet cleaned by this guy than the guy for $169.95 who is the same price as all the other guys. That is just— that’s a discount cleaning. I talked to these guys and they explain why the value, the difference, right?

THOM VAN DYCKE
50:17

Right.

JOHN CLENDENNING
50:17

Our cleaning product, we could actually drink right in front of you. It’s that safe. Does that Do you matter about that for your family, your friends, and, and your kids and your pets and all that kind of stuff? Um, and, and, and is it dried quickly so it doesn’t leave mold and mildew, or at least wet for days that you have to dance around in wet socks? Is there a benefit? All of that takes a little bit more time and attention in the home, and we hire the right people that can put that time and attention in. And you’ll notice the moment they show up, they are gonna— I always tell our— always told our technicians, employees, I want you to come across Like your, your, um, your best friend did to your mom, or the way you talk to your, you know, your favorite aunt, right? I want you to come across like that employee because, you know, your best friend talks to your mom, oh, you know, Mrs., Mrs. Clendening, blah, blah, blah, and all this kind of thing. And afterwards you’re going, dude, you make me look bad. What’s going on? You’re like so respectful. Like your best friend should talk to your mom.

JOHN CLENDENNING
51:14

Like how your mom would wish you would be. Like, you know, I kind of like your friend a little bit more than you because he’s so polite and nice to me. The employees should come across like that regardless of what they’re like behind the scenes, what they’re like at a party with their friends, right? And, or come across like, again, you’re, you know, the way you would talk to your grandma or your favorite aunt or, or something like that, right? You always just treat them a little bit different. Like you, you elevate who you are. Um, and if you’ve got the right person who knows that, You hire the right employee because you’ve done all this stuff that we just talked about. Yeah. Now you’re building a company that you can trust that what’s happening in the home is the way you want it to happen in the home. Without that trust, you will never hire an employee because you, you could always do it better.

JOHN CLENDENNING
51:59

You will feel in your brain, right? So yeah, we got to get to that moment. So no, I appreciate that. So Any summary wrap-up thoughts, famous last words, stuff like that on this? And then where should they go to learn more about what we’ve just talked about from you? Because I mean, you get it, you nailed it. So where do we go?

THOM VAN DYCKE
52:20

Thanks. Well, I guess the parting words would be this. Don’t underestimate the power of understanding story. Don’t underestimate that. It’s clarifying. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s actually such a time saver. It’s unifying for your team. So don’t underestimate that.

THOM VAN DYCKE
52:43

Learn about the power of story. And then if people want to get ahold of me, they can certainly email me. My name is spelled a little bit different. T-H-O-M and Van Dyke has a D-Y-C-K-E. But you can email me just tom@tomvandyke.com. You can visit my website, tomvandyke.com. And I’m also on LinkedIn. So, if you’re a business owner and you’re on there and you want to connect, certainly look me up and I’ll be more than happy to.

THOM VAN DYCKE
53:07

And please let me know if you heard about me here. I’d love to send Jon a note of thanks as well. So, I look forward to connecting with your audience, Jon.

JOHN CLENDENNING
53:17

Yeah, I appreciate that. And send notes. There’s another one. Write handwritten notes anywhere you can to employees, to your wife, to happy Customers to vendors, everything. Like, the power in a handwritten note is insane. So as well, there’s another, another golden nugget. So appreciate it. In the show notes, we’ll get— we’ll put your contact information and all that as well so people can reach out.

JOHN CLENDENNING
53:37

And yeah, I really appreciate this message. I love having these conversations of helping business owners sort of get out of their own head and move in the right direction because it is a little bit rarefied. Once you get there, you realize you’re in a little bit of rarefied air and you are one of the community leaders and local leaders because you decided to put some time into this thought process. You get better employees, you get better customers, you grow a company, and we end up— all of us, we end up with a better life and better life for the people around us. So, um, I think, I think if we think in those ways and we keep moving forward like that, um, then I don’t care what AI does to our world because we have a reason to be here.

THOM VAN DYCKE
54:16

So I agree.

JOHN CLENDENNING
54:18

Perfect. Well, thanks so much. Appreciate it. And yep, if, um, anybody, uh, has any comments at all, I will share them like in the, in the comments and anywhere Spotifys and YouTubes and everywhere else this goes. Um, we will definitely share those back with Tom as well. And until next time, I appreciate everybody showing up, and thanks so much. We’ll see you again.

THOM VAN DYCKE
54:34

Bye now.