Embracing a Premium Service Mindset for Carpet Cleaning Success with Joe Trevino

Building strong relationships with real estate agents and referral partners not only establishes your brand but also secures long-term business opportunities.

John Clendenning [00:00:03]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:00:03]:
What are you displaying on your ad? Like, what are you displaying on your on your profile, on your website? Yeah. If you’re talking about your pricing on the Internet, they’re gonna talk to you about pricing in general.

John Clendenning [00:00:16]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:00:16]:
Right? If you’re talking about being the best value, the, you know, the best price in the world, the fair you know, you’re gonna get those people on the phone. We took off all of our pricing online, and you’ve helped us tremendously by creating that as you know, establish that trustworthiness and and and having reviews help. But whenever we pick up the phone, the conversation is beginning to we we don’t even talk about price. We just talk about the problem that you have. Yeah. And you’re calling because you have dirty carpets or you’re calling because you need to get this carpet Cleaner because you’re having a graduation or whatever.

John Clendenning [00:01:28]:
Hey. Welcome back for another exciting episode of the Carpet Cleaner Success Podcast. This time, I’ve got Joe Trevino. He is the, the manager of general manager of Alamo Steam Team in San Antonio, Texas. And, we’re gonna have a good chat about their business and a lot of the really unique things they’re doing that I just absolutely love. So how’s it going, Joe?

Joe Trevino [00:01:49]:
Oh, man. It’s going great. Thank you for having me.

John Clendenning [00:01:51]:
Hey. No worries. Thanks for jumping on. So, what we’d like to start off with is a little bit of background. You’re the general manager, so tell me a little bit about your involvement with Alamo steam team. When you when you John, you know, what kind of role you’re in and, you know, what’s kinda developed to this point right now?

Joe Trevino [00:02:07]:
It’s crazy. I never thought I would be here in this situation, to be honest with you. The company is actually my uncle’s. He started this division back in 2011. And I moved over here, and I was finishing up my undergrad, at a college nearby.

John Clendenning [00:02:24]:
Yep.

Joe Trevino [00:02:25]:
And while I was there, I was working part time here, and I was working part time at a car dealership.

John Clendenning [00:02:30]:
Okay.

Joe Trevino [00:02:31]:
But I actually loved cleaning. I had there’s so much satisfaction from cleaning carpets, and I really liked to to clean things. And it was it was so much fun. I actually liked it. So Yeah. Went through that, graduated college, and there was no role for me anymore because there was already a general manager at the time.

John Clendenning [00:02:49]:
Okay.

Joe Trevino [00:02:49]:
So I went and worked for a corporate job. Very nice suit. I had to wear a suit all the time. Totally different 180 from what I do now. Yeah. And I was working there, and just so it you know, so it may be, the general manager here was leaving on to another position.

John Clendenning [00:03:08]:
Okay.

Joe Trevino [00:03:08]:
They had a meeting with me, had a sit down, say, hey. You know, Jeremiah is leaving. We would love to have you back since you know a lot about the business and all that. So I feel like it was a good opportunity for me. So I left my corporate job, and I’ve been here for now, total with the company for 12 years.

John Clendenning [00:03:27]:
Wow. Okay.

Joe Trevino [00:03:28]:
But as a manager for 7 years now.

John Clendenning [00:03:30]:
So years now. Wow.

Joe Trevino [00:03:31]:
It goes by so fast, and things have changed so much. And, it’s it’s been a fun ride.

John Clendenning [00:03:37]:
Oh, that’s good. Oh, wow. I didn’t even realize you’ve been there that that long. You know, 12 years in total, but 7 years since the, you know, jumping back into the the ship like that. So so talk about it. What’s what’s happened in the last 7 years that you’ve seen change? Like, what all does Alamo steam team do? Like, what are the services, and and what are some of the evolutions that you’ve spearheaded or have just happened while you’ve on your watch?

Joe Trevino [00:04:02]:
Yeah. So whenever we first started, we were doing a lot of commercial work. Right? Because residential, obviously, no one knew us at the time, but we had a lot of commercial work at the time. And do you know how commercial is? I mean, you’re working late night. At the time, it worked best for me because I was going to school. Yeah. And it kinda worked out for me. But, whenever I transitioned you know, primarily now we do residential.

Joe Trevino [00:04:27]:
It’s, like, 95% residential. Small percent of commercial. But we like the residential game. We like meeting new customers. We like, you know, doing the job then, getting paid right now,

John Clendenning [00:04:40]:
and that has

Joe Trevino [00:04:40]:
to be great. You know? And when I first joined, you know, we were doing, like, apartments and, you know Yeah. You know, like, really, really dirty Carpet.

John Clendenning [00:04:52]:
Dirty, smelly, greasy, and Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:04:55]:
It really trained us to to take out you know, be the best stain removal person. Yep. You know? And whenever I came back and I was actually transitioning from a technician to a manager, I was like, man, you know, it helped me because I knew what it was like to be a technician. So I always wanted to implement new systems and and change things up. And that’s what we’ve recently done with the company about a year ago. We’ve just changed the whole dynamic. We’ve, of course, over the years, you gain confidence. Right? Build up enough money to invest in better truck mounts and to better products and solutions.

Joe Trevino [00:05:35]:
You start building the clientele. It just naturally has been able to take us up into a whole another level than we’ve been before.

John Clendenning [00:05:43]:
And you guys do good, like, obviously, with the clientele. Like, you you’ve you you know, you show up clean, neat, and tidy. I’ve seen pictures of the guys and videos of the guys and stuff like that. Like, there’s like, you show up to impress. That’s obviously something you’ve added. Like, like, I I believe, obviously, Steve, the owners had that in place for years, but that’s something that is very important residentially. Totally different if you show up at a, you know, a restaurant at 11:30, 12 o’clock at night to clean the the greasy traffic lanes. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:06:10]:
It’s not really that important what you show up and look like, you know what I mean, kind of idea as much. But, residentially, you better show up and be impressive if you really wanna have that The neighbors see you, that repeat and referral business and have you stand out in their mind and stuff like that John top of delivering a good service, and getting all the stains out and all that kind of stuff. But, so having that database of people that have that kind of know, like, and trust you, come back and use you. And I know you guys have raised your prices, like, inch not just inch your prices up, like, catapulted your prices up from time to time, which has an impact on on some clientele, and other ones are going, yeah. What have you guys charge? I want you guys. So, talk a little bit about that. Like, the database and the change as you’ve changed things over the years, that residential database sort of really sinking into loving you guys in a in a very profitable database, a a very big asset to the company.

Joe Trevino [00:07:04]:
Man, it’s been crazy. And I hear a lot of people say all the time, like, men, people from Google are not gonna pay these prices. You know? And they won’t if you don’t believe it.

John Clendenning [00:07:18]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:07:18]:
You know, we a lot of our customers do come from Google. I mean I mean, we have a lot of our main three tiers are referral referrals

John Clendenning [00:07:26]:
Yep.

Joe Trevino [00:07:27]:
Repeat customers, and Google. Right? Those are the top three tiers for us. And, with Google, I mean, if you’re it depends on your website. Right? Because if they’re gonna find you on Google

John Clendenning [00:07:40]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:07:41]:
What are you displaying on your ad? Like, what are you displaying on your on your profile, on your website? Yeah. If you’re talking about your pricing on the Internet, they’re gonna talk to you about pricing in general.

John Clendenning [00:07:53]:
Yeah. Right?

Joe Trevino [00:07:54]:
If you’re talking about being the best value, the, you know, the best price in the world, the fair you know, you’re gonna get those people on the phone. We took off all of our pricing online, and you’ve helped us tremendously by creating that as you know, establish that trustworthiness and and and having reviews help. But whenever we pick up the phone, the conversation is beginning to we we don’t even talk about price. We just talk about the problem that you have.

John Clendenning [00:08:22]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:08:23]:
And you call them because you have dirty Carpet, or you’re calling because you need to get this carpet Cleaner because you’re having a graduation or whatever. Yeah. Price will generally come up. Right? But we we we kindly talk about price real quick. While we talk about the value that they’re gonna get, we talk about, hey. It’s a free consultation for you. There’s no we don’t like we we’re super transparent. We just wanna go there, take a look at what needs to be done, and give you the exact price.

John Clendenning [00:08:49]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:08:50]:
You know? Because the last thing we wanna do is to try to give a price over the phone, and we get there and it’s you know, customers, they’ll say, I have a small room. Yeah. You know, they’re being kind.

John Clendenning [00:08:58]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:08:59]:
And it’s a kind of an awkward situation to be like, well, man, you really don’t have a a lot a small room. You know? This is I know we quoted you this over the phone, but it’s really gonna be this. We just try to wipe that out and provide Well,

John Clendenning [00:09:11]:
that’s an awkward moment when you, like yeah. Like, the quote versus estimate, we used to beat that up a lot on our end. And in in my cleaning businesses was, you know, this is just an estimate, you know, based on average sizes. It’s a general price. When the technician comes, he’ll give you a full thorough quote, and you had to really teach start teaching them language because then they go, well, they gave me a quote on the phone, and then the technicians have to go, well, ma’am, they actually gave you an estimate based on average, and they started using the exact words to try and get that light bulb moment, but you guys have flipped the whole script. And we’ve talked about I mean, there’s things that you’ve done that, like, we we were running, like and, you know, the transparency we do with the Marketing, the digital marketing for for you guys. Yeah. But, you know, I was shocked even recently that, you know, to find out that your average job and, again, this is probably gonna shock the audience as well.

John Clendenning [00:09:57]:
But your average residential job is over 700 close to $750 average job. Right? And you’re John 50. Yeah. In a marketplace where you’ve got the $79.99 special competitors. So, yeah, there is a moment where, again, anybody listening to this that that just shocked them, 5 years, 20 years in the business and and think that carpet cleaning needs to be a, you know, you know, $99, 1.29, 1 you know, a $150 or less kind of service. It doesn’t if you’ve got the right messaging in the marketplace and you’re really building that brand credibility because as I always say, Dan Kennedy is, I I quote Dan Kennedy a lot. He was part of my mindset in marketing and stuff early John. But, the person who can pay the most for a client profitably always wins.

John Clendenning [00:10:45]:
So if you can buy your clients for more than a competitor, so you can spend what it basically means. You can spend more John ads to get a better client because you the client gives you more money in the end. Therefore, you can do it profitably. You make more money. Therefore, if it cost you $50 to buy a new customer and you only ever see them once and it’s a $150 job, you made a $100. But if it cost you $200 to buy a customer that gives you 7.50 this time, comes back in 6 months, refers their neighbors to you, you know, talks about you at their bridge club if the people still have that or whatever they do. They’re pickleball, I guess, it isn’t stuff like that now. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:11:22]:
Because you’ve done everything so much differently. And then not giving a price over the phone, but every quality customer should have no problem with you showing up and assessing the situation before the Cleaner. Because, you know, again, unless it was they walked home at the end of the they came home at the end of the day, and their great dane has just had gotten into the wrong you know, got into the salsa or something like that, and the carpet is just, and they just need you now. They still don’t care about the price yet. Come John and just solve it. But other than that, if they’re actually just a normal person, not in an emergency sit situation, planning for the graduation, planning for the holidays. You know, kids are now going back to school. It’s August.

John Clendenning [00:12:00]:
Whatever. Let’s get the house all cleaned up now that the kids are done trashing it. All those reasons Yeah. They should have no problem with an assessor coming out, a person coming out to do an assessment of the home, straight up, you know, test things out, give them an honest assessment, give them an honest pricing and be done with it. Right? And those clients start to know, like, and trust, and love you a lot more than just somebody who took a discount ad showed up. Hopefully, you’re having a you’re in a good mood that day. Your technician’s in a good mood and didn’t just, you know, smoke a cigarette and smells like smoke on the way out

Joe Trevino [00:12:33]:
and stuff.

John Clendenning [00:12:34]:
Right? It’s just like you’re delivering an entirely different experience that the clients go, yeah. I’ll have these guys back again. Right? And you guys have really dialed that in. Really, really.

Joe Trevino [00:12:42]:
Tremendously. And I and going back, you know, I wish I would have started you know, if if you’re gonna start somewhere, you gotta start, like, with your people first, like, your culture first. Like, it trickles down from you, but, like, you gotta make sure, like, your guys are gonna do every step in the process. Right?

John Clendenning [00:13:01]:
Yeah. So Well, talk about that. How do you make sure of that? Because that’s the a lot of guys are talking about it’s hard to hire and and train the right people, so they just take a warm body. And we know a warm body can damage your business. Right? If they’re if they’re not willing to show up and, like, be on stage again as Walt Disney says, you’re you’re you’re not an employee. You’re you’re a cast member playing a role at that moment. Yeah. Sure.

John Clendenning [00:13:22]:
You could have just got yelled at by your girlfriend or or whatever and all that. But you hey, ma’am. How’s it going? I’m here to clean your Carpet today. Like, that is couched. You know, you’re now in customer service mode. And when you’re charging those rates, the guys are obviously getting paid better, because you’ve got, again, more wiggle room to to have a better technician. What do you guys do now to have the great guys that you have on team?

Joe Trevino [00:13:43]:
Well, we we really pay attention to who we hire exactly. And we know exactly you need to know exactly what kind of person you want. And whenever we hire, I I I don’t wanna I’ll I have taken people from other companies, like, you know, that have left another company and John us because I don’t mind experience. But I’m I’m I’m paying attention to how do they talk to people? Are they well dressed? You know? How do they make me feel? If they can make me feel comfortable, then they’re gonna make my mom or, you know, customer feel comfortable. And I can’t you can’t technically teach customer service and communication as easy as you can, hey. This is how you clean carpet. It’s easy to it’s not rocket science to clean carpet.

John Clendenning [00:14:27]:
Yeah. It’s

Joe Trevino [00:14:28]:
a lot harder to show people how to give empathy and to talk to people right and to and to take their time. So whenever we hire, we’re very specific on what we want. And, we’ve had people here for many years. And, of course, you got you you pay them. Right? Right? If you pay them a good price, they’re not gonna leave you.

John Clendenning [00:14:50]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:14:50]:
Right? And if you sometimes we’ll do, like, company events where we’ll take, hey. We’ll shut down the shop. Let’s go grab. We’ll cook for them. We’ll barbecue for them. We’ll go to we’ll go play Topgolf for the day. We’ll you know, we’re we’re trying to engage them and kinda let their hats off. Sometimes we’ll take them to Vegas if

John Clendenning [00:15:09]:
we get

Joe Trevino [00:15:09]:
their goals. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:15:11]:
I gotta come work for you.

Joe Trevino [00:15:12]:
Yeah. But we do that. You know? We do that because we know other people aren’t doing that. You know?

John Clendenning [00:15:17]:
And it is a word word. It’s a it’s a culture thing. Like, again, I’m older than you. Yeah. And, like, in my day and age, it was like you were just happy to have a job. Right? It was sort of like the employer could kind of take advantage of you or lean on you a little bit. But we’re now in a in a workplace, where like, I didn’t like doing that. I didn’t hire people that I I would do that.

John Clendenning [00:15:39]:
I always wanted to hire somebody that in in my world that was, always said that you’ve gotta be like your you gotta treat every customer, like, you know, like, you would treat your your favorite aunt or or your mom’s best friend. Maybe not your mom because you might get away with some stuff with your mom. But your mom’s best friend, there’s always a little bit a little bit hey. You know? Hello, missus Jones or whatever. Nice to see you again today. That’s a lovely dress or whatever. Like, you would be polite, but a little more formal. And if you’ve got somebody who could do that and so I always hired around that with our guys.

John Clendenning [00:16:11]:
And but, yeah, I would say that in the mid to early 2000, how I managed the crews that we had compared to the, you know, the last, you know, I sold 3 years ago now our our final brick and mortar business, but up until then, the last 5 years before that, the amount of yeah. I guess I I guess those again, make the job an experience for the employee, really factored. The the amount of training I had to go through on that to say, hey. Like, we had you know, you know, the person who got the best review of the week got a wow prize, and we had, like, you know, weekly things where they could reach into a a a bowl of, you know, of of bills and stuff like that if they gave a great suggestion that we implemented. And we all of that kind of stuff because it made them excited to come to work. It wasn’t just it wasn’t just the job, but, you know, when you’ve got Googles of the world and stuff like that, allowing them to play Nerf and, and bound you know, sitting on bouncy balls all day and and whatever else, You know? They’re all clean, and we still we gotta make it. Yeah. We we you know, the the 1 or 2 spare shirts hanging behind them so that, you know, they could change it.

John Clendenning [00:17:16]:
They got a little dirty. We put ax in every single one of the vehicles so they could spray themselves just lightly. Don’t overdo it. But, you know, if they’re, you know, a mist of stuff like that, and we gave them, you know, Starbucks gift cards and stuff to stop off and get, you know, get their get their drinks and things like that. Just anything we could do. I’m a bit of a health nut, so I didn’t give them, like, bags of chips and stuff like that, but we always had apples around the office and and bananas and things like that. So if you didn’t have breakfast, grab some stuff. Like, you know, it’s obvious, but it’s it’s obvious only after you’ve done it a bunch of times and learned it, then you go, ah, I should’ve been doing that since day 1.

John Clendenning [00:17:49]:
But yeah. That’s a

Joe Trevino [00:17:50]:
good idea, though. I like that. Have a little bowl for, like, granola bars maybe. And

John Clendenning [00:17:54]:
Yeah. Granola bars. If we did those, we

Joe Trevino [00:17:55]:
did those.

John Clendenning [00:17:56]:
So yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:17:56]:
Some of the guys will skip, you know, breakfast, and, you know, you want them in the best mood as possible. So You

John Clendenning [00:18:01]:
don’t necessarily want them going through McDonald’s every day at lunch either because that’s a habit. When you’re in John we all know it’s like, no matter how healthy you are, you’re out in a truck all day long. And it’s like, you know, you just get done a job. It’s like a 1 o’clock and you and you missed lunch and McDonald’s is just, you know, they they they turn on those French fryers and put the pump the the the air out of them, and all you do is smell French fries. I’m pulling in over there kind of idea, and it’s, yeah, it’s actually a little bit better. We actually, there’s a period of time there years ago. It was funny. So, one of our technicians for years was, my brother-in-law, and, he was one he was one of the first technicians I ever had 25 years ago.

John Clendenning [00:18:38]:
And, he stuck around, left, went, sold cars for a while, and came back a couple times and stuff like that. But, he was terrible at ever making his lunch. So we got our one our one daughter, Rhianna. So last name Clendenning. So it’s RC lunch services, and she would make a sandwich, a granola bar, an apple and all, and throw it in a in a in a brown paper bag for him to keep him from spending all of his money at McDonald’s at lunch and and the fast food places. Right? And and give him a pop. So, yeah. So and he would pay here, like, 2 or $3 a day or whatever it for the lunch.

John Clendenning [00:19:09]:
Right? And he yeah. She was making the money. It was our food, mind you, from our. But, yeah, I’d show up every day in the shop, and then the other guy started going, can you make me lunch too? That’s cheaper than McDonald’s. And and we we would make these little bag lunches, and, my daughter, Rhianna, would have RC lunch service for, you know, for a couple of years, it it went. And that was just another way of helping the technician. It was cute, and she put little stickers in every now and then. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:19:32]:
So but I love that. Anything you can do because your technicians are the face of the business. Yes. And I do think that business owners have to really realize that if you really wanna be a one man show, for sure, you can. But you’ve gotta like, I think there’s a point at which you should be hiring somebody who can actually run the truck like you run it. Right? So that you can go on holidays. You can go on vacation. Maybe you get sick.

John Clendenning [00:19:54]:
Maybe there’s a family emergency you gotta deal with. You shouldn’t be shutting down the whole business. Again, the better clients will let you away with that a little bit better as well. You know, if you’ve if you got a great client that repeats with you, if you have to call up and say, hey. I’m off next week. You know? My wife’s got surgery, and I gotta stick around the house. They’re gonna go okay. Whereas a, you know, a discount client goes, that’s fine.

John Clendenning [00:20:14]:
I’ll call somebody else and that you’ve lost them permanently. But Yeah. It’s still great to make sure that you’re hiring somebody that in you know, it’s pricing well enough. You can pay somebody to be in the ride along with you who can then take over the crew. And then you can be out doing the things you need to do to grow the business. And that’s what I wanna talk a little bit about as well. I know you guys were talking or you mentioned the 3 major Marketing. But I also know you guys reach out to the community a lot.

John Clendenning [00:20:37]:
And, like, you have, Angie is her name, the new girl in the office as well, doing the social media, but you’re also like, you also reach out to those referral type partners and, all the other businesses that can refer ideal clients to you, which is a big marketing push that everybody kind of forgets they need to do. It’s like you know, there’s a reason why I did a $100,000 in a town of 30,000 people in 1995 as a shy kid. I had nothing else to do. I had to knock on doors where I was gonna go I was starving. And, yeah, I would just walk in and started meeting businesses. The girl behind the counter might just hire me. Oh, come to my house. I don’t know if we need it here, but or, yeah, the owner will be back on this time.

John Clendenning [00:21:18]:
Or, hey. You know, I know other clients that could use you or whatever. And next thing you know, I built out this whole network of referral partners I didn’t even realize I was doing kind of ideas. So Yeah. Yeah. Talk a little bit about that. The like, your your kind of involvement in the community and that social media stuff you’re doing and just all of that kind of, you know, more esoteric outreach kind of.

Joe Trevino [00:21:40]:
Yeah. I mean so I mean, we we Cleaner the referral marketing from Howard Partridge. We’re students, you know, students of his and, the work we’ve we’ve been doing referral marketing since 2019, I believe. And Yeah. It just puts you in a position, I mean, to network with people and to to to see people that are leading the city and other aspects of the business that you would have never met. Yeah. You know? And if you’re gonna hire someone for that, you gotta make sure you hire someone that’s better than you. Mhmm.

Joe Trevino [00:22:11]:
Right? Like, if you are good at it so most people are not good

John Clendenning [00:22:14]:
at it.

Joe Trevino [00:22:14]:
Right? But if you’re good at it, you know, make sure they’re better than you. You know, you John us you want to hire someone that’s gonna be, you know, smiling all the time, presentable. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:22:25]:
Go to those chamber meetings and those BNIs, and everybody’s going, hey. You’re here. Like like, they’re No. They don’t put in the room?

Joe Trevino [00:22:31]:
We don’t do those.

John Clendenning [00:22:32]:
Okay.

Joe Trevino [00:22:33]:
We used to do those. We used to do those, but, you know, this referral marketing has most of our time and attention right now. But, and that’s the beauty of it. You don’t have to be in a b and I group. I mean Yep. We’re meeting with these people once a month. We’re seeing them. She’s passing by, giving goodies.

Joe Trevino [00:22:51]:
The whole purpose of it is you need to you need to try to figure out how to give. Give give somehow. Give value somehow first before you ask for business. Yeah. Or you wanted to be so good at giving that. They’re gonna be like, hey. What do you do

John Clendenning [00:23:04]:
again? Exactly.

Joe Trevino [00:23:06]:
That’s what we do. We whenever we go and drop off, we’ll go 3 months before they even know what we do. We’ll just take them cookies. We’ll go and take them goodies.

John Clendenning [00:23:15]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:23:15]:
We’ll drop off donut. And they’re like, who is this person that keeps dropping off, you know, stuff?

John Clendenning [00:23:21]:
No. That’s brilliant. Like, again, Howard Partridge. Well, I’m sitting literally looking over there at my referral marketing program by Howard Partridge from, like, maybe 20 years ago. So you you guys had an updated training and stuff. But, yeah, I went through all of that as well. The, again, the Dan Kennedy stuff, the Yeah. Howard Carpet stuff, the Joe Polish stuff, the strategies, Don John strategies for success.

John Clendenning [00:23:42]:
All of it gives you ideas on how to be a better business owner and Cleaner these better systems and understand why you should do that. One of them I came across came up with the can or the, the glass, candy bowl idea. So we used to do that at the real, real estate agents’ offices. And I started doing it at the carpet stores as well. So we I’d come with coffees and donuts and stuff like that eventually. You know, hey. Here’s our own bottle of spotter with the installers. I’d like to give an one teach one of the guys in the installers in their truck, and when I’m back, I’ll give them a new one.

John Clendenning [00:24:10]:
So if they happen to step on the carpet or the you know, or something like that while they’re installing a hardwood floor, you know, they got a little spotter. If it doesn’t take it out, my number’s on it. I’ll I’ll go and look at it for free. If it comes right out, I won’t charge anybody kind of idea. Yeah. Just just to make relationships with carpet stores. But then when I was doing the real estate agents, I wanted to get in front of their Monday morning meeting because there’d always be somebody who would bring coffee and donuts and stand up in front before they started presenting the houses that were up for sale and stuff like that and just do their morning sales meeting on a Monday morning. So I had to walk in and be able, you know, just get get known, get known, get known like you’re talking about so that I could eventually turn to the broker and say, hey.

John Clendenning [00:24:48]:
You guys have those Monday morning meetings. I’d like to talk about, how to know when a carpet should be Cleaner versus changed out and that kind of idea when they’re selling, when somebody’s buying, things like that. So not selling my services, but giving information. And, and that kind of thing. So what I started to do is bringing in a glass somebody I can’t remember who told me this one. It was we’re touch a great I don’t think it was Howard, though, but a glass candy bowl, and make sure you have candies that make a ting noise when you pour them in. So either the hard chocolates or the hard, you know, the Werthers and stuff like that. And the bowl would have display of our business, a bit of information around it, couple little business card holders around that as well about how we, you know, where we have a referral reward program for the real real estate agents.

John Clendenning [00:25:28]:
I would just put the bowl on the front counter and go ding ding ding ding ding ding, fill it up, and tell the girl behind the John, yeah. We’re just leaving this behind. We you know, a little bit of information about us, but I’d like to just leave this candy bowl behind for you guys to, you know, pick away at or whatever, and I’ll come back and fill it up. Eventually, a couple months later, I gave her flyers. I I said, how many agents you have here? She said, well, 32 or whatever it was at the one place I’d first gone to. I said, okay. I brought I brought little, like, they’re actually 11 by 17 looking like newsletters, but it was a whole flyer about me and why, you know, why I respected real estate agents and realized that as a carpet cleaner, you know, I I should treat real estate agents really, really nicely because, you know, there’s a symbiotic relationship. And if you ever wanna go out for lunch and talk about a referral program, I I’d be happy to take you out for lunch.

John Clendenning [00:26:12]:
Right? And they didn’t know it, but the out for lunch was also, if they came out for lunch, was offering them $500 worth of free carpet cleaning in their home. If they wanted to be a referral partner, just so they could see the experience. I would show up, but so with the technicians, we’d be putting our booties on, rolling out the red carpet, doing the corner guards, and I wanted to show them the experience I was gonna give their clients, plus our risk reversal guarantee. If somebody wasn’t happy, we’d come back and then re Cleaner. If they still weren’t happy, not only did they didn’t not pay us for that area that they’re not happy with, if they could find anybody else that could get it cleaner, we’d pay their bill. So there would never be anything coming back against us. We weren’t the cheapest at all, but we offered the best cleaning, the best guarantees, and I John to prove that to you before you start referring us. And you and I both know that that now gets them to go, oh, I got a free cleaning.

John Clendenning [00:26:56]:
I got a free lunch. I’ve got all this kind of stuff. I I kinda feel like I should reciprocate, so they might send a lead or 2, but now it’s your job to stay in touch with them. Now it’s your job to have a reason. Like, once a month, we sent them a print newsletter. Once a week, we’d reach out by email or something. If I read a book that I absolutely loved, I would buy copies for our biggest referral partners, most of them, and just sign and say, hey. This is a great book.

John Clendenning [00:27:18]:
I just thought you get you you should get a copy too. And there is times, yeah, like, 40, 50 books will be leaving our office to our referral partners, because yeah. Like, anything I could do and stay in front of them, and it was, you know, if I put in 2 or $300 a year of out of my pocket expense per referral partner, they’re putting, you know, 2, 3, 5, 10000 back in my pocket. So it was well worth the exchange. Right?

Joe Trevino [00:27:41]:
Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:27:42]:
So and again yeah. So all of that, and it’s great that you’ve you’ve got, you’ve you’ve got Angie in the office now that’s that’s handling that because, yeah, if anybody go wants to go check out Alamo Steam Team’s, Facebook page, you’ll see who Angie is. She’s just a firecracker. She’s she’s bubbling all the notes. So

Joe Trevino [00:27:57]:
It’s crazy. The content, man. The content is like the new wave.

John Clendenning [00:28:01]:
It is. Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:28:02]:
You you know? And you’re you’re getting exposure for you know, you don’t have to invest in a commercial on TV anymore because people are not watching TV anymore. They’re watching their phones.

John Clendenning [00:28:12]:
They are.

Joe Trevino [00:28:13]:
Yeah. You have the opportunity to do that now, and people need to take advantage of it for sure. And you don’t need this high end product I used to think you need some high end production. Most of our views that come from videos are the ones that you’ve just taken from a cell phone.

John Clendenning [00:28:27]:
Yeah. And you can even get these little I watched a guy I don’t even know what it’s called. I camera, but there’s a a little camera you can get, that is basically a a cell phone camera in it, and all it does is record. It can stream into your phone. It can stream into your laptop, little Wi Fi connected thing. They’re they’re all about the size of, what those, little charging banks used to be, the little USB charging banks. And they can stick on a GoPro. They can they you know? So you can have multiple angles, and they can just Oh,

Joe Trevino [00:28:54]:
you can go anywhere. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:28:55]:
And it’s just now you’ve and, again, they they Bluetooth or Wi Fi into your, your cell phone so it could become the recording device or a laptop you have with you or in a tablet. And it’s just another and, again, there’s so much of this this equipment coming out, like those little lapel, microphones. Right? You don’t even need the one with the wire anywhere. It’s a little Yeah. There. And now your audio is perfect from 10 feet away and 5 feet away and and just a little bit just a little bit of effort and, yeah, you can create you could be a carpet cleaner creating,

Joe Trevino [00:29:24]:
hey.

John Clendenning [00:29:24]:
Let me show you get this how to get this urine out, how to clean these stairs. Yeah. What you’re doing in the community or what’s happening around the office. And, yeah, and then that one strategy we like to teach all our clients, make sure you join all the Facebook groups of, like, the business owners of all the little towns you’re in, the mommy blogs, anything any of those groups where your ideal customer or your ideal referral referral Masters hanging out. And you can share that stuff in And just as a joke and a lark, it’s not like, oh, call us as there’s no call to action. It’s like, oh my god. Here’s a great happy story of our one of our recent clients. I just wanted to share it.

John Clendenning [00:29:57]:
Here’s a little video. Here’s a little story. The rest of the link’s back on our website, whatever, and you just share it in. And and as your person, not as the business, but literally as Joe or as Angie or as Steve or, like, the owner of the you just share them into these groups, and it just it’s another now it’s another way of getting people back to your Facebook page, and they go, oh my god. Look at how much fun these guys are having on their Facebook. Now they like and follow. Now they’re gonna actually see a little bit more and get engagement, but they’re also gonna link through to your other stuff. They’re also gonna see all the testimonials coming through in the reviews and the and the all of that kind of stuff.

John Clendenning [00:30:28]:
And all of it just washes over them. Like, if a friend just says, oh, I I need to get my fixed in on a call. Oh, there’s these people I’ve been following. They might even be customers of yours. They’ve never even tried you, but they’re in love with you because of what you do because we’re in the new world of social media. So I

Joe Trevino [00:30:42]:
never thought we’d get a customer from TikTok, but we we get customers from TikTok, you know, when we take drugs and stuff like that. And Yeah. I ask them, how do you hear about us? That’s another thing too. If you’re in business, you gotta make sure your receptionist is always asking how did they hear about us.

John Clendenning [00:30:57]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:30:58]:
How did you hear about us? How did you hear about us? Because you can double down on what’s working.

John Clendenning [00:31:02]:
Yep.

Joe Trevino [00:31:02]:
You know what’s not working, what is working. You need to know those things.

John Clendenning [00:31:06]:
Yeah. I actually have better question for you. I just it’s just, again, from, there’s a a languaging sales languaging expert, guy by the name of Matt Easton, Easton University. What information are you looking for today is better than how can I help you? Just a it’s just a it gets people thinking slightly better. It’s just a it’s a neuro linguistic thing. It changes your brain slightly. And then what research have you done on us so far? I used to always say what led you to call us? Because how did you hear about us? Well, the Internet or I saw a truck. But let’s say what led you to call, we get 2 or 3 more.

John Clendenning [00:31:33]:
But what research have you done on us so Carpet actually opens up a can of worms because it’s like, they oh, well, you know, my my real estate agent told me about me. Then I went to your social media, and then I made it to your website and all my and now they just start unloading because you used the word research, you know, kind of idea. And I did research you. And if they said, well, I just saw an ad. They didn’t research you. They know now now you even know how to talk to them better. Oh, yeah. You know, and now now it changes the whole conversation about, you know, if they’ve seen all that stuff well, then you know that we do this, and you’ve probably seen that, and you’ve heard of this.

John Clendenning [00:32:05]:
It’s entirely differently. Well, okay. So you saw an ad. So you know nothing about how amazing we are. Let me start telling you how amazing we are and why we’re different. Right? And you can really have that moment of impressing upon them. So

Joe Trevino [00:32:15]:
That’s great. Yeah. I like that.

John Clendenning [00:32:17]:
So yeah. No. Let’s talk a little bit about some of the other marketing you guys do, like database outreach. How often do you guys ping your database? Because I I’ve talked to guys that said, yeah. I try and text them once or twice a year. And it’s like your database like, literally that thing you should hold in in reverence because these are the people that love you and are gonna come back and tell everybody about you. That’s why you’re in business is to build this asset value of of lists and databases. So how do you what do you guys do to keep in touch with your database and keep them coming back and remembering you and all that stuff?

Joe Trevino [00:32:46]:
Yeah. So the the the text we do text messaging. So there’s 2 texts that will go out. We don’t text blast people all the time, but we have the the advantage of texting people that you know that you’ve done business with is that you know where the house is. You know the most profitable. You’re not texting random people. You know?

John Clendenning [00:33:04]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:33:05]:
So we’ll text them with offers that Masters for 2 weeks. So we’ll send them 1 Yep. 1st week of the month, and then 2, the second one will be like, hey. The deadline’s approaching. Don’t forget. We have limited spots. Yep. Yada yada.

Joe Trevino [00:33:18]:
We’ll do that twice a month.

John Clendenning [00:33:19]:
Okay. Is that your whole database or people from the last 12 months, 24 months, they’re like, would how do you cut that off? It it yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:33:26]:
About a it is it only goes back to about a year, year and a half. Okay.

John Clendenning [00:33:29]:
For about 18 months. Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:33:30]:
Because it if they’re not if it’s past 18 months, they probably forgot who you are.

John Clendenning [00:33:34]:
Yeah. That’s where you can hit that miss you campaign, what we used to like, where it you know, it’s like, you know, one free room with any minimum job, and then you you then you call them. Like, we I love the multimodality. So if you send a text, you send an email, and then a mailing too because sometimes you just if you get in their mailbox, like, with a letter, like an actual, you know, written written look letter, it just stands out differently than anybody else. But then we we’d always ramp it up that if they didn’t take advantage of it, we’d send a second message looking like it was handwritten all over or whatever. And and then the third and final one, okay. Okay. You win was the name of the letter.

John Clendenning [00:34:11]:
And it was, you get one free room. No strings attached. Have us back. We want either we didn’t impress you the first time or we didn’t impress upon you the reasons why you need to get your carpets and your upholstery and stuff cleaned more than once every 18 to 24 months. It’s been almost 2 years. So one of those two things is true. We either didn’t impress you or impress upon you. And either way, let us come back for free.

John Clendenning [00:34:34]:
Literally no strings attached. Of course, you can add other areas if you John, but let us come back and just remind you again. Because what is it? You know, 20 or $30 worth of technician wages and 20 minutes of you know, $20.20 of solution. You’re out pocket $50 to try and win back another 3, 4, 5, or in your case, $750 client. It’s well worth. You spend at least a $100, 80, a $100 buying the customer the first time with good marketing or more. Why wouldn’t you spend another $50, you know, as a final attempt to see if you can win them back and and get the rest of the house? So, yeah, the Mishu offer is a really good one to try and sort of reactivate as they get stale at that 18 to 24 months mark. But you guys also do, emails.

John Clendenning [00:35:19]:
Like, do are you on the weekly email program with, with, Michael’s group, or you did as well to your database?

Joe Trevino [00:35:25]:
Yeah. Yeah. We do, we use a combination of your stuff and Yep. And ours. But, yeah, we we email once a week.

John Clendenning [00:35:32]:
Yep. So you get once a week. You got the text blast. You’ve got It’s free. Reminder mailings that when they hit a year and things like that. And and so yeah. So if you just add them up, like, I’ve told somebody that we used to touch our a list database 48 times in a year, and they thought it was absolutely nuts. And that would be with phone calls, monthly newsletter, print newsletter sent to them, phone calls checking in every 3 months, just touching base to see how those stains turned out.

John Clendenning [00:35:56]:
We’re we’re looking at the database. So, hey. Those pet stains we took out, is everything still good? That red wine stain didn’t pop back up. Awesome. Great. Now, you know, it’s, you know, it’s approaching Father’s Day. We just passed by this, approaching Father’s Day coming up next month. Because you’re one of our VIPs, you get into any of our offers a little early.

John Clendenning [00:36:10]:
So just want to let you know what’s coming up there, but you can take advantage of it anytime between now and, you know, the end of June, as one of our VIPs and stuff like that. So if there’s anything you need done, definitely. And you can have that leave it as a message or have that quarterly check-in just to touch base with your database and let them know that you’re you care about them. And it’s an empathetic call, not a sales call. And, yeah, all of that helps. Just keep on top of them and just just stay in their world. Right? Yeah. They will remember you and not realize, oh my god.

John Clendenning [00:36:40]:
It’s been 2 years since I Cleaner my carpets. I thought it was a year. You don’t wanna ever have that conversation. Or the person has to go back to the Internet or wherever they found you the first time to find you again. Your customers should never have to Google you to find you. Your customers should have more than enough, like, the spotting guide stuck to the inside of their cupboard and the, the fridge magnet and the the the piece of mail coming in and the phone calls and the text messages, they should they should know how to get a hold of you without ever having to go back and search for you because all your competitors are where they’re searching as well. So now you could lose them to a, you know, a fancy message. So

Joe Trevino [00:37:15]:
Yeah. And we have certificates because we we apply a protectors. So Yep. They they have a certificate, and on a certificate, it says, you know, if you call us before 6 months or this date, you get, I don’t know. I forgot what it was. 15% off.

John Clendenning [00:37:28]:
Yep.

Joe Trevino [00:37:29]:
And then if you if you wait a year, then it’s 10% off. Right? So that gives you an excuse to call them 6 months down the road and be like, hey. Don’t hey. Just wanna give you a reminder if you wanna take advantage of that coup you know, 15% off. And just you know, you Cleaner it 6 months ago. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:37:43]:
With the

Joe Trevino [00:37:43]:
sector, it’s not gonna be that dirty again.

John Clendenning [00:37:45]:
No. It exact we so we used to do that with, it’s hard to get some commercial places to get on a maintenance contract.

Joe Trevino [00:37:52]:
Like,

John Clendenning [00:37:52]:
it’s easy easy if it’s an office building, but then it that then that’s managed services. That’s just, like, you need to take people up for dinner. You need to create friends and stuff like that. It’s a it’s a different marketing angle. But, you know, again, we did mostly residential, so I like the residential light commercial we called it, which was at 5 o’clock, their office is closed, and we could be done by 8 o’clock. The guys can go home, make some overtime, and still show up tomorrow morning at, you know, 7:30, 8 o’clock for their. Right? They’re not out till 2 AM. Right? So we do the dentist, the chiropractors, the accounting offices, and things like that.

John Clendenning [00:38:23]:
And, you know, sometimes it’s hard to get them on a maintenance plan. They just didn’t you know, they didn’t clean regularly enough to understand why you you’re suggesting every 3 months or 4 months or whatever whatever routine you’re suggesting. So what we would do is exactly that. We would give them a quote, but with a, sort of, like, a a maintenance plan suggestion and then sort of, in the quote, and then sort of our maintenance plan light as we called it, which was if if, you called us back every 4 months or within 4 months of your most recent cleaning, it was 20% off. If it was within, 6 months of your recent cleaning, 15% off, and 8 months of your most recent cleaning was 10% off. And then annually, it was just the regular price. So we just show them that, and that would give us a reason to call them or, actually, what I prefer the guys to do is on a slow day, we called it the downtime routine, and they’d call in, yeah, the next job is not available. Apparently, their kid’s sick, and, you know, the the final one, I can’t bump up.

John Clendenning [00:39:16]:
I’m not not good till 3, and it’s like 1 o’clock. And Yeah. Heather would go, okay. Cool. So you guys are in this neighborhood? Yep. Awesome. Okay. Can you stop by these 3 or 4? She did pull up Alicia as an Excel.

John Clendenning [00:39:27]:
Can you stop by 3 these 3 or 4 places? It’s been a couple months since we’ve we’ve cleaned there and just put some eyeballs on it. Ask if there’s any spots and stains you can take out when you’re walking around. And Jerry was the guy we talked to, so just meet up with Jerry and just pop your head in the door and say, you’re just here doing some free spotting. Right? Just put put yourself in front of that customer again, and we try and do that, like, manually. And if we didn’t have their spreadsheet, she’d know that at 4 months, it was a phone call. If we hadn’t stopped by and it was already 4 months, that’s a reason to call and say, hey. Do you wanna activate that, 20% discount? What do you mean? And that’s the way she’d word it. Hey.

John Clendenning [00:40:01]:
Yeah. Just give me a quick call about the carpets. You wanna activate that 20% discount? What do you mean that? Well, actually, if you we we suggested a maintenance plan, it’s getting really close to that now. We can come in and do some of the areas, the high traffic areas, whatever, but you’re gonna get or all of it, but you’re gonna get 20% off because it’s only been 4 months since we cleaned last time, and that’s a good time to maintain and and all of that kind of stuff. So

Joe Trevino [00:40:22]:
I really like that idea.

John Clendenning [00:40:23]:
Yeah. Any of those little things just help. It’s just sort of, like, thinking your way through. Right? So You

Joe Trevino [00:40:27]:
know what? It works because you’re giving. You’re like

John Clendenning [00:40:30]:
Yeah. You’re leading with a giving hand. Yeah. The goal is

Joe Trevino [00:40:33]:
with a giving hand. Yeah. All the

John Clendenning [00:40:34]:
time. Yeah. So no. It is. And if we we understand the business we’re in, it isn’t about running discount ads and getting cheap customers then. Right? I understand the the desire for that in it Starting

Joe Trevino [00:40:46]:
out. Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:40:47]:
Yeah. Starting out, it feels right that, oh, I just need a volume of customers, but I always go back and think of the Groupon story. Because when Groupon first came out, carpet cleaners could make a killing, like, a lot of jobs. You could end up with 200 jobs from a really good Groupon ad, but you had to give at least 50% off your regular prices. And then Groupon kept half of what you got, and they paid the other half over 12 weeks. They eventually got sued or something. Like, they were eventually like, they were in trouble with the government because it was actually a way to cause a lot of businesses to go bankrupt. The only ones that realized that they were not making money that way were the ones that already had a backup plan.

John Clendenning [00:41:22]:
Like like, if you were a tanning salon and your your deal was 5 tans for whatever the price was. And as soon as they walked in, there was an actual presentation. And here’s how you can upgrade to an extra 10 Tans for only $99. And because they’re trying to indoctrinate you into a lifestyle of being with them.

Joe Trevino [00:41:39]:
So they

John Clendenning [00:41:40]:
could give away a a a front end offer cheap because they knew how to sell the back end offer. The average carpet cleaner had no clue. They’d walk in and do the you know, the customer got this really cheap cleaning, and they only got 25% of it eventually and wondered why they couldn’t afford their solution. And we’re actually bleeding money out of their bank account while not having any time to do any of the other stuff we talked about because they were so busy doing free like, these discount cleanings. So yeah. So you’ve got it. You gotta really think you know, can you push the marketplace? Call all your competitors. Call the top 10 competitors.

John Clendenning [00:42:11]:
Find their pricing. Pretend to be a customer. And can you be ahead of all is there a way that you could market a price higher than all of them and offer to offer a better quality service than all of them? Can you think your way through that? You know, as opposed to trying to undercut them to think you’re gonna get more work because of it? So yeah. So, yeah, I would say, like, what would you say, as far as this journey now that we’ve kinda walked through a lot of how you guys do things differently, what would be considered, like, business wise and even personal wise, like, one for each? The biggest win that you’ve had in this, you know, this this last 7 years of being back with the company, the company itself and you, what would you see would be the biggest win out of all of the things you guys have transformed in the company?

Joe Trevino [00:42:58]:
Man, that’s Yeah. I mean, the I mean, definitely, the the biggest win was, you know, really you can’t just raise your prices and do the same thing.

John Clendenning [00:43:12]:
Yeah. Right?

Joe Trevino [00:43:13]:
And the I I would say the biggest one is that everyone in the company has changed their mindset. Like, I’m no one’s ever gonna take this away from me

John Clendenning [00:43:24]:
Yeah. Like,

Joe Trevino [00:43:25]:
of providing and being confident to to to charge a premium, but to force yourself to do the best service that you wanna make sure you go into this house, and they have never experienced anyone else like you.

John Clendenning [00:43:40]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:43:40]:
You know? And I thought it was gonna take a long time for our our technicians to buy into that, but it is a mindset game. Once you get the mindset game right and you believe that you can do this

John Clendenning [00:43:54]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:43:55]:
Your whole life is just gonna change. I mean, whenever we we we we change our program, we change our we we would do 6 jobs a day, and the guys are I mean, a technician will do 6 jobs, and they’ll be rushing And, you know, it would be a you know, we’re just trying to make the most money as you can, but you have to do 6 jobs.

John Clendenning [00:44:14]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:44:14]:
Now the guys can do 2 jobs and take 1 in the morning, 1 in the afternoon. Yeah. Take time, provide a great experience.

John Clendenning [00:44:21]:
Know the customers better.

Joe Trevino [00:44:23]:
Yeah. Customer, no callbacks.

John Clendenning [00:44:25]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:44:25]:
I mean, you’re doing everything that the book says you should be doing in the carpet Clendenning. But, you know, you’re forcing yourself to slow John. Yep. And you can charge for that because there are people that want that.

John Clendenning [00:44:37]:
Yeah. And you can tell the customer what you’re doing while you’re doing it. It’s like, I used to love you John, missus Jones, come here. Come here. Like, I’d clean half the arm of a couch or whatever. And I taught our guys to do this or half a flight of stairs or part of us and show them that before and after moment because it’s an anchor. So there is actually a reason to do it because you you actually create a psychological moment because no. Never think you get your teeth whitened.

John Clendenning [00:44:57]:
Like, you you didn’t realize it was 7 shades. Yeah. They look a little whiter. Oh my gosh. Right? Same idea. As soon as the carpets are completely clean, they look better, but that shocking difference is gone because you don’t see the half and half. So I always if the customer’s home, always found a moment and taught the guys, go find a half and half moment even if you’re running behind. Like, you’ve gotta anchor the fact that you’re, you know, you’re this is what you’re actually the transformation you’re Marketing.

John Clendenning [00:45:21]:
Because once they go and see it all after it’s all down 10 10 degrees of dirt kind of idea. They might not remember. Oh, that looks better. Husband comes home. Well, that spot’s still kind of there, like a a a traffic lane that was completely worn or whatever that, you know. And if she goes, oh, honey, you should have seen it. They showed me the dirty water or the half an hour. He goes, okay.

John Clendenning [00:45:40]:
Anyways, give me a beer. I’ll go cut that. And he’s done. Like, you he’s all you you got him off the case now because you created a few of these little magic moments in the in the

Joe Trevino [00:45:49]:
That’s very true. Yeah. Very true. So I would say, you know, the mindset is the is the most Yeah.

John Clendenning [00:45:54]:
And when you get your technicians buying into that mindset, because they actually see it, the confidence in the way they talk, the suggestions they bring to the table in the company going, oh, I just thought of this, and you’re going They have

Joe Trevino [00:46:05]:
they have a really good suggestions. You need to trust, you know, trust them to do what they they do because they do it every day. Yeah. You need to trust them trust them more. And I we have a meeting every single morning where we go over the numbers. Everyone sees the other numbers in the company.

John Clendenning [00:46:20]:
Perfect.

Joe Trevino [00:46:21]:
Yeah. We go over the jobs for the day, and I kinda get them going. And I I tell them, like, you guys don’t realize it, but you’re you’re 30% smarter in a positive mindset. So we just kind of start positive, and it just triples on, you you know, rather than being negative or Yeah. Planning or

John Clendenning [00:46:40]:
Yep.

Joe Trevino [00:46:41]:
We try we try to avoid that. You know?

John Clendenning [00:46:44]:
Just Never never you just thought said something there. I don’t know if it would work with technicians. I never did actually try this. So I’ve always used my my driving around time when I was out doing quotes and doing it. And in fact, once I started becoming kind of behind the computer guy, I would go, to McDonald’s for lunch and then do about a 30 minute drive around the countryside to listen to podcasts. And I use driving time as my learning time. Or when I’m on the I’ve got an acre and a half when I’m cutting the grass on the the lawn tractor. Somebody said, oh, you should get a much bigger lawn tractor.

John Clendenning [00:47:11]:
John, you’d be done faster. I’m going, the podcasts aren’t any Masters. So no. No. I need I need the grass cutting to last, you you know, it Masters as long as the podcasts are right. I’ve always fed my brain positive information, think and grow rich when I was 9 18 years old. And then from there, everything else, just yeah. It’s actually an interesting thought.

John Clendenning [00:47:28]:
I don’t know if technicians would do it, but if, you know, that positive mindset, if there wasn’t, you know, a a very technician friendly up like, you know, positive affirmation type listening course that they were something they could put in there when they drive around or get brownie points for it. If you made it through this and could answer these questions, you you know, there’s a there’s a bonus in the company for, like, almost like a book of the month, but almost like an audiobook of the month club that the technicians can feed themselves and and answer back on and and and get rewards for. But you’re doing it to get more of that, you know, out of a funk kind of mentality in it because we do know that if you can get them just jazzed for the day, regardless of what’s happening in their life around them, like, we all have chaos and misery and all that in our lives. But if you focus on it and you’re a technician, that’s a crappy technician. But if you if you know how to be one of those people that, hey. That’s when I get home from work. This is this is now this customer needs my full attention and, and and all of me, my full presence at the at the moment. And if they get that, they get paid better.

John Clendenning [00:48:32]:
The job is better. The customer maybe it’s an idea. Maybe there’s a book an audiobook of the month club that they where they they get brownie points if they listen to it and fill something out. So Absolutely. There you go.

Joe Trevino [00:48:46]:
That’s my point.

John Clendenning [00:48:47]:
Cool. So any parting advice? We’re we’re sitting about just about the hour, so good, any parting advice for any new cleaners starting a business right now? Put yourself in that sort of those shoes of somebody just sort of trying to break in, you know, not really knowing what what direction to go with their business and stuff like that. What would you advise as the best way to kinda get yourself started?

Joe Trevino [00:49:11]:
The the best way is you gotta figure like, if you’re by yourself, like the owner operator right now Yeah. So, like, you know, you gotta make sure your systems are in place. Sometimes you’re and it has it can’t just be your carpet cleaning system. It has to be your marketing system. Yeah. It has to be your how do you answer the phone system? Has to be how do you account for your buying supplies, buying, you know, your your money, you know, expenses, things like you need to have all those systems in place, you know, before you kinda just keep jumping into the next thing. Like Yeah. Buying new equipment or buying a new tool.

Joe Trevino [00:49:51]:
You know? You’re getting excited about the shiny new objects, but I would say get your systems in place. Because if you have systems in place, you can step away from the business once you hire the right people. Yeah. Right? If if you don’t have your systems in place, then whenever you do hire someone, they’re not gonna know what to do. Yeah. Right? And then you’re gonna be there train you’re gonna have to be there with them the whole time. Yep. But if we have systems in place, okay, this is how we do this.

Joe Trevino [00:50:16]:
This is how you dress. This is how you talk. This is what what you say if they say this. If you make it super easy for everyone

John Clendenning [00:50:23]:
Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:50:23]:
And try not to make it complicated, but just make it simple. Make a simple process and trust your people that they’re gonna do what’s right for your business.

John Clendenning [00:50:32]:
No. That’s great advice.

Joe Trevino [00:50:33]:
Yeah. Business will grow.

John Clendenning [00:50:35]:
It is. Yeah. It’s like that you know, I’ve heard it called block the blocking and tackling. I’ve used that term before. You you’re not gonna throw the long the long bomb touchdown unless the quarterback is is blocked. Like, if you got the blocking and tackling in place first, and you created the pocket that you can actually make the big, you know, the big plays and stuff like that, You’ve gotta have all that in place. And, yeah, we’d like I get I I came by it naturally because I just I just didn’t know what I didn’t know. So I said, well, everybody must do this.

John Clendenning [00:51:01]:
I had to learn it. So, again, one of those books, the E Myth or the E Myth revisited, Michael Gerber. The E Myth is the entrepreneurial myth that if you’re a really good mechanic, you open up a mechanic shop. If you’re a really good carpet cleaner, you should open up a carpet cleaning business. Well, no. Because that that’s the act of doing the technician role, but there’s all this other stuff you still have to do as the owner, like the financial management and the marketing and the, HR and hiring. And and again, then even in that, like, you’re talking about the the process of the standard SOP, standard operating processes and stuff like that. How do you answer, like, the scripts and all of that? You either gotta figure it out, do it, or hire somebody to do it for you.

John Clendenning [00:51:38]:
You you need all of that stuff in place even if it’s I guess you said, even if it’s just you because you’re running a better business, when you go to sell the business I’ve talked to guys that only ever wanna be owner operators, and I’m going, okay. So buy the buy the building you’re in. So and rent out the other 2 units because you’re building an asset. Because what are you gonna do on retirement? Yeah. And when you go to sell your business, have your list, have your referral partners, have all of that, your asset value, rank your business really well, have have all of that in place because what you’re selling is not the truck mount in the John. You’re gonna get 50, 60 grand for it. How do you get half a $1,000,000 for a 2 truck operation in the middle of a pandemic when I sold mine? You know, it’s because I said take all the equipment, all of the vans, all of that, discount it to 0 because they’re all replaceable and, you know, financeable and a 5 year kind of lifespan, you know, on them that you might get longer than that, but you should do Yeah. You should depreciate them over 5 years.

John Clendenning [00:52:29]:
What is my business worth with none of that but the database, the outreach, the systems we have in place, all the turnkey stuff. Here’s what we market on. You know, by January 1st, the entire year’s worth of marketing is in the books. Like, we know what’s happening, what you know, when we’re gonna prepare the mailings for mother’s day and father’s day and this and that, all of that kind of stuff. You you bought a franchise without being a franchise. You bought a business in a box because it’s like, just follow the big binder. It literally flipped the page. You oh, you’re John a new receptionist? Here’s what she needs to do day 1.

John Clendenning [00:52:59]:
She has to start learning this and this and this. Day 2, she could start learning this. She’s gonna start learning the scripts. You’re gonna get her on the phones by about day 5 to day 7 and testing her out on some of the phones now that she shadowed somebody. It’s like, we broke that down and built it because, you know, the first time we hired somebody was miserable. It’s like, you know, we we we either got lucky or we didn’t, but we’re trying our best. And, eventually, you go, wow. If I hired Better, what would I wanna train them? And then you wrote it out before they showed up, and then it became so that’s the business owner staying up.

John Clendenning [00:53:29]:
You know? You don’t get to walk home at 4 o’clock because there there’s no more jobs today. Okay. 4 o’clock. I get to start my business owner job now. Yeah. You know, now put my big boy pants John, and, let’s start let’s start creating that that process, which will eventually get you out of the out of the truck anyways and being the person that can go and meet and greet everybody while your technicians are doing the cleanings. So

Joe Trevino [00:53:49]:
Exactly. Yeah. Custom.

John Clendenning [00:53:51]:
Perfect. Well, I really appreciate you jumping on. I know a lot of value to guys, and we opened up a few eyes as well. That’s another reason why I wanted you John. The the people that don’t quite understand how far you can, you can actually push this with the right clientele and stuff like that. So John just kinda broaden people’s horizons and and, it’s like a muscle. If you push it that far, it never always comes all the way back to where it was. So let’s let’s keep this whole crowd, the carpet cleaning crowd, really elevating their game and delivering better and better and better for the customers.

John Clendenning [00:54:19]:
And, Yeah.

Joe Trevino [00:54:20]:
That’s what I want.

John Clendenning [00:54:21]:
Yeah. I think I think it’s important, and we’re running into a period of time where the middle class and the lower middle might be making different decisions with our state of the economy and, you know, and consumer price index and interest rates and all that. So the upper middle and upper class are the ones that still have the discretionary income that hire the the people like us. So you gotta market to those people and be what they wanna hire, which is a little bit different than than just sort of, like, the average, kind of the average service. So, anyways, I really appreciate you jumping on, Joe. Well, thank

Joe Trevino [00:54:53]:
you so much. I appreciate it.

John Clendenning [00:54:54]:
Yep. And, all the best. And, yeah, you guys definitely go check out the, go like and follow their social media. You’re gonna get a kick out of everything they’re doing. Not just Angie, but the entire rest of the crew. So it’s a lot of good stuff going on there as well.

Joe Trevino [00:55:05]:
So yep.

John Clendenning [00:55:05]:
Take care, everybody. Thanks so much.

Joe Trevino [00:55:07]:
Later.