ACERCA DE ESTE EPISODIO
In this episode of Coffee with E, Erica Rawls welcomes Benjamin Bragg for a real conversation about purpose, reinvention, and building a business that empowers people, not burns them out.
From losing it all to developing a proprietary system that helps ordinary people succeed in the cleaning industry, Ben shares how he turned pain into purpose and setbacks into strategy.
You’ll hear about leadership, labor systems, fatherhood, and why part-time work can lead to full-time freedom. If you’re tired of running in circles, this episode is proof that you can build better, by design.
📇 Guest Info:
Benjamin Bragg
📱 DM on social media to join Slack & access free training
🔗 LinkedIn: Ben Bragg (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-bragg-67433a9b/)
📊 Curious how the system works?
You can download a free sample of the Precise Janitorial Labor Report used to help school districts and contractors price cleaning jobs with accuracy.
Get the FREE report from BlackPol Software (https://blackpolsoftware.com/)
#CleaningBusiness #LeadershipJourney #DoItAfraid #CoffeeWithE #SystemsThatScale #EntrepreneurMindset #WomenInBusiness #PurposeDriven #BenjaminBragg #FamilyFirst
Follow Us for More Inspiration:
📸 Instagram: @erica.rawls
🎥 YouTube: Erica Rawls
📧 For inquiries and collaborations: customercare@ericarawls.com
✨ Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe to stay updated with our latest episodes!
EN ESTE EPISODIO
MOSTRAR NOTAS 🔗
TRANSCRIPCIÓN 🔗
00:00:00.040 --> 00:00:01.868
Welcome to another episode of Coffee with E.
00:00:01.868 --> 00:00:03.766
This one is not going to disappoint.
00:00:03.766 --> 00:00:11.967
If you are in the cleaning business and you're trying to figure out, like, which way to go and what systems to use, at the end you got to stay because he's going to share something.
00:00:11.967 --> 00:00:14.387
My guest is none other than Ben Bragg.
00:00:14.387 --> 00:00:24.251
We actually go through so much how he fell, got up even his family, and then this new proprietary information software.
00:00:24.251 --> 00:00:25.385
You do not want to miss it.
00:00:28.239 --> 00:00:29.103
Welcome, ben.
00:00:29.103 --> 00:00:30.466
Thanks for having me.
00:00:30.466 --> 00:00:31.347
You're so welcome.
00:00:31.347 --> 00:00:32.771
I'm so excited to have coffee with you.
00:00:32.771 --> 00:00:35.945
Well, actually you did blow my cover, y'all.
00:00:35.945 --> 00:00:37.609
He blew my cover, okay.
00:00:37.609 --> 00:00:45.405
So most times I do have coffee, and he just happened to see a couple episodes where I did not have coffee and he's like well, you don't have coffee anyways, we were running late.
00:00:45.405 --> 00:00:47.405
Today, I'm just happened to see a couple episodes where I did not have coffee and he's like well, you don't have coffee anyways, we were running late today.
00:00:47.405 --> 00:00:48.545
I'm just going to be honest with you.
00:00:48.545 --> 00:00:51.008
We were running late and did not have the coffee, so we're going to have water.
00:00:51.588 --> 00:00:52.070
That's okay.
00:00:52.179 --> 00:00:55.948
I already had coffee today and since we are going to shout it out Pine Hill Builders.
00:00:55.948 --> 00:01:06.811
I want to say thank you, because this is the second episode, or I should say series of episodes, that we're going to have, and they are amazing builders and they are located in Littitz, pa.
00:01:06.811 --> 00:01:10.295
So I'm just excited to have this chat with you today.
00:01:10.295 --> 00:01:11.796
Me too, yeah.
00:01:11.796 --> 00:01:21.370
So, benjamin Bragg, I feel like I've known you for quite some time through our daughters, right?
00:01:21.370 --> 00:01:29.944
Yes, growing up in the basketball scene, which is kind of vicious in itself, but that's not the episode we're going to talk about.
00:01:29.944 --> 00:01:30.546
There'll be a pool on there.
00:01:30.546 --> 00:01:38.843
We're not going to re-talk about that today, but I wanted to talk to you because the whole essence of our podcast is to talk to people that are dynamic, that have made an impact, that are doing the darn thing right.
00:01:39.603 --> 00:01:59.108
And you recently relocated to Florida, I guess, to have a better life, and yet what a couple weeks ago, maybe a month ago I saw on Facebook and this is why I reached out to you you actually were just sharing something that had happened to you like personally, that affected you, but it was through business ventures that it happened.
00:01:59.108 --> 00:02:03.409
So I want to have that conversation because I think it's important to shed light on it.
00:02:03.409 --> 00:02:04.150
Why?
00:02:04.150 --> 00:02:05.405
Because someone can learn from it.
00:02:05.405 --> 00:02:14.170
And two, I just appreciated the fact that you were very transparent about the things you went through, because if you look at social media, it's always a highlight reel most times.
00:02:14.170 --> 00:02:19.371
So do you mind sharing what you shared that day?
00:02:19.371 --> 00:02:21.007
And then we can go into a little bit deeper.
00:02:21.007 --> 00:02:25.307
And then, of course, we're going to end on a high note because you're doing the darn thing right.
00:02:25.307 --> 00:02:28.534
You came from out of the ashes and now you're doing awesome.
00:02:28.534 --> 00:02:30.062
So let's, let's, dive into it.
00:02:31.384 --> 00:02:39.626
Well, yeah, that was, uh, I think I remember the video you were talking about and, yes, it was.
00:02:39.626 --> 00:03:08.204
You know, I was actually driving from the beach that day and, you know, at the beach I was watching, you know, social media and I noticed, you know, a lot of times people seem to post including myself, all of the great things that are happening and you start to realize that, you know, you start thinking that these people don't have any problems, you know, like their life is great.
00:03:08.204 --> 00:03:18.564
And then, I think, a lot of times we start to think that, you know, something must be wrong with us if we're having issues.
00:03:18.564 --> 00:03:35.198
So I literally it was a, you know, a quick decision to pull over and I decided you know, I never share any of you know, some of the challenges I've been through in life.
00:03:35.198 --> 00:03:43.132
So I pulled over and he literally turned the camera on and just said what came to mind.
00:03:43.451 --> 00:03:44.413
You could tell it was raw.
00:03:44.413 --> 00:03:47.463
You could, yeah, and Jesse brought it to my attention.
00:03:47.463 --> 00:03:50.963
Actually, just like, oh man, yeah, he's like Erica, look at this.
00:03:50.963 --> 00:03:53.325
I was like, oh my gosh, I was proud of you actually.
00:03:54.159 --> 00:03:58.371
Yeah, well, I definitely appreciate that and you know I think it was.
00:03:58.371 --> 00:04:01.082
It was definitely relieving for myself.
00:04:01.082 --> 00:04:21.271
Just because you know from myself, just because you know, growing up early and then being in business and employing you know a lot of family members, friends and things in that nature, a lot of times I kind of got put into a position that everyone looks up to me and they do.
00:04:21.791 --> 00:04:23.641
It becomes hard sometimes.
00:04:23.641 --> 00:04:27.124
It's like, you know, a guy once told me a story.
00:04:27.124 --> 00:04:47.540
He says, you know, he says kind of like being on a boat, a captain of the ship, and if you know, a lot of times is if the captain seems nervous, then the passengers and the crew get nervous and everybody starts wondering and causes panic and causes panic.
00:04:47.540 --> 00:05:00.100
So I think, with that in mind, a lot of times some of the issues that I go through and the problems I go through, it becomes hard to share, you know, with other people that you know, perhaps in this instance that I'm driving the boat, that are on the boat with me, why do you think that is?
00:05:00.961 --> 00:05:02.882
Why do you think because I felt like that too.
00:05:02.903 --> 00:05:26.031
I'm just curious, like why you felt that way um, is I think that people you know, look for people to kind of follow and that are maybe walking a path that might be something similar to that they want to walk.
00:05:26.031 --> 00:05:44.367
And I think, when you develop and you start to realize the responsibility that you have, it becomes important to you, to, you know, at least to them appear that that ship is still, you know, on course.
00:05:44.648 --> 00:05:44.968
Yeah.
00:05:45.869 --> 00:05:58.478
You know and you might realize that, hey, you know there's rough water ahead and you got to think about how do you want to prepare the people you know on the ship for that.
00:05:58.478 --> 00:06:20.374
So a lot of it is, you know me being through the rough water before and making it through the waves and everything and knowing it's going to be okay and you know really deciding, you know from my experiences what would be best, you know, helpful to these folks to make it through.
00:06:20.374 --> 00:06:24.286
You know that same exact you know situation.
00:06:25.007 --> 00:06:26.911
It's a lot of responsibility, responsibility.
00:06:26.911 --> 00:06:27.851
You're leading others.
00:06:27.851 --> 00:06:35.213
Yes, yes, yeah, and you're, and so, from my perspective, personally, I'm going through something similar.
00:06:35.213 --> 00:06:41.428
It's just like you don't want to disappoint those people and you know that they have families as well.
00:06:41.428 --> 00:06:45.483
Right, that's going to be impacted, and they just it's like the weight of the world is on your shoulders.
00:06:46.184 --> 00:07:01.605
Yeah, yes, I, I, I definitely agree, and I think that, um more that I look at it is part of the reason why I ended up going to florida is you know, since I've been 20 years old is.
00:07:01.605 --> 00:07:07.531
You know, since I've been 20 years old, you know I've been in my own business.
00:07:07.531 --> 00:07:16.319
You know I've been self-employed and you know, by the time I was 25 years old, I had a couple hundred employees.
00:07:17.281 --> 00:07:17.663
Oh, wow.
00:07:18.163 --> 00:07:39.574
And so I was kind of forced into that responsibility, you know, because I look back at it, I'm like, okay, at 20, who would sign up to be responsible for all of these people's incomes and their life and to pay their rents and their bills, like I wouldn't, you know.
00:07:39.574 --> 00:08:30.956
So it was me, you know, initially just building the business and one day looking up and saying, wow, I have this responsibility to either, you know, take that responsibility seriously and walk the walk, or you have the opportunity to talk the talk, you know, and I just think it's such a unbelievable responsibility that I decided to walk the walk because it becomes easier, I found to lead people through that path.
00:08:32.301 --> 00:08:36.231
So, for people that don't know you, what type of business do you have?
00:08:36.231 --> 00:08:47.368
I should say what type of business did you have for the story that we're actually referring to at this moment, because I think it might have changed a little bit what you're doing now.
00:08:47.368 --> 00:08:50.370
So what was it based on the story that you're sharing right now?
00:08:50.370 --> 00:08:52.083
What type of business was it?
00:08:53.447 --> 00:08:56.225
You know it's funny, it was a cleaning business.
00:08:56.225 --> 00:09:08.823
You know and it's just funny how things happen in life that you know, as a young kid growing up and coming from you know a single household.
00:09:08.823 --> 00:09:10.668
You know my mother worked.
00:09:10.668 --> 00:09:15.326
You know three jobs and one of those jobs was cleaning.
00:09:15.989 --> 00:09:16.590
Oh, wow.
00:09:17.111 --> 00:09:22.128
Yeah, and I'm probably responsible for her losing those contracts.
00:09:22.368 --> 00:09:23.028
Oh gosh.
00:09:23.370 --> 00:09:25.514
Yeah, well, I didn't you sell.
00:09:25.514 --> 00:09:38.335
Well, you would go to these offices and they would, you know, have refrigerators with food in it and desk with extra change laying around in it.
00:09:38.335 --> 00:09:44.692
No, ben, and at seven, eight years old, ten years old, going to clean.
00:09:44.831 --> 00:09:45.092
Yeah.
00:09:46.120 --> 00:09:55.529
You know, I remember my mom would send me down and say you go down the vacuum, and I would just turn the vacuum on and eat the food.
00:09:55.529 --> 00:09:59.741
Oh man you know, and I hated cleaning.
00:09:59.741 --> 00:10:03.725
I just but my mom every week.
00:10:03.725 --> 00:10:14.774
She would always convince me to do it because I was always able to go to McDonald's and get two double cheeseburgers, a french fry, a large Coke.
00:10:15.355 --> 00:10:17.017
So that was my payment for cleaning.
00:10:17.017 --> 00:10:46.422
So, to start off cleaning, I just despised it.
00:10:46.422 --> 00:10:49.850
And when out of high school I moved to Arizona with my oldest daughter's mother at the time, and it was just the sunlight, the sunshine, I remember that time forever it was.
00:10:49.850 --> 00:10:51.934
I remember leaving, getting off the plane in Arizona and I was, I was like wow, there's a whole new world.
00:10:51.934 --> 00:10:52.336
And, um, the sunshine.
00:10:52.336 --> 00:10:58.664
I just remember the palm trees waking up to that and I remember that feeling, um, waking up in the energy I felt.
00:11:00.005 --> 00:11:09.517
And after two years of that, you know, we got pregnant with Diamond and we looked around and realized we didn't have any babysitters in Arizona.
00:11:09.517 --> 00:11:13.328
That's a big deal, very big deal.
00:11:13.328 --> 00:11:18.220
So we decided to pack up and come back in 1999.
00:11:18.220 --> 00:11:24.201
I only remember that because that's the year Diamond was born and I didn't know what to do.
00:11:24.201 --> 00:11:52.259
The year Diamond was born and I didn't know what to do and the girl's mom at the time father had a construction business and he said you know, if you guys want to clean the office, you can do that and I didn't want to do that because it just took me back to Double cheeseburger and french fries, Exactly right.
00:11:57.480 --> 00:12:13.256
And so I started cleaning that building and I remember only thing I cared about was doing a good job is because, you know, a lot of times family members might give us jobs or and we might not do it to 100 percent because we go oh, that's my cousin or that's my aunt.
00:12:13.256 --> 00:12:14.765
We feel like we can get away.
00:12:14.980 --> 00:12:19.331
But as soon as it's a stranger, we're the perfect cleaner, right.
00:12:19.331 --> 00:12:24.614
And so I, at least wanted to say, felt like I earned that money.
00:12:24.614 --> 00:13:21.005
You know, not that I was given anything and just because of that, one simple thing of wanting to do a good job built confidence in him that he started telling his friends and before you know it, you know I was showing up doing maid service, cleaning me and the girl's mom, and we started off doing maid service, doing all types of jobs and got into commercial construction cleanup and it was just all off the premise of doing a good job, doing a good job and then money became the byproduct of that and I feel that if you make money, the the first thing you go for in the good job, the byproduct it never turns out well maybe short term, but not long term
00:13:22.087 --> 00:13:22.467
you know.
00:13:22.467 --> 00:13:37.575
So, um, that was, you know, very important, you know, for me and just that natural um thing of wanting to do a good job people naturally refer to.
00:13:37.575 --> 00:13:45.767
So reason why I laughed when you said you know, tell us what you've done, what you did before.
00:13:45.767 --> 00:13:49.605
This is for a good part of my life no one knew my name.
00:13:49.605 --> 00:13:52.191
They just knew me as the cleaning guy.
00:13:52.191 --> 00:13:55.644
Really, yeah, because people knew I was in cleaning.
00:13:55.644 --> 00:13:57.227
You see my trucks everywhere.
00:13:57.268 --> 00:13:57.548
Yeah.
00:13:58.390 --> 00:14:33.347
And people would always say you know who's the guy, you know, you know the what's his name the cleaning boy yeah, and then yeah, you know, because that's what they just, you know, kind of ended up knowing me from, because what happened was, as I was getting these jobs, I needed to learn how to get help and hire people, and so there was a natural progression of things that I had to learn that I had no idea that came with it.
00:14:33.347 --> 00:14:41.183
You know, I tell people that you know you're a cleaning business when it's you and maybe one other person, right.
00:14:41.183 --> 00:14:55.216
But if you want to build a business in this industry, it's nothing to do with cleaning at all, it's you're a management company that specializes in cleaning.
00:14:55.216 --> 00:15:04.667
Because A lot of these folks have full time jobs, you know, and they the people that work for you have full-time jobs.
00:15:04.826 --> 00:15:05.488
That work for?
00:15:05.488 --> 00:15:31.427
Yeah, because a lot of times, you know, I learned very early about the cleaning industry, which is, you know, kind of coming full circle to the work that I'm doing now is I learned a long time ago, back then, is that in cleaning long time ago back then is is that in cleaning after eight hour, after four hours of cleaning, production drops by 70%.
00:15:31.466 --> 00:15:31.988
Oh, wow.
00:15:32.609 --> 00:15:39.880
So can you imagine, when someone shows up to work hour one, by hour four, they're beat.
00:15:40.221 --> 00:15:40.600
Yeah.
00:15:40.921 --> 00:15:48.322
And if you're in a bigger facility that they have to walk back and forth, your production just drops, you know.
00:15:48.322 --> 00:15:52.703
So your second four hours you're hardly getting anything.
00:15:52.703 --> 00:15:59.725
So I learned a long time ago I said, with that being said, is I switched all of my shifts to part time.
00:16:00.505 --> 00:16:02.686
Mm hmm, ok, so three to four hours.
00:16:02.686 --> 00:16:12.168
So think about this If people go to work and do an eight hour day, they just want a few hours afterwards, right, you know.
00:16:12.168 --> 00:16:16.649
And they go to work, they come on, you know, and really we get down around three hours.
00:16:16.649 --> 00:16:18.129
Four hours is the max.
00:16:18.129 --> 00:16:19.730
Pay them great money.
00:16:19.730 --> 00:16:26.892
They come in, they hustle to get their things done and, right, when they're starting to get tired, it's time to go.
00:16:26.892 --> 00:16:32.033
So switching, you know.
00:16:32.033 --> 00:16:44.256
You know, cleaning is very it's very low startup costs.
00:16:44.256 --> 00:16:46.897
You need cleaning supplies at the dollar.
00:16:46.897 --> 00:16:51.697
Now, in cleaning they account for 1% to 2% of the sale.
00:16:51.697 --> 00:16:52.958
It's nothing.
00:16:53.178 --> 00:16:53.599
Really.
00:16:53.739 --> 00:16:56.701
Yeah, you think about it, you get a dollar.
00:16:56.701 --> 00:17:04.127
I could clean this whole building with a dollar bottle of Windex, because really it's not about the chemical.
00:17:04.127 --> 00:17:06.526
Yeah, it's about the motion.
00:17:08.182 --> 00:17:11.926
So people, you have mastered it Okay.
00:17:12.107 --> 00:17:18.353
Yeah, I really have, because I've been in all aspects of it.
00:17:18.353 --> 00:17:19.545
I cleaned the toilets.
00:17:19.545 --> 00:17:28.894
I've worked 24 hours a day because people called off that I had to wipe it down and seen how tired I was at the end of the day.
00:17:28.894 --> 00:17:37.054
And then I start to realize, if I'm the owner and I'm this tired, what can I expect from other?
00:17:37.094 --> 00:17:44.113
people Right, and also, like you said, their productivity goes down 70 percent after four hours.
00:17:44.113 --> 00:17:46.548
So, yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense.
00:17:46.548 --> 00:17:53.041
I think I'm more intrigued with the fact that you learned that your cleaning business was not a cleaning business.
00:17:53.041 --> 00:17:56.851
It was literally a management job that specializes in cleaning.
00:17:56.851 --> 00:18:15.904
And yet you took it a further step and you decided to say, hey, I will become the master of this industry and learn not only that okay, yeah, I can clean it with Windex but also how many hours I can actually get to that thing or get that thing done, which I think is commendable.
00:18:15.904 --> 00:18:21.324
So when you look at profitability, you knew how many people that you were going to need.
00:18:21.324 --> 00:18:34.025
That's what I'm hearing from you Um, how long they needed to work and um, yeah, and how much profit they were going to make, plus how much you were going to make is what I'm hearing you say, like, you just mastered that over years.
00:18:36.409 --> 00:18:49.095
Um, yes, I would say I put a lot of um effort into learning that and it comes back to something you and I discussed on the phone call before.
00:18:49.095 --> 00:18:53.608
It was just for one reason only.
00:18:53.608 --> 00:18:55.525
It's like I said.
00:18:55.525 --> 00:19:00.509
It's because I am temporarily motivated to be permanently lazy.
00:19:03.396 --> 00:19:05.627
You know, I didn't know you were going to share that on camera.
00:19:06.560 --> 00:19:09.470
And that's what it comes down for, because you got to think about this.
00:19:09.470 --> 00:19:13.666
So can you imagine if I had an eight-hour worker?
00:19:14.188 --> 00:19:27.872
at a facility that required eight hours and I have staff all over town and then you get a phone call late that says, hey, I can't make it Now.
00:19:27.872 --> 00:19:30.342
I have an eight hour shift to fill.
00:19:30.342 --> 00:19:35.590
It becomes a lot harder to search around to find eight hours.
00:19:35.590 --> 00:19:51.387
So if you took that eight hours and broke it down and said, hey, I'm going to have two people there for four hours, said hey, I'm going to have two people there for four hours, Now, if one calls off worst case scenario, you're stuck filling four.
00:19:51.407 --> 00:19:55.094
So that statement, I tell you, comes really from that.
00:19:55.094 --> 00:19:56.000
The truth is so.
00:19:56.000 --> 00:20:11.809
It made me really think about the hours and the time and I found that if you could figure out the precise labor it could do, all of those things you said is you would not say, oh, I just need to hire eight hour shift.
00:20:11.809 --> 00:20:19.266
You would know that, hey, this facility or this specific task takes two hours.
00:20:19.266 --> 00:20:22.568
Now you know what to hire for.
00:20:22.729 --> 00:20:47.800
You now can give the technician clear idea on the time of that task and now in their mind they have an idea and can create kind of their own work pace that they know this should be done in two hours, done in two hours.
00:20:47.800 --> 00:20:54.116
If you tell a worker they have eight hours and it only is four hours worth of work, they are going to take eight hours and they're going to get used to taking eight hours.
00:20:54.116 --> 00:21:02.383
And then they're going to think that, no matter what you say, this job takes eight hours because they've been doing it like that.
00:21:02.383 --> 00:21:06.393
So that becomes, you know, kind of the challenge.
00:21:06.393 --> 00:21:15.934
You know, especially with the work that I'm doing now, is saying, hey, I know that's what you're doing, but it doesn't mean it was you know the correct way from the beginning.
00:21:16.938 --> 00:21:30.885
So the management aspect of it yes, it becomes a management business because, with all of these people having full-time jobs, one is you have to manage them differently because they really don't need this job.
00:21:30.885 --> 00:21:42.184
So how you might be at a full-time job and your boss can be tougher on you because you're like I don't like my boss now but rent still and I can't go.
00:21:42.184 --> 00:21:45.535
Now, when you become a part-time business, you can't.
00:21:45.535 --> 00:21:47.521
You can't manage that way.
00:21:47.662 --> 00:21:47.942
Right.
00:21:48.263 --> 00:21:53.203
You know this is you got to create an atmosphere that people are like I just want to make some couple extra dollars.
00:21:53.203 --> 00:22:02.332
It needs to be easy and I find, like a lot of new business owners that get into the industry, this is one of the biggest things they have a problem with.
00:22:05.480 --> 00:22:06.423
They get the work, but they can't get the people.
00:22:06.423 --> 00:22:08.468
Okay, so what's the type of person that would be successful?
00:22:08.468 --> 00:22:11.645
Have you seen that's the most successful in this industry?
00:22:11.645 --> 00:22:16.809
Like taking this from okay, I'm cleaning myself to running and managing people.
00:22:49.619 --> 00:22:51.605
I would say that the person that has the ability to communicate, to manage, to work on their self.
00:22:51.605 --> 00:23:06.314
Because I'm a better manager now, because of my experience, of my interactions of different people, a lot of people think that as a manager, you know you have to be this person, that everybody you know, the same person to everybody, consistent yeah but I always said, if I had a hundred workers, I had a hundred personalities.
00:23:06.314 --> 00:23:06.974
I had to be.
00:23:08.701 --> 00:23:09.526
You, yourself.
00:23:09.779 --> 00:23:10.762
A hundred percent.
00:23:10.762 --> 00:23:20.527
I would need to be a hundred different people is because you know, being a manager is not about telling people what to do.
00:23:20.527 --> 00:23:22.608
You can do that.
00:23:22.608 --> 00:23:30.883
And some people say, hey, this is the way I manage tell you what to do, hold you accountable.
00:23:30.883 --> 00:23:33.810
If you don't get it done, I'll find someone else to do it.
00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:43.901
I always felt like, okay, if you become that type of manager, you know a lot of times you have to micromanage, you have to be on top of everything.
00:23:43.901 --> 00:24:12.258
So I like to manage in a way of kind of creating vested interests, of empowering and giving people the incentive to want to do that, given the fact there are workers that I could go up to and say, hey, go get that trash can, empty it and then take it outside.
00:24:12.258 --> 00:24:29.747
Then there's another worker that I know might be more of a stronger personality and I might say, hey, erica, can you do me a favor, could you go grab that trash can for me and take it outside?
00:24:29.747 --> 00:24:31.151
Oh, yeah, ben, you know.
00:24:31.151 --> 00:24:41.147
So those are the things, and if I would have come to Erica and said, erica, go get that trash can, take it outside, yeah, I could have got a different response.
00:24:41.147 --> 00:24:45.073
So to me as a leader and as a manager, I have a choice.
00:24:45.073 --> 00:24:53.211
I have a choice to tell you what to do or get you to want to do it.
00:24:53.211 --> 00:25:12.067
You know, and I just feel that if you can figure out a management style to get people to want to do things for you, then in the long run, want to do things for you then in the long run it's what frees up your time more the ability to grow the business.
00:25:12.086 --> 00:25:18.520
But I would say, if you want to be in the cleaning business, it's about management, nothing more.
00:25:18.520 --> 00:25:20.144
It's either.
00:25:20.144 --> 00:25:26.311
You have two things you are either good in generating sales.
00:25:26.311 --> 00:25:30.163
You know I tell people if you have a partner.
00:25:30.163 --> 00:25:36.422
You know, a lot of times husband and wife teams come and I'll say okay, what are you both good at?
00:25:36.422 --> 00:25:47.534
And you know, typically the husband's like I can do the job, I can go out and do the cleaning yeah, and the wife is like I, I can, you know, do more of the back end stuff, the administrative type of stuff.
00:25:48.819 --> 00:26:12.592
And I say that's a great fit, because you know if the wife could go out and be able to generate the sales, talk to the clients, deal with that part, the building, the invoicing, okay, which is very important parts of the business and then the husband could go out and run the crews.
00:26:12.592 --> 00:26:17.169
It's almost like she gets the jobs, does the administration and said here's a new job, hubby.
00:26:17.169 --> 00:26:21.683
You get it done and then that person gets it done.
00:26:21.683 --> 00:26:23.867
So how do you grow that?
00:26:23.867 --> 00:26:43.525
Well, obviously you know the person the wife would have to get good at figuring out ways to consistently generate business, because typically what most small business what happens is you don't have no work, so you start hustling and then you get all of this work.
00:26:43.525 --> 00:26:47.212
The sales stop and now you're completing the work.
00:26:47.212 --> 00:26:51.769
Now the work is completed, then you go oh crap, I need more work.
00:26:51.769 --> 00:27:01.094
And that's kind of the life cycle of the small business, you know, and it's kind of figuring out you got to always be selling.
00:27:01.900 --> 00:27:03.723
You always need to be lead generating yeah.
00:27:03.743 --> 00:27:04.184
For you.
00:27:04.184 --> 00:27:14.857
Yes, it's lead generation, you know, and and if you can keep that going, what happens is believe it or not, you know.
00:27:14.857 --> 00:27:22.743
I tell everybody that's the easiest part in cleaning getting the jobs, because there's a lot of cleaning companies but there's a lot of bad ones there.
00:27:22.903 --> 00:27:32.009
So what happens is if I come to you and you say, ben, I already got a cleaning company To me, I go, it's just a matter of time.
00:27:32.009 --> 00:27:38.469
I hate saying that I'm like, okay, erica, you know, it's just, I'm just going to sit back.
00:27:38.469 --> 00:27:43.510
And because I know how much this business is about, yeah, assistancy.
00:27:43.680 --> 00:27:43.900
Yeah.
00:27:44.240 --> 00:27:52.075
See, when you do paperwork and you have a job that you know you might be in an office or something, you can say you know what?
00:27:52.075 --> 00:27:59.373
I don't feel good today, so I'm going to take a little bit of time off.
00:27:59.373 --> 00:28:01.247
I'm not going to do as much paperwork today.
00:28:01.247 --> 00:28:21.703
In cleaning, you can't say you know, I'm not going to change that toilet paper today, I'm not going to empty that trash can today, I'm not going to dust that person's desk, because now what happens is this person comes back to work and they're in this space for eight hours and they notice it.
00:28:21.703 --> 00:28:23.349
Yeah, well, they could.
00:28:23.921 --> 00:28:26.368
They could say well, I'm not going to clean this area today.
00:28:26.368 --> 00:28:28.384
They could, but they're going to lose the contract.
00:28:28.404 --> 00:28:29.669
They're going to lose the contract, yeah.
00:28:29.900 --> 00:28:30.884
They could definitely do that.
00:28:31.019 --> 00:28:36.119
And so that's why this business is so much about consistency.
00:28:36.119 --> 00:28:41.407
Like a lot of new business owners, they come in and they find themselves getting massive contracts.
00:28:41.407 --> 00:28:52.063
Great, I've been there, mm-hmm, getting massive contracts, yeah, great.
00:28:52.083 --> 00:28:53.645
I've been there, but I know what it takes afterwards to fulfill them Right.
00:28:53.645 --> 00:28:59.884
Um, which you know, kind of brings me to a quick little story that I um have a friend, that local guy.
00:28:59.884 --> 00:29:04.180
He's always been in the restaurant business and I call this the ding story.
00:29:04.180 --> 00:29:05.641
And you know he's worked in the restaurant.
00:29:05.641 --> 00:29:06.540
And I call this the ding story.
00:29:06.540 --> 00:29:11.222
And you know he's worked in the restaurant all of his business, all of his life, mostly in the front of the house.
00:29:11.222 --> 00:29:18.685
So customers come in, he's at the bar, he gets to communicate, talk, take the orders.
00:29:18.685 --> 00:29:26.708
He turns around to the window, drops the ticket, hits the bell, lets the cook know, dang, there's an order in.
00:29:26.708 --> 00:29:31.990
He's able to continue doing what he does good in communicating.
00:29:31.990 --> 00:29:38.512
And now he's starting to think, hey, these people are coming into the restaurant for me to see me too.
00:29:38.512 --> 00:29:48.557
And so order comes up, takes the meal, gives it to the clients and they enjoy their dinner, pay the bill, leave a nice tap.
00:29:49.317 --> 00:30:02.143
Well, eventually most entrepreneurs and people start to say maybe I could start a restaurant, because he's making it look easy, because he's making it look easy.
00:30:02.644 --> 00:30:11.496
But what he has failed to realize is what happens once he hits the ding, the bell and he goes order in.
00:30:11.496 --> 00:30:20.214
He doesn't realize in the back of the house someone has to order the precise amount of food, have the right amount of cooks, the right amount of preps.
00:30:20.214 --> 00:30:29.961
You have to have a space to cook these things, you have to have managers, cooks doing schedules, you have to do payrolls and supervisors and all of these things.
00:30:29.961 --> 00:30:38.963
Then when that plate comes up, all you see is that meal.
00:30:38.963 --> 00:30:47.586
But what happens is, with a lot of folks that want to get into their own business and things, they get really excited.
00:30:47.767 --> 00:31:02.530
They get really, really excited about doing something, and then they get started and then a lot of these hurdles dings that they don't even know about.
00:31:02.691 --> 00:31:03.711
Behind the scenes.
00:31:03.711 --> 00:31:05.131
This is good, ben, this is good.
00:31:05.131 --> 00:31:08.392
They don't even know about those things scenes this is good, ben, this is good.
00:31:08.392 --> 00:31:09.393
They don't even know about those things.
00:31:09.413 --> 00:31:10.873
Yeah, they don't see the behind the scenes.
00:31:10.873 --> 00:31:12.232
They don't see the behind the scenes.
00:31:12.232 --> 00:31:19.976
So that's why I tell everybody is getting into your own business.
00:31:19.976 --> 00:31:25.096
You don't do that for something to do.
00:31:25.096 --> 00:31:38.710
You do it for a reason, a why because I, you know, it's very important to me spending time with my girls.
00:31:38.710 --> 00:31:43.210
It always has been, it's been the driving factor is what I feel.
00:31:43.279 --> 00:31:46.932
Anyone that knows you knows that you love daughters all of them.
00:31:46.952 --> 00:31:53.413
Yep, in which that stems from me growing up, my mother having these three jobs.
00:31:53.613 --> 00:31:53.874
Mm-hmm.
00:31:55.080 --> 00:32:02.582
And as much as the events that she'd been there, for there was a lot that she missed, you know.
00:32:02.582 --> 00:32:12.025
So I didn't realize this till later in life, like why am I so infatuated with spending time with these girls?
00:32:12.025 --> 00:32:13.888
Yeah like nothing matters.
00:32:13.888 --> 00:32:21.885
Like I, I didn't want to miss one thing, right, and I really don't think I did.
00:32:21.885 --> 00:32:29.855
I remember Diamond played for Wisconsin and she had a position.
00:32:29.855 --> 00:32:35.488
Someone needed to keep the seat warm.
00:32:35.488 --> 00:32:36.832
Okay, these were some great seats.
00:32:38.079 --> 00:33:13.352
I love it, and you know they played on Thursdays and Sundays you know they played on Thursdays and Sundays and just about every home game, I flew out there and watched her warm that seat, you know, and because it was important, you know we went through this all these years of traveling and playing basketball and then to see her and achieving the things that she wanted to achieve was I didn't want to miss that.
00:33:13.593 --> 00:33:18.806
Yeah, she did put a lot of stuff work into that, A lot of work into it.
00:33:18.806 --> 00:33:21.868
It was that important to you because you wanted to follow her.
00:33:21.868 --> 00:33:24.484
Her dream unfold.
00:33:25.126 --> 00:33:26.411
Yes, yeah, yeah.
00:33:26.411 --> 00:33:27.561
And that was the thing is.
00:33:27.561 --> 00:33:31.329
I never gave her the dream.
00:33:32.712 --> 00:33:42.992
Really, because I know a lot of people see we're not supposed to be talking about basketball, ben yeah, but I know a lot of people from the outside looking in the perception was that you were driving her to do this.
00:33:44.060 --> 00:33:45.426
And that's not the case at all.
00:33:45.426 --> 00:33:52.207
It's not the case Like you can't make someone love, something you sure can?
00:33:52.267 --> 00:34:07.646
You just can't make someone love something you sure can you just can't and you think about it and the amount of work that I think she's showed everyone that she's put in.
00:34:07.646 --> 00:34:27.164
There's no way I know I can't for sure say this there's no way that I could do that and not love what I was doing, because there was times that people don't know.
00:34:27.164 --> 00:34:30.896
She woke up before school and worked out.
00:34:30.896 --> 00:34:32.666
We went to the Y before school.
00:34:32.666 --> 00:34:40.972
She would tell me, dad, let's go to the gym before school and I would say, if you wake me up.
00:34:40.972 --> 00:34:43.398
I didn't wake up.
00:34:43.398 --> 00:34:44.360
I never told you.
00:34:44.360 --> 00:34:45.943
You never woke up.
00:34:45.943 --> 00:34:55.865
Like, when I want to wake up at four in the morning, like, no, like, if you want to go, I'm not going to wake up and get ready and have to go in there and say, hey, it's time to go shoot.
00:34:55.865 --> 00:34:58.532
No, if you want to do this, you tell me.
00:34:58.532 --> 00:35:01.865
I never told her where she.
00:35:01.865 --> 00:35:04.130
I never asked what time her practice was.
00:35:04.130 --> 00:35:05.052
None of that.
00:35:05.052 --> 00:35:06.074
She told me.
00:35:07.699 --> 00:35:10.907
All I did was put her in the right place.
00:35:10.907 --> 00:35:12.530
That's all I did.
00:35:12.530 --> 00:35:15.280
I searched, I said, oh, she has the drive, she has the passion.
00:35:15.280 --> 00:35:16.384
Who's the best teams?
00:35:16.384 --> 00:35:18.568
Who's the best players?
00:35:19.010 --> 00:35:32.047
I never wanted her to be the best player because I felt that sometimes kids get success early and it's easy to take the foot off the gas.
00:35:32.047 --> 00:35:47.056
You know, and you know she, she really took this game and made and found something in it that was for her.
00:35:47.056 --> 00:35:51.144
And as a father, as a parent, that was my job.
00:35:51.425 --> 00:35:51.806
Yeah.
00:35:52.188 --> 00:35:52.489
You know.
00:35:52.489 --> 00:35:58.751
So it was great about that fire and her achieving that is, that she went through all of that.
00:35:58.751 --> 00:36:01.967
Now Passion played basketball great too.
00:36:02.248 --> 00:36:02.510
Mm-hmm.
00:36:02.800 --> 00:36:07.905
But I knew it wasn't Passion's love, right, I never forced it on her.
00:36:07.905 --> 00:36:12.690
Yeah, you know, I think Passion was still searching for that.
00:36:12.690 --> 00:36:38.139
No-transcript.
00:36:38.139 --> 00:36:43.003
The little brother gets stronger and stronger, you know, and so Passion got to.
00:36:43.003 --> 00:36:51.648
You know, really, watch how Diamond was focused and there was Passion admired her just as much as everybody else, you know.
00:36:51.648 --> 00:37:01.833
And um, you know and see, now passion, now be able to realize, okay, start just thinking what do I want to do?
00:37:02.114 --> 00:37:08.740
yeah you know, and I think a lot of people get really stressed because they think they should know that right away.
00:37:08.740 --> 00:37:11.949
And that's if you say, what did diamond get?
00:37:11.949 --> 00:37:12.831
That was lucky.
00:37:12.831 --> 00:37:37.427
She got lucky and loved something very early in her life and I didn't know that was going to happen and I just fueled that and then, yeah, you nurtured it.
00:37:37.427 --> 00:37:55.257
Yeah, I nurtured it know, as a parent, that we want to see that our children are able to fend for their self and live and survive in what sometimes could be a very tough world.
00:37:55.257 --> 00:38:12.333
So to see my girls in it, living it, being involved in it, surviving in it, I told them that's when my time comes, that's all I want to see as a parent.
00:38:12.514 --> 00:38:12.813
Yeah.
00:38:13.376 --> 00:38:15.480
And I see as a parent, yeah, and I see that in them.
00:38:15.480 --> 00:38:34.677
So that really gives me, you know, a sense of peace, along with gratefulness that I can take those experiences and really look at them and say, hey, what could I do better with these twins?
00:38:34.677 --> 00:38:46.778
And so I look at that and my thing with the twins is Almost a chance to do all the things that you probably feel like.
00:38:46.838 --> 00:38:48.364
okay, I could do this a little bit better.
00:38:48.364 --> 00:38:50.731
Is that what you're applying to your twins?
00:38:50.800 --> 00:39:02.702
Yes, yes, so I look at diamond and passion and I just look at the relationship because really you can say how I parented them was really is.
00:39:02.702 --> 00:39:12.309
Looking at all the things about myself, how I was raised, like I'm lazy, I really am like my mom's, I'm for the air, my Because you have.
00:39:12.670 --> 00:39:14.054
You had a successful business.
00:39:14.054 --> 00:39:18.431
Yeah, you know you had a hiccup and you started another successful business.
00:39:18.431 --> 00:39:20.125
So stop saying you're lazy.
00:39:20.125 --> 00:39:25.329
You're not lazy, you just you like to work smarter, not harder.
00:39:25.329 --> 00:39:31.382
You're not going to be doing like running in circles, you're going to figure it out real quick If it works.
00:39:31.382 --> 00:39:32.347
Yes, I'm moving forward.
00:39:32.347 --> 00:39:37.862
That's the type of person that you are.
00:39:37.862 --> 00:39:39.543
I learned that just in this couple minute conversation that we had.
00:39:39.563 --> 00:39:39.925
So you're not lazy.
00:39:39.925 --> 00:39:52.407
Well, I will say I'm not surprised, but your ability to make words and change them and use other meetings is amazing.
00:39:54.349 --> 00:39:55.791
Thank welcome.
00:39:55.791 --> 00:39:57.333
Yeah, thank you.
00:39:57.333 --> 00:39:57.873
Yes.
00:39:57.873 --> 00:40:03.206
So yes, if anyone has not known, they know now how much more you love your daughters.
00:40:03.505 --> 00:40:18.474
Yes, yeah yeah, so, so yeah, I, I, I don't know, you know, I really don't, you know I sit back and I think about it because I'm like, am I obsessed with them?
00:40:18.940 --> 00:40:20.182
Like no, you're not.
00:40:20.182 --> 00:40:23.632
You are the father of any little girl's dreams, I'm sure.
00:40:23.632 --> 00:40:25.385
I'm sure they were here to say that.
00:40:25.385 --> 00:40:30.400
They were like oh my gosh, my dad is the best, because you don't seem like you're a helicopter father, like you're.
00:40:30.400 --> 00:40:33.650
Like OK, ok, no, you need to do this, this and this and this.
00:40:33.650 --> 00:40:36.088
You probably sit there, probably their friend.
00:40:36.088 --> 00:40:40.490
This is me just speculating, just based off what I see on social media.
00:40:40.490 --> 00:40:44.411
So no, you are a dynamic father, I'm sure.
00:40:44.411 --> 00:40:45.576
Sure.
00:40:45.898 --> 00:40:46.599
Well, thank you for that.
00:40:46.659 --> 00:40:47.762
I'll call Diamond and Patch.
00:40:47.762 --> 00:40:48.782
I was like, hey, was I right?
00:40:48.782 --> 00:40:51.025
Like no man, that man's crazy.
00:40:51.025 --> 00:40:54.110
It's so funny man.
00:40:54.110 --> 00:40:55.994
They would say, yes, we love our dad.
00:40:56.695 --> 00:41:07.382
Yeah, they, you know.
00:41:07.382 --> 00:41:17.262
I just I was thinking about this is, you know, because I communicate with them and you know, we're not the type with diamond passion that we talk every day, the type with diamond passion that we talk every day.
00:41:17.282 --> 00:41:39.355
You know, I'm more about, hey, when we talk, we talk about meaningful things like bringing up to speed, like there is no hard conversations with us, is because, you know, a long time ago I said to myself, you know, I said you know, when everybody passes away, people you know go to the funeral and people get to come up and tell stories about that person.
00:41:39.355 --> 00:41:46.791
And you know, and I kind of looked and say, hey, one day that's going to be me.
00:41:46.791 --> 00:42:02.851
Okay, people are going to be at my funeral, if I'm lucky, and they're going to come up and they're going to tell stories and they're going to say, you know, girls, I want to tell you something about your dad.
00:42:02.851 --> 00:42:08.025
You didn't know.
00:42:10.206 --> 00:42:26.925
My girls were the one people that knew exactly who I was, that when that happens they're the ones up there saying no, y'all, let me tell you who my dad was.
00:42:26.925 --> 00:42:39.780
So those four girls know who I am, my flaws, the good things, the bad things, all of that stuff you know.
00:42:39.780 --> 00:42:52.755
So it's very important for me to always conduct myself as that type of role model for them.
00:42:55.860 --> 00:42:57.364
Dating got to be hard for them.
00:42:57.364 --> 00:42:59.291
It got to be hard.
00:42:59.291 --> 00:43:05.764
We're like, standards got to be up to here If you're treating them the way that you're treating them.
00:43:05.764 --> 00:43:07.190
Yeah.
00:43:07.469 --> 00:43:12.862
Yeah, it's funny is because and every last one.
00:43:12.882 --> 00:43:13.744
they're all beautiful.
00:43:13.744 --> 00:43:15.791
All of them are beautiful so.
00:43:16.239 --> 00:43:18.784
Yeah, they, I, you know.
00:43:18.784 --> 00:43:27.255
Every time you tell somebody that you know you have four girls, everybody says, oh, you better get a gun, you know.
00:43:28.079 --> 00:43:30.148
That's what they would say about our girls too.
00:43:30.340 --> 00:43:31.744
Well, well, you know.
00:43:31.784 --> 00:43:33.811
Why Didn't teach those standards?
00:43:35.739 --> 00:43:41.192
Exactly the point I was going to get to is, I'd rather teach them to shoot their own.
00:43:41.512 --> 00:43:41.813
Mm-hmm.
00:43:42.880 --> 00:43:48.472
Because there's no way, as a father, being realistic, I can be there.
00:43:48.893 --> 00:43:49.172
Mm-hmm.
00:43:50.021 --> 00:43:56.322
So the only thing I can do is to give them the tools and so they know.
00:43:56.322 --> 00:44:20.547
Just so you know, guys, how men think they know about you acting nice for a while and I teach them these things and kind of how I look at it is this, and kind of how I look at it is this Essentially, as parents, we're just in the future.
00:44:20.547 --> 00:44:22.268
We are their future.
00:44:22.268 --> 00:44:31.416
So on many occasions I'm able to turn back and say, hey, girls, this is what I learned about us.
00:44:31.416 --> 00:44:38.434
So you are aware we have a tendency to do this.
00:44:38.434 --> 00:44:48.934
I know we haven't talked about that conversation, but I think, if I tell you the end of that conversation, about what I shared on Facebook, the lesson I learned.
00:44:49.173 --> 00:44:49.454
Yes.
00:44:50.114 --> 00:44:57.505
From that was this, which my daughters were the first people I called and I said guess what I'm in the future?
00:44:57.505 --> 00:45:41.275
I just figured this out about us say that if we all have our own circle and we create that circle around us and usually people come in that circle and go in that circle and some people stay longer than others and some people stay longer than others, and I kind of gave them the analogy of when we go to the airport we have to go through security.
00:45:41.275 --> 00:45:44.300
We'll take all of our stuff down.
00:45:44.300 --> 00:46:11.429
They wound us up and down to make sure that we don't have anything that can harm anybody else in the airplane, in the airport, and once we go through that security measure, we're free to roam the airport and we're never rewounded again.
00:46:21.081 --> 00:46:32.505
And we have to start rewinding people we let into our circle and because people can get into your circle and be doing damage that you have no idea what's going on, sometimes until it's too late.
00:46:32.505 --> 00:46:36.268
Idea what's going on sometimes until it's too late.
00:46:36.268 --> 00:46:42.914
So make sure those that are close to you you really sit back and you really examine how they're treating you.
00:46:42.914 --> 00:47:17.639
What's going on, no-transcript.
00:47:17.639 --> 00:47:28.326
And once we justify in our own particular minds that this thing is right or wrong that we're going to do, we ride out with it.
00:47:30.179 --> 00:47:31.184
Whether it's right or wrong.
00:47:31.360 --> 00:47:33.630
Whether it's right or wrong, if you can convince yourself that it's right or wrong.
00:47:33.630 --> 00:47:45.463
Whether it's right or wrong, if you can convince yourself that it's right, that it's right and it's okay to do that because of, maybe, what someone else did to you or whatever.
00:47:45.463 --> 00:48:01.023
The case is that that's a hard thing, so I understand that and I'm guilty of it as anyone else, but I think the most important thing is is about being aware of that.
00:48:03.771 --> 00:48:08.405
Yeah, and you were able to pivot.
00:48:08.405 --> 00:48:20.163
So yeah, yeah, In pivoting well, how long did it take you to pivot because I know you went through that.
00:48:20.163 --> 00:48:22.108
You learned that, um, people weren't who they say.
00:48:22.108 --> 00:48:23.541
They were people that you trust.
00:48:23.541 --> 00:48:25.367
At one point you weren't able to trust them.
00:48:25.367 --> 00:48:32.025
Um, like how, how long did you go off the grid just black out before you're like okay, I have to reinvent myself.
00:48:32.025 --> 00:48:41.762
I'm still in that process.
00:48:51.280 --> 00:48:57.516
But I will tell you, I think my mindset has completely changed, because, you know, a lot of the things that I've been through I haven't talked about.
00:48:57.516 --> 00:49:05.030
A lot of people don't know, and I can assure everyone that I have just as amount of problems as they do.
00:49:05.030 --> 00:49:07.373
My life isn't perfect.
00:49:07.373 --> 00:49:22.574
I have struggles that everybody else has, but that particular incident, you know, I look at everything very differently.
00:49:22.574 --> 00:49:23.400
Now you have two choices.
00:49:23.559 --> 00:49:53.974
You can look at things as things that happen to you or things that happen for you, or things that happened for you, and I've realized now that some of the things that happened to me, that were some of the most challenging and difficult ones I'm talking about the worst of the worst were followed up by the greatest times ever.
00:49:54.780 --> 00:49:55.804
That's always the case.
00:49:55.804 --> 00:50:03.710
It seems as if it's always the case Like, yeah, the greater opposition, the greater the blessing.
00:50:05.320 --> 00:50:07.949
Well, if you really look into that, you go why?
00:50:07.949 --> 00:50:17.393
It's because, think about this how could you ever know what good is if you didn't know what bad was?
00:50:17.472 --> 00:50:17.753
Yeah.
00:50:17.753 --> 00:50:21.168
So believe it or not, you can't be grateful.
00:50:21.559 --> 00:50:24.791
You can't have good people without bad people.
00:50:24.791 --> 00:50:27.125
We wouldn't know the difference.
00:50:27.226 --> 00:50:27.927
We wouldn't know.
00:50:27.927 --> 00:50:29.260
Yeah, I guess you're right, yeah.
00:50:29.360 --> 00:50:29.740
You know.
00:50:29.740 --> 00:50:36.893
So what happens is a lot of times people run from these bad times.
00:50:36.893 --> 00:50:49.813
But now I face them, I look them dead in the eye and I now say what am I supposed to be learning from this?
00:50:49.894 --> 00:50:50.659
You know, what am I?
00:50:51.262 --> 00:51:13.465
supposed to be learning from this, you know, and so I look at that incident where which is really about the story I told you is I bought people into my circle and they were in my airport destroying lots and lots of things, and they eventually tried to and did run off with my airport.
00:51:13.465 --> 00:51:36.880
Okay, and as that happened, uh, as in my story, january of 2020, it happened started the year prior, probably even before, and, um, once january hit that, what they have done, I was starting to really understand.
00:51:36.880 --> 00:51:52.913
Uh, yeah, it was really stressful because this was the first time that I didn't know I was gonna pay my bills, because, think about this, I just couldn't go get a job.
00:51:53.233 --> 00:51:53.614
Right.
00:51:54.920 --> 00:51:59.891
Like that just doesn't happen, you know.
00:51:59.891 --> 00:52:04.510
So I had to have a choice.
00:52:04.510 --> 00:52:15.009
It'd be easy for me to blame them I'm broke, I can't pay my bills because of them.
00:52:15.009 --> 00:52:20.746
You guys saved my character, shift the blame.
00:52:20.746 --> 00:52:26.952
But I didn't have time for that.
00:52:26.952 --> 00:52:28.385
I had these twins.
00:52:28.385 --> 00:52:31.067
I had the responsibility.
00:52:31.067 --> 00:52:48.103
If I would have been by myself, I I could have just lived in a room like doesn't matter, made it through, but since these kids and me remember the captain of the ship, you know.
00:52:48.103 --> 00:52:50.806
So now I had to walk the walk.
00:52:50.806 --> 00:53:06.652
So what was crazy that whole situation is, after they took my airport, they turned and filed a lawsuit on me because they knew that I was broke.
00:53:06.652 --> 00:53:21.518
And if they filed a lawsuit on me and I couldn't pay, they could take the business and roll and there would be no consequences.
00:53:21.518 --> 00:53:26.327
Because that's where I learned about the law Whoever has the most money wins.
00:53:26.327 --> 00:53:30.829
So literally that was their plan.
00:53:30.829 --> 00:53:36.052
The reason why is because the gentleman actually did my books.
00:53:36.052 --> 00:53:37.445
He was my financial guy.
00:53:39.443 --> 00:53:40.166
So, financially.
00:53:40.286 --> 00:53:44.586
He knew everything and what to do, and so he initiated the plan.
00:53:44.586 --> 00:53:47.447
But there again, that happened.
00:53:47.447 --> 00:53:52.588
January Lost lots of business.
00:53:52.588 --> 00:53:53.141
I couldn't.
00:53:53.141 --> 00:53:57.032
By March, third, third month I wasn't paying my mortgage.
00:53:57.032 --> 00:54:20.449
Um and covid happened and I was able to secure um a large contract and with the proceeds of that large contract, which allowed me to pack my family up and move to Florida that June 15th 2020.
00:54:21.913 --> 00:54:22.594
During COVID.
00:54:22.594 --> 00:54:25.347
Well, there was no COVID in Florida.
00:54:25.347 --> 00:54:31.224
Oh, that's right, that's right, silly me.
00:54:31.224 --> 00:54:32.168
Just so you know.
00:54:32.239 --> 00:54:49.251
Yeah, so I moved to Florida and continued to do the business up there, but why I chose to move then and why it was really beating on me is there again.
00:54:49.251 --> 00:54:55.400
For since I've been 19 years old, I felt like I've had that responsibility.
00:54:55.400 --> 00:55:13.793
I felt that I was always given help me start a cleaning business I need help for this and I became the problem solver for everyone except for myself.
00:55:13.793 --> 00:55:28.251
And so, after all of these years, I started thinking like I don't have no one that I'm refueling from.
00:55:28.251 --> 00:55:45.628
I don't have no one feeding me, motivation, keeping me going, and I was just drained, like I didn't even have any more ideas.
00:55:46.699 --> 00:55:51.784
Yeah, so you were the strong friend and you were just like okay, now I need to be weak, where's my strong friends at?
00:55:51.784 --> 00:55:51.925
And?
00:55:52.688 --> 00:55:55.077
you were just like okay, now I need to be weak.
00:55:55.077 --> 00:55:55.800
Where's my strong friends at?
00:55:57.900 --> 00:55:59.960
And I don't, and it wasn't that I don't have strong friends.
00:55:59.981 --> 00:56:10.545
It's just that I have just reached a different level of problems that, unless somebody could relate.
00:56:11.025 --> 00:56:11.445
Okay.
00:56:12.806 --> 00:56:25.211
You know, like how could I really get a valuable opinion or advice?
00:56:25.211 --> 00:56:40.759
You know, if I got a $200,000 payroll coming up and I only got 50 grand, and this person only makes 50 grand a year, and I tell them this problem, you might as well shoot yourself, ben, that's impossible.
00:56:40.759 --> 00:56:54.900
So you got to realize, like I learned, that too is the only advice anybody can ever give you is their own experience.
00:56:54.900 --> 00:56:56.161
Anything else is an opinion.
00:56:56.161 --> 00:57:01.684
How could you tell me how to make a million dollars and you never made it?
00:57:01.684 --> 00:57:09.010
But everybody wants to give their opinions and treat it as its advice.
00:57:09.010 --> 00:57:26.592
So Florida, all I remember from all of my years from Arizona which I learned from there was how the sunshine made me feel, and so Florida, when I decided where to go.
00:57:30.940 --> 00:57:32.230
Arizona was just too far to fly with the kids.
00:57:32.230 --> 00:57:32.849
If I had to come back from work, I had never been to Florida.
00:57:32.849 --> 00:57:36.679
Just too far to fly with the kids if I had to come back from work, I'd never been to Florida.
00:57:36.679 --> 00:57:44.512
A two-hour flight, ocean, sunshine, palm trees.
00:57:44.512 --> 00:57:59.103
So I took that money, found a spot down there for my family and I just started working and healing myself, and that's what I've been doing.
00:57:59.103 --> 00:58:11.019
And I now, even in Florida no difference than here faced a whole set of different challenges there of different challenges there, mm-hmm.
00:58:12.300 --> 00:58:41.811
And when I look in the mirror myself, the fact that I can stand there and be happy with the man I see, I can truly honestly be nothing more than grateful for every single thing that has happened, because I love the man I am now.
00:58:44.454 --> 00:58:45.094
Evolution.
00:58:47.456 --> 00:58:51.670
Yeah, and that's what life is about.
00:58:51.670 --> 00:58:54.436
And that's what life is about.
00:58:54.436 --> 00:59:01.300
You know, we get into relationships and people say you're just not the same person.
00:59:01.300 --> 00:59:04.742
Well, thank you, thank you for that.
00:59:04.742 --> 00:59:13.981
We're not supposed to be different.
00:59:13.981 --> 00:59:17.211
Things that are important to me now because there was things in that ding.
00:59:17.211 --> 00:59:18.936
I didn't even know that I'm experienced.
00:59:18.936 --> 00:59:20.025
I'm coming to a new.
00:59:20.025 --> 00:59:31.632
If I didn't know this level existed of me, how could I even come to grips of the possibilities of that level?
00:59:32.054 --> 00:59:32.353
Yeah.
00:59:34.003 --> 00:59:41.373
And so now I am just on a very simple mission.
00:59:41.373 --> 01:00:05.594
A story was told to me about a guy whose father was never in his life and after 40 years his father was diagnosed with a terminal illness.
01:00:05.594 --> 01:00:13.608
He didn't have too much longer to live and they reached out to the son and the son hadn't seen his father in 40 years.
01:00:13.608 --> 01:00:35.059
They decided to go see him and he went to the hospital and they got to talk and they got to, let's say, make amends on whatever issues they had and after a week or two, make amends on whatever issues they had.
01:00:35.059 --> 01:00:43.739
And after a week or two the son was there sitting by his dad and he asked to play a game.
01:00:43.739 --> 01:00:53.648
He said, dad, you know, if you could come back as anybody in the world that you could, who would you come back?
01:00:53.648 --> 01:00:55.239
As anybody in the world that you could, who would you come back as?
01:00:55.239 --> 01:00:58.489
And the dad, he thought.
01:01:01.740 --> 01:01:08.568
And the son just started, you know, giving ideas about what he would be.
01:01:08.568 --> 01:01:16.110
I'll be the invisible man and I can go rob banks and Superman and all of these things.
01:01:16.110 --> 01:01:22.432
He looked over at his dad and his dad had a tear coming out and he said what's wrong?
01:01:22.432 --> 01:01:34.208
And his dad responded by saying that if he could come back, he will come back as the greatest version of himself he could.
01:01:34.208 --> 01:01:43.655
And so I think and truly put myself in that dad's shoes.
01:01:43.655 --> 01:01:54.175
And so now my mission is just to see how great I can be in this life.
01:01:54.175 --> 01:02:02.632
So I want to live, I want to be healthy, I want to be here for my girls as long as I can be.
01:02:02.632 --> 01:02:08.012
I want to see how much of an impact I can make.
01:02:08.012 --> 01:02:14.373
So purpose is very important.
01:02:14.373 --> 01:02:32.668
Purpose is what gets you through the dinks and all of those things mountains that you will be unsure to have to climb in all of life, not just entrepreneurship.
01:02:32.668 --> 01:02:44.329
And I can tell you that when your purpose is so strong, it's unshakable.
01:02:45.300 --> 01:02:47.001
So what does living in purpose mean to you?
01:02:55.884 --> 01:03:28.617
It means to me that I believe that I can impact myself with my ideas, that I believe I can build something that can allow other people to have the same opportunity as I did, and that is one simple thing.
01:03:28.617 --> 01:03:34.425
Is this cleaning business?
01:03:34.425 --> 01:03:40.246
And how I see it, not how anybody else sees it.
01:03:40.246 --> 01:04:14.074
I believe that I figured out a way that average people, regular people like my mom, can now be a part of some type of opportunity, that they can earn enough money, not sacrificing a lot of time to spend time with their family.
01:04:14.074 --> 01:04:29.655
So everything that I think about in my business, in my purpose, is for that one thing alone.
01:04:29.715 --> 01:04:34.119
And that's how your new business evolved you want to share that with us?
01:04:38.978 --> 01:04:59.114
Yes, so in my whole journey of cleaning and, you know, having hundreds of workers and then realizing that employees was not the best way for me to create what I said, the best incentive base, he's saying he was tired of working with people.
01:04:59.275 --> 01:04:59.840
That's what he's saying.
01:04:59.940 --> 01:05:03.871
I was truly saying that I was really there again.
01:05:03.871 --> 01:05:08.311
This Erica and her choice of words are just absolutely amazing.
01:05:10.423 --> 01:05:13.851
So, yes, I realized very eloquently, I had to bust it up.
01:05:14.699 --> 01:05:16.688
Yeah, she definitely did that.
01:05:16.688 --> 01:05:42.619
So, yes, I realized that working with people were challenging and uh, and so I, in 2004, saw this, read this magazine about franchising and really the main hitting was hey, this is a way for you to grow fast and have people have invested interests.
01:05:42.619 --> 01:05:45.242
I was like, oh, and I just became.
01:05:45.242 --> 01:05:54.255
I was oh, I can help people start their business and which would grow my business.
01:05:54.255 --> 01:06:03.440
I would have to just give them the tools that they can start their own business and build their own business, and that became very passionate to me.
01:06:03.679 --> 01:06:08.005
That was exciting because there again it comes back to helping them.
01:06:08.005 --> 01:06:12.929
And I ended up franchising.
01:06:12.929 --> 01:06:18.655
It took me 10 years with my ADHD, but I had to write a 500-page manual.
01:06:18.655 --> 01:06:21.661
I had to understand my business.
01:06:21.661 --> 01:06:25.184
That's why when I talk a lot, it is when I went to the franchising.
01:06:25.184 --> 01:06:30.092
They said, hey, we can help you with the financials and how to do this, but we don't know the operations.
01:06:30.092 --> 01:06:33.755
And I went there in 2005.
01:06:33.755 --> 01:06:40.831
I didn't go back and get started until 2011 because I was like 500 pages and my ADHD just shut me down.
01:06:40.831 --> 01:06:42.074
I was like no way.
01:06:42.675 --> 01:06:46.724
So then, over the years, I started just thinking about how can I organize?
01:06:46.724 --> 01:06:48.588
So now I had this everything in business.
01:06:48.588 --> 01:07:01.672
I started saying, okay, I need to be able to write this down and document the process, because when people buy a franchise, they can't think it's designed like that.
01:07:01.672 --> 01:07:02.313
You need to.
01:07:02.313 --> 01:07:05.123
Hey, how do I go to a building?
01:07:05.123 --> 01:07:06.387
You got to get the keys.
01:07:06.387 --> 01:07:08.630
You stick it in the hole, turn alarm off.
01:07:08.630 --> 01:07:12.706
There can be no aspect of it that is wondering to thought.
01:07:12.706 --> 01:07:15.251
So that's what I had to do.
01:07:15.251 --> 01:07:20.893
So it took me years to abb and then so I finally started getting the franchising developing.
01:07:21.818 --> 01:07:23.422
And then I came into another problem.
01:07:23.422 --> 01:07:32.965
It was a positive problem got the franchises and people up, and then people started coming to me saying Ben, I need you to price this job for me.
01:07:32.965 --> 01:07:44.547
Now, there again I'm going to resort back to my word of lazy is, therefore, and I want to see you switch this up Therefore.
01:07:44.547 --> 01:07:51.635
So now all of these contractors are coming to me for proposals Can you do this proposal?
01:07:51.635 --> 01:07:58.672
Now, I got work on my desk and then they got the nerve to call me and say did I do it?
01:07:58.672 --> 01:08:08.561
Yet Now, granted, this is money that'll build a business Right, and I don't want to do the work.
01:08:08.561 --> 01:08:12.271
So, miss Erica Ross, please give me what that word would be.
01:08:13.643 --> 01:08:15.233
I don't know what that would be.
01:08:16.381 --> 01:08:17.386
Okay, we'll go with Lacey.
01:08:17.386 --> 01:08:19.988
No, I don't know, we'll go with Lacey.
01:08:19.988 --> 01:08:22.385
So what happened was?
01:08:22.385 --> 01:08:30.091
I said, you know, because I was the owner and in our industry it's only the owners that price.
01:08:30.091 --> 01:08:31.786
And you say, why?
01:08:31.786 --> 01:08:37.091
Because we'll go to a facility like this and I cleaned it.
01:08:37.091 --> 01:08:40.990
And I will be like, okay, I was here for six hours, right.
01:08:40.990 --> 01:08:44.170
And then the client calls and says, hey, can you come clean my house?
01:08:44.170 --> 01:08:52.167
And I go to the house and I look at it and I say, well, this is about the size of Erica's house, a little bit smaller.
01:08:52.167 --> 01:08:55.923
I was there for six hours, I'm going to go five.
01:08:56.365 --> 01:08:56.627
Okay.
01:08:57.739 --> 01:09:08.149
And then you do, okay, I'm going to pay my worker $10 an hour this was back then $15, $20 an hour and then you say, okay, I'm going to charge X.
01:09:08.149 --> 01:09:12.288
Okay, and so what happens is every cleaning company is different.
01:09:12.288 --> 01:09:17.190
Another cleaning lady would have came in here and been in here for eight hours.
01:09:17.190 --> 01:09:19.085
Well, what's the difference?
01:09:19.085 --> 01:09:41.789
So what happens is cleaning is really done on people's experiences, not how long it actually takes to mop the floor yeah because if someone said to me okay, ben, this job is six hours.
01:09:43.131 --> 01:09:47.387
If I said, okay, if it's six hours, how long does it take to do the restrooms?
01:09:47.387 --> 01:09:48.472
How long does it take to do the restrooms?
01:09:48.472 --> 01:09:49.960
How long does it take to sweep the floors?
01:09:49.960 --> 01:09:51.806
How long does it take to mop the floors?
01:09:51.806 --> 01:09:54.649
How long does it take to do the kitchen?
01:09:54.649 --> 01:09:59.266
No one knows, they just lump it all.
01:10:00.380 --> 01:10:05.011
So what I've done is I looked at this and people are bidding by square footage.
01:10:05.011 --> 01:10:06.143
And then they take these.
01:10:06.143 --> 01:10:09.152
They say, oh, my house is a thousand square foot.
01:10:09.152 --> 01:10:11.966
I charge a dollar a square foot.
01:10:11.966 --> 01:10:14.252
Well, look at this house now.
01:10:14.252 --> 01:10:17.264
It's not that clutter.
01:10:17.264 --> 01:10:26.252
But if my mother lived here, we would have to move a vase just to stand up because of the clutter.
01:10:26.252 --> 01:10:28.685
Ok, there's things everywhere.
01:10:28.966 --> 01:10:41.885
So if I have a thousand square feet and the house is not as cluttered here, but then you got a client that has a lot of clutter, how could you still build houses still at the same time?
01:10:41.885 --> 01:10:43.868
It can't be.
01:10:43.868 --> 01:10:48.802
So square footage is just a way to back into the number.
01:10:48.802 --> 01:10:55.375
Like a lot of real estate companies who look for prices, I'll come in and say, hey, erica, here's your price, $1,000.
01:10:55.375 --> 01:11:01.449
And you'll say oh, my building's 2,000 square feet divided Ben's at $1 for a square foot, because that's how real estate is.
01:11:01.449 --> 01:11:03.086
They calculate their costs.
01:11:03.479 --> 01:11:05.126
What's happened now is cleaning companies.
01:11:05.126 --> 01:11:06.430
They bid off of that stuff.
01:11:06.430 --> 01:11:08.185
They now don't even know.
01:11:08.185 --> 01:11:10.141
They just go a dollar square foot.
01:11:10.141 --> 01:11:18.583
They get there and they realize I ain't got enough time because they're just bidding off the price that someone paid.
01:11:18.583 --> 01:11:28.293
So what I did was I said okay, I need to figure out how the labor is going to be, how much labor is going to be, so people can price.
01:11:28.293 --> 01:11:38.257
That's how it all started, because I didn't want them calling me no more to do a bid right, do your own bid because I got things to do right.
01:11:38.838 --> 01:11:41.546
So that was my whole initiative.
01:11:41.546 --> 01:11:49.329
And so then what happened was I built it that the everybody could now use it in price jobs.
01:11:49.329 --> 01:11:51.533
They could see how long the restrooms took.
01:11:51.533 --> 01:11:58.604
And now I could send them a job and said, hey, this job's a thousand, and it would tell them how long the restrooms took the kitchen.
01:11:58.604 --> 01:12:07.024
And then now, if there was a problem and you came back and said, Ben, this wasn't enough time, I could now say, okay, well, let's see where we missed that the restrooms.
01:12:07.024 --> 01:12:08.025
It said two hours.
01:12:08.025 --> 01:12:09.009
How long that take you.
01:12:09.048 --> 01:12:09.791
We can time it.
01:12:09.791 --> 01:12:11.805
We can measure these numbers now.
01:12:12.067 --> 01:12:12.850
Got it Okay.
01:12:12.850 --> 01:12:18.635
So you have a system that you actually can go in and compute how long it's going to take someone to do a job.
01:12:19.337 --> 01:12:20.439
Yes, everything.
01:12:20.439 --> 01:12:28.213
So I just now create blueprints of every commercial facility in the world.
01:12:28.213 --> 01:12:32.327
I don't do it square footage wise, I don't do it square footage wise, I don't do it traditional wise.
01:12:32.327 --> 01:12:39.113
It is a whole new way that I look at cleaning.
01:12:39.779 --> 01:12:43.971
Now, is this something that you use, or is this something you're selling to other cleaning businesses?
01:12:55.340 --> 01:12:59.788
so I would say, in this whole development of the system of kind of like the analogy I want to use is it's kind of like where I am now.
01:12:59.788 --> 01:13:01.972
I'm evolved past it a little bit and I'll explain how is.
01:13:01.972 --> 01:13:22.591
It's almost like for years and years, people-hmm, and you become accustomed to what you can do on a horse, how far you can go, everything you can do, how long you can ride the horse, what needs a break and all these things, and I pull up to you in a Ferrari.
01:13:22.931 --> 01:13:23.072
Mm-hmm.
01:13:23.541 --> 01:13:24.466
And you have a horse.
01:13:24.466 --> 01:13:33.412
You have no idea what this Ferrari can do, but I do.
01:13:33.993 --> 01:13:34.274
Right.
01:13:35.761 --> 01:13:41.583
So for a while I've had this Ferrari, and these people on his horse are just staring at me.
01:13:41.583 --> 01:13:45.266
The hell does he have?
01:13:45.608 --> 01:13:46.451
What's he doing?
01:13:46.701 --> 01:13:51.579
What's he doing with this thing, right, does he?
01:13:51.579 --> 01:13:51.900
What's he doing?
01:13:51.900 --> 01:13:52.862
What's he doing with this thing, right?
01:13:52.862 --> 01:14:10.734
And so it's been trying to tell everybody hey, look at the shiny red car, it can go fast, they can do this, it can do that, and trying to figure out what's going to make someone get off their horse and want to try out the Ferrari.
01:14:10.954 --> 01:14:11.194
Right.
01:14:12.341 --> 01:14:24.551
And so that's what I've been kind of doing, you know, for this last year or so is trying to figure that out, and kind of now is I've gotten people down off the horse.
01:14:24.872 --> 01:14:25.313
Oh good.
01:14:25.680 --> 01:14:28.148
You know, walking around the car.
01:14:28.488 --> 01:14:32.100
Oh, okay, they haven't gotten in yet Some people.
01:14:32.402 --> 01:14:36.612
No, I've had people get in and test drive it.
01:14:36.712 --> 01:14:36.832
Okay.
01:14:37.159 --> 01:14:49.914
Which has now gotten me to the point that the person test driving is now starting to help tell everybody hey, you on that horse, you only need one.
01:14:49.914 --> 01:14:51.015
You only need one.
01:14:51.015 --> 01:14:56.532
So which brings me is that one was still the school district.
01:14:56.712 --> 01:14:57.434
Oh good.
01:14:58.520 --> 01:15:01.890
As we all know, is under their leadership down there.
01:15:01.890 --> 01:15:12.594
Amazing superintendent Mick, you know, has been challenged with, you know, keeping teachers and budgets.
01:15:12.594 --> 01:15:26.233
And so a few years ago he came to me because he had very high costs and he had an issue with cleaning and staffing and getting staff, keeping staff.
01:15:26.233 --> 01:15:32.612
So two years ago I went in with my system and process.
01:15:32.612 --> 01:15:46.505
Now, granted, at this time I still wasn't, I didn't jump onto this system Like this is my new thing, it was just a part of still my cleaning because I was still in the cleaning contractor business, which I'm no longer in.
01:15:46.505 --> 01:16:07.387
So I went into one of their schools with my software and created a precise blueprint of precise labor that he now knew how long it took to empty the trash, to dust the desks, to mop the floors to the minute.
01:16:07.387 --> 01:16:12.480
And then I have probably 400 points of data that can back that up.
01:16:12.921 --> 01:16:13.283
Oh, wow.
01:16:13.923 --> 01:16:23.184
And so I put this blueprint together for him and then he said oh wow, Ben, this is amazing, this is great, but I can't find no workers.
01:16:23.184 --> 01:16:38.195
So I took it a step further and I went out and I took my blueprint and I showed this blueprint to some of the contractors that been through my trainings and.
01:16:38.235 --> 01:16:46.779
I've done business with and the contractors were able to put a price in without showing up, without anything.
01:16:46.779 --> 01:16:49.104
They just simply added an hourly rate.
01:16:49.104 --> 01:16:51.871
Without showing up, without anything.
01:16:51.871 --> 01:16:54.917
They just simply added an hourly rate.
01:16:54.917 --> 01:16:56.060
So I was with that system.
01:16:56.060 --> 01:17:04.871
Stilton was able to take their cleaning budget from about $450,000 a year to that year they spent.
01:17:04.871 --> 01:17:08.911
I believe last year they spent $146,000.
01:17:08.930 --> 01:17:09.091
Oh, wow.
01:17:10.542 --> 01:17:12.127
So significant drop.
01:17:12.167 --> 01:17:12.247
Yeah.
01:17:13.581 --> 01:17:18.712
Which was no money out of Stilton's pocket, but did that completely free.
01:17:18.712 --> 01:17:28.154
They now have ended up creating literally $50,000 a month in positive cash flow right back to the school.
01:17:28.154 --> 01:17:56.297
So then they reached back out a while ago, a few weeks ago, said hey, let's see if we can do this for another school, another high school, mapped everything out and, uh, I believe they were paying a total of uh, that building was 490 000.
01:17:56.297 --> 01:18:06.548
No, sorry, they spent on that building 668 000 in labor and benefits.
01:18:07.810 --> 01:18:19.039
After I put this off, created the blueprint and everything that's why I'm up here now is I now reduce that to $191,000.
01:18:20.725 --> 01:18:27.667
So, right, and you know how this all comes back.
01:18:28.288 --> 01:18:33.523
It's a win for Stilton, because this is no, they didn't write me a check, I didn't do anything.
01:18:33.523 --> 01:18:39.914
And how it's a win is that they obviously get to keep the teachers.
01:18:39.914 --> 01:19:11.800
But how this comes back to my purpose is that now, by me creating this opportunity okay, because one thing I didn't tell you, which is my mission and my own personal mission, which is to inspire and educate, okay, provide the tools and opportunities for ordinary people to become successful business owners, ordinary people to become successful business owners.
01:19:11.800 --> 01:19:24.920
So example is by having my contractors, who I've inspired to start their own cleaning businesses and then provided them the education.
01:19:24.920 --> 01:19:55.279
I have one of the only cleaning programs that the state of Pennsylvania has that can be purchased by the states, federal, local governments that I was putting college kids through through HU, ymcas, different nonprofit organizations, teaching them to start their own business very successful program and then I was able to get them work and subcontract them work.
01:19:55.279 --> 01:20:01.765
So we inspire them, we get them excited, give them the education because now they're motivated.
01:20:01.786 --> 01:20:02.027
Yes.
01:20:02.680 --> 01:20:07.306
Here's your software tools to run your business and then here's a contract.
01:20:08.400 --> 01:20:15.807
So why I do this for the school and it's a benefit, a win for all of us is school can save teachers.
01:20:15.807 --> 01:20:23.703
Not no cost, no money, my contractors I can now take this blueprint from Stilton.
01:20:23.703 --> 01:20:38.697
Now this contractor, who was a regular old contractor, this Dilton contract is, you know, anywhere from $15,000 to $18,000 a month for this regular old contractor family.
01:20:38.697 --> 01:20:46.475
Wow, who is regular people that come over from another country got citizenship and built a business.
01:20:46.475 --> 01:20:47.358
Well, they have a business.
01:20:47.358 --> 01:20:49.065
Now they have a business.
01:20:49.065 --> 01:20:49.868
Okay.
01:20:49.868 --> 01:20:59.130
So now that business that they have has allowed them to put their children through college, to own a home and a house.
01:20:59.130 --> 01:21:00.622
And then what I get?
01:21:00.622 --> 01:21:06.213
That was all completed from my purpose, my idea.
01:21:06.213 --> 01:21:19.548
So my purpose is being fulfilled in all of this and if I make these things work between all of us, then I truly get what I want.
01:21:19.548 --> 01:21:29.489
And they have invested interest in running their business, which they have, their own business, which now they don't need me.
01:21:29.791 --> 01:21:40.621
I'm removed from their success right which, therefore, I can spend the time I want with my girls you created a playbook to take it easy.
01:21:40.742 --> 01:21:51.592
make it easier for anyone to start their business, that they can take it, apply it and then just pretty much win any contract, because you're showing how the company can save money 100%.
01:21:51.592 --> 01:21:51.853
Yeah.
01:21:51.920 --> 01:21:57.269
And they don't have to have any experience in the cleaning, and I'm giving this away for free.
01:21:57.269 --> 01:22:01.329
If they want to start their own business, just send me a direct message.
01:22:01.329 --> 01:22:02.091
I'll send you the link.
01:22:02.091 --> 01:22:03.506
You ain't got no credit card.
01:22:03.506 --> 01:22:04.886
They can do it for free.
01:22:04.886 --> 01:22:06.586
You say, why would he do that?
01:22:06.586 --> 01:22:11.844
Because, at the end of the day, how we all make money in.
01:22:11.863 --> 01:22:13.467
This is off the transaction.
01:22:13.488 --> 01:22:19.363
If you don't have a business, okay, I can never get you to the point of doing a transaction.
01:22:19.363 --> 01:22:29.313
So, instead of selling you for a business, if you don't got the money to do that, then gosh, I'm never going to get you to this point, so let me give this away for you for free.
01:22:29.600 --> 01:22:30.465
So, right now.
01:22:30.465 --> 01:22:34.061
I don't care if you've ever been in the business or thinking about it.
01:22:34.061 --> 01:22:45.484
I can tell you what I can do is I can give you the precise labor for any commercial cleaning facility in the world.
01:22:45.484 --> 01:22:58.712
Fact and some people it's never been able to be done because they still think that I'm trying to work my system into their system oh it's a.
01:22:58.712 --> 01:23:03.162
That's why people are like how's he fitting that on top of this?
01:23:03.462 --> 01:23:17.649
okay I deleted everything everyone ever thought about how to bid a job and started from the ground up, and it's a completely new system, so I don't have software.
01:23:17.649 --> 01:23:21.541
No one logs in and does this Right.
01:23:21.541 --> 01:23:26.573
I collect data, provide a service and spit the data out to you.
01:23:26.573 --> 01:23:28.783
That's amazing.
01:23:28.863 --> 01:23:30.548
So how can someone get in contact with you?
01:23:30.548 --> 01:23:33.283
Because you know they're going to ask before we end this.
01:23:33.283 --> 01:23:35.010
How do they get in contact with you?
01:23:35.010 --> 01:23:41.025
Because I'm assuming you'd want a consultation and they want to have more questions, because we couldn't cover everything.
01:23:42.421 --> 01:23:53.587
So really the easiest way right now is because I, you know, I don't I'm on my social media, so what I would say, the best thing to do, is just to DM me on my social media.
01:23:53.807 --> 01:23:55.291
Okay, and we'll share that too.
01:23:55.350 --> 01:23:56.961
Yeah, you share that I'm.
01:23:56.961 --> 01:23:58.587
You know I really do a lot of the bit.
01:23:58.587 --> 01:24:00.552
My personal social media is.
01:24:00.552 --> 01:24:11.663
Obviously I'm active doing more personal stuff, but what I'm doing for the school districts and things like that is on LinkedIn, Okay, Under Black Post Software and myself.
01:24:11.663 --> 01:24:18.547
But usually what happens is people DM me and then I do all of my communications and stuff through a Slack account.
01:24:18.648 --> 01:24:19.028
Okay.
01:24:19.087 --> 01:24:21.789
So what I do is I get everybody on Slack for free, yeah.
01:24:21.789 --> 01:24:25.271
And then I can give you the free training because I got to invite you.
01:24:25.271 --> 01:24:29.055
I don't want everybody on there because you know, slack is kind of like Facebook.
01:24:29.234 --> 01:24:30.336
Right, but for business.
01:24:30.576 --> 01:24:31.275
Right.
01:24:31.275 --> 01:24:45.548
So I like to monitor who's on there, so you can DM me and I'll send you an invitation to Slack and then, if you want the free training, I'll give you the free training, the tools, all of those things you know.
01:24:45.548 --> 01:24:49.956
For pricing the jobs I'm doing, you know, given access for free too.
01:24:50.239 --> 01:24:51.182
That's awesome, Ben.
01:24:51.182 --> 01:24:53.189
I enjoyed our conversation.
01:24:53.680 --> 01:24:53.943
Great.
01:24:53.943 --> 01:24:54.731
I enjoyed it.
01:24:54.731 --> 01:24:55.460
I did most of the talk.
01:24:55.460 --> 01:24:56.020
It was a lot.
01:24:56.041 --> 01:24:57.744
Well, it's supposed to be that way, you know?
01:24:57.744 --> 01:25:00.411
Yes, yeah, yeah.
01:25:00.411 --> 01:25:15.725
So I wanted to make sure it was valuable for you and I'm sure someone, someone's going to be reaching out to you asking you for some more information because it was a lot of stuff.
01:25:15.746 --> 01:25:16.609
There was a lot of stuff to pack in there.
01:25:16.609 --> 01:25:17.452
Well, I'm here if anybody needs any help.
01:25:17.452 --> 01:25:19.238
You know, like I said is, I'm just saying is I'm here for when people want to reach out.
01:25:19.238 --> 01:25:19.659
I'm done with goal.
01:25:19.680 --> 01:25:30.052
You are he's not just saying that yeah, you really are, because I called you and asked you to help you know um a relative with something, and you were just like oh yeah, and just gave it all away.
01:25:30.052 --> 01:25:31.426
So I appreciate that.
01:25:31.485 --> 01:25:32.229
So for sure.
01:25:32.250 --> 01:25:35.623
Yes, Hopefully you enjoyed this episode and until next time.
01:25:35.623 --> 01:25:37.990
I look forward to seeing you in the comments.