SPEAKER_02 0:32

How are you? How are you guys? I'm good. I'm good. Hold on, I have to close the door. I'm being summoned.

SPEAKER_03 0:41

Yeah, our our sales team just said to to Marie. She said to her, hey, I think so. Have you ever heard of the concept of an of an inside voice? And she's like, yeah. And he goes, really?

SPEAKER_00 0:59

I love that. Well, thanks for joining us, guys. Happy Wednesday. I appreciate you being on the call today. I know you guys have seasoned professionals at these calls. Um, and you have a quite a few people on the call. Um, Chris and Berkeley are here right now. And then it looks like we also have Daniel, Eric, and Rory, and Onore also listening in. So I'm sure they'll they'll pop on camera and microphone here in a little bit if they have some questions. But as you guys know, I think what would be best is if we could start with having you give a little bit of introduction on yourself, um, how you guys got started in the market, what your territory is, what your backgrounds are, anything you can tell us. And then the group of individuals on the call will come off their mute and they will ask you some questions that they all have. So you've got a little bit of mix and match from owners that are currently um looking at doing it on their own, um, starting the business from scratch in the new territory. You've got some people looking at um expansions from within the system and moving forward. Um, so we've got a little bit of everything on the call today.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Okay, sure. So um I guess Marina have been at this. It's scary because we're just talking yesterday about renewing our franchise agreement next year. It's hard to believe we're closing in on 10 years at this. Um, but my my background is um I started out in the insurance, financial services world, just management consulting, worked for Credential, AIG, Deutsche Bank, Accenture. Um, last role was at AIG and doing strategic uh work, program management work, and ended up taking a package out of AIG, wanted to do something different, and stumbled upon the citywide concept through a franchise consultant and just fell in love with the concept. So I I started went into the business originally, and Marie joined me like what, a two years, a year and a half, two years in.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Yep. So I my background was all corporate, corporate America. Um, I too worked at AIG, even though we didn't meet there, just for the record. Um, and for the most part went from that to management consulting. Um, Tom uh pretty much uh came and brought the opportunity to be a part of the franchise to my attention. Don't say anything, Savannah, but I really wanted a spa. I think you know this. But I'm glad I didn't do it because COVID would have wiped us out. So I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

I'm glad you didn't too.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Yes, yes. Um, and so what I did is I continued to work on the management consulting side for um I joined after a year, Tom opened up. So um, so I was kind of moonlighting with that and doing this.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

So okay, wonderful. Well, thank you guys for that. Um, I I know that a lot of y'all might have some questions. I am gonna kick it off with one. I think that, you know, 10 years in, if you could go back and nearly 10 years in, if you could go back in and tell yourself something from year one, what's your biggest piece of advice to everybody starting off a new market from scratch?

SPEAKER_03 4:39

It's focus on sales. Um, the hardest part in growing this business is getting those sales in. And one of the reasons it's hard on the sales end is finding the right people. Um, so it may be scary if you can afford it, you know, going with more salespeople rather than less. Um, we're in the process of adding another sales executive now, and you got to talk to a lot of people to try to find the right person. And even then, it's a crapshoot.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

I would say I would agree a hundred percent with the sales. Um, I would also add um night managers. I remember someone telling me in the very beginning, make sure you have a night manager. And I didn't really kind of understand why. Um, if you don't have a night manager when there's an issue at night, you're going out. So we quickly discovered that we needed to hire hire a night manager sooner rather than later. Uh, we have three now that I would trust with anything. Um they understand the model, they know the model, they have our eyes in terms of what we've promised the client. So between sales and having a night manager, because the night manager is also going to keep your account quiet because they're working a lot with your independent contractors.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Okay. And when you guys say, you know, finding that perfect sales executive and how difficult it's been, have there been a or has there been any characteristic or industry or any type of individual that you've said, okay, we need to continue finding more people like this?

SPEAKER_03 6:23

Yeah. I I think, you know, that's a good question because I think the hard part is when you come into this, you think, oh, sales, I know salespeople. Like, for example, I'll just draw a contrast. Someone who's like maybe in automotive sales, they're used to just kind of sitting there and people coming through the door, and then they're just trying to close them. This is not that. You got to be a hunter in this role. Um, our sales manager's been with us about six, seven years now, and he gets a kick out of going to a building, figuring out how to get in there, figuring out who the contact is, and finding that person. He gets a thrill and a rush out of that. And not everyone does. I personally don't. Marie does. In fact, she's been escorted out of a few buildings by security, but trying to sneak in.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

No, we got the contract. That's what's better.

SPEAKER_03 7:13

But but it takes that hunter kind of mentality, and it's it's hard to find that. A lot of people say they have it, but to sit here and make the calls and the knocks on doors that you need to to get to an appointment, that's not necessarily everybody.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Okay. Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you. I know that a couple of y'all are new to the call, so um, feel free to take yourself off of mute and jump in um or raise your hand, however, it works best for you to join the conversation and ask the questions that y'all have for today.

SPEAKER_06 7:52

I know you came prepared.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Chris, I know you always have a question.

SPEAKER_08 7:56

Yes, I do. Yes, I do. I was just wondering, based on what you said uh about having a strong sales force from the outset, did you follow any specific like activities, like how many activities you'd have? Because I've I've I heard a lot about that on these e-calls, about having like maybe 60, 70 uh kind of emails or uh knock on doors or whatever. Can you elaborate on that?

SPEAKER_02 8:25

You'll probably hear it a lot to follow the model. And in the beginning I was like, oh, follow the model, but I gotta tell you, with our kind of sales, um, it's a numbers game. It really is. If sometimes you'll get a hunter who's too seasoned, and maybe they come out of a shop where they generated the leads for them and then they're just going out, that's not gonna work. You need someone who could be hands-on, go in, they can make the calls, they could do door-to-door, they can do calls, they can do emails, which is the tough part, right? Because a lot of the times you'll bring on someone who you think fits, but they don't want to do the calls once they get settled. Um, they don't want to do the drops, right? And I would say about 33% of what you put into the funnel is what comes out as a win.

SPEAKER_03 9:26

Or 33% of if you get into an appointment. That's what we've observed.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

And getting that appointment is not easy. You're you're dealing with general managers, decision makers, folks who are super busy, and we're just another call to them. So somehow you have to convince them in minutes that we offer a solution, right? Janitorial services as a solution, because we offer so much more.

SPEAKER_03 9:57

The activity numbers you said they get you're looking like 50 to 70 somewhere in there, because it's gonna vary a little bit depending on if you're knocking on doors or calling or sending emails, but that is the kind of expectation and what you need to hear from people. Because for example, um, we talked to someone recently, you know, it's coming from a sales rule. Um, you know, what's been your activity? Like, oh, we usually make 15 to 6, 15 to 20 calls a day, and it's like it's not gonna cut it here. It takes a whole lot more. I don't know where you guys are geographically, but one of the things that we noticed, I think we were one of the, I guess one of the early, one of the first offices really in this New Jersey, New York, this part of the country. And I remember talking to the folks in Kansas and visiting the call center there, and it was just like uh listening to some calls, and it's like, no, people in our market, they don't talk like that. It's just like, hi, I'm Tom from Citywide. Who click? Yeah, so we found, or at least it's been our experience, that it takes a few more calls in our market to actually get to the appointment than some others. But also, too, the thing to keep in mind is it's harder in the beginning because nobody knows who the hell you are. You know, we've reached a point now where people have heard of Citywide before, or shockingly, our biggest client last year, they looked us up. We didn't call them. Um, so you know, you have you have that that benefit happening. And also, too, it's the whole concept of going in with that activity is to get an appointment, you're talking five to seven touches before you get an appointment. So that's why you need that volume of calls and that activity levels because otherwise it doesn't happen. Did I answer your question, Chris?

SPEAKER_08 11:41

Yes, it does. I'm I'm curious to know, were you active in the or one of you active at the very beginning and doing those sales, or did you have somebody else? I think you maybe you said something like that before.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

Yeah, we we we we we could tell you stories on that. Actually, uh, we had a close friend that had come into the business with us when we started in sales. If anyone's considering that, I highly recommend against that. Um, it it didn't work out in the end and it cost of it cost us a friendship, but um, we had we did have him originally, and then when that didn't work out, I was doing sales until we hired someone. And then Marie's flipped through different roles in a company, she was doing it for a while, and we still will both go out if necessary to close the deal with our sales team. Hi, but good afternoon. Marie still does go out and help the sales team with the activities of some of the towns that we haven't really canvassed well. She'll go in and knock on doors and get in. You know, she's got a pretty face, so she tends to get in the door.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Oh my god. He's he's trying to get points here.

SPEAKER_08 12:48

You see nothing wrong with that.

SPEAKER_04 12:53

Good afternoon, everybody. My name's Eric. I'm from the San Francisco Bay Area. Um, this is my first um Teams call with you guys. I've been I've talked to uh the our my franchise broker contact and and and met with uh um uh Miss Hartwig. And a question I had is um, so my my background is a financial, the financial services, financial industry. I spent mostly in the bank side, uh, maybe the last 25 years in uh senior leadership roles, uh C-level roles. My most recent role is the chief experience officer for the bank. So um I had many areas of facilities and and I mean I all the invoices and vendor management came through my desk. And um I'm curious how competitive is it against your your competitors pricing wise? And is this part of the strategy um is to outprice the? I mean, that's that's a big factor when people are looking at cost savings to go in there and say outpriced who who they're paying the service they're paying for today. Is that how it works? Uh is that a part of the strategy that you utilize? Or I'm just curious about that from the um from pricing perspective and competitive perspective.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

I would say that it's fair to say that citywide is not not the cheapest, but then again, we provide a lot more value than other companies. This whole concept of having everyone, well, I won't say everyone, a lot of companies say we have account managers, blah, blah, blah, but they never see them. You know, our folks are out there visiting accounts either weekly or every other week, depending on the size. Um, doing those extra services, proactively looking to fix maintenance issues. And a lot of companies don't provide that. And what that's one of the hardest things to train your salespeople on. If someone's just talking price, price, price, price, cheapest, cheapest, cheapest, I don't care about any of that, and they're probably not our client. You're looking in the wrong place, move on because you will keep going and you'll find the person that says, wait a minute. So you guys cleaning for me and and a pipe burst, I just call you and like you fix all of that. Yeah, they love it.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

So when when we first um opened up, um there were some bigger players in the market, Jan King, Jan Pro, Coverall. At this point, we compete against them. I've walked into um large 500,000 square feet facilities, and the GM will, I'll say, Who do you have now? And they'll say coverall, or they'll say one of the bigger names. I think what has made our brand successful, as a matter of fact, you'll hear Paul, who's our sales manager, say, you know what? It's not that we're the best cleaners, we're selling it as a solution, right? The ability to respond, the ability to have multiple layers of folks to address a situation, the ability to have a food warehouse who's about to go to an audit and have your account manager know that three months ahead of time and say, Hey, give me what you're gonna be audited on, let me help you put the audit together and get you audit ready. If they see you as just janitorial, it doesn't work, right? When you come in, you're selling janitorial, but you have to have the aura of it being a solutions provider.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Yeah. And just to take what Marie said into one more step, is what I've come to realize is we're looking at the this year for we were doing the analysis. We lost a lot more accounts than we were expecting to lose this year. And when we really step back and look at the reasons why, there were a lot, they were just completely unrelated to us, like locations closing, going through things, downside, whatever. But one thing that was a common threat was that the ones we lost weren't ones that we did a lot of the extra services for. Yeah. Because those people you become essential to, and if they got to cut costs, it's probably more a conversation of, hey, you clean five days a week, maybe you clean two, versus okay, we'll just eliminate the cleaning and let the the warehouse workers do it. So it that's one of the things that I loved about the model is it creates a very much a stickiness. Like, because again, those clients that we're doing all this extra work for, they don't see us as the cleaners anymore. They're not gonna yell at us if we miss a trash can. If all you're doing is cleaning, you're just a janitor and you're disposable. Um, I will say, Eric, that you do have to do some analysis in your market to figure out your pricing level. Because I know when we started out, what we were told to price at, we realized there was no way we were gonna survive at this. So we bumped the number up and we kind of found our space. And then we went through a period of moving around. And the bit we got to the point where we're quoting these bigger RFPs where there's open bids, so you get to see what everybody else proposed. And I remember the first couple of times we did it, we were like out of the ballpark, but we figured it out. Now, this year we went after several more than we typically would, and we found that pretty much everyone we were kind of right in the middle or the upper middle, which is exactly where we want to be. Because you know, what happens in those situations? They usually throw out the lowest, throw out the highest, and they'll talk to those guys in the middle. So, you know, we got to a couple of finalist stages, and I think we won one this year. So, you know, it's working.

SPEAKER_04 18:30

Great. Thank you for that explanation. Appreciate it. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

I I like what you said there about the stickiness. I think you guys are the second, if not third, person that said that exact quote within the last couple of months. So I'm sure you all have heard that a few times. But we had just had somebody on last week that was talking about the more services that you do with a client, the the stickier you are. And just like the reasons you mentioned um brings up the the question of how do you get into an account? Are you guys starting with JS and that's how janitorial and that's how you guys are getting into the doors? Or are you guys going out at it at a way of looking for which service is going out to bid, which service is causing them the most pain or frustration? Can you talk to them a little bit about your entry point into an account?

SPEAKER_03 19:22

Yeah, that yeah, and that's the magic here. So you've kind of got two slivers of things to offer. Like we typically, the janitorial isn't easy to open because every building's got to get cleaned. But usually we'll start there and it and then we'll open it up to the other doors. So, like, for example, um, we just picked up uh, I forget what kind of company it is, but tried to get in there for janitorial, couldn't. They needed handyman services. So we've been doing handyman services with them for like a year and a half, and then all of a sudden they called us one day and said, Hey, our cleaners change, they suck. Can you guys get it get in here? And then we got it. Um, you know, we'll do like uh Marie started our CBF division, which is really focused on the bigger projects and not necessarily people that are already existing clients. And we're finding that's another way of taking care of some big complicated project. They're happy about it. Hey, by the way, who cleans the building? So it's a beautiful model that we have that you can kind of go every which way. And it's amazing to me that we've been in this 10 years and we're always finding it new stuff that we've never done before. You know, this Marie was fixing like an ice machine. Um, was something else crazy we're done, like we've done all kinds of like line striping, replacing warehouse doors. Um you name it, it's just beyond cleaning.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

We're building a chill room.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

That's true.

unknown 20:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Where they house uh it's it's a hundred thousand square feet warehouse. They want us to build out a chill room where they're going to actually put chocolates in there. So, like a confectionery is what they're doing. So wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

I was gonna say I was thinking there's your spa entry, but now it's more like it's not spy.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

Yeah, exactly. I get to still put it together with somebody else's budget, basically.

SPEAKER_06 21:19

Eric, I think you got a good connection with you go ahead and jump in.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

It looks like you want to jump in, we'll wait for Eric to come back.

SPEAKER_08 21:38

Right, in the meantime. Uh so you talked about different uh types of work that you could do. But how about the industries? I mean, uh, I hear a lot about logistics, medical, car um uh car dealerships, things like that. Is is there anyone that we might not have s suspected that? You've been able to attack?

SPEAKER_03 22:03

Um, no, the the big with the warehouse logistics are great because they tend to have offices and they have warehouses or complicated spaces that something's always breaking. The the our part of New Jersey is kind of like warehouse central for New York and Jersey in the metro area. So that was when we opened, that was a key focus area for us. Um New Jersey is very heavy in pharmaceutical companies. And it's funny, we we got into a few that are known in the pharmaceutical industry, and it's great because then when we're talking to another company, when we drop those names, they're like, oh, you work with them? And it's getting us right in the door to the next one. Um, entertainment venues is one that I hadn't really thought about. I know some of the offices do like stadiums and arenas, but we, you know, like one of my favorites is we do the world's largest indoor go-kart track here in New Jersey. And um, they just opened up a mini golf and bowling luxury experience. Um, so we clean those for them. Um, those are some more of the interesting ones. And then, you know, you got your generic offices, the car dealerships. We have, we have we have Ferrari dealership, which is kind of cool. Um Maserati Bentley. Yeah, we've got a few. There, those are fun ones. I always wanted a Ferrari growing up. I have a Ferrari dealership. I guess that's close enough. But uh, but yeah.

SPEAKER_08 23:30

Well, I know the Jacksonville Jacksonville Jaguar Stadium is uh serviced by citywide. I heard heard that. Is there any chance that you might get one of the stadiums in New Jersey?

SPEAKER_03 23:41

You know, they're not in our territory.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Yeah, they're in an office further north.

SPEAKER_03 23:46

But but we have talked to the minor league baseball. Um that's one that's on our um top 100 list, actually.

SPEAKER_02 23:54

We have Rutgers too, Rutgers Stadium.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

Yeah, the the colleges, universities, a lot of citywides do, you know, various combinations of buildings on campuses or the whole campus. You know, that that's something that we've we've gotten to the point now where we could handle, you know, and it's funny, we we actually almost won a giant private school here that I remember I had an opportunity to quote when we first opened, and it was a walkthrough with several companies. I didn't even quote it. I was like, there's no freaking way we could do this thing. And this was one of the companies we quoted this year that we actually made it to, it was us and another company.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

Final round.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Yeah, and I was shocked. We we almost got it, but for some reason it went with the other company. But that's okay because the last time we were in that situation, about a year or two later, they called us back.

SPEAKER_08 24:45

Don't ask, don't get, right? Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_04 24:48

I used to live in Bergen, Bergen County, New Jersey. So I I always like for about five years, I was up in Bergen County. So um I like New Jersey, a lot of different, I like the diversity. Um, I'm sorry, I think I got cut off. I think my internet shut down, but I I had a question when you're talking about auxiliary services, like fixing stuff, like doing other things besides janitorial that helps you gain more traction. Do you outs uh so you have um a list of what um subcontracted partners that that you you reach out to and then will you take 20% or something off the off the bid? Or I mean how does that typically work?

SPEAKER_03 25:24

It it's more the opposite. We're we're adding it. It's really, you know, it's a game two ways. Is one is that contractor, um, you're gonna end up getting him a lot of business. So he's gonna drop his price for you, creating some room for you to do an add-on onto it. We were very nervous about that in the early days, but what we found is a lot of our clients are coming to you with that thing over there needs to be fixed. They don't know what the thing is, they don't know why it's not working, they don't know how it should work. I mean, we've been on projects where um that one, it was some freaking $50,000 piece of equipment. Um uh one of our clients ordered, and they ordered the thing, they got this master thing delivered, but then they need to hook it up to the utilities. And they called us and they didn't know how. I remember we ended up talking to the manufacturer of this thing to try to figure out how to do this. When we dug into it, it turned out you needed to bump up the capacity of your gas line for this machine. And the funniest and craziest thing, it ended up costing almost as much as the machine to get it hooked up. They never hooked it up. So this $50,000 machine is still sitting in the middle of a warehouse idle. Yeah, craziness. But it's that level of kind of digging in that we have to do, or a lot of times, again, people want to, hey, I want to renovate this area. Okay, well, what do you want to do? I don't know. I want to make it nicer. So we'll go and we'll write the scope and all of that. And that actually for us makes it very easy for me personally to like put my markup on top of that because I didn't just pick up the phone and call somebody else. I did an investment of my time into this project to make it work for you. Also, too, the the sell point, because it might be one of your next questions, is clients will ask us that about well, you know, isn't it just cheaper for me to go to Iraq? No, because we get discounts, and you know, that's how we're able to make a business out of this. But also, too, the most important thing, and every single person that has a home can relate to this. Contractor comes out, they do a job, they don't do it right. You realize it later, you call them. They're coming back Tuesday. Nope, they're coming back Saturday. Nope, these guys never come back. You damn well better believe if we call a contractor, they are back there to fix the problem. Period. The the other, and I'll just add the uh one other caveat, and this is the same thing I tell potential clients. The other piece and service we provide is knowing the right contractor, not just the kind of contractor, but the size. My famous example is we had a school, they had one concrete step that needed to be repaired. They told me they couldn't afford it. They called the company, got some outrageous number, and I told them, yeah, if I call the company I know, the concrete company that does office parks, they're gonna cause, they're gonna um charge you a day's labor to do the simple job. I have a Mason who has the magnetic sign in his pickup truck, he'll come and do this thing for a reasonable price. So it's knowing that differentiation of who to call, also to the quality of contractors. If you don't really care that much and you aren't that picky and you want to put some new toilets in, we'll call this guy. If you're the, you know, it's gotta be fancy, it's gotta be perfect, Marie has a couple clients like that, then no, it's gonna cost you more, but you need to go with this guy. Yes, it costs more, but you're gonna be happy in the end. And again, that's the value that we bring.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

The the contractors become almost they're they're your lifelines, right? Um, whether you're talking about janitorial or in my case, I deal with a lot of non-janitorial, you begin to have a core group of folks you can trust because you don't want a build-out to for the walls to be coming out wrong or the the plumbing, something to not be discovered in that. So you become you begin to form a team. And the other part of your question is your account manager is they can call 10 people, but all they have to do is make one call and call their account manager. We're doing the work for them. We're the only difference is we're on our payroll, not theirs. And they love that. They love that. You get calls all kinds of days. This is the problem I'm having, and the account manager goes out, figures it out for them.

SPEAKER_04 29:44

That's great.

SPEAKER_06 29:45

That's great. Thank you. Thank you for that. So it looks like oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_08 29:54

I was just gonna uh as a follow-up question to that. Um so your independent contractors, you have to have a lot of specialty ones, it sounds like. So is there any problem? Is there any problem with keeping them on the hook, so to speak, because you're not giving them enough?

SPEAKER_02 30:20

The non-genitorial contractors know that the phone is going to ring. They know the phone. So sometimes you'll have a few months in between projects, but don't forget, the more, the more um buildings you have, right? The more, again, they don't see you as just janitorial. They see you as fixing things. You get someone in there that when they go visit the client weekly or you know, every two weeks, hey, I noticed your carpet looked like this, or I noticed that you bought lockers for your employee rooms and they're still sitting there. Here's a quote, right? You push the quote to them. Eventually the client ends up calling you, and the job you get for the GC is good enough, right? They know there's more coming. I think your question is valid on the janitorial side because sometimes you're recruiting the janitorial um uh contractors and they get so excited and impatient they want a job in two days. That we have to kind of you know manage carefully. We don't want to lose them altogether. We have to kind of let them know, hey, it's gonna take a few weeks before we can put you on, that kind of thing. But the regular non-genitorial, the GCs, the electricians, the plumbers, HVAC guys, they kind of see you as, hey, we're working with them from time to time.

SPEAKER_01 31:51

We're gonna be throwing jobs their way.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

So Onore is having some difficulties with his mic, and he put a comment in the chat. Um, he has spoken to Tom before, very helpful, he says, but he's wondering today how big is your sales team and what characteristics do your best sales managers present? I know you guys touched a little bit about that, the hunters um versus the farmers. And um if you can expand on that a little bit, talking about how big your team is.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

Yeah, so right now um we have Paul, who's our sales, we we promoted him a sales manager. He's still doing some personal production because we want to have two sales execs under him. Right now we only have one and we're actively recruiting for the second one. And we also have what's called the BDS business development specialist. He's really, I guess it's probably better known as uh inside caller. Um, so you know, he does all of our cold calling. And occasionally he will go out and do some door knocking too, because just we found from our experience that the majority of the accounts we closed somehow or another originally started with the knock on the door. And it might have taken several phone calls or emails to get that appointment. But again, it's getting out there. One of the things that I hadn't appreciated until we got into this industry is how quickly things change. Like you'll go into a town and you drive down the street, okay, that company's here, that company's there. Drive down a couple months later, damn, there's a whole new warehouse that popped magically appeared, or that company moved out and somebody else has moved in there. So you've got to be out there constantly canvassing and looking and knowing your territory. Um, I thought originally that two sales execs is all our territory could ever support, but I mean, now I see the power of having smaller territories for your salespeople and the fact that, like I said, they're out there more in keeping track of this. And remember what we said before about you need to touch five to seven times. If you've got a bazillion people to call on, you're not getting to them five to seven times. You've got a smaller group, yeah, you're making those touches. So um that's what we've seen. Um, you know, characteristic-wise, like I said, you know, or like Sean said, uh a hunter, you know, someone who's willing to put in the activity, um, you know, someone who can look past objections that could, you know, this has a drive to reach for decision makers, someone who's internally motivated because you're not going to have the time to be sitting over top of them.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

It's hard. That's that's great. Thank you. Follow-up question to that. Do you have any incentive structures for exceeding sales targets to motivate your sales executives?

SPEAKER_03 34:43

Yes, we do. And our standard comp plan for sales executives, um, you know, they get if they reach a certain level of sales, it it creates a factor for them for a quarterly bonus. And also, too, the percentage commission they get increases as they hit certain thresholds over the quarter. Um, and then we'll throw in our own kicker, like um, our sales manager had an idea um for to get to the goal for the year. We put something together um that really pulls in the sales team and it gives like a little bonus to other people on our team that aren't in sales if they get a lead in or whatever, um, you know, just to help drive the team. You could do little fun promotions to, you know, smaller things for giveaways or whatever to get people excited. That that's the benefit of running your own business. Yeah, you know, you can really do whatever you want.

SPEAKER_06 35:35

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

No, we've we've talked a lot about sales structure today. We've talked, of course, a lot about um, you know, industries and going into what types of businesses and where do you start. But from your perspective, Tom and Marie, what kind of questions have they not asked that they should be asking on these calls? And um, you know, any anything that you can give your advice on for what kind of things should you be looking for as you're you all are doing due diligence on if this is the right fit for you?

SPEAKER_03 36:12

Yeah I I would think, you know, I always give this advice is you really need to understand the territory that you're you're going into. Because I I know that, you know, now a lot of times people are looking at getting an operating partner in another part of the country somewhere, but you really need to understand that territory and the types of businesses that are in it. I mean, we I had the advantage of I used to do consulting work in Aletha, Kansas, which is right next to Lanexa, Kansas. So I knew that market, and I knew that suburban New Jersey is very similar. So I I could see that model working here very easily, and it did. Um, so I think you need to understand, you know, what does your market look like? What kind of buildings, what kind of opportunities. There's so many citywides now, you probably have someone in a neighboring territory or that you can talk to to get to get that perspective, um, to understand kind of like what are their you know key markets or key uh facilities they get into. Like, I'll give you an example. I know Wichita Kansas does a few hospitals. Where we are, it's a whole different ballgame the way these hot hospitals are structured. They're going in to meet with the board. Here, they're these giant conglomerates. Marie and I are not getting in there to talk to no board, you know. Um, so it's just understanding what's really the opportunity in your market because it does vary from place to place. The other thing. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

Oh, no, I'm agreeing with you.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

Yeah, yeah. I would tell you the the other thing, too, is to understand what you're getting into. Is every person that we've talked to that's eventually gone and gotten a citywide has come to me at convention and said, Man, you weren't kidding. Because the first two years of this thing, you are not gonna remember. It's like you were in a war zone. Um, because you're running, you're trying to sell stuff, and then finally you sell stuff and you're like, yeah, this is great. Now you got to service it. And you're servicing these things, and then you lose an account for some stupid reason, and you feel like you've taken two steps backwards, and it's a little bit of that until you get going. And now you're servicing and until you hire a night manager, which is why Marie made the comment about the night managers, because prior to that, we were the ones going out at night, and you know, a cleaner didn't show up and didn't have anyone else, so we had to go and make sure that building was clean. You know, though those days are far behind us now, but I gotta tell you, it suffering through them was hell. On the flip side, having been forced to do all the roles in our company, now dealing with our staff is a, we don't take any bullshit because we did the job, so we know what it was like. But two, they can't, you know, it changes the tone from them because they know you've done this before. So, you know, you can give them good advice, a good perspective in it. Because at this point, we we feel like we kind of seen it all, or at least now, nothing really surprises us anymore. Um, I have a networking group for uh commercial real estate I'm part of, and we do a monthly call, and they always ask me, what new crazy thing happened to you this month? And pretty much every time I have some crazy story I can tell them.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

I would also add, um, I say this to folks all the time. You don't know what you don't know. I've seen countless individuals, no matter where you come from, what rank of a position you were in in your previous job, you know, you could have been the most senior, the smartest person of wherever you came from. I say put that to the side because if you come in with the preconceived, like those skills will be transferable as an owner. However, that's not this business. You're gonna have to really be intrinsic about it, get to know it, follow the model, understand why the model works, right? Um, and then you're gonna have to do a deep dive into it. Because otherwise, to Tom's point, you can't manage people, right? If you don't know what the market looks like, what the services are, you can't manage people and have credibility with your future clients if your head is not completely in this and you haven't been hands-on.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

They're they're gonna see right through it. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 40:34

You said the first two years is kind of a kind of a war zone. What would you say are were like the the biggest driving things that that got you through those two years? Um kind of to where you're at now.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

Besides vodka.

SPEAKER_03 40:48

I'm sure that it's like getting the cash flow positive is an incredible motivator.

unknown 40:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:59

At what point would you say that you know you kind of financially turned the corner? Um, like at what point, six months, one year?

SPEAKER_04 41:06

I agree.

SPEAKER_05 41:07

Or where you where you felt kind of, hey, we're we're we're we're on our way.

SPEAKER_03 41:10

I think it it takes, I think it takes a year to get there. I think what's changed now, what I've noticed with newer markets, is there's a lot. I mean, when we started, like yeah, janitor, in fact, they even called it janitorial and non-janitorial. It was like the janitorial is the ice cream and it's non-janitorial stuff with sprinkles. We've discovered that the non-janitorial is so much more than sprinkles. So I think a lot of newer offices are do have that opportunity to do some of this other work to kind of give them some revenue as they build up the janitorial block. Of course, the the danger in that is you get all excited about this one-time stuff, but then here comes 2026 and you're starting at zero again, versus you built up that janitorial block and whoa. And and I tell I say that to you because Marie and I definitely made that mistake at one point. We didn't focus enough on the janitorial, and then we realized like the next year, it's like crap. So now we focus on both and keep it very much in balance.

SPEAKER_08 42:15

What's the breakdown of the JS and OS for you?

SPEAKER_03 42:21

Ours is we're probably about for the year, it's fluctuated a little bit. We're probably about about 80, 20, or 70, 30, somewhere in there.

SPEAKER_08 42:33

I suppose 80 is the JS, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:38

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It would be scary if it wasn't. Just checking.

unknown 42:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:44

Savannah's.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

I was hoping that's what they were gonna say.

SPEAKER_03 42:54

Uh although we, I mean, you do you do have like Marie landed a project earlier this year. How much was that project? Like 250,000 or whatever, which was like in in insane. You see that come through, and you're like, okay, honey, we need a few more of those this year.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

Yeah, it's not easy. It's it's it's relationships, and it also stresses the importance of having a good salesperson because as you're taking care of this issue and keeping this client happy, you need someone that's gonna be churning out, trying to get more deals in because you are gonna lose some. I mean, whether it's through your fault or not, you are gonna lose companies close down. Um, sometimes we mess up, right? Um, so as you're losing them, you wanna make sure that that funnel is being filled and you're closing newer opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

So at the very beginning, we talk a lot about how they're wearing a lot of different hats. They're being the sales executive, they're being the FSM, which is the account manager. They're being the night manager. They're doing the independent contractor recruiting. They're doing it all, right? But at what point for you all and backtracking on that, making sure your sales executive, that first hire is aware that their job isn't just sales executive. Their job is a little bit account account management and it's a little bit this and it's a little bit that. So at what point did you guys hire that first account manager and more and transition more into a real sales and ops role? This is Michelle, our first FSF.

SPEAKER_03 44:35

No, it's Rob. I guess after we've been in business one year.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 44:40

We did. Yeah. I mean, our our history is a little different than most citywides because uh Mr. Jeff Odo convinced us to buy a janitorial company. It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. It was a janitorial company that the owner was retiring. Their footprint fit perfectly into our territory. And we ended up acquiring it, but it was it's something that we could do now and it'd be easy. But back then we'd only been in the business a year. It was just myself, Marie, uh, one other person, one account manager and our SC. We didn't even have a night manager at that point to take all of a sudden to go from maybe 15 accounts to adding on 100 accounts, and we we brought in, we brought over 75 in-house employees. It was a nightmare. It took us probably a couple years to recover from that. But we did retain a lot of that business, and oddly enough, we're still getting the benefit of that because we've had clients that referred us to other clients or who left those companies, went to other companies, they brought us with them. But you're gonna be, but I would say it's into that that probably the first year you start to get a couple people, but it's really after those first two years where okay, you feel like you can you can kind of breathe. I just know when we kind of hit that point where Marie and I weren't, you know, going out anymore. Not to say that every blue moon, we may be like, what the hell is going on? We got to see this for ourselves. We might we may take a ride out there, but you know, it's been a long time since we've had to, you know, and that's well, I was just saying it's been a long time since we had to mop mop a floor, but I was just mopping one the other week. One of your biggest clients calls and there's global CEO is arriving shortly, and something happened. You know, the fact that I was the closest one there and I went, what does that say about our commitment to that company and that relationship, you know? Um, and of course, too, they gifted us another building that they're going to be opening. So it all works out. Happy to mop the floor for them. But you know, but just being there for people, I I mean they they love that. Also, too. I think um I just just wanted to add this in too is hire we talk about the salespeople, but talking about the FSMs or account managers, that's a critical hire, too. Because you put the right person in, that the client absolutely loves them. You know, and we'll do all kinds of screw-ups, and I think I can't believe we kept that account after that incident. But, you know, that they love that that contact. They take care of them, they answer the phone for them, you know, they build relationships, visiting them every you know, couple of weeks. Um, you know, getting the right person on board that that had can build the relationships, but also to soft upsell those other services, they're they're priceless.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

I was just gonna say, um, the biggest advice I would give, they gave to us, hire fast and fire faster. So your people, getting the people in the right seats is the name of the game, right? Because one would think, okay, sales, they're bringing in these accounts. Your revenue is based off of recurring services. So if you don't have the right account manager that the client likes, we've had to switch out account managers because they for some reason didn't the client didn't get along with them. We've made some changes, but that account manager that's I I would rather have retention over extra services any day, any day. So because that retention is it lasts for a long time. If I have to go in and uh install electrical, an electrical job, it's it's a one-time, it's a one-time thing. So the right people.

SPEAKER_03 48:38

Yeah, peep, people is everything. In fact, in fact, I think back because Marie and I have done a number of these calls through the years. So I have a little sheet that I have all the stuff people have asked me, like I didn't know. And it's like, damn, that's a good question that I would go back and put down. And I remember one of the things that I I felt like, I mean, we officially opened in 2017, but it wasn't until 2023 that we feel did we look at each other and say, we have the right team now. All that we've got the right people in sales, the right people in ops, the right, you know, office manager, the right admin person. And that really has been when things really picked up for us and we started really moving ahead. Um, I, you know, again, you know that in management, but seeing it firsthand here, and it comes back to now you've hired a bunch of good people and you've built a culture. And it's funny how the culture self-enforces. We hired the wrong person, and we're very strict about that. We do a 30, 60, 90 day review, and that person barely made it to the 30 days because the team could not stand her. She wasn't a fit, she wasn't part of the group. That little comment of before about even though you're a salesperson, you may need to pitch in over here, whatever. Our team is very much like that. And if you're not fitting into our environment, you you gotta go.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

That's great advice. Thank you guys for that.

SPEAKER_06 50:06

Do you guys from the group have any other questions?

SPEAKER_00 50:16

Oh, Eric came off mute. Eric, you can you can bring us home.

SPEAKER_04 50:20

Yeah, this is um, this was great. I I really appreciate it. Um, good feedback. Uh, I learned a lot. This is this has been excellent. So thank you very much for that. You're very welcome.

SPEAKER_00 50:32

Yeah, thank you guys so much. We appreciate you being on today and giving us all of your advice. And um, see the rest of y'all next week. Tom and Marie, thank you, thank you, thank you. So appreciate it. Good luck, guys.

SPEAKER_05 50:45

Good luck. Thank you, guys. Thanks again. Thanks.