SPEAKER_04 0:06

Okay, you guys can all turn your cameras back on. Um, want to take a few minutes to introduce Eric Robertson. He is our owner in Springfield, Missouri. We were just chatting about how we're having unseasonably warm weather. We're really excited uh about having 90 degrees in the middle of March. So that's that's pretty special for us. So excited. Uh the other thing we're really excited about is this is Eric's first Z call. So this is, you know, he's ripping the band away off. He's a rookie, he's gonna do great. We're really excited for him. Um, it's one of my special days. Anytime everybody gets to host their first Z call, it uh always brings me back to the first time they attended a Z call. And then I feel like, you know, those little goosebumps of seeing their success. And so Eric, we'll let you just start out telling us a little bit about who you were before your journey into citywide, and we'll let you talk all through what's happened over the last year. So you take it away.

SPEAKER_07 1:07

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely been uh a fun little journey for me, a good growing experience. So a little bit about my backstory. Um, over the last decade, a little over a decade, I was working in the industry um with a different brand, very similar model. Um, and we had opened up a an office in Las Vegas, Nevada, and um ran that for a decade. And probably about eight years into that, um I had started kind of looking into the next thing, my next 10-year plan. And uh I had come across citywide a couple times being a competitor against them and was always impressed with them and the the model, and uh started digging around and looking around, and lo and behold, came in touch with with Adria, who uh introduced me to uh to a couple guys that I ended up partnering up with that were already operating a couple regions in citywide. And next thing I know, I was selling my house and uh shipping my family halfway across the country to open up a new region in Missouri. So we opened up in June of last year. Um we've hired uh an SE right off the bat, and then we just hired our first uh kind of like our operations role here in Citywide. We call it a facility solutions manager. Um and we were uh very fortunate. We've had some some great success early on, and we're having a really good year right now, and we're hoping to continue going in the right direction as this year proceeds. So it's been uh a good experience for me, good growing experience for me. But it's been a great experience and something that as I'm coming back up on a year now of doing a lot of reflecting, and if I would have done anything different, and my only regret is I wish I would have done it sooner than I did. So it's been great.

SPEAKER_04 3:08

Thank you, Eric. Thanks for sharing um the background. So I'll let you guys all just come off of mute when you're ready to ask your burning questions. If they're if you guys start interrupting each other, then I'll just start having you raise your hand and I'll call on you. But usually y'all are are pretty um polite about letting each other finish. So we'll let you just, you know, whoever wants to start off, go right in.

SPEAKER_08 3:30

Yeah, I'm curious. I Eric, I think you've got some good perspective coming from a competitor in the space. Like what are what are citywide's differentiators and why do you you know feel better in in that uh that brand compared to where you were before?

SPEAKER_07 3:46

Yeah, so great question. Um and as time has gone on, I've uh realized there's more differences than I knew about that are great for citywide. Uh, but the thing that stood out to me first was just in this building maintenance industry. Um, the competitor that I worked for, and most of our competitors are highly focused on janitorial services, which are great. That's the that's the recurring revenue, those are the contracts you want. Um it's kind of the lifeline of the business. But when I would lose a bid to a citywide, or if I came across a prospect that was with citywide, the scalability that they have or that we have now with all the other services is truly something that keeps customers from leaving citywide. And it's a huge value that now on this side we can offer to these prospective customers that our other comp that you know, the other companies, our other competitors could very easily do, but they've almost limited themselves, even with their branding and their names, to just the janitorial world and the janitorial contracts with names like Janiking and Janpro and cleaning systems this and cleaning systems that, that's what these potential customers are gonna think all you can handle, you know. And so coming over to Citywide and being able to offer those other services is something that truly sets us apart from those competitors that we're coming across every day. So that was the main thing. Um once I started getting to know Citywide and the support office, which was kind of an interesting note for me. Um they're really big on, or we're really big on calling the the support office the support office and not the corporate office. And I thought, oh, you know, this is just a you know little marketing thing for them that they support their franchisees, but it's it's uh they really take that on. I could I could name the people in the corporate corporate office in my last brand, which was not a good thing. I shouldn't know every name there uh because it was so small and they just didn't have the capacity to support their franchisees, how some of these guys need to be supported, especially with the amount of money that you're putting down on these units. Um the amount of support that the support office gives is incredible from things that you wouldn't think about, whether it's you know, templates for proposals, or you know, we have a whole encyclopedia on how to do this and how to do that, and then the templates that come with them and stuff that you wouldn't think about, onboarding documents, um employee handbook templates, stuff like that. That's just like, oh man, I wouldn't have thought about this until now the time comes, and to have that type of help and support is uh is really nice, and I definitely think that sets them apart kind of on the business admin side. But yeah, did I answer your question, Alex?

SPEAKER_08 6:54

Yeah, no, that's that that's great. And I got I have one more follow-up and then I'll you know let some others jump in. But you know, your first point on the breadth of services citywide can offer is a huge differentiator, and it makes sense. Uh you know, I'm I'm curious. I know you're still early, but in terms of revenue by service, like what are your core revenue drivers? And you know, you don't need to go into all 20, but uh yeah, maybe from a high level, what percentage of overall revenue is recurring? You know, kind of similar questions.

SPEAKER_07 7:28

We year to date, we're at about 38% of our revenue is was in the other services category, so not janitorial services. Um, and to put that into perspective compared to other brands, those their benchmarks. So a previous brand, if you were a successful region, you were doing about six and a half percent in other services compared to your janitorial services. When I came over to citywide, not knowing this beforehand, the benchmark here is 50, 50 percent. Okay. And so to hear that number, oh, that's crazy. But then to see regions do that and surpass that is still mind-boggling to me. You know, we just had a convention in February, and uh correct me if I'm wrong, Adrian, but I think it was one of Klingers, I think it was the Northwest Ohio region. They were they almost did a million dollars a month in other services last year, which is insane to me. But when you see these regions do it, and we have the opportunity to sit there and talk to them and see how they're doing it, it lights a fire under your butt to go get that stuff too, and just makes it possible. I laugh, you know, three months into opening our office, we had an opportunity to do some supplemental labor at an event center, like a large outdoor venue for like concerts and stuff like that, that in my prior experience I never would have pursued just because it was so daunting. Like, this is huge, you know, how are we gonna do this? But when I came over here, and it's like, yeah, we just don't say no to anything. Like, you'll figure it out, just say yes, and we'll figure it out. And the only reason we got that opportunity was because of brand recognition. A citywide out in Florida had done a great job, had an arena out there. It came over here, the same ownership group was there, and we did a little over a hundred grand in my third month in OS services, which I never would have done that before this. So, some stuff like that that just you know, citywide just opened my mind to these other opportunities that you really just gotta learn not to say no to, and you'll figure it out one way or another. It's uh it's been a great learning experience for us. So and it's motivating when you see everybody else do it. But yeah, so that's the benchmark. I mean, I'm I'm short of it right now, but we'll get there.

SPEAKER_08 9:58

Yeah, that's super helpful.

SPEAKER_10 9:59

I appreciate that, Eric. Hey, Eric.

SPEAKER_09 10:07

Another Alex, another Alex, uh keeping it easy. Um, this may be a little bit different for you just because you came in by partnering with other folks who had existing territories, but um still trying to understand perhaps what was your territory doing before you purchased it, if anything. And then how did you approach uh kind of building out your team and maybe layering in different roles um from start to current?

SPEAKER_07 10:37

Yeah, so it was a it was a brand new territory, so wasn't wasn't a citywide operating in the territory, um which was unique. It was something I had done before, um, obviously under a different brand. So the big thing for me, um, I mean, that it that never really stops is your contractor recruiting. I mean, that was that was big for me. Um, just getting into these kind of niches and these networking groups where I can find these prospective contractors was huge. Um, it gives the sales team, myself included, a lot more confidence when we walk into a building knowing that we have somebody that can take care of it. But in the same breath, you can't let that be a hindrance to not walk into a building. You know, it's a lot easier to get contractors on board when you have something to offer them. It's a little bit different of a conversation where you're like, hey, come be a contractor with me and eventually I'll have some work for you. You know, but you're doing a lot of that in the beginning. Um so we were fortunate enough to hire an SC right off the bat who had experience within citywide. He was in a different market, but he was moving back home. So that was you know a blessing that I can't uh deny. You know, that definitely helped us out a lot. I didn't have to sit there and train somebody in the system and everything like that. Um, so we were able to hit the ground running pretty quick, but it's I mean, you're you're prospecting every single day, both for contractors and for prospective customers. Um, the brand recognition, you know, there's another support office thing helping out with our SEO here. Um we've got SEO playbooks that help you, you know, build your Google My Business and make sure you're doing all that correctly, that you know, people are searching for stuff and they're finding your company, even though you've been here for two months. You know, I was not that we get a ton of inbound stuff right now, but we definitely get more than I did early on in my career beforehand. But I think it's because of this, you know, SEO stuff that we do do and you know, going by the playbook that Citywide's created. So um, but that was big. I mean, contract recruiting never stops. I was digging through business records, you know, looking for ideal prospects where it's you know small to medium-sized companies that um maybe don't do a great job marketing themselves and having really honest conversations. Like we're not the perfect fit for every janitorial company out there, every landscape company. But if you're a good person, you're doing good work, and you want to grow your business and you just don't know how, we're a great fit for you. We can go out and we can get you the accounts, we can manage the accounts. And when you have those conversations with the contractors, they all get that. That makes complete sense to them. Half of them are really skilled guys at the work they do, but they don't know how to go out and sell themselves or manage the account afterwards or create invoices and track down payment and all that. So you're really you're an asset to them in that way, and selling that value on that side goes a long way. But um I think that that answered your question.

SPEAKER_09 13:59

Yeah, I really appreciate you even just being on the call and uh all the detailed answers. Thanks so much for no problem.

SPEAKER_05 14:08

All right, like as a follow-up to that, when you did make a decision to go with uh uh with citywide, did you and did you decide to take the option on buying of the existing business and portfolio that might have been available in the market?

SPEAKER_07 14:26

Um, not on this venture. And in the past, when I had looked into it, um it it was something that was out there, but I liked the idea of doing something new again just because there was a lot of things that I learned in my past career. I was like, man, if I could do this again, I would have done this, that, and the other different. Um, so I was excited to go into a brand new region and try those, this, that, and the others. So that excited me, and I wanted to challenge myself. Um, not that an existing region isn't challenging. It's it's two different, you know, two different stories.

SPEAKER_05 15:06

But uh let me let me clarify. I'm sorry. When uh Adria, maybe you can help me here. The uh was there any existing um business within your region when you purchased the uh territory?

SPEAKER_07 15:20

And yeah, yeah, so there was we had um two accounts that were being billed through the northwest Arkansas region. Um, but those are that's a territory that my partners also manage. So it was a little bit unique situation.

SPEAKER_04 15:43

Yeah, so Michael, um Springfield, Missouri did not, it was it's probably one of the few that did not have a robust amount of um contracts already running from nearby franchises, like several um that you know we have now.

SPEAKER_08 16:05

I've got a question on on just vendor management. Um you know, I know you're working with independent contractors. Curious how you how you manage them, you know, ensure service quality and how do you deal with you know underperforming vendors.

SPEAKER_07 16:20

Yeah, it's you know it's tough in the beginning because you're really just you you know, you have some vetting questions, some things you talk to them about in their business and how it's run. You can look at their websites and you know see how or what's most important to them as far as you know aesthetics and how they look and the things they're posting and Google reviews and this, that, and the other. But it's really, you know, having these honest conversations with these people in the office. You know, we have presentations that we can go over on the TV. I love just sitting and talking with the contractor and going over the things I kind of mentioned earlier, like just being honest. This is who we are, this is how we operate. If you're looking to grow your business and you struggle with that right now, this is where we fit into it. Um, and then you just kind of trust them, you start them off with an account, you know, you do your follow-ups, making sure you know services are being done well when it comes to specialty services, like a contractor that does floor work asking for pictures. You know, 90% of them will have before and after pictures of work that they've performed, it's stuff that they're posting on their own websites. So looking at all that stuff in the beginning, too, as part of your vetting process is great. But you know, we had some learning experiences with some of our contractors that took on some work and maybe didn't do the best. And it's as simple as coming back and being like, look, this is the standard that we're setting with our customers. Um we need to meet the standards to protect our brand. And if they don't fit into that, most of them will realize that off the bat on their own. Like, hey, you know, if you guys do great work, we'll continue to grow your business. But I'm not gonna continue to give you accounts if we're having problems. And I think that's a pretty well-known, like everybody's gonna understand that. Um, but I'm huge on contractor development. We want to, we don't want our only value to these contractors to be the fact that we're giving them accounts. We want to set up relationships with some of our other vendors, like a Sunbelt Rentals or United Rentals, where, hey, if you want to learn how to do floor work or pressure washering or whatever, I can make these introductions to these guys who will set you up with demos and training to learn how to do this stuff. Because if I can make my contractors bigger and better, more skilled, it's only helping out our business too. And so when these contractors see that, like, hey, we're not just trying to get them as bodies to throw in accounts that we want to turn them into successful businesses, they realize that, and then that keeps them coming back. So it's just another way that we add value, and I'm huge on that. And you start to feel that and see that from them when you know that you they could have a customer try, hey, let's cut, let's cut citywide out of the equation, you know. But then they start to remember these things that we've done for them, and they're like, Yeah, no, this this relationship is more valuable than one contract sneaking out from the back, you know. So that's that's big for me, is uh building those true relationships with these contractors.

SPEAKER_08 19:27

I listened to a pre-recorded Z call uh with Bubba, and he was talking about how he sort of caps the number of accounts per early early vendors. Like have you found a similar approach works, or or you know, do you feel like when you find a solid vendor, you want to spread them out as much as possible if they're you know if they're crushing it?

SPEAKER_07 19:47

Yeah, it's um best practice, right? You don't want all your eggs in one basket. Um, but I'm also very I'm on the side that I would rather have bigger and better contractors billing more and have bigger capacity than have a hundred plus contractors that are all billing five thousand dollars a month. You know, it's less people for me to talk to. The relationships are more genuine. So, yes, having a cap is a great idea. It's a little bit hard at the beginning, you know, if you find a guy that's just crushing it and he does great work and you close big accounts, you're like, well, do I put the guy I just met in at the new account to see if he's good, or do I put the guy in who I know has been doing good work to make sure this account goes well? So you uh you want to spread it out even, but it's it's difficult to do sometimes, you know. So um, but we do. I mean, we we do a pretty good job of it here. Like I said, our billing's not huge right now. We're a little over$50,000 a month in JS recurring right now. So that's spread over. I mean, two of our two of our contractors are probably doing half of that, and the other it's the rest is spread out through the the others. But but yeah, it's Bubba's right. I mean, best practice to spread that out, just so you don't have all your eggs in one basket.

SPEAKER_08 21:12

I gotcha. Thanks, Eric. No problem.

SPEAKER_06 21:15

Hey Eric, I'm Rodney. Thanks for taking the speaker with us. Um so we year into it, what does your team look like today?

SPEAKER_07 21:23

Yep, it's me. We have a sales executive, and then we have a facility solutions manager. Um, but hopefully by the end of April, we're bringing on a sales associate. So kind of like a inside sales slash business development role that we will eventually turn into a SC if they can show some progress in that world.

SPEAKER_06 21:45

Okay. And over the past 12 months, at what point did you bring on those people?

SPEAKER_07 21:51

Yeah, SC, our sales executive was right off the bat. Um, we had them opening day. Our FSM we just hired at the beginning. Of February.

SPEAKER_06 22:02

Okay. Thank you. And I know you had the the unique advantage of coming from a competitor and knowing the industry, but did you find, you know, as you were building out your market, one side was harder to get going and the uh than the other, you know, either the contractor service provider side or the client side, or you just kind of like built both of them up and did a little bit of pre-selling, you know, along the way.

SPEAKER_07 22:25

Yeah. I would say finding good quality contractors is harder than finding prospective customers. Um we are big on that too, where you know I made the mistake in years past taking on every account, no matter the size. And I realize these smaller accounts are the ones that are the noisiest that uh complain about anything and everything. The larger accounts, it's a it's a longer sales cycle. But they also have bigger fish to fry, where if you a contractor misses a trash can in a 500 employee place building, they they're gonna be a little more lenient with that. They're in the business of finding quality service providers and not changing unless there's issues. They're not going out to bid every year or every three years just to see if there's a lower price out there. So that was something that I made very clear with our SE when we brought them on is yeah, we can go close the dental office across the street that's a thousand square feet and it's gonna pay$300 a month. That's not gonna move the needle for us. But it's hard for an SC who knows that these bigger accounts have a longer cycle. And I was totally okay. Like, hey, you're gonna have it's gonna be dry in the first little bit, but you know, three, six months into it, some of these big ones are gonna start to fall, and that's exactly what happened. And we don't have one account right now that's under$1,000. Um, I think system wide, we're I think the average is$2,400. Our average right now, which is really unskewed, it's$3,000 a month, is our average right now, but that's multi-location accounts, which in my head is really just one account. So if you account for that, our average is closer to$6,000 a month. And those are the guys that are gonna last the lifetime of those accounts is gonna be, you know, eight to twelve years compared to uh three to six years on smaller accounts. So just smarter business. But to answer your question, yeah. I mean, you can go out and you can get crappy contractors real quick and you can get crappy accounts real quick. If you want some quality work that's gonna, you know, be good work, it takes a little bit longer on both sides.

SPEAKER_06 24:44

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Um, just going back to the team real quick, since you don't have a night manager who's playing that role, is it your shoulders?

SPEAKER_07 24:53

That's yeah, that's me. My the FSM we brought on has been great and more than willing to help out anywhere and everywhere. She really uh fell in love with the model and she's been able to see some of the other regions and how they operate. So she gets the bigger picture and she wants to be part of that bigger picture. So she's been super willing to help out. But yeah, when you know, talking about that uh venue that we closed early on, you know, having some moments of like, what am I doing? You know, that was you know, two o'clock in the morning post-concer, going out there with contractors to make sure the work's being done. You know, there's definitely some of those moments. But it's great moments and they build trust with the contractor too. The contractor sees it as, you know, hey, Eric's here to support me. When in my head, I'm like, I just need to make sure this goes good so we can continue to get some work. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:44

So right now it's on me. Yeah, shoulder to shoulder with the contractor, with the facilities manager. So yeah, I'm I'm sure it goes a long way. And then um, just one other question for right now, because I don't want to monopolize the time. Um, have you found any common objections as you're going out to prospective clients of, you know, we already have a you know a competitor for that, or we've insourced it, or we're, you know, just not interested, or we're looking for the lowest price, any like kind of close lost objections that have come up that you can think of?

SPEAKER_07 26:16

Yeah, I mean, the most the most common one I've experienced here that I get more so than I did in the Las Vegas market was a lot of in-house. There's people that were taking care of stuff, they've got their own employees. Um, because a lot of your bigger brands, your your ABMs, your CCS, your RBMs, those guys aren't in these kind of micro markets, um, which has been great for us on the other side because we have the presence of those companies. And now that we're here, people see that and have other locations and multi-location stuff, but we still have that kind of homebody feel where I live down the street from them, you know. Um, but that was one that we came over that came across more than I had have ever experienced before, was just in-house. Also, not hard to get by. You know, people don't realize how much or what the cost difference can be, you know, with employees and benefits and insurance and unemployment insurance and all that compared to outsourcing these services. So really just educating the customer on what that looks like and how we can help in these different avenues if other stuff pops up.

SPEAKER_06 27:20

So yeah, because I'd I'd have to imagine. Yeah, because I'd have to imagine if they already in-house something like janitorial work, you know, maybe they've got their brother-in-law doing landscaping and it's just not going well. So you can kind of find a wedge in there.

SPEAKER_10 27:33

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 27:34

All right, I'll pass it over to Alex Katz since I see you got your hand up. Thanks, Eric.

SPEAKER_09 27:40

Thanks, Rodney. Um sorry for anyone who was on the call last week, but want to ask kind of a similar question just to collect some data here. Um can you just talk a little bit? Well, first of all, do you run your financials completely separately from the other franchises that your partners have?

SPEAKER_07 27:59

So we utilize um support office for those services, and it's with my partners and their other offices too.

SPEAKER_09 28:07

But financially, are they separated? Like do they all have their own separate PL?

SPEAKER_07 28:12

Yeah, so we have our own PL for our and then um just to kind of dig into that a little bit further.

SPEAKER_09 28:19

So when you came in, and as I'm building out kind of a projection here, trying to figure out how much working capital is needed when you're starting at zero. And then maybe it sounds like you're doing at least 50,000 a month in JS. Um, like how much working capital do you need on hand today to feel comfortable? Obviously, managing cash flow is important.

SPEAKER_07 28:41

Yeah. I honestly I I don't want to speak out of context. It would be a better question for my partners, is they're my they're my bankroll. They um they would be the better one for that. And Adrian or Michael Cart might be able to answer that question better than I can.

SPEAKER_09 28:59

No worries.

SPEAKER_04 29:03

I do have to say that it's all green flags for me when um I hear my candidates start using citywide acronyms. So nice work, Alex.

SPEAKER_10 29:13

It took me a little while, but I'm getting there. Same question.

SPEAKER_05 29:21

What can you uh do you feel that the projections of the on-game capital that we needed uh in the intro were accurate? Um the uh even though you can't you know the details was there on mismatch?

SPEAKER_07 29:36

Um no, I I think in my conversations with my partners, it's it's on par. It's on par if you follow the model, you'll grow at the projected rate, and uh you'll those benchmarks will be met. Capitals all on par.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Yeah, maybe I'll jump in, which I don't don't often do because I don't want to I don't want to lead the witnesses, but the the numbers that and and hello everyone, I'm Michael Carp. Um nice to meet you all. So the numbers that you all are staring at that you see that are in the disclosure documents or anything that you're reading on us, um I think the answer is pretty simple is that the numbers are accurate because they're historical numbers. Some people will spend more, some people will spend less, depending on how they're doing it and kind of what they're putting into their numbers. What I will tell you though is you have a choice when you're spending the dollars, and we talk about this often. There are some of our offices who have gotten off to rocket ship starts. They've well outperformed the 10-year plan that we're targeting. They're three years into it, and they're hitting the numbers that we expect them to hit at 10 years. And Eric knows what I'm talking about because we just we just celebrated this one person at our uh event that we had in San Diego, but they decided to spend all of the money up front as fast as they could. They're three years into it. They've got like nine salespeople already. And they said, we can either spend it over this period of time or we can spend it all right up front and put the chips on the table and go as fast as we humanly possibly can go. So I think the numbers are accurate because they're all based on historicals. It's just how do you want to spend it? What are you willing to do? How much does Eric want to be playing night manager for how long? And you know, uh slowly grow the revenue at a some predictable pace, or just pull the band-aid off and go as fast as you humanly possibly can go. But it all comes down to your own capacity.

SPEAKER_08 31:38

Are they really just that working capital backstop or are they actively you know working in in your business as well or in your market?

SPEAKER_07 31:48

I think if uh if we weren't doing as well as we were, they would be a lot more involved. But uh the fact that we're having success, you know, they they keep a finger on the pulse and you know have conversations when we need to have conversations, but for the most part, they're there as a supportive role if I need anything from them. So I could see that being different though, if we were struggling.

SPEAKER_10 32:14

Sure. Yeah, thanks.

SPEAKER_11 32:18

Brent, I'll let you pitch in.

SPEAKER_03 32:21

Sure. Uh hi Eric, thanks for your time today. Uh can you talk a little bit about what what your uh what your long-term financial goals are? If you were to think at least five years out to kind of put a stake in the ground, what's uh what's your financial dashboard look like out in that time frame?

SPEAKER_07 32:40

Yeah, we're uh it's a great question. I'm gonna pull out my little PTO because I'm big on I'm big on goals and 10-year plans and five-year plans and three-year plans. Um, you know, we you'll probably hear it if you haven't heard it already. Um, and it's honestly probably more a thing of the past, but 10 million in 10 years was always a the goal. But as Michael Carp was just talking about, you know, we've seen handfuls of regions outpace that by a large number. Um so you kind of got to sit back. It's hard to fathom that. It's hard to fathom those numbers. Um, and every market's different, right? We're we're a smaller market. Um do I think that's still possible 100%? And when you start talking about the scalability of our business and all these other services, you know, these successful regions that are doing, you know, 10 plus million a year, they're still only 4% of the market share, which is wild. So when you think about that, I mean, there's some lofty numbers out there. But yeah, I mean, the baseline would be 10 in 10 years, but that needs to be reevaluated after some of the stories that uh we've heard lately.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

So$10 million your top line goal, what's your operating profit goal for that that corresponds to that?

SPEAKER_07 34:05

I would say$10 million is the baseline in 10 years. We want to be well above that. Um and then you're talking about profits, I think you know, 12% is where a healthy region would be.

SPEAKER_00 34:21

And there's a range there that goes on either side of that. Some of them are more profitable, some of them are less. It just depends on where they're putting their dollars early on. And and to your point, um, Eric, uh, we met with uh uh an owner two days ago who's coming in for their 10-year renewal with us. Um we get to sit down and celebrate and talk about what they've done right. They're gonna do uh they'll they'll do$15 million there at the end of their ninth year. They'll they'll do 15 million, and their projection for this year is 20. So it's it's just a man, and this is a you know what some would consider a small market. I don't consider them to be small. I just think we have some that are very large. They have you know 800,000 population, and I think their building count is around 4,000 that are over 10,000 square feet. I mean, keep in mind 70% of the US market is under 10,000 square feet. We use that as the benchmark, but to Eric's point earlier, we sell lots of buildings under 10,000 square feet. Could be a bio, you know, biofarma, farming, pharma or others that you know they might have a smaller footprint, but there's a lot of work to be done there and generates a lot of revenue. So size doesn't matter. That's all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_05 35:34

Well, I wasn't able to come off mute fast enough before Michael, so thank you for clarifying me the uh uh the question. Um and switching gears, um, from the client perspective, how are you being measured? What's important to small and medium-sized uh uh clients and customers is it the accuracy and the uh uh timeliness of uh invoicing. Uh as you said, you could skip a garbage pail or something like that, and it might not hit the radar. What is important and how are the clients measuring your success?

SPEAKER_07 36:03

It's a great question, Mile. And I the first thing that comes to mind is communication. I feel like there's plenty of offices out there that we go into both as on the sales side for prospective customers that are filthy and the customer's super happy with service because somebody's talking to them all the time or they have a friend or whatever the case is. And then on the opposite side, there's buildings that I've walked into that look immaculate. And I'm like, man, whoever's in here is doing a pretty good job. But they're like, yeah, we never see anybody, they don't respond to emails, yada, yada, yada. And now they're gonna lose this account that's obviously from the service side is being taken care of. But on the admin or customer service side, it's not. So communication is huge. I it's a lot harder to fire a friend than it is a stranger. Um, and I think that's what sets us apart with our model and having this one point of contact when our big customer can reach out to RFSM for all of their facility needs, and instead of having to go out to bid and talk to 50 different vendors for these services, she can put RFSM on that task. Um, it's a huge, huge value add for us.

SPEAKER_05 37:17

One heads are now, one broke to chill.

SPEAKER_07 37:20

Yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

I did. I'm uh Terry Furman. I'm working with uh Alex as his consultant, and uh just when Michael you were talking about the uh gentleman in uh that was awarded in San Diego for his high performance. Um separating that out, what's the average investment uh uh for your top performers? Usually, you know, you got the one-third, that type of thing. Um he's uh the one that you described sounds like a uh a unicorn basically in the system. So but what would you say the top performers are doing to get to that that level? Investment-wise, you said that he spent all his you know money instead of spreading it out over 10 years, he spent it all up in the up in the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Oh, I'm I'm gonna let Adria answer to keep me out of jail of answering the wrong question the wrong way. But um, what I will tell you is I want to I want to clarify what I said. Um I I didn't mean to say that he spent all of his money. He decided to put more of the, you know, invest more up front because we have a we have a plan in our 10-year model that everybody receives once they come on board. It's got staffing, it's got recommendations in there, but owners can make their own decisions and where they want to sprinkle the dollars. This particular owner just decided to say, look, he did his own analysis, he did his own math. We're not directing that. And he said, Well, I'm gonna end up spending this much. This is what I wanted to invest to grow my business to get to a certain point. And I can do that over five, six years, or I can decide to front load it and I'm gonna put my chips on the up front. That doesn't mean he he drained his bank account and had nothing left for a rainy day. So I just I just want to clarify that. It's just it's just a it's it's an it's a choice to kind of you know grow faster, maybe earlier in the years, people can get to the same place different ways.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Yeah, I guess I'm just asking, is that what you're is that the model that most of your top performers are doing as well? Is that or is he unique in the system?

SPEAKER_00 39:43

Um, I I'll let Adrian jump in with more specifics in a second. But look, I I what I will tell you is it depends on what you bring to the party. So it's been really interesting journey for me to get to know a lot of our owners. Um if they are strong salespeople, if they that is their bailiwick, they might opt to, you know, what Eric was talking about, they might opt to bring on a night manager sooner because they don't want to have to do that every single night early on when new accounts are coming up. They might decide to bring on more FSMs because they know they can get the new sale. Maybe they're not as good a farmer to upsell people and service people. So they'll put their chips over here. So the smart entrepreneur that comes into our company understands our model. There is one playbook that if you follow, you know, everybody seems to get to the same point, you know, if if they're doing the job right, but they have to lean in on different things. So I don't want to say that there's one way to get there. It really, and we'll help with that. When, you know, I think uh some of the new owners, as you talk to them on the calls, you'll see that we leaned in on different things when we were getting to know them to say, okay, we're fine approving you to you know come into this thing, but you really need to think about doing this because this is the area you're light on. And if they take that advice, I think it helps a lot for them.

SPEAKER_01 41:03

That's helpful. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Yep, Adrian.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

Does that answer your question, Terry? Or do you it does? It does. I was just trying to get a feel for how to get there the fastest, you know, and in what people are doing. So yeah, not so much numbers.

SPEAKER_00 41:17

Yeah, there will be no shortage of myself, Jeff Odo, you know, the founder, son, and our coaches and our marketing team and our sales enablement team and the operations team who will lean in and give you know advice and guidance. But again, the best part is there is such a clear model here. Everybody, every owner that joins these calls, you will hear them in some way, shape, or fashion say, and Eric said it earlier on, I just wish I would have done this earlier, or I wish I would have. And those that have been in the system longer, that have taken them longer to get to the promised land, if you ask them the question the right way, they'll say, If I could do it all over again, the only thing I would do is go back and follow the model sooner or closer. I would stick to it. Most people come in and think they're smarter than you know, the company that's been running for 60 years or franchising for 20 plus, and they, well, I'm gonna do it this way. And then they all revert back to, okay, well, I tried that. Now I'm gonna go back to doing it the way you told me to do it. So there is a very clear model here that works.

SPEAKER_06 42:24

Eric, I have another question just kind of based off of what Michael just said. So certainly very reassuring and encouraging to hear you say that you wish you would have started sooner. And you know, you obviously had a good idea of what you were getting into, just kind of being in the industry. But is there one thing looking back on the last 12 months that you either think to yourself, gee, I wish I would have known this before going into it, or I wish I would have done this one thing differently?

SPEAKER_07 42:54

I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm just trying to get brownie points, but I've done a lot of uh reflecting coming up on my year mark, and I've just been thoroughly impressed with the amount of support, the amount of tools, the camaraderie between regions, the openness and transparency. I mean, I don't know if it's been talked about on other calls, but anytime an account's won, we get an announcement. And that's that's pipeline for us. If I see a bunch of assisted livings closing in Florida, I'm talking to my sales directly here and be like, hey, Florida just closed$30,000 worth of assisted living. We've got 15 of them here. Let's talk to them, see what happened. Um, I can go in and I can see people's our other regions billing and see what they've done this year or year to date or year over year or the last couple years. My previous brand, you know, there's a hundred plus regions in the United States. We would get a national newsletter and 46 of those would be on there. The other regions just didn't have to report their numbers. So when I came over here and I'm like, I can see everybody's stuff, it's healthy motivation, it's healthy competition. So I mean, I honestly, there's nothing that was surprising in a bad way. It's all been surprising in a good way. And that's why I say I think honestly, my only regret, I remember being at year eight in my career back then, looking into citywide, and I wish I would have done it then instead of year 10. But uh everything happens for a reason. I'm here now.

SPEAKER_06 44:33

So better late than ever.

SPEAKER_07 44:35

Thank you.

SPEAKER_09 44:46

Yeah, unless anyone else wants to. But um one thing I do appreciate is running the playbook, not reinventing the wheel. Um, and I think part of that is the onboarding and the training process. It's very robust, especially uh compared to a lot of other franchises. So can you just walk us through kind of your experience and maybe how that's benefited you or you know, I'll ask Michael and Adrian Earmuffs if there was anything you wish there was a part of uh that no, that was uh super eye-opening.

SPEAKER_07 45:22

We, you know, that encyclopedia that I mentioned earlier, we call it Citywide View, and uh you'll get assigned courses to go do as a new franchise owner. And when I first got this stuff, I'm like, oh man, we've got all this homework, you know, nobody likes onboarding documents and all that. And honestly, coming from the industry, there was a lot of the stuff that I already knew. But I kept thinking, man, if I was somebody who wasn't in this industry before, this stuff is a game changer. It's it's such valuable knowledge in there. But then as I kept going through it and then getting into stuff that I wasn't aware of, I was like, this is great stuff to have. And I remember having a conversation with Jeff Odo, the founder's son, at a dinner, and you know, for these, we were talking about regions that have struggled and who initiates those conversations when, hey, this region's not performing as well as it should. And uh I got to thinking, like, you know, we talk about this following the model, all the information's there to be successful, and how frustrating it would be to see the amount of time and money that went into building all these modules and these courses to go through to have somebody fail on the other side when that stuff's there to help them. That was the part that if I was, you know, the owner at support office, I'm like, that would be so frustrating to me. I'm like, we've given the franchise owners all this information to be successful, and the only reason they're not is because they're not going through this stuff. So um that uh the amount of information that's there that's shared mixed with the camaraderie and working with other regions when stuff comes up is in my opinion unmatched with our competitors.

SPEAKER_10 47:15

Great, thanks so much.

SPEAKER_09 47:18

Actually, Eric, real quick, can you talk about where you going back and forth to the home office um and what those trainings in person were like? Um real quick, if you don't mind just briefly touching on that. Sorry, Alex.

SPEAKER_07 47:30

Yep. So when I came on board, it was a it's essentially it was a nine-week process. Some of that was at home. Two weeks were at the home office in Kansas City. So that was just, I mean, a quicker trip for me. I'm only two and a half hours away, but going up there, spending the week in there, um, meeting with all the different department heads, having them essentially pitch their case onto how they add value to our business, whether it was the marketing team or the national sales team or the ops team, that was super comforting to me. Like to have all these different departments that other cool note is there's guys that were in your shoes, that opened up regions, that ran successful regions, that learned really successful uh skills or things that could better all regions, then came over to corporate and are now sharing that with other franchises. And then on the opposite side, there's people that were corporate that came over and have opened regions. So when you see that mix to me, that was a great sign. It seemed like a very healthy system that there were people on both sides that were trying to benefit the business in whole. So I really enjoyed the onboarding process. I enjoyed my time up there. It's nice to meet the people face to face and be up there and kind of get a bigger picture of what this actually is and to hear different success stories across the system. It was a great experience. I think now, I think it's about three weeks in person up there, but uh I've known people that have gone through that and enjoyed it as well. Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_08 49:04

Yeah, hey, hey Eric, I'm sure this was part of the training, and I'm sure Citywide has a perspective on this, but like as you started your first year, how do you how do you structure your days and your weeks to make sure you know you are meeting with enough clients, you are spending enough time on the on the vendor side, you're you know, you're spending enough time doing diligence on new hires. You know, I I know you're wearing many hats, you're going to you know buildings in the middle of the night, but you know, how do you make sure you're you know checking the boxes?

SPEAKER_07 49:34

I'm huge on being religious to my calendar. So I have time set aside every single day for prospecting, prospecting for contractors, prospecting for future clients. You know, um sales always takes priority over anything that I already have established in my calendar. If an appointment comes up, I'll make room for that appointment. But being religious to my calendar is something that's always helped me professionally, is just not straying away from that, always having guidance. At the end of the day, I can fall back to my calendar and go handle these things or go do these things that are beneficial for the business. If a fire pops up, yeah, I'll take care of that. But I'm coming back to this calendar. Um, but like I said, I now that I have you know an SE and now I have an FSM that's relieving a lot of my operations plate, now my role is transitioning back to more sales, where I'm gonna go out and close accounts now alongside my SE. Um, when before my SE was doing great, so I was taking care of more ops. So now my my I think my skill set is in the sales. That's where I do best, and that's what's best for our business right now. And then when our book of business for our current FSM grows, we'll hire another one and go from there.

SPEAKER_08 50:49

Do you have do you have any like as a team any metrics for number of new new prospects you're meeting with every week? Or you know, are there any like benchmarks that you should be hitting to to make sure you're driving growth?

SPEAKER_07 51:02

Yeah. 1200 on the sales side for our SC, 1200 activities a month, which is a mix of field visits, like in you know, going in person, knocking on doors, phone calls, emails. We also have excuse me, passive marketing campaigns that we send out. Um and ideally, I mean, when we kind of what I was talking about earlier with these larger accounts that are longer sales cycles, those are harder to get into. You know, I remember the days in this industry when we would do 30 for 30. You would get 30 proposals out in a month, and that was like the benchmark. But this is your tiny little accounts that are not moving the needle. So in this world now where we want bigger, better contractors, bigger, better contracts, we're closer to like eight to 10, maybe 8 to 12 proposals is what you want to get out on the janitorial contract side for um our FSM position or in some of these other regions, the CBS role where they're just selling all the other services. I think that number is higher. Um, those are quicker sales, um, easier sales, so that number's a little bit higher over there.

SPEAKER_08 52:12

Awesome. Thanks, Eric.

SPEAKER_05 52:16

Maybe I could jump in just ask the clarification. When you said eight to ten, what was the um time frame? Getting eight to ten proposals out per month.

SPEAKER_10 52:26

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 52:29

Eric, on the on the sales motion side, you know, obviously like direct, knocking on doors, cold calls are are always gonna lead the way. Um, but have did you ever find or have you found any unlocks? And maybe this is in the playbook, so like Adrian Michael, please stop me. Uh if I'm uh you know spoiling uh with what's to come. But have you found any unlocks in you know industry like trade groups or networking groups, either on the contractor service provider side or the client side of just like getting into an ecosystem and then being able to expand out from there?

SPEAKER_07 53:04

Yeah, and there's this is great for when talking to other regions. I think there's definitely territories that have better networking groups than others. So a chamber of commerce in one region might do really well, and a BI group in another territory might be even better. Um, we're a member of our chamber here in Springfield that's really great for our sales guy to network with some of these people. I wouldn't say it's a huge lead generation right now, um, because the people he's meeting with at these events are not the decision makers per se for a lot of these bigger companies. They're somebody else. Um as far as the contracting side, though, you know, in our market, a lot of our service providers and why we're a value to them are, you know, English is their second language. So I'm we you know join up with the Hispanic networking group of the Ozarks, where we're gonna find a lot of contractors that provide really great work, they're really great people, but are self-conscious about their English and can't go cold call. So we're a perfect model for them. So we join those groups, explain our business model, how we can help them grow their business, and that's been great for us there too.

SPEAKER_06 54:18

That's great. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 54:22

Hey Eric, um, you mentioned earlier uh you're tracking and managing to these metrics of um you know uh proposals that you're getting out per month. Are you also looking at um what percentage of those proposals are turning into contracts for you? I'm curious what that number is.

SPEAKER_07 54:39

Yeah, I think system wide the closing rate is like 34%, um, is like your average, your average guy. Um I will say on these bigger and better contracts, I think that closing rate is higher. Um you're building more of a relationship, you're competing against one to three competitors instead of you know 50 going for the lowest price. I think our closing percentage is higher with those bigger contracts. But thirty-four, I think, is your benchmark.

SPEAKER_10 55:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 55:37

What what uh what's been your biggest challenge or you know lear learning, the biggest takeaway from the first twelve months?

SPEAKER_07 55:48

That you can never have enough contractors. Um it's something that uh coming from the Las Vegas market where you know 28% of our population was Hispanic, to Springfield, Missouri, where it's uh like less than four percent. Um that was a bigger challenge than I thought, and I didn't do uh enough due diligence there to get into these networks sooner. Um, but that's probably my biggest takeaway is just finding these good contractors that uh we want to grow. Awesome.

SPEAKER_08 56:23

Appreciate that, Eric.

SPEAKER_10 56:25

Very interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:27

Well, Eric, you made me proud. Great job. Thank you so much for giving us your time today. And thanks everybody else for um spending this afternoon with us. Uh it was a great call. If you have any more questions after this that's you know enter your mind and you want to talk with Eric offline privately, just let me know and I will make an introduction. And you guys all have a great rest of your Thursday.

SPEAKER_05 56:52

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, everybody.

SPEAKER_03 56:55

Okay, bye everybody, thank you.