116. 5 Things Your Organizer Won't Tell You - Part One

In this two-part episode, ONLY for subscribers, I walk through a client scenario where a lot of the issues, regarding the project, were initiated by the homeowner. This is unfortunate, because sometimes the contractor (not me) will just decide to leave and not come back. I'm here to tell you FIVE things this particular homeowner did wrong, so that you don't repeat their mistakes, in an effort to find yourself a great organizer who wants to help make your home a place they love coming back to just as much as you do. 

Transcript

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So I had a big project come my way a couple of months ago. Not big as in a lot to do over the course of a few days. It was going to be a big project in terms of it was going to be consistent. It was going to be weekly. Then at some point there was talk of another project. And then at some point there was talk of another location that had to do with a business project. So my ears perked up, and not necessarily because I knew all of that was going to happen. Initially, I saw a post by someone on a neighborhood app that said, We are having a lot of trouble finding a really good cleaning crew. A lot of times I will leave those alone because when someone says, Hey, does anybody know of a reliable cleaner? Sometimes that can point to a crew being flaky, not showing up, not communicating well. But other times when people say we're having trouble finding XYZ, they could actually be the problem. And what usually happens is that most contractors, and I'm not talking about construction plumbers, electricians, I'm not talking about those kinds of contractors. I'm talking about mostly cleaning crews, landscapers, people that really can float in and out and have a lot of work already to where they don't have to deal with high maintenance situations, or if they're unhappy and they've got a ton of work coming at them, then they just don't show back up. And so I know that this happens. I know that it happens. But normally for those of us contractors, no matter what we're doing, and I do it all, I do organizing, but I also do cleaning, I do packing, I help with moves, I help with digital organizing. I don't actually do it for people. I know of someone, and he's actually gonna be a guest on the show coming up. So I'm gonna go ahead and announce that. That's really exciting. But I do digital downloads. I try to do more of the actual like tracking type stuff, making lists, all of that. And I've sent you guys to my Etsy store before. But when it comes to a lot of crews, a lot of people that that's their only job, they have lots of work. And I'm talking lots of work to where sometimes they don't even return phone calls and emails because they've advertised themselves. They are labeled as a crew, which means that a lot of times they can get in and out of a household quickly. They normally show up, they've got all of the stuff, they all spread out, they get the job done, and then they hop back in the car and they leave. Sometimes these crews can really work out, especially if you want very, very little time that you are inconvenienced away from your home. Other times you have crews that show up and they don't communicate with each other, so entire rooms are missed. Sometimes you may have four people in a crew, two people have done it for a long time, two people are newer, they've never been to the property before, and you may have one person that kind of wanders off. Maybe she's on her phone a lot, maybe she's curious as to what's in the house, and so she kind of wanders off. And so you don't really have eyes on everyone because you are trying to get your part of the house done. So I know some people prefer crews, I know some people don't like crews at all. Some people go looking for crews, they like that. They know that if one person isn't gonna show up, then maybe the owner will send somebody else. So there's a little bit more reliability if you do find an actual good company that has a bunch of people that they rely on. Long ago, before COVID, I had a really good assistant. And so she was definitely my right hand for sure. Sometimes I would send her out ahead of time. If I was having an issue with parenting where my child was sick, or we had, you know, a scheduling conflict where two people needed me on one day, I could send her out. It was great. And I've mentioned this before. When COVID hit, a lot of people scattered. A lot of people had to do some other things, and so we went our separate ways. But then I didn't feel like looking for someone else like her because that kind of assistance is very, very hard to find. So coming back to the post that I saw recently, we're having trouble finding a reliable crew. Okay. A lot of times people read something like this and they automatically assume that the company is at fault. Oh, that's just how it goes. You can't trust anybody to show up. But let me tell you, there are some things that contractors will sometimes not tell you, but they will show you. It's just like the whole actions speak louder than words. If someone is acting a certain way, regardless of what they're saying, then you can either pick up on those cues or you can choose to ignore them, or you only think of addressing them after the fact when they're gone. So at first I was just kind of hesitant, like most contractors, the people who I have, I've had for a long time. But I saw this post and I thought, I'm gonna go ahead and reach out. I'm just gonna see what the situation is. And so I reached out and they said, We're looking for somebody to come once a week. Now, for most people who have been around long enough, a weekly account isn't necessarily what you're looking for. Only because a lot of times a weekly client ends up not being worth it financially because they think that they should pay less because you're coming out there more and things aren't getting quote unquote as dirty. But there's a convenience for them. They know that once a week they've got somebody that's gonna come out and do something. So a lot of times those households tend to be messier because they know that once a week somebody's gonna come along and do it. So it ends up being more work at times, especially if there are kids, especially if there are pets. It's like, well, we're not gonna deal with that right now because somebody's gonna come on Monday. There could be a huge mess that happens on Saturday, and some people will just walk around it until Monday. The other thing is that part of having your own business is being able to set your own schedule and having some flexibility. And if you have a weekly client, sometimes that can dig into the time that you have allotted for yourself to work on other things to catch up on admin stuff. Maybe there are certain days of the week that you want to take a class. There are a lot of times I work on Sunday. And so if I work on Sunday and I want to go to hot yoga on Monday morning, then guess what? That's what I'm gonna do. And then a lot of people who want a weekly person tend to have a preference as far as the day of the week, and they want that consistency, and that's all fine and good. I'm not saying that that's not a good account to have, but that does tend to cost extra. Plus, you're driving back and forth every single week instead of going out every other week or once a month. So I say all of that to kind of prep your mind for what I'm about to say. So we went back and forth and I said, What are you paying now? And he told me, and it was low. Sometimes I have to really push back the urge to say, if you're paying that and they're showing up, then you should just keep them because that's a really low rate for what he was getting. And he said, Well, we have trouble with them showing up. Sometimes they just don't show up and they don't even call and we just don't hear from them. And I'm like, okay. And I said, Well, let's do this. Let's just try something. I will honor that rate for a month because I feel like after a month, I'm gonna be able to see if we need to do more. Maybe we need to add on some more hours, increase that rate a little bit. Maybe it's something that's reasonable and it's not gonna take me as much time. Let's just try it out because I want both of us to feel like this is the right fit. And so going into it, I kind of just had like that nagging feeling that this wasn't gonna work out. I just had that feeling. And so he gives me the address, we settle on a date, and I go out, and immediately I see the kind of driveway that we all hate in Tennessee. It's like straight up and down. Um, you get to the top of the driveway and you can't even see over the edge, like as you're coming up on the platform part. It's like, what's on the other side? Like, am I gonna hit a car or hit a person? I don't know. I can't even see. I'm like literally the nose of my car is straight up and down in the air. And so I start up this driveway and my car is just like, we shouldn't have done this. And I'm like, I know. And it's one of those driveways where it's long enough to where I couldn't just park on the street and like pull everything up. And so I get to the top of the driveway and I notice there's like three or four other cars up there. So immediately I'm like getting nervous because I'm like, okay, they're gonna make I just have a feeling they're gonna make me move. And there's like two cars in the driveway. I'm sorry, there's two cars in the garage, there's two cars in front of me, and then there's two cars off to the side. And so I'm like, there's really no place to park if someone needs out. And so the homeowner comes out and I introduce myself and I said, Well, let's just go ahead and take a walkthrough before I grab everything. And this was going to be a weekly clean. It was also going to be an organization project, and then at some point there was gonna be kind of some more stuff. So it was gonna be a big commitment if it went past the month, which I really didn't know how to feel about that because if the family's awesome and every time I go there, it's like I love coming here. I look forward to going there once a week. It's not incredibly difficult. Taking care of a whole house, especially by yourself, it does take longer, but no matter what you're paying for, whether you're paying for a large crew to come for a couple of hours, or you're paying for one person to come for four or five, it usually all balances out. It's it has to do with, okay, what all do we have going on here? So I walked in and he kind of gave me a tour. However, there was construction going on uh downstairs. And so he said, We've got construction going on down here. Don't worry about down here this time. And then we went upstairs, and that's where kind of like the main level was. So downstairs was their offices and kind of like a playroom, and then that went off to the front, and then upstairs was like the main living area, the kitchen, the dining, both of the bedrooms, both of the big bedrooms, because they were using the two downstairs bedrooms as offices, and then they had the bathrooms and the laundry room, and then a big sunroom. And so I'm walking through and I'm immediately, you know, getting a little bit confused in terms of where things were, which that happens the first time you're anywhere new, even if it's not that big of a house. But I'm like, okay, this is down here, that's down there, okay. And so then he wants to add on beds. He says, Can you make beds? And I said, Well, I can, but that's usually an add-on, or it comes off of the overall time. So if you want me here for four hours, I could probably rotate to where every week I'm doing a different bed. There's also a nanny. So he said, Okay, you know, I showed you around. If you need to know where things are in terms of sheets and towels and all of that, then the nanny will tell you where that stuff is. And so he takes off. And then the nanny at some point comes back from dropping off the child at school. So I immediately get confused because when she comes back, she says, Okay, I do everything in the child's room in terms of like the bed, like stripping the sheets and changing the bed. I hang up the clothes, this and that. And I said, That's perfect because when you have a full-time nanny, that person's gonna know, like, okay, the child wet the bed, and so we need to, you know, get new sheets on, or we need to get these in the washer right away. We don't want to let them sit in a hamper, or, you know, the child got something on their shirt and it's gonna stain like a juice box, and so we need to pre-treat that. And so I actually really like that. I think if you have a nanny that's there a lot and the child isn't there the whole time, say, you know, even if they're just gone two or three days a week at a daycare program, there's still lots of time for that nanny to do some of the household responsibilities. And this particular household responsibility, and this particular nanny actually did some household responsibilities in terms of making a mess in the kitchen. Literally, like the sink was filled with dishes, but there was also a dishwasher full of dishes, lots and lots of grease everywhere, greasy pans, greasy counters, grease, grease, grease everywhere. And so I said, Do you do the dishes? And she goes, Oh, did he ask you to do them? And I said, No. And I said, But do you normally do them? And she said, Well, I I try, or something like that. It was very vague. And then when it came to the beds, uh the the sheets were not anywhere predictable. They had three different size beds, and then the sheets were all over the place. And I said, We really need to get the sheets organized. We either need to have the right sheets in the room with the bed that they're supposed to go on, or we need to get organizers. And she said, Oh, I actually think we have organizers. And we ended up in the closet of a guest bedroom where there were empty sheet organizers, like the ones you get off Amazon that I recommend to people. And so I'm like, Okay, well, once we actually get the right sheets on the beds, then when you go to change uh sheets in between me being here, and she just kind of looked at me funny, and I was like, Who, okay, so who changes the sheets when the cleaner isn't here? And she's like, Oh, I don't know. So there was just a lot of confusion, and then it was, Oh, are you supposed to they did they ask you to do that? Are you supposed to be doing that? And so as I went to leave the first time, and and I do have to back up for a second. So I was there maybe an hour, couple of hours. The homeowner came back home and said, Can you move your car? And I immediately got anxiety because I was like, Okay, it's not time to load up. I'm gonna have to go down to the bottom of this driveway and park. I'm gonna have to climb back up the driveway, which I kid you not. I put on the hiking setting on my watch so that I could see how much of a workout I got. It took me, and I, and I'm in pretty decent shape. It took me close to four minutes to get up the driveway. And I was actually like walking, moseying. I was actually walking and trying to get back up to the top of the driveway as quick as I could. And not only was my heart pounding out of my chest, I it took forever. And so I went ahead and did it, moved my car, came back up, and then I started doing some other things. I was trying to collect some laundry to take to the laundry room because I thought, okay, he mentioned that if there's stuff on the floor, it needs to go to the laundry room. Um, the closets were a mess. I it was on my list to recommend after the garage project that he was gonna have me look at next after we got going. And so I'm getting ready to wrap up this first visit, and I just didn't feel like I really had a grasp of what their expectations were of me. And at the same time, the nanny started a group chat with the three of us. So it was me and her and one of the homeowners. And she's like, Hey, if you have any questions, just ask it here. So I would ask a question and the homeowner would respond. Or I would ask a question and she would respond, and then the homeowner would say, Oh, yeah, she probably knows better than I do. Yeah, go ahead and do that. And so there was really not a clearly defined role for the nanny. So when another household employee comes along, and I'm a contractor, so I'm not talking about me, but at some point there was gonna be another household employee that was gonna come along because they were expecting another child. And so there was gonna be a lot coming up, and I thought if I can just get this family on a good system, this is gonna be a very consistent thing for me. And then maybe as some of my other projects finish up, maybe I will want to focus a lot of my time here. Maybe it will work out. Maybe they'll see how hard I'm working. And the first two times I was there, I actually gave them two extra hours for free. Today's episode, I know we're only already 20 minutes in. What I told you is pretty much the entire setup for these things, these five things that I'm gonna mention. And it's only gonna take me about 10 minutes to go through this. So everything that I set up for you, now you've got this picture painted, okay? This episode is called Five Things Your Organizer Won't Tell You. What I didn't put in the title is the dot dot dot, but they'll show you. And that's what I mentioned at the beginning about how actions speak louder than words. A lot of people would leave this house and say, I'm not sure it's worth it because I don't have a designated place to park. The driveway is just horrible. And especially the fact that I'm coming in in the summer, I'm thinking, I don't even know how I'm gonna come here in the winter if it snows, if there's ice again, which there was this last year, I'm sitting here thinking, this is already very inconvenient. But again, if you like the client, if it's worth it to go there, if you're happy to go there, once you're actually up in the house, then if everything else goes fine, then it's really not that big of a deal. But when you're going through all of the different things that are starting to add up and you're trying to figure out as a contractor, is this worth it? Okay. The reason for this episode isn't just for organizers to figure out is this job worth it? I also want to make it clear to homeowners and clients that sometimes when people don't come back, it really isn't worth it to them for what they're getting paid. And I think a lot of homeowners sit there and say, Well, I love my house. I don't mind climbing this steep driveway. And I have a parking spot up here, so it's fine for me. I can get in and out of my car easily. I have a great view from my window, and I feel like, you know, I'm giving them work every single week. So that's a consistent paycheck. But the homeowner wasn't factoring in all of these things, and I'm gonna go through the five things your organizer won't tell you. And this particular client checked off all five boxes. And spoil alert, I didn't go back after the month. We actually only got through three weeks, and I said, okay, here's the deal. The next time I come back, that's gonna be the last time I come back as part of our trial period. This is your new rate based on what you want. And I'm going on vacation in two to three weeks. So I can come that time and I can come another couple of times, and then I'm on vacation for a week. So I do think that you need some kind of backup. Then after he thought about it for a couple of days, he's like, Okay, yeah, we're gonna go with your suggestion to go with somebody else. Because it just after a month, after three weeks, and planning for that fourth visit, I'm like, this just isn't gonna work. So let me kind of tell you what happened. I'm gonna start at number five and work my way back, okay. Number five, you're looking for a deal. Okay, so if you're a client, you've hired somebody and they come once, maybe they come twice, and then they don't come back again, or they act flaky or they act like they don't want to do it and you're confused. If you have somehow asked for a discount, or you have taken advantage of that person's time, if they've given you some extra time and you haven't acknowledged it, you haven't tipped them, you haven't said, you know, we really appreciate this, um, that goes a really long way with us. We're gonna make it up to you. If there's no kind of acknowledgement for extra work and you're asking for a discount, or you're saying, okay, the last people that we had, this is what we paid them, but then they weren't reliable, they didn't show up. Okay, so if you had that kind of person and they didn't show up and you were paying them a certain rate, you're looking for somebody who's going to show up, correct? You're also looking for someone quote unquote better. You want someone that's going to come in and do a better job, you want someone that's reliable. You most likely have to pay more for that. It could be a flaky crew. You could be paying an amount that's considered acceptable. But when I first talked to the client and realized what they were paying, I wasn't really surprised when they said that people weren't coming back. And they had tried a few different people. So I kind of knew ahead of time, like, uh, something's something else is going on here. Okay. So if you're looking for a deal, you have to understand that the rate that you are willing to pay, if you're wanting to get a lot out of it, if you keep adding on task, if the cleaning company says we don't do beds, then the reason is because it takes a lot of extra time. And if the sheets aren't organized and you're going from room to room trying to figure out what bed do these sheets go to because the sheets aren't labeled. You, you know, the tag is cut out or it's missing, it's fallen out. And then by the time you try the sheets, that's just so much extra work that you shouldn't have to go through just to get a task completed. Okay, so you're looking for a deal, you're paying a certain amount, and then somebody else comes along and they say, Well, let's just try it out. I'm not really sure if I'm going to be able to honor that rate, but let's start out with that. Let's just see what happens.