Episode 7: Operations & Efficiency

In this episode of The Clean Hour, we explore how to make your pressure washing business run more efficiently, reduce stress, and create systems that support long-term growth.

Many business owners find themselves constantly busy, juggling quotes, scheduling, customer communication, invoicing, and completing jobs. But being busy isn't the same as being productive.

We discuss:
✅ How to identify bottlenecks in your business
✅ Creating systems that save time and reduce mistakes
✅ Improving time management and productivity
✅ Using technology and automation effectively
✅ Delegating tasks and letting go of control
✅ Building a business that can grow without overwhelming you

Whether you're a solo operator or managing a growing team, this episode will help you streamline your business, improve efficiency, and focus on the activities that drive real growth.

🎧 Subscribe for weekly episodes helping pressure washing business owners grow smarter, faster, and more profitably.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the seventh episode of the Clean Hour Podcast. We're back today, we're over halfway now, and uh today's all about operations and efficiency. Um let's get into it, man. Matt, you alright? What's going on?

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Yes, I'm good. Um I've just got back from a another large roof clean. But yeah, all good man, all good. The weather's been up and down, but for work-wise, yeah, we're good. We're really, really good. It's we're in a good place at the moment, enjoying it. Just need just stay dry for a couple of weeks would be nice.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Good man, good man. So um, a bit of a different one today. So I think the first six have been about uh you know, vision setting, marketing, what you can do to get more work in. That's kind of been a key theme of the first six. This is more about, I guess, now the work's in, how can we streamline our business? And not just not just when the work's have been, you know, getting your leads in, how'd you deal with that, how would you quote, how would you make sure everything runs efficiently so you can maximise the profit, basically. That's the that's the way to look at it because time is money. And I think the first thing that we could talk about with this is it's a phrase that I've been told a lot and we've spoken about it before, is it do you own a business or do you own a job? And there is a there is a difference, isn't there? Because if you own a business or if you run a business, if you can take time out of that business, it will still run for you. If you own a if you have a job, if you stop working, the business stops and you don't make any money. Um so why do you think why in your opinion is it is it important to maximise your efficiency and kind of get all those systems in place um before it kind of gets crazy?

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Well well, I think the first thing to do is unpick the job, or do you run a business? Because that that's really key to efficiency, because what you've got is some people choose to have a job because it's a lifestyle business. You may only want to work six months, eight months, ten months a year, and take three, four, five months off travelling. So that there is a lifestyle business stroke job where when you stop, it stops, and then the other side is when you want to go full on, and like you rightly you said, when you step out of that, it carries on, it doesn't miss a beat, you know. So they're the two things, and normally when you when you're growing or want a business, there's probably, as we've always said, build it to sell. You are building something, and that's where then efficiency really, really kicks in. Um, and it should kick in if it's still a lifestyle choice, a job, but more so when you're running a business, um, because it everything we do has to focus around efficiency, um, and as the as the pod goes on, we'll get right into this, but but I just wanted to clear up that they're the two things, and and none of them are right and none of them are wrong. Do you know what I mean? You can have a lifestyle job or you can run a business, and I just want to get that. I don't want people sat thinking, oh Christ, well, there's only me, there's only me and and me and my own. I want to stop. I haven't really got a business. You have, it's just a lifestyle business, and when you go away, your business, you park it up, you turn everything off, and you go away, relax, and do what you need to do. And I think clearing that up at the start it is really important for this episode. We don't want to alienate people from the get-go with it.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Uh yeah, I agree, and I think to be honest, it's just as important because if it is just you, well, you've got even less time and less resources. So making yourself as efficient as possible will benefit you just as much. It it, like you said, if if if you don't want to grow a big business, that's absolutely fine. But you still need these systems in place because you can't you can try. We've all we've all been the accountant and the marketer and the cleaner and the labourer, we've we've all been the same, you know, the pet wearing all the different hats for a business. But I'd imagine that most people, even if you are a one-man band, you get into business because you want to work for yourself and you want some element of freedom, right? And you want to earn a certain amount of money. Otherwise, why would you do it? You just go and get a job. So sometimes I think the danger is with it, not just in this business, but any business, people start working for themselves, but they get so caught up in it and doing everything that they're they're a slave to it then, and then what is the point of doing it? Because you probably you aren't earning as much as you could do if everything was efficient and you've got no time. So, you know, you're doing it, we do it for ourselves, we do it to make better lives, don't we, for ourselves. So you've got to find ways to enjoy it and make it more efficient, otherwise, you're just gonna, like I said, you'll become a slave to it and you'll end up resenting it, and that's not what any of us want because we're all entrepreneurs, we're all business people. So, no matter what level you want to get to, we've got to put systems in place, haven't we? Otherwise, yeah, it's it can it'll turn into chaos either way, and that's not what anyone wants. So, um, so yeah, it's definitely important. So, um, let's talk about then efficiency. So, so there's there's there's lots of ways that we could look at this. We think we could talk about leads, we could talk about making the cleaning process uh more efficient. Where do you think we could we should start here? What what topic should we pick to go into first?

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Um for me, for me, right, BNX military, it is drilled into you that all your shit is in one sock, so you know where everything is, and I and I see it over and over again, and I think there's another podcast going round at the moment with I think it's PWS, and they go in the back of boys and girls fans, and they're just in shit state, right? They're in absolute shit state, there's kit everywhere, right? Can you imagine? I can't imagine getting to a job on Monday morning opening the back of my van, and there's just kit everywhere, and you I see them hunting for this and hunting for that, and I just that and that that for me that's where it starts. That everything has a place. If you need a 10mm spanner, you can go straight to your van and get that 10mm spanner. If you need a turbo nozzle, you go to your van and get that if you're looking round for stuff, literally you're not efficient, and that's where it really, really starts because most people start, don't they? One man band in the van, the van is the office, they're on the phone, and at the start, you haven't got the money to put in the structure and outsourcing the tasks at the start to make you efficient, you know, office administration side. But there's nothing stopping you from being efficient in your van and efficient on the job, you know. So, like going out on a Sunday and doing all your chemicals, testing all your pumps, testing all your pressure washers, filling all your fuels up, drying and cleaning all your cloths, making sure your van is packed and loaded, ready to go. If it's gonna be hot, stick in five or six bottles of water under your seat. So everything, when you get to the site, you know your pressure washer's gonna work, you know your lance is gonna work, you know your hoses are clean, you've got cans of WD 40, your chemicals are pre-mixed, everything is ready, and when it gets hot, you've got bottles of water under your seat. That is where everybody, if you're just starting your journey, make sure that your van is like that. If you're opening the back doors to your van and you can't find things, that that's just it's killing you, it's making the job harder and longer for you. Everything needs a place, so that's where I would be starting. Right at the start, making sure your van is squared away and your van is super efficient for you to do your work 100%.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Yeah, I agree. I think that has a psychological effect as well. Um, you'll know that being if if that's drilled into you for years, but I've always adopted it. Just little things like you know, like making your bed in the first thing as soon as you get up, it's really simple, but that has a follow-on impact for the rest of the day. And I think if you have if you take pride in your van and you and you have everything co-organised and you make sure you've got spares of everything, even little things like O-rings, like I remember when the first time one of my O-rings went, I didn't even know what was going on. I didn't have any. I had to go to the shop halfway through a job loss over time. Filling up your petrol before, I was kind of something, like you said, making sure your petrol's all filled up and your spares full as way Jerry can. So you can because ultimately what it comes down to is you want to try and do as many jobs as possible in the day, because then you would or you know do as much work as you can because that's going to bring you back more money. And I I've been there, I've been in my bolingo with everything crammed in and not knowing where anything was, and it's absolute chaos, and you can't you can't grow like that. Now now the van's organized and there's everything's in place and there's much more space. But I do think if you once it is all there and tired and you know where everything is, then you're more likely to follow that through then, and then it will that will impact other parts of your business. Because if your van's messy, if you can't be asked to look after your van, you ain't gonna be asked to look after your your back-end systems or any of that kind of stuff, are you? So it definitely has a as a as an impact on it. Um yeah, okay, so that's that's the first thing then. So I thought so it's part of finding bottlenecks as well, I think, isn't it? Um because when you realise like I remember you said to me when you when you do your roof cleans, it's like a military operation, isn't it, with you and your um you and your labourer. And that I think have not if you if everything's a mess and everything's chaotic, then you couldn't be like that. Like talk us through what what kind of process is with you and your um you and your labour then because you've said before it's like a military operation, haven't you? Because you do a lot of what do you do, like four or five roofs a week?

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Every week.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

And you can't you can't do that if that's if if your systems aren't in place and you know where everything is, can you?

SPEAKER_02 10:13

And the other thing with that is right, is our next available date, I think, is the first of October. So jobs can't run over. They can't run over because we've got nowhere to get them in. You know, we have to be super efficient. So I spent the first probably six weeks training um Keith on the ground operation. You know, this goes there, that's where the compressor goes, this is how the hoses go. When we get to site, when the van stops, this is your first job. Yes, it's micromanagement for the first six weeks. After the first six weeks, it's now on autopilot. We get there, we say hello, we have a quick look at the job, where we're gonna set up, where's the machine going? Happy days. We then both spring into action. I do all the uh machine work, I get the cherry picker in, I get the boards out, I do all that. Wilms doing that, he's fuelled the cobra, he's got the airlines, he's got it plugged in, he's got my pole and brush in the basket, he's got my harness out, he's got the gutters disconnected, he's got the ladders out, he's got everything set up. Literally, as we're doing it simultaneously, we then go to work. Once I get up and start cleaning, he then starts the cleanup as it's falling down. He's cleaning, he's getting the window cleaning stuff ready, he knows when I'm gonna need the chemicals, he's pulling the hoses off the van, he's turning the chemicals on, he's getting the chemical brush. Literally, by the time I step out of that basket at the end of the day, everything's done. Everything is pretty much squared away. Whilst I'm loading the machine back on the trailer, he's normally knocking on the door and doing the handover, and then we're in the van and gone. And that's why we're able to finish most days at three o'clock. You know, it's not not that we're not that we're you know, we're not stopping for lunch or we're not having breaks or we're not having a coffee, it's just that you know, I and and this this this makes me laugh. A client sent me a video the other day of a house that they were cleaning, and he said, Matt, look at this, brilliant, ten past six, and we're almost done. And I looked in and I thought we'd have been home at halfway. Because that's what we've drilled in to the routine, you know. The routine is that efficient that it allows us to be in and out. Um, but but it is like and it is like a military operation, and for six weeks it doesn't work for everyone, right? There is some labourers that will go fucking doing that, no chance. Although not for me, you know. Keith's come in, he's bought into it, because he's bought into it and gone, well, if I learn what I need to do and become super efficient as a team, guess what? I'll be home by R3 every day. Winner winner. He gets paid a full day, so he's having a right touch, but it is that everything has a place, yeah, and and everything has to happen in a certain sequence for us to be efficient. Um, and that was it. It just took about six weeks of training, Keith. Um, every day, every clean, go through the stages, this is how we do it, but not just this is how we do it, but this is why we do it. Why do we load the van in a certain way? Because everything has a place and it has to go in that place. Why is that? Because if I go to the van, if you've put something somewhere else, and then I have to walk round the back of the house and say to you, okay, we're we're we're we're I can't find the 10 mil spanner. Oh yeah, I'll put it in the glove box. I don't put it in the glove box. That's why if it has a place, so then we both know where everything lives. We're never hunting for anything. We are literally you take it from that place, it goes back to that place. And it may sound a bit, it may sound a bit, you know, pedantic, a bit anal, a bit, well, that's a bit much, but I promise you, Christ, it speeds the day up, it makes things so much more efficient, it changes the game for you.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Well, it got it drills home the fact that we said earlier systems create freedom and it will reduce your stress as well. But also, you know what I'm thinking there, I'm thinking if if you document that, I don't know if you do, as in literally like either you film the whole process once or you put it down on paper, almost like a manual. Uh I think Imagine if something like so you're booked up until September now, right? October, sorry. Just imagine if you broke both your legs tomorrow or something horrible happened, right? And you couldn't work.

SPEAKER_02 15:05

Thanks.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

That's a horrible horrible scenario. I hope it doesn't happen. I hope you don't break your break your legs. But if you did, imagine if you you could that the option is there to get a new roof cleaner in. And if if it everything is documented, it's almost like a handover, bam, here you go. Here's our system, here's our process, and it stops you losing money. And and and also when you said building to sell, if you ever do sell, decide to sell, then it's all there. It's all there for someone to come and step up, take in and step over and go, perfect. So this is their systems, bam. Nothing's nothing changes. Yes, then you might want to tweak it if someone else does it, but it it it gives you the opportunity to step out to your business, whether it's through injury or choice and and wanting to say goodbye to the business. It allows you to do that, it gives you that freedom, doesn't it? Whereas if it's all chaos and it's in your head, that's just never gonna happen. It's not. So um let's let's hope you don't break your legs.

SPEAKER_02 15:58

No, that's so yeah, be nice. It is, it's uh I think I think with it right, uh a look at the van. I I know I can say to Keith, go and get X, or he can ask me to go, and we just know exactly where it is. There's no there's no hunting for it, you know. So that little bit of time to go and get it, we're not hunting, we're not messing around. I think I think if people adopt a military-style van and a military-style operation, um you know, and it and it was drilled into me from a young age, right? You need to know what everything is at three o'clock in the morning when you're being attacked, you need to know where your boots are, where your rifle is, where your bag is. You ain't got time to go looking for it, and and that's I've just brought that into. And I think anybody ex-military watching this will understand that that your van literally is needs to be organised so you know where everything is all the time, and that that's just a real big that that summit, it's free, it doesn't cost you anything, you just need a little bit of time on a Saturday, organise your van, and that's where it stays. Job done. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

I think all the all the top guys that I know they do the same thing. You know, if you look at the really good roof cleaning companies, they're all militant like that. Um, I know when I first started, I went I went up with a company up north and spent three days with them. And I remember we got to the first site, and Ben and Mine I was in training, and they all just got out of the van without without saying anything to each other and just started doing their they all had their assigned role. And they weren't saying anything to me. I was just watching them. I was like, what the hell's going on here? But then one was on the tower, one was uh plugging the hoses in, one was doing all this, and I was just like, wow, this is crazy, it's unbelievable. It's so much more it I think it elevates you and it and it also looks way better to the customer as well. Not only does it save time and make your business more efficient, you just look at the real deal and they're more likely to recommend you then, instead of some cowboy rocking up with his everything falling out of the van and not knowing what he's doing and taking three days when it should take half a day. I think it just looks it looks better overall. Um okay, so that's um so that's kind of on the job uh systems that you can do. Let's talk about um more for the business owner then. So, what do you reckon takes the most time for business owners, would you say, looking at it? Like in a tip in a typical week for a standard clean, even if it's just one man or a uh, you know, a multi-van outfit, what is do you reckon takes up the most time and gives you most stress?

SPEAKER_02 18:31

And you're probably not gonna you're probably not you're probably not gonna guess what I'm gonna say. But do you know what it is if you do it right? Social media.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

I uh I agree.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

So social media. If nowadays, you know, there's two ways of answering this. If I go back 20 years when I was, you know, five, six years into my journey, I would say invoicing, chasing, pricing would be the thing that tied me up. But fast forward to today, and I would say social media, I I would say to be constant on social media across all platforms, whether you're doing short form, long form, reels, posting, uh before, afters, drone flying, time-lapse, interviews, uh paid ads, I I would say, I would say I probably spend easily two and a half hours a day on on my social media content. Granted, you may you may think a lot like I only spent a couple of minutes, but the time to record it, to re-record it, to check it, to to put it through, to have the captions put on, to make it relevant to what we're doing, then you make a mistake, then you want to change it and X, Y, and Z, right? And then post it across multiple platforms every day. And it's not every day for a week, and then you can't be asked for a month, it's every day. Every day. Some days are really hard because some days you're really up against it. But that that I would say, if you if you're serious in 2026 about exterior cleaning, then social media is one of the biggest jobs you're gonna have to do. That it's just one of the biggest jobs you're gonna have to do, right? And then there's a flip side to that, because I believe me, my personal take on it is it's one of the jobs you can't farm out. I see big companies farming out their social media to a social media manager, and it's wank. There's no correlation to the company, it's all corporate, it's all corporate images, it's the logo, and I just think what you're probably paying them, you're probably paying them several thousand pounds a month to post three or four times a day, and then and I and I'm not gonna name them, I'm not gonna name the companies, right? Because that's not what we're here today, but I look at their social media and I just think, what are you doing? What are you doing? You know, founders, founders, you know, personal brand founders will be more passionate about their business, more authentic to their customers, than somebody you're paying a couple of grand a month because she's great on Canva and she can put your logo and a and a time lapse up for you, mate. I and I know what they're gonna say, people watching this, well, I ain't got time, Matt. I haven't got time to do two and a half hours a day. I and I get that because we're busy. But I'll tell you what I do. My day starts at four o'clock. The first hour and a half of my day is planning my social media. I'll make notes. I may even record some stuff. I'll go and I'll go to the Cobra office and I'll do some stuff there. I'll come into my office. So before the working day has even started, I've probably done an hour and a half of social media getting it ready, getting it drilled down. So when I go on site, I've got a plan. And that that's what people are missing. People say, Oh, I ain't got time, you know. You have just get up earlier. Get up earlier, start earlier, and get that's where efficiency starts. Lying in your bed till seven o'clock isn't being efficient. And I'm not one of these mentors that says, get up at four o'clock, ice bath, meditate, 15 minutes of reading, you know, go and have a herbal tea and go and smash yourself in the gym for 90 minutes. I'm not, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but unfortunately, if you're running a small medium enterprise and you're still doing the lion's shirt of the work, because the money isn't there to farm out other tasks, you've got to start your day earlier. Just start it earlier, get up at half four, get up at five o'clock, get in the zone, get a coffee, get your electrolytes, get on social media, start planning the day. But I would say social media is is the biggest killer for any small medium enterprise nowadays, 100%.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

Yeah, first of all, I want to go back to the inner sec when you said because the money's not there, that's a bit that's a really big uh issue, and I think that leads on to other things. But first with social media, yeah, I agree. I think with social media, you have to be, you know, you have to be um regular, you have to be posting three, four times a week, every week, to see a difference. And it's really easy. If you miss one week or you miss two weeks, it's very easy to turn into three, four, then isn't it? And it when you when you lose that the habit, I mean what is it, 21 days to make a habit. Sorry, my camera's playing up here, it's all going crazy. The sun's going the sun's shining right in. Sorry. Um yeah, 21 days to make a habit. If you if you don't stick at it, so if you don't keep um posting and getting to that rhythm of doing it, you're very unlikely to stick to it, and then it's going to affect you long term. Um with social media, uh a CRM is really, really helpful and useful. I don't know if you use that. I don't I don't think you do, I'm not sure, but um CRMs basically they they save you so much time. So on the CRM that I use, um you can schedule all your social media in one go. So you can like batch schedule it. So um maybe like once a week you could do looking at it. If you if you can dedicate a time uh like one day a week to all your admin stuff, if you if you can, you can bat you can batch post everything. So you you you upload it onto your CRM, you put your captions, your hashtags in, choose your platform, Insta, TikTok, whatever, and then you can schedule like up for the next week or two, and it'll save you so much time. Um and so if you're if you don't have the time at all right now, try and work out something like that. So use a CRM and plan it in advance, and then you then you don't have to worry about it then for the next two weeks. And then you maybe you do it again two weeks later for the next two weeks, that makes sense. If you if you can't do it like you've just said, find a way to do it. There are ways around it if you if you don't want to do that every day. But um I think the message is you have to stick at it, isn't it? And because you just won't you will never follow through with it. Um what you just said about the money not being there, that's interesting, I think. It's really interesting. It's like a trade-off, isn't it? It's like do you save money but make your life more stressful and do everything yourself, or do you outsource it and and and farm it out? Not necessarily farm it out, but delegate. Delegate's a big one, Jimba. I think we said on the last uh podcast, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together. And uh and and learning to delegate and finding people to do the jobs that you can't do another time to do, that will take you further, way further than you realise. Um so do you do what stuff do you delegate with? Do you I mean I guess we have an accountant and stuff, don't you? But do you do you try and you know pass on tasks to other members of your team as much as you can?

SPEAKER_02 26:19

We we we do, and and across all businesses, right? So across my four businesses, everything is delegated. I've got my roles in each business, and each business I've got a different role in each business, and then team members, directors, and partners have all got a different role in those businesses as well. Because you want the people with with the best strengths doing the jobs that suit them. I I'm not the best at all sorts, so I don't do it. You know, I just don't do it. I don't do I don't do what I'm not good at, I do what I'm good at, you know. And if we take the roof cleaning, right? There's there's two of us in the roof cleaning, but I'm great at cleaning roofs, I'm great at selling, I'm great at the social media, all the administration, the booking, the invoicing, the chasing, the reviews, the insurances, the chemical ordering, the machine servicing, the lowlers, the van emotes. I I I can't do any of that. So Tessa does all that. She runs the office like a military operation. Everything is done. Doesn't matter when the van needs the van. I just get told it's in my diary. You know, you're not cleaning that day, the van's going in, you're not doing that, that's getting serviced. She does all that. Um but I but I'll tell you a funny story about delegation, right? I moved into my first office in Swindon in probably 2010, maybe. I come out of like everyone, I came out of a spare bedroom or a kitchen table and thought this was it. It's getting too big. I need to be in an office because I need somebody to do the administration. So I moved into this office and then I recruited my first clerical member of staff. This young lady applied from she'd just graduated with her first in business studies from Bristol University, and she came to work for me, right? And we had this office that was two desks facing each other, and yeah, a tiny little box, right? And we had a phone in the middle, and every time the phone rang, I used to grab it before she got to answer it. And in the end, she said to me, It's pointless me being here, innit? She said, It's pointless me being here because you're just gonna do everything, and she said, That's not how it works, and I was like, ah, and that conversation then changed the rest of my life, that conversation, because then I just went, Yeah, she's right. Why am I answering the phone? That's what she's paid to do, and I'm taking her job. And once I did that, we we struggle as entrepreneurs, right? And the reason we struggle, we honestly believe that nobody does it as good as us, nobody, so that's the mindset we've got, right? That no one does it as good as us. But once you start letting people in, and don't get me wrong, people will fucking mess it up and not do it as good as you until you get the right people in, and then what you'll find is they do it better than you, they do it quicker than you, they do it smarter than you, you know, and then all of a sudden you're like ah, and then the mind, then the mindset changes, right? You start doing things that you're good at building, future proofing, future planning, thinking of bigger tasks, bigger numbers, how we're gonna grow, and let your team do all the stuff they're really good at, and then all of a sudden, then you'll see the growth. Then you see the growth. But if you are obsessed with keeping everything to yourself, you are going nowhere. One, it will be not a nice place to work because people don't want to be micromanaged, people want to be given responsibility, they want to have ownership for their role, and that works both ways. If it's good, they're praised, if they get it wrong, then they're fucking told they got it wrong. But people buy into that. If you give people enough space in a company, they will flourish. Zoe, who is my MD of the fire security company, she came to me 15 years ago as a part-time administrator. She's worked her way up to MD. MD of a multi-million pound fire security company from an administrator.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

That's great.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

Because we we give her space, we give her training, we give her encouragement, we let her flourish, we let her bring her ideas, we let her have her say. You know, but not only do we give her the MD's role, right? We actually give her I think we give her 20% of the company.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

So she owns 20% of the company. You know, you you find an owner that that does that. That that's when you find good people, you buy into good people. And if you buy into them and give them that space, your your company will flourish. 100%, I promise you.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

I think it I think it comes down to um like you said, you feel like no one will do it as good as you. I think it comes down to something a bit deeper. I think you think I I I felt like this when I've hired before. They don't care, they won't care as much as you. That's I think that's what's deeper down. You think I've built this, this is my baby, this is my business, and do I want to hand it over to someone who's not gonna not gonna care as much? But I don't think it matters. No one will ever care as much as you will they for your business. They just won't. They just not like the woman that you you're describing there, I'm sure she sounds amazing, but deep down she probably doesn't care as much as you do because you should how can she? It's not it's yours. Um and I think it doesn't matter. I don't think it matters that these people don't care, like let that go. You can they can still do an even better job than you without caring as much. It can even be better because they don't have the emotional attachment to it. And I think the thing is to think what a few things. First of all, what task would you love to never do again? I think that's a I think it's something to think about. And then also a thing to think about is do you want to spend your time doing tasks that are X amount per hour? Or do you want to do tasks that are like direct to CEO tasks that are gonna bring you back money? Because we all have the same amount of time in a day. Do you want to spend it doing accounts? Do you want to spend it scheduling social media? Do you want to spend with it doing these little tasks, or do you want to spend it fucking making something that's gonna bring more business to you and more bring you more income? Do you want to do high-level tasks? I think that's what we've got to think about, isn't it? You've got to what do you want from it? If you want to grow it, you can't be doing these smaller tasks that are gonna take up all your time. You have to you have to sort out what can be what doesn't need you and put your energy into growing the business. I think that's where people go wrong, I think, in all aspects of of business, not just in in cleaning. Would you agree?

unknown 33:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:43

I I do, yeah, but I I also think that people outsource these jobs too early.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

And they outsource them because they're not efficient in their own lives.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Can they get excited?

SPEAKER_02 33:56

And I think there's a yeah, yeah, yeah. They grow too quickly, right? U and they they don't want to do the cleaning, or they don't want to do the accounts, or they don't want to do the social media. And a little bit of it is because they want to puff the chest out and make it look like they're doing really well, and it's a bit of an ego thing. One of the best things I could really give, especially if you're starting out right, is do every job. Because if you do every job, you understand every job. You can't employ somebody to come in and run your operations if you don't know how to run operations yourself. How do you employ a bookkeeper if you don't know your basic numbers? You know, you you've got to know. You know, how do you employ um someone for sales if you can't sell? You know, you've you've got to do all these jobs, and I'm not saying you do them forever, I'm just saying you you've got to be you as an entrepreneur, right? I I honestly believe that you know the old saying, jack of all trades, master and on. I think that's a real big thing for entrepreneurs, right? Because I think you're better off being a jack of all trades. I can sell, I can do my numbers, I can do a bit of marketing, I can clean, I can drive the cherry picker, I can do accounts, I can do hiring, I can do firing, I can do planning. There's not one there that I'd say I'm absolutely nailed on brilliant at. But what I would say is I can do them really, really good, and if I want someone to do it instead of me, then I know what I'm asking and what I'm telling them to do. And that I think that's really important. But what we do when we start off right, we get obsessed with cleaning and the accounts and everything behind the scenes because it's mundane and we can't be arsed doing it, we don't do it. We think we'll just go cleaning, we'll go cleaning, we'll get paid, and that'll be it. And everything else in the background will just fall into place. Well, it doesn't, it doesn't fall into place. Yes, we've got to earn money, yes, we need to keep busy, but you've also got to make the time. You know, when I see these business owners and I say to them, what are you doing the weekend? Oh nothing. I've got two days off. Oh, have you got two days off? Have you got two days off? What time do you start in the morning? Oh, don't leave the house till late. Right, what time are you home? About half four. What have you got what are you doing at night? Nothing. And I'm like, I how? How? I have always, always, always, and always, not just now, but for the last 26 years, I've worked weekends, I've worked nights, and I've worked early mornings. Always. Because there's always something that needs to be done. And it doesn't matter if you're a one-man band or there's a hundred of you, there is always something that has to be done. But people just don't do it, they just can't be asked, and then they wonder why they end up in a mess. Because they're just not doing what they need to do.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

Um Yeah, it's it's easy to get into chaos, isn't it? But I I I I don't think everyone's cut out for being an entrepreneur. Um and I don't think they realise it. I think that some people become cleaners and and they they think they're an entrepreneur, and it's not to have a go at anyone, but are they really? I don't know. I'm not sure. Like it goes back to do you own a business or a job? I think it goes back to that. And it's and it's okay not to it's okay to to not be one or the other, you know what I mean? You can be whichever one, it's fine. But if you if you think you want to be an entrepreneur but you're not doing the things that entrepreneurs do, it's gonna catch up with you eventually, and that's when we go into chaos and overwhelm, and then it's panic stations, isn't it? It's like we said before, digging you well before you're thirsty. That's the that's a phrase I I think of a lot. Um, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

I I think you know I think the mindset we we we use the word entrepreneur, right? We use it quite a lot, and we talk about it quite a lot. I I would say that my definition of an entrepreneur for me is someone that solves problems. That that's what it is. You as an entrepreneur, you are there. If you're gonna be an entrepreneur, then your ta your role is problem solver, whichever whichever industry you're in, for me, uh a real life, like you know, who who's probably one of the most famous entrepreneurs? Elon Musk. What does he do? He solves problems, right? You know, the American government brought him in on the last predecessor when Donald Trump got made up to sort out the business of the American economy. You know, he's as mad as a brush, Elon Musk, isn't he? Mad as a brush. But he was brought in to solve that out because real entrepreneurs are problem solvers, and I I think I think there's a I think sometimes the lines get blurred whether you're an entrepreneur or or you're a business owner, right? And I think we use the word entrepreneur quite a lot, but I think I think realistically we should look at external cleaning companies more as business owners than entrepreneurs, um, and especially if you're only doing one thing, you know, entrepreneurial spirit is the multiple businesses, the multiple profitable business solving problems. I think if you're and I think that that's really some, and we could do another podcast about this, can't we? Because business owner entrepreneur are probably two different things for me. That that would be my take.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

I agree. I I Googled it then as you were talking, what the actual definition is, and you're pretty close to be fair. An entrepreneur is an individual who organises, operates, and assumes the financial risks of a new business venture, risk tolerance, vision, and innovation initiative. Pretty much all the things that you just said. Um so I think yeah, I think I think being I think entrepreneurialism, I think it's I think it's innate. I think it's a certain type of person. Um because if if you look at entrepreneurs around the world, they're all they're all very similar, I think. They'll do similar things, all the things that you just mentioned, then that's listed there, they do. Um I'm not I think it can be taught, but I think it's in you, I think it's a drive that you have in you to do it. Because not everyone wants the stress of it. And like we and like we were saying, you know, people a lot of people might just want to clean a few drives and go home and take the pocket money. That's absolutely fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But but there's some people who who want to you know reach for the moon that they absolutely do, and I think you can tell those people. Uh yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

Yeah, I I think I I I fall into that category, right? I I I've had nice, easy lives, nice easy businesses, but I'm always driven for the next thing. You know, look at look at Cobra, right? There was a I had a problem in my roof cleaning business. I couldn't get what I needed to keep my business going. So what have I done? I've now formed another company, manufactured everything in UK, importing from Italy. So I now self-supply. I self-supply my other business. When I say who supplies Cottswall roof cleaning? Cobra does. Who owns Cobra? I do. That to me is entrepreneurial. That that is where you go out of your way. You know, I put I put thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds on the line on a gamble with Cobra. There was no I could have lost every penny. I could have lost every penny in the blink of an eye. You know, that to me is is entrepreneurial, that you go that extra mile to solve problems that you have, and I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

There, there's always we should do a separate episode about this because I want to get too sidetracked, but no, absolutely, yeah. If you I mean I read a lot of books as in as in um autobiographies, I just love them. I just love reading people's stories and and then and find out how people got successful. And entrepreneurial um books, there's always something they were close to losing it all, or they went through a tough time, and then they got over it and then they found a way. And that that is the entrepreneurial that the entrepreneurial spirit, I think. Uh, and that's knowing how to going back to it, it's knowing how to be efficient and and to organise things because in chaos you need a calm mind and you need experience and you need to have structure, otherwise you'll just crumble. Absolutely. Um, I want to talk a bit about follow-up with leads. So, jumping back a bit here, um, so we talked about being effective and putting your operational um processes in place with the van and being on the tools. Um, let's talk a bit about leads and follow-up systems and and kind of quoting and stuff like that. So, um, something that I'm a big uh advocate of is having a CRM system, like I mentioned earlier, but having a full automated follow-up system. And if it's not automated, having the next best thing um if you have like, I don't know, you you have obviously someone in place to do all your follow ups, but if you don't have if you don't have your follow up process, be it an automated message or employing someone, that is that's somewhere that's that's something that's gonna ruin your business absolutely. If you're getting the leads in, but you have no way you're not getting back to them quickly, you don't know how you don't know where they've come from, you don't know what we what a lead is worth to you, you don't know your conversion rates or All these things that is a huge system that I think a lot of people struggle and fail with uh in this injury, would you agree?

SPEAKER_02 44:08

Yeah, I I I think um I think the problem with it is nowadays, you know, society people's buy-in has changed and it's developed so much now and we call it speed to lead, don't we? Because uh people haven't got time to wait for an exterior cleaner to call them five days later to talk about uh jet washing the patio that they're not interested, it it's done. Sat here today now. I want my patio jet washed, I find you, I inquire, I expect you to come back to me at ASAP. Why? Because my life's really busy. If you don't come back to me really quickly, then I'm on to the next one. Yeah, you're done, you've had your chance, and and I think that really is a a big a big point of it that we do we do lose that. Um people don't get that. They I still hear it, I still have discovery calls with people who are on the tools, and I'm saying, oh, how's your leads go? Yeah, yeah, getting the leads. And how often do you how quick do you get back to them? Oh, you know, what well I might do it on a Friday night or a Saturday morning, and I'm going, well, when did the leads come in? Oh, through the week. How many leads have you had? Oh, I'll get about 10, 15 a week. What? And you're waiting five days to go back to them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you busy? No, not really. I'm just like that, really, and it is, and that that efficiency. So, but it's like you said, doesn't matter whether you've got AI, somebody in the office, or you're doing it yourself, as long as you've got something in place to make that process efficient, but then we led on with that, didn't we? We're talking about when I say to people, I've got I've got somebody just finished a 12-week mentoring, right? When he started to meet, and I said to him, your leads, where are they coming from? Oh, I don't know. How many do you get a week? I don't know. How many are you converting? I don't know. Just like that. But he, you know, he was he was making good money, but he knew absolutely nothing about any of it. So I'm saying to him, how do you know what works, what doesn't work, and how do you know where to put your money to get the most out of your money? He said, Well, I don't. So that's why I'm sat in front of you, man. Okay, yeah, all right. And I sort of went, right, okay, yeah, I get that. But he being but he's not on his own, right? People don't get this. It's people are prepared to spend good money, you know, they're they're throwing good money on potentially bad ideas where if they if they just track the data for a quarter, they could probably save themselves money. Right, how many people come to you, right? How many people come to you to have your service that are still spending maybe a grand on checker trade, three grand on leaflets, you know, uh a grand or five hundred quid on the village magazine, you know, or they're paying some wanky Facebook group 20 quid a month, right?

SPEAKER_00 47:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

And they are right, they're doing it, right? They're doing this. And this isn't knocking people, but they're doing it. And then they come to you and you put them all Facebook, Instagram, ads, AI, all the bells, all the whistles, and all of a sudden that little investment with you is making them 10x that they've ever made. But they carry on doing the wanky stuff, and and it's you've got to get you've got to know what works for your business. Now, at times different things will work, but if you're not monitoring what works and what the return on investment is, how do you know where to put your money? Yeah, they're just throwing money down the drain constantly with it, and I think that's a real big issue in this interview.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

I think if people say it like the go-to seems to be leaflets for pressure washing, that's what all the Discord say. But like you said, how are you ever gonna track them unless you put metrics in place to track them, which is hard for leaflets? You know, you have to know everything, you have to know what month, what month it adds work best for you. You have to have to know overall what is your return on investment, you've got to know when things slow down, because then you can track trends, like we said before, you know, it's a bit slow at the minute for a lot of people it's summer, bookings slow down. If this is your first year, you might shit the bed here and go, Oh my god, it's all panicking, it's not, you know, it's all falling down, it's not working. But if last year tells you, well, guess what, June was a little slow last year in July, you're okay, you're right, it'll pop up again in August and September. But if you don't have that data, you you just don't know, and and it's so hard to scale. Um, but it goes back to what we said at the start is you know, think you gotta think like a businessman because you you just you just have to you have to put these systems in place to to to know this, otherwise you'll never know it and uh and you won't grow.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

I and I think ultimately, right? Ultimately, people do this because they want a better life, right? They want a better life. There's no getting away around it, they want independence, they want more financial freedom, and they want a better life. So if you're serious about that and you're not just fucking playing around at it, then put these processes and it's not hard, is it, right? Every time you get a lead, write it on a piece of paper. If you're not good on a computer, write it on a piece of paper. Draw yourself a piece of A4 paper and put Google, Facebook, paid ads, leaflet, and every time you get a lead, put a tick in it. And at the end of the week go, oh I've had six from I've had six from Facebook, or I've had three from leaflets, go one step further. If you convert them, put the figures at the bottom and then underneath that put your spends so you know you're spending a thousand pounds on Facebook. You can look down and go, well, we generated ten grand. That's a winner. We spent a thousand pounds on leaflets and we generated 270 quid because Jenny wants to drive jet washing. Right. I ain't fucking doing that again. My £20 on the Facebook groups was a zero, okay, but it gets me a bit of exposure, you know, and Google AdWords. I spent £500 and it generated $1200. Okay, it washes its face. You've then got the data to make informed decisions where you put your money, otherwise, you're just fucking opening the window and throwing it down the road. Come on, let's be sensible about it. You don't have to be a whiz on a computer. Just get a pen and paper, mate. If you can't spell, just put the initial of what it is and put a tick in the box every time you get it. That's all I'm asking you to do. Because it will massively change your spending. And it and it will massively increase your sales. Because it'll include it won't increase your sales, it'll increase your leading.

SPEAKER_00 51:40

It will show you how to how to grow. If X gets me Y amount of jobs, then that's why we've got to spend. If you want double Y, spend double X. It's it's that, it's as simple as that. It's just metrics. Um cool. Alright, seven, eight minutes left. We've got a question each, and we've got a listener question that I want to get through. So this might be a bit this might be a bit rushed. After me saying I think last episode I think last episode of Sono, it's not gonna be we don't it's it's not rushed anymore. Okay. Um I was thinking of one for you there. Uh one question each. Um if you started a pressure washing slash roof cleaning business tomorrow, what's the first system you put in place? What's number one?

SPEAKER_02 52:21

Marketing. That's what I've just spoken about. Knowing exactly because I I I've told the story, haven't I, about the Yell.com 20,000 rip off. Yeah, not doing that again, but yeah, I I would I would put that in place because everybody needs marketing straight away and everyone needs to account for it. Don't just spend it aimlessly hoping and guessing that it's gonna work and not knowing marketing. Definitely uh question for you Um What's the most efficient thing that you implemented in any of your businesses?

SPEAKER_00 53:06

CRM system. Absolutely, does everything schedule all my socials, all my leads come in, I can communicate the leads through that, tracks all my all my Facebook ads, tracks my conversion rates, tracks how many people book calls with me, um, automate all my follow-ups. Absolutely, CRM system. Not as easiest, that's the easiest one you've ever asked me. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. So uh last bit of the show, we have uh we started implementing one question uh a week from listeners. Uh we've got one here. It how long I got five, five, six minutes. I think it ties in nicely. Um, I think. So I'm gonna read it out here. Uh it says another amazing pod, boys. Thank you very much. Uh I was wondering for a future episode if you could go into the cycle of work a little bit more weeks a week. I'm looking to build my business into a four-day working week on the tools plus one day of limited admin. Do you guys have a formula for this? Maybe a question more for Michael, as I know Matt has other businesses, so it might blow the lines. No, Matt can answer that. We can just keep it for his roof cleaning business. He's basically saying he wants to keep all his work into four days on one admin day. Uh, what formula does he need to make that happen? That's his question.

SPEAKER_02 54:20

Cool. Okay, cool. Well, well, I'd say the first thing you need to do is go right back to the start of the pods and understand your numbers because that formula will only work if you understand your numbers. So if you need to um let let's keep it simple, right? If you need to um a thousand pounds a week and you're only gonna work four days, you need to earn 250 quid a day. Yeah, right. So understand your numbers, that will give you what you need to earn in a week over five days. If you only want to work four days, then split it over the four days, that will give you your daily earnings for four days, and your fifth day is admin day. That is the simplest way to answer that. Don't just take the fifth day off if you don't know your numbers, because your numbers, as we say, don't lie, it underpins everything you do. Obviously, I just said a grand because it was an easy sum to work out through four days. But if you know your numbers, if you followed all the series that we do and you know your numbers, then making that formula work is super simple. Yes, super simple. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 55:35

And when you know those numbers, then you can also then go, fuck it, I want three days, not four. I want to work three, and maybe two, and one, then I want to get out of the business. That knowing your numbers allows you to do that. And I think I'll just pipe in there about your admin. Um, it's great to have an admin day, but know exactly what you're doing before it, don't just sit down and go, right, I've got to do some admin now. What should we do? We'll have a little look around here. It should be bam, nine to ten, we're doing social media, ten to eleven we're doing bookkeeping, etc. etc. That's what I would recommend. So you've got your your four solid days, like Matt just said, after you've worked out what you need to learn, and then you go, let's really maximise this last day here to do admin, because that day of admin will then keep you going and it will just take away all that stress, and you can just focus four days on under work then. So hopefully that has answered your question. Um, if anyone else has any questions, by the way, drop us a message on Instagram on either one of our Instagrams or comment down below on this video and we will try and know it. We've got three or four questions still to answer. But if you uh if you drop us a question, we'll try and answer one each episode. So yeah, please uh please do that. That has brought us to the end of episode seven. We're flying through them, you know.

SPEAKER_02 56:43

We are we are I can't believe it's I can't believe that's the end of episode seven. It's crazy, isn't it? Seven weeks in, isn't it? It's mad. Um seven weeks in, but I I I you know I know we speak offline, and the feedback that I've had um from people, the messages, um it it's getting traction now, and people are saying to me, mate, I'm just implementing little bits, I'm taking little nuggets away, and you know what? I I'm starting to see the difference, and that that is why we need to give it all away for free, give it all away for free, and it's it's that's how it should be.

SPEAKER_00 57:21

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_02 57:22

So I'm right, right enjoying it.

SPEAKER_00 57:24

I'm really keep the keep the messages coming in. We I get loads as well um through Instagram and stuff, messages, people saying they're loving it and they're they find it useful. I was saying to you here um the other day, I was saying all the people listening, just give everyone a shout out here because the people uh and the countries that people are listening from, uh if I go locations here, so I'm just checking, we got uh so most of it isn't obviously in Europe, so we've got 80% in the UK, but then we've got the US, we've got Belgium, Ireland, Sweden, France. We've got loads of people everywhere listening to Denmark. So hello to all of you people who are who are listening in those countries, it's mad. And uh yeah, man, get involved, ask us questions if you want to. Um like we said before, we got this is a series of 12, and that's gonna be series season one, and then we're gonna go into just open topics after that. Um, but uh yeah, so that's episode seven. Episode eight is team building and management, so that'll be coming very soon. And uh, any suggestions for future uh episodes, let us know, and please leave us a five-star review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts because it helps the uh the algorithms. So, Matt, thank you very much for joining us again.

SPEAKER_02 58:29

Yeah, and uh back to back to the grinds.

SPEAKER_00 58:32

Let's watch England tonight. Uh yeah, watch that at nine o'clock, bloody hell. I'll be asleep half time. And that's just not that's not our tactics either. I'm just knackered all the time, but nice one. Right. So um yeah, see you then then, and uh we'll see you all on the next episode.

SPEAKER_02 58:48

Cheers, pal, take care.