Episode 8: Staff and Recruitment

In this episode of The Clean Hour, we discuss one of the biggest transitions every growing pressure washing business owner faces — building and leading a great team.

Hiring your first employee can feel daunting, but the right people, systems, and leadership approach can transform your business and give you the freedom to grow beyond working on the tools.

We discuss:
✅ Knowing when it's the right time to hire
✅ Finding the right people for your business
✅ Creating a positive team culture
✅ Setting clear expectations from day one
✅ Leading with confidence instead of micromanaging
✅ Managing performance and accountability
✅ Delegating effectively to free up your time

Whether you're considering your first hire or already managing a growing team, this episode will help you become a stronger leader and build a business that doesn't rely on you doing everything yourself.

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning or good afternoon or good evening actually wherever you are, wherever you are. Welcome back to the seventh episode of the Clean Hour Podcast. Is it seven? No, it's not. It's the eighth episode of the Clean Hour Podcast. It's team building and management today. So welcome back. Hope you're enjoying the series so far. Matt, you alright? Welcome back.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Thank you. Yeah, all good, pal. All good. Busy, busy week since our last one. It's manic at the moment. But yeah, all good. All really good. Everything's positive. A couple of little bumps in the road. But yeah, generally, we're good, man. We're really good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Good, man. That's business. That is business. Okay, episode eight. Let's get into it, man. Team builders and management. I thought this sounded quite corporate on our notes. But then when I thought about it, it's but it's essentially hiring, isn't it? It's how to when to hire, how to hire, how to keep people, how to find the right people, that kind of stuff. Which is important. Whether you want to be seven, eight bands on the road, it applies to you. If you want to be a one-man band, you still might need a labourer or or someone doing your admin or something. So it applies to everyone. And you know this, you've had lots of businesses where you've hired at one point. You can tell me in a minute, but there's a lot of stuff as far as I'm aware. And I've hired as well, so we've got some experience for this. Um I guess the first thing to mention or to talk about is when's the right time to hire. Um, what just what's your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_02 1:27

Um, yeah, I I mean hiring is is is always a pinch point in it. We we get as if we start as a you know, people start as a one-man band, don't they? So we literally kick off, jump in the van, and we are doing everything. And then it gets to the point where you become successful on your own, and you're like, ah, I could do the bit of an hand, and that's when you realise that you're now working 12-15 hours a day, six days a week, maybe taking Sunday off, and you think I can't carry on like this, I need to bring somebody in to free up time for me. And I think that's the trigger point. The trigger point is you've probably got a bit of money behind you in the bank, hopefully, because you've done your numbers, you've got a bit of money in the bank, you are at the point where work is coming in steadily, there's no gaps in your diary, and you can't carry on doing what you need to do. So then you say, right, we're gonna find someone, you know. Um, and I think the bit that people miss early on is what they need in the company. Do they need somebody to do administration? Do they need someone on site with them? Do they need someone doing sales? That's the bit where I think it blurs the lines, and what what you see quite a lot is they bring somebody on site to help them because that's a natural step, in it. I'll get a lad, I'll get a labourer, but you're still doing everything, you're still doing everything. All you've done now is brought someone in to push a brush round and help you unload and load the van, but you're still doing the lion's share of the work, so it is a really tricky what what do you bring in? Me, if I could go back and start it all again, I'd probably look at bringing someone in to take the workload off me, not on site. If you're doing the work anyway, six days a week, ten hours a day on site, bringing a labourer in, yeah, it may speed it up a little bit, but by time you've taught them and got them, you're not gonna give them you're not gonna give them all the technical stuff on day one, are you? Because you'll be scared that they can't do it. You've got to train them. So bringing somebody in maybe to an administration role to take everything off you that side is gonna massively free you up, and I think that's where the lines are are blurred, but it is a tricky point. Where and when, who and what are they gonna do, and then we've got salaries, then we've got working hours, then we've got conditions, are the subcontractors, are the employed, so yeah, it is a minefield for you know people starting off and especially going to hire the first person because all of a sudden, right? You're not just you doing what you do, you're now an in you're now an employer. You've got a different set of rules that you have to adhere to. It's a completely different mindset. You're now not just doing what you want when you want, you're now the boss. You're now the boss. You've got to give pats on the back, you've got to give bollockins. There's a lot that goes into this, so yeah. I think this would be a really good subject, that's what we're gonna cover today. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Yeah, I think a lot of um cleaners or anyone who's hiring, they they they think of hiring as just getting another set of hands to help them. Whereas I think it could be or should be uh creating capacity to grow, isn't it? Like it's not just having somewhere there to sweep moss up, it's allowing you to do other things in the business and free yourself up, which then allows you to grow. Um, and I think there's a common theme I've seen before, we've spoken about it before with large roof cleaning companies. Let's talk, let's keep it to roof cleaning companies for now, who've grown, hired, grown, and then reverted back because, like you said, with hiring comes responsibility, and quite often much uh added stress, and I've seen this in previous businesses. And sometimes you sit there thinking, fuck this, this is awful. I I missed the the days where it was just me and a labour or me on my own because I was making more money and less stress, and there's just it's just way easier, but there comes a point where you have to hire, I think, isn't there? So what about um let's talk about the dangers of first of all about the common signs that you you need to hire? What do you reckon they are then? So the first sign where you go, Okay, I need to hire here, are they like warning signs or or what do you reckon?

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Yeah, and I I would say um I think everything becomes really foggy, right? You you're starting off, right? You start day one, and you are cutting about in your van, smile on your face, quoting, doing work, little bit of invoicing at night, everything's lovely. As it builds with success, everything starts to get foggy. You and you'll notice things in yourself where you're snapping at people, you're coming short, because your mind is a million miles an hour, and you are now feeling the stress of how am I gonna get that done? I'm gonna get this done, I need to do this, I need to chase that, and then all of a sudden something has to give because you physically cannot do everything. I I'm a workaholic, right? I will get up at four in the morning and work till nine o'clock at night seven days a week, but I've still got 13, 14 members of staff, and I and I still can't, you know what I mean? It is you you'll see it in yourself. The first thing you'll notice is if you're in a relationship, you've got you'll be snapping at people because the pressure of trying to get everything done will be too much, and there's a very common sign that if you try and do everything, that pressure will absolutely start destroying. How many, how many families have broken up because one of them has been trying to build a business? Yeah, and and and it's a common thing, right? If you look at most entrepreneurs, you know, they they and business owners, that the trying to separate the two is almost impossible. If you're doing everything yourself, the pressure on your family, missing family events, yeah, working while you're on holiday, it's a common thing. You'll see it, and people sat listening to this now will go, fuck me, that's me, man. I haven't taken the kids swimming for fucking four months. Why? Because on a Saturday I'm running round trying to quote, trying to chase money, trying to get chemicals, trying to get keep the business going, trying to keep the wolf from the door. They're the common signs instantly. And you've got to address that. You're better off earning less money, right, by taking somebody on, earn less money, but have a better life. Yeah. Have a better life behind you. You know, if you're earning fucking 10 grand a month and think you're fucking lovely, 10 grand a month, never earned so much money in my life, but you're working every day and your family life is suffering and your private life is non-existent. Why don't you earn six grand a month and pay somebody to take half the workload off you and get your family life back?

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Yeah, you don't have to be able to get it.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Because take ten grand in your bank and never seeing your kids, kids grew up so quick, and you'll miss that, you'll miss that, and when they've left home, you'll be like, ah, fuck mate. I didn't I didn't spend any time with them, and you'll be devastated. So don't focus on the money, focus on everything behind it. Because you're doing it for them. That's the problem, you're doing it for them. You know, you want to give your kids and your family the best life you can, but you're not spending it with them because you're always preoccupied with shit you don't need to be doing. Chasing invoices, replying to emails, answering fucking wanky phone calls from someone who's just a tire kicker. Yeah, get someone in to do all that for you. That would that's the sign.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

It's the money, the money is it all comes down to money, really. And yeah, I get it, we've both been there when it's sitting, when it's looking at you, like you just said, even if it's the difference between 10 grand or six or seven, yeah, human instinct is lit let's gather as much as we can, let's go for the ten. Um I think I I completely agree. I've been grafting, uh my head's been down for probably 18 months solid now. Because we got our firstborn due in three months, and I want to make sure that I can, you know, be with her and and and enjoy it, not constantly working twelve hours a day. But you have to do that a bit sometimes to then to set yourself free in the future. But I think if you if you hire if you hire it then gives you a plan and then almost like an as an escape to a bit more freedom. Because we said this in the last episode, you get into business because you want to work for yourself and you want more an element of freedom or money, you want more of one of the other. So if you're just slaving away because you you don't want to lose a couple of you know 10-15% of what you're earning, you're not gonna enjoy life. You know what I think's um I've seen a common uh sign is is when things get neglected. That's one for me. So like I'm I'm I'll be honest, I'm experiencing it now uh with my agency. It's so busy that things are getting neglected, like social posting and stuff. I'm I'm getting on it now, but that's a that's a sign. Before I got busy, I was posting three or four times a week.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

And now it's like once a week, if that. And that's because I need to hire, which we're getting there, but it's just a that's a sign for me. Things start slipping, and they will, because you can't do everything, it's absolutely impossible. Something will start to slip, and that for me is a sign that yeah, man, you need to we need to sort this out and get someone in.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

And when things slip, right, it's really hard. It's really hard to get them back, and I'll tell you why it's really hard. Because you're top of the tree, you've no one to answer to. You've no one to answer to, have you? If you don't want to do the social media posts, no one's gonna make you do it. If you don't want to go through your numbers, nobody's gonna make you do it. Because you're top of the tree, and you've got no one to answer to, so you're like, you're in free fall and you're just moving along doing the work, but all the mundane boring stuff, if you love jet washing patios and you're not fucking computer literate, and you don't like sitting and writing emails and doing all that, which you know, pretty much most people in this industry don't like doing that, that's not their strong point, right? Guess what? They put it to the fucking back of the list, and it just builds up and builds up and builds up and builds up. How how many fucking vans do you see driving round and they've got a dashboard full of invoices and receipts from the builders' merchants? Because they're not in they're not doing it, because it's it's the mundane stuff, but it and that's where it slips, and things slip, and once it slips, you get onto that slippery track where you can't get out of it, yeah. You know, and I think when you do employ the first person, right? Your mindset changes, your mindset changes, and it then puts you in, I believe, a proper business mindset because the game changes. You've now got somebody else that relies on you for their income, their mortgage, their rent, their living expense, and also their development. So you have to change, you can't carry on the way you was personally. You have to now self-develop because everything now is going to change. When you've got somebody that relies on you for their mortgage, you can't let the thing slip. I'm not posting on social media because I just I'm too busy, or I'm not gonna do who stop. People now rely on you. You've got to change your game, you have to change, and I think people do, or I'll rephrase that people that then have longevity, longevity, and success, they realize that and change their mindset and their game, and it has to be upped, but that comes now with more pressure because now it's not just feeding you and your family, you're feeding John and his family, you're feeding Karen and her family. So all of a sudden, when you're thinking, oh shit, month's a bit quiet, but it's okay because I've got savings, I'll be okay. Now you can't, yeah. And if you think about everything we've spoken about, and why this series one is built this way, everything is leading to this, innit? Everything just clicks in place, and as you hear this today, you go, fuck me, yeah. And I think about what we spoke about, everything is a building block to get you mindset where we're going, and that's it, yeah, massively, man. Massively.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

You've got to be ready for that uh personality change as well, because a lot I think a lot of people who have a a business in this industry, at one point or another, they'll have been employed by someone else. I'd imagine I'm I can't imagine this is their first ever taste of employment, and then you go straight to owning the business. So you've probably gone from one of the lads, one of the staff, one of the team, with someone above you, and then all of a sudden there's no one above you, and you are the boss, and it does change you. I remember having three lads from a wedding business, and I've said never hired before. I was always one of the lads or one of the team, and then all of a sudden, you just feel different, I think. And whether you like it or not, you are the boss, and you might get on with your boss, but there's always a relationship, isn't there, between the boss and the employees, like like it they're separated. I don't know if that if that makes sense. Like you know what I mean, like like a football manager, usually there's they're they're different to the squad. There's that that element of you're not really one of us anymore. I think that's hard to um I found that hard to adapt to a few years ago. I don't know if if you've experienced a similar thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

It is at the start, uh and what we try and do is right, when we start taking the first in our first employee on, we we try and manage them like we're friends.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Yes, that's what I meant.

SPEAKER_02 16:26

And yeah, yeah, we try and manage people like we're friends, and we are and we aren't. And what you've got to remember is they are only there to be paid, and this is gonna really, really sound really bad, right? But it needs to be said. They don't give a fuck if it survives or fails, they don't want to be able to do it. Yeah, exactly. They're not taking the lion's share of the rewards that they're to do a job, you're probably paying them just over minimum wage. They can walk into any job any day for the same money or more, right? So if you ring them on Monday and say, mate, you're out of a job, or I'm closing it, or the unit's been robbed and all the vans have gone, they'll be like, oh right, really, okay. By the afternoon, they've got another job. They couldn't give a fuck, right? They couldn't give a fuck. But there will be staff you bring in that are really good and will be with you long time, right? But they are very, very far and few between. And then what you're building with your staff is people that align with values that you carry, and you've got to look after people, right? And I don't mean bend over and give them everything they ask for, but give them a development route, give them a good standard of of work, give them a good training basis, look after them with PPE, make sure they're safe, make sure they're involved in you know, not decision making, but ask their opinion, make them feel part of it, you know, and you do all this and you build them up and you train them, and they've been with you two or three years, and you think everything is flying, and then they have the notice them because someone's gonna pay them a pound more, and it fucking rips your heart out. Yeah, it rips your heart out. How do I know? Because I've had it for 26 years. You build people up, you fucking train them, you invest in them, and then they just fucking leave the next day, right? And the mindset is that's no different from you running your business. You will go and get the next contract because it's more money, and you may let a cheap one go, you may let a client go because he's a pain in the arse and take someone else on. It's no different. So why should they, if someone comes along and offers them £2,000 a year more, why should they stay with you? You know, what why why should they? I think it was Richard Bronson said a really good statement, didn't he? He said, train them well enough to be able to leave, but treat them that well they don't want to leave.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

That's good. I like that.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

And I think that's a real good thing that you know it it's how you treat people, how you speak to them. We're not mates, right? Of all the people that I've employed over the 26 years, and I reckon at that at the height, I had 110 members of staff at the height. I didn't fucking speak to them out of work, I didn't socially speak to them, I didn't go to the pub, I didn't play golf with them, I didn't do anything with them outside of work. There was, I am the boss, it's my company, you're my employees, these are the values of the company. We will pay you, we will look after you, we will make sure everything's good and we will train you and make sure yourself safe and give you a development plan if you want to be that way inclined. You know, I spoke about Zoe before. Zoe came to me as an office administrator, she's now the MD of the fire security company because we give her that, but that's but people have still left me. And do you know when they leave? Do you know when the fucking they leave is when I'm about to get on a plane or get off on the other side? That because they don't want to say it to you, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Oh, okay. Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

So they wait for you to get on your holiday, and the first message you get is mate, sorry, but I'm gonna have me noticing. Fucking why? Why now? I fucking just got my holiday because they don't want to say it to your face, so they wait for you to go away somewhere, then they tell you. Yeah, and that if that's happened 30, 40 times at least. It's a nightmare.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Yeah, it's hard to uh to face people. I think you just sparked a memory in my in my uh in my head there where I knew it was time to call it a day for my wedding business, and I was work um, I was with the lads in the office. We'd get ready for a wedding uh on on the Saturday, I think it was, on the fr yeah, on the Saturday. I went off and did a wedding on the Friday, and my granddad was up. And uh we planned to meet in the pub over the road for some dinner and a beer. So my wife and my grandad went and they said, We'll meet you over after this wedding. So all day I was like, I can't wait for this to go and meet him and chill out and have a beer and see my granddad and my wife. And uh did the whole wedding, got there at 9 pm to the pub, uh, sat down as a uh pint of peroni waiting for me. And all of a sudden, I looked down, literally it's like it's like I sat there, put my hands on the pint, and then my phone buzzed. And the same guy who I was with earlier, who we were getting ready for the wedding for, he said, Oh sorry mate, I've just seen that um we've got a wedding tomorrow. It's not on my contract. And I said, What? I looked at it and I rang him and said, What's going on? He said, uh I've just looked, it's not on my contract. I can't do it. I said, I was just with you. And he said, no, sorry. So then I had to sit back up, forget the point, forget my granddad and my wife, go outside and I rang every photographer that I could possibly have ever met to try and find a photographer for a wedding hours in 12 hours time. And I got back in and I just went, fuck this. I said, I'm done. I said to Marie, I'm done. That's I know I'm that's I know it's over then. And that's purely because he was literally with me. He knew full well he wasn't doing that wedding, but he couldn't tell me to the effect of my face.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Yeah. And and it is and you're right, right? I I could build I could build successful companies all day, every day. I could build Cotswold roof cleaning, right? If I wanted to, and I could take over, I I could make this national if if it was staff, if staff wasn't the issue. And and not just me, there's other people going to be watching this that know that they could they could duplicate their service, roll it out in the next town, the next town, the next town, the next town, and and the one thing that holds them back is the staffing. Because staffing is an issue, right? And then I think to myself, well, how do the big companies do it, right? How do the big companies roll shops out? How do Greg's roll all the bakeries out all over the country, and and now they're going into Spain, I've seen as well. How do they do it, right? Because I'm saying that staff staffing is a nightmare. How do they do it? And you know how they do it? This is my take on it, and I might be wrong. They have dedicated people who are recruiting constantly, they're constantly recruiting, right? They've constantly got adverts running, they have got a pipeline of people being interviewed every day, every single day, right? Now they're paying these recruiters to do this with nobody, they're not even got a space for them, but it doesn't matter. They've got all these good people that they've interviewed and gone no good, no good, good, put in that file, no good, no good, good, put in that file. Someone leaves, we've got someone, go straight back to them, offer them a job, tell them to come in. We've done it all. We can't do that as a small enterprise because you imagine trying to interview people every day for a position you've not got just in case someone leaves. But I think that's how these bigger companies Amazon warehouse, right? Amazon warehouse in Swindon, it must employ 2,000 people. Now, how? Because I think I think that's what they do. These bigger companies just constantly, there's always an ad, right? There's always an ad for McDonald's, isn't there? Come and work at McDonald's, come and work at McDonald's. But they never seem understaffed.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

I think they know their their their churn rate's probably high, isn't it? And they've always got someone waiting. But also because it's lower ticket, like if you had if you had 20 mats who are like you had a clone, like 20 clones, you could go in, you could roll that out, but cleaning a roof compared to putting some sausage rolls in an oven and not slagging them off on just saying they're too you know this much lower skill. So they can afford to do that, can't they? You can't just churn out 20 mats.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

No, I you know, but is it a lower skill? You've got to be you've got to be fully trained in um health and safety. You're dealing with foods, your hygiene's got to be spot on, your customer service has got to be spot on, you've got to be able to operate the tills, you've got to be able to have numbers, you can't just go, well, I can't add up. You've got to be, you've got to remember which how the machines work. You've got and I listen to them, the buzzers are going off because the sausage rolls are ready. So I don't think it's a lower scale. I just think as an organization, they have put themselves in a position where they can constantly recruit. Right? And we don't see, we we don't we can't do that. So what we do is we take our first member of staff on, we train, we get them embedded, they're a good boy, they're a good girl, everything's great. And then they resign and give you a week's notice two years in. And you're like that. Oh right, now I've got to start again. I've got to start recruiting. Now it is now and I know this from what makes it really, really hard is when you're in a skilled sector. So one of my businesses is fire and security. I can't, I'm not looking for labourers, I'm looking for highly skilled engineers that aren't on every corner. So when an engineer hands his notice in, it's like someone's ripped your fucking leg off. You're like that. Oh my god, what a nightmare that causes. But we haven't got the infrastructure, the money to constantly keep interviewing people. We can't we can't do it, and I think that's so when I look at these national companies that roll out and I think, how have they done it? How have they not got staff problems?

SPEAKER_00 27:26

They're always a step ahead, aren't they?

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Yeah, but the secret is they have got staff problems, and their staff problems are worse than mine and yours. They are more if I've got a staff problem in my 20 members of staff that's causing me a headache, they've got it in their 30,000 20 times more. Yeah, 20 times more, but they are literally proactively recruiting or interviewing. They might do it one day a week. Yeah, one day a week is recruitment day.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

But also, but also they won't have I don't think they'll have the same pressure. I think I don't know who owns Greg's, but say the owner of Greg's, whoever it is, I'd imagine he's making millions in profit. I imagine that's what they make. I don't know. I don't know Greg's numbers. But he can just delegate because he's probably got 20 people underneath him, he can go and sort that out. Whereas you, you've it's down to you. The pressure's on you. Because you're doing everything as a small business. They can just delegate, they've got teams who can do it. It's like um a bit of a football analogy, you know, Brighton. They're um they they they've always they're the perfect example for football. They've always got like a player ready to go. If you've never heard of him, but they've got him. They've got him like three years before, waiting to sign him, and they know that's why they've that's why they've remained really constant in the Premier League. Um just football analogy there, but they've always you're a step at the head, you're a step ahead, and you're waiting for it to happen. You go, no worries, bam. Yeah, I'm I'm ready then. We can't do that.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

And that's really a good point, right? If you've got aspirations to be a three-van operation or a ten van operation, what you should be doing is right, if your marketing's tuned in for one van, then we know how to scale that to bring in more for the next van. But what we don't look at is what does it look like in terms of people recruitment? Do I need another two girls in an office or two lads in an office? How how do I set that up? What's the path to recruit? Is recruiting in our area because it also comes back to where you where you're based as well, isn't it? If you're in um uh a rural or a quiet area where there's an abundance of other jobs, people might not want to become external cleaners, or you might be in a an area where actually there's a real big field for recruitment of people that I need and I can train them, you know. So you need to be looking, if you've got aspirations to have three or four vans, then you need to be looking at how you're gonna get those staff, where you're gonna get them from. Or, you know, we we've also gone down the apprentice route for the engineers. So why, if you want to be three or four vans, why don't you, once you've got two vans, just an idea, why don't you bring an apprentice then? Go and get a 17-year-old, get paid for that. Bring them in, yeah, yeah. So so it works both ways, right? So you get somebody who you're going to train, you can put them through their apprenticeship, and they can the salary is really, really low, and you get government back in to help it, don't. But if you get an apprentice into your business where it isn't a massive cost, you've got three years of teaching them, right? You are teaching them how you want them to be, you are training them, they're going to college one day every two weeks or one day every month, whatever it is. But you're securing the future of your business. Hopefully, once they finish their apprenticeship, they can see the value in your company, they can see the values that you bring to that team, and they go, Yeah, man, I've right enjoyed my apprenticeship here. I'm gonna stay, I'm gonna stay and do, you know, because I really enjoy it here. But that's just another way of doing it. You need to have an eye on the future staffing if you want to be a multivan operator. What happens is, is we go, oh, we're busy, and oh mate, how many times have we heard this? Oh, we're busy, we're gonna get another van. Gonna get another and how you gonna do that? Oh, I don't know. But I've got loads of work. Why are you gonna staff it? Who's gonna run it? Who's gonna who's gonna sort the holidays, the sickness, the fuels, the insurance? Oh, I don't know. Well, you can't do it because you're on the first van, and that that's the issue. Is there's no structure, there's no planning. We get busy and then we think we'll get another van. How many times do we see people get another van and then get rid of it a year later?

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

Because the work's fucking slowed down, and it's not that the work slowed down, it's that they haven't got the infrastructure to get more work, to be more productive on the things you're still on van one, van two, you know, if if you've got two vans, you need to be pretty much office-based with two vans, because your job then is to keep that pipeline of work coming in, keep the recruitment, keep the jobs, keep the quota, not jet washing patios every day on a one van system. Yeah, mate, you're great. Go go go and do your jet washing. Yeah, because I because I really enjoy it. Brilliant, enjoy it. It's a lifestyle. Two vans, you need to be off it. If you're on the vans with two vans, then you're going to struggle.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

When I cap when I capped out of my one van last year, I didn't want the second van. I was thinking that just put the prices up. Because if you are if you're capped, if you're capped out and you're fully booked, yeah, I'd I'd go, okay, well, let's go up 25% instead of going let's get another van because your expenses don't go down then, but your profit goes up. Yeah. And if people's first instincts is second, or want a second van, yeah. Why? It doesn't always mean profit. I've got I know a few lads who want to do it, I'd say to them, just be careful.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

I I I tell people this all the time, right? Exactly that. Just put your money up. But do you know what happens? Ego and cockwaving comes into it. They want to be seen as this. I've got three vans, I've got four vans, fucking earning no money. You're breaking even, you're stressing to death. Why don't you just have one van, put your prices up 25%, have more money than you've ever earned, have a great lifestyle, yeah, and get on with it.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

This goes back to vision to episode one. We spoke about this vision and goal setting. It's it always comes down to ego if you look at it.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it does, and it and it is, mate, hands up, I've been guilty of it. That that that's how I know. I'm not talking from I think this happens. I know, I I've done that, I've been on that journey because that's how we all start out, and then at some point, the penny drops, and you go, Yeah, fuck this.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

Something happens, doesn't it? Something usually happens, like I said, it was when I sat in that pub and had that happen. I know you've had things happen. I think it comes with age though, as well, because I think if you're saying this now, I reckon if you're 19 in the same position, you say it differently, and I would say it differently as well. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

You think you're ready to take on the world at that, but when you realise it's not always that better, yeah. You want you to lead your life.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

It it's not, and I think what I think what also happens with age is your um appetite for risk decreases when you're 19, right? You're gonna live forever, you're gonna live forever, and you can reinvent yourself over and over and over and over again, and it doesn't matter. The older you get, you're like, probably not gonna do that because it, you know, and this is the problem with with youth, your appetite for risk is massive. When you were younger, right? When you were younger, you'd go around the fucking old derelict buildings and jump roof to roof, and you would do stuff and you go, fucking hell, I got away with that, fucking hell. If you went back now at 54, you were like fucking hell, I'm not even gonna climb the ladder to have a look, you know, and that that that's the issue. Our appetite for risk changes, and it changes in everything we do. When you're a young lad girl setting off on your journey, yeah, you may run up the fucking eaves of the roof and just blow it off with a blower because your appetite for risk is like, yeah, man, if I fall, I'll bounce. When you get to 40, you're like that. The number of people I sell cobras to because their appetite for risk has changed. They don't want to be on a roof, they want to do it on a scaffold, don't want to, and it's seriously, and it's the same with business when you're young, and especially if you catch a little bit of headwind, and your first year you've been doing really well, right? Fucking now that that's probably the worst position to be in. If you start something on day one, and you know, you literally catch the trend and the headwind, then all of a sudden you're like, ah, mate, doesn't matter. Uh whatever I put my fing hand to, I'm gonna be successful. Right, get the second van, get it right, which never gonna stop. 18 months later, you're like, ah, yeah, we've got no work. Yeah, I've got fucking lay boys off. I can't afford to put diesel in the van. Fuck. Why have I got no money? Why is this spiraled? Because we've bought everything, right? We've hire purchased everything, we've made our overheads now. Now, when we were one man banned, our daily running cost for our business was 300 quid. We're now two vans, and our daily running cost is now 1400 quid, right? Where's that coming from? Ah, yeah. Boom. I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna put the trailer and the van on the Facebook group and sell all this equipment. It happens constantly, and that that's the psychology behind it. It's the risk as a young lad or a young girl, yeah, you'll take it.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

It normally goes tit sort. Part of me, I know that it's wrong, but part of me likes it in the sense that like if I see someone who's 19 and go and taking that route, part of me's like, go on then, fair play, why not? You only live once. But then from a 33-year-old, I'm going, No, you disaster waiting to happen. But I I love seeing people going for it and and thinking that they can achieve whatever. But yeah, as you get older, you know that or you realise that Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

The beauty is at 19, right? At 1920, you can fucking go 100 miles an hour, right? And you can fuck it up and restart again next year, or the year after, and the year after, and hopefully you learn from that. But then I then I look at it and think, well, if you'd just been a little bit savvy, you could have built a really great company over the next you're 19 and you're getting into pressure washing, right? By the time you turn 30, you could have your four or five fans, you could have your office, you could have a great reputation, a great brand, a great personal brand, and actually you may only work one day a week in the company. You could be married with kids, living your best life on a company that you've built sensibly. You know, but we've got this, I think we have this problem again, don't we? That everybody wants it. Social media has made everybody want it today, they don't want to wait. People want to start a business and be a millionaire, you know, by next week. And the reality is that most people don't become millionaires until they're in the 50s. That's a fact. If you look at the if you look at the demographic of millionaires in this country, it's pretty much you you you hit the millionaire status in your 50s, not un unless you jump on a trend, you know, uh as an influencer or crypto or X, Y, and Z. But generally, it is in your 50s.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

What is building sorry to interrupt, what is the because I I heard before the average is like 50, 51 or something for a millionaire. Has that come down, do you reckon, now with no, it's gone up, I think. Has it?

SPEAKER_02 40:29

Yeah, it's gone up. I mean, Google it while we're on it. But I'm just seeing I'm just interested to know. I'm sure, I'm sure that I'd seen the stats, and I want to say it's between 54, 56.

SPEAKER_00 40:41

Yeah, it's even it's 57 to 62.

SPEAKER_02 40:43

That there you go. So it's moved again then. So it because these are all live datas, right? So everybody starting in the 20s who wants to be a millionaire, you know, it it's very it's very far and few between, right? People don't realise how big of a number a million is, right? And it's a massive number. It's a massive, massive number. So when you get when you get one man bands or small medium enterprises that are doing a couple of million, uh they're big numbers, then, right? Alright, and it's turnover and it's vanity, and we work for profit, but if you're doing it right and building your wealth out the back, then if you're a millionaire on paper, then you're doing really well. Because it's a big number, right? It is a big, big number. And until you start seeing these numbers, you know, you don't realise how big it is, you know. When I well at the height of my big business, we were invoicing anywhere between 80 and 120,000 pounds, 150,000 pounds a month. But at the same breath, I'd have people owing me 90, 100,000, 200,000 pounds commercially for three months. I can't tell you the stress of that. That was that was astronomical. But a million pounds is everybody wants to be a millionaire, they want to be a millionaire tomorrow. The reality is you're probably not gonna get there till you're in your 50s, and even more so in a in a service-based business, because the profit margins aren't massive, you know. It is it is the good profit margins, but to scale that, to scale a service business to make you a millionaire is massive. Massive. You look at Pumblico Plumbers, prime example, service-based business, the dearest plumbing company in London. Charlie, what's his name? I can't think of his surname, you know, he built that for 20, 30, 35 years, then sold it, right? And then he was and he sold it for I think he sold it for 180 million. But it took 35 years of building that, then he disappeared for two years, and now he's come back because there'd been a non-complete course, right? He's now come back, or his sons came back and he's rejoined it, and now he's building We Fix London on the same model as Pimlico Plumbers, he's done exactly the same, but now for trade. So he's plastering, decorate, electricians. We fix London, the most dearest company in London, but he's built it on services and standards, and and it it is, it's a real tough people people want it now here and now, don't they?

SPEAKER_00 43:54

Uh yeah, absolutely. They hope this doesn't sound come across the wrong way because I'm not shaming anyone, but I just I had someone miss. Me this year, uh, and he asked to work in me, and I said, I can't, the area's taken. And then he said, Uh, trust me, uh, he said, I'm gonna be a millionaire with this, I swear to God, and he said, I'm gonna take over the UK, I'm gonna be the number one cleaning company, and then a week later he sent me a video saying how to turn my pressure washer on. And that's not to shame him, but I'm just that's a perfect uh example of of someone who thinks it can be that quick. It might do, but it's unlikely.

SPEAKER_02 44:29

It can't in in a service-based business, it's impossible.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

But also, how much is too much? I've thought this, because I've always had I've always said I want to uh be a millionaire before I'm 40. I've said that for the last few years. I don't know why, but ego, probably. Then I think, well, why? Like, if you can live what the life that you want, if you've got an eight-bed house, what's a ten-bed house gonna do for you? Like, as long as you can provide for your family and live a really happy life, what's the need to be the millionaire? I I think it's back to where you go again. It always does come back to it.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

It's ego, it's ego and status.

SPEAKER_00 45:01

Of course you get you get everyone's forgetting how much more you get taxed, the more you earn, unfortunately. I don't agree with that, but that's what it is, that's what happens.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

I I I think I think you're right. I think ego is is the big number one thing. There's nothing wrong with that, right? If your goal, if your goal, if your drive to get out of bed every morning is to be a millionaire, then absolutely uh go at it, right? Go at it. But I don't know. I I don't know whether it is I think if you I think everybody wants a nice life, don't they? Everybody, now that social media is on our fingertips, everybody sees what other people's got and they want what other people's got, right? They want that, they want to be swanning round Mar Baya with you know a nice girl or a nice boy on your arm with loads of money, a Rolex watch, and and most of it, right, is on social media, right? It's fucking rented. It's rented. We've got these kiddies that are making sorry go on, they're just they're renting this lifestyle to portray they're doing really well, right? And but people buy into that, they buy into this rented lifestyle, you know, and you just think I don't know. I I'd have bought into it when I was fucking 20.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

Yeah, I'd have bought into it. You ever seen the video? I can't remember when I saw it, but people pay influencers to um make it look like they're somewhere else. Like, for example, I've seen one before, I think it was the Super Bowl final. It makes sense for it to be that. This this girl's taking a load of pictures on different phones, so actually I said, like, people would pay her to take the picture at the Super Bowl to make it look like they're at the Super Bowl, and then they can say, Look at me. It's it's absolutely crazy, but that goes on.

SPEAKER_02 46:46

Have you not seen the fucking one of the biggest business launches in about three years ago? Um, from a from a sole trader that took off astronomically. He built the inside of a plane in his warehouse in Newcastle for people to go and sit in there and take pictures and pretend they're on a private jet. But but look, look, he was like, I'm gonna build a private jet in the corner of my warehouse. You can come in, pay me fucking £400 for an hour, do all your social media in there and tell all your fucking friends you're on a private jet because you're a fucking crypto millionaire. And I thought, that's fucking brilliant. It is, absolutely, it's brilliant, innit? So this is what people are doing. You know, there's a private airport near me, Cotswold Airport. I could probably go and hire a private jet on the runway for a couple hundred pounds for the day, and get as many people as want to come through and have the pictures taken on it. Get a nice car, like you're being dropped off outside it. It's just don't believe everything you see, but I think that also then plays back into why people want this instant success tomorrow, you know, and I think we've gone slightly off track with our topic tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

Well, it it comes, it comes, it's it's all leading from that comes from where do you want to go, and and hiring hiring takes you there, or you think hiring will take you there. That's what that's where it came from. But yeah, we did we did go slightly off topic there. Um, but yeah, okay. Um minutes left. Uh, we've got one question each, and a question from a listener. Uh anything else we want to touch on before we go into that?

SPEAKER_02 48:41

No. Well, I'm just gonna say one thing, and it is an old cliche, but people might not have heard it. Higher slow, fire fast. Higher slow, it's a it's a very it's a very old uh recruitment cliche that people talk about, but there might be a lot of listeners.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

As in higher fast if there's an issue. I mean, sorry, fire fast if there's an issue.

SPEAKER_02 49:01

Right. This is a good point to finish this bit before we go to the questions, right? Is when you're recruiting, take your time to recruit, right? Get it right, do the checks, check them out, make sure, have several meetings with them, make sure that everything is where you need it to be. The second you get an incline, it isn't right. Sack them. If you can. No, no, sack 'em.

SPEAKER_00 49:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 49:36

Get rid of them. Because the longer you get the minute you get that inkling, then they're not gonna work out. It's never gonna go away. It's never ever gonna go away. And what we do is, see, you've just done, you've said why we don't do it if you can. Because we're scared that we're gonna can't do the work, and but I promise you now, one of the best skill sets you can have is fucking sacking people, yeah, getting rid of them, and it's it's massive. Because the longer you let that inkling go on, it gets worse and worse, and you get more dependent on them, and then you turn a blind eye to it and you go, Oh, it's okay, just they're okay. I I don't mind that the standard's not good enough. No, fucking get rid of them.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

Yeah, that that instinct that everyone has, I f I firmly believe that. Even when you meet someone for the first time, you think something's up there. I've got um, I won't mention any names, but there's a client of mine who uh he hired uh hired his first labourer and he wasn't sure about him, something was up, and he thought some money was going missing from his van, just little bits of change. So he um he planted a certain an X amount of money, it wasn't a lot, but just to see if it would go, and it was like 100% the guy taking it, like no one else could have done it, and that was all from instincts, he wasn't sure, did a little thing, and and and that's what you know he was completely right with his instinct. Um and that can happen. That can happen, but you've got to start what stole off me for years. It's it happens, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 51:04

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. It fucking makes you sick to the bottom of your fucking stomach.

SPEAKER_00 51:11

And that that sounds I don't want to end on that negative note, but you've got to because there are some great staff as you've seen with your uh MD. Absolutely. Uh but you've gotta you've gotta make sure you hire the right people and just be wary of people. But good staff can take you a very, very long way. So I think end on that.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

Yeah, yeah 100%. Don't be put off by this podcast that it's all doom and gloom, and and hiring staff is, but I want you to know the realities of staff and the mindset change that you have to then step up to because it isn't a fucking bed of roses, it's the most stressful. I've seen so many polls, I've spoken to so many business owners over the years, and I say to them, what's your number one problem? What's your number one issue today? And guess what? The answer is every single time, it's never money, it's never market, it's never sales, it's staff. Those other ones follow closely behind, but staff is the number one business issue for SMEs, the number one, yeah, hands down, everybody has it. That that's so take that away from it.

SPEAKER_00 52:17

Well it all links, doesn't it? If you're having staff issues, that then leads on to money issues and stress. So it all it's it all it all leads on, yeah. Absolutely. Um question for you. Yes, question for you. What makes a a boss compared to a leader?

SPEAKER_02 52:38

Um what makes a boss a big thing?

SPEAKER_00 52:41

What's the difference between a boss and a leader?

SPEAKER_02 52:44

So I would say I'm you start as a leader, you start your journey as a leader. When you get your first employee, you are a leader. You lead from the front, you set the standard, you set the discipline, you set the work ethic as a leader because you're on the tools, they learn by watching you lead, how you deal with situations and how you speak to people and your work ethic. You know, integrity, you do what's right when nobody is watching. That's integrity. When no one's watching, you do the right thing. That are all the skills and the qualifications as a leader. As a boss, you're probably sat in your office with no one around you, and you are future planning six months, twelve months, eighteen months, two, three, five years ahead, and you're doing such important work as a boss that you're not leading right. Your senior management team, when you become a boss, you then have senior management teams around you, and they could know the work you're doing. Because when you have your management meetings and you present to them the future of X company for the next two years, they're like that's because he's working on the bigger picture. Yeah, they're the management team that are leaders and they are leading the workforce, but you are that that's what I'd say are the two different. I can answer definitely. Um question for you. If you were to hire again today, going back to your previous um clear story, yeah, your previous wedding business where you closed it because you knew because staff, what you've learned over the last couple of years, if you were hiring again today, would you feel confident now to rehire and grow something bigger? Or have you still got that no fucking not having staff because it's fucking burnt me? Attitude.

SPEAKER_00 55:02

The sale of the for that business is completely gone now, it's completely done. So I but I I have thought about it. I said to my wife the other day, you know what? Oh man, I could have just I could do it again now. I know how to manage money better, which therefore I think I could hire better. That's my answer to that. So yes, I didn't know how to manage money before, and I think when you don't know how to manage money, you should never be hiring, and that was what I did.

SPEAKER_02 55:22

So it hasn't burnt you then.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

Hasn't burnt me, it's taught me loads. You have to go through this stuff, don't you? 100%. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. I could I could not I can't anyway legally, but if I wanted to, I could set up a good wedding business now. Definitely. Yeah.

unknown 55:34

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 55:34

Cool. Okay. Right. Question before we finish. It's not linked to this, but I said to this guy that we would answer him. He's he's put quite a few in, so we'll just pick the top one. Uh so this is from Genesis Home Services UK. Most of my quotes are done remotely, so I rarely get the chance to break the ice or build the kind of relationship that Matt talks about. What's the best way to create rapport when quoting remotely, especially if it's done through chat and not even a phone call? This is you over, this is your quoting technique.

SPEAKER_02 56:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:06

How does he build rapport without talking to someone when he's doing a quote?

SPEAKER_02 56:10

Um, you've built that years before with social media. Being in front of the camera, being all over it. The likelihood is if someone's getting a quote from you, they've seen you on social media, they've been on your website, everything we've ever spoken about is about building trust, and you are warming the client up before they ask for the quote. So everything is already done. Like I said to you on previous podcasts, I go to probably three, four properties a month, but we clean 20 a month. So there's 16 of them. The very first time I speak to them ever is when I turn up to clean it because everything is done back office, everything is done socially, everything is they've got that, they know it's what we do, how we do it, they know who I am. So me then sending them just a quick three-line email, it's job done, and that's what I would say. Build your social presence to alleviate that. How do you build it? Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

That's a good answer. So do it before. There's no so he's thinking literally here and then, but there's less of a need if you've already done it before. That's a good answer. I wasn't thinking that for the answer. That's a good one. Uh cool, right? We've got one minute left, two minutes left. Cool. Episode done. That was a good one. Like it did, it probably did go off topic a tiny bit, but it all comes back to the core issues, really, is where do you want to go? And at some point, you're gonna have to choose staff or not, or how you know what kind of staff to hire. So hopefully that made sense. That episode, I'm just I think it did. But I quite like those episodes where you go off tangent a bit and talk, you know, honestly. It's it's uh it's a real hope.

SPEAKER_02 57:56

It is, in it. Well, it's real stories and it's real, it's it's the value, you know. We're seeing it from the messages, right? The message that we both get from everyone, the value that this is supplying to people is is there's just little nuggets in every one of them, and going off on a bit of a tangent in the middle of it, mate. That there'll be so much value in there for people again on that, oh Christ, yeah. You know, I'm looking at it, I'm looking at hiring or when to hire, and then oh right, okay, then think about that, and that's what this is about, innit? Yeah, is to not preach, is me and you chat, and hopefully, people can take value and go, yeah, oh yeah. Not now, it might be a year down the line, but I remember that conversation, and I'll just implement that, and that's what it's about. But yeah, another good episode. Right enjoyed it again, Michael. Right enjoyed it. Another good one, another one in the chat.

SPEAKER_00 58:54

Week nine, and it's all about customer relationship management, so dealing with customers be an interesting one. I'm sure there's a few stories in there we can share with each other. Uh that'll be definitely.

SPEAKER_02 59:02

Red flags, red flags. Oh man, yeah, massively.

SPEAKER_00 59:05

Yeah, remember that. We'll talk about red flags next week. Red flags, yeah. Yeah, sure. Spot them early. Yeah, man. Spot them early. Cool. Well, thank you very much. Hope you've enjoyed that episode. Eight. Yeah, buddy, eight. Right, nine next week. And uh yeah, thank you very much for listening. Leave a review, post a question, drop us a DM, whatever the hell you want to do, do it. And uh we'll keep trying to deliver some uh helpful pods, hopefully, to you. So, Matt, thank you very much, my friend. Yeah, cool. See you on the next one, Paul. Have a good week. Thanks, Matt. You too. See you later. Cheers, Paul, bye-bye.