Hello and welcome to The Fight Club 4 Business podcast today we have an amazing episode that you will not want to miss, so without any further complications let's get into what we're going to talking about today...

Sheila Smeltzer is the business owner of a home service business called A+ PRO Service you can go check it out by clicking Here...

-She will tell you the information on how she's grown her business over 22 years and how she's taking advantage in her county as it is now one of the largest growing counties in America...

-She is going to show us how she has used her cutting edge technology to grow her success and her bank account...

Today's episode has so much knowledge you may need to listen to it twice so if your ready for business wisdom your in the right place welcome to The Fight Club 4 Business podcast...

Pink Callers Here

Pure Power Washing Here

Likes Accounting Company Here

Quality Driven Here

intro 0:01

Talking about the things that make your home service business go marketing finance systems, people. This is the Fight Club for business podcast.

Meaghan Likes 0:26

He when it says why Hello, good morning, everyone and good morning day, everyone.

Tay Meroni 0:34

Awesome. Well, welcome back to fight club. Everyone's super excited to be with you here this Tuesday morning. We are a self a group of self love

industry experts. There we go, you would think I'm the one with the early morning goodness.

We, we cover four areas of your business, we've got marketing operations, employees and money. So your finances, and we just like to have a casual conversation with you all this Tuesday morning, just to find an area to help you fight for your business. Ignite that fire under you. So as we go through this morning, we have our guest Sheila and she's gonna be here with us and discuss all of her, you know, her wins, her struggles, the things that she's learned in being in business. So we'll go around and do some quick introductions, and then we'll get into the fun stuff. So my name is Taylor Maroney. I co own a power washing company in South Florida with my husband. And I've also been in marketing for about six years. Super excited to say welcome back to fight club. And welcome to you Sheila, do you mind giving everyone kind of like a brief overview of you and your company? Oh, yeah, sure. Thanks. Hey, everybody on Sheila smeltzer company is a plus pro services. We are in southeastern North Carolina. We're on the coast. I'm in this little hidden nugget area. That's beautiful. Because we have a lot of retirees and we are the fourth. This is just some news. We're the fourth large we're the

Sheila Smeltzer 2:01

I'd love it. They were so excited. A plus does a little bit of everything right? They do. Yeah, we do. So we're window cleaning pressure washing primarily. We do gutter cleaning. We have a lot of these porch enclosures. So right now I'm talking all residential. with you though they're like Easy, breezy porch enclosures. We find them a lot in the south, but we clean hundreds and hundreds of these rooms every year.

And oh, yes, new commercial janitorial. And we have contracts with commercial clients. But our janitorial is primarily in the property action associations, and Hoa. So we do a lot of work with those organizations and board of directors. So we have a lot of retirement communities. So we work with their property owners and our Hoa. We clean all their community structures, so their club houses, their beach houses, their pools, or pool patios, all that those are commercial clients for us. We also do a lot of multi unit like townhomes, condos, things like that. And we also have our janitorial. We have three municipal buildings, three different cities here in our county where we claim their town halls.

Michelle Myers 3:44

So Oh, so cool. So you're not busy at all is what I'm doing.

Sheila Smeltzer 3:51

I love it. You know, this time of year, we just got out of our

in staff meeting. And this is my level 10 meeting that we have every Tuesday morning. And it's basically with my management team. And we sit down and we talk about what's going on. And we all have our things that we report and whatnot. But we are running right now at maximum capacity. So we in knowing what we have books, let's say for the month of May we know that we are actually maximized. We cannot book any more work unless there's a cancellation or something changes. Um, but I love it. I get up and go to work every day. And I'm like, I wish he was like this all year.

It's so amazing, because everybody is all the technicians are happy. Everybody's happy. We're all productive. Things are moving everything the way that I dreamed my company to be is what the way it is right now. And don't get me wrong. There's a lot of problems.

Meaghan Likes 4:53

Is that normal for April, or is that early? Yeah, well, so like we have this heavy fun, fallen season.

Sheila Smeltzer 5:00

Then. And that's like when everything kicks off. And yeah, it. It starts late May late March into early April. So yeah, as soon as that stuff starts flying, it's this thick yellow dust is literally this thick on everything outside. And everybody freaks out and they think they need like, all they need is a garden hose for the day like our professional services, which is great. It's, it's, I call it yellow gold.

Meaghan Likes 5:28

That's great. Okay, well, so sorry, we got distracted, we usually go, I'm gonna finish our introduction. And then we'll come back to Earth. That was awesome though. My name is Megan Langston, the founder of bookkeeping Academy online, right, educate and empower small business owners to know their numbers so that they can live more financially rewarding lives. I also own likes accounting company, a full service accounting company where you can outsource your bookkeeping tasks. If that's something that's just a chore for you, and something that you don't like you can outsource that to my team. And I co own Jeff likes windows and gutters with my husband, Jeff. And we have not figured out a way in our business to optimize on that. But if you call it yellow gold, I can get off this call and go figure out how I can deal with it because it exists in California as well.

And welcome to fight club Sheila, I'm so excited to see you and to have.

Michelle Myers 6:19

And I'm Michelle Meyers, co owners of CO owner of pink collars, and we put remote CSRS or customer service rockstars in your business to help with all of the customer care, emails and chats and phones and all the things that make your business run, we can handle those remotely for you. And we also offer office management services. So we just do a little bit of everything over here in the admin space at pink collars. And Sheila, I'm so excited to meet you. I have literally a million questions, so I can't wait to get to you. Okay, pass it off to Martha. Thank you and welcome to fight club.

Martha Woodward 6:52

Hi, I'm Martha Woodward. And I am co founder of quality driven software. It's an employee performance and accountability software. I own a maid service in a neighboring state. And I have an online

course business. That's all about creating happy workplaces. Now. Welcome to fight club, everyone. Thank you.

All right. Okay.

Meaghan Likes 7:27

There we go.

Tay Meroni 7:29

All right. So what I want to talk with Sheila about is actually something you mentioned before, we're definitely Southern neighbors to say the least I'm down in Florida. So acquiring those contracts with Hoa is super crucial down here. And I'm sure in a lot of other places while they do exist. But with Florida being a very dominant 55 and older community for places that people have come down to you were speaking my language before. Yeah. So what I want to talk about is kind of your experience in starting that because that is a really different shift marketing and sales wise to start gearing towards bringing in commercial contracts like that. So really, what At what point did you realize one you needed to do it? And you were prepared to do it? And then to what kind of steps did you take to get it started.

Martha Woodward 8:19

So I think it's something that evolved, there was never any one marketing plan where we said, we want to go out and get all these eggs. What happened was, we just over the course of 22 years have been working in these communities. And, and as you're working for people, so these different residential communities are seeing us in their neighborhood, and they're seeing us pass around to all their neighbors, and they're hearing really good things about us. And our reputation is strong. It doesn't take long before that person that's on the board of directors says, Hey, we need quotes for this stuff. But what you do from there is the most important thing, that's where because now hopefully, you've established yourself as being dependable. And you have systems that ensure that you're gonna be able to back up like the first scheduling something, we're actually going to show up type of thing, right? So that's when, when you can get in with that word directors and all just let me give you a quote for everything that we can do for your community. And you give them that breakout, I call it like a just a comprehensive all apart list of items, location, by location, everything we can offer. They could pick and choose what they want to do. I'm always encouraging and talking about future, we're always talking about future maintenance. Think about the long term thing, right? Your Board of Directors, minimizing what you guys do on a day in, day out, get all these tasks off your plate to schedule the service, think about what you want to do over the course 356 years, put it on a maintenance plan based on what I've shown you and let's just book it out. Just lock it into a contract and book it

And then they forget about it. But they have to be able to trust that you have the capability that systems that can that can do that, you know, so that they're not saying, oh, but what happened to you this year, you know, Oh, I thought you were going to be here, I thought we could forget about it. So that's where really your reputation and you know, your experience comes in and your stronghold in the community. That's interesting. So you touched on a couple different things I want to circle back to so one was just really having that strong presence and a very

awesome team, I guess that's the best way to put it, because they're dependable. And you know that the people in those neighborhoods are very excited about the work that they do, which then does trickle over into board meetings, and a friend of a friend who may be you know, the secretary or the treasurer of that Hoa. So that kind of leads into really a different way of referral marketing through your clients referring now instead of to their friends to an HOA. So that's a huge piece that I think a lot of people tend to forget about that just because you're in an HOA or a residential location that is run by some form of property management, impressing that client is still just as important as it would be, then because then you can potentially land a larger job in the long run. But the second thing that I love that you said, is maintenance, and I feel like this is a topic that not a lot of at least in our world, and the pressure washing world, people tend to talk about, because everyone's like, Oh, you can just clean it. And I'm going to start it again, just give us call. But instead of doing that, and being reactive, right, you're taking those steps and being proactive and saying let's go ahead and get this on the schedule. We're going to be here on this date, this time, you can depend on our team, and now it's off your plate. As a property manager. I'm not a property manager, my mother in law does a lot of property management up north. But if you were to tell her that she would have about 15,000 pounds lifted off her chest like that is gold to property managers to know that they don't have to be on the phone with you constantly reaching out sending emails, where are you what's going on, that gives them that comfortability and that sales process to know Sheila and her team have got this and we don't actually have to worry about this for six years, like, a long time. That's like, an amazing gift that you can give to a property manager, and again, continues to build that relationship. So do you do as naked plans with everyone? Yeah, with everyone. Um, so yeah, we have a nice, we have a nice.

I mean, obviously, they're all our computer system too. But we have a nice bookshelf full of binders that are all contracts with each

other another really big thing that I think you have to think creatively for these people on maintenance, or want to give an example and talking about maintenance just real quick. So when you get in with these communities, what we're finding is they need now these communities, AJ is maybe six 710 years old. So now they're looking at doing these really large expansive projects, like for example, washing all the roadways, sidewalks and skirting through the entire community. Or we have this white tree that has this boardwalk system that goes through the woods for miles. And so like there's no longer there's no like they're like, but we have to keep it clean, we have to maintain it. And when you give them a price for it, it's a huge number. And they're like, Oh, we can't do that. But now's where you start to get them thinking about maintenance. Now, when you say well think about what are the really the worst areas that bother you. Let's put that in phase one, let's break it into three or four or five years and just do a face each year. And then if you do it in five phases, then you're six. We're right back at stage one, we start all over again. But everything's just getting a constant prep, and everybody in the community sees that we're working on it. And and that's just a way for them to work those things into their budget. So you have to think and teach them and educate them on thinking about me.

Education I love here. Yeah.

Another thing that's again, I don't feel like talked about enough in the pressure washing, and I'm sure I can talk for window cleaning, too. I don't know, Megan, but definitely the window cleaning world. I mean, we do have to educate these clients. And in a sense, that is a really strong marketing piece that we need to all remember, no matter what industry you're in, when your sales technicians are going out, or even you as the business owner or going out yourself. take that time to make sure you have your education mapped out on how you're going to explain to them what they need the reasons as to why and like Sheila said how they can break it down to make it more affordable in the long run. Because now she's going to have that client for life, because she's taken the time to say here's phases that we can do. And oh yeah, by the way, we're done with phase five. So we're going to circle back to phase one and keep on going so that way, you're increasing the value of the HOA itself, allowing the community members to understand that their properties and

They're shared properties are actually taken care of by the same company, which is a huge win.

And it's something I think we learn a lot from maid service. So maid service, they're the Queen's of cleaning clean, and they're the queens of maintenance queens. I mean, they really are good at that stuff. So I very excited when I first met Sheila, I don't know, okay, if you're ready to pass her to me. I was so excited when I first met her because you're at this big conference, the IWC da, you're a window cleaner, not a member of ibca, you need to go join now. It's a game changing organization for you and your business. And the year before I first attended, my husband attended and told me about Sheila, he said, you're going to like her, she's dynamite, you're really going to it can't wait for you to meet Sheila, you're going to love her. And when I met her, of course, he was right. It totally loved her. But there were like maybe 200 window cleaning companies represented that year. And Sheila was the only person I found that was talking about maintenance cleans. And that was huge for me, because I think that it's not, it's not something that's been tapped into in the window cleaning industry. And we've just been hanging out in the main service industry for a bit. So I was like, we got to be able to do this. And she like, just off the cuff not even over a drink, just like in a hallway. It was like, well, this is what I do. And I was like, my eyes. Huge. And I was like,

That's amazing.

Okay, so Sheila, I have all these things, I could talk to you that I was taking notes. So I'm going to give you your choice of four options. And you can tell me which one you'd rather go through with me because you're brilliant on all of these. Alright, so maintenance plans, because that's kind of how we met. So happy for anniversary. KPIs, you're a data nerd, I was teaching a class and Sheila yells from the back of the classroom, her net profit percentage, down to a 10th of a percent. And that's very rare. It's only happened to me twice in a classroom where somebody knows down to a 10th, what their profit percentages. So I know you love KPIs, I am so awesome. You said that you're at capacity. And I think that that's a really interesting comment, because a lot of business owners don't have a good way of determining capacity. So we can have a discussion around how you've determined it and how you evaluate it, how you kind of set those goals, I think that can be really fun. Or we could go through logistics of landing big fish, like these hlhs I'm sure there's kind of you and I could like go through a small checklist of the things that you need to have in order to be prepared, like, grow big Hoa. So I think all of those could be fun, and I'm gonna let you just choose whichever one sounds most fun to you.

So um, first of all, I guess I could kind of touch on so maintenance, KPIs, a capacity, those are all achieved through having good software.

It's so good. See, she just laid out a membership program for exterior cleaning in less than three minutes. And she's got all the caveats in there. I mean, I think it's brilliant. I love the idea this caught this conversation when I was thinking about your KPIs, Sheila and I don't know your business very well, aside from what you shout at me from the back of the room in a good way. But one of the numbers that I can really importantly probably look at in your business is lifetime value or annual value of a customer and you just kind of shared that with us. And if you think about your your Hoa is when you think about your property management clients, those are really, really, really big dollar amounts that are spending money with your company every year. So that challenge Well, we're not gonna get into homework right now. But thank you very much for sharing that with us. I'm going to pass you to Michelle, who I know is just like, dying over there. She cannot wait to talk about systems because you've said the systems were like six times and every time you're like, Oh,

I love it. Thank

you, Sheila again for being here. So you mentioned software. So first, tell the listeners What are you using for your business? Just so people know what you what's in your back pocket? Okay, so

um, I'm what you call a torch bear. Okay, or service Titan? service Titan. Um, I learned about service side and listening to Tommy melos. Home service millionaire podcast. And I reached out to suicide. At least three.

Oh, Sheila, freeze mamas. Oh, no, I hope she comes back. Oh, oh, now there's an empty chair.

Can you hear me? Bring internet in the room? Oh, my goodness. Okay, great.

So you were at service Titan and Tommy Melo, start right there. Okay,

so listening to home service millionaire, I learned about sort of sight and we were on the search for software. And I knew that once we Don't touch Pro software that software to be something I was going to carry me through the life of me writing something. Yeah, because to get switched over from software to software program is excruciating Lee painful, it's true I wanted to matter how big my company got I wanted software that that the software is going to satisfy service Titan turned me down three times because we are not a market for them and pressure washing. And it's actually probably a little bit more robust than what we need in window cleaning and pressure washing. But it gave me everything else that I was looking for. Yeah, um, and I was listening Tommy one day he was actually interviewing by Hey, which is one of the founders of service Titan asked, and I was running the beach by gave his personal email address at the end of the podcast, and I stopped on the beach and I pulled out my phone and I email them right there. And there was some like little video or something. I'm like you please just I just want to know more about your software. The next day, I got a call and then they bought me in is what do you call it torchbearer. So the new market new industry for them? Sorry. Sorry. Love it. Okay. So I was a new new industry for them. And so I don't think that the window cleaning industry has been very strong. Because it's not cheap. You know, but I have to tell you that, um, there's never been one time in our financial monthly financial meetings that we've ever said, Whoa, we got to put the brakes on service site, and this isn't working. Yeah, um, it's delivered. And it just gives us so much insight into our company. And just everything from the way the customer sees us with dispatch notifications, follow ups, emails, all of that to the way our technicians run their jobs from the field. And the data that we can collect right there. Quicker payments, just absolutely everything calls, listen to every call that comes in, you know, so we can feel clients out before we go. And there's just so many things that it delivers that I'm very happy. I love that. Okay, so

it's funny that you say that, because I'm a huge service Titan fan two, but tell me how that works when you have the binders on the shelf, too, because you have everything electronically, right? But there's really something to be said for that old school, pull it off the shelf and physically see it, how do you use the binders in combination with your software? Because I know a lot of people might just still be in paperworld. So tell me how those two work together?

Yeah, um, so I mean, the binders are a lot of note taking, if I'm going out and I'm bidding an expansive roadway project. Sure. I can fill the bid form and service Titan on the app when I'm doing that estimating job. Sure. But, but I'm gonna have I mean, I'm gonna have to calculate where I'm getting my rates. Yeah. And I'm doing a lot of that kind of work on paper. I call that Job Costing, yeah, things are going into the cost of that job, are going to live in those binders. And so and then also, you know, a lot of these contracts are going back 13 plus years. Yeah, of course. So that's before we had service Titan. So many, oftentimes, clients call us and we don't have we can see in service type that it was an important job. Because before we had it, should we go straight back to our our paper files, got it, lots of j find that original bid form will retaliate off the numbers of the windows no of it. So I mean, yeah, that's I mean that but that's the kind of thing to me, all of that data, I care where it's coming from makes your company valuable. I love that. That's

so true. That's so true. Now, we talked before we started the live about some of the challenges or mishaps or mistakes, what sort of challenges did you have in systems? Because that's what I kind of cover that you solved that you're so grateful other than service Titan? Is there like a phone or a communication application? or How did you break through something recently that you can share with our listeners?

Very good question. Very, very good question. Well, again, sir setting so our phones are huge. Yeah. For services huge. By the way, my daughter COVID happened. She said, Hey, mom, she was in West Palm Beach, going to school and said, Hey, Mom, can I just come back and work for you for a while. I think I'm good answering phones. Oh, she grew up listening to me talk on the phone. And I was like, if anybody gets it, she's gonna get It is wonderful. So,

but um, you know,

back to your question, so much insert seitan? Um, so outside of that, what would it be?

I don't know. It's okay of service Titan is the answer, then that's great. And I personally do also love the fact that the phone calls are recorded and that all the data comes in. Quickly, it makes that interaction for the customer so much faster, because you have all of their information loaded into the platform. And you can get right to the meat of their call, right? Like, what do they need? What is the problem? What's the pain point? And I've seen that speed up our process at pink collars for sure when we use service Titan. So I mean, if that's the end all that's cool with me.

I guess the only thing I'm thinking about is on the marketing front. Yeah. So on the marketing front, we definitely that's outside of sort of cycling. And we have used their marketing Pro, which is their email platform. But I did find more cost effective way to do that. And so we have recently switched over to a new SEO company, rebuilt our website, and we just have better forms online now. Customers can give us more information on the forms they fill out on our website better now. And yeah, we're just so we're really trying to increase because there's one. So back to KPIs. We know that of also our our marketing campaigns every time the phone rings, we are marking what campaign that client came to us be great. II know from running these reports that 70% of our clients and our jobs booked come from either existing clients. Yeah, or existing client referrals. Beautiful. That's all that's just all grassroots.

Yeah, that's so good.

So now we've got this 30%, that's actual, like, who doesn't know they need our service that we have two, who's new into the area has no clue that they need to wash their house every year? And who are the ones that you know, really, you're just getting bombarded by a lot of words. So how are we going to grow that. And so that's the next stage. So building our membership programs and getting a lot of this. So that because my goal with the membership programs, I know I'm jumping all over a little bit, but it's a good marketing. So if I so my goal is to have $500,000 worth of residential memberships booked within the next two years. Yeah, that gives me a baseline of what I know that my company at minimum needs to be doing as far as, you know, operations, everything, right budget, everything. So then on top of that, what can we sell? What are we generating more how many leads? And so now you it's like, it's like, all of a sudden, everything starts to compound, whenever you start looking at what you can actually do, the company starts to grow very quickly.

Yeah. I love that. And I love that you're building out forms and other ways for your clients to reach out to your customers to reach out to you. I heard a really interesting stat for everybody this week that sometime between now and eight years from now, phones will no longer be the main form of communication from a consumer to a business, it will either be forms or chat. So everybody out there needs to start working on their forms, building those other types of communication styles because the phone is on its way declining for business. So thank you, Sheila, for all of that. That was awesome. And I'll pass you over to Martha.

Welcome.

I have already converted Michelle

Yeah, I converted.

I am one of those consumers that I can't stand if I have to call and I don't know why. I mean I don't mind talking to people but I just hate making phone calls. So forms chat. Yeah, is happening have it I I tend to look elsewhere you know, because it's too I don't want to do it. So true.

But

she left so I talked about people culture, those kind of things and there there's a couple things I want to ask you so one are you having a you're experiencing the hiring crisis that so many people are having right now?

Yes and no. Um, there's a lot of people applying so we have I think active six job openings online right now and they have been since February. We did probably hundreds of people out there there's a lot of people wasting our time, you know, because there probably are collecting on appointment, but they have to be actively searching for jobs right. So a lot of that going on, it's pretty easy to find them and get rid of them. But, um, but I have to say the reason it's no is because the quality of people that we have brought in this year, as far as new hires are the best we've ever seen. Um, one thing that I did is I have a business coach, and he's basically on retainer for me. So I say, hey, Bob, I need you to go ahead and do do the initial call in the knockout questions. And he is in regards to development, um, um, in regards to people, culture, all of that, so he's older, so the cultural things a little bit out of his wheelhouse, but he's a very good read on people. And he's very good at developing people. So I put him on asking the initial questions, and if they pass him, they come to me. And that's just the way that we're currently doing it. And it's worked. So he's just got a very more Stern, kind of, um, you know, I don't know more business like type of communication. And that's worked really well, because I think these young people get on the phone like, Oh, crap, this is like real Job. Job, but then they get on the call, they passed him, and then they get on the phone with me. And they're like, oh, man, I want to work this company, this lady's got to be really good to me. She's cool, blah, blah, blah. And so you know, but you got to take them through those different paths, everything. Right. Right. Yeah. It's been tough, though. It's been tough. And we could probably use three more people, but I don't know, we're at, like I said, I would rather get through this busy season with quality people and less availability than more people that are not ready and not trained. And, you know, be over.

Right, right. Because like you say, you're so focused on recurring business. If you blow the first impression, yeah, then yeah, I'm very much the same, I would rather trim down not have openings, and have staff that I do not have to watch, you know, as in with, with a hovering I know, because I just know, they're gonna do what they're supposed to do. So that's awesome. Um, the second thing I wanted to ask you about is you employ family. And that is, sometimes it can be difficult, but it is absolutely doable. But I believe, in order to do it successfully, you have to continue to use your systems. My feeling is you have to have your employee systems in place, whether they are related to you or not. And so just tell me about, um, I guess it's for our listeners, or viewers, if they are having trouble with maybe they have friends or family or so forth working for them? How do you do that successfully?

So I think number one, the number one thing is that I've learned from my daughters both coming to work with me, is because I've always, you know, I am so owner of a plus Pro, and have been since 2005. And, you know, I've never had a partner. So everything's always been on my bat. And I've always the girls growing up, my daughter's sad to see and then growing up, I've always, you know, come on, they see me struggle they see right, you pick them up from late from their practices covered bleach, I mean, you know, I mean, anyway, but it's like, the most important thing was they, they made up their mind, they came to me and said, Hey, Mom, we think we might really like to work for your company. Or if I solicited them, it probably wouldn't be nearly the quality relationship and work production that that we have. So in other words, and this is now I'm talking about kids, but even if it was a friend, if you went to that friend, I don't think that them coming to you. would be the same as far as production, taking the job serious and really wanting to benefit the company. And unless they came to you and said, Hey, I really liked what you're doing. I want to be a part of that. So I think that's number one.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai