NEXT!

[Mikey P]

This could be interesting.
Question for you one to two truckers..

I'm on the hunt again for another "helper"...

My first legit employee left after two years in search of more money. Was able to work on his own on simple jobs.
Second was let go within a year for immaturity and inability to show up on time. Could not work on his own or even drive the vehicle
Third left after 6 years to move out of town. A legit tech able to do most anything on his own
Forth is leaving after one year in search of more money than I can pay him at this point. Not able to go out on his own.

My son is till with us after seven years. (and more than able to be on his own.


Lets face it as, ultra small companies (especially in ultra expensive areas like mine) we will never be able to pay a family man wage so I'm fully expecting this trend to continue.
I'll be looking for more maturity, better communication and quicker picker upper this time around..


I'm just curious as to the longevity to your helpers/techs..

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Four sons have been my lifesavers over the years. You don't often get to train a technician from infancy. I'm currently (3+ years) fortunate to have my "5th son" working with me.

 

[ruff]

Excellent issue Mike.
Be interesting to see what people in similar situation do, particularly those in high cost of living areas that charge a higher fee and need highly skilled techs. Quite an investment in training.

Do you fill up their schedule and they still not make enough money?

What monthly salary you think will be enough to keep them?

 

[bob vawter]

HoKilla
DoeKilla
CRASH
do i need go on?
i got lucky...CRASH bought my bidness...and im skipping down the sidewalk..happy....happy....happy!

 

[Mardie]

If you want to play you got to pay..... New Immigrants are good. They typically have a muuuuuch better work ethic and put their job as a priority in their life.

 

[TomKing]

Mike
My time is a lot shorter than yours here is what I have experienced.

We currently have 4 full time techs and one guy we call on occasion.

I have had 5 cleaners in four years who worked for other carpet cleaning companies.
3 have been fired all from major franchises.
1 moved out of state to start his own company.
1 is still with us and doing great.

My original tech Mike who you met at the fest in Nashville left town to start his own business with a family member. Great opportunity for him.

My son is with us going on 2 years.

The two newest techs are both from a food service background. They have worked out great and I think really enjoy the regular hours and pay.

Karen and I try to dine out twice per week for ourselves and we are looking for good help. We look in major franchise restaurants’ or sit down quality mom and pop places. Never fast-food usally to young a crowd.

You can tell the good ones they pick up on the system and you can see them working it on you when they are serving you.

The last guy I hired offered us dessert. When I said "no we where full he said do you ever come and see a movie next door". We said "yes". He then said "why don't you stop on in afterwards for dessert and to say hello". I was sold right then and there. We gave him a card. He called first thing Monday. He ran lead last night and did great.

Bill & Steve from SFS are right when they tell you hire the smile.

Those from outside the industry have been the best hires for us.

A bartender
A server
A starbucks employee
A recording engineer
and one carpet cleaner have worked for us.

I have an interview for today and 2 more Saturday. We cannot find good people quickly.

Karen told me the other day we have to be interviewing monthly to stay on top of having good people.

I believe you are right about some constant turn over.

Two things we always do before our official hire

1. Sign a one day contract and send them out on the truck. We know by the end of the day if they have the potential to be good and work alone.

2. Take them out to dinner and allow them to bring a guest. If it is a family guy we take them all out if they like.

We are able to see if there is anything crazy at home. Cause crazy comes to work. Most people are not able put on for the length of dinner.
I had one guy get past the dinner. Dinner has saved us more times than not. One time we were meeting a single guy he did not want to bring anyone so we brought my son. The guy never showed up. Nice company paid officers meeting that night.

We had a guy we took for dinner hired and he never showed for work. He called me 4 month later to tell me he realized after dinner the standards we had he could not meet. He said he didn't have the courage to call but it had been nagging him.

The ride along is great one guy tried to get the night tech to go see a concert he had tickets to and them go do the work.

We are smoke free. One guy lit up in the truck and outside the house same day. He knew this prior to ride along.

We also never do a ride along on our commercial route anymore. We do not want them to see that part of our business and we also want to make sure if needed they are the caliber person to be able to do residential work.

I also ask them if they have a personal budget. I have found alot of the folks we hire live week to week. I do not want to know that budget I just want to encourage them to know their numbers. I do not want a guy saying yes because he needs a check only to leave 2 weeks later for better money. We need to both know we are in range of them making ends meet.

We also will pay for any employee to attend a class called Financial Peace Universtiy. It is held in churches and community centers. The employee can choose the type of program they want to attend. It teaches how to live debt free.

We also have a set pay range and way to get increases. We tie it to IICRC classes. Everyone starts at the same pay I do not care who you are. You find out in about 30 days what a guy is really worth and after the initial training we can make adjustments.

Maybe you could get a truck with a sleeper cab to help with housing as a perk.

 

[clean image]

Good post. This kinda of ties into the earlier thread you had I was gonna comment on

I larger company can afford to pay less due to leverage

Smaller outfit, if there good and know it, they kinda got u in a way

When I worked for a 40 crew company, I never met the owner for 4 years
Like Greg cole is more worried about operation managers and small companies worry about employees
If he knew what I paid my top guy , he would call it a going out of business plan
However he is much more, and his pay reflects this
Being that I worked for a company similar to gee cole, and been small I can see both sides
Small companies are much tighter unit
Small companies reply heavier, and ask more of there people

At end of day you have to get them emotionally connected to your company and work out the pay if there good,

 

[Ken Snow]

That is not true Carl, at least in our case. Our Assistants more more than most pay their Leaders and we also provide health benefits, vacation pay, offer a 401k etc. There are all sorts of models in this industry and all can be successful- please don't make blanket statements.

Tom - Thanks for the great post!

Respectfully
Ken

 

[clean image]

No disprect to you Ken or your company. You definately have a great thing going over there

Kinda the google of carpet cleaning from what I gather

No blanket statement implied, "can" is wording I used, leaves room for exceptions.

 

[clean image]

No disprect to you Ken or your company. You definately have a great thing going over there

Kinda the google of carpet cleaning from what I gather

No blanket statement implied, "can" is wording I used, leaves room for exceptions.

 

[Ken Snow]

Got it- thanks for the clarification Carl and I did miss the word "can". :-)

 

[Newman]

I plan on cloning my son.

 

[hogjowl]

When I was young, 25 years ago, and just starting out, I was going to rule the world and hit the ground running. Within a year, I had 7 full time employees and 3 part time. Like I said, I was young and just hired anybody, and only paid them minimum wage. Of course, it was a disaster! The average tenure of my employees was in weeks, not months, and certainly not years.

Fast forward 25 years and I am only now willing to hire again. Like Lee, my son is my new hire. He will most likely be with me for life, unless he gets smarter than I ever was and gets a real job. I pay him well, commission basis, and will continue to do so. When it comes time to hire him a helper, I will do like Ken and have my son pay him a percentage of his commission. (Not literally, but you know what I mean.)

My problem will be keeping those guys busy enough to allow them the opportunity to make money. If I knew a way to keep the vans scheduled better, I think I could keep people.

 

[Mikey P]

And not a single insult!

 

[Art Kelley]

Fag!

 

[Chris A]

I let my last one go in August. I was convinced I was done and was gonna be a loser lone wolf for life. now that reality has set in I'm looking for someone and not looking forward to going through the process again. we've had 6 tech's in 5 years so I feel ya brother.

 

[Art Kelley]

I let my last one go in August. I was convinced I was done and was gonna be a loser lone wolf for life.

loser lone wolf for life

LOL. I guess it's all in how you perceive things.

 

[Chris A]

loser lone wolf for life

LOL. I guess it's all in how you perceive things.

I know you know that was meant to be tongue in cheek art. I have no issues with how anyone chooses to run their lives and businesses.

 

[hogjowl]

Four sons have been my lifesavers over the years. You don't often get to train a technician from infancy. I'm currently (3+ years) fortunate to have my "5th son" working with me.

I am confused, Lee. You posted the following on the thread welcoming 1kaDay to MB last June:

"I'll risk the snarks and be the first to admit I'm personally still in high five figures. I'm sure that is close to the norm. We spun the boys into separate businesses a few years back, and theirs run a bit above mine. As a father I'd rather see them do well than me."

Do they work for you, or not?

 

[Shane Deubell]

My feeling is we wait until someone quits or is fired before recruiting, its too late then and we have to scramble. The biggest thing i am currently working on is putting more effort everyday, little bit everyday.

Just like marketing i guess, can't wait until your slow to look for work.

 

[Ron K]

So if all these people are leaving have you ever ask them why? Maybe you need to change something or maybe not.

Why not ask them what they need and want, if they say a pay check well maybe thats not a good enough reason to hire them.

Maybe tie their long term goals to a long term profit sharing plan.

Has anyone looked into Ex-military??

 

[Steve Toburen]

I have an interview for today and 2 more Saturday. We cannot find good people quickly.

Karen told me the other day we have to be interviewing monthly to stay on top of having good people.

You have a very smart wife, Tom. Listen to her.

My goal in business (which I did not always meet) was to have a "stable" of good people already pre-interviewed and waiting for my call while continuing to work in their current job. In fact, we ran a QuickTIP on this "employee in waiting" concept last June. Yes, it can be a pain. But the alternative which I called "desperation hiring" never worked out well for me!

Steve

PS Years ago one of my mentors told me, "Steve, all the good employees already have a job." (And yes, I know that there are exceptions to this rule.) So that is when I started recruiting EMPLOYED people.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Marty Justin and Jason have their own business. Jonathan works for me. We all cooperate.

 

[hogjowl]

Ah, ok. Yeah, at our ages, it's best to keep one poor soul around to keep us from falling in our soup.

 

[Mikey P]

I love Tom's take them out to dinner idea.

If anyone else is willing to share their interview techniques it would be very helpful to me as well as the readers who will no doubt find themselves in the same position as I am in... over and over..

 

[hogjowl]

I suspect your guys grow tired of watching you talk on the phone all day while they do all the work.

 

[Mardie]

I love Tom's take them out to dinner idea.

If anyone else is willing to share their interview techniques it would be very helpful to me as well as the readers who will no doubt find themselves in the same position as I am in... over and over..

The interview technique I am about to explain is flawless in finding out certain things such as. How smart or dumb of a worker, efficiency , ability to work on his own, ability to complete a job, attitude, degree of quality workmanship and pride in a job well done or not. Probaly a lot of other things also just so long as you know how to read the play. Here is how it goes. You go find a buddy with a barn or warehouse that is at least 50 ft x 100 ft The concrete floor must be real dirty and is also good if a lot of stuff can be move by one person. Put the new prospect in their with a broom and dust pan first thing in the morning and tell him to do a real good job of sweeping the whole barn and he can take as long as he needs to get it done. Also tell him you will be coming by to see how he is doing. You pop in every couple of hrs. take a look how he is going about it and how much he is getting done and have a little chat with him. Bingo you got your answer.

 

[Mikey P]

I suspect your guys grow tired of watching you talk on the phone all day while they do all the work.

I have to remind them over and over that the more I talk, the more they make.

 

[hogjowl]

Foster paying you to talk to him these days?

 

[Royal Man]

The interview technique I am about to explain is flawless in finding out certain things such as. How smart or dumb of a worker, efficiency , ability to work on his own, ability to complete a job, attitude, degree of quality workmanship and pride in a job well done or not. Probaly a lot of other things also just so long as you know how to read the play. Here is how it goes. You go find a buddy with a barn or warehouse that is at least 50 ft x 100 ft The concrete floor must be real dirty and is also good if a lot of stuff can be move by one person. Put the new prospect in their with a broom and dust pan first thing in the morning and tell him to do a real good job of sweeping the whole barn and he can take as long as he needs to get it done. Also tell him you will be coming by to see how he is doing. You pop in every couple of hrs. take a look how he is going about it and how much he is getting done and have a little chat with him. Bingo you got your answer.

I'm more concerned about how personable they are , how well they can talk, are they well groomed, can they think on the fly, are willing you grow and learn new things. honesty and motivation. How well they can push a broom? I could careless. From my experience new hires that think of it as just a janitorial position make very poor carpet cleaners. They are only good for night work that has little or no client interactions.