Building the Perfect Cleaning Company Culture That Drives Results

Hello everyone and welcome to our 2017 webinar series. I hope everyone is as excited as I am for today's webinar because the title for our webinar today is Building the Perfect Cleaning Company Culture that Drives Results. My name is Ken Hutchins, Vice President of cleantelligence Software. I'd like to thank cleantelligence Software for asking me to participate today and a special thanks to our attendees. Give yourself a pat on the back for making the effort to increase your education for your business. Whether you are in a leadership position or on the front lines of the cleaning industry, I promise what you will learn will have a major impact in your organization if you apply the techniques I will coach you on today. For your convenience, this is being recorded and may be viewed again on our website at www.cleaning cleantelligent.comwebinars and our YouTube channel. It will also be posted on other social media platforms of ours. Here's a quick tip. Strong Culture is consistently reviewed, so please watch it again. We'll talk more about that in a second. Rules of this Webinar Rule number one of this webinar is to take notes. You have no idea when a thought will come to your mind that will be the game changer for your organization. Even if you never read the note again, there's an incredible amount of energy that will flood your brain when you physically write it down. Rule number two Share this training with your organization and the rest of the social media world. Once we post it, you repost it. In all seriousness, when you surround yourself with successful organizations, you yourself will become one of those organizations. So again, please repost the recorded webinar and help other businesses around you become successful. A couple action items that I wish for you to be taking away from today is Number one, know your team. Number two establish a united vision. Number three positivity is the key and number four revise, revise and revise. These items are things that hopefully you have quite a bit of notes and techniques on by the end of this webinar. Some things you can do in each of these categories. Again, here's that plug to take notes. These are the four pillars in which I'm going to try and teach you in our webinar today. So let's go ahead and get started. So some of you may be asking yourself this question. Hopefully not. But if you are, the question that I'm thinking you're going to be asking is why should I be listening to you? Let me just give you the simple answer that you already know and sometimes just don't want to accept. But I have learned these things from experience. I'm not perfect at everything. But hopefully there are some of you listening today that are willing to follow other entrepreneurs courses that they took and learn from their experiences so you don't have to make the same mistake. You all signed up for this webinar for one reason or another and hopefully the real question you will be willing to ask yourself right now and throughout this webinar is what am I going to do today to ramp up my company culture? Two word answer for you. Take action. That's it. Sometimes we build out this extensive list of what our ideal culture could be based off of and what we personally like and then we wait till everyone and their dog makes sure it's going to be okay to implement. Truth be told, it will most likely never get done when we wait for the perfect moment. So just take action on a few small steps. I'm not asking you to do everything I'm going to give you in techniques today. Just choose a couple and take action. Okay everyone doing that for me. Awesome. Moving forward, I believe the best way to apply this principle is and to establish what we're going to do is learning from our first lesson. Let me share a lesson in the active learning stage right now at cleantelligent Software and it's a highly active pursuit of ours. So a couple years ago when I joined the executive team here at cleantelligent, there was initially a four first lesson learned what was happening before coming in and what I needed to help change and is still changing to this day at Clean Intelligent. That is a constant need to work on to make sure we're improving. And this is where I'll relate to the action item number one that you hope to get out of today and spend this part of the webinar on this action action item of knowing your team now real quick. There is nothing that destroys a strong and successful culture faster than someone in senior leadership who has the job title of Master Negative. Just doesn't work. So I created this principle that culture is 90% positive attitude and 10% something else. I will stand by that statement 100% based off of the things that I have seen and learned. Your positive attitude helps get you there knowing your team. One of the best example companies I like to relate to who I believe masters this super well that I'm following and trying to pattern clean intelligence culture off of is a company called infusionsoft. Infusionsoft is known as one of the leading sales and marketing solutions for those who need both marketing automation and help with end to end sales and drip marketing, things like that. But infusionsoft Going to their Culture infusionsoft has something called a dream wall. Over a year ago I was at their headquarters and taking a tour and this is a picture I took of their dream wall. So as you can see, pretty cool, right? It's something that is just, it's fun to look at, it's a chalk wall, but more importantly of what's on it. This is in one of their buildings with multiple building campus. And I don't know when I saw this for the first time. I just loved the whole idea behind it of understanding who your employees are and where they're headed, what they want to accomplish. And infusionsoft's purpose is that they help small businesses succeed. And much of their employees actually do own their own small business on the side from working for them. It's really cool for them to be so invested in their employees and they want to know, they want their co workers to know what their dreams are in accomplishing and the goals they are there to achieve. So in getting to know your team, as this is the principle that we're trying to find techniques for, this would be a huge asset in applying action item number one. Know your team. This is a very physical way to to know your team, to see it, the culture of your company becomes real and great when you know about the personal lives of the very people that work for you. Recently, just this last week, I decided on a new action item for myself to help me become even more to become better at knowing my team and what their goals are in life. So what is this action item? I've committed to do personal one on one conversations with every single employee to see how they are doing. And that's a huge time commitment. For me it's only going to be 10 minute meetings, but I want to do it in showing and proving to them that I care. And for some companies that will take less than an hour to do with the few employees they have and others it could take a week with a few executives doing it. But that's one of the action items that I have learned in some of the recent conventions and conferences and studies that I am always constantly educating myself on. Becoming a better leader is I want to know truly know who works for me. And it's not an interview, it's not an employee evaluation where we get to talk about a lot of work related things. It's just a moment for me to know who they are, what are some of their dreams, what are their favorite things that they like to do and to invest in them as an employee. And maybe there is, maybe there is something I'll bring to their manager and be like, hey, did you know this person had this goal? I think that's really cool. It'd be really cool if you as their manager followed up with them and showed that that was something that you're interested in as well. So there's another technique. There's the dream wall. Refugeesoft Ed, there's something that I'm just sharing with you on what I believe could be super beneficial for your organization. Alright, so moving on to our second action item for you to take away from today is establishing a united vision. One of the things that is commonly unknown by larger organizations on their frontline employees is a vision. Where is the company headed and what do we stand for? And how do I feel the same passion that perhaps the original founders have for this business. So if you don't have a vision that's built upon some simple foundational principles like your purpose, your purpose is defining your why as an organization, why are you in business? What are you there to achieve? And it's a simple one line statement. Another thing that helps establish your vision as a company is a mission. And I'm not talking about a mission statement and things like that. Those are different. I'm talking an actual mission. It's the what, three to five year goal line. What are you going to do? And you might build out a graphic to help establish that. I'll let you in on some insights a little bit later talking about this in a couple minutes here of what Cleantelligent is doing right now to help realign and get on the same vision and united as a team. And thirdly, values, core values. What do you stand for as a company? This helps create the personality and ultimately your culture as a company in its existence is defined as the personality of the company. But core values, you know, what are they and do you know how to do some simple things related to your values? The conference I was at two and a half weeks ago was related to some of the teachings that you hire and you fire against your core values. It's what you stand for as a company and it defines the core of who you are, whether it be words of integrity and things of that nature. So establish a united vision. Now some things I want to share with you here on this is a vision comes from different aspects of your business. During this portion I'M going to be referencing a few things that I have personally been able to implement and learn from the book by Verne Harnisch called Scaling Up. And Verne Harnisch talks about basically it's four things, four pillars that he builds off of scaling up your organization. And I'm going to pull this in and relating it to establishing your united vision. But the four things that he's about, excuse me, is the people, the strategy, the execution and the cash. And that's what his whole book is about and how it helps implement your book. One of the specific things that in establishing a vision that I feel very passionate about and things that for you as a cleaning company to learn from is in establishing a vision. Let me back up. You first know your team and that team is going to help execute your vision. And if your vision came from you solely from the beginning and your team isn't on board with it, executing that vision is going to be extremely hard. So whether it's in a good or bad situation, one of the quotes from this book that I absolutely love, he said, the right people doing the right things right. And that applies to being inside the organization. And that's very crucial in order to being united in your vision is the right people have to be doing the right things right. And he talks about evaluating there's moments in time where your vision and how it's executed comes from key relationships surrounding the business. And depending upon how you scale your business and grow your business, that's going to need to change. And to quote a portion in one of the chapters in his book, he says you need to evaluate all key relationships surrounding the business. Would you keep all your existing customers? Are you happy with your investors and bank? Are your vendors supporting you properly? Are your advisors, accountants, lawyers, consultants and coaches the best fit for the organization and future plans or future to your vision? The toughest decision to make are when the company has outgrown some of these relationships and you need to make changes. And so when we become so connected to our vision, we have to make sure that we're willing to make sure that the organization achieves it. And sometimes those are hard decisions. Sometimes that means moving on from one leader to another and changing up things. And how do you maintain those things during or how do you maintain those changes with employees is you are all headed towards that same vision. So I do want to take a minute. As I said a few minutes ago, I would like to share with you kind of what cleantelligent is establishing right now in helping you and Guide you as a cleaning company, perhaps an idea for you to take. So bear with me for the next couple minutes in sharing what cleantelligent is building right now in our roadmap. Not related to our product, but us as a company. So here you will see. It's called the Summit to Kings Peak. And this is something just in the making. It's definitely not finalized here at Clean Intelligent, but excuse me, some of you may be familiar with something called the Everest Climb. Some companies, some big companies around the world have perhaps referenced it as they grow and they scale. They talk about climbing the summit to Mount Everest. And so something we did just a week or so ago is try and realign in some of the goals that we are in today. Some of the goals we've achieved is what is our next step, where are we going over the next couple of years? And so this is what I meant earlier in the webinar, talking about a graphic. Something that helps achieve, excuse me, achieve those results. As you can see, it's for a couple years. For the next couple of years is where we're at currently at 2017. We're considering Basecamp of this summit. Now, in order to do this, we are gathering information from our employees, taking surveys, knowing where we can become united in our vision as a company. And we took it a little bit on a personal scale. Cleantelligence Software is nestled right in the Uinta Mountains. Not in the Uinta Mountains, it's in Provo, Utah. But our culture environmentally around us, Mount Timpanogos is right next to us. And one of the highest peaks in Utah, though, is King's Peak, which is in the Uinta Mountains. And so we took this idea of the Everest climb and took it a little bit personal geographically of where we are. Silicon Slopes is the tech area of the nation. And it's becoming this huge, booming population. And so again, we just took something that we could relate to. And again, Kings Peak is a real peak in Utah, and that's the summit we're going to climb. So by the end of 2021 is the goal. We are building and projecting the set of how many customers we want to have. Where's our software going to be around the world and things of that nature and what our revenue is going to be and how successful we are as a company. And as we build this together as co workers, all in the same mission together, we become super connected with it. It doesn't matter if they're management or our frontline employees as a service agent answering tech support calls everyone is equal here at cleantelligent, and we make sure that everyone has a voice. And I think that's crucial. So here's just something Clean Intelligent is doing. Again, as a cleaning company, I would encourage you to figure out how to become passionate as a team, as a group about something that is personal, something that you guys can relate to. And you'll see that vision truly come to pass as people get excited about it. Real quick, as I was introducing this to our company and trying to get feedback from the initial stages of building this, I was like, who's willing to physically go hike King's Peak? And no one raises their hands. But it's a pretty difficult hike here in Utah. But, you know, become connected to it. Who knows, maybe in one of these coming months or coming years, as we're metaphorically headed after the King's Peak and climbing that summit is I will take on the physical challenge and maybe physically do it, become more connected to it. It may seem silly, but I promise you it's going to deliver results. Because when you physically see it, you hear it, you say it, results come. And I know, and I know you can see that for your cleaning business. So moving on to. Excuse me, the next portion often, I apologize. The last portion took a lot longer than I was anticipating. I get super excited about when companies establish, establish a vision just because I know it works so well. Moving on to. Excuse me, our third point is positivity is key. Now here it's going to be a short session because I don't believe there's anything more I can say than what you probably already know with someone who's working to achieve success is you know yourself when you beat yourself up during the day or beat your team up and always focusing on the negative. And I've seen it firsthand, it's easy to do in the cleaning industry is. I just forgot the phrase, oh, you're only as good as your last clean, right? That's kind of the mindset that some of these clients take on with you as building service contractors. And the benefit for you to engage in positive activity is one, retention of your employees. They have to feel valued. They don't need managers drilling down their neck all the time. And I know people make mistakes and I know people mess up. I messed up. My staff has messed up. And serving our clients. And you know what? When we drive positivity home and the ability to improve, we naturally seek after the responsibility of taking ownership for everything we do. And so again, here, I'm not going to spend any more time. Just also I want to be respectful of your guys time today and I want to move on to the next portion. But positivity is key and it's really hard to do. And so as you physically write down, here's a technique I'll give you. Write down all the positive thoughts you have during the day and you might be thinking like, well I'm a pretty negative person and I don't write down positive thoughts because they don't come. Trust me. You pull out a book, a notebook and just take a minute every here and there throughout the day just like, alright, what are some positive things that happen? You will start recognizing more and more and more the positive things that are happening in your business with your team. And as you share that, it spreads, it spreads like wildfire throughout your organization. One of the challenges I gave a company this was months ago. But maybe here's another technique I'll give you today. Positivity because it works so well. Here's one of the things I would challenge you guys to do. Calculate how many employees you have and choose which day of the month or a few days. And if your organization is super large, break it down to individual teams that will take responsibility for this. But the idea behind this is everyone gets a day and everyone submits something positive about that one employee whose turn it is to be recognized. Recognition is key, especially in front of clients and other employees. They feel valued. And that retention goes up for your organization. That's the benefit that you're going to receive. But take on that challenge, super simple. You choose an employee, a day, or two employees a day or whatever, it's going to work for your organization and focus on sending them that positive affirmations and thoughts from their co workers. And if someone doesn't know who that person is, guess what, they gotta get to know that person in order to give them positive thought. And it's great for those employees to sit there and just be like, alright, wow. I just, I see everything that my team believes in me and look at these positive thoughts that they're sharing with me and they feel valued and that's gonna help execute your culture again. All this, the purpose of today's webinar is this is building the ultimate key successful culture for your business. So moving on to the next section though, this is the final point of today that I want you to take away and techniques from this is revise, revise and revise. I mentioned it earlier and this too is also more of a self explanatory technique. But here we are, it's been about a year, just over a year. We go to this conference every year helping us establish our business processes. And a couple weeks ago, we just got back from the one we went to again last year. Here I was, I was sitting in this conference and I was like, man, I heard these same things last year, but yet they spoke to me differently. For clean telegmt software, for you, as a cleaning company, it's key, and it's not a bad thing to go back and be like, wow, we just built this process. This is how we handle client communication. This is how we handle inspections across our board. In the end of the day, you're always going to be revising for improvement. You're always looking at what can improve. And so in the closing of today's webinar, I want to talk to you just about some of the things that clean intelligence software has done to help organizations revise. And this is the last point I'll drive home. And for those of you who are users of the software, I sure hope you're getting these kind of results. Those of you who aren't users, these are some of the things that you may have the opportunity to learn more about. And that's the fact that the ability to track data and the ability to understand where your problem areas are in your organization helps you continue to build the foundational principles that build your culture is you have to know what's going on in your business to know where to improve. Now, our software specifically is helping people in operations in the field, performing inspections, client communication, back and forth. But what it does give you the ability and the benefit that's going to give you is the opportunity to reinforce that vision. Some of the principles, some of our companies have taken home the idea that their clients mean everything to them. They are the key relationships, as it should be in the industry that we serve. And so our software is just a tool. There's many other softwares out there, but I would advise you to figure out ways to track that communication, because there's nothing, again, going back to what I said earlier, there's nothing that'll destroy the culture of a company quicker than negative, the master negative person, right? And negativity happens when people are left out of the loop and people talk behind each other's back. So find a tool out there that's going to drive real, open, honest and direct communication with your organization. So again today, in closing, just to recap, four foundational things that you should have some techniques to implement to build Your true company culture today is one, know your team. Two, establish a united vision. And three, positivity is key. And fourth, the one I just drove home is revise, revise and revise. Get data, look at it, analyze it, adjust, right? And that's what will help you establish a real foundational company culture that will get you to drive results. Last point. There's a lot of information I've talked about today, some a little bit more than others, maybe have rambled on about some more things that I'm passionate about and that I like to see success in. But again, two words leaving today's webinar is to take action. What are some small, simple things you could do today to help influence your company culture? Excel to a higher level. I promise you, as you implement even some of the techniques I taught you guys today and coached you through and how to do them, that you will see results. You'll notice the difference, team members, the excitement to work for you. Your employee retention, which again, is one of the largest pain points in the cleaning industry. How do we drive home that retention? Up on the screen is also some other links, some things that I didn't really reference today, but things that might be beneficial for you to go look up and research more and educate yourself. These links will teach you some of those things and some of the things that I talked about overlap and there's some great articles there. In closing, here's my contact information or the contact information of our teams. Cleantelligence software is here in its purpose, to serve people. At the end of the day, we're interested in the relationships of building service contractors and facility managers and those other involved in the cleaning industry. And we care about people. I didn't have time to go over it today. I apologize, but I wish I could have taken a moment to share our core values with you, what we stand for as an organization. More importantly, though, is you developing your own and developing your culture. So thank you for your guys' time today. I really appreciate you guys getting on Again, please reshare this webinar and share the techniques that have been learned and the ones that you implement. So have a great day, everyone, and good luck.