Ricky: This is Ricky Rigolotto, CEO and founder rolls out with surfaces.
Welcome to cleaning and cocktails.
Got one and only here with me, Aja Simmons at saved from Cleveland's network.
Well, he's also got a couple of other businesses and jobs
that he's involved with.
We'll get into that further.
But AIJ thank you for joining me,
AJ: man.
You already know it was a pleasure and I appreciate you even
inviting me and having me all.
Ricky: Alright man.
All right.
Well it's funny cause last time it was you on the other, me on the other
side of receiving the questions.
I wanted to pay it back cause I.
I think this is a great episode for not only, you know the audience
that you already have, but this audience in general, right?
There's so many small business owners.
Cause again, this is geared towards the small business community where, where
we're trying to empower our cleaning industry with all the knowledge that
we can give them all the tips, all the advice, the pitfalls, the successes.
There's a lot to talk about, right?
So to kick things off, for those who don't know, you.
What's a good two, three minute intro to Aja civics.
AJ: All right.
So I'll try to be as brief as possible cause it goes back.
Right.
But similar to you, I started off as a franchise, um, for half one
early when I was 19, when then I was the whole franchise owner.
So, uh, I basically lost most of my accounts.
I sold the restaurants, got out of the business.
Try some other things.
Got back into the business when I was around about 23, I think it
was, and that's when I bought it.
And I, one franchise owner, the honorable mention award, uh, did pretty well.
Um, and then.
Got out of the franchise and decided to start clean this network to
start helping other cleaning co, other clean professionals who want
to be entrepreneurs, you know, and give them an option outside
of cleaning, franchise and school.
And then also for those who did back when we franchise, still give them some
support because even with the cleaner franchise, as you may know, there's
still some things that you missed.
You know what I mean?
So I just figured out kind of be a one off solution to help.
Other people, you know, other points.
For the most part, that's pretty much me.
Um, on my YouTube for you, I think I'm on my sixth year now on YouTube,
so I kind of build a little file one for myself and I'm just trying
to help as many people as possible.
Ricky: Awesome.
Awesome.
Don't be, don't be so modest, man.
You definitely have a good community, but you actually just reminded me right there.
Everybody.
This is cleaning the cocktails.
So here's our drinks that we got going on.
What is this Wednesday though?
At four o'clock, I tap you out or somewhere.
AJ: Absolutely.
Ricky: Awesome.
Well, Hey, Jay, let's, let's get into the industry itself, right?
Um, there's so much to talk about, but I like to keep it to where we ask some
questions and then, you know, just give me your personal thoughts on them.
Right.
So first off, you got into it a little bit on how you got into the cleaning industry.
But would you, would you change anything about how you got into this space?
You know, like, did you anticipate getting into this space the way you
did, or was it by accident or just give us the outlook on how you got
into it and would you have changed
AJ: anything.
Yeah.
So obviously, you know, looking at half site, if I had the information
that I have now, obviously I could say I would have went independent from
the beginning, but the truth of the matter is I want to change anything
because you know, coming straight off the street the way that I was, and I
had no, I had nobody to look up to.
You know, Instagram today.
You got all these different entrepreneurs you could reach out to ask for advice.
There's YouTube videos everywhere, but back then I
didn't even know what YouTube was.
So, uh, I definitely want to change it and how I got into the business.
I think all of those experiences helped me to become, you
know, the HSMs you see today.
So I want to change anything now.
Ricky: Alright.
I I, I agree with that.
I got to say a hundred percent because the way you start is, I mean, we
got the same type of story, right?
Is I started with a franchise too.
And it's like we learned a lot from there.
Right?
Is, is the franchise the best route?
Maybe, you know, for some, yes, but for many who are, I believe, true
entrepreneurs that want to build, build, and scan, um, you might want
to, to, to do it yourself, right?
Go independent because it, it just gives you a little bit more flexibility.
But that's, that's a whole other conversation.
Right?
But
AJ: what was that
Ricky: aha moment when you said.
Damn, I'm happy that I got into this space.
You know, cause a lot of people come into the cleaning space and then they leave it.
Right?
Like what was your moment to say the I'm sticking through
AJ: it.
Okay.
So if I think of, I didn't think I had an aha moment, but now that
you fed it just popped in my head.
So it was the money, obviously.
So, but I'll tell you a story about my friend, my best friend, we were,
you asked me to borrow like $20 and so I said, all right, well, I'll
let you borrow it if you can find me somewhere to cash check on a Sunday.
And he was like, Oh, he would just go to the corner store, they cash a check.
And so then I'm like, Mmm.
I don't think they don't catch it.
Check that.
And I try to be modest, so I didn't know how to say it, but I was on my way.
I could see it.
And so then he'd be like, well, how much are you talking?
600 700 and I'm like, uh.
Like 7,000 you know?
So it was like, Oh man, like his eyes got so big, and he was like,
you doing something different.
Apparently really the real big change moment, but obviously, you know, being
able to hire people, hire family members.
I feel like every family member, like as far as like cousin, mom,
dad, brother, any relation to me, family wise has worked for me.
Not every single family member, but every single one of them had a job for
me working with my cleaning company.
So things like that that let me know that I must, I must be doing right now.
Ricky: Nice.
Well that's, that's a good moment to, to know when you're doing something right.
Right.
Like it's confirmation.
I think I made the right decision.
Right.
So let's talk, let's talk about, because you're, you know, we'll get
into you being a mentor and a coach as well too, cause I think that's
great that you pay it back like that.
AJ: What,
Ricky: what would you say to people?
Because like we just said, right, they come into this space and then they
leave or they come in and they don't realize that it's, it's difficult.
What.
No, it's, it's known as an industry that's a low cost to
get into easy entry, no barrier.
Right.
Easy to hear all those definitions or descriptions.
What do you say to those and getting into the space that, you know, we know it could
be difficult, but how difficult is it?
Like what should a person, that's a month in six months in know what's the
must haves as you enter this space?
AJ: Yeah, I mean, the first off topic.
The work ethic, like you have to have a no lose mentality.
Like, man, when I tell you we used to work, and I say we, I'm
always talking about my wife.
When we used to work, I mean seven days a week, 10 hours a day, you know,
all times of the night going out to.
In the middle of the dark, you know, nobody else out on the street.
So it was like working and, and you know, my back will be so school from
bending over the dump, so many different trash cans or we're in a heavy backpack.
The backpack get heavy at the where so long, you know, and especially if
you don't dump it and learned that that backpack, it'll get even heavier.
So be ready to work, man.
Like a lot of people think you're just going to jump in this and make easy money.
And it's going to be quick.
And it's like, yes, you can make some money.
And yes, you can build this business that you can begin to build it as
big as you want to build it, but you're going to have to work and
there's no getting around at work.
So, and it really, that to me, that that's any industry what I know, because
I started dabbling in switching and trying to find the next shiny thing
because I was thinking, you know what?
Maybe it's just this industry, but everything I went into, it required work.
So to anybody think about honing in or jumping in and start a cleaning company, I
want you to understand a hundred percent.
You got to work.
Okay.
There's no getting around to work and that's why too, like on my channel,
I'll always try to make sure I give some personal development type videos to not
just clean him specific video because.
Without that personal development, without the motivation stuff.
I'm telling you that it's going to be very hard if possible, to make it,
Ricky: cause yeah.
I mean, I don't know if we ever talked about this before, but it's, there's a lot
of statistics out there that show, I mean, 90% of the industry, right, or even more,
they kept surpass a million in revenue.
Not to say that, you know, 500,000 revenue is not good enough.
Right.
AJ: But
Ricky: I got to believe that a lot of that has to do with a grit and determination
to see past a certain level, right?
And opportunity, right?
Getting lucky.
Opportunity knocking at the door.
But I think we, uh, we can do right, right now to, is build some
relevance, relevancy with people.
Right?
Like you just said it, backpack, it's heavy.
You should be dumping it of the way you fill the mop bucket,
the way you enter the account.
I feel like wearing hats right.
I always tell everybody is own your business, but on every aspect of it,
cause I mean you got to say is if you were in accounts payables and receivables,
you learn how to pay bills and you learn how to receive money, right?
If you didn't know how to do that, then how would you know how to hire
the right person for that, right?
Like what do you think about?
What are the elements of, so we know work ethic, you got to do the work.
AJ: Yeah.
Ricky: What other aspects of business itself do you think are crucial for a
cleaning business to go from, you know, them, you know, clean their own or do it
all the work itself to that first office, hire the second office, hire a director.
Like what?
What aspects of business now do we have to get
AJ: into?
I mean, it's pretty much everything.
Anything you can think of, you need to have some knowledge of it.
Because, I mean, tax is, first of all, understand that just the basis
of the, obviously you don't have to be a CPA, but know the basis of it.
Okay.
Understand laws.
You know, why are you choosing to be an LLC?
You don't just pick to be an LLC just because somebody told you to get an LLC.
Actually know why, what comes with it.
Um.
You know, organizing your book site for them.
I did my books with so many years ahead of time and for hire and a people book.
So now that I have a book, when I look at my books, it's just, you
know, I can look through that and I can spot a mistake instantly
because I already done it, you know?
So those types of things.
Also, um, management, being a good leader, I lead alley.
I always listened to a leadership goal by John Maxwell because I had to
figure out how to lead these people, you know, and be a good boss because.
Obviously I couldn't pay, you know, I can pay a lot of companies out there.
So I had to be able to send about, people want to stay with
my company longterm in other ways.
So by being a good leader and knowing how to treat people and you know,
creating other centers for people wanting to stay, that would help me
keep people along in the collegiate.
Definitely.
Um, what else, man?
I mean, so many things.
You got to steam the new technology.
No, you got to know at least have a general knowledge of the equipment.
At least the chemicals.
Like I always tell me, I don't know what the chemical that we use.
I know about that.
So he's like, no, you'll stop man.
Cause if you don't know it, how, how can you sell it off?
You know what I mean?
Anything you could think of about your company websites.
I didn't have the money to pay my bills myself, you know, so was just,
especially when you're on a shoestring budget, you got to know as much as
you possibly can and be prepared to wear every single hat as possible.
Yeah,
Ricky: I mean, you gotta think of it like, you know, owning it.
So it's not a glamorous business cleaning, but it allows you to learn somebody
things you would never have learned.
Right?
Like I went to school for marketing, that's marketing five you know,
what, 10 years ago, that's not the same marketing as it is now.
But you know, I learned, like I said, accounts, receivables, payables, taxes.
Like you said, I had to learn how to market the business, but
you nailed it on a part where.
I want to emphasize on we, you know, the industry we're in, we're
not in an industry that you could pay a manager six figures, you
know, in the beginning, right?
You're growing and you're hiring an office manager.
They're probably not going to get what they're supposed to get in the market.
You hire an operations manager, a training manager, like these are
people that aren't, you're not going to be able to pay top dollar.
So what else is there is environment, culture, workplace, right?
Like.
Empower them to own the company with you.
I feel like that's one of the things that people got to do because we
are just not in the position to be able to afford top dollar talent.
We can afford top dollar, you know, people,
AJ: right?
Ricky: Like finding, like you said, your wife.
I think family is huge.
You know, people, what's your take on family?
You know, working with family, having family involved with business because
you have a lot of family involved right.
AJ: Yep.
Absolutely.
I love it.
Personally, I know when you made it work too, but I love it is, and
obviously it can, but it can backfire at some time and we think might not
go the way that you want it to go.
For the most part, I love it.
My number one rule when it comes to home and family, I always tell people is.
Don't hire anybody that you're going to be afraid to fight,
Ricky: so
AJ: by anybody, you know what I mean?
Is I do I want to know I'm outside about it.
No.
Do I steal a good butterfly some time?
Depending
Ricky: on who it is.
AJ: You know what I'm going to do?
What's the best for the business?
I, I'll tell you this story.
I haven't told it in years, and I hate to tell it because it sounds so
horrible and if the right person here,
but, so I had a, my mom in law worked for me one time and I had to let her go.
You know?
And so, and that's just, that's my, I like her.
And then my childhood best friend had fight them off because I, between
those two, the whole, my artist's bias, just like I use them as an example,
let people know, listen, I got the heart to fight him on mama's fault.
Trust me, you can get fired.
I want to hear it.
You know?
I always offer the opportunity to my, to my family and my whole friends.
First all the time, and sometimes they may not be necessarily qualify, but
as long as we have the same mutual interest, you know what I mean?
We want the same goal.
That's really all that matters.
As long as you want the best for the company, like I want
the best for the company.
That's all that matters.
We can make this thing work.
I love hiring family.
I love having that family environment.
It just makes it that much easier.
If it works.
Ricky: I mean it's cause you, you know that they, they'll
go the extra mile, right?
Like they'll, they'll, they'll take ownership of things.
Not that the normal everyday employee that you hire volts, but it's hard.
It's hard to find that person who's going to work past nine to
AJ: five.
It's funny you say that too because like, um, nimble wife, we kind of
didn't see eye to eye when I moved to Florida and I left my, my business
in Virginia to, uh, you know, run.
And so I have put my brother in charge left and I had another employee who was
there from the beginning, you know, he was a great worker, showed up every day.
And I did initially, I did actually tell them, look, when I leave,
you're going to be the one in charge.
After thinking about it and thinking about our relation to what my brother is going
to have to do with something because I knew that there was going to be some pain.
That the money was not going to keep the other guy there.
And I know he liked him.
He was loyal, but it was just certain things like my brother, he didn't make
a ton of money, you know, managing it.
He, but he worked his way up and as we cool, he made, you know,
there was certain things that he would have had to deal with.
I just know that only only a family member probably would've put up with that.
So that family would definitely go above and beyond.
Typically too.
Ricky: I think I, you know, I was going to talk about this later, but I think
it's a good time to talk about it.
Um, the PPP part of what's going on right now with the loans and everything,
you know, a pair of protection plan.
I don't know, you know, I, I dunno how you got, are you're
dealing with it with, within your business, but are you seeing that?
That's a question that you're being asked to because this is going to lead
it to you as a coach and you as a mentor.
But I think that's a, you know, other than Caldwell 19, which we'll touch on.
Right.
What's your insight, or what have you heard, or what's your recommendation
for the BPP loan situation?
AJ: Okay, so I'll say this for her always.
I told everybody to apply for the a, I think it's called the EIDM.
Ricky: Right?
AJ: So because the IDL is a grant for and the PPP, as long
as you follow the guidelines.
A forgivable loan too.
So, uh, but I did do the EIDM and they did give me my 10 grand
before they ran out of money.
So I'm thankful for the head.
And then the PPP.
Absolutely man.
Like you said, like you just hit apply for everything.
You know, even, I've heard a CPA said a guy named Mark on YouTube.
I heard him say, even filed for unemployment.
If you ask and you have to fight yourself, or even a lot of
these guys are full up for news.
Well, if you took over, if you cleaned three builders
and one of them closed down.
You can still apply for unemployment is what I'm hearing.
Okay.
Try everything.
Cause the worst thing that can happen to you, do you say, you know, it's
not like you try everything man.
Try to do the best you can.
And if you do apply for the CPP, cause I gotta be responsible.
If you do apply for the PPP.
Make sure you do.
You're not doing it by me.
So you follow the guidelines so that you can that alone, because
to my understanding, uh, you will have to pay that ER thing if they
find out you have to pay back.
And these are with the banks and other lenders.
Isn't that directly through the SPO to government?
So I think that the implications, it'll be more organized.
I think typically, in my opinion, when they look at the government.
Some things can fall through the cracks.
You might want to be on top of that.
So,
Ricky: yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Well that leads to advice, right?
I mean, what, so it's first of all, it's hard to just start a business itself
and it's, you know, I personally don't do, it's hard to run two businesses.
It's hard to run three for you.
You know, I respect and admire the fact that you give back a lot to the
community cause you learn so much.
Right.
A lot of people.
Tend to just, you know, put the blinders on and focus on their
business, focus on them, and not really care too much for the community.
Where in your situation here you have clean business network, like
do you have, on your shirt you have YouTube, you have a great following.
What motivated you to take that step where you could have just continued with
just the janitorial covenant, right.
AJ: Honestly.
Okay.
So it's two motivating factors as far as YouTube.
Number one, I want us to do the obvious one first cause I don't want to, I
got to keep it a hundred correct.
So obviously I wanted some money from YouTube.
I saw that people were, it looked like an easy thing to do.
So I want to make money and it wasn't even a thing.
It'll take forever to finally be able to have a lot of work and a lot
of upload took me a year to finally get a hundred dollars a month money.
But most importantly, I always wanted to teach.
And I always like to talk business.
Always wanted to teach business.
I just wanted to help, you know, like where I'm from.
You know what I mean?
We don't really know anything as far as this is as far as how to
make money, how to keep money.
A lot of people don't even still to this day, I'm in my thirties and a half.
People don't even have a bank account, you know?
So it's always like adopted.
Even though I don't believe in Bravo now, but I always looked at myself back then as
the rock into the theory, like I'm a goal.
Steal, but I wanted to steal the information, not the money.
I wanted to steal the information from the rich and they bring it back to the point.
That was kind of my philosophy coming into it, and Robert Kiyosaki told me that.
Now that's probably not a good thought process, but coming up with
the thing to know with more of it.
Right.
So that was always my mind.
I just wanted to get to the information and bring it back to the people.
So those are my two weeks they want to go into that.
Ricky: Okay.
Awesome.
Well, that, and it's, there's so much to teach people, right?
And, and again, it's, it's an industry.
So it's not, it's not that it's a difficult industry, right?
And you don't have to be a cleaning professional to make it in this space.
You said it, right.
Work ethic, but you got a couple of that with business.
You got a couple of that with, you know, you, if you don't learn
your craft, this is the crap.
Be owning a business is a craft.
So you've got to take the extra steps.
You know, you've named a couple of books here, you've named a couple of YouTube
videos that you're following people.
It sounds stupid, but you've got to take the time to go out there
and do that research, right?
Like, do you have, what are some other recommendations for you
as us in the cleaning space?
Other books, other people to follow up, you know, obviously
yourself as well, but like other.
What are some other tips of advice for people to go to, to find good resources?
AJ: Absolutely.
That's an excellent question.
First, I want to point out one of the biggest difference makers for me.
Was, I always, I'm talking about almost 90%, maybe not nice, but at
least 85, 80% of the day I'm playing some type of motivational thing
in the background while I work.
And that was whether I was in the field cleaning or whether
I'm in an office today work.
I still do it to this day, whether, and it could be anybody, it could be
grant Cardone, it could be Tai Lopez.
Even back in the day, it could have been, um, Eric Thomas, uh.
I didn't, most importantly, what I'd like to do now, and I got to see every
call, was to get to see every car.
My point, he makes like smash videos of all types of entrepreneurs and put
them together so that people should check out what I listen to, audio books.
Um, and then, uh, what was the point I was about to say?
Um.
Hang on.
I forgot my point.
It was
Ricky: a good point too.
AJ: But yeah, man.
Um, I just, I would try to listen to this stuff nonstop to feed my brain.
Oh, that's what I was going to say.
CEOs of bigger companies, so a lot of times we get so caught up
into these people who are popular on social media, but then we
overlook the guys that run Shopify.
Or Ryan, um, you know, Coke or the CEO of Nike or, you know, pull up those
type of guys too, because they're the ones that's really doing it.
You know, most of us on the internet and internet, you know, take this
high, meaning you, for example, like I got way more followers.
Your business is way bigger than mine, you know, so like sometimes
you need, you have to go seek these people out because they may not
have them follow them, follow them.
Ricky: I just try to
AJ: people who've done it.
Well walking the walk and just try to listen to and feed my brain all
the time and typically out, listen, I don't think it make a difference
whether you read a book or listen to the now, but I try to listen to every
single thing as much as possible.
Educate myself.
Ricky: Another topic that I myself am guilty of, not, I don't know.
I have answers to it, but I was curious to hear what other people is.
Time management as an entrepreneur.
Like.
AJ: How
Ricky: you know, it's easy to say, Oh, you know, you've got to have
work life balance all you, you know, you've got to turn it off.
But I feel like the ones who, who make it or on their way to make
it, don't turn it off all the time.
But I mean, what, what is, what is a day to day AIJ Simmons do?
Because he's got the cleaning business, he's got the clean business
network, he's working on technology.
You know, we're always helping the Facebook audience.
Like, what is your time management look like?
AJ: Yeah, so I did that.
The key thing, I just scheduled everything, you
know, I schedule everything.
Even like family time.
I put that in there for typically around about, I guess about seven.
If I wake up by myself, sometimes I set an alarm and get up at six.
And then I try to, it takes me about two whole hours to get
ready and get to the office.
So that's why I try to do it early anyway.
But that whole, during that two hours, I'm listening to some
type of motivation to get gone.
You know, I might put a little quick workout in.
I'll actually sit in the bath, you know, so I can have the
time to listen to this stuff.
Um, and then like, that's me.
So then I get to the office.
I have my to do list that from the day before, every single day on my little.
Uh, no bad here for me every day.
And this is what, even before I moved here, cause I only been in
this for two or three months, so.
Um, but even before that, it was a vaccine thing.
I already had my to do list ready from the day before, and then if I have any
appointments scheduled out, it already be saved to my phone because I let
people schedule their Calendly, Calendly.
I can't fit.com and they can schedule one with me.
So if I got any walkthroughs, it's already scheduled.
My offensive assistant handles it.
So for the most part, I try to schedule the out for the following date that day.
I scheduled family time, like I think it's usually between five to seven or
seven to nine somewhere around in there.
Maybe we might watch a family movie just chill.
You know, I might play the game on my son, so, but for the most part,
I just schedule every single thing.
And it might not be the same as that schedule every single
day, but it's definitely going to be planned at least a day.
Ricky: For a while there, I wasn't making fun of people with calendars,
but also I was always the person who.
No, I, it's up here.
I know what I got to do tomorrow.
Why do I gotta use the calendar?
Literally live by the calendar now and now I get yelled at by my wife because
she'll start posting some stuff in there.
Like Rick was in there.
I posted it, you know it, but my
AJ: team like eight different calendars
Ricky: for all the different things that I got going on.
But it's, it is important if you put it down somewhere.
It'll, and you get reminded, and you can't play it because it's something
that I'm learning too, is it's not that you insult people if you're late or you
disrespect you don't mean it sometimes, but it's just a sense of, of respect
to, to know, you know, you're at other people's time too, not just yours.
Um, and I think that's just a good, a good business skill.
You know, that I'm always working on, I'm not.
You know what I may have?
I think I actually jumped on early here for our meetings.
So did you, but it's, you know, it's, it's, it's the little things to that cop.
Right?
So, uh, so, you know, another topic that's happening all day, every day,
every minute of this day right now is, is this black Swan event that
we call Kobe 19, though, right?
Um, can predicted it.
Uh, it's, it's still surreal right now.
It's pretty unprecedented.
I mean, when I go into the, to the stores or I'm out at the gas station,
it feels weary, you know, like not being close to people and people
are just messed up and gloved up.
I, I know this is very good for the cleaning industry, but at the same
time, if you don't know how to adapt, you may shut up as a business owner.
So what are you.
When you saw this coming as a business owner that has a coach, like what did
you start to think and prepare for when you, when this started to occur?
I mean, what did you do to prepare?
AJ: First of all, what happened to think was.
Damn, I should have ordered that to him.
That ULV spray I was looking at months ago cause I've been looking at, I've
been to about, you know, those, yeah.
And it's like now you wait till the time was in and out,
scrambling trying to find PPE.
So one of the things, um.
I can tell you what happened to me was like, like, you know, having to start a
kids and that's one of the things, like we couldn't even get disaffected, so I
had to keep shopping around shopper mash.
I, we're trying to find this effect.
But for the most part, one thing I did do after, cause that'd be kind
of shut down to a little bit invite I had set back and say, wait a
minute, let me get myself together.
And one thing I made sure you turned, I turned the news off.
Okay.
So if it didn't save virginia.gov cause that's where I'm located and I
don't want to hear any other extra news
or extra things that are completely throwing you off your focus.
So that was number one.
Number two, I just decided, okay, now, now that I'm focused, let me go
hop on YouTube and send my message to people who follow my channel.
Because you know, I obviously know that I could have an effect in the same way that
I fell off track when the thing for is it.
I'm sure there's a lot of other people out there that fall off track.
So let me talk to my people and try to help out there.
Uh, then I think too, because a guy that I'm following that everybody
knows, cause I mentioned so much arguments and once the grant Cardone,
I follow him a lot and I saw that he kinda made a knee jerk reaction.
He laid off like 42 people.
Uh, his content or the channel change immediately.
And so it was like with me looking up to this guy, it definitely affected
me and made me kind of pivot.
And so I made a wrong decision, which was, I stopped my lead generation
service because I said, well, this is a close anyway, no need for us to call.
And the truth of the matter was a lot of this is still open.
And when I looked at my numbers, because we track how many appointments would get.
And the numbers really didn't take off too bad.
Like we, you know, maybe like down five or 10 appointments per week.
For the most part though, we will still get appointments.
So what I should have did was kept going.
And once I realized that.
Open it back up.
I made from a test that I did take this time to make the adjustments.
I'm looking at my numbers more thoroughly, so now I'm profiting with
the generator, which I wasn't before.
Honestly, my other services to keep that service going just because it
helps so many people and the human fit out a lot because it's just the truth.
But I fixed it.
So now it can be a profitable service and I actually took advantage of
the situation to really kind of what they say, corn tea, you know?
And then.
Get myself back on track, get myself focused.
So I think I'm gonna come out out of this thing stronger than I was before.
Ricky: And that's, that's the type of feedback I want to hear, right?
Is we are going to come out of this.
There is certain ways to adapt.
You know you're going to lose business because those people are losing business.
People are shutting down.
So I think what this does though, it shows people don't have
all your eggs in one basket.
Have Mo have diversification not only with services that
you offer, but your clientele.
You know, this is a good time that we've been spending time on,
you know, talking shop on what clients do we have in this bucket?
What clients do we have in that bucket to have that buckets low?
Let's fill it back up.
You don't level the playing field on our accounts because you know, sales is key.
Sales is everything.
You know, you've got apps and sales and I'd like to touch on.
No, you don't have to tell everything about the lead generation, but I
think that is something that a lot of small business owners in their
cleaning industry, they lack sales.
Not that they're not hungry, it's just you don't know how to go about it.
Right.
What does everybody always assume is a cold call?
You know, a walking up to a door and knocking on the door,
you know, calling somebody who doesn't want to listen to you.
What's, what's your take on?
How has that worked for you?
What have you learned?
Obviously you knew how to do something that got you
AJ: into.
Ricky: Wanting to offer lead gen, or even for yourself and your business, what is
it about lead generation the way you do it that is helpful for other business
owners that just can't do it themselves?
Okay,
AJ: so the first thing I'll say, this is another Robert Kiyosaki advice, which was
hire people that were smarter than me.
She's okay, and they may not be smarter than me in all aspects with them cold
calling in particular, they're quite okay.
So these are people who have more experience than I did,
and they would do better at it.
That's number one.
Number two.
Uh, is a simple advice, which was stop wasting your time talking to
the person who's not in charge.
Okay.
So when I used to go door to door, I'm going to the lady at the front desk and,
Hey, would you guys like cleaning service?
Oh no, we have somebody who'd been in one 20.
Okay, thank you.
And I'll walk up.
That's not the right thing.
This lady, excuse me.
Do you know who's in charge of how the cleaning company, you know, and
then you start to talk any of them.
Nine times out of 10 you won't get the person, right.
At least you've got their business card, they'll hang that person's
business card, an equal follow with some female Mark, then another call.
Any other other ways.
Okay.
And then the same thing with cold call.
After three to the person in charge.
So really that's just a small tip, but that's one that was
a difference maker for me.
I was simply wasting time talking to the wrong person.
So I would just say that, make sure you're talking to the right person.
Ricky: Cause I mean it's, it's good.
It's scary, right?
It's scary to go because you're going to get a lot of notes.
Right.
And I think that's what makes people resilient though, is, is you've got
to hear, to know first to figure out, well why did they say that?
Oh, got it.
You know, I was talking to the wrong person.
Okay.
Why did that, the decision maker say, Oh, budget, okay, I gotta
fix my tweak in my pricing.
Well, why did that person say no?
Oh, they hired a multi-service provider that could do multiple things.
Okay.
I gotta offer more, sort of like, it helps you, like you've
got to go through the nose.
AJ: That's probably the coolest point and the most important point.
I can't believe I left at all, but we probably make about at least 250
calls just to get one appointment.
Okay.
And then even with that one appointment, that might be a bogus one.
Cause when the first salesperson calls to get the appointment, I have
another person to confirm and call to make sure was actually not a boast.
Sometimes, you know that 250.
That one we get from that might even be good.
And we got to do some more calls.
So we don't have, it takes us about 250 calls just to get one appointment.
So that's the difference too with a lot of people.
Why you're not getting enough notes.
You need to get no knock on some more doors asking more people.
Okay.
And then also follow up.
You know, people who is so much power in a follow up, just because they didn't
tell you no reply rank then does not mean that they're not interactive.
They're probably your problem and you need to send them over.
Yeah.
That's a definitely good point.
Ricky: So some more stuff to talk about to AIG on the sales side,
cause I think we're getting good.
Some good content.
I'm just business, right?
Like how to start the business yourself, grow the business, add the sales
process, have some operations process.
Right.
Um, as far as you said, chemicals and equipment, what do you like you said
you get well-versed to a certain point.
But it's almost like it's its own department.
Right?
So like how do you put together a professional presentation or deck as far
as, you know, everybody wants to look the part, but I mean, what are your,
what's some advice for you other than, you know, we know awkward presentations
and things, but what do you think the element of a solid presentation is for
you to win business as a professional?
AJ: Really just first thing is listen to what the customer, a lot of times
you just listened to what they're saying because nine times out of 10
they already have a cleaning customer company anyway that they have.
So if you listen to why you even given us a chance to present to me, you know,
they can tell you all the answers and they gave you the answer to the test.
You know what I mean?
It could be what, they're not hitting the restroom, what we think, or
we don't think they use a distinct statement or they missing the assault.
That's the first thing that I would try to.
Just appeased to whatever their needs already are.
That's number one.
Number two, knowing this stuff.
Okay.
I'm not a good sales person at all, but what makes me maybe he
fails is simply, I know my stuff.
Like I know if I'm going to sell you this disinfectant that I'm going to
know about it, we'll try my best.
I'm going to know, um, you know, I'm going to have the SDS sheet.
I'm gonna sell you why we chose that particular product.
You know, so know your stuff.
That's another key thing why you do with that.
Um.
Then when you, if you have systems in place, shadow system by, if they're
different from what the norm is.
Like for example, say, I'll give you, I'll give you an industry
tip when actually you brought up.
So one thing I learned from jam pro, and I used it today with claimed this network,
uh, when we used to go to walkthrough.
One of the field guy, cause I want to say operations, but he will let
me tag along with them to learn.
And when you can tell them as well, our system is unique because we have
franchise and we feel that franchise owners are more vested than an employee
simply because they have ownership.
So that's why we feel that we can deliver better than any of color.
But you know, that's an excellent point because to me, I'm thinking that it was a
disadvantage to have a franchise for some employees because it's like you can even
tell them what to do and not to employees.
But when he folded like that, it's like that's an excellent point.
So figure out what's needed, you know, and how you can fail that or spin that into an
asset when your company had offered to me.
Ricky: Man, that's, that's a great point.
I like that.
I'm actually, I'm going to break that one down too.
So, so let's talk about, cause I, you know, you always hear about, you know,
the, the industries underbids you know, there's always low price, but I think.
Well, but everybody fails to realize too is not everybody, but there
are certain, um, what'd he say?
Like markets within our market, right?
So you've got the small mom and pop shop, right?
That is maybe, let's call it four or five employees, family who really
gets out there and does the work.
They may be a sole proprietor, they may have an LLC or they may not.
It may just be 10 99.
Then you've got a small business, it all, let's call them the 10 to 25 employees.
You know, and as you grow up and you see the contracts that are one
in 18 an hour, 15 hour, 20 an hour
AJ: cash, and
Ricky: we can dictate what the client is going to pay.
But I think what we can do is continue to, to empower this
industry to know your worth, know the value of what we do, right?
So like, talk about when you, when you are mentoring people or you've answered
the question of the clean biz network or somebody posts something like.
I don't like, I don't like to get so deep into it.
Cause if you do, and you could lose people to like, say, you know,
workman's out Chad and janitorial, bio insurance, GLL umbrella,
they're like an umbrella for what?
What do I need?
So, but like there's, they've got to know that.
But what are the things that you relate to the, to your people to know.
You've got to account for XYZ.
If you don't, you're going to fail and you're not going to profit and
you're going to hurt our industry.
AJ: And really, so luckily that, I guess, I don't know.
I don't know if I can take the credit or not, but typically the
people in my, in my group, they don't have a problem with undercharging.
You know, typically the people in my group, I have a problem with
Ricky: overcharging,
AJ: wearing them down, but.
But, uh, but typically, like I always tell people, like if first
of all, make sure that you're not charging what you want to meet.
Like if you go talk to $15 an hour, okay, maybe you, you, you don't have
a college degree or maybe you don't have some professional background,
what you will make $15 an hour before.
So it's like, that's cool for you, but it's like, okay, well what about
if you want to hire somebody else?
How are y'all both going to eat up?
So that's the very first thing I always went out is.
Okay.
Make sure you charge enough where you can make some money and you can
pay somebody else to do with it.
That's number one.
And number two, obviously everybody knows you gotta pay tax, right?
So put some more in there for that.
Then you got to have your supplies and everything.
So just put someone in for, that's all we just tell people first of all, before you
can even consider how much you're going to get home, is it going to cost actually
the bidding calculator, I have calculated claim before we had calculated cleaned
the app and website and all of that.
It would just fail.
And I had to like, uh, calculus is pretty, um, you know, pretty
calculated all in a fail.
You just plug it in and Hey, like tax with all these different things, your
insurance and all of that, and you just plug it in and it will build up
how much you should charge per hour.
So instead of you taking just guessing and what, what is the industry average?
No, it'll tell you right there with agile calls, you need to charge
per hour if you want to make this particular, uh, profit margin.
Ricky: I like how you put it.
Don't worry about what you want to charge, worry about first,
what it's going to cost you.
Right.
Because then it's easier to go up that way.
That's a good one.
I like that.
Now let's talk about, you know, so like your Facebook group, ADA, right?
And we, there's so many Facebook groups that are out there, and I, and I, what
I'm enjoying is I'm enjoying that so many people are sharing tips and successes
and losses and everything like that.
Do you see this?
Like, so I see the future.
I wanted to see how you see it as, do you see how others will continue
to work with each other, empower each other to then grow their
businesses, not with each other.
It's not that you have to partner with each other.
Right.
But you know, I'm being an affiliate partnership where you can lend the hand
and other people's successes by sharing.
Opportunities like, do you think, do you like that?
That, that that's where we're going right now?
Or that's the possibility because then it brings a lot of the small
mom and pops to a small business that it brings a small business.
It grows, right?
I mean, what do you, what do you think about that too?
Yeah.
AJ: Cause I think in the end of the day, you know, the ones that
don't really want it, they're going to weed itself out anyway.
So it really doesn't matter what you tell them, how you help them,
because you know like, Oh, it's always say what's the means to me.
You know?
And so what's everybody's, is everybody like, if you really meant for this,
when I gave you this information, you're going to take any fumble when,
so it doesn't really cause something.
And I was willing to admit, sometimes I did and still do.
Probably.
Get what I call it, the poverty mindset.
I can't say what I call like the phrase, I got it from somebody.
Right.
Probably mindset.
Were you afraid to share information because you think it's going to take
with them what you have, but it's not going to take away from me, so yeah.
What you want to know?
I can't wait to do, you know, and like the first one I got to in the beginning.
I came into business just wanting to share with people anyway, cause
I wanted to help, but I didn't understand why we started there.
But you got two.
But I don't think it's going to hurt the industry at all.
I think it's going to help.
And I think for those who want to go bid, they're going to go through the one
that wants to be small and stay small and it's just going to be what it's going to
be regardless of, I'm just here to help for anybody that wants to information.
Ricky: Yeah.
Yeah, I'm going to, and that's, that's so spot on as far as, yeah,
it's, it's how much you want from it.
Right?
So people will be content.
It's a little white, a lot more solar, big idea of visionaries
that want to get so big.
But there's enough business in this, in this country alone that man.
I just, as you can see, I'm always excited to talk about this
unglamorous cleaning industry, right?
But I consider it a bad ass industry, man.
I mean, there's just, there's so much upswing that we have going on right now
and it's just, it's exciting, you know?
And I, I appreciate you, what you do with the space and the
people that you influence, right?
Cause it's all positive.
Everything.
Everything is positive.
I'm big on where, you know, like, you know, just a little tidbit on the roles.
A lot of sites, we struggled a little bit last year because we grew too fast.
We grew too much, you know, so, and I'm never afraid to speak on that.
You know, I'll be the first one to tell you, you know.
Approach things, very approach things in a mindset of what's the pros and the cons.
Don't always think pros.
And I was always bigger.
I'm all about pros, but you gotta think of that.
What's going to come at that costs, you know?
And, and it is what it is.
This is the space.
You could lose a contract.
You know, like people think I got a one year contract, they can cancel in 30 days.
Tactically they could.
So you gotta be understanding of that, of the client who wants to deal with a
client that already is upset with you, doesn't like the business that you're,
or the service that you're offering.
You don't want to keep that client anyways, right?
I mean, it's, it's, it's not up and down.
I'd say, let's, let's take a step back and say.
You've been giving a lot of tips, you be given a lot of ice blue.
I think there's a lot of wealth of knowledge so far that we've talked about.
What is, what is something that you could say you haven't shared much to
many people, but you think would help them take their business to the next
level, whether it's business, whether it's new service offering, whether it's
technology, anything you think that you are learning about more right now
that you'd like to share with people.
Yeah, that's
AJ: a good question.
And I've kind of been hammered home like the last two days maybe, and
I'm going to start speaking on a lot more colorful, which is Cassius team.
And I think Colvin reminded us of that.
Um, you know, cause like I had, I had issue a little bit too, uh, you
know, last year and leading a little bit into 2020 where I grew too fast.
I went from like six, five or six workers to like 17.
So, and then I started getting so many sales and it was like.
All right.
Wait a minute and I kind of got big headed to what thing?
Well, I was spending more than I should have been spending, and it was
like I never saw the amount of money in the bank that I was seeing, so it
was like I didn't know what to do.
You know?
I thought I had it apparently, but it's like I was struggling
separating the business for me.
Number one, it wasn't my money because this is money.
I have to know what I mean, stick to what I actually make from the
business and don't get big headed with the business, making it, most
importantly, stack that cash up.
Okay.
I think it was two jobs that I heard say.
Try to keep a year's worth of salary in the bank, and that's a lot of money.
I know.
It's like if you got 20 employees, that would be fully, that's a lot of money
to just have to sit in there with like at least you're more safe than sorry.
And we look at like a company like Apple, they're one of the, uh, you
know, one of the companies that's most, I guess looked up to because they
have so much liquid cash available.
So don't be afraid to keep some cash stack as much as you can possibly stack.
For your business and keep it there just in case, because you never know
what will happen and you want to be able to take care of your employee.
Yeah,
Ricky: that's a great way to end the conversation too, because it's, I
mean, we'll have one more question.
That's a funny question, but, uh, that, that is so true.
Like lastly, don't spend money.
You don't have to spend, uh, don't, it's not your money, right.
It's, you know, it can be, it will be, you'll get, do, get the return
or the dividends at some point.
Right.
But.
The more you tap into it, the more you use it when you really need it
is when you're going to get affected.
And also that's, I respect that because it's very easy to, when
three or four accounts that are like 20 30,000 and you're like,
Holy cow, this is my, this is mine.
When if your businesses first, it's your business first, you know,
hire another employee to help him.
Don't take them.
I gave myself, I think I've given myself two raises in the last six years.
Just because I care more about affecting the rest of the team
versus if you get fat, you know you're going to stay fat in yourself.
We're going to share that with, you know, all right, man.
So we could keep going on and on.
I think we could do like five or six episodes, so many different things.
I always like to end with, give me a funny story, whether it's last week, whether it
was the first weekend cleaning business.
What's, what's something that not too many people know about AGA that you ran
into, either started a business or as of recently in the cleaning space, right?
AJ: Yeah.
So, uh, I always struggled to think of these stories, many of them that
I have, but one story always pops in my mind was, uh, I told you we were
always out in the middle of night, all times a night, Clinton building.
And, uh, one of the bills that I had within this industrial complex, and it
was like in the woods, and it's like.
So I'm going in there in the middle night.
My wife stayed home that night.
I'm by myself and I'm walking into the building and I hear
something in the bushes.
I'm thinking probably some birds I might think about it.
So I go to open the door and try to unlock it.
As soon as I put the key towards the door, the deer jumps right
out, and so I jumped with that.
Oh
Ricky: shit.
AJ: And I'm like, all right, I'll sit in the car.
Like contemplate most people, dude, just standing at that point.
So I turned my high beams on.
Maybe I scared away, but he just gave me the
So I'm just sitting there debate with myself by HR, we don't miss Kleenex.
You know, what's your excuse?
They was a day and I didn't do it, you know?
So it's just like, I talked that for probably about 15 minutes until
he finally backed away enough, and I said, all right, get out of here.
Go be a man and get in there.
So I went over here not to build them out.
By the time I came out, I was
Ricky: itching.
AJ: It was crazy that I had to call him.
A
Ricky: lot of stuff happens in the field, man.
People don't know.
We could do a whole episode just to end the show though.
Give, give people, you know, how does somebody find you
if they don't really relate.
AJ: Absolutely.
So I say that the best place to look me up is AGA SEM is on YouTube.
That's like my home.
That's where I go to.
Uh, then also at AGA Simmons online or Instagram, if you want to add
me on Facebook, I really don't pay attention to Facebook that much, but
if you really want to reach out to me, probably the best way, uh, and then
www dot dot com and check it out.
Check out what we got going on with it.
Ricky: Awesome.
Well, Aja, I appreciate it, my man.
Thank you very much.
I know that we've got a lot more stories to write ourselves together, so thank
you again and appreciate it, man.
Be safe out there.
AJ: Thanks, Rick.
I appreciate it.
All right.